behind my Cheddar, my ageing Red Leicester.
Your favourite brand, President;
plastered thick on baguettes, not a thought
for your cholesterol levels. I could
throw it out, but won’t. I might melt it
over minted new potatoes, to feed
a new lover. I’ll find him in a gallery -
not Tate Britain, where I got you
that winter’s afternoon, lips and fingers
numb, you slagging off Stanley Spencer.
I’ll avoid the museum café where
you cut my muffin into four neat chunks,
the blueberries like blood clots, The four
chambers of your heart, you said,
(I thought you clever). You laughed
at me, the crumbs I made. No, not there.
I’ll find my next lover at an exhibition
of English landscapes in Bond Street,
I’ll get a quiet, unpretentious one and yes,
cook Sunday roast with all the trimmings
and when we’ve fucked the afternoon away
I’ll lick his flushed neck, taste the honest salt.

Catherine Smith

TICKLING RAINBOW

How many times have I been on this flight? Fifty? A hundred? London /Milan, Milan/London, London/Milan, and I wish it was Milan at least, not Bergamo, which is very pretty but another town completely, another world, hours from where we all hope we’ll arrive eventually (so, dear American lady sitting next to me, give up on your attempt to look up Bergamo Airport on the map of “downtown Milan”, and for God’s sake don’t even think of getting a cab, it would cost you 10 times more than this 6.30 am, 25 pounds return flight from Stansted).
The American lady isn’t that wrong, poor thing. The e-ticket does say London/Milan Bergamo, and when you come from such a big country it is easy to assume Bergamo is a part of Milan like Santa Monica is a part of LA. I smile. Italy is so small, you can’t possibly confuse a town with another. It’s a sin. Every little neighbourhood claims its own identity as if it was a question of life or death. And in a way it is. It’s always been. It’s our history. Even the language changes from village to village. Foreigners, English and American in particular, tend to have this funny idea about what Italian sounds like, as if we were all Sicilians. Long vowels… Intonations going up and down… I find it hilarious. We’re a country that until 150 years ago not only didn’t have a common language but was divided into dozens of states, some no bigger than… Brighton. In the Middle Ages each “comune”, each council, was actually an independent state with their own language and laws. Then, little by little, the bigger ones began to eat the smaller, and don’t ask me why or how but poor Bergamo ended up under the flamboyant Republic of Venice, while Milan had its own mighty Dukedom. How could a sea town, miles and miles away, rule over a bunch of mountaineers who’ve never tasted salt water, I honestly don’t know. Anyway, all this is to say that Milan and Bergamo have nothing in common, and the impeccably dressed Milanese, with his flat, quick, nasal accent would certainly kill you if you dared confuse his glamorous city with little Bergamo, whose inhabitants have the heavy and dark intonations of the people who for centuries have been living isolated from the world (even the Republic of Venice didn’t pay them much attention and simply sent his officials to collect taxes). They only had their Alps, their cows and their bleak poverty. God seemed to them much closer than any official ruler, so they built little churches on the top of each peak, and dotted every steep path, every trail and every street corner with tiny sanctuaries, from where sad Madonnas carved in chalk gave them the illusion somebody was looking after them.
Until they discovered tourism, Berlusconi and Ryanair and became one of the richest regions in the country - crosses, Madonnas and bell towers substituted with satellite dishes and swimming pools. The oddity of history… I can make fun of the Milanese people, I’m from the suburbs. From that totally industrial area they used to call “the Italian Leningrad”. When I was little, every morning I was woken up by the sirens of the steel factories calling workers in. In the early seventies the smog coming out of their chimneys was so thick you could only wish you were living in Bergamo, with its fresh mountain air. The factories have disappeared now. Lots of shopping centres in their place. Pretty little playgrounds with swings and slides… The air has definitely improved. I yawn and check my watch: it’s 6.45 in the morning. I’ve been up since 2am. In order to catch this extra cheap flight I had no choice but to leave my North London flat at 2.15, get on a night bus to Marble Arch and then on the airport coach. I could have taken a minicab to town but it wouldn’t have saved me much time and when you make a point of travelling cheap, you can’t possibly waste 12 quid on a taxi.
I remember the time when flying meant excitement and thrill and holidays, a big heavy suitcase (no 15 kilos maximum in those days), a relaxed drive to the airport, giggling in anticipation… The comfy planes full of free gadgets, the air hostesses offering food you didn’t need or like but that you gladly accepted and even tasted because it was part of the fun.
Now flying is 3 days at my parents’ place during which I’ll have to “dub” 11 episodes of an American soap opera into Italian. My character, a blond teenager with big breasts who can’t act to save her life, has been talking a lot recently, which is good considering they pay by the line. She’s seeing a therapist, after trying to kill her stepmother who was pregnant by her father while having an affair with her uncle. Beforehand, she had set fire to her school, dated a serial killer and survived cancer. It’s all good fun, I can’t complain, but this “international commuter” life is far from glamorous, it makes me slightly schizophrenic, isn’t what I really want to do and doesn’t pay well enough. Result: I have to fly from Stanstead at 6.30am.
