Vice Verse Love
PART ONE
Chapter 1 Vice Verse Love
April 2003
I want to go home. Home, home. I am tired of foreigners, of cold rain, of barren corporate receptions where my music is a part of the background elegance.
I wish I had worn shoes with a hard, high, heel. If I had on those shoes they would strike against the tiles in this railway station and make loud and powerful noises. I need to slam against something and make myself unmistakably felt. These soft soles don’t help me in this mood.
I also yearn for heat to touch my skin. I don’t mind if every striking day is hot. Give me the burning sun and warm wind, and torrential rain. I tell myself that it will soon be over; it must. The last four years of my life seem like dust…isn’t this the correct platform? Yes it is! So why are all the people walking away? Where is the train? It was supposed to be waiting here already. What is going on? Let me listen to the p.a. system ….oh give me a break! This is supposedly one of the most efficient countries on earth and they make a little drop of rain hold up the train service? What if they had hurricanes that cause land to break away from mountains? God I hate this country! I hate the little apartment that I am going to tonight, I hate train stations! What was I thinking of when I married Nils? Why didn’t people warn me that it was stupid? Why didn’t my mother be her usual overbearing self and stop me from getting married and living clear across the Atlantic at 21 years old? Why am I torturing myself when I know all the answers? I need to calm down, go outside, get a coffee somewhere on the Dam Rac, and just hold myself together and wait.
I will never get used to these bright, late spring evenings that refuse to just release the day and be night. I think I prefer bright days, liquid orange evenings, that fade blue-grey to black nights. It’s raining as usual, so my next move is to look for an abandoned umbrella, there is usually a few about. I see a long grey one that someone thought was too cumbersome to take on a train, so I exit to the street and push it open before deciding which direction to go and wait.
Left? Right? Left? I should have paid more attention when Nils took me around this town. Why am I looking right into the face of a man? No this is not good, there is a man looking like he stepped out of a rap video blocking me and trying to talk to me. Dear God I hope it is not one of those drug addicts…Him sound Jamaican to rahted!
“What do you want?”
“How about thanks. Is my umbrella that.”
So I have stolen his umbrella, what did he leave it lying around for if he wanted it? I felt no remorse and held on to the handle a bit more tightly - willing him to give it to me.
“Oh. Sorry, it is just that people leave these things around all the time. Here it is.”
“Is alright you can tek it…”
That was fine by me! So what was the point of stopping me then if he never wanted back the thing? I try to mumble thanks and excuse myself around him, but he is still blocking me! Well not exactly blocking me, but trying to say something else.
“What’s the matter?”
I had to say that sharply so that he knows that my accepting the umbrella is not a passport to getting friendly.
“Ah heard you suck your teeth and Ah say to myself, is a Jamaican that,” he said.
“Really, I didn’t even know that I was doing that. It’s probably because I am a bit frustrated with the weather and my train has been delayed. Yes, I am Jamaican.”
I start shifting along, gathering my coat more closely to strongly imply that the interlude is over.
“You want a taxi?”
This is not good. He is following me! Well, not really following, just walking beside me like we were companions.
“No, I’m just going for a coffee and wait for half-an-hour.”
“Ah coming with you. My train not leaving for another two hours.”
What a nuff man! Why he thinks that I want to be in his company? I need to ditch him.
“Well…I was going to find a fast food place. Amsterdam isn’t exactly New York. There aren’t that many places that open late on a Sunday night.”
“Ah know,” he smiled and nodded.
“Do you live in Amsterdam?”
“No, passing through. What about you?”
“We…Here we are. Oh, we got lucky, there is usually a queue in here.”
“Queue? You living in Europe for a while.”
“Yes…what are you having?”
“A soda. Go sit down man, relax you foot little. I’ll get our order.”
“Fine, I’m going to sit over by the window.”
I carefully lean the umbrella on the wall beside my seat, slowly removed the scarf, took off my light coat and put it at the back of the chair, and sat down trying to understand why I was feeling more relaxed than I did a few minutes ago.
I had company on wet evening. Male company on a wet, miserable evening when I am dog tired and not in a good mood. Come hell or high water I am not going back to Nils. I’ll work out something for Tineke. She will be better off here until I get sorted out.
My companion came back with a steaming mug of coffee and a cool soda for himself…. laughing at me?
“What’s so funny?”
“Ah watching you. You no deh here.”
“I hate fast food coffee, but it is hot and will help to make me feel better.”
