When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see. No I won't be afraid, oh I won't be afraid, just as long as you stand, stand by me......
Rosa left the garden, walking slowly back into the house, turning over in her mind her encounter with Red the cat.
She had been the only one awake when she’d gone out to do her Tai Chi in the early morning sun. She was sure that she’d only been in the garden for 10 or 15 minutes with Red but, judging from all the people and activity in the house and the street outside, she realised that at least a couple of hours must have passed.
People packing, eating late breakfasts, putting cases, costumes, masks and stilts into vans and cars, saying tearful and cheerful farewells as they departed after the wonderful celebration and party of the night before.
Rosa slipped quietly through the front door past the comings and goings of adults, children and a couple of dogs all preparing to leave. She walked quickly up the four flights of stairs to the attic room where she had spent most of the summer in Pete & Maggie’s 5 storied Georgian terrace house on the edge of Summerhill Square.
She looked out the window for a moment to check that the garden, sunlit and green with its abundance of summer flowers and vegetables grown so lovingly by Maggie throughout the year, didn’t still contain a large Himalayan tiger.
Red had definitely gone, where she didn’t know, he had left the garden and vanished while running across the bowling green.
She sat on the bed high in the eaves of the house, daylight streaming in through the dormer window. Her room was a long thin space with a low ceiling that was just high enough for her to stand with her arms raised in the tree asana. Simply furnished with a double futon bed in the alcove at one end above the staircase that looped up from the top landing to the attic. The floor of her room was covered in a soft dark blue carpet with a couple of brightly coloured rag rugs over it, the walls painted white, a chair and a desk by the window. An armchair next to a bookcase against the far wall with a chest of drawers against it with the door opening onto the small landing at the top of the stairs.
A few of her clothes hanging on the back of the door, a couple of Pete’s dad’s paintings of creatures from Greek mythology in pencil and water colours, brightly coloured as if lit by Greek sunshine, in ornate wooden frames hung on the wall. There was a large noticeboard with some of Rosa’s own sketches for her graphic novel pinned to it and a few postcards from friends travelling and inter-railing in Europe.
She got up from the bed and sat at her desk covered in crayons, pens, a set of watercolours, brushes in jars and a number of sketch books of various sizes. The largest one open at a drawing across 2 pages of an outline sketch of a mountain with clouds behind it and a track leading down from the mountain towards the viewer with a detailed and almost fully painted mountain tiger about to leap out of the page.
She felt a shock through her whole body. The mountain, clouds and track with a few trees sketched in had been started by her the evening before but there had been no tiger. Definitely no tiger.
As she flipped back through the initial sketches and ideas for this section of her graphic novel she was struck by the fact that it was the section of her novel about the monastery in Tibet, the monks and the animals leaving on their journey across the mountains to India escaping the approaching Chinese soldiers.
As she read back through it she realised that along with the Pig and Tsu Lin the panda, Red had been there. She had him saying “I’ll meet you on the way. I’ll need to change into my snow leopard or Himalayan tiger form”. There he’d been that morning in the garden in full Himalayan Tiger and she had no memory of drawing the tiger at the foot of the mountain, in fact she was sure that she hadn’t but there it was totally in her style.
She sat for a moment or two, looking at her sketch books and art materials, reflecting on how often the stories and images felt as if they were coming from somewhere else. She’d talked with Dorothy about it and Dorothy had found it easy to accept
“Of course, I think that perhaps real creative inspiration comes from inside us and outside of us. Simple”
Dorothy.
She’d call her later. Quite a lot to talk about. But for the rest of the day she’d work on the drawings for the next part of the graphic novel, using the completed mountain and tiger sketch as a starting point with maybe Red about to join the others on their long trail to India.
Right now though she was hungry. In fact she was very hungry.
She ran down the four flights of stairs towards the kitchen in the basement, through the house still emptying of the last few guests, one or two who she stopped to say goodbye to before arriving in the kitchen. There was no sign of Pete or Maggie, they were probably down at their warehouse base in town unloading stilts, costumes and fireworks that hadn’t been let off the night before.
The long table that took up nearly a 3rd of the kitchen in the basement was still covered with remnants of the food from the party. She found a knife and fork, a clean plate and filled it with a mix of salads, cold bean stew, flat breads and a large slice of vegan pizza. She added a bowl of fruit salad and yogurt with a cup of liquorice tea after quickly boiling the kettle. She put it all on a brightly patterned tray that she pulled out of a cupboard under the double sink, now empty of dirty dishes.
She smiled when she saw the piles of clean plates, crockery, cutlery, dishes, saucepans and other utensils that covered the draining board and most of the work surfaces.
Somebody or somebodies had been busy clearing up.
She carried the tray back up through the house, this time meeting no-one as she went.
She put the tray on the bedside table and, savouring every mouthful, sat and ate on the large red cushion next to the bed. Slowly having a late lunch as she realised that it was now early afternoon and apart from sounds of a car leaving the square and some birds twittering drifting up through the open window into her room there was a stillness and silence in the house after 3 days of preparations, people and the party itself.