Today when I arrived at the airport I thought I’d have time for a coffee but I was wrong. Despite the early hours the queue at the check-in was so long I feared I’d never reach the counter - I had to dash straight to the gate and fight my way onto the plane with hoards of families ready to strangle me in order to occupy the seats next to the window. I have my winning technique though, perfected in over 6 years of low cost flying: I wait until everyone has gone through the gate, get on the bus last so I can be the first to get off and then run, literally, as quick as I can, towards the back door of the plane. Somehow nobody really wants the back seats (there seems to be this totally irrational belief among flyers that, should their plane crash, they’re less likely to die if they’re sitting in front), so if you take the back door you have a better chance at choosing a window or corridor seat as you please, while the rest of your fellow passengers are stuck at the front, waiting for some clumsy man to fit his enormous hand luggage into the tiny overhead compartment (how did he manage to go through check in with that? It must be well over 6 kilos!) When I feel particularly selfish I even place my coat on the middle seat; I lean on its armrest and pretend to be asleep. Unless the plane is completely full, people don’t have the heart to “wake me up”, so I can have two seats for myself and stretch my legs (the sweet advantages of being 5 foot 1!). But today is the beginning of the half term holidays, the flight is fully booked and that’s how I ended up with the American lady sitting next to me. She’s nice enough. She’s asleep now. She has been reading The Da Vinci Code. We had a very quick conversation just before she dozed off and she said the story is fascinating but she’s too irritated by the bad writing to find it engaging. I could have kissed her. I think she deserves an award. Shall I suggest we form a political party called “UADVC”, United Against the Da Vinci Code? Being against something seems to be more important than promoting something nowadays; there are parties against Europe, parties against the congestion charge… Why can’t I have an International Party against bad literature? It might work. Or maybe not. Not enough people care.
I look outside the window. Everywhere is blue sky, golden clouds and light. I think of the English sky we’ve just left behind. I love it. It’s so mutable, so vivid, such a strong presence in the landscape as if it was the direct continuation of the houses, the trees, the hills, made of the same solid material, impossible to be taken for granted. It fills up the view. I perfectly understand why painters like Turner chose it as a favourite subject. I would, if I was a painter and not a struggling actress dubbing American soap operas into Italian twice a month. I was good at Art. I remember when I was a kid I used to draw a lot, spending hours and hours filling sheets of paper with images and colours. Usually on the bottom side of the sheet I’d draw the grass, the houses, the people and the streets, and on the top side the sky and the sun. I was very happy with my tidy, nicely coloured world, neatly divided into earth and heaven like in the Middle Ages. Then one day, an arrogant adult –who didn’t have anything better to do than show off wisdom in front of a 5 year old - asked me:
    “Tell me dear, what is all this empty space between the ground and the sky?”
I looked at her in amazement, my huge eyes trying to understand whether she was serious.
    “This… this is… the AIR!”
Obvious! What kind of stupid question was that? The patronizing adult gave me an indulgent smile.
    “No sweetie, there is no empty space between the earth and the sky, the sky is air and it’s all around us.”
    “Really??”
I stared at her in disbelief, then I felt humiliated. I had been doing everything wrong and nobody had told me! She was a grown up, she knew better, I had to remedy my unforgivable ignorance. From that day on, I felt I couldn’t go on like before. I had to fill up the gap. So, once I had made the houses, the grass and the people, I’d colour all the rest of the sheet in blue. The sky is air, the air is everywhere. But it was terribly tiring, it would take so long to finish a drawing, the blue pen would always run out halfway and I had to spit on it or ask my classmate Sara if I could borrow one of hers, but she was a bitch even at that age so she would only give me the kind of blue she didn’t like and that didn’t match my blue. It was a disaster. So I made a decision. As I wasn’t good enough to draw nature, I’d just ignore it and concentrate on the people. Look at my drawings from when I was 6 and you won’t find anything apart from human beings. Girls, boys, clothes… The sky is far, forgotten, beyond the paper.
But now, looking outside, at all those cream-like, puffy, rounded clouds and thinking about the English sky, about its blue and pink and yellow strokes, I admit that the arrogant adult was right after all. The sky is everywhere. There’s no empty space between earth and heaven. The blue, the light, is all around us. I’m beginning to feel bored. I can’t go to the toilet ‘cause the lady is still asleep so I open the book I’ve been trying to start far too many times and casually flick through it (why don’t I just give up, it’s obviously not one of “my” books). Suddenly, by a strange trick of the light, a rainbow appears on the book, just there, on page 23. It must have climbed through the window, I think. I observe it, quietly, spying on its movements, mesmerised like a child.
    “A child with a rainbow on her book”, I murmur, as if it was the verse of a song.
The plane makes a slight turn and the rainbow moves with it, hopping from the book to my sleeve and then to my hand. I stay perfectly still, tasting the strange sensation of being the target of the rainbow, feeling its colourful energy trotting on my palm. 
    “A light blue of cloudy cream”, my song continues.
    “Up and down rainbow, tickling rainbow!”
One more turn and the rainbow disappears. Where has it gone? Is it hiding somewhere inside me, in an ear, inside my nose? Or has it hopped back outside? Have I been sleeping? The air hostess invites me to fasten my seatbelt, we’re going to land in 20 minutes, she says. The Alps are below us. The American lady wakes up and, without asking for permission, stretches over me so that she can look outside.
    “How fabulous, isn’t it awesome?”
I have one of her tits pressed against my shoulder and I feel slightly uncomfortable. I don’t like the perfume she wears, it gives me headache. Her bare arms are covered in freckles. She’s dressed far too lightly for this time of the year, where does she think she’s going, the Caribbean? One more false myth about Italy: it’s a warm country. Well, it is, but in summer. It’s February now and the average temperature is 2 degrees. Should I tell her? Would she understand Celsius? I can’t be bothered. I definitely don’t think I’m going to ask her to join me in the UADVC party.
We land. It’s 9.15am Italian time, it’s a clear, crisp morning and I’m so tired I’d go straight to bed but I have a busy day in front of me, involving, to begin with, an hour and fifteen minute bus trip to Milan (if we’re lucky), because, as I finally explain to my American neighbour who’s asking me why-are-we-landing-on-themountains-isn’t-Milan-at-the-centre-of-the-biggest-plain-in-Italy?, Bergamo isn’t an area of Milan, it isn’t even part of the same province.
    “Oh… Well,” she says, looking strangely relieved, “good, I was beginning to worry about all that snow, I’m not exactly equipped for cold temperatures… But Milan will be quite warm, no?” What can I say? Dream on.

