Number
One, Back Mount
The
bannisters up
How
interesting it is that
They
are the same at number one, number three and number five.
So
old and black with thick, thick carving.
Here
at number one,
Piles
of children’s clothes covered in a dust-sheet
lie
like a library of children’s lives.
Folded
neatly, sorted by age, on each landing of each of the four floors.
Children
that come and go quickly,
children
that stay for a while
and
the ones that live here.
Stationed
around the landings of each floor are weird locked wardrobes with padlocks on
the front.
In
the front room – not the best-front-room
but
the every-day-back, front-room
Gas
fire on full
Stifling,
dusty and winter-time-hot.
Richard
sits scissors in hand.
He
is perhaps six or seven years old
A
small thin pale boy, quiet and watchful with wild curly red hair
He’s
off school for the day – enviable position especially if you are not that sick.
He
has taken all of the dolls
And
cut off their hair.
No
one stops him or says anything.
The
kitchen smells strongly of cat food and cabbage
The
shelves and cupboards and table are a museum to the Tupperware phenomenon.
Darren
is in the cupboard polishing shoes.
In
there are more shoes than I’ve ever seen in one place,
it’s
like a second hand shoe shop.
They
don’t really belong to any one child –
Darren
has a lot of polishing to do, he’s the eldest and has chores.
In
the back yard
A
small square of garden with spinning spider-web drier.
Along
one edge are Darren’s rabbit hutches
Next
to them is the pile.
The
pile is fascinating to me, I look at it every day.
On
it is left-over food from dinners past
Cornflakes
and porridge,
carrot,
swede
cabbage
potato
It’s
massive and very, very slowly it rots.
It
grows mold, breaks down
Cats
and rats eat it
Frost
covers it
It
grows higher daily
A
symphony in rot.
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