I’ve been visualising piles of things, including life on the Mediterranean. It’s a really great fantasy – I can almost smell the jasmine, like Mum must have when she was pregnant with me.
She was on holiday in Greece. A man suddenly appeared in front of her at a market and handed her a jasmine blossom. That’s how I got my name. Mum told me that story so many times, and when she did a wistful, dreamy look always came over her face. Sometimes it seemed as though that man with the jasmine blossom was my real father. He somehow understood my mother very well. How she longed for the grand, unpremeditated gesture. How little my father understood this, though he loved her very much.
I never quite worked out if she loved him but I do know that, in later years, she hated to watch him eat. He had a large, enthusiastic appetite and as he swept the food into his mouth she averted her eyes and a pained expression came over her face. When she did this I often wished she’d go away for a while and find out what she wanted. I felt that would be easier for us all than watching that expression on her face.
My visualised Mediterranean hide-away is always sunny. And the view from my visualised veranda is just gorgeous. It stretches from the sunflowers in my garden to the orange and olive trees dotted on the hills, and the shimmering sea in the distance. My kitchen is made from wood and full of nourishing things in jars and tasty things wrapped in foreign looking paper. I buy them at the local shop. It’s a lovely shop. Friendly and full of chat and totally without malice.
The icing on the cake is knowing that a gorgeous man lies – at that very moment – in our big wooden bed covered with a fabric I have not, as yet, fully designed in my imagination. It may be rich and Indian or a light Liberty fabric – that has yet to be decided.
I make us some coffee – I can drink rich dark coffee in th e Mediterranean and it doesn’t affect my liver. And I cut a large slice of cake without guilt because my thighs are now cellulite-free.
He calls to me – my gorgeous man. And of course I go to him. Happily. Unafraid. All of me. I don’t leave part of me in my head planning what I’ll do when he says he’s not ready, or I’m not ready, or he needs his freedom, or I need my freedom, or he’s married, or I’m married, or we’re both too mixed up, or something else that’s never said but feels like greyhounds streaking through a wet Sunday in a Godless world. The world isn’t Godless. Not here.
And I go into the bedroom – which is warm and full of dappled sunlight – and I sit on the bed and offer him cake and coffee. But he strokes my cellulite-free thigh instead.
His hands are big and gentle and climb towards my crotch. And my mother’s voice doesn’t tell me he’ll ditch me when he’s done with me. My mother’s voice doesn’t say – ‘You’re married’ or ‘You should be married and living near me in a devoted manner.’ Though my mother is dead her arms are full of jasmine blossoms. My mother has better things to do and is doing them.
My gorgeous man is a great lover. We try all sorts of positions in a loving, passionate way. He looks into my eyes. He wants to get closer – and closer – until we forget.
Forget that if we go too far, too deep down this road, we may not want to get up at all. That we may want to remain moored for ever, bathed in the soft slithery warmth of bodily juices. That the world outside may seem even more humdrum and cold and silly than ever. That we may want to grind against each other endlessly – hoping that our molecules will merge and we won’t ever have to say things like: ‘I need two planks of plywood and an electric drill,’ or ‘Of course friendship is what it’s all about in the end.’
But it’s okay here in the Mediterranean. Our love-making isn’t about forgetting. Or remembering. It just is. It’s like plunging into a great, powerful ocean and soaring back up
She was on holiday in Greece. A man suddenly appeared in front of her at a market and handed her a jasmine blossom. That’s how I got my name. Mum told me that story so many times, and when she did a wistful, dreamy look always came over her face. Sometimes it seemed as though that man with the jasmine blossom was my real father. He somehow understood my mother very well. How she longed for the grand, unpremeditated gesture. How little my father understood this, though he loved her very much.
I never quite worked out if she loved him but I do know that, in later years, she hated to watch him eat. He had a large, enthusiastic appetite and as he swept the food into his mouth she averted her eyes and a pained expression came over her face. When she did this I often wished she’d go away for a while and find out what she wanted. I felt that would be easier for us all than watching that expression on her face.
My visualised Mediterranean hide-away is always sunny. And the view from my visualised veranda is just gorgeous. It stretches from the sunflowers in my garden to the orange and olive trees dotted on the hills, and the shimmering sea in the distance. My kitchen is made from wood and full of nourishing things in jars and tasty things wrapped in foreign looking paper. I buy them at the local shop. It’s a lovely shop. Friendly and full of chat and totally without malice.
The icing on the cake is knowing that a gorgeous man lies – at that very moment – in our big wooden bed covered with a fabric I have not, as yet, fully designed in my imagination. It may be rich and Indian or a light Liberty fabric – that has yet to be decided.
I make us some coffee – I can drink rich dark coffee in th e Mediterranean and it doesn’t affect my liver. And I cut a large slice of cake without guilt because my thighs are now cellulite-free.
He calls to me – my gorgeous man. And of course I go to him. Happily. Unafraid. All of me. I don’t leave part of me in my head planning what I’ll do when he says he’s not ready, or I’m not ready, or he needs his freedom, or I need my freedom, or he’s married, or I’m married, or we’re both too mixed up, or something else that’s never said but feels like greyhounds streaking through a wet Sunday in a Godless world. The world isn’t Godless. Not here.
And I go into the bedroom – which is warm and full of dappled sunlight – and I sit on the bed and offer him cake and coffee. But he strokes my cellulite-free thigh instead.
His hands are big and gentle and climb towards my crotch. And my mother’s voice doesn’t tell me he’ll ditch me when he’s done with me. My mother’s voice doesn’t say – ‘You’re married’ or ‘You should be married and living near me in a devoted manner.’ Though my mother is dead her arms are full of jasmine blossoms. My mother has better things to do and is doing them.
My gorgeous man is a great lover. We try all sorts of positions in a loving, passionate way. He looks into my eyes. He wants to get closer – and closer – until we forget.
Forget that if we go too far, too deep down this road, we may not want to get up at all. That we may want to remain moored for ever, bathed in the soft slithery warmth of bodily juices. That the world outside may seem even more humdrum and cold and silly than ever. That we may want to grind against each other endlessly – hoping that our molecules will merge and we won’t ever have to say things like: ‘I need two planks of plywood and an electric drill,’ or ‘Of course friendship is what it’s all about in the end.’
But it’s okay here in the Mediterranean. Our love-making isn’t about forgetting. Or remembering. It just is. It’s like plunging into a great, powerful ocean and soaring back up
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