cog
(rubbing hands together for warmth): Morning sir. Happy New Year to you sir.
An
irregular trail of boot and stickprints pocked the driveway snow, marking the
progress of Brother Skunk’s uneven progress to the main entrance door of the
hotel.
Skunk:
Happy New Year to you too.
They
shook hands there upon the steps, the doorman’s small bare flesh swallowed in
Skunk’s leather glove.
cog:
The uhm, the young lady sir. She asked me to tell you...
Skunk
was wiping his nose with a chocolate-coloured bandanna doubling as a
handkerchief.
cog:
She uhm... she’s gone on up to the golf course sir. On her own. Yes, she told
me to tell you to meet her up there, sir.
The
words seemed to act as anaesthetic, further thickening Skunk’s features already
numb with cold.
Skunk
(looking around, blowing visible breaths): Okay. Okay, I’ll ehm... okay.
Thanks.
stepping
away and waving
Skunk:
Bye.
cog:
Bye now sir. I’ll maybe see you later.
He
turned and made his way along the front of the building, then up past the
foundation work of the new wing, several rooms of which were already reserved
for the coming summer. Somewhere beneath his little woollen hat raged a
brainstorm, central to which was the word orphan. He blew out another breath
and passed through it, parting the noxious cloud as it evaporated, now wilfully
conscious of the stick exerting strange rhythm upon his movements.
One
of her many Christmas gifts, the walking stick was, at six feet plus, taller
than him, a skinny length of hazel wood topped by a cut section of totemistic
antler. All doubts of its utility had been quickly confounded, replaced by a
curious joy at the notion of his own weight being supported by something in
itself so apparently weightless.
Pulling
the glove from one of his hands with his teeth, he ran his fingers up and down
the cold varnish, becoming so intensely passive in such nostalgia of wood and
snow as to leave there enough of himself to warrant pause when he later
returned past the same spot with ache1.
ache1
(looking to the construction site): know when I was a kid there was ah, out
back of our house there were all these new houses under construction and I
remember... This really brings it back.
She
stooped to ball together some snow then heaved it at the partial brickwork.
Skunk
(pulling his scarf down from around his mouth): This is ehm... If this keeps up
ache1:
God I wish I was still at school... sometimes, just...
stooping
for another snowball.
ache1:
You know, on days like this when they’d cancel classes and
Skunk:
What, on Saturdays?
Weighing
the snowball in the open palm of her glove, she regarded him with all threat
inherent in her raised eyebrow.
Skunk
(placatory and laughing): I know I know, sitting around the radio over
breakfast and ehm, that was the only time I ever listened to the local
station when they read out the lists of schools that’d be closed that day,
waiting for
ache1
(compacting the snowball as she speaks): Well, my sister and I didn’t have to
ah, because of mum and everything we’d get a phone she’d get a
phone-call to say if the school was going to be closed, and then we’d
call our friends and ah, the ones that didn’t have to come to school on
the bus, and we’d get... One time when we were out back we had a massive
snowball fight with all the builders working on the new houses, just... It
seems like it lasted for hours but it probably didn’t, you know what I mean?
But all this reminds me... and the snow and
She
skipped ahead some, her few months of pregnancy inconspicuous in the heavy
clothing. At the corner of the main building she turned and launched the
snowball back at Brother Skunk, who confronted her cry of
ache1:
GOD TOLD ME TO DO IT!
with
the raising and shaking of his stick, suddenly alarmed at how loose his briefly
unsupported feet felt upon the snow.
