73

His Girl Friday

Comme elle était trés lourde, ils la portaient alternativement
– Gustave Flaubert, “Hérodias”


You want it always to be night, and always to be winter. Why? It’s comforting to look out on the dark, see the streetlights burning on bare walls and pavements, feel liberated from the pressure of crowds. Then again, it’s good to wrap up warmly against the cold, feel insulated, wrapped in endless layers of padding. You never want to feel the sun again.

The insomniac is the total loner. As the hours go by, companions, activities, distractions, occupations all drop off, leaving him face to face – or her, for that matter – with whatever’s waiting out there in the darkness.

Tonight you woke up with a start to see a strange face floating beside your bed – but the room was strange as well. She, too, appeared to have mistaken her way. She was pale, with a frieze of straw-blonde hair. You closed your eyes. When you opened them again, she’d vanished.

Which leads you (of course) to question whether she was ever there at all. Probably not. In any case, whatever she was, strayed reveller, hallucination, fever dream, ghost, manuka goddess, muse, she has – it seems – removed your only chance of sleep.

Time to get up again and shuffle the cards for inspiration …

GREATER

TRUMPS

78

Gris-Gris

She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror of all
– Graham Greene, Brighton Rock.


The worst horror of all. English class.

Natasha is a little monkey, a 12-yr-old Kop [Korean princess]. A proto-vamp, tight-jeaned and platform-heeled, she spends each weekend working in the family fruit shop (you almost wrote “sweat shop”). Her voice seldom descends below a supercharged whine. In a year or two she will arise to scourge the male race. In the meantime she is content to practise on you.

Joo Li is more Garbo-esque: sullen, half-aggressive, uncooperative. She’s Natasha’s shadow, her anti-self, her complement – less semi-self-consciously sensual, more defiantly hostile and bored.

Dong Hoon is a fat bright stolid boy. Relentlessly mocked by the girls, he maintains the Korean male’s ineluctable self-confident charm / arrogance.

Collectively, they’re the Crack Babies. You tutor them every Tuesday and Thursday night for two and a half hours, of which only the first hour and a half can be filled with vague attempts at conversation and grammar. The last hour is always games.

Tonight they have struggled through the present perfect (“Have you ever … eaten a crocodile?” “No, I have never eaten a crocodile” “Have you ever … swum in the sea?” “Yes, I have often swum in the sea”), and a few rounds of Taboo, and are looking bored, with half an hour to go before you can decently dismiss them.

“This is really boring,” shrieks Natasha.

“Do you want to play another game?”

“Not if it’s stupid.”

“It’s a dream-game.”

Against their will, you can see a little interest appearing. They might be willing to give it a go, at least.

“What’s it about?”

“You’ll have to close your eyes, and listen to me. Picture what I describe to you. You’re in a forest, walking through the trees. Look around, and get a