HEAT 9. Star Dust

Toward orange sunset / on the grass-dry plain / I stare stupidly at silvery railway lines, / thinking they meet near infinity.

As I walked towards home, I thought about this place where I lived; how strange it was in its familiarity. It was almost indescribable; this glum acceptance of where I lived, and an almost downbeat appreciation of whatever was right or wrong about this place, it was formed out of these moments of routine. The track the cows walked on was built from local scoria, cambered for drainage, yet I still know its potholes as intimately as the cows that formed tracks around them.

The winter evening settles down / like a failed soufflé / a television glow / announces more than we’ll ever know

‘I’m going to clone Rick,’ she once said to Megan. ‘Just give me a strand of his hair and I’ll make a duplicate.’ But that kind of talk made Megan nervous. Not that Jamie had any intention of cracking on to someone’s husband. But now, sitting on the edge of the bath, Jamie was careful to keep space between Rick and herself, to keep the conversation light.

She turned towards Didier but tried to avoid looking at him. He bent his hair into her face as he kissed her neck. Then he pulled off her jumper. Her arms collapsed though the sleeves. She had retreated to the furthermost point of her mind and it was from there that she heard him as he busied himself with her zipper: a vagueness, a proximity only. She felt the sly removal of her underwear with some surprise. But how the surprise? What was she thinking?

I was down in Hell discussing redemption. / All my dreams came true so fast. / Long primrose nights are coming back to haunt me, / nearly the only pleasure left.

If I have any advice to give to a beginner it is this: do not think too much. That makes for bad novels. By the same token, you must read, read extensively, read other authors, be curious about their work and respect it (behind the finest texts there is real suffering), the classics as much the moderns, from Marcus Aurelius to Michel Houellebecq, from Erasmus to Elfriede Jelinek, and write, write a great deal, scribble and scribble some more, and throw away much of it too, in order to give birth to the marvel of a hitherto unknown thought that surges out of its own self thanks to that unique act, for thought is neither external to nor anterior to the text, but consubstantial with the act of writing. Writers do not think, they allow themselves to be borne along.

The flat was dark and the light on the landing went off automatically after twenty seconds. At first, because of the darkness, I didn’t realise she was naked. You’re going to freeze, I said when the landing light came on again and showed her standing there, very straight, thinner than before. Her stomach and legs, which I had kissed so many times, looked terribly helpless, and instead of feeling drawn towards her, I was chilled by the sight of them, as if I were the one without clothes.

If you’ve ever gone wandering through the nooks and crannies of a large city, loitering with intent and with all the time in the world, attending to unlikely beauties and the aspects of the marvellous that are hidden in full sight right there in the ordinary – then please read on.

When she and Didier had first met a few weeks ago, he had been impressed to hear that she was an Australian. ‘La sauvage,’ he had said. ‘So wi-i-ild. L’Australie, c’est la sauvage.’