Two Dreams

In Yorkshire gym, my company much younger and including two girls in wheelchairs. Three indoor goals are interspersed across the opposite end. I make a tackle and strike the ball, which rolls into the farthest left of the three. Everyone cheers.

I ask an adult, 'Why is it called The Arriviste club?' She replies, 'The view. Look at the view we have -' gesturing to the goals. Time has come to pack up and go. A young girl leaves first, but tells me in the doorway, 'It's my birthday today. I'm having a party down the road.' I tell her 'I'll see what I can do.' As I wait around, the game begins again. One of the disabled girls rubs her bare forearm against mine and holds it there.

-

At a table with S.A. talking us through a text accompanied by music. The music appears to be by M.E.S. I am in charge of the tape-recorder, and - at first - regard events from a balcony. The place is lost on the tape and when I press play, only an amplified hum is audible. I fast forward and turn it over, to find the tape reads 'Kurious Orange'. Someone else takes over and finds the correct place. Someone leans over to me: 'I don't want to push it, but you need to rest.'

At table, I am next to S.A. We talk and I take the chance to rest my forearm against his. Later he is at my left. He passes round photocopies of paintings. I invert an impressionist painting of cypress trees and tell Liam 'Cezanne's pear.' We try to stifle our laughter. In front of Simon, I find myself drawn into discussion. 'Money gives you two things,' I say, 'the freedom to experience, and freedom from worry.' This I direct to S.A.'s ears, he seems to be in agreement.

As he hands out a photocopied sheet of three of his poems, he hands me the one with his notes, then offers me a virgin copy. I take the amended one to see what he has written. 'I'll have to do that again,' he says.

Earlier he says 'I was in the video for 'Going Underground' when I was much younger. '