Ladysmith and Visit to Robert

(The train is about to leave for Ladysmith. And the ladies in their long skirts are waiting. "Please take us to golden California" says the girl.)

(Visit to Robert)

Entering the livingroom. An Edinburgh terraced flat like my grandmother's groundfloor livingroom.

And I click on the TV.

Upstairs the parents are asleep. All is hushed. I do not turn on the lights.

The sexual coloured light of TV in the mournful room. I sit on the edge of the sofa bed. Laconically watching TV.

I realise with shock that under the duvet on the sofabed someone is lying. I see sticking out, wrinkled bedsocks and tousled hair.

The face is revealed. I see it is my friend Robert, very weary and confused. It is he I have come to see.

But his flatmates are awoken upstairs. And up the dark and secret stairs.

Upstairs under a bright bulb my mother had awoken sternly. And my sisters in a bad mood rustle plastic bags.

When Robert wakes after a Friday night out I plead with him: "But haven't you got a couch where I can sleep?" I'll bed down, with my coat, on any long, grimy couch.

I just want to sleep before dawn.