The Riders

The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a dinky little entrance, were the Roman ruins like honeycomb. The trains went under the river. There were tunnels people had forgotten about. It was a wonder Paris stood up at all. The bit you saw was only half of it. Her skin burned, thinking of it. The Hunchback knew. Up here in the tower of Notre Dame he saw how it was. Now and then, with the bells rattling his bones, he saw it like God saw it -- inside, outside, above and under -- just for a moment. The rest of the time he went back to hurting and waiting like Scully out there crying in the wind.

She wondered if you could love someone too much. If you could it wasn't fair. People didn't have a chance. Love was all you had in the end. It was like sleep, like clean water. When you fell off the world there was still love because love made the world. That's what she believed. That's how it was.

Everything imaginable had been done or tried out there. It wasn't the feeling you had looking out on his own land. In Australia, you looked out and saw the possible, the spaces, the maybes...

She was like a sheet anchor sometimes, a steadying influence on him, on everyone around her. Made people laugh, that sensible streak in her, but it also made her someone of substance.

...architecture was what you had instead of landscape, a signal of loss, of imitation. Europe had it in spades...

She wants to be something creative,' he murmured. 'It's not something to want. It's something you have. It's a curse. One she doesn't have.

There's things that have no finish, Scully, no ending to speak of. There's no justice to it, but that's the God's truth. The only end some things have is the end you give em.

Wasted and wounded It ain’t what the moon did I got what I paid for now See you tomorrow Hey Frank can I borrow A couple of bucks from you To go Waltzing Matilda Waltzing Matilda You’ll go waltzing Matilda with me . . .

She was still glad she looked like Scully. He wasn't pretty either, but pretty people weren't the kind you need. Pretty people saw themselves in the mirror and were either too happy or too sad. People like Billie just shrugged and didn't care. She didn't want to turn into anyone pretty. Anyway, she had scars now, you only had to look.

And the sun on the wall of her room, the block of sun with all the tiny flying things in it. When she was little she thought they were the souls of dead insects, still buzzing in the light.

Old Scully, who according to Jennifer, hadn't the imagination to think the worst. Something she said once, as though neurosis was an artform.

She thought about that castle, the tower down the hill from Scully’s little house. There were birds around it like a cloud. The whole world still except for birds. She wondered if you could love someone too much. If you could it wasn’t fair. People didn’t have a chance. Love was all you had in the end. It was like sleep, like clean water. When you fell off the world there was still love because love made the world. That’s what she believed. That’s how it was.

Scully poured himself the last of the rosé to ease his discomfort. ‘She wants to be something creative,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not something to want. It’s something you have. It’s a curse. One she doesn’t have.’ ‘You weren’t saying that to either of us when we were paying you to teach her. Sitting out on the terrace with the easels up and all that.’ ‘My dear boy, I needed the money and it was no ordeal. She has the most delectable pair of legs.’ ‘You are a bloody scoundrel,’ said Scully just managing a friendly tone. ‘Well, all is not lost.

He heaved himself over the wall and walked up into the field below the castle whose foundation seemed to be a great granite tor buried in the brow of the hill. The closer he came and the deeper into its shadow he walked, the clearer its size became. He saw it plainly now. Scully had long thought that architecture was what you had instead of landscape, a signal of loss, of imitation. Europe had it in spades because the land was long gone, the wildness was no longer even a memory. But this . . . this was where architecture became landscape. It took scale and time, something strangely beyond the human. This wasn’t in the textbooks.

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I saw her first and knew That her dark hair would weave a snare That I may one day rue . . .

The only end some things have is the end you give em.