Before she started work on the pictures, which was how she always created her stories, images first followed by any dialogue, words, descriptions she phoned Dorothy and went straight to her voicemail.
“Hey. It’s Dorothy. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you”
“Hi honey. It’s me. It would be really good to talk. The celebration yesterday was wonderful, tell you all about it when we speak. Then this morning something very weird happened in the garden. It would be good to talk with you about that too. Love you and miss you”
Then she turned her mobile off and sat down at the desk under the window, reflecting on the recent dramatic change in her relationship with her cousin.
They had been friends as long as she could remember. Spending time together nearly every school holidays with different combinations of family, other friends and places. London, Devon, France, Spain, Malta and Thailand. Often sharing a bed together when there hadn’t been enough rooms to have their own separate space. Always easy to be with each other.
Well mostly......except when they had argued loudly and passionately and, very occasionally, fallen out which had never lasted long.
Then one night only a few weeks ago they had been sleeping together in Dorothy’s large bed in her room in Hartland. The rest of the bedrooms, including the one that Rosa often stayed in when she was visiting, were filled with colleagues of David’s and Susan’s .They were all attending a conference in Tiverton called “Relativity and Mythology” or something like that.
They had talked for a while lying in bed together, discussing some of the information that Red had given them a few months before about other, as he’d describe it, “separate realities”. He’d talked with them about it only a few days before he’d disappeared. Just vanished.
David, Susan and Joanna had been very concerned about his disappearance, but Dorothy was sure he was OK and that, when it was right, she’d see him again. Rosa had trusted her intuition, after all he was no ordinary cat.
Rosa had fallen asleep while Dorothy was talking about Red and speculating on what might have happened to him. She was tired out after a long day of surfing on one of the beaches outside Hartland.
She’d woken a few hours later to find herself and Dorothy with their arms and bodies wrapped around each other. Dorothy’s long hair falling across Rosa’s shoulders. She felt warm, safe and, a completely new sensation for her, aroused by the physicality and closeness of Dorothy’s body. Her arousal had increased when Dorothy, still sleeping, had moved even closer and begun to gently rub her face into Rosa’s hair and down into her neck, her body moving against Rosa’s, breathing with a low moaning sound growing in her throat that made Rosa feel even more turned on.
She had responded by moving against Dorothy, feeling a warmth spreading from her belly down into her cunt. Then, apparently still deeply asleep or dreaming, Dorothy began to kiss her neck and then pressed her hard nipples through Rosa’s pyjama top while her breathing grew heavier and the low moaning in her throat increased. Now moving her hands down onto Rosa’s belly and touching her clitoris.
Then they had made love. Touching, kissing, rubbing, licking. Moving against each other. All the time Dorothy never woke up while Rosa became more and more awake, alive, fascinated by and immersed in the raw passion and desire of what she was feeling as they made love and then…
She shook her head.
Stop thinking about it.
She had to put it down for now, though of course things had moved on a long way since that night. In the morning Dorothy had told her about a very passionate dream she’d had then had been shocked and surprised when Rosa told her that it had been no dream but very real. How they had both, this time wide awake and full of desire made love again as the dawn was breaking.
“Stop it. Enough!” She said out loud, feeling herself getting aroused by the memory.
“I need to work now”
So, with some difficulty, she brought her attention back to the A3 sketch book on the table in front of her. Turning the pages over to a blank pair.
She had decided on getting up that morning, before her meeting with Red in the garden, that she would do more devising and drawing on the continuation of the sketches and stories in the book that she’d left on the train that Dorothy had found and read. The book she’d returned to Rosa the last time they’d met.
“Amazing. Totally amazing. You need to get a publisher darling. This is fantastic. Really. I love you”
She’d kissed Rosa passionately on the lips as they parted.
She reflected again on the weird coincidence between the story, the images that Red had fired at her and the next stage of her novel. Not to even question where the drawing of the tiger had come from.
She sat for a few minutes, gathering her creative energy and inspiration then began to draw the outlines of a winter landscape with a range of mountains in the distance, snow covered trees and in the foreground a group of monks trudging through the deep snow.
She spent the afternoon and early evening developing sketches, drawings and story for the journey of the monks and the Pig, shadowed by Red in Himalayan tiger form on their long way to India. So it was late evening by the time she realised, as always unaware of time passing as she was completely immersed in her process , that she really needed to pee, then eat and drink something.
On her way down to the kitchen she looked into the office and lounge but there was no sign of Pete or Maggie. The house was deserted. If they’d been home at all then she’d missed them. So she had a pee, washed her hands in the bathroom, thought about taking a shower later and went down to the kitchen where she drank a glass of freshly pressed orange juice out of a jug in the fridge. She cut a large slice of bread from a fresh loaf that had appeared on the table which, along with the rest of the surfaces, was now empty of any signs of all the food and drink that had been consumed the night before.
So Pete & Maggie must have come home, finished tidying up and then gone out again.
She spread tahini and rice miso on the bread topped with some of Maggie’s apple chutney, some slices of tomato and cucumber.
