Wallflower

Autumn flame, coal hatch black interspersed with snow fox white tufts, this young cat had become gremalkin alongside me. Nanny Wells told tale of when the lady doctor in Liverpool did her rounds arrayed with a fur stole and a stethoscope about her neck. Pillar box red, a British institution. When we found her, she was in a cage pulling at stiches in her side. Home, she dragged herself along the carpet, her hind legs jerking forwards, as though sporting britches, such did her fur plume. Mesmerised I looked on: What is this wonder? A cat that moves like some mechanised bunny! Worms. Once treated, the articulation of her limbs was as standard.  Her mew is silver filigrene. Aching, insistent; sometimes mute, and all the more ardent in its soundlessness. If she is angry, she will poo in propitious places: where the foot falls unthinking in daily business. Otherwise she dabs about, mustering sanguinity about the place as dust falls spiralling in sun haze down. She is Queen, her eye green...

In a car, a hot and dusty carriage. A soundless dot, a bright brittle star in the sunlit Sahara desert. Region: the Triangle of Death. We arrive at a Club house. A flat sandstone building topped with triangular glass. Once a popular spot - disco - written large above the door. In the front porch, a houseplant is kicked about the floor, bits of earth and plastic, and  the limbs of a spider .  Then into an open sun lounge and seated at a large plastic white table. The table is so large, we feel the distance, and must pitch a raised voice to talk to one another.  The dark glass walls are lined with hot house plants and ivy. There is no music, and few members sit in the shadow of the bar.  Once seated the women arrive from a side door, led by a tall and muscular woman in a red dress.  Her hair short and soft like a newborn, her teeth dark and set in a hot and red face. Her appearance is that of a large thumbed caricature Madame.  She is friendly and natural wit...