Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     A beautifully proportioned row of Victorian terraced houses sat basking in the partial shade of the cathedral. The houses were private residences but the larger, middle house, the nobleman’s house, had been turned into an advertising agency.

     There was a lot of activity at the windows of the middle house. People darted past the slatted glass, occasionally making gestures at each other. Cars pulled up outside, visitors came and went, and pigeons landed on the lead-covered roof, rested, then flew off.

     The sandstone steps seemed to spill out of the entrance in a brown liquid cascade. Frosted glass in the panels of the front door had been impressively etched with the company’s logo.

     Inside, the hallway had been laid with a maroon carpet and at the far end, a staircase led upward. Two doorways led off the hallway on the left-hand side, both doors fully ajar. The first room contained a long table surrounded by eight badly upholstered chairs and on the far wall, a Picasso print hung above an under-stocked drinks cabinet. This room was basically a cheaply furnished boardroom. In the next room a secretary took an incoming phone call, spoke softly, then redirected the caller elsewhere.

     The staircase led up to an antechamber, then continued up to a huge open plan floor, the full width of the house. The room was lined with row after row of draughtsmans’ desks, each sporting an Anglepoise lamp, most of them turned off, the odd one turned on. The south-facing wall was home to computer equipment; monitors, printers, that sort of thing.

     A lone man sat motionless staring vacantly into a monitor while a mug of tea steamed against the gentle roar of the photocopier. Sunbeams occasionally drifted through the room when clouds cleverly diverted the suns energies. The man was biting his fingernails hard, really tearing at them. He was in deep thought and his brow was moistened, heavily rutted.

     He stood up, very straight-backed and full of purpose, then strode out of the room and down the stairs. As he was halfway down, the secretary left her office and was startled to see him there. She turned her back on him and walked away down the hall.

     “Hey, hang on!” he pleaded, so she turned and folded her arms, waiting.

     “What’s going on?” he asked, “I phoned you twice but your dad said you were out.” She didn’t respond immediately, but he waited for a reply.

     Then she said, “Look, I don’t want to go out with you.”

     “But you said...”

     “I know I said I would,” she interrupted, “But I was just so shocked when you asked me, that I just said yes. I was just so shocked, you see.” He suddenly felt like he’d never felt before.

     “Ok, ok. Just forget it then,” he said, jilted. He backed off, his eyes still fixed on her, then turned and went back up the stairs, two at a time.

     She was surprised and saddened he hadn’t persisted, and outside on the street she wept into the great shadow cast by the bishop’s throne.