She sat at the table and ate her open sandwich slowly. Savouring the mix of flavours and textures. Almost without a thought in her head, realising that she was very tired. Too tired to take a shower. When she’d finished eating she washed her plate and glass, stopped in at the bathroom to brush her teeth, walked back up through the still empty house to her room, drew the curtains, undressed, without even putting her pyjamas on she got into bed and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep.
She woke in the early hours of the morning to a sound she hadn’t heard for weeks. Rain against the window. She lay for a moment listening to the regular rhythm of the drops, then went back to sleep into a vivid dream.
She was in a huge room.
A sort of gallery
One wall was a window from side to side and top to bottom with light pouring in through it.
All the other surfaces, floor, 3 walls and even the ceiling were covered in carpets and rugs.
A riot of colour, patterns, shapes & sizes.
Dazzling in their intensity and beauty overwhelming her with their radiance illuminated by the light from the window.
She stood for what seemed like hours gazing at them. They sparkled with their colours as the patterns on them slowly changed.
Something made her look down at her feet, She realised that she was standing on a small rug that exactly matched the image of the rug that Red had shown her.
She let her body drop to the floor and lay outstretched with her face into its soft smooth texture.
Then….right there….she realised she was dreaming.
For a moment the intensity of that realisation and the physical sensation of lying on the rug was almost more than she could bear.
Then she woke.
It was early morning and beginning to get light.
She lay in bed for a moment. Another lucid dream, the 3rd in a month. She was progressing well & would tell Susan next time they spoke.
She got up quickly knowing what she had to do.
She had to find the rug.
She opened the window, took a couple of deep breaths of the cool moist air that came in. The roof was wet with the night’s rain, which had passed by leaving the morning sun shining on the tiles.
The temperature had dropped considerably. The first rain for months had brought a real change in the weather. It felt almost autumnal. Maybe it was finally the end of the long hot summer.
She put on a pair of faded blue levi jeans, a sports bra, though she didn’t really have much in the way of breasts she liked the support particularly when she was running, a plain red T shirt over the top of it and her well used and faded pale blue levi jacket into which her mum had sewn an inside zip pocket. She pulled on a pair of plain red hemp socks.
She was sure as she dressed that finding the rug was important, so she would go into town and look for it. Maybe she’d find it in one of the department stores in their rug section. She hadn’t been in the centre of Newcastle for a few days and even if she didn’t find what she was looking for she had a strong feeling that it was time to get out. She’d spent the last 4 weeks hardly leaving the house and garden apart from running through Leazes park and back home most mornings.
Maybe a trip into town and then a bus up the West road as far as she could go then……
Hadrian’s wall, she could hitch a lift up the A69 and see how far she could get before she had to walk or she could hire a motor bike. She’d passed her test in the Spring and knew there were bike shops on the hill that hired out bikes by the week or maybe even the day. It was worth a shot.
She pulled her dark green rucksack out from under the chest of drawers. Put a sketch book, pencil case, her favourite drawing pen, and a bag of crayons in. Added some clean underwear, a pair of thick walking socks, a spare pair of jeans, a long sleeve black T shirt with a print of a beech tree on the front, her dark blue jumper, a small hand woven Tibetan wool blanket in blues and green and her “rolls up really small but keeps you very warm sleeping bag” which her uncle David had bought for her last birthday.
“This is an amazing bit of kit. Takes up hardly any room. Lightweight, warm and completely waterproof. Perfect for your wild romps across Exmoor or up the side of some Scottish mountain”
She smiled as she remembered what he’d said. He really got how much she loved being out in the wild places walking, climbing, running, that was where she felt most free.
She’d put her lightweight waterproof jacket, hanging on the coat hooks near the front door, in it and put on her trainers once she got downstairs.
She ran a comb through her short blonde hair. Made a monster face at herself in the mirror then wrote a quick note to Pete & Maggie as they’d still be asleep at this early hour.
“Gone into town. Not sure when I’ll be back. Great party. Got my mobile so I’ll call you later. Love you lots.”
She checked her small dark blue shoulder bag for her mobile phone, wallet, tissues and her water bottle . Stuck the comb inside, zipped it up and slung it over her shoulder, picked up her rucksack and opened the door.
She stepped out onto the small landing outside her room.
Stood there for a moment.
2 deep breaths.......
Closed the door behind her and set off down the stairs to the kitchen where she made herself a thick piece of toast spread with peanut butter and honey and a cup of week Darjeeling tea, filled her water bottle with a mix of apple juice and water, carried the toast up to the bottom step of the hall landing where she sat and ate it and drunk the cup of tea. Then she put on her trainers adding the waterproof jacket to the rucksack, securing it, checking her top jacket pocket for her house keys, put on her bright red woollen hat that Dorothy had given her on her last birthday and was out the front door onto the pavements still glistening from last nights rain.
She was about to set off down the cobbled street towards the alley that led onto the West road when she remembered something that Red had said to her the day before.
“Not much else to tell you really. You’ll know exactly what to do once you get there and I’ll see you later. Two more things Rosa, take some plums off this tree with you. Just a few will do. Also keep your eyes open for a small carpet or wall hanging, you’ll know it when you find it. In fact I’ve shown it to you already. Good luck and I’ll see you soon”
Were the plums and the carpet connected?
