4)

It was a good few years since my divorce, many more

since that play that makes you whole or leaves your

inner being screaming ’ what’s the point, what’s the

fucking point…’   and on a much lesser scale, I enjoyed

being taken on a settee, among the incense, music,

candlelight and laughter of our making. Bohemian

swansong? Probably. But her dad’s here tonight and

he’s on great form. One of the characters emerged

 that weren’t heroes of the war. He brags of nothing,

but he shines, like his daughter, unpredictable, but

 welcome on any settee. We had a poetry and folk

night, seven of us in tune sometime but eventually

out of it.

Some weeks later in the cool night and walking, he

said how she was quite abandoned in many ways

impractical in others but always left this spark behind,

this longing and she’d always come back when you’d

started to settle. That feeling in your stomach and heart

would rise again and off you’d go on another gypsy night.

And here she was again, running from the track with the

faintest trail of dust rising and a shimmer like diamonds

on stones. Almost a perfume too. Almost. ‘What brings

you here?’ he grinned. ‘Him?’ ‘No’ she said, ‘music on

computers.’ We both looked suitably confused. ‘OK.

Bye Ronnie, bye Joanne, enjoy your music.’