In Bruges
She is in Bruges. She is sitting outside a restaurant in late summer sunlight, drinking a glass of wine by herself.
She has been thinking, in a bored, slightly exasperated way, about the fact that she is here at all.
She is here because her husband and his parents are on some kind of family pilgrimage. They have come to visit a war grave. It belongs to someone they barely knew of. A bomber pilot, or a navigator. He died here. His plane crashed. He was buried. She assumes they only recently discovered that the grave existed. If they did not know this person, she certainly does not.
She is happy to stay behind. Her husband can talk to his father who never stops watching people, waiting for the slip; and his mother, who apologises to people before they have even spoken, and who judges. Neither of them likes her: for their son they wanted safe, tamed; career-advancing. Sitting here alone feels like a temporary refuge. A small oasis of peace and loneliness.
And then an old man had appeared, slightly strange. With an old-fashioned camera. He made himself known by the bright flash as he pointed it directly at her.
He walked over. He placed the photograph on the table in front of her. He said, “You might want to visit that address?” He walked away without waiting.
Now there is a dilemma.
She could go back to that arid hotel. Or she could walk to the address written on the back of the photograph. The waiter tells her it is nearby. In the old part of town. Probably no more than a hundred and fifty metres from here.
She looks at the photograph.
It is not quite right. The likeness is exact, but the details are wrong. She is not actually wearing a skimpy top. She is not wearing makeup. Her sensible trousers do not correspond to that elegant dress shown in the image. The smile might be hers, unmistakably - but it is one she never practises in front of anyone else.
Still, there is no doubt at all about what she is going to do.
The alley is dark, cobbled and pierced by side passages and private entries. There is no reason she should fasten on to this doorway… but it feels both familiar and compelling.
The door gives way to the expected gloomy hall, narrow and constricted, surrounding her with odours of a previous century. She climbs the steps, passes to landings which further divide in unusual directions. Light percolates from cracks and routes not taken; there are no windows.
She enters an atelier, a large but vacant workshop, plank flooring spattered with old, dried stains. In all this time she has never felt the presence of another human being; nor is she surprised by this.
There is, however, a large whiteboard at the far end of the room. The message is spelled out in bright bold letters, in English: “Exercise one: in less than five hundred words, expound on the stupidities of the depiction of sex in mainstream movies; and the effects on your seven year old.”
Thoughts bubble into her mind: my husband's the writer, not me - I hate writing; and, there are no writing facilities here at all; and finally, a faint understanding - I think I might have a seven year old son.
“I'm on my back, my husband looms above me, his arms rigid supporting his weight. The summer air is balmy, it's twilight and we haven't yet worked up a sweat. Have I acrobatically wrapped my ankles around the small of his back? Are my knees or ankles pulled up to my ears? In the movies for sure; here, not so much.
“My husband, who has taken a rest from his pushing and shoving, leans down and runs the tip of his tongue between my lips. You could write a paragraph about that, I think: the necessary brevity of the manoeuvre, the merest pressure which avoids yuckiness."
I don’t write the paragraph.
“He says that he's been thinking about this moment all day
“Did you notice, he says, when you were licking that ice cream? How I looked at you and ran my finger between yours?
“I smile and deny it. We'll crack jokes and talk even while we're comfortably together. In the films, uncontrollable passion kicks in right away: clothes get torn off, crockery swept to the floor and smashed, consummation occurs on the most unsuitable surfaces - lino, kitchen counters and even stairs (which often, unaccountably, lack even the mitigation of stair carpet padding!).
“For all our jostling and jesting, there is transition to raw physicality. Dampness is where I’m at now, all perspiration and panting and rhythmic motion. I turn my eyes to the left, towards the opening of the bedroom door. In all our noise and commotion I caught the click of the latch.
“He's seven and this he has never seen before. Through his eyes he sees his father pinioning his mother, trapping her, thumping her hard between the legs. His father grunts rhythmically; his beloved mother, moving in synchrony, utters small, mysterious, cat-like noises.
“What is a boy to do?
“Truly the films offer little guidance. Probably there's a Freudian wrap and the boy will be scarred for life.
“Reality is prosaic. He shuts the door and returns to his room in confusion. Tomorrow I will recite the standard script: “When a mummy and a daddy love each other very much…”
“He will roll his eyes.
“I don't doubt that he will never forget this evening's extravaganza but so what? Everything is in the framing. The films seldom make that point clear.”
My mind clears. I address the screen: “Is that what you wanted? and then, How many words?”
It's less than 400.
To be continued.
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