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CALLASSA
Invicta Veritate
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Amor Mio
Written by Callassa to her adored and precious lover
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“And I meant it when I told you I could never die, after you said you were going away.”
Callassa
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Amor Mio
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After all the years, I saw you again, just now, held still during these passing seconds. Allow me to regain my composure and express my thoughts. That’s better, but not really. Actually, not at all.
With my parents I was staying at Dover on the English coast. I say staying because it was my suggestion as a destination, rather than London. It’s not that London is not a fabulous city, because it certainly is, but I thought coming from San Francisco, we needed a complete change, this time. It had worked, my parents seemed happy going off as they had been, and exploring resorts that faced the sea.
I had left early to catch a train to London and should have arrived at nine o clock, or so, not that there was any compulsion regarding time. I had friends and I was going to spend a day with them, British girls, yes.
I was sitting on the train, I can’t recall where it had set off from but anyway, I had a seat facing the back of another and the carriage was somewhat full, perhaps with commuters. I adore British trains and the motion they make across long, long distances filled with things to see and think about.
I stood because it was much easier to search my handbag in this way; I wanted to take a few pictures through the window. I couldn’t find my camera and then while peering over the tops of people seated I saw you. My first reaction was to let myself fall into my seat and gaze at the uncontrollable trembling in my hands. That and I had become overwhelmed by an emotion I had barely kept at bay for over ten years. In fact I had never succeeded with the attempt, merely pretended.
After about a minute I stood and yes, you were there, reading a book. Baby love, my adored one with the curly hair was there. My precious darling, the one whose love I kept close and had traversed with me through time and place.
I sat. What was I to do? Yes, what? The obvious thing was to go to you and say, “Hello beautiful boy, remember me?” But was he alone? Was he…..alone? I had no idea. I had to think clearly because doing the right thing was, was what? I couldn’t think clearly, no, not at all. What was there to think, what was there other than drowning in a torrent of feeling within which, in truth, I actually died and had been reborn time and time again but had never moved on from that final hour. I stood and looked again, this time for a little longer. Then I had an idea. In my purse I had kept something enormously precious, a sewing thimble, yes. My mother had a hobby repairing old rugs and used them often. This particular one I couldn’t bear to risk losing so I searched in my bag for another. They found their way everywhere did these things and luckily enough when I wanted one there it was at the bottom corner of my bag. I took it and with my lipstick traced a red band around the rim, and then I smudged it in one significant place.
I had a sunhat with me that covered my face if I tilted it slightly forward. I put it on, then my shoes. I stood. My heart was racing and I needed the washroom. All the content of the days of the past ten years were here as though waiting for me to endure them again. They made me slightly faint but I managed to manoeuvre myself out from my seat. I took my bag and walked unsteadily down the aisle between the seats. I was close and so was what we used to say to each other, the place we went to, those days spent among the autumn leaves and the larks in the sky, always there. The thimble you said……..
You were close to me, unconcerned, almost touching me with your elbow. I put the thimble on the table in front of you so you would see it. I hurried on toward a space where I could stand and there, the rocking of the train began making me faint despite which I peered toward you, now standing and what were you thinking? I covered my face with both my hands because I was weeping uncontrollably. My mascara and makeup was a mess. I was losing composure in a very severe way and would need assistance, but from….who? I couldn’t stand and began kneeling with my back against the side of the train.
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Amor Mio
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I have a boyfriend, his name is Curly Locks (Philip H-W by birth) and I adore him. I adore him in ways I have sat pondering over during the long and lonely evenings when we don’t see each other. I will say more, everything more, yes, I will.
Today we are going to our special place to picnic. We had found this place via the most fortunate occurrence having been passing, this country place, serene as it stood, still, beautiful, in the north of England. Subsequently we discovered that it was actually a gateway to a very big house, a mile away if you walked in a straight line across fields and copses and beneath very old constructions designed to allow a horse and carriage beneath, there you would see it. It was all very old, crumbling, but what took me most was the entrance, the gatehouse I described that was really two small cottages between which were the hugest gates you have ever seen. Atop the stone columns each side were fabulous stone lions. I had knocked on the door of where I assumed someone lived because there were curtains in the window, and a man in his fifties answered, very English he appeared to me. “Hello, my name is Callassa and my boyfriend is Baby Love. We were passing and taken very much by your fabulous house. Would you mind if we sit on your lawn for a while. Just a short while?”
“You are American,” said the man, his words accompanied by a concentrated gaze. He wasn’t asking me but telling. Behind him there was a song playing I recognised, Frank Sinatra, ’Fly me to the Moon.’ It appeared that he liked American music.
“Yes sir, I am from the United States.”
“And you want to sit on the lawn?” he asked.
“Yes sir, I have a picnic basket and I promise we won’t make a mess or anything. My boyfriend is very particular about such things because he attends a private school.” I told him about Baby Love’s school because he looked the type to have done the same. I had an eye for such qualities, being an Anglophile.
“He does? And now you live here?”
“Yes sir, well much of the time because I live with my parents in a town close to San Francisco. I am here most of the time though because he is.”
I turned and waved to the person in question, but you stayed where you were.
“This is the gatehouse to the Wentworth estate,” he said. “The house is the largest in the country. Have you seen it yet?”
“Yes sir and I have photographs.”
“At a time during the eighteenth century the whole world was ruled from here.”
“Really? Sir, I am pleased you told me and it makes me feel special, sort of.”
I told him our names again.
“My name is Callassa and my boyfriend is Curly Locks.”
“Oh … Alan,” he said in a friendly manner and proffered me a hand. “Bell, as in doorbell.”
“Thank you sir. May I ask if you have lived here long?”
“Oh, a long time. Don’t worry about that.”
I gathered he was telling me that he’d lived here longer than my twenty years.
“We aren’t here very often,” he said. “Jane, my wife, we spend most of the year in Scotland. Edinburgh, actually.”
“You do, my mother says she has Scottish heritage but most Americans say the same. Perhaps some do.”
He laughed.
“Look, if you want to sit on the lawn I don’t mind at all. If you look over there, that green door, that’s a WC you can use. I mean when you return from walking up there.”
He was pointing to a field that was really a space set out as though a wide driveway of sorts. I couldn’t see where it went only that a wooded area stood in the far distance. He was saying something to me.
“That will lead you to the mansion you’ve seen, but there’s much more to see along the way. The wood by the way has bluebells during spring, the fields have skylarks and the wood has pigeons all year long. You’ll see.”
After bidding the man thank you and walking away. I turned to see that he was still standing at the door, his gaze fixed upon me.
Yes, the gates were huge and the lions stunning, glorious.
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(c) MMXXIV Callassa
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CALLASSA
Invicta Veritate