Laid Back
(Tory Minister, 1980s)

Al keeps his head down. Imagines being torched on a balcony as he’s chauffeured along Moss Side’s battered streets. Has a fear of falling, being chased by demons. Cubed and sliced, stifled in an airless flat. Not a tree in sight, not a fluttering leaf. He loosens his collar, winds down the window, evokes the summer breeze that fans around his castle. Pictures himself skinny dipping in his open pond, saving his carp from the heron’s beak, with a tear in his eye and a single shot. Thinks of his Jaguar raring to go, almost purrs, while here he sees nothing but a library where nobody reads.

A twisted bike, a burnt out car: kids in worn trainers, kicking empty cans into the gutter; filling them with pebbles so they rattle like thunder. A scene Al would more gamely observe on TV ensconced in his study, his distressed leather chair, echoes of conflict muffled behind the green baize door.


(Note: I was in the car with Alan Clark, minister, at the time so it is a true account!)



Offshore
...