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Cathinones I Have Known and Loved
I went to see Kim for a few days while I turned fifty. I'd only been there a couple of hours when I sliced the top of my finger off with a razor as I searched in my bag for something. I was instantly reminded of The Overnight Editor doing the same thing, mid-date, four years ago. Despite trying to hold my finger in my mouth, I left a bloodcrumb trail on her rug and up the stairs.
We went to the market in C---.
Which offers an agreeable melange of tat.
But some good stuff as well.
We got off our heads, played house music at what was perhaps Irritate The Neighbour volume, and danced around her living room.
We went for a long walk, without maps, or plans, over barbed wire fences and through fields of crops. There were some horses which were a bit intimidating.
We scrabbled across a rivulet to escape from the horses, to be taken into a dark wood as dusk fell.
Next day we went to Newcastle. There was a moralising poster near the station about not giving money to beggars on the ground that they might spend it on drugs. The poor are always held to higher standards of behaviour than anyone else. Why shouldn't they have the freedom to spend their tiny incomes however they wish? Immediately afterwards we saw a beggar and I gave him £2, deliberately more generous than I'd normally be.
Alfred J. Lambart RA (1902 - 1970 (?))
Juliet, Daughter of Richard H. Fox of Surrey, 1931
I was transfixed by some beautiful C20th glass in the Laing Museum; photography was beyond me at this point, but I wrote Kitty a postcard, of a painting it owns, of a gorgeous slender girl in an emerald green dress. Back in Kimtown we went to the pub where we've often met, its tiny rooms encouraging collective conversation.
Back at hers, we put some blankets down in the living room and nodded off for a while. She's being mucked about by a man with whom she is smitten and she showed me a text exchange in which he evades, and then turns into an irritatingly lighthearted joke, the overt declarations so untypical of Kim. With the cathinone--an empathogen--stroking my skin and making her even more beautiful than she always is, I felt her near-tears as though they were my own.
It's now Tuesday dinnertime and I'm on a train to Lytham to see Trina. As anyone who has dabbled with Beecham's Powders will know, Tuesday isn't the greatest day in which to be cheery and interested. I'd rather sit alone in a cheap pub and stare out of the window.
11 comments
Ah, Newcastle, one of my favourite cities. I always think of it as a whore, loud, raucous even, not that attractive, but with some money, it can make you very happy.
An empathogen?
Does that mean you become more sensitive to other’s hidden feelings, or does it just make you think that you can?
One of the several good thing about mdpv is that it makes that level of analysis impossible.
But if I’m judging from my unforced interest in what she had been saying, and a physical response which I had to control, I’d say it was because it just brings out feelings that are already genuinely there. Even when I’m straight, like now, I care about Kim very much and would do anything I could to help her be happy.
Well, happy birthday, old sod. Of the slicing, what does it mean? Is it a metaphor? A passive/aggressive action designed to bloody-up a rug? Who knows. At least it’s not something you’ll soon forget.
You should have labeled all the items in that fourth pic with little arrows and explanations.
Were you really afraid of the horses? What could they have done? They seem docile enough on the surface.
That really is a magnificent painting! I’ll bet even mores in person. But that looks like a terribly uncomfortable reading position.
It’s nice to have our Scottish Bastard back, innit?
Ooo I love Newcastle, I think a trip to the Laing may well be overdue. That’s a great portrait, I’m very envious of Juliet’s shoes.
I hope you didn’t buy Mary Barton, god it’s depressing.
The horses would have run away if you’d waved your arms around a bit…
Glad you had Kim to yourself after all. Happy Birthday x
Horses are nasty bastards, some of them. Hunting country round here, I know my stuff.
That green dress is hypnotically lovely. So slippery/drapey.
Glad to see you avoided Kim’s tedious friend.
And many happy returns of course. X.
Exile–
No, the finger slicing was literally that. I did have an injury time picture but it’s really horrible. Isn’t it a fabulous painting? I love the way he catches the glow of the fire on her face and dress. I don’t think she’s “reading"; I think she’s “looking gorgeous and well-bred". And yes, I’ve missed TSB too.
PendleWitch–
Yes, I like her shoes too. I did buy Mary Barton – I bought those three books, for a quid. I read Cranford, and Cousin Fanny, or whatever it’s called, last year, and enjoyed them–especially Cranford. I’ve also been up Lindeth Tower (near you and me), where Gaskell worked. I will brace myself then for Mary Barton.
Suzy–
Thanks–I don’t like horses. No reasoning with them.
Everyone–
As Kim predicted, her friend was too disorganised to take himself up on his invitation to himself to gatecrash a stranger’s 50th, which the stranger had selfishly planned to spend with his best friend.
Oh, happy birthday you young whippersnapper.
Sorry I forgot.
Try to imagine a cupcake and a candle.
Happy belated birthday! You’re lucky I didn’t remember before now, or I might have bought you a horse. And I can’t believe you dismissed that four-slice toaster as “tat.” FOUR SLICES.
The giving-to-beggars thing is all mixed up in my head: I can think of at least two arguments for and two against, all largely unrelated and hence difficult to in any way dialecticize. But, yes, those posters make me just as bullish against their moralizing as they do you.
You don’t think…. I mean…. If I were begging at a train station…. and I put one of those posters up beforehand…. could I just wait around and capitalize on the inevitable backlash?
I just realized the tail end of my previous comment was predicated on the idea that the precariously housed might nonetheless have easy access to poster-printing facilities. Please disregard. With very best etc.
That looks like a pony to me !
Glad you got to spend your b’day with Kim on her own and hope by now you’re fully recovered ;)
( late) Happy Birthday
x x x
TSB–Can I imagine a large glass of sherry instead?
SB–My donations to beggars are based on confused thinking too. Or just pure irritation, as in the example.
GB–A pony? Well it was a very thick set pony then. Not quite the thing to be docile and willing to let Apple or Jocasta ride it.
And thank you to everyone for my birthday wishes. It were a reet good few days.
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