Frozen River

I bought new blister plasters from a chemist in Soho.
Got to LBC Towers ripped off the old elastic bandaids and replaced them with my newly minted cushioned one.
Oh the joy of being flat-footed again.
Coming home on the tube I positively smiled as I shuffled along with the rest of the great unwashed. No more hobbling or limping for me.
After work I met up with Jayne an ex make-up artist of mine. She has aubergine hair, white skin and the most exquisite wolf-like blue eyes, she looks like a Japanese/Caucasion Geisha, it’s lovely sitting oppostie her.
We talked about her love life, it was not easy.

So many of the young folk I know are going through the mill. Destructive, brutal, endings.Jayne left the coffee shop whiter than when she came in but I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know.
As I write Bee is on the sofa. Siddhhi is in the spare room, a dear little thing from Germany, and Jim is in our 4’6″ bed. This week we are in receipt of a new 6 footer which my wonderful landlord is donating to us. I can’t wait.
The reason that the girl is on the couch is because she too has been in the midddle of chaos for the past three weeks.
First she had suspicions about Nathan. Then she had confirmation. Her heart was splintered into a thousand tiny pieces. Trust shattered. She scraped a 2:2 degree despite handling one domestic flair up after another. His shennigans lost her her flat, a deal of money, and very nearly her sense of self. As in all good romances her friends came to the rescue. They told her he was a loser, that he was no good. But he had a charm and a quality that Jim and I took to and still miss. He had a quiet side that when nurtered revealed a beautiful boy. He was too selfish though, and in the end his duplicity caught up with him. Of course it is the stuff of B movies, which is okay when you are ancient like me but devastating when you are 22.
The cottage is full of her last two years of life, from books, cd’s, trainers and thirty thousand track suits, to a kitchen full of making house. I’m encouragng her to travel light, she needs to create a life without the boy, to hold on to the moments of truth, of which there weren’t many.
She has a father who is supportive and funny, he makes her laugh. I’ve been through the pain with her and tried not to let my sadness get in the way of hers after all its her drama not mine.
Tonight she was writing in the living room whilst Jim and I sat and watched a DVD of a new film called FROZEN RIVER. It didn’t work on the DVD player so we had to watch it on the computer. A powerful film by Courtney Hunt, a female writer and director, about motherhood, smuggling, pain, loss and friendships gained. Shot in upstate New York the frozen river was the centre of the film, a metaphor for two women skating on thin ice to protect their children and chilled hearts that are eventually thawed. Jim sat on a wooden stool I on my office chair, yes it was uncomfortable but we hardly moved. It was rivetting.
It.s 1.30 a.m. I’m not tired but the flat is asleep.
Bee is recouping here for a bit and then she’ll be off on her life.
Jim opens in two weeks and I really need to get on with my writing but it feels like the storm is now over. Actually I’ve wanted Bee to knock it on the head with Nathan since November 2007 but we’ve all had to wait patiently for her to catch up with what we all saw from the very beginning. You can take a horse to water etc…. I wouldn’t wish for it any other way though, like all creatives Bee’s chosen the hard route, after all good songs aren’t writen about settling down with a mortgage in Chertsy.
Of course it’s been tricky and now that its over I could do with a hefty chunk of cheese cake, a whole round of Bannoffi pie, a bowl of Eton Mess and a landfill of home-made custard, but I’ll just have to make do with blogging about it because all I have in the fridge is a ton of leafy vegetables which are good for the body but about as much use to me now as a chocolate tea-pot – which actually wouldn’t be a bad idea I could start on the spout and work my way round to the lid – oh go to bed.
Night night.