Well no harm in taking a few with her. They were certainly very tasty. Sweet and full of juice.
She stood for a moment on the doorstep feeling the change in the air and the temperature from the day before, as if the season had begun to turn. But the sky was a clear blue with no sign of the clouds or the rain she had heard on the window pane in the night.
As she was about to set off across the wide cobbled street she paused for a moment to look down it. A slightly sloping terrace with the neighbouring houses all a little lower than the one above, then the long frontage of the art deco former synagogue, now a commercial design studio, taking up the space where once there had been 3 more large terraced Georgian houses, demolished in the early 1920s sometime to make space for the synagogue by the Jewish family that owned all the houses. On the other side of the design studio there was a final terraced house at the corner of the lane that led down past a couple of other houses of a similar age and structure to the small post office then out onto Westgate Hill with its multitude of motor bike and bike accessory shops.
She crossed the cobbled street, almost a courtyard, in front of the houses, opened the gate into the garden under the stone arch with its dragon of steel and mosaic tiles perched above that Pete and a couple of friends had constructed one summer a few decades earlier, before she was even born.
She remembered that Maggie usually kept a few plastic bags in the greenhouse so she slid open the door, went in and found one attached to a shelf full of pepper plants. She took a moment to appreciate the abundance of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and melons growing in the heat of this late summer greenhouse, so lovingly and skilfully nurtured over the months from seeds to fruits by her aunt through the arc of early spring to this cooling September morning.
She slid the door closed behind her, walking down the path past the runner bean plants climbing and growing their long green pods in huge quantities, scrambling high on their poles, past the potato patch some of which had already been dug up and eaten as part of some of Maggie or Pete’s delicious meals
The plum tree under which Red had been lying grew on a piece of lawn between the large vegetable patch and the flower beds now covered in late blooming rose bushes, gladioli and a wild assortment of rambling nasturtiums. There was another section of almost meadow at the other side mostly covered by a variety of elderly wooden garden chairs and a large rustic wooden table. In the middle of it were some cups, plates and a teapot left over from the day before the celebrations when Rosa, Maggie, Pete and their next door neighbours Dave and Jo had sat out drinking tea and eating home made cake, scones and biscuits in the cool of the evening.
The branches of the tree covered most of the section of the lawn below it. It stood over 3 metres tall with a span of 3 to 4 metres in places. It had been a good year for plums so it was heavily laden with a crop of deep purple victoria plums, ripe and ready to be picked and eaten. Some of them had already fallen onto the grass. Its branches were so laden that at some points they almost touched the ground.
Rosa ignored the windfalls and picked a dozen or so from the lower branches dropping them carefully into the plastic bag which she stored in the front pocket of her rucksack. She picked one more, bit into it and, as always, was delighted by the total sweet juicy full on plum sensation that filled her mouth.
She walked back to the gate, went through, closed it behind her and set off down the centre of the cobbled street on her way out onto Westgate Hill.
The taste of the plum had made her realise that though she'd eaten a reasonable breakfast she had no idea when or where she would have her next meal, so she decided to head up the hill to the local shop known to everyone in the neighbourhood as Ali’s. Though Ali no longer ran this mix of corner shop and eastern emporium it was still owned by the family and managed by Ali’s son and his daughter.
They did just about the best hummus, samosas and flat breads in the Westend of Newcastle so she decided to stock up on them with maybe some fruit juice and halva.
She stood for a moment by the post office looking up and down Westgate Hill
She's always thought that it was such an interesting road running up from the centre of Newcastle into the west of the city and beyond joining the A 69 out to Hexham and eventually to Carlisle.
She glanced briefly to her right down the hill with the motorbike shops stretching towards the town & the central station, then turned left and began to walk up the hill
There were large Georgian and Victorian houses on either side of the road. Some of them were houses where people lived, she remembered that Pete had told her there was a local builder and property developer, a millionaire who had bought a row of three large semi derelict Victorian houses and renovated them. He now lived in one of them with his family and the other two were rented out as a number of luxury apartments.
On the other side of the road was a long Georgian terrace with a couple of backpacker hotels, air BnBs along with residential houses.
She walked past a row of shops, Asian, African & Eastern European emporiums selling a whole range of goods and a Turkish barbers next to a Lebanese café.
She stopped as she came to the junction with Elswick road on her left. She was standing by what was known as The Big Lamp, quite simply because there was an unusually high street light there on the other side of the road where it divided in two. One part continuing along towards Leazes park and the other down the steep hill past the complex of new university buildings part of what the university called “Science City’ which had only been built in the last few years on the site of the old Scottish & Newcastle brewery, stretching almost as far as she could see. A massive conglomeration of new multi storied buildings in a variety of modern architectural styles and mixes of brick, concrete, wood, steel and acres of glass.
She was about to walk along Elswick Road which led to Ali’s. She spent some moments, as she often did whether she was outdoors or indoors, standing still and looking, really looking at what was around her.
