Unfinished Business
At 16 a crush, trying every strategy in ‘Jackie’
magazine to divert his gaze from the girl with
the ‘Purdy’ haircut. Caught his mates sniggering
at her ludicrous capercaillie courtship, so stomped
out of college. Mother could have talked her round
but was distracted with her married man and a swarm
of unpaid bills. For years, dreams familiar as TV
repeats, not of the boy but the jilted A’ levels. Her
clutch of O’ s meant ordinary jobs, clerical, receptionist,
several attempts at night school until mothering mother
became a full time occupation. The Autumn after her
death, she signed up for A’ level Literature. Slumped
in a chair in his ‘Reservoir Dogs’ suit, the tutor wearily
addressed the class like a CIA recruiting officer : most
would drop out and the average result was a fail.
Nevertheless the following week she began to grope
her way through the ‘The Franklyn’s Tale’. Turned up
for one lesson mildly concussed after the snow had
thrown her like a frisky horse. Sent in a tape recorder
as proxy for a session she had to miss. As the exam
dates began to march towards her with bayonets fixed,
she sold her allocation of advertising space with the
frenzy of a city boy trader then hid in a telesales cubicle
swatting up on ‘King Lear’. Outside the exam room,
her friend gabbled hare eyed between gasps of cigarette,
whilst she responded in nods. Afterwards pitching up
at work raving like a drunk about tricky questions.
In January the tutor’s phone call surprising as the
notification of a competition win, I'm not supposed to
tell you the results but…her tourette’s outburst of joy
causing colleagues to grin and cover their receivers.
Now she takes night trips to New York, where she
chases the Manhattan skyline like a dropped £50 note
and wakes frustrated as if from an erotic dream.
* Fiona Sinclair lives in Kent. She is the editor of the online poetry magazine Message in a Bottle. Her first pamphlet Dirty Laundry was published this April by Koo Press Scotland.
