Invitations

No, sorry, not that sort.

It's becoming more and more difficult to maintain the facade at "work". There really is nothing left. So, betwixt (OK, amid) lessons, I often find myself dreaming of Doyley-as-hermit. Now, I know some of you, especially one who works in a fruit-shop, would immediately respond with: "Well, you have the external trappings". However, that's no real comfort, though the levity (um, you are being levitous, aren't you?) is welcome.

Anyway, as I was saying, I imagine the isolation, the quiet, the view from my cave over gentle bushland, birds silhouetted... etc, etc. Of course, the cave is equipped with broadband access, a bountiful cellar of decent reds, my libraries of books and music. Oh, and Esteemed Spouse, of course.

Actually, no. My hermitage would more likely be on a busy street, say... um, totally at random... Enmore Road. Opposite a cafe, perhaps, where corseted Russian women served strong coffee that Toby himself would be proud of. A random thought, you understand. And if a stationery shop was nearby... but I go too far.

Of course, I live in the real world, and though dreams are healthy, they are nought but dreams. So I find myself here. No poor substitute, this campfire (or its previous incarnation) has in the past attracted a few visitors who have become important parts of my life. I'm sure they didn't realise how important. (Though if anyone has given consideration to why one indulges oneself here and not with face-to-face interactions, perhaps they do realise how important their visits here have been.)

Linda, (and very occasionally Stella); Billy; MJ (from South America!); darling Louisa, my Paddington ghost who will always be here; my sweet sister Lea. There have been others, but none so close or constant.

Now, at this rekindled campfire, I wonder who I would invite if I had the chance. Apart from you, of course.

Tonight, having had my glass of red, I'm inclining towards poets...

Gilmore. What an interesting woman. And used to campfires, I think.

Scott. Margaret, not Sir Wally. Drag her away from her husband for a moment to suffer my adulation and gratitude.

Rilke. Yes, Rilke. I found him two years ago in a book of letters to one of his lovers, Salome. Then I found his poems. Now I'm going to see Stephanie Dowrick talk about him on the 30th.

Brennan, just to hear him read "The Wander". I'll cope (just) if he's been drinking - he's not family.

Plath. No, perhaps not. She's not a campfire type and besides, what if she does a turn?

Whitman, to prove all Americans - even the patriotic ones - are not shits.

Peake, Auden, Eliot, Dobson, Owen, dear Shaw Neilson. A dozen recent Oz women. Goodness, so many.

And as the eyelash-moon grows faint, when the fire is crowded around and alcohol has swollen my knots-in-cotton muscles to ruffian brawn, I'd summon Hughes. Politely I'd offer him a cup of red, then gently shackle his arms and legs with barbed-wire manacles and ask him, at the point of a poisoned barb, just what it was like at the end. Not his, but hers. How he felt. What responsibility he took. How the guilt played upon him until he died. Whether all those animal poems were subconscious recognition of his own sub-human, brute-state. Whether he understood why I hated all men like him, to whom women are inevitably, fatally, attracted... Oops. Sorry, that last bit was just my own insecurities surfacing. Ignore that.

Hmm. It's now 10.32pm. Esteemed Spouse has once already asked if I'm to come to bed. 'Tis time indeed, or else these eyes will bloodshot greet the day and childish jests be met with frowns and temper foul.

I needs must go. And so 'til next we meet before this warming fire, farewell.

Erg.