A lot of what she saw, whether she was sitting in a café, standing on the corner of the street, on a hillside, in a wood or on a beach, places that were empty or crowded she would put down in her sketchbook but mostly she would store it in her mind and occasionally snap it on her phone.
It was how she got source material for her graphic novel, images of places, people, nature whatever it was she was paying attention to. She knew that she was good at doing that. She was very good at it. Always carrying her sketchbook with her along with her unusual ability of being completely ambidextrous.
She’d had that ability from when she was a child, to write and draw equally easily and fluently with her left or right hand which, particularly when she was travelling and wanted to sketch something quickly, could be useful.
Her friend Josie had laughingly asked her if she could draw with one hand and write with the other at the same time but it wasn't a skill she'd really mastered though she was working at it.
“Rosa you’re crazy and amazing”
She wondered how Josie was. It had been a while since they’d seen each other. Maybe it would be good to talk with her as she was gay, sensitive and empathetic and…
“Stop thinking about Dorothy”
She turned and walked along Elswick Road past the antique shop which she remembered had once been a sword sharpener and tool repair shop many years ago when she'd been much younger and first visited Newcastle.
She stopped for a moment and gazed into it.
A violin. A large gilded mirror in which she could catch her own reflection. A plate sized bellows camera. A couple of vases covered in intricate floral patterns. A rather battered soft toy tiger....not the tigger variety but a ferocious looking creature with green glass eyes that seemed to be looking straight at her. A large wooden chest on the small oak table with ornate carved legs at the front of the window display. Some pieces of jewellery, necklaces, bracelets and rings.
Beyond the window display was a spacious almost empty room furnished with a large dining room table, a green velvet arm chair, a small floral settee and a swirly patterned green & yellow carpet on the floor. A desk and a rather modern looking office chair completed the picture.
All lit by the light coming through the reinfoced glass panel on the front door, currently locked with it's protective metal grille. The illumination was added to by the light from a rather splendid standard lamp with a large lampshade patterned with blue and white waves á la Hokusai putting out an atmospheric yellow & blue light.
For a moment she was tempted to stay and sketch it. It would make an interesting insert into her narrative along with the stories of all the objects...particularly the tiger but....maybe another time. She pointed her phone in wide picture mode at the window and took a couple of snaps.
She walked on and the next shop she came to was Ali’s.
She opened the door and went in.
It was not a big shop, long and thin, full from floor to ceiling with shelves and freezers filled with food & provisions of all kinds. Not quite an Asian delicatessen but with a lot of Asian foods and other edibles that she wouldn't find in most supermarkets, all carefully fitted into about a fifth of the space of even a smallish supermarket.
The serving desk was to the right of the door with a young woman behind it. Tall and slim with long black hair with a hint of red henna, almond shaped eyes and a beautiful smile.
“Hey Rosa good to see you”
“You too Ranjana”
They had known each other for a number of years as Ranjana was a good friend of Rosa’s cousin Danny who she realised she hadn’t seen for a couple of weeks and wondered how he was doing. Ranjana’s family had run the shop for generations now. She was exactly the same age as Rosa as they shared a birthday. Rosa had always liked her, she just seemed very comfortable with who she was and her Asian heritage, even though she’d once told Rosa that if you scratched the surface of some white Geordie men you’d find a rabid racist lurking underneath.
“How are you doing Rosa?”
"Yeah I'm good thanks Ranjana. I thought I might have seen you at the celebration last night?”
“ I'm sorry I didn’t get there. Pete had invited all of us but we had a family do on last night, it was my great uncle's 90th birthday”
“Wow! Really? That's amazing......90 years old”
“Yeah. Or in his case more like 90 years young as you wouldn't think so to look at him. He’s still ridiculously active, sometimes he behaves as if he’s only a teenager. He’s talked about taking up skateboarding again!”
They both laughed
“Anyway what can I do to help you?"
“ I'm heading off up the West road sometime later today after I’ve been into town and I'm probably going to do some wild camping up round Hadrian’s wall”
“You're amazing Rosa, always doing these extraordinary trips out. Do you plan them?”
Rosa smiled
“Not really I just had a notion I'd like to go up there…. maybe gather a bit more material for my graphic novel”
“How's it going”
“Feels like it’s coming on well. I'm thinking of looking for a publisher”
“I'm sure you'll find someone. Those pages you showed me a few weeks ago were fantastic. I'd love to see it all sometime”
“Yeah. Definitely, when it's finished I’d like your opinion and maybe next time I set off on a trip you could come with me”
“I don't think my mum would let me do anything like that”
“Oh come on Ranjana, you're old enough to go off on adventures on your own or at least not on your own as you’d be with me”
Ranjana smiled.
“Yeah of course you’re right. So let me know next time you’re planning an adventure and…”
“Not quite how it works with me. I just decide sometimes on the spur of the moment, so today for example I'll probably catch a bus up the west road or I might see if I can hire a motorbike”
“So if came with you I could hang on the back of you”
Rosa laughed and had a moment of physical pleasure thinking of her & Ranjana on a motorbike together.
“Yeah, we could go off on a….like in that that film…..what was it called?”