“You not feeling good?”
“It’s been a rough day and I want to just come off the road.”
“Where you living?”
“Living…our house is in…I live in Almere.”
“Don’t know it.”
“That means that you don’t live in the Netherlands at all. It’s like the Dutch version of Portmore. Where are you based?”
“UK right now. I come over for business. Mind you splash yourself!”
“Oh. Thanks. I am tired. I really should not be drinking coffee right now.”
“You don’t look tired. Ah thought that you were on your way out to have a good time.”
“Ha!”
“No, it’s true. When you did walk with my umbrella Ah seh to myself that the people you were going to meet would be happy when you reach.”
“What a way you mouth sweet! What business did you say that you were in?”
“Just business.”
He is a true Jamaican. Look how he swirls his coffee around as if it needs mixing. What thick fingers, strong… and so many rings….and that is good jewellery, I know quality. That is several thousand dollars of bling. I wonder if he has any more under his coat and sweater. But hold on, he did not answer my question. He too feisty!
“Asking someone about their line of business is not being faas. It is quite normal; even for strangers.”
He calmly answered me.
“Ah just do a lot of things around, you know. Little entertainment and little other things. So what bout you?”
He just said that so casual like. Well, it does not matter. I will not see him again after the next half-hour so I’ll just leave it alone.
“I…work…in entertainment as well.”
“You is a model?”
“You are so funny. Do I look like any kind of model?”
“Well, you have a point. Models over here more skinny than anything, but in Jamaica you could be a model. So what’s your area?”
“My occupation? It’s music. I’m a pianist.”
“You play keyboard?”
“I can play a keyboard; but I am a trained concert pianist, so my specialty is chamber music…I play on grand pianos.”
Redundant, I know, but for someone like him who is clearly unexposed I felt that I needed to make a distinction between the two instruments.
“Were you working tonight?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Just yes?”
“You were not exactly very forthcoming with your personal data.”
“You talk like you is a foreigner. Not a Jamaican.”
“All right then. You want Jamaican, I will give you Jamaican. Why you feel me haffi tell you anything when you don’t say squat ’bout yourself?”
“Fair enough. Well, whatever you were doing, Ah wish Ah was there to watch. Ah could watch you all night.”
This is crazy. Here is a stranger telling me a load of foolishness and I am smiling. It feels good to have someone pay attention to me without judging me. I hope that he waits with me until my train comes. Jeezam, I only have ten minutes to spare! I get up.
“It is about time for me to get back to the station.”
Good, it looks like he is prepared to walk back with me.
“You know, Ah come here nuff, nuff time and never meet nobody yet. You is the first.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Is true. Ah mean, Ah meet people in business, but you are the first that Ah just meet like that. To God, I don’t know why I follow you. No, I must be honest, Ah know. You just had a style that made you stand out…and the way that you pick up my umbrella…Ah had was to laugh.”
“OK. I got caught, and you were a gentleman about it. Well, I go up to my platform from here.”
But he still kept in step with me.
“All right.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“So what? Ah can’t wait with you?”
“I am just saying that I can take care of myself.”
“Then Ah nuh must see that? Ah just want to stretch out our evening some more…Ah like you, and Ah might never see you again.”
A few minutes ago this old train station was nothing more than an impersonal – though undoubtedly grand building; but now, in the sapphire evening veiled by an icy curtain of rain, it seems like a fairy castle. I look down and see hundreds of pairs of feet striding across the ornate mosaic going in every direction. I imagine that all these people are rushing home to their families, people that love them, and suddenly, I do not want to go home. Home? I don’t have a home anymore. I would have probably just started crying if Grandma Lulu’s voice did not fill my mind. She always said that a lady must have a clean kerchief and I did not at that moment. I grabbed my scarf and did a quick swipe across my nose and prepared to ell this man goodbye.
“OK here is my stop. The train should be here in another minute.”
“How comes your husband not waiting on you at home?”
“How did you…what makes you think that I am married?”
“A woman like you must have a man. What happen? Him gone abroad?”
I can’t lose control…why is he feeling me out there? I can’t think about that right now, I was beginning to enjoy myself.
“Excuse me, who gave you permission to pry into my life.”
That did not come out right, I sounded so weak.
“Is alright baby. Not every man blind like him. Just remember that…so why you walking off? What Ah do you?”
I must not cry. I must not cry!
“I don’t even know your name…”
“Donovan Elliott. But Ah want you to call me Cory.”
