The art room
The Gallery
pictures, and what they sound like
Scroll down. Each plate arrives in its own time, and will take you back to the part of the story it came from.
My Still Life — the plates
PART ONE
Down through the marram
“Saturday”
THE SAND
The slack line
“He set up where the grass gave out, and looked a long time before he mixed anything.”
THE SAND
Blue first
“Blue first. There was no way around the blue.”
THE WATER
Into the water
“Hope never checks the tide tables.”
THE WATER
Over the side
“The current did not care whose daughter she was.”
THE FIRE
The fire
“Stars came out above the dead pier like they had been dragged there.”
THE TUNNEL
The tunnel
“"Well," John said, finally, to the sea.”
THE TUNNEL
The studio
“Home was two directions. Of course it was.”
THE TUNNEL
Chips out of the paper
“He stood a minute anyway.”
THE TOWN
The allotment
“Sunday came up soft and couldn't commit.”
THE TOWN
Harbour and hem
“It felt like the first one that had got all the way out in years.”
THE TIDE
On the quay
“But his hands wanted something.”
THE TIDE
Three lines an hour
“Cream sand, he wrote. Going beige.”
THE DAFFODILS
The upturned boat
“The painting stood on the easel where Saturday had left it.”
THE DAFFODILS
The open window
“Maybe this one would be his.”
THE DAFFODILS
The stairs
“An old man's accounting: everything filed somewhere comfortable.”
THE DAFFODILS
The bus
“He didn't examine that. Some thoughts you leave shut, green at the tips.”
THE STREET
An armful of daffodils
“Ahead of him, the street lay open in the sun.”
THE STREET
The doorway
“Then the corner of her eye caught something falling.”
THE CORNER
The corner
“The pavement tilted, and Ted went with it.”
THE CORNER
Down to the sea
“The daffodils lay where they'd landed. Still shut. A day from opening.”
THE CORNER
The finished painting
“Blue sleeve. Red flowers on black.”
Loose leaves
Nothing hung here yet.