“Thelma & Louise?”
“That’s the one. Like Thelma and Louise on a motorbike”
“As long as we don’t go over any cliffs”
They both laughed.
“I really enjoyed our trip together to the Baltic gallery. The exhibition about comic books. It was amazing”
“You know I was thinking about that yesterday as I was drawing. How the whole history of comics and all those amazing graphics at the exhibition really inspired me to keep working on my own graphic novel. That must have been a couple of years ago?”
“ Nearly 2 years ago. It was December I think and it was snowing….but enough of our reminiscing. I’ll change roles quickly here. Can I help you with anything madam?
“What? Oh right”
She laughed again. It was easy being with Ranjana
“Okay so samosas and bhajis please. You really do the best samosas and bhajis in the West End of Newcastle”
“Well I don't actually make them. My uncle Raji’s wife Trudy makes them and the hummus”
“Thanks for reminding me. I was thinking I needed some hummus. Your uncle Ravi. Isn’t he the one who lived in Germany for a while?”
“Yes. He went and worked on a building site in Berlin with some of his friends. He reckons he should write an Asian Auf Wiedersehen Pet. He met Trudy there at a German language course she was teaching. I think she speaks something like 7 European languages and is now almost fluent in Urdu, a near perfect accent. Anyway they hooked up, got married and they came back to live in Elswick. She loves Asian & Middle Eastern cooking”
“She sounds like a really interesting woman”
“She is. Used to be a champion ice skater. Still does some at the ice rink in Whitley Bay. So how many samosas?”
"2 & a couple of bhajis"
Ranjana lifted the plastic lid off a large plate which had pakoras, samosas and bhajis on it. She picked up two samosas and two onion bhajis in a pair of tongs and dropped them into a brown paper bag which she placed on the counter.
“So what would you recommend in the way of a drink?”
‘Non -Alcoholic?”
“Definitely. I fancy something really fruity”
“Oh well we've got a new one just in a couple of weeks ago. Pressed mango and apple juice. Not from concentrate. I can't stop drinking it! Really this is not an advert. It's just delicious. Do you want to give it a shot?”
“Sounds good “
“OK I'll show you where it is and we can pick up the houmous & halva on the way. They’re all in the chilled section”
Rosa took 2 tubs of houmous, one plain, one Moroccan style, a packet of honey halva with pistachio nuts, & a carton of the apple and mango juice. She picked up a pack of dates, a tin of salted cashews, a packet of freshly baked flat breads & a couple of bananas then went back to the till with Ranjana, where she paid for and packed her purchases into her rucksack.
“Thanks Ranjana for your help. It’s been good to see you’
“ Good to see you too Rosa. Let’s meet up and do that road trip sometime soon”
“Definitely! Take care”
‘You too”
As she was going out the door she was nearly knocked over by a young man
‘Hey you need to watch where you're going”
‘Sorry. In a bit of a hurry. Hi it's Rosa isn’t it?”
‘Yes it is…..oh it’s Barry. Your Danny's friend?”
“Yeah. That's right....we met last year at Danny’s. You'd come to visit Linda, Danny’s mum, with your cousin Dorothy. Remember?”
She did remember it and felt a little uncomfortable as Barry had been rather aggressive and unfriendly. Maybe it had been something about her accent as he kept taking the piss out of her until Danny had got quite angry with him.
Danny was a cousin or possibly even her second cousin. She could never quite work it out. It was a relationship through Dorothy's mother Joanna. She'd been told by Dorothy about a rather complex emotional story of Joanna falling out with her family and leaving Newcastle
“Yeah Hi. I remember last time we met I was….. I was….”
“A bit of an arsehole?”
“Yeah I’m sorry I’d just had a really bad argument with my mum and I shouldn't of taken the…..”
“It’s OK. Really I’d forgotten about it until I saw you. So how's Danny?”
“Oh not so good at the moment. You know his Dad’s really ill?”
“Yeah. Dorothy told me”
“He's not getting better & Danny’s got some crazy idea that ASI the company his dad works is responsible and is somehow connected with this Roman god….what’s his name….Mithra!”
“Mithra. Oh yes. Worshipped mostly by Roman soldiers, officers in particular. The warrior god with the head of a bull. There’s the ruins of a Mithraic temple just up the road in Benwell. Though I’ve never been there”
“Me neither. Anyway he had a dream about it and…”
“Sorry Barry I’m in a bit of a hurry, but it would be good to catch up with him, so when you next see Danny tell him I'm probably going away for a couple of days but I'll be back and when I am I'll text him”
“Right. I'm sure he'd like to see you. Actually we’re meeting up later this morning so I’ll tell him then”
She looked him up and down a couple of times. He was short, stocky with wild curly hair, probably a head shorter than her. He had an energy and spirit that she really liked
“OK Barry but I’ve really got to go now. I’ll see you sometime and maybe we could meet up with Danny & Ranjana, do something together ?”
