Jigs & Reels

the crematorium was one of the most prestigious venues in London

a nun gathering alms at the door of the basilica collects more than she bargained for; the old gentleman who gives her a hundred-franc note receives an unexpected handful of change; later, that night, a lad who swears he is fourteen will meet us both in the dark archway of a closed Métro station, and after that the young lad (who is really nineteen and doing good business) will take me to a club, where I shall mingle freely among the revelers, dipping into drinks, sharing cigarettes, touching flesh and enjoying the warm, damp air.

I’d like to stay with the cleaning woman, but life’s just too short. There are hundreds—thousands—of others out there waiting for me.

She’d been sleeping under a bridge; she was sixteen; dog-tired; beautiful. Tinfoil and spent needles littered the floor around her bed.

the hard-core hypochondriac

I’m a wanderer. A traveler. A party animal. I’m a free spirit, and I go wherever the wind takes me.

The cleaning woman is old but tough. She lives near Pigalle.

He wants intimacy; to stay in bed all day with the television on and cool drinks by the bedside. I’m a social animal;

You’ll never tie me down. I’m a free spirit; I go wherever the wind takes me.

At Gran’s funeral there had been sherry and sausage rolls, and we had cried together, Mum and Sis and I, at the unfairness that takes away a relative without warning at the age of fifty-nine;