Exorcism

I met Lee at the Art College in the early afternoon. It was bright and sunny and he showed me the work he’s been doing, which isn’t like ‘work’ at all. He’s painting Japanese soldier figures with photographic emulsion and exposing them, trying to get all the light and dark tones to reproduce themselves via the emulsion, but so far it hasn’t worked. He’s got a darkroom to himself, and works all day until evening.

We went for a walk round Watermouth and ended up at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, on Seaview Crescent near Maynard Park. We were drawn to it because of it’s sheer size: vertical walls tower into the clear sky as high as the average church steeple, and if you stand right at the foot of them you have to lean backwards to see the top.

Inside it was quiet and hushed, the vast chamber cowing us to low whispers, the traffic and city tumult dying to a distant, unimportant murmur. Everything about the church was massive, the altar a great marble edifice, framed by an archway and two giant candles, one at either side. The gaudy altar struck me somehow as crude and ‘idolatrous’ (if I can say this without sounding too Protestant—is this my ‘conditioning’ speaking I wonder?) High on one end wall, opposite a huge stained-glass window, was an enormous cross. Even the normally irreverent Lee was impressed enough to put a simple “amazing” in the visitor’s book.

Later on, we went to Shelley’s ‘party,’ held at 6 Jubilee Street. She’s moving out and Shawn is moving in: he’s living in Penny’s room at the moment with the Girl herself, and Shelley is moving in with her Kentucky Fried Chicken pals; she apparently wants to do more work for her course and thinks living with them will give her a settled routine. Shelley seemed quite touched that everyone had made the effort to show up, and I think she was surprised. Rowan was there too; I’d met Lindsey and Susie on my way to the off licence and after going to the pub’ for half-an-hour we found Rowan sitting on the doorstep of No. 28, under the impression that everyone was out. She’d been given the wrong address.

The party was really just an evening sat round drinking and talking and listening to the meagre selection of tapes on hand. Rowan and I gravitated towards one another: I’m such a sucker for punishment, but I can’t resist the fascination of Rowan, and the usual tête-à-tête developed.

We exorcised the strangenesses of last term and she apologized for her behaviour then. I told her that I felt I’d been taken for a ride and that she and Kate had been laughing at me behind my back and I’m certain of it now for what she said was a virtual admission. What I’d known all along had been proved true. She and her puppet Kate cackling at my feeblenesses while I cried myself to sleep. I will not repeat those mistakes again. She apologized and apologized, begging me to forgive her and coming out with all the usual crap. I know now that I’m well and truly back.

 I didn’t want to leave . . . everyone was there and I didn’t want to leave . . . but finally in the small hours of the morning, Barry, Ade, Stu and I dragged ourselves away and drove home.