suburban garden

Then, the suburban summer back garden.

K. comes home from work and asks what i've been doing all day in the garden. "I had visitors. Meg came to visit. She sat with her legs curled under her, occasionally shifting to a cross-legged, hippyish position. Very shy, not saying much, smoking fags. Now and then though she smiled pleasantly. She has a beautiful face, i've often thought, round, modest, full of acceptance. I can see her there in her white top, stubbing out a fag.

But i was nervous and, attracted to Meg as i am, i was anxious to impress her. Restless i paced to and fro in the garden, now and then clutching or circling a washingline post unhappily. In an effort to impress her with my erudition and depth i hummed an old folk air, "Fordell Ball". She eyed me curiously, with an air of toleration, smoking a fag.

But then her brother Jack showed up. He looked immediately suspicious, paranoid, and ill at ease, grimly frowning beneath a large, floppy hat, and with a goatee and straggly black hair. He sat on the bench with an impatient eye on Meg, and, all too soon, had conceitedly whisked her off to another engagement.

But i wasn't lonely long, for, later, Britney came, and similarly sat in the grass with her legs curled beneath her. No makeup and with her hair carelessly tied back, chewing gum, her light voice, with it's rolling southern drawl, passing earthily from mundane reflections on the vagaries of life to naive flashes of humour or joy. In contrast to the silence of Meg, Britney starts up a monologue, and her style is very southern back porch philosophical, interrupted by yawns and platitudes, mundane complaints, or the beeping of her cellphone..."