Away from the gleam of winter stars, Calypso shed her belt of seal's teeth, pelican feathers and sea shells.
Beneath the gleam of winter stars - a motel line with its tethered ponies; red and blue, racing car green, Ramblers, Hornets, Monaros ... Long muscle. Short muscle.
"Take off my dress."
"You take it off."
"Take off my dress."
"I want to watch you."
So she takes off her dress.
She minds the wounds of this Indiana Jones of the taxation world. He'd washed up on her shores, bruised and battered from nine days of scotch on the rocks. She checked his star sign and she licked him well again.
"I am an important man!" He told her. "I'm meeting with Rudd come the morn!"
Outside, her sea crow clattered on the tin roof with impatient, flat feet. Sea stormed the shore.
Inside it was warm and he was ready for her.
A cold bleep at five in the morning. He dressed and patted himself down.
"Stay with me," she said.
"There's Rudd. Today. A plane to Melbourne."
"So build a raft." (And then we'll have some breakfast.)
The drive. The flight, he says.
He pines.
She stays.
I've met the likes of Calypso before, and with hind sight I should have accepted her invitation. But this is how (most of us) men are hot wired. We are never content (enough) to stop our searching, and most are blind to what is offered to them. Leonard Cohen met Calypso and refers to her in his song Suzanne (Suzanne Verdal). "Suzanne (Calypso) takes you down to her place near the river, you can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her, And you know that she's half crazy but that's why you want to be there, and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China..."
ReplyDeleteShe brings him tea and oranges from China...but still that isn't enough, or maybe he didn't like her rags and feathers brought from Salvation Army Counters... I too have met the likes of Suzanne, and how I dream of those moments spent near the river listening to the boats go by...
They are a particular type of women, those girls. Thanks, Tim ... I hadn't thought about Suzanne.
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