henrybrook.com

almost fills the empty chair. Almost.

as the day’s heat oozes skywards. The air’s sluggish over the Brize Norton to Chilterns plain, here the clouds hang and the asthma cases rocket. All Oxford veterans dream of end-game sea breezes and wave gazing, the littoral crinkles and dips in the Earth crust, the lapping blue lens. One day, if I ever reach Summertown escape velocity, I’ll drag this bucket to the beach, put the car on bricks and kick off my reality boots. But I’ve another decade ahead of Broad Street drop-offs, Moo-moo’s and Covered Market bangers, the Rose and Crown handle or straight glass dilemma, off to Parkway on that which rolls and trying not to fluff my lines at garden parties. And I’ll keep dreaming of two hundred perfect pages.

are my vistas, my horizon sweep. I flash fag-end kerbs and plated drinks cans, roll by the builder vans and dozing minicab drivers. Away from here at every point there’s mayhem and change but my corner of Blighty feels static in space, aspic-set. The road beyond whispers and coos over the sound of my tyres.

is reality, says Riverman, stopping to pat another cat. We’re walking back from the Anchor, I’ve bought him a couple of jars of IPA in the first sunshine day of July. He’s merry, crouching by the puss in his oily, ruined cord jacket and the jeans he’s worn through winter. Think of all the hours you’ve wasted checking the news this last week and two, he smiles, when you could have been dreaming up better stories. Current affairs is no more than fortune’s wheel, but people are scared of calling it that, they say it’s politick and important as though this world runs to a plan. There’s no plan.

I went on that march, I tell him.

Fat lot of good it did you, better off fishing. Nobody gets hurt fishing.

Bar the fish, I say. But he’s gone down the street chuckling, not listening, bow-legged shuffling to the next cat lying out in the late-afternoon sun.

juddering with the kango, stamped council files, delivered parcels and paid my time to the road. Cavalry dreaming while you toil only magic carpets you to the fumbling blur of the end game. If you crave change, better to make the changes yourself. It could be the same with words, willing yourself to write on, bold or terrified, to crest another page. Lines are birthed from some personal compulsion, each voice unlike any other. Turn away from the hammock, sloth’s siren lullaby, lash yourself back to the keys.

of what’s to come. They keep you updated on the confusion, the unknowing, the victors sounding more like the vanquished. It’s been impossible to work. These current affairs are a worthless pursuit when cast into the future. And nobody steps forward to say it’s not falling apart. But I must find a footing on the crackling floes and start to write again, there are books to finish, there’s Pico to climb and the business of living to get me there. There’s a house to build and the days run away no heed to our delay.

used up and weary. Already I feel the tug of living in dreams and memories rather than boldly stepping out into a mutable world. Dealing in words and phrases might add to that feeling, could explain why I long for more mountains. You have to get out and do things if you want to write about the mutable world. I’m far from the first to think escape or answers might be found in the peaks. I’ll climb Pico and see what’s hidden up in the clouds.

it was dark and misty and I was up on Salkantay, backing out of the latrine tent. I tapped its nose with the back of my head, whirled around and saw the ears and the big eyes. It didn’t spit. I never clocked one spitting, that only happens to Captain Haddock. They look too haughty to acknowledge you with spit. I’m used to seeing foundling gloves and soft toys left out on walltop display but the llama is new to me, makes me smile. It pinches me away from the news and the venom, the havoc and tears.

among the new-mown hay. And the birds come out to pick among the cuttings. It’s quiet, I hear the breeze and the trees moving here. I’ll hack out a corner for my lounger and a book table, I’ll drift and read a few chapters and try not to worry about the facts. There are no facts. There’s just determination, hope and grim belief. There’s just me and Ahab, the dream of the Pacific, birdsong and a thousand things to ponder before I cut back the holly bush.

into Mural and you might never find your way out. The figures are there and they call to you, but out of a blizzard of craziness. Six months and longer I’ve been waiting to see it hanging before me, it was more than I’d hoped for. Jung was there too, hiding and chuckling in the glades.