The tears start coming. If I turn away the train and the crowd will hide them. He won’t notice if I blink hard.
“Cory…I am cold.”
“Ah can’t hear you, the train coming in making too much noise….Oh, you upset with something. Relax and rest your head right here. Hush man. Ah holding you. Don’t feel no way baby. Just let it out. It’s your right….Ah won’t leave you… sit down and let me just open my jacket so that you can put your head on my sweater...Ah will ride with you to your end.”
I should be embarrassed, but I am not. I have been fighting with Nils and crying on and off for weeks. After every episode though, I felt a little stronger about what it is that I want to do with my life; but I also felt physically weak and more dissatisfied than the time before. I want this pain and the frustration to stop and tonight crying on the chest of a total stranger is helping me to shed some of my pain and need more of what he has to give. I want this night to go on.
“Where I am going is about 20 minutes walk from here.”
“And you walk it by yourself in the night?”
“It is nearly summer, so it isn’t dark and this is the Netherlands, so it is safe.”
“Still…Ah glad Ah come with you. Ladies should not be out alone like this…you never know.”
“I don’t really live here…it is my friend’s studio…she comes back in a couple of days…and I’ll be gone.
I open the door and feel for the wall switch and turn on the light. After the fairytale blue of the train station and the smooth numbing ride over in warm arms, the switch from the dark apartment to seeing it in bright light was jarring. My friend specialises in African art and artefacts that represents life. Bold prints, animal skins, grotesque wooden carvings and masks outfit the place like ghouls; but above them all is the intoxicating, overly sweet scent of blooming Hyacinthus. They are on the ledge beside the window, and having been locked inside the air is heavy with their aroma, like an invisible incense. I crack the window open and talk to him over my shoulder as a relieving cool air creeps in.
“As you can see, my friend likes everything African.”
“She is a African?”
“No, Jamaican, but she is really into African culture. Some Milo?”
“How you know that Ah like Milo?”
“You come from Jamaica. It is either that or Horlicks. I’ll have it in two minutes. Feel free to have a look round.”
“Ah more interested in you, than your friend’s African art. What kind of music you play? Come sit down beside me, and tell me.”
Not on your life buddy. I need to stay in control.
“What kind of music do you like Corey?”
“Mostly oldies, ska, reggae and soul. When Ah was little there was a sound system where we lived that played oldies once or twice a week, and Ah got to like it from that time.”
“Reggae is nothing for me to play. I hope that the Milo is sweet enough for you. As I told you, I am a concert pianist.”
“What that is?”
“I play what people call classical music as a solo performer or as a part of an orchestra.”
“Oh, you are an artiste. Mek me see your hand dem.”
I hesitate only a moment to wonder what his exploring fingers would be like. His arms were comforting but the way that I feel now, I am sure if I even touch his sweater and feel the muscles underneath I will melt. His hands are coming closer to mine, if he touches my fingers with his own flesh, even with the tips of his fingers it will burn and that fire will consume me; I will lose control.
“Them big!”
Idiot. Give him a big, fat zero for seduction. That was not the sweet talk that I was expecting. Let me take back my hand; but I can’t he is holding it too firmly. He is stroking the webs of my fingers with his and they are firm and strong and driving me out of my mind. We are no longer in this country with magical fairy tale blue skies. We are in a tropical jungle. I see the animals peering out from the bushes. I smell the scent of slowly ripening fruit and the acrid scent of the vines that we crushed beneath our feet. There are people around us, their masks, fearsome and attractive, suspend the rules and masquerade. The drums are calling. Calling and getting a response in a steady two-step. Their collective heartbeats have deep texture, moving from andante to agitato – or is that the feel of my own heartbeat pounding out a heavy rhythm, calling for another heartbeat to answer? Father in heaven, if I don’t keep talking I am going to lose my grip on reality. I see my fingers spread out by his.
“My fingers have to be like that in order to stretch across the octaves. I practice every day.”
“But your hands dem also soft. Come tired hand and pretty face. Lie on my chest likkle bit.”
Don’t speak, listen to the drums. Let us make them our master.
