This is another old piece of writing. I enjoyed creating George because his idealism and awkwardness seemed very human and tinged with sadness. Demeter seemed a character I never quite found or grasped. Maybe that is why I ran out of steam every time I wrote about her. She was too elusive, always a hazy creature, never particularly solid.
In the new writing for Bangor I do feel that the character of Frankie is more substantial and her role seems more linked to movement and life; so we will see what transpires.
George held the chalk to his mouth and tried to forget how he used to write her name. If he forgot the first letter then maybe he could lose the second somewhere and then the rest would chase each other far away.For he knew that forgetting would save him from her and her life and most of all from her death which left him so alone that his words paraded their carelessness and lived on without her. Yet she was so near to him he could breathe her in, breathe her down into his chest so that she would live secretly again deeply part of all he did, all he tried to do. He would move around his day, rearranging, nodding at some face, agreeing with another, and then there she would be, watching, touching his head, reminding him.
George did not know how to talk to Demeter. She walked across the lawn towards him like a miracle. The late afternoon sunshine on her red hair whiplashed his face and he felt the tips of his fingers burn with the energy of her. He was dazed by her mouth. He wanted to cross himself at the power of her, he wanted to lift her hair away from her long neck and kiss her madly so she would never forget his name.
But he was just a boy. A boy who had a soft voice that made kind people lean towards him as he tried to speak of his Aunt. He felt his voice was borrowed today. It was on hire somehow and could be recalled at any moment. And as he spoke it was as if he was waiting for his words to be snatched away; so he released them slowly, each word a sharply shaped pebble for listeners to turn around in their hands. There were corners to each word.
‘Hello then Demeter.’
What an uneven boy she thought. Uneven and suddenly tender. And there she saw him again holding his aunt’s hand, purely and only for her.
