Entertaining Ruth

It had taken a long time to climb out of my small, yellow room with the pink curtains, the Sun reflecting from the windows at the other end of the rectangle, perhaps 'climb' is wrong, rather, I was pushed, pushed simply by the imperceptible passing of time and my own refusal to do anything in the way of helping myself ... drifting with the tide ... downstream... the initial euphoria of getting the flat ... doing all I felt necessary by way of getting it straight, not a great deal ... only the two rooms being used. The large front room had slowly fallen into the place for hanging the washing and a storage place for all the junk we accumulated. My mother always said that I should have been a gypsy. Mentally, I never stretched to the 'three piece suit' ... carpet, coffee table, fitted kitchen ... all the accepted essentials.

Depending on how well we knew out rare visitors, they either sat at the 'dining room table' or on the bed, the bed had become the focal point of my existence, I was usually 'on it' or 'in it'.

Ruth too, had no objections to the way of living, the formalities, little impact on her, everything had been reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Entertaining Ruth, was not hard, never really asked very much of me. Sure, still very heavy on the 'marriage stakes' ... and money too, of course, but that was all. Still had no money and still showed little enthusiasm for marrying her. Hardly saw the point. The trend, towards acceptance of people simply living together. It becoming common place for quite young girls to have babies ... without a father in sight. Vivian told me, in hushed tones, of a girl in the lower school pregnant ... fourteen years old. The girl thought the father may have been a black boy, but she was not sure of this.
Vivan too had tried to shake off the shackles, getting me to take her and her friend, Melany, who happened to look exactly like a doll, five foot nothing, every detail perfect, just been unwrapped from the tissue paper. I would sweat on these occasions, realising, surrounded by so many young females, that I was slightly 'over the top'. The music incredibly loud. No one had ever heard of the 'quick step' or the 'fox trot'. Shut my mouth tight, yet never for one moment conceding to the idea that not one of these butterflies would fall into my outstretched net.

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Slowly, the flat filled with plants - they took the edge off the clinical bareness - their leaves and tendrils consuming the huge spaces. Walls, I started to cover with photographs of Ruth. she that insisted on being 'fed up' with the usual run of the mill 'snaps at the seaside' ... One afternoon, brilliant yellow light through the window, she sat up in bed, pulled her long legs up to her body, elbow on the pillow, long hair half concealing one side of her face.

"Well", she said, "What are you staring at? ... You have seen me naked before ... why not get the camera out? " She must have been having one of her fantasies. I slowly set the camera up. She lit a cigarette.