Katia, O Katia!
She must, of course, have got out of bed sometimes. But I never saw it happen once in our winter together. And when I say 'together', I should make it clear that we never actually lived together as such, though I made use of her sofa once or twice.
Katia lived in an unprepossessing flat above a greengrocer's in north London. Her sole companion here was a fat white cat called Ashbery, whose domain was confined to the flat. It was rumoured that Ashbery had been fed half a tab of acid as a kitten and that this accounted for her unpredictable mood swings. Certainly her behaviour made as much sense to me as the work of the poet she took her name from.
It was quite by chance that I came to enter Katia's orbit. A friend had asked me to deliver a parcel of magazines to her flat because I lived nearby and it was likely to be several weeks before he came up to north London again. I dutifully called round one Saturday morning in November, when the greengrocer downstairs was open for business and trade was brisk, but received no answer when I rang her bell. I tried again late afternoon, and this time the door opened for me, presumably by remote control. I walked up the uncarpeted stairs, pausing uncertainly at the top.
'Who is it?' It was difficult to tell which of the several rooms that opened onto the landing the voice came from.
'Simon,' I said. 'With magazines. From Tom.'
'Come in,' called the voice.
I tried what seemed the most likely door. It was the kitchen. Tried another: the bathroom.
'What are you doing?' asked the voice impatiently. 'In here!'
I tried a third door, and this time was successful. I found myself in a dimly lit, very hot bedroom. Katia lay in the double bed with what looked like a fur coat around her shoulders while Ashbery sprawled across the second pillow.
'Katia?' I asked hesitantly.
'Well, I hope so,' she returned. 'And this is Ashbery. Simon Harker?'
I confirmed my identity.
'Do sit down.'
She leaned over and tipped a pile of magazines - Bella, Hello, The Economist, The New Yorker and Forum among them - from the armchair beside the bed onto the floor. I did as I was told.
Katia was the most striking looking woman I had ever set eyes on. She had exceptionally high cheek bones, eyes set curiously far apart and of different colours, and a mass of jet black hair. To me, as a young man recently arrived from the provinces, she seemed extraordinarily exotic.
'Biscuit?'
We bonded over fig rolls. We talked for hours, our conversation ranging widely over subjects as diverse as Coronation Street, Roland Barthes, the superiority of loose tea over teabags, the assassination of the last Pope but one, the respective merits of Hornsey and Wood Green, the notion of celebrity and the songs of Leonard Cohen. It was midnight when I left and in all the time I'd been there neither of us had eaten anything other than fig rolls, nor drunk anything. Katia had not once got out of bed, the most essential of functions apparently of no concern to her.
For the next six months I was a regular visitor. I brought food and drink, sometimes flowers. We talked, flipped idly through magazines, or watched TV. Ashbery would go on occasional forages to the kitchen but I never saw Katia go anywhere. On exceptionally cold evenings she would sometimes allow me to share the bed while we watched TV, but she always wore several layers of clothing and I was never invited to take off more than my socks. There was never any physical contact between us and while this seemed perfectly natural to her, I occasionally found myself struggling with the concept.
Towards the end of May I went away to spend the bank holiday weekend with my mother. When I called at the flat on the Tuesday, there was no response. The greengrocer told me that Katia had gone away. He had no idea why or where she had gone. She'd left in a taxi the day before with two suitcases and a fat white cat in a cat box.
We had spent Friday evening together and it had been like any other Friday evening. No tension, no arguments. What did this mean?
I had as little idea as the greengrocer. I suddenly realised how little I had known her. In all our endless conversations she'd never once revealed where she was born, whether she had a family, what she'd done before she took to her bed, or why she'd taken to it. To this last, I now guessed the answer was boredom.
And the only explanation I could think of for her disappearance now was boredom. Ennui had been a favourite word, but perhaps the reality had proved more than she could bear.
I bought a pound of Granny Smith's and headed for home.
Page(s) 12-13
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The