We slept together last night. He has given me the filling and the release that I never knew that I needed. In the dark it left me feeling weak and soft; but this morning I am totally satisfied and powerful. Incredible! Here is a man who I would not have even given the time of day under normal circumstances. He looks all right, but all of that jewellery just screams ghetto fabulous. And the way he speaks! Even my father’s gardeners sound more educated. Yet, I can’t deny that when he opened his mouth and I heard the Jamaican patois coming at me last night, I just felt so comforted. I must miss home a lot, but even putting that aside…he seems nice. The way that he just kept my company and seemed interested in me; it felt really good. His mouth sweet, yes; and he is into this baby, baby, baby talk. No man; not Nils, not anyone, has paid me this level of undivided attention in a very long time. I needed it. Look at him sleep. He looks so relaxed. His skin is just like mine. What Grandma Lulu used to say? “Warm and smooth like chocolate tea.” Hair is coarse like wire brush on my skin; that was exciting. I wonder if he works out a lot? His body is firm and slim. He must have been a little rogue, look at the scars on his legs and arms, and he has a long cut on his neck. I haven’t seen it yet because it was under his turtleneck last night and we made love in the dark, but I felt it under my fingers, just like how the cold of his necklace chilled my skin. How tall is he? Taller than me, and I am 186 cm…so that would make him about 192/195 perhaps. Nils is 206. No I will not let Nils into this little interlude. Come on girl! Forget Nils!
This morning’s blue sky is so different from last night, it is so pale and delicate. Just like how I feel now, strong and delicate. Last night I hated everything and was so miserable. Now I am floating in a cool ocean of light. I have Cory beside me and he is the one that is making me feel good. I am not sure what I feel good about, but I am not going to spend too much time questioning it. I leave for London on Wednesday, that’s in three days. I wonder where he was going last night? Hopefully he is leaving the country today. I do not need any more complications right now. So it is bye, bye. God, if Gillian ever knew…face it, if she knew she would be happy for me. I am moving on with my life, thank God! I am over Nils, who would have thought that it would be so easy. Hello! I have the recipe to getting over a bad relationship. A nice hardcore Jamaican man. Make no mistake that Cory is hardcore Jamaican. I’ve never known anybody like him….not as a friend anyway. He must know that I am looking at him because he is waking up.
“You have to get up now baby?”
“No…but it is Monday morning Cory…you don’t have a business day to get moving on?”
“Yes and no. I work on my own time today. Ah don’t want to get in your way, so Ah can start getting ready to go now.”
“Well…I am not rushing you…I just wanted you to know the time.”
“Which is?”
“Which is what?”
“You were going to let me know the time. Ah like it when you smile. You need to smile more often.”
“I can’t help it, you make me smile Cory. It is 7:30a.m. already.”
“We have some time, so come here and tell me about yourself, nuh. Plus Ah want to touch your hair. Tell me where you got it from.”
“My hair? Well, that would have to be from my grandmother on my father’s side.”
My hair is like hers, coarse. But I creamed mine flat, while she always keeps hers natural so that when she combs it, it was thick and bushy around her head and shoulders. But she always wore it styled with hairnets and pins. A real proper lady she is. They say that out of her children and grandchildren, I am the most like her in looks. She was a housewife and a music lover. My mother blames her for brainwashing me, but Grandma Lulu was my best friend.”
That’s what we call my father’s mother; her real name is Lucille Treasure, and she married Grandpa Marcus Waltham. Grandma loves music and could play the piano by ear, she could also whistle and imitate the sound of any bird in the bush; but not many people knew that because, as you know, ladies do not whistle. She realized pretty early on that I also had a talent for music and took me under her wing. Mummy was happy at first that Grandma Lulu could always be relied on to take care of me, but when I became a teenager and faced my school exams my mother made me drop dancing and music and concentrate on my subjects. I thought that I was going to die, but Grandma Lulu had a secret side and she just told me to let my mother think that she was getting her own way, and she paid for my music exams all the same. Whenever I visited her house she played recordings from the masters and I practiced with them. I passed with distinction and never breathed a word of it at home. Then I applied to schools abroad and when they called for me to do auditions Grandma Lulu told my parents that she had to go on a little trip here or there and wanted me for company. That is how I ended up getting an offer for a school in Germany.
My mother was usually more focused on her work, but when we presented her with the fait accompli, she took time off to really deal with my case properly. She quarrelled for days. My father was also a bit upset, but more upset that we had kept a secret that big from him. My parents and I had to come to a compromise because although my academics were sound, I did not bother to apply to any university at home, so Mummy found a private university in the States that had an advanced musical programme. Not anything near to what the school in Germany offered, but as she and Daddy would be the ones financing my education, I went along with it.
