The face in the wall

The face in the wall watched all that went on and did not approve. The disapproval was expressed subtly at first, a mere flicker of admonition through a slight smudging of outlines as the face hardened about the forehead spreading downwards to that mouth.

Then as they carried on without care, without conscience, the face released the hardness and let one colour run  into another, darkening the red, deepening the black, spreading a stain that George noticed because he was so alone these days. All days in fact,  now that his Aunt was gone. Indeed if George hadn’t had the face to look at now , he doubted very much if anyone would have noticed him at all. Looking at some one else was a skill, it really was. It took time and care, and all these things  seemed of the past nowadays, for with his Aunt’s death, the world’s eyes had fallen away. In this  sightless place , he wandered through her house each day, listening to the faint, hoarse whispering of dark suited men with snapping brief cases, and the click clack of women with narrow eyes devouring papers which promised so much they believed, yet so far had delivered so very, very  little.

George’s father stood at the front door of his late sister’s house, carelessly smoking as he had always done, watching them all, smiling at their hopes which grew like grey tentacles about the house, choking at the heart of George’s Aunt who now stood in turn powerless, watching them back, praying the face in the wall could heal that which her soul could not.

George smelt the scent of greed along the corridors of his Aunt’s old home. Each carpet held a pattern which seemed to tell him more about these figures which lay littering the tables in the kitchen pored over by eyes which would never return a look. Greed had a humming sound, a chorus insinuated itself upwards to the attics, to this gallery where George would sit reading, where he felt comfortable enough to remember his Aunt, a memory he knew, beyond doubt, this face in the wall knew as well as he.

George’s favourite memory was of soap. She had loved yellow tar soap and they had washed her last dog together under the yard tap whilst she told him about Carmen and the colours around his head, and why he must never ever forget Demeter. Cluedo had shook herself all over him, splashing the tar all over his bare arms and then just when they had been talking about her, Demeter had arrived back from somewhere and had pulled his hair and he knew he was alive.

Posted in Writing Demeter