Getting up the spiralling stone stairway into Alice's flat I immediately perceive she has been crying, her dark hair obscuring her face, grinding her wrist into her cheeks to exterminate the tears. Amongst her snivelling she is making an effort to disguise her grief and even to offer polite formalities.
Alice had been a TV presenter, had sung pop songs, and in my mind her sadness was connected to her fame or partial fame, the whole uncertainty of it. Now she stands in her kitchen in commonplace jeans, and a forced smile.
Up two steps is her long and narrow kitchen, projecting outwards, or so it seems, from the rest of the building. Above the sink and cooker etc. all three walls are glazed.
Out of some curiosity I step up into her kitchen and advance along its central aisle. Till out the farthest window I see row upon row of headstone, some ancient and weathered, some fallen down altogether, others new and shiny. Close by is a big intricate marble Victorian headstone, looking like white chocolate. Alice's kitchen apparently looks out immediately on the cemetery.
I draw back, disgusted by the sight. "Not very good Alice, hardly prime property" I mumble. Imagine it at night! The walking dead clawing at the windows...
Out of one eye I then notice that in a far corner of the cemetery a funeral is even now in progress. Half-fascinated and half-sickened by the thought of a room where you can prepare food while watching the dead being buried, I self-consciously examine the mourners.
A dismal party, all of the family unnaturally thin, clutching damp bouquets in the half-light. Reminded me of that Courbet funeral, but more comic than that, like a party of mourners rendered by Hogarth. Two sturdy, bucolic grave-diggers have leapt from the hole, having thrown up great mounds of fresh soil. I have a feeling a light shower of rain will come, and a lazy wind will stir the scene, bringing with it the reek of dusty funeral garments and fresh turfs...
The real thought that has been in my mind all this time is can I get a ride off this Alice?
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