‘Yeah. That’d be great. See you later Rosa”
She walked back down Westgate hill past the motor bike shops, fewer than there used to be in this age of online shopping, a Persian café, an English café, a second hand shop whose window was crammed with all manner of used and now unwanted objects, guitars, dvds, watches, cassette players, a violin, a ukele, dvd players, tvs, footballs, trainers, and so much more.
Then she was entering the city past a few street lamps whose lights had come on early because their timers had bust. The lines of 2 centuries of buildings clear against the early morning September sky.
On her right as she crossed the road was a massive new 25 story Apartment blocks with plate glass windows
Next to it were a couple of modern hotels that had taken over and now inhabited 19th century buildings
Bars & restaurants of different national and ethnic varieties reflecting in their windows the Georgian and Victorian facades opposite, shop fronts with mannequins, clothes, toiletries, books, Cds, DVDs, mobile phones, exotic chocolates, restaurant & café menues, food and all the shiny objects, things and commodities of 'modern' living.
She absorbed the way the light reflected off all the windows and shop fronts, arriving eventually at the monument at the centre of the city with the statue of Earl Grey “The sponsor of the Great Reform Act” high above the multitude of shoppers. She stopped for a moment to gaze down the long wide street that bore his name stretching towards the river.
Street lights, fluorescent signs, shapes of buildings, concrete, stone, statutes of late 18th century women in high alcoves in exotic frocks and men with mandolins, more products in windows, shop fronts, shoppers in coats, jackets, hats and scarves, carrying bags with logos to tell other shoppers where they had been. A few trees, pedestrian areas, buses, posters, paper and magazine sellers, stalls selling fruit and vegetables.
The whole panoply of human commerce in this one northern city. She stopped, it was almost too much to bear, that this was happening in cities across the planet, shops with different names, some with the same names in a variety of typescripts and calligraphy in many languages, shoppers speaking in other tongues but essentially the same transient experience.
The outline of the city silhouetted against the late summer sky, the light & the dark.
A set in some shadow play.
She shivered and drew the zip of her anorak up to her neck, pulled her red woollen hat down round her ears and decided to walk round past the Tyneside cinema, the only independent cinema in the region, and head towards the railway station where she could catch a number 38 bus that would take her back up the West Road.
She was walking down the alley between the Theatre Royal and the large new burger bar that would bring her out by the cinema when she remembered the carpet.
“Damn. That's why I came into town in the first place. Maybe I should go back into Eldon Square and head for a department store, see if I can find anything like it there”
But something made her carry on walking, turning right out of the alleyway past the Tyneside Cinema and down towards the major roundabout that fed traffic onto the Tyne Bridge. The Swan house roundabout, named after the large block of government buildings that stood at its centre with a maze of pedestrian underpasses connecting the various streets and pavements around it.
She realised that she was actually walking towards Panis. The Sardinian restaurant where she had eaten on a number of occasions with Pete & Maggie, family and friends and also that she was hungry. Such good food they served there, not the traditional Italian pizzas or spaghetti but a whole other cuisine of cooked vegetables, fish, flat breads, salads and….she was aware that her mouth was watering with anticipation when she found herself standing outside the small second hand shop on the corner of the narrow street that led down to Panis.
This was less than half the size of the one on Westgate hill she had passed earlier. But its small window display was even fuller, packed with a similar cross section of used, second hand and discarded items.
She stood and gazed at the chaos of all these things that had been used by and belonged to so many different people. Like the antique shop window it too would make a good drawing, a part of her graphic novel. She was about to take out her mobile and snap it when she stopped.
Froze.
For there it was.
The carpet that Red had shown her the image of. Not, as she had been expecting, a full size Persian or Turkish rug. But a perfect miniature in the form of what she realised was a mouse mat.
In amongst all the other objects it stood out, shining at her. She decided immediately to buy it so opened the door into the shop which rang a bell as she walked in. It was like the window packed with 2nd hand and used objects. Only a small space to stand in front of the counter which was to the right of the door. Behind the counter sat a young man, probably in his late teens she reckoned with dark shoulder length hair and a handsome face. He was sitting with one of his legs on the counter and reading what she saw as she peered over the counter a Silver Surfer Marvel comic.
He looked up from his reading and smiled at her. Lit up his face his smile did.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
A very slight Geordie accent to his speech
“Yes. Thanks. The mouse mat in the window. How much do you want for it”
Rosa asked him the price, though she had decided to buy it whatever the price.
“How about £5.00?”
“Good. I’ll take it.”
“My dad, he’s the owner of the shop, told me he had no idea how it got in the window. I certainly didn’t buy it off anyone and he’s got a really good memory for who he buys things from. I’ve not seen one like it before. Hang on a minute and I’ll get it out for you”
He stood up and Rosa saw that he was tall, slim and wearing an Oasis T shirt and black jeans held up by a beautiful woven belt. The T shirt and the belt had probably been bought from a customer. He opened the small wooden door into the front window, reached in carefully and took out the mat.
He sat down again and asked her
“ Shall I wrap it for you?"
“That would be good. Here’s the money”
She handed him a £5 note, which he took from her and rung into the till. He reached under the counter and brought out a piece of red tissue paper which he carefully wrapped it in after glancing at it for a moment or two first.