“You did learn to play piano here?”
His question jerked me back to the present.
“To cut a long story short I spent two years in Massachusetts, an additional year-and-a-half at a conservatory in the UK getting married along the way and then came here to live four years ago. I perform mostly for studio recordings but more and more I am getting out into the concert circuit. It is very competitive and with a young child…”
“How many children you have?”
“We have a girl. She is four years old…What about you? Any children?”
“Ah have one daughter. She is two years old.”
“In Jamaica?”
“No. She deh-a England.”
Slow down girl. No need to get too cosy with this man. For all you know he might be married; or is one of these Jamaican men with one million women. At this moment I wouldn’t mind being the one millionth and one woman; he had a condom in his pocket, so that should tell me something if I want to hear it. I want to see him again. He is stroking my back and it feels so nice. I’ll just close my eyes for a little and enjoy it. His hands are not smooth, but they are warm and strong. Let me put my face on his chest. Ooh. It scorches like the sun and it smells like the centre of the earth. I have to taste it. Will it be like bland bath soap scrubbed skin, or have a hint of something underneath? What salty flavour of sweat and blood and living flesh is trapped in between those rough curly hairs. I’ll open my mouth and spread my tongue flat just where his heart beats.
“Baby, that feels nice. You feel so nice.”
I am the most powerful woman on the planet. I am strong and I am beautiful and I am in control of my destiny. At least that is how I have been feeling shortly since I met this man; Cory. When last did I smile while I made breakfast…when last did I make breakfast of any consequence? Usually it is bread with cold cuts and coffee. Now I found some mackerel in Gillian’s cupboard, and onions and tomatoes. The place smells really good, especially with the coffee perking away. This is what mornings should smell like; and sound like. Food sizzling on the stove, a man showering in the bathroom and me humming to myself. I am going to call, no, go over to Frank de Groot’s studio and ask him if he knows of any shows in London that I can audition for, or better yet, where he can recommend me. How many freelance Chopin specialists can be out there? Then I will call around just in case they need someone soon. Ever since Alicia Keyes and Avril Levine, more producers are including an acoustic sound into their work.
“Is what that you singing?”
“The largo of From The New World”
“It sound nice.”
“It’s by a composer called Dvorak.”
“Ah like it, start it over.”
“Cory, I can’t think when you are holding me like that.”
“OK, let me sit down. Start again.”
And he did just sit there, half dressed in his street clothes, looking at me quietly. I hummed the short phrase again, picking up the pace, just a little, and holding back on the crescendo.
“I am no singer.”
“That was smooth Baby. You say that you are going to London soon. When?”
“On Wednesday.”
“Ah have to see you again. What is your number?”
“Give me yours and I will call you when I get there….Oh….is there a problem? …You live with someone?”
“Yes, Ah can give you my number. Let me write down my cell.”
“You are leaving the Netherlands today?”
“Yes, Ah going to get my things from the place that Ah staying, and catch the next flight out.”
“You don’t have your ticket booked?”
“A whole heap of flights leave for London every day baby. Ah going just take one.”
“What a flexible life. I hope that you will be in England when I get there.”
“You just make sure and call, baby.”
*****
He is gone away, but I still hold him with me. What a man! I will wear no dull outfit today, I want to radiate like the Caribbean. Thank goodness Gillian isn’t here so I can savour the thought of Cory again and again. How he energized me and now I actually feel clearer and more confident about what I need to do. I’ll connect with the producers here before I go over to England and get some names to start the ball rolling. Instead of staying with my cousin over in Willesden, I am going to book into a hotel for a couple of days until I find a furnished studio immediately. Cory can visit me there. Where is the telephone book? My career is going to be kick started right now.
******
My stolen umbrella peeled backwards from the wind just before I got to de Groot’s, but would you believe that they needed a keyboard player immediately for a recording! Popular music is not really my kind of work, but being there in the studio with the other musicians, keeping up with the stuff that they were trying to accomplish was exhilarating.
Sure, their approach cannot match the discipline of a chamber orchestra, but their spontaneity created some magical moments. That African percussionist really got me pumped and going, and the rest of the group was a bassist, lead electric guitarist, acoustic guitarist, electric violinist, and me on synthesizer. Pity though, I hear that the track is for a rap artiste, I hope that he does not mess up our music. de Groot said that the producer was pleased with what I brought to the session and he passed me the name of a producer in London who I could hook up with…for studio gigs….again not really my line, but I wouldn’t mind doing it now and again. He also gave me a good link for a composer who does movie soundtracks. Not quite where I want to be, which is on stage, but good work if you can get it. When we wrapped the session, I went back to Gillian’s and decided to call to my daughter.
