Eight see nine tee eleven ee then, yes, then four ell, sorry, ten ell, and after grub seven see for a double and oh shit lower six double hist oh, oh Christ and enterprise denterprise in my dinner. That's the trouble. Once it's full on a Monday you're stuck the whole bloody year. Entist. Dentisprise Thursday. Dentist Thursday. Denterprise in my dinner, that's, yes, today, and openeve Tuesday then inset was it? something about? And dentistset Thurs. But a full Monday and enterfuckinprise through dinner. (Sorry, Mel. Lunch.) Ben's minder, owe two weeks. Phone home about Kenny. Happy birthd. Not till Friday. Oh no not yet not half way yet. But double hist lower six. Have word with Brace. Must. Bastards.
������ Then the furrow and fret of herself smoothed and became the eggshell matt of the bedroom ceiling. Sarah stared at the lath of light which fell upward across it through the chink at the top of the curtains. The rosiness of the lath faded in some precise Newtonian relation to its distance from the source. The rosyfingered dawn. Rosy fingered Dawn. Like something from a sexy novel.
������ But god is a boring author. Every chapter starts like this with the clich� of waking. Reacquiring the self, reinhabiting the husk, coming to. Coming too. (No that's something else.) No technique there. No feel for the ruthlessness of taut narrative.
������ It, the lath of light, must be shifting slowly like a clockhand. Unticking finger of smooth clockwork. The sun, the sun. Somehow it made her think of music. Something starting soft and getting louder. Vaughan Williamsy, or that one Mel liked, Daphnis and Chloe, that reeked of voyeurs' semen. Trust him to like that. God's triumphal crescendo. The sun's finger pushing in my room.
������ Her hand, in her crutch as usual when she woke, rubbed against the tampon string.
������ A garden shut up. A fountain sealed. Won't need one in today. That's done and one good thing. Upset Mel's rhythm yesterday. My rhythm upsetting his. Moon at odds with the sun. Back to normal next time. Sunday's fuckday as Monday's washday, or used to be.
������ Her mouse, Ben called it. His tail hangs out, Mummy, so you don' lose him.
������ The finger of sunlight didn't look as if it moved. Perhaps there were moments when everything stopped. But Mel's breathing continued, hoisting the duvet then letting it down slowly. He was lying on his side with his back to her making a ridge between her and the window. The air flowing in and out of us time after time. How count what flows? You count days. Could count breaths. But the sun's always rising somewhere. Remember when we had clocks that ticked? Jerky little jumps like a child on stepping stones. First you're in one place then�tick�suddenly you're in another and a bit of the stream's behind you. Tick. No. Time comes down a wire now at two hundred and forty volts. A smooth passage of electrons. The river itself, not jumps across it. Process, not occasion. The clock radio, soon, with a blocked road and a war, will remind me I connect with all the fury and mire.
������ Then, Mel's sighing indrawn breath checked itself and the hoisted duvet stopped. Stopped at its parochial zenith. Funny how sleepers do that. The rhythm suddenly gone, disobedient to the moon, tides, everything. How long could he hold his breath? Till he died? She looked at the carefully razored line of fair hair on the nape of his thick neck, real and dead as a waxwork. She rolled back and looked up.
������ Through the chink there was an extraordinary patch of vivid green sky, ruddled at its eastern edge. Okay, god. Bad at narrative but a dab hand with the descriptive bits. The roseate finger held its place. It lay frozen as if it had been airbrushed on the ceiling. She held her breath and watched and nothing happened.
������ I've escaped.
������ She breathed again to make sure she could. Her hand, still at the palpy flesh around the string, clutched.
������ There are moments when it stops. Only me left. No lower six double hist. No enterprise. The Starship Enterprise stopped still in midnothing. The ship of fools icebound.
������ The vivid green with the ruddled edge didn't change. The finger of light didn't shift.
������ I have escaped. Congratulations, god. You've finally done something interesting. I.e., nothing. Dreaming when dawn's left hand was in the sky. Dreaming of dentists and knotted timetables. No. No eight see. No today and no tomorrow. No flow except my own. Moon alone sailing. Dreaming when dawn's left hand. Miraculous escape. Parting the Red Sea.
������ She felt the moisture on her kneading fingertips.
������ The rosyfingered dawn. No need to phone home. No steel probe pinging at the old amalgam. No lower six double hist. No hist, even. The death of history. No birthday. No marking of arrival at the half-way mark. There's a thought. The death of death. Oh yes. Rosy fingered Dawn and Sarah fingers Sarah. My dab hand dabbing.
������ She looked back to Mel. Man of stone. The pale orange hairs short and unreally uniform were individually visible on the fat razored nape. And all those little pits of reddish flesh where other hairs might come. He was in his beige pyjamas with the dark chocolate collar. Very Mel, them. It might have put her off, but it didn't. She watched herself watching him as her hand worked, worked, and all the world stood still as the airbrushed lath. Under the hoisted duvet, inside the beige cocoon all his ridge of flesh was hanging, that way fat men are so you're not sure where muscle ends and fat begins. The scoop was hanging between shoulder and hip, an illusion of there being a waist on the upper side. At the front his belly would be depending roundly from him on the bed. Men his size always look as if they've got small dicks even if they haven't. Must be dispiriting to look around the hill of gut and see that silly little flap of skin.
������ She slid her free hand over his hip, broad as her own. She could see the back of his ear, part of his cheek with the irritating neatclipped beard. Felt forward, kneading her hands in unison, one on him and one on herself, felt down over all the unresponsive beigeclad skin. The skyfinger stood still and still he didn't breathe. Felt down through the little peeing vent in his pyjamas for the silly flap. Her other hand parting the Red Sea, reversing waterfalls and behold, Moses with his rod. Yes. Yes. Charlton Heston with a weird perm and highlights. Oh yes. Dreaming when dawn's left hand was on my thigh, the white hand of Moses on the bough. The promised land. But Omar didn't hold with gods or miracles.
������ Her hand found his penis but it was disappointingly thickened and half erect. She'd wanted to stroke the flaccid dink she saw bobbling under his belly when he walked.
������ As she stroked, it stirred and he groaned out all the indrawn breath and the rosy skyfinger moved smoothly across the ceiling. The film unlocked and ran.
������ Spellbreaker. Things do revolve. You can't escape.
������ The rose yellowed in some precise Newtonian way as her bit of earth revolved towards the sun. The world had resumed its constant melting rearrangements. Awake, my little ones, and fill the cup.
������ 'Mummy.'
������ She moved her hands quickly and wiped her fingers on Mel's beige back. When she turned she saw Ben in his teddypatterned pyjamas standing in the open door.
������ Hello, little un. Awake already. Goodness me.' She unruckled her nightie and pushed back the duvet for him.
������ He climbed in and clung close like a baby chimp, made her aware of her heat and bulk. She realised she was sweating a little. He must be able to smell her.
������ He pressed his tiny nose against her throat.
������ 'Are we on a day off day today.' His voice faded back into sleep as he said it.
������ Mel had rotated onto his back and was making a noise like a tractor idling, scratching in half sleep at the places where she'd tickled him. He stopped and switched the idling engine off and she sensed his body stiffening. His usual prelude to the matutinal fart, which mostly began quietly and built to the nonexistent god's triumphal crescendo. This one, though, leaked out inaudibly to humans. She imagined next door's dog waking and fetching its lead. The methane would pervade the room subtly with its beige smell.
������ The skyfinger had wagged to a new angle on the ceiling and shifted to a buff glow, the colour of an unwelcome envelope.
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