Dear Matilda,
Why do you keep ringing me? I’ve got nothing more to say to you,
Love, Gordon
x



I know that last night we spoke again at length on the blower, trying to work it all out. But, really, when you get down to it, what is there left between us - merely the memories of a relationship (I won’t honour it with the words ‘love affair’ or even ‘romance’). In short, Matilda, I’ve come down to the coast to try and forget you. The sea (as my mother always said) is a fine companion at such times - taking stock, while watching waves make and break - loneliness is listening to the surf at dead of night from one-bit lodgings - funny, I can never express myself properly - it’s even worse when you take me unawares with your telephone calls - I always end up saying things I never meant.

***

I trust Graham is well. He’ll be better for you in the long run. As you haven’t rung since my last letter, I thought I would scribble out a few more thoughts, in case you’re still under the impression that there’ll ever be anything between us again.

Those loud friends of yours who always acted drunk never took to me, did they? They could never get me to play their games. Bloody stupid (excuse my French) games, if you ask me. Graham lying on the floor pretending to be a dead cat. Honor - that was her name, wasn’t it? - letting all and sundry undo her bra straps - she’d got nothing to speak of up top, anyway. And Basil, he tried to make me jump from the box at the Albert Hall. Said it would make those listeners on Radio 3 sit up. Whatever next! I know they’d have grown out of it in time, but not before someone breaking his or her neck in the process. I suppose I loved you too much, Matilda, to wait around and perhaps see you hurt.

We only kissed once, but I’ll remember it for ever.

***

Not hearing anything, I assume you must have gone off with your family to Florence, as was once planned (in my hearing). Thinking about it, it was rather cruel of you all to sit around making arrangements, without even realising that I might wish I’d been invited to go along. You readily accepted my advice on the travel details.

Has it occurred to you that we only knew each other in the winter? You must look nice in summer clothes.
The seaside will soon be closing down for the autumn. Even holidaymakers with their silly hats have tears in their eyes - from the cold wind perhaps - more likely from a grief which only holidaymakers at the end of the season can feel. The amusement arcades have shutter-men making preparations. I must go now.

***

I tried to ring your flat, but the phone didn’t answer. You must still be away with the family. The moment I realised you were going to a foreign country, I thanked heaven that you’d be away from some of those godawful friends of yours. See? - my first thoughts were for your well-being, not mine. Your father said he’d always wanted to go to Florence. Hasta la vista! (excuse my Italian). Your father was certainly young for his age.

Did I tell you that I can actually see the beach from my window? It was cluttered with wind-breaks and crouching children for most of the summer. Now, it’s almost deserted. I can just make out the dark shapes of a couple throwing stones into the sea - trying to make them skim, no doubt. They’re now walking along by the edge of the sea.

It’s the blurring of the late afternoon which makes them seem joined at the waist rather than hand in hand. I wonder if their romance will last.

I can’t stop giggling. I just imagined that couple out there were two of your so-called friends. That’s why they’re now lying down, pretending to be beached whales, presumably!

I didn’t know until recently that all your friends were really what people call ‘yuppies’. I’ve read about them in some old colour supplements in the lounge. That they go around saying ‘Yah!’ and ‘Crikey!’, wearing pin-stripe shirts with studs through the collars, and sloane-ranger costumes. A dying race, now, quite out of fashion. I wonder if Graham, Honor, Basil et al have sobered down, too. Anyone reading this letter in a hundred years’ time will probably never have heard of ‘yuppies’.

I still can’t stop giggling - better than crying, I suppose.

***

I expect you’ll get my letters all in one go, when you return from abroad. If I’d known, I’d’ve numbered all these envelopes I’m sending you.

The boarding-house is suddenly full of people - come here for Christmas.

(Incidentally, when you’ve been abroad for a long time, don’t you think your own street is either narrower or wider, different, like a foreign country itself, don’t you think (excuse my English!)?

That couple on the beach - they wave at me sometimes when they see me with nose plastered to the window - I can just see a flicker of black at their shoulders. During the night, I expect they’re no longer there.

The sea sounds more brittle in the winter - no longer the hissing strains of the spume running over the shingle. More like glass shattering - each wave a suddenly crazed car windscreen.

I sit at my own table in the corner of the dining room. The others stare at me. Surely, I should be staring at them - they are the newcomers, after all. Most of them are downright obnoxious, as silly as your friends used to be. In fact, one of them reminds me so much of Honor (if that was her name), I begin to wonder whether it may indeed be her. She often smiles my way, when I look up from the soup.

After Christmas, I’ve decided to return to London. I expect Florence is wonderful at this time.

***

It’s too cold even for that couple to be on the beach. Snow instead of sand . Chunks of frozen lumber being landed from the sluggish sea (excuse my sudden ambition to be a poet!). The whole place looks a dump.
The Christmas roisterers left yesterday. The one who looked like your friend Honor had a most unfortunate accident. The landlady tells me (first time we really had a proper chinwag), during a sort of game, this ‘Honor’ had an eye pierced by a knitting needle. The ambulance got here pretty quick, despite the weather. We’re currently awaiting news. Her friends told us they would try to get back in a few weekends’ time to visit her in the local hospital.

later - You won’t believe it! But I’ve seen that couple again. Not walking on the beach hand-in-hand, this time, but actually cavorting in the sea!

The place is quieter now. We often have a hand of whist, the landlady and I. Mrs Tidy is her name, if I haven’t mentioned it before.

***

Dear Matilda,
Nice of you to ring. Yes, of course, I’m still in the land of the living. Funny though that you never got any of my letters since the first one. Especially as you never went away in the end at all. Little matters it, however, I never had anything more to say to you really. I’m writing this at my table. They don’t seem to get the class of guest they used to.

No! I don’t think I’ll be able to accept your kind offer to go to Florence with you and your family. It would never work out, you with your sparkling personality and me with mine.

Sorry to hear about Honor. And about Graham and Basil. Love, Gordon. x


(Published 'Nutshell' 1991)