Wool cap, tight black t-shirt, fluorescent yellow towel draped around shoulders.
He paces at a steady tread, eyes locked forward while the lady running beside whips hers around. He walks heavily on his right leg – maybe lurching, maybe limping.
He turns his head to his left and looks up through the gym window to watch fireworks bursting. He holds his gaze there for a few moments after the last and largest sputters away.
Grey vest, black sweatpants.
She darts around the badminton court in angles, lurching and reaching for the shuttle as it arcs back and overhead.
All tiptoes. Swift flights back and forth in sectors barely outlined. Tugged, seemingly, by a waist-high cord that tracks her up and along. Eyes always forwards and skywards.
When she stumbles she leans forwards on toepoint, folded at the waist, supported by a handspan tapping the court.
He appears with the changing of ends.
White t-shirt, white shorts. His arms swipes a racket at the air in front. It’s a harsh gesture, certainly aggressive. But when play starts he hangs to the far court edge and watches his partner dominate the space. She stomps and thunders all directions, snapping and returning the shuttle most every pass.
He watches. And for the most part he watches her.
When he does return he does it feet in place.
He is behind me, I daren’t turn around –
"Mummy, why can’t I see them?"
"The small ones are just behind the trees darling."
"Oh. Oh! I can see some look oh! Oh! Yeararrgrhararghrareeearghrarrrrrrrrgh!"
– it would be next to impossible to convince you just how guttural and heart-deep the scream coming from waist-high was; he put everything into it –
"eeearaghearrerrrrghargh! Peeeeeew! pewpewpew! Peeeeeew! Pew! Yay!"
– and the ones trailing sparks become ones flashing red and he goes quiet and lights go bang in the sky.
Onstage, slouched back in a low couch, body held at obtuse angles. His shoulders are cold to a speaker on the left and a speaker on the right, despite the fact they sit a little ahead of him. His posture seems an impossibly rude and calculated one.
Offsetting this: very traditional jeans and shoes; the black jacket of establishment criticism; a dark jumper that absorbs some stage light, rendering it purple or red or blue or black; school-marm glasses that dangle on a cord around his cord.
Shiny leggings, a baggy black top, leather plimsoles. She wears a band around her hair that slips over and under in Escher-esque contortions.
Mostly she is chopping lettuce. Long, broad knife held rigid in her right hand, pressure applied by her left palm, she shreds and dices for salad.
Further up the counter eight open sandwiches gape for mixed greens and pesto. A tub of tuna chunks in brine sits by a small basin.
Very blonde, very straight hair bounces against a purple fleece. Clean pink wellingtons. Little sign of blemish or wear on either them or the top.
It’s hard to get a fix on her. There’s a lot of practicality and warmth in what she wears, but it’s box-fresh enough to seem like a costume.
She leans into the pavement, walking with a hard pace, the counterweight of two carrier bags the only thing that stops her tumbling forwards.
He’s on the phone. His legs pitch and sway, like his knees don’t bend or there’s a rod holding his thighs apart. He rocks around an invisible circuit, waiting for the conversation to end. A holding pattern in the space between offices.
One hand to his ear. The other crossing and uncrossing, clutching his elbow then thrust into his pocket. Turned up jeans, leather shoes, a rucked-sleeved shirt; officewear.
Blue t-shirt, beaming countenance. He is happy to help. His lanyard taps at the desk as he gesticulates tips and suggestions to the lady perched beside him.
The Canadian accent feels out of place here, surrounded by continental lilts and half-finished words. He is warm and precise. ’Yes’ not ’Yeeeeeeeeah’. ’Of course’ rather than ’Hmmm, sure sure’. ’How can I help’ and not ’So what are you in for?’
She talks as much about a painting as her laptop, and he seems, genuinely, to enjoy it.
Laid back, a recliner chair set four foot off the ground. Wool trouser and the cuffs of a white jumper poke out from under a blue apron. His eyes and forehead are covered by a towel, his beard (thick and black) is being trimmed.
His lips are moving, isolated and exposed. Flicking into smiles and chuckles, extremely at ease under the barber’s light.
Lavender and spices scents – shampoos and soaps – slow the pace remarkably.
It’s hunching his back that ages him. His shoulders and head curl around his elbows as he works, neatly and precisely snipping at whiskers.
Black shoes, shiny turnups, a waistcoat with a little shimmer to it. Glasses halfway down his nose draw focus to his fingertips.
He speaks a few inches from his face, projecting in such a way that he doesn’t flex or wobble. It keeps the conversation close to the customer, so all onlookers can read is their sentiment.
Blue sports sweater with ’Brazil’ emblazoned on the chest. Khaki trousers. Burgundy trainers.
