I have a hideaway sanctum. I pass through a low door from my lonely study and down some creaking steps, through a corridor, another twisting staircase and another splintered door, to emerge in shafts of light, a secret, lofty room with a balcony outlook at the far end of the planks, a high view of the city. And in the room, a glass of Irouleguy waiting in the train diner glass and a copy of Robert Graves’ war poems and maybe a sofa, for lounging and recuperation and reflection. And maybe other discoveries attend in this room, the answers to arcane queries and yelps? Could I write a coded language with all the pushed-down things I yearn to ask, and would the people I want to, understand it, would they see through the tangle and would it touch their hearts, would they care? When you tap words, how can you know the readers and hopes you’ll brush up against, if only a lonely few, all dreaming of their own hidden rooms.
