{"id":849,"date":"2010-10-15T17:04:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T17:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=849"},"modified":"2010-10-15T17:04:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T17:04:59","slug":"fiona-sinclair-has-unfinished-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/fiona-sinclair-has-unfinished-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiona Sinclair has unfinished business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unfinished Business<\/span>
 <\/span>
At 16 a crush, trying every strategy in \u2018Jackie\u2019<\/span>
magazine to divert his gaze from the girl with<\/span>
the \u2018Purdy\u2019 haircut. Caught his mates sniggering<\/span>
at her ludicrous capercaillie courtship, so stomped<\/span>
out of college. Mother could have talked her round<\/span>
but was distracted with her married man and a swarm<\/span>
of unpaid bills. For years, dreams familiar as TV<\/span>
repeats, not of the boy but the jilted A\u2019 levels. Her<\/span>
clutch of O\u2019 s meant ordinary jobs, clerical, receptionist,<\/span>
several attempts at night school until mothering mother<\/span>
became a full time occupation. The Autumn after her<\/span>
death, she signed up for A\u2019 level Literature. Slumped<\/span>
in a chair in his \u2018Reservoir Dogs\u2019 suit, the tutor wearily<\/span>
addressed the class like a CIA recruiting officer : <\/span>most<\/span>
would drop out and the average result was a fail<\/span>.<\/span>
Nevertheless the following week she began to grope<\/span>
her way through the \u2018The Franklyn\u2019s Tale\u2019. Turned up<\/span>
for one lesson mildly concussed after the snow had<\/span>
thrown her like a frisky horse. Sent in a tape recorder<\/span>
as proxy for a session she had to miss. As the exam<\/span>
dates began to march towards her with bayonets fixed,<\/span>
she sold her allocation of advertising space with the<\/span>
frenzy of a city boy trader then hid in a telesales cubicle<\/span>
swatting up on \u2018King Lear\u2019. Outside the exam room,<\/span>
her friend gabbled hare eyed between gasps of cigarette,<\/span>
whilst she responded in nods. Afterwards pitching up<\/span>
at work raving like a drunk about <\/span>tricky questions<\/span>.<\/span>
In January the tutor\u2019s phone call surprising as the<\/span>
notification of a competition win, <\/span>I'm not supposed to<\/span>
tell you the results bu<\/span>t\u2026her tourette\u2019s outburst of joy<\/span>
causing colleagues to grin and cover their receivers.<\/span>
Now she takes night trips to New York, where she<\/span>
chases the Manhattan skyline like a dropped \u00a350 note<\/span>
and wakes frustrated as if from an erotic dream.<\/span>


* Fiona Sinclair<\/span> lives in Kent. She is the editor of the online poetry magazine <\/span>Message in a Bottle<\/span>. Her first pamphlet <\/span>Dirty Laundry<\/span> was published this April by Koo Press Scotland.<\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfinished Business At 16 a crush, trying every strategy in \u2018Jackie\u2019magazine to divert his gaze from the girl withthe \u2018Purdy\u2019 haircut. Caught his mates sniggeringat her ludicrous capercaillie courtship, so stompedout of college. Mother could have talked her roundbut was distracted with her married man and a swarmof unpaid bills. For years, dreams familiar as TVrepeats, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}