Ian McDonald by The Hidden Place

Author:The Hidden Place
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-02-21T12:33:11+00:00

That night, I tried to force thremher for the first time since my teens. Now, as then, it felt grubby, selfish, soul-masturbation. I would be deeply embarrassed if anyone were to catch me in the privacy of my own room.

There is rain tonight, cold and hard with a grain of ice still in it. It surges and clatters in the gutters along

the cloisters. The Shibhna will be high and wild, threatening the Prebendary’s hermitage. I set out the items on my desk. I have printed out the best of the photographs and arranged them against the wall. The jewelry, the rings, the hair clasps and pins, the knick-knacks and curios and souvenirs and meaningless things picked up, scavenged or stolen, cover most of the right side. I arrange the music discs on the left, like tiling a mosaic. I uncapped the jars of oils half an hour before, and they are already working on the room’s atmosphere.

The rain. I have never known the like of it.

The clothes are laid out on the bed. I hesitate between the formal pants we bought in the South Bank boutique in Methevvher and the cold-weather thelbh we got for the winter sports holiday in Ithrhang. The thelbh. It’s years out of fashion, the fur is coming out of the hood and cuffs, but as I touch it, I see Fodhla holding the tatty old thing as I dither over what to pack for the Hidden Place. “Go on, take it. Look, fashion sense won’t kill you, hypothermia can.” For a moment, the memory erases the rain, this drafty, lamp-lit room. Is it beginning? I slip on the thelbh. It smells of her. Fodhla.

First photograph. The Academic procession. A rare wet day in Vanhal, the long snake of doctoral laureates soaked to the bone as they cross the quadrangle and turn into the Hall of Sciences. The photographer is positioned in the cloister gate: flash, snap, as each pair turns the corner. Fodhla and me, in our hoods and aprons, hair slicked down, evidently miserable and wishing the whole thing was over and we had the scrolls and rings in our hands, but Fodhla with enough presence, despite a terrible hangover, to stick her tongue out at the lens. Me, serious, grumpy, very very wet. As it has always been. One vivacious, one frowning, wondering what she’s missing.

I put on the music we were listening to that night at the cafe. Nuhr Widhrhu’s bithren stalks chords and harmonies over Clarhabhen’s solid ghadhla beat. Fond rememberings, the nonsense we talked, the guys we kissed. I lift the scenter of neadhwood oil. Smell is the mother of memory.

I imagine I feel something.

Photograph two. Wet again. Two eight-year-olds caught in the waves at Narravher. One leaning toward the lens, mouth opening, shouting something stupid but quick, the other looking somewhere else, sky, clouds, a gull, the universe. They are holding hands. Next track: Messonghi, a big hit from that summer. It was never off the radio. Now, it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.