Jack Cox - Dodge Rose

Frank clapped his hands once at seeing us reappear, evidently feeling the belated effects of a sort of resurrection. Boy they know how to do hospitality in the Cross! When was the last time you were up here Paul.

He umd and ahd. Terrible. It must be a few years now. I saw Rex Wrenall’s show at Patches, him and two others, what were the girls’ names.

Yes. You don’t mean. Not the one from the Pink Panther, same time, end of the seventies. Had a solo on a horned. Hung from the ceiling. Super fit. Magic place. Streets are a riot. Wouldn’t know what you had. All spread their legs at sundown. Pardon. Forget where I am. You two ladies keep the old flame burning. Ah it’s not what it used to be. This, this is very civilised, lovingly received. Thank you. It brimmed over the lip of the glass and down his fingers.

Eliza asked Paul if he would like to see some of the material. He had taken a seat in the Chesterfield and she perched opposite him to pour champagne one handed into a glass he held so far out it trembled. Watch it. Frank and I sat on the striped poplin. In the last shuffle the night before Dodge’s dolls had gone in the china cabinet. If Paul started looking around for an excuse he found one there because he pointed through the stained glass to the piggy bank and said well I don’t remember reading that, you’ve got a nig. A moneybox. He has a sister, you know, Dinah. Same thing. I have a friend who collects those. There are all kinds apparently, hardly rare, but you know a collector is always looking out for new specimens. One man’s trash. He came back from Paris the other year with an armful. He said he found them in a junk market on the Seine. An Uncle Sam with a nutcracker mouth and a stars and stripes carpet bag springs open with a hidden lever, a gas station attendant, lifts the lid on the oil reservoir or some such. Queer fish. Not my thing. You don’t have any Disney figurines do you, porcelain. You know, Donald Duck, the Little Mermaid.

Watch you don’t spill that. I thought he might have been afraid to go alone so I invited Frank, who obviously couldn’t wait for a chance to keep changing the subject. He put his half full glass down on the occasional table and stood up. Your sales will certainly benefit from their surroundings. Place has atmosphere. If we can pitch it right we’ll have them running.

Eliza lifted at last an admonishing finger. That won’t be possible I’m afraid. We’d like to hold the auction in your rooms.

Whatever for.

I have a sick mother. We don’t want to disturb her and we can’t move her.

Frank spun around so fast he stubbed up the end of the Saraband and had to grab the standard lamp to stop himself from falling over. Paul might have yelled if his blasted thropple hadn’t amphigoried such a natural reflex into something resembling a distant trill. He surely would have taken hold of Eliza if the fern tub hadn’t got in the way, his fingers rustling through the fronds to thin air. Eliza stifled her laughter with Mrs. Sullaman’s report and evaluation. Daft. Pardon. Frank chuckled, the painted shade swinging crazily above his fist. Fuit comata silva. A bub in the woods. O theoi neoteroi. Excuse me. Of course. But for Physical and œconomical purposes. He didn’t say that. A shame really. He shut his eyes. A real pity. What resembles spinach. It’d probably be better not to do a tour then. Wouldn’t want to disturb her.

She’s in quite a different part of the flat, it wouldn’t be any trouble. We live here after all.

Ah well all the same. Better not. We can organise to have it all brought over to us quite quickly. When did you envision having the auction.

Soon as possible.

What do you say Paul, you think we can get it all up and running in two weeks. Paul was already on his feet. Oh yes. What does that make it. How about the seventh of November, we’ve got nothing on. November seven suit you. Nothing sooner. That’d be the earliest to tell the truth. Mobled. What. November seven. Paul said your commission was twenty two percent. Did he. That sounds a bit high. Doesn’t it. Why don’t we say fourteen percent. Who pays the removalists’ fees. You do. We do.

We do. Alright. November seven then. It’s agreed. Bloody cold for this time of year. All round nodding. Excellent. Well it was truly a pleasure, very kind of you to have us, considering. Thank you for the bubbly. Really charming. Rare such a warm reception. Don’t usually find ourselves in a partie carrée. Paul.

Right.

Well, thank you, goodbye. We’ll be in touch about the removalists. Thank you. ’Bye. Goodbye. ’Bye ’bye. Which way do I turn this. ’Bye for now. Eliza shut the door behind them and sank towards the carpet. Floorboards. There was never any carpet. We looked at. I checked out the window. Are we going to see them again. I don’t know. Our glasses may deceive us in many things. Look what I found in these pants. Eliza crossed to the divan, reached under a seat cushion and dug out the cash for the bookcase, then she thumbed through it twice before letting it patter into a neat stack on that no longer perennial surface for our affairs next to a meniscus of spilt champagne and the champagne cork. Rising like a candle flame buried in the wood. Following her lead I got a tea towel from the kitchen and squilgeed up the mess then I threw the tea towel in the bin. Outside the traffic was building, or had been, once upon a time. Here we go. It’s possible you may be losing your head. Or your handes. That would be a decorous exergue to the principle of separation. Offering baskets of Dead Sea fruit in a cephalophoric procession, on a pier glass. Make way for the square world development. What did I say about lifting apart I seem to recall that was better. Robbed at the Foule Oke. High above the future tumult I straightened my stockings if I hadn’t started ripping my hair out by the roots already, rhetorically. Forget it it’s too late now. In the meantime Eliza had packed the rest of her thing. We came face to face again in the living room. Well. Don’t forget your toothbrush. Some modern touches here and there. Avast. Yes, the stink, that was it. Ab asse. Secreuit. An accepted conceit. Give it back sharper. Pirite’s life for. Never thought to mention the little dents in all the silver. White mane in the coudé. Ripples gone. Pinguis Phrygiae. Hollow bosome. Naught but smelted cannonry and walnut if you ignore the rest. Not to mention my honest cure. It was a flat stone. Thought I’d lost it years ago. See if I can’t garble this with a little thoroughness. Got gloop in my eye, unless that’s the brain evaporating. Make me a rainbow. No, then here I am but tract of something with empty purse above the buried currents, smooth again as the in the oblivious dawn, penitent at least a bit. I think that will do mucking the galley. All these pins and needles almost make you want to jump back off the tortoise I mean the ship of immemorial ivory, go down and then what ah, balanda, this must be the capricious end to photocopying in the dictionary, hack, what, dropsey, I mean the company name, no such thing as clean linen, the false rod runneth under the surly fell of cold, cold dealing if not dissed up to prick the winding sheets, the surd slugs, adhere strictly to the damp in general, sure you were dreamin’ anyhow to count on lacin’ it ’round with your coils the accursed Thing and draggin’ it whole from the hornblende couch or your boke of excelsior or whatever, to whop a stillborn metaphor, supposing if you weren’t stuck here between the media threshing vnderstories for what, der, interrest, it might have been worth something. Obviously not to be transferred. Well. Throws some light on the other fantasmagora. Had a large feeld to ere. Gotta. N. Forth the remnant, no. Moss. Will have it all down soon, the worst of both worlds, unless of course it is there in front of you already on the tip, the right word, on the vanished dustheaps of your abiding haunts. Our templum with its oblique visitors. On solids at least you keep running over your own horseshit footsteps, lutaceous enough to sling behind you but softly on Her heels or She’ll kick you in the. N. Ouch. A more appropriate crop for analysis. This bird guts herself. Must be a comfort in cacology you don’t get from the other especially when it comes up this way with all your secret assets. Still impossible apparently to loosen the chain of. Eliza crossed her arms, eyed the fascicle of withered banknotes on the occasional table and no doubt glanced in my direction. Og in my froat. Ife been serfed! Now then.