My friend Gillian recently asked me why work is so important to me. She asked me that the first night that I moved here two weeks ago. She did not need to say that Nils has enough money to take care of Tineke and I; and if I want out of our marriage - which might be where all of this is taking us - he would pay the alimony.
Gillan’s question I did not answer at the time, but I have been asking myself for an answer every day. I have never been the independent type – which is how I got married in the first place. Nils says that I am spoiled, and I think his mother finds me unreasonable. I wonder if he told his mother that I called her a human electric fence - looks harmless but packs a deadly bolt. She keeps her son penned in to her archaic ideals and he is so brainwashed that he does not sense the control. When I think about how she dictated that I should not have a helper because it was not proper to have someone serve you in your house; or when she thinks that cooking more than one hot meal a day is wasteful, I know that she is out of touch or crazy. She was really upset when she realised that I visited a beautician every fortnight, I used to keep my pedicure visits a secret until recently.
Anyhow, I am not going to think about Electric Lem right now, I need to speak with my daughter…but she is bound to be there in our home…I hope Lem doesn’t answer.
*****
“Regina.”
It wasn’t her – thankfully – but it still shocked me all the same to hear my name when the other side answered.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Gillian won’t call here with you gone.”
“Put Tineke on the phone, Nils.”
“She is out walking.”
“In this rain!”
“If Dutch children were to go outside only when it was not raining...”
“…they would hardly go outside at all. I know, your mother has told me that enough times. I am assuming that she is with our daughter. When will they be back?”
“You can call again in 49 minutes. Mother would have returned, changed her outside clothes and Tineke would have had her glass of milk.”
The conversation was making me feel more and more boxed into some unpleasant situation of my own making. I struggled for a way out, and interrupted him.
“Nils, I am leaving on Wednesday…some opportunities are opening up for me in London.”
“Why are you bothering to tell me? You have been making your professional decisions without my input.”
“Don’t give that to me Nils Ammerlaan. Have I ever crossed you when you ultra organized our lives above my head? Look around the house? Do you see any part of me in it now that I am not physically there? Object d’Nils. That is what I was. Something exotic that you picked up on your travels.”
“Is that really so Regina? Six months ago, after showing no interest in developing your own career for four years, you announced that you wanted to make a living being an artiste, and that I should ignore my business interests. I thought that by now you would have grown out of your selfish ways.
“Nils, that is so not true. I always wanted to be a concert pianist but I put that on the back burner and stayed locked in that house, like all those other repressed foreign women, for the good of our daughter. It can’t continue any longer. I was not raised for this.”
“Our marriage was your jail.”
“I notice that you refer to our marriage in the past tense.”
“Don’t be dishonest Regina. You walked out two weeks ago; not me. Make up your mind what it is you want.”
He was making me feel like the silly 19-year-old who used to hang on to his every word and was dumb enough to get pregnant. Even though I knew it was ridiculous, I said the thing that I knew would most hurt him.
“Oh that I am quite clear about Nils. I want Tineke.”
“Now you have completely lost it, Regina. Why would you want to remove her from her home where she is happy?”
“Tineke belongs with her mother.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
“I want to take her back to Jamaica with me.”
Living with someone intimately, as I had done with my husband until a few weeks ago, make you conscious of their very personal rhythms. He tended to fall asleep going from breaths of about two crotchets, taken very lightly, into a deeper minim, sometimes with a slight sound slightly below middle C. When we shared moments that led to that perfect pitch of companionship out conversation moved up and down a bright, half octave of single notes; slight ripples of raindrops on still surface of water.
More recently though those notes formed dissonant chords moving sG Sharpr. I knew that after two minims he would react. I mentally counted the length of all eight beats that I knew would elapse before Nils spoke quietly and peacefully. It was one of his more annoying characteristics that never failed to leave me feeling like an off key quaver.
“Last week you wanted your own apartment in Amsterdam, two days ago you said that you were going to the UK and now you want to live in Jamaica? I can’t wait to hear next week’s story.”
“I am sick and tired of your horrible sarcasm grinding me down all of the time.”
“Poor Regina. Life is so hard for her.”
“Nils, you bumboclaat.”
