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I

NIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone A balcony ran around the rooht I could sent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing guirls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in reen-streaked hair Dances would have been held there; the ered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of druarlandsball of ht

There was old sex in the roo without a shape or na that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the s lot, or in the television room wit

h the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh

We yearned for the future How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an afterthought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in roith spaces between so we could not talk We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said us We folded our clothes neatly and laid thehts were turned down but not out Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts

No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns Guns were for the guards, specially picked fro except when called, and eren't allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us They were objects of fear to us, but of so else as well If only they would look If only we could talk to theht, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies That was our fantasy

We learned to whisper almost without sound In the semi-darkness we could stretch out our ar, and touch each other's hands across space We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's ed names, from bed to bed:

Alma Janine Dolores Moira June

II

SHOPPING

CHAPTER TWO

A chair, a table, a la, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the centre of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out Thereyou could tie a rope to

A o white curtains Under the indow seat with a little cushion When theis partly open - it only opens partly - the air can come in and make the curtains move I can sit in the chair, or on theseat, hands folded, and watch this Sunlight coh thetoo, and falls on the floor, which is hly polished I can s on the floor, oval, of braided rags This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, s that have no further use A return to traditional values Waste not want not I a wasted Why do I want?