Lara Parmiani

LONDON (AFTER THE LANDMARKS)

After the clanging bells
of St. Paul’s and the jack-hammering on Cannon Street,
and the huff puff crowd
mobile phone yakking
steadily hopping curbs and jumping queues
flowing down cobbled lanes and staircases
to tube trains, oblivious to anthrax headlines
at news agents
stopping somewhere out of the wind
to light a fag

The traffic rumble at a distance envelops
Hyde Park, like a mechanical bass
note on the earth’s organ,
and yet it does not threaten me
near the bird sanctuary, where I perch
on a bench.
After an indigestible Happy meal
from McDruids, employer of choice for sullen
teens, where the death of a young person’s hope
is most profoundly realized.
Like a packet of ketchup
pierced and splattered under a shoe.

Who knows how feels this girl from
Serbia who struggles with my food order
her lexicon shrunken to the scope
of a menu. By mid-afternoon, light is waning,
the power walkers are coming through
they slide ahead and round
the double-deck red buses,
hard black taxis,
they ride the sound of hammers.

In Hyde Park, night loiters around the chestnut,
the plane and sumac trees are gently
pulling in curtains. It’s time to disembark
from all this green, to rush the stairs and crush
some foreign fellow on the platform
at Fenchurch Street station, against a slowing train.

