one camera’s lens, shaking madly in the wind.
Some nights she went to dinner with her friends.
And I would fry an egg or else go straight to bed.
The house was huge.
It was just us there, so she’d only bothered
heating a few rooms – the kitchen, her room, mine.
Large sections of the house were freezing and
unlit.
I hated to walk past those bits – the creamy
lounge, its dead-eyed mirror; the breakfast room all laid
and ready for the spring and summer guests; the
sunroom with its wicker chairs and model ship and
magazines and sombre glass…
you know that very specific formal plush that bed
and breakfasts favour, Ava? Well it’s even weirder when
it’s frozen – held in a kind of stasis.
Each night I’d sit on my bedroom floor with my
back against the radiator – outside my window was the
cold, dark field, the clouded sky, the woods.
One night I saw a white horse there, awkward,
ghostly.
I thought what I must look like to that horse –
trapped in my yellow square, surrounded by the many
empty windows of that house – a lone face watching
being watched.
It’s not like I could see it looking, Ava, but I knew it was.
I asked the B&B owner at breakfast if it was a wild
horse or one belonging to a farmer –
there’s no horse in that field, she said a little curtly.
The carbon monoxide alarm in the studio had started
going off.
I called the chairman from The Trust.
Just keep the space well ventilated,
you’ll be fine! He said.
The studio window was sealed shut – it didn’t open.
The door was huge – basically the whole side of
the building, glass as well – I opened it, and all the heat
rushed out.
I sat there freezing for a while, then walked down to the
nearest pub.
