Bill watches his reflection
ripple, thinks ‘who’s this? Cellar for psyche, fingers for toes, looks like trouble’. The NHS (bless) pontificate every inkling: depersonalisation, derealisation, lucid dreamer to gatecrasher aghast. So he sits in early cogitation, brushing evening off a cracking pair of suede strollers - thumb meets fabric the way a cat’s tongue greets a fingertip. I visit, we amble along Hoylake beachfront -
we’re just getting to know one and other; in place of pretence there’s the wagging tails of tussling dogs, cardboard-coloured dunes and a joint commentary. Scuffling shadows move like dance partners engaged in a waltz, which soon transcends into salsa. This mode of horseplay marks the lifelong camaraderie of a lab and a collie (the sort I’m secretly hoping for).
Before the - out-of-puff - pair head home for supper, their big-bellied owner, whilst whistling consonants, delivers us a nod; the capillaries in his cheeks, red as rowan berries, popped like bubble wrap. There’s no two-ways about it, here’s a kind man: gets home, lays a fist-full of crisp coppers on the mantel, begins making tea - pot boiled, with intermittent prattling to the dogs, now busy licking themselves.
Hoylake, too, boasts a stunning crop of sea-birds, fantastic stippled feather coats but glum as soldiers, girding, on the eve of Normandy. I don’t mention this to Bill, who’s very similar to Hoylake: winds a little brackish, charming as a bedtime story, waves that tumble (sometimes roar) and an underground tunnel - where brilliant flashes interrupt dark and spooky spells.
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