Chris Pannell 



THE MIRACLE AT WHIPPOORWILL CREEK

Cody Lee got back to his new Jeep Cherokee just as the sun came up. ‘Uncle Ike, you were right,’ said Cody. ‘I found me a hot senorita and had a really good time.’
Uncle Ike was slumped over in the passenger seat of the jeep. ‘Hey Uncle Ike, wake up,’ Cody said, shaking him. ‘Did you pass out?’ An empty Tequila bottle was resting between Uncle Ike’s legs. ‘Dang, why did you have to go and get another bottle?’ Cody said. ‘You were already drunk enough.’ Roosters were crowing all over the place and Cody saw a herd of goats on a hill behind him. Was he out in the country, he asked himself. They had arrived in the wee hours of the morning and with all the bright lights shining everywhere, Cody thought he was in a big city.
The police drove by and eyed him suspiciously. He’d better get out of there, Cody thought. Uncle Ike said you couldn’t trust those policemen down here in Mexico. ‘Uncle Ike,’ Cody yelled again. Uncle Ike sure looked cold and clammy, thought Cody. He looked dead to the world. ‘Uncle Ike, are you alive?’ Cody asked, shaking him again, and finally Uncle Ike groaned, raised his head and then fell back limp against the seat.
What a trip, Cody thought as he drove off. Uncle Ike is passed out dead drunk, I’m tired, sick and sleepy, my virginity is still intact and I’m over five hundred miles from home.
Cody found the road back across the border, but then panic struck him. Would the Mexican Police arrest Uncle Ike at the border crossing for being drunk? Cody asked himself. He stopped along the side of a road and cleaned out all the empty beer cans that were ankle deep around Uncle Ike’s feet. Struggling, he managed to lift and drag Uncle Ike to the back of the jeep and lay him on the floor behind the back seat. There he concealed him from head to toe with an old quilt that he used on his last picnic outing. 
    ‘Had a big party last night, eh?’ asked the Mexico Border Policeman looking down at Cody’s ruffled hair and sleepy red eyes. 
    ‘Yes sir,’ said Cody, and the policeman smiled and waved him through.
Back in the United States, Cody decided to leave Uncle Ike in the back and let him sleep it off. He was about out of gas, but still had the hundred dollar bill Uncle Ike had given him to pay for the senorita. As usual Cody had been too scared to perform sexually, but sure hated to admit it. But he guessed he’d have to tell Uncle Ike about it sooner or later.
After all, Uncle Ike was the only one who knew his big secret. The only one who knew that he had an unnatural fear of girls ever since his babysitter, a large-breasted woman with wide hips and long white legs, had stripped him naked and fondled him when he was eight years old. This experience scared Cody nearly into a nervous breakdown. He cried at the memory of it for years afterwards. As Cody grew into manhood, he found he was impotent when out with girls, yet fully functional at other times. 
    ‘I’m always ready except when I get close to a girl and then I get scared and fold up like a deflated balloon,’ Cody told Uncle Ike. Cody drove his Big Red Beacon, as he affectionately called his new Jeep Cherokee, into a truck stop and filled it up with gas. Then he went inside, used the restroom, paid for his gas and ordered a large coffee to go.
    ‘It’ll be just a minute, honey,’ said the waitress. ‘I’m brewing a fresh pot.’
Cody took a seat at the counter. A tall, nice-looking woman clad in a loose fitting dress, with Dolly Parton cleavage and long blond hair sat down beside him. She was smoking a long cigarette and the filter portion of it was coated with a smudge of bright red lipstick.
    ‘What kind of load you got?’ she asked between puffs of her cigarette.
    ‘Load?’
    ‘Yeah, what ya hauling?’
    ‘I’m driving a new Jeep Cherokee,’ Cody said.
    ‘Where you headed?’
    ‘Oklahoma,’ said Cody, standing up and paying for his coffee. 
    ‘Mind if I ride up that way with you?’ she asked, following him all the way out to his car.
    ‘I don’t pick up hitch hikers,’ Cody said, getting back into his Red Beacon and starting up his motor.
    ‘Look, Junior,’ she said, jumping into the front seat beside him and flashing a 32 pistol in his face. ‘I haven’t got time to piss around with you. Now you get this vehicle moving or I’ll blow your cute little head off.’