“Like I said….really unusual….kind of beautiful”
“Yes I was….”
For some reason she was about to tell him about Red and why she was looking for it, somehow she felt he wouldn’t be at all phased by her story but instead she commented on his reading material pointing at the comic which he’d put down on top of the counter.
“I was looking at the Marvel comic you were reading. Silver Surfer. Probably my favourite Marvel character”
“Really? It’s a toss up between him and Thor for me.This is an original edition of the 2nd comic in the Silver Surfer series. I collect Marvels.
Sometimes we used to get guys coming in to sell them to us. One guy with about a dozen boxes full of original early editions. He looked really rough but only wanted a tenner for them. But my Dad realised how valuable they were and gave him fifty quid and told him not to put it all up his nose or into his arm. Never saw him again.
Dad reckoned he was a smack head & probably pretty ill.
But that was sort of how I started collecting. Now of course it’s all done online. I’ve managed to put together a good sized collection, some of them really early editions like this one and I’ve read them all. Some of them lots of times. I never get bored of them.
Amazing how many collectors don’t even bother to read them. Just an investment I guess.
Some guy in the US has 2 warehouses full. Worth millions. I’ve got nothing like that though my mum gets a little irritated with me as I’ve got boxes full of them. She’s always onto me about how I should sell them & make some money but it’s not going to happen.
They’re all Marvel of course. I’ve never gone for DC, and don’t really watch the Marvel movie versions. Much prefer the original comics.
It’s a real shame they’ve never done any serious animated movie versions. I can’t quite believe in all those actors and special effects pretending to be super heroes”
He spoke slowly and thoughtfully looking straight at Rosa.
She immediately liked him.
“I agree. Some of the early DC stuff is OK but Marvel is, for me anyway, on a different level. Do you work here all the time?”
“I do at the moment. Me dad’s not well. Been ill for quite a while & nobody seems to know what’s wrong with him. Him and some of the other people he worked with and…”
“I know someone who’s Dad’s really ill and some of his work mates too. My cousin Danny’s Dad”
“Dazzle! Danny Robson. I know him well. We used to be good mates but my family moved from Elswick to Benwell a few years ago so I don’t see him so often. Hey….You must be Rosa, right. His cousin that’s writing the graphic novel?”
"Yes that's me. Please to meet you"es that’s me. Please to meet you”
He put his hand over the counter and they shook hands.
“I’m Davey. Can you tell Danny you met me, that I was asking after him and his Dad. It’s been too long since I’ve seen him. He’s got my mobile number so please ask him to give me a call or text and we can arrange to meet up”
“Of course. I’ll probably see him in the next day or two. Well…..I better be going. A busy day ahead”
“Have a good one. Great to meet you Rosa. How’s the graphic going? ”
“Yeah….OK......Well it’s getting there, so I’m nearly ready to look for an agent and a publisher as I’ve almost finished the 1st Book.”
She laughed.
“Though I still haven’t got a title for it. But maybe one day it’ll be collectable”
“There’s some fantastic graphic novels out there. I’ve just started getting into them. Kind of different but also similar to comics. I’d like to see yours once it’s ready”
“Well maybe I’ll bring it in so you can have a look and give me your expert opinion on it.”
He laughed
“Really I’m no expert”
“Oh but you are. All those Marvel comics you’ve read definitely make you an expert. Good to meet you Davey. Enjoy the rest of your day & the Silver Surfer. See you again I’m sure.”
“I hope so. Don’t forget this”
He handed the carefully wrapped miniature carpet across the counter to her. She took it from him.
“See you Rosa”
“See you Davey”
He raised a hand in farewell, put his leg back on the counter, picked up the comic and returned to the Silver Surfer travelling across the universe on his cosmic board.
Rosa turned and walked out the shop.
She stood for a moment on the pavement and then took her rucksack from her back, unzipped one of the side pockets, carefully placed the red tissue parcel in before putting the rucksack on her back again, looking left towards the city centre then right down the hill towards the roundabout, the Tyne bridge and the river beyond.
She turned left then immediately right down the narrow street that led to Panis. She'd decided to have some of their delicious soup with flat bread and Sardinian salad then cut through by the Bigg market to the Central Station where she could catch a 38 bus up the West Road and out of the city. Maybe she'd stop on the way and see if she could hire a bike. A trials bike would be good then she could take it cross country....
Yes. It was definitely time to head out towards Hadrians wall and see what was waiting for her there now that she'd fulfilled Red's instructions about the plums and the carpet.
She opened the door and walked into Panis.
Medium shot over Rosa's shoulder into a busy restaurant with tables and chairs stretching down towards stairs leading to the main part of the restaurant.
Zoom in to waiter coming up to her and embracing her.
"Hey Rosa"
"Hey Pietro. Comme sta?"
"Bené grazie. What can I do for you Rosa?"
"A table for one please"
Quick pan round to close up of Rosa's smiling face over Pietro's shoulder.
Open to medium shot of their backs as they walk down the stairs into the restaurant.
Pan up & into ceiling covered in intricate blue and green swirls of plaster work.
Fade to blue.