He’s sun-wrinkled, dashing back-and-forth between his car and the coffee shop. He’s suddenly exceedingly worked up about coffee sacks. He’s just bought twenty empty hessian sacks dumped in a crate out front, and it has moved him to jittery action.
He’s scrabbling for change for more, demanding his family look under their carseats for loose coins. Obviously he doesn’t realise he has an audience; the whole shop watches.
The disapproval comes right up from the back of her throat; "Chu-huchk!" A swiping of her apron and sleeves. She’d just come from inside, brandishing an armful of folded sacks from behind the roaster. She dumps them in the empty crate.
Her face scrunches back throughout, putting distance between the hessian sacks and her skin. The irritation overwhelms her professional cheer, until she dives back inside for the lunch rush and my sandwich.
She’s high on a stool behind a salon till. Bobbing up and down. Talking and watching out the window and describing passers-by. From time to time the stylists drift to her to follow what catches her eye. Who catches her eye. They clump in fascinated smiles, and hang static around her.
Blue striped dress, red lips, hair done right – lots of volume. Black tights, grey Cons.
She strokes her hair with two hands, looping it above her left shoulder, a rhythm of reassurance.
Leaning back into an old theatre seat, fresh white pages of an open book glowing up from his lap.
He has space for six to himself, an Americano on the go. And then he notices the people waiting, snaps out of the story’s flow. Scoops his cup and his bag up and manoeuvers over to the bar stools. The table is left to a cluster of warmly-dressed men.
He gets lost again, book in his right hand, cup in his left hand hovering a few inches above the saucer.
Baseball cap under hood, coat snug to him, black sweat pants saggy and low, Vans damp. He’s clutching his phone and staring out the window.
The bill of his cap holds his head up and he’s gazing out the train through the cracks his eyelids leave. His cheeks are puffy. There’s something washed out about him, where the early train has done him no favours.
No beat leaks from his headphones, and nothing but the view gets his attention.
White plimsols, khaki trousers, hands deep in his pockets and shoulders shrugged up round his ears.
He’s asleep before the train leaves the station. He’d walked on slow, looking over empty seats and found a spot with space. And his hips melted into the blue moquette and his legs locked straight in a lazy stretch.
His breath is at half speed. Little noise. A slow hiss that nearly gets lost under the tracks.
And we stop and his legs jerk and switch position... and he’s out again.
He holds himself closely. Plaster on the back of his hand. Voice radio-patient. He’s thinking as he’s speaking and it forces him to move slowly.
He’s onstage – all the authority of that placement – but he is an older man and it shows. It probably hurts, too. His shoulders roll forward, his stomach sunk in. Left leg folded sharply across his body.
But his eyes and hands move so fluidly, with such emphasis, that he carries the room. They’re pale specks sticking out of his black jacket. And they’re enchanting.
I’m sorry, I got carried away. Let me try again...
Black jacket – showing as blue under the stage lights – blue top, tan trousers. They aren’t cut to fit. Wiry glasses. Gaunt; there’s frailty in his gestures and speech.
His head moves quickly though, and looks into a middle distance that appears to encompass the whole audience. He probably can’t see any of us. But he does look forward. He appreciates he’s here for us.
His stories fold around anecdotes that prompt smiles, and they light up his face. The room glows by extension.
Black polyester trousers, slip on shoes, vest top under something sheer with frills. Chunky round tortoiseshell glasses and hair tumbled up.
Canapé-hungry. On her second plate. But it’s a tactic. It helps her to avoid making eye contact with the rest of the room. So does watching the video loop for a fourth time.
She guards a travel-worn satchel and sits a little forwards in her chair. Better to move quickly as people shuffle into the seats around her.
On the seventh loop her eyes drift sideways. She chews a tiny sandwich for a full minute.
Expressing wonder at the view over the Thames. Swapping opinions about Battersea, Singapore, skylines and Prada. Chat and change.
She holds herself primly, tightly. Brown suede skirt, green sweater, a red and ruddy silk scarf. Hairspray and precision.
He seems rakish, much more relaxed. Blue corduroys, an extremely red wool scarf and a wool jacket in wide tartan. The glinting of round cufflinks completes the picture.
She’s fixed in the image of WI; he’s cut like Toad of Toad Hall.
Greasy hair tugged into a ponytail, clipped and yanked and tied into place. Makeup clumps in her lashes. Black coat tight against her shoulders, collar popped and digging into the nape of her neck.
She’s reading The Sun over her companion’s shoulder, brow crinkled in concern.
Exhaling sharply through her nose, she slumps into her chair. Eyes clamp shut. The frown starts to melt away, and slowly her face approaches something like peace.
October 2014 | November 2014 | December 2014
Temple Studios | January 2015 | February 2015
March 2015 | April 2015 | May 2015
June 2016 | July 2016 | August 2016