Cody’s first impulse was to grab the gun away from her, but she looked mean and he wasn’t sure he was big enough. 
    ‘My name is Nellie,’ she said turning the radio on. ‘Now you just relax and drive, Junior, and you won’t get hurt.’
Some preacher from Del Rio, Texas was preaching hellfire and brimstone over the radio. ‘Where will you spend eternity?’ the preacher shouted as Cody pulled his Red Beacon back on the highway.
Nellie turned and looked at the back of the car, but the only things visible were fishing poles and an old minnow bucket. Uncle Ike, out of sight and concealed in the quilt aroused not the slightest suspicion.
    ‘How far are you going? Cody asked, while taking a big swig of his coffee and looking down the shiny gun barrel. 
    ‘We’re going all the way if you behave,’ said Nellie, turning the radio down.
Cody was shaking so bad he had to set his coffee down. He thought of waking Uncle Ike, but he was afraid she might shoot him too.
    ‘Sure is a nice car you got here,’ said Nellie, as Cody picked up speed.
    ‘I’ve just had it two months. It’s a graduation present from my grandfather,’ said Cody, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m the only one in my family to graduate from high school.’ 
    ‘Well, you’re a cute boy,’ Nellie said while lighting a cigarette. ‘How old are you?’
    ‘Seventeen, ma’am,’ said Cody, fanning the smoke. ‘I’d rather you didn’t smoke if you don’t mind,’ he said, and then realised how stupid he sounded.
    ‘You don’t smoke,’ Nellie said, but I bet you drink. This car smells like a brewery.’
    ‘I had a few beers last night in Mexico,’ said Cody, pleased when she lowered the gun to her lap. He had a sudden suicidal urge to grab the gun and kick her ass out on the highway.
    ‘You got drunk in Mexico?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Cody grinned.
    ‘Did you find a girl friend?’ she asked smiling at Cody. 
    ‘Oh Yeah,’ Cody lied, returning her smile. There was no denying it. This mean hussy with the long blond hair and rosy cheeks was really a good looking woman, Cody thought. The sun was breaking out in full force now and it was going to be another hot summer day. the Red Beacon handled like a dream, Cody thought, but his hands were sweating so bad they kept sliding off the steering wheel. He wished Uncle Ike would wake up. He’d know how to handle the situation.
Uncle Ike was a former Golden Gloves boxing champion. He was a man’s man, Cody thought even if he was an alcoholic. Cody tried to model his life after Uncle Ike’s tough guy image, but in his mind he never measured up.
Cody was scared now and mad at himself for being scared. He was finding out a lot about himself on this trip. He couldn’t drink without getting sick, naked girls still scared the hell out of him and here he’d gone and let some woman kidnap him.
His mind drifted back to yesterday afternoon when he and Uncle Ike were on a hot Oklahoma lake fishing and drinking beer. 
    ‘Let’s go to Mexico,’ suggested Cody after downing his third beer. Cody had been thinking about making the trip ever since Uncle Ike told him about all the sexy senoritas they had there. 
    ‘Right now?’ asked Uncle Ike.
    ‘I got the car and time, if you got the dough,’ said Cody. 
    ‘I’m loaded, let’s go,’ said Uncle Ike. ‘I got my Social Security check today.’
    ‘We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin,’ the radio announcer said. ‘Nellie Ellen Brown, known around south Texas as Pistol Packing Nellie escaped from Augusta Springs jail some four hours ago. The 32 year old former beauty queen is charged in the shooting death of her husband. Details of her escape are sketchy at this point, but all motorists are warned to be on the lookout for her. She is armed and considered dangerous.’ 
    ‘They’re talking about me, Junior,’ said Nellie, smiling and turning the radio down. ‘I’m Pistol Packing Nellie.’ 
    ‘Really!’ said Cody, swallowing hard. It seemed like his heart was in his throat one minute and in his toes the next. ‘Well, you sure been nice to me so far,’ Cody said. He was begging for mercy and it made him sick at his stomach. Wake up Uncle Ike, Cody wanted to shout. 
    ‘I’m really a nice person,’ said Nellie, clutching the gun in her lap like some women would hold on to their purse. 
    ‘Were you a beauty queen?’ asked Cody.
