The Barber and the Tramp

After awaiting more kind words from the war zone, something I suspect I will have to cease talking about shortly, I left the artist by the wall in the living room working on her latest piece. I then walked with a kind of studious but uncomfortable gait under what I call the city's biggest sky - it is across a vast and urban stretch of grass pocked only with crows and history - before dipping through the shops and houses by the station and having a haircut. Only the first woman who began cutting my hair cut her finger so badly she couldn't continue and another woman eventually had to take over. Beforehand, blood kept pouring from this poor woman's index finger, and as I was the only person in the shop with her at the time, I felt especially responsible. With one of those ridiculous hairdresser's sheets still across me, I quickly turned on the tap and asked the poor woman - by now threatening to faint - to sit down and place her finger under the tap, which I now had running with lots of cold water. As she sat there as pale as a ghost, diluted blood spun its bright red and irritably cheerful way down the plughole. I gave her lots of paper toweling to shore up the blood. But when her colleague eventually arrived back - from the bank apparently - there wasn't a great deal of love lost, I noticed, and even less sympathy. I did what I could to patch up the enmity, as well as the wound, and proceeded to have my hair, as well as my faith, 'repaired'. An auspicious start to the day, I thought. It didn't end there, either. I caught a train into the centre. As it drawled into its final destination, I saw a woman at the end of the platform. She was standing there perfectly still with a large hand-painted sign emblazoned in red with the word 'FORGIVE' . I disembarked, baffled and bemused, and walked silently through the crowds. I was almost ready for anything now. As it happened, there was a film premier being set up and large banners with the faces of the stars staring down. Now, it just so happened that I knew one of the people in the film before they were famous and I think I half-expected to bump into them, given the sort of strange day I was having. Added to which was the fact the film was set many years ago in the war zone when indeed I was briefly there, too. Just as I was looking up at this person's giant reproduced face, I slammed into someone by mistake. It was like a thump. It couldn't be, could it? No. Instead of it being one of the biggest movie stars of recent times, it was in fact a friendly-faced tramp in a worn and patched tweed jacket with an ancient rucksack on his back. 'I do apologise,' he said, most courteously. 'No,' I said. 'I apologise.' And with that we bowed and bade each other good day. Now, I doubt they'll have had courtesy like that at the premier. Not when the paps are out and the scrums are ripe and the glitz is big and vulgar. Anyway, the artist was still working when I returned. 'How was it?' she asked, trying to get used to the haircut. 'Fine,' I said. 'I got your materials.'

A Hard Day's Night

The artist slept deeply beside me. Knowing her, she was probably dreaming about the new piece on the wall, unfestering, already certain, autonomous, but the body at least was enjoying some kind of respite. It needed it. I could hear the children in their room too. They were also sleeping: their sigh-like breathing and occasional small splutter drifting water-like across the small bay of the flat. It was like something conspicuously unpainted, our little scene. The new and slightly imposing security light from the next door garden sent shadows across the window's one wooden blind, as a long branch waved with might not indignation in the nocturnal wind. I couldn't sleep but was not restless. I could see our four selves as if on camera from high above - an overhead shot of a sleeping mostly family - and was reminded that much that is beautiful in life is often unwitnessed. It is a serious business this life thing, too. I like to think I am at ease with it, but it is not always easy being a father and husband, and I am still awaiting news of a possible posting abroad. (I have been waiting so long now I feel like it has all been sent to test me.) But at least I have in my way been fortifying the artist's spirit, in between raised hopes and baffled patience. This fortifying is important. It is also fundamental. It is not easy, I imagine, being an artist at the best of times. But to be a great one does and will involve sacrifice. That the artist makes what she does seem like no sacrifice at all is to her enormous credit. But there are sacrifices. She does not for example indulge in a normal person's idea of recreation. She is not a zombie to whatever life in the form of a weakened culture throws at her. For her, any time not spent mothering is time that could be spent working. When some of the other mothers complain of exhaustion, I always think of the artist, and of what she goes through. At least the artist's work is good. It would be a nightmare if I loved this person and the work was bad. The love would be fine but the horizon would feel less worldly. No, I have said this before but the more I am familiar with the new work, the more I am convinced it is very serious. I fell asleep eventually. I must have, otherwise I wouldn't be living this dream.