    ‘Miss Augusta Springs, 1985,’ said Nellie.
She looked so gentle and innocent at that moment, thought Cody.
    ‘You didn’t really shoot your husband, did you?’ asked Cody. 
    ‘I shot the son-of-a-bitch dead,’ Nellie said. ‘He stole my money, cheated on me and tried to give me aids.’
Through the rear view mirror Cody tried to check on Uncle Ike. He’s been sleeping for over four hours. Nobody sleeps that long without moving, thought Cody.
    ‘Look, Junior, you’re going to have to pull off somewhere,’ said Nellie.
    ‘There’s a rest stop up ahead,’ said Cody.
    ‘Pull off at the bottom of this hill,’ said Nellie. Cody pulled off the highway in front of a big sign that read WHIPPOORWILL CREEK. Nellie followed Cody down a wellworn path that led under a wooden bridge and beside a narrow winding creek.
There, on the flat sandy soil, deep in the heart of Texas, Nellie squatted. 
    ‘Turn your head,’ Nellie said to Cody.
Here was his chance, Cody thought. with Nellie’s underpants down around her knees, Cody started running up the path. But Nellie was right behind him, pulling her pants up with one hand and waving the gun at him with the other. 
    ‘Stop or I’ll shoot your ass off,’ she yelled. Nellie managed to grab Cody by one leg, but in so doing, she tripped and hit her head on a rock and the gun went sailing down the embankment. Nellie lay there motionless. Her underpants were still down and her tantalising well-shaped bottom was shining in all its intimate and glorious detail. Cody stood there as though paralysed, like an awe-struck child. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t turn away. He experienced a few moments of fierce arousal. A-HA, he thought, raising both arms in the air. THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN. He conquered his fear, he realised. It was his moment of triumph. It was a miracle, that’s what it was, he concluded.
Cody started to leave Nellie there, but she might have a heat stroke, he reasoned. So he managed to get her fully dressed and carried her up to the side of the jeep. He was busy checking on Uncle Ike when the Texas Highway Patrol arrived a few minutes later.
An Ambulance rushed Nellie and Uncle Ike to a nearby hospital while Cody tried to explain the details of his exciting morning to the highway patrol. 
    ‘She’s not my girl friend, she’s not my mother. I told you I was driving back to Oklahoma when she kidnapped me,’ Cody told the patrol officer over and over. ‘She told me her name was Nellie. She said she was Pistol Packing Nellie.’
A short time later Cody’s story was confirmed. He was immediately proclaimed a hero for his single-handed capture of the notorious Pistol Packing Nelly.
At about the same time Cody was informed that Uncle Ike needed to stay in the hospital a few days to dry out, but was expected to live. Also, that Nellie had suffered a concussion and she too was expected to live.
What a trip, thought Cody late that night as he drove his Red Beacon back across the Red River into Oklahoma. He still couldn’t believe he helped capture Nellie. She was sure one good looking woman, he thought, recalling the miracle at Whippoorwill Creek. He wondered if his picture would be in the newspapers. He heard he might even receive some reward money.
Somehow, Cody couldn’t think of himself as a hero, but he was still proud of himself. He was a new man now, he thought, and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to prove it.

Bruce Adkins

The Letter

Hoarfrost still rests, delicate and white in the shadows,
while in the clearing all is melting: higher and higher
ever upwards, everything is suddenly transformed ---
and the wind sweeps in to turn the sky pale blue.

This is where you walked over the tender frost,
past shadows, shivering beneath flaming branches,
and where obedient to your touch the twigs beneath you
suddenly shone out, engulfed all around with a halo of tears.

And the footprints you made were there to thaw and melt
the fragile layer of frost on the flames of the day ---
They seem to be soaring like a flock of birds,
flying off without thought into the boundless horizon.

And I have never felt happier in this life:
with this motionless forest and the golden air
and, like a letter, sent to me from the sky,
circling to my feet, a yellow leaf flies down.

Vadim Andreyev
translated by Belinda Cooke