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

For eight hours a day all I hear is the sound of planes. We work in the kitchen of a pokey hotel underneath the Airport. It is pokey; and there are only the two of us who work there in that kitchen. We don’t get along. I annoy her beyond belief. I annoy her so intensely that I feel quite guilty about putting it into word. I don’t mean to annoy her, it just happens. It’s because we’re so different. We’re at the opposite sides of the spectrum. I work to live. She lives to work. I never start. She never stops. I’m over ripe. She’s over hyped. Everyone worries about her and tells her to slow down whereas no one worries about me and everyone tells me to speed up. Mostly I arrive fifteen minutes late, while she was there fifteen minutes early. The amount of hours I’ve had off sick, she’s done as overtime. At break times I smoke one long slow joint like a canoe drifting down a river. She smokes twenty cigarettes, rapid-fire like bullets from a
machine gun. Before the day begins I turn on the blue tap to freshen my face and neck. She turns on the red tap to boil the pans ready for the work ahead. When you’re together for eight hours a day, five days a week, in a room no bigger than a garage, with the differences in personality like ours, then there will be heat — especially in a kitchen.

In her own way Roxanne Yates is quite sweet. Not someone who I
could marry, date or share a bottle of wine with. But she does have little adorable ways. Roxanne wouldn’t say the same about me though; she hates my guts. But more than anything I think I’m a mystery to Roxanne. I am so beyond my job yet so beneath it. I know that at any minute of any day I could quite easily walk out or get fired. This gives me an air of effortlessness, which Roxanne misinterprets as some kind of greatness.

From what I can gather Roxanne has had a hard life, which hasn’t
softened any in recent years. She’s been with the same boyfriend for
most of her life. They live in each other’s pockets but not in each other’s hearts. When I ask her how things are going she often uses words like dead, dull and repetitive. “It’s like eating dry crackers every day.” She tells me. Not all the time but for most of it Roxanne likes to keep her private life to herself, so I don’t push it. I just watch her, preoccupied in her work. Every thought, emotion and decision going into the tasks of the day — scurrying like a mouse — her head flickering wildly like an amber flame down a Chicago alley. Work work work, go go go.

“Vince, what are you doing?” She asks.

“Writing down Haiku.” I reply.

In rocking chair
I had to watch him
That peaceful dying man

“We haven’t got time for this shit now! And Vince how many times
have I told you now not to mix the fruit tins with the soup tins. There is a shelf for each.”

“The world has been reaped by separation Rox. Religion, nations class and ideas; if the soup and the fruit can’t come together then what chance have we got.”

I would wind Roxanne up to such a point where I would get a little
uncomfortable every time she reached out for the meat knife — sometimes it would get like that, which is not good.

I have been going out with one of the waitresses for a few months
now. She only works Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturdays I have off whereas Roxanne does overtime. My girlfriend Jenny leaves her notes and letters to give to me. This Roxanne hates.

“Here’s another letter from sweetheart, but tell her to make it the
last! I’m a cook not a flicking postal clerk.”

Like the attitude towards my job, Roxanne also resents the attitude
towards my relationships. Because like my job, I know that at any minute of any day I could quite easily walk out or get dumped. This gives me an air of effortlessness, which Roxanne misinterprets as some kind of greatness. I open one of Jenny’s letters, holding it up to the light so I could read it. Roxanne always manages to see through.

“Forgive me for being nosey Vince. But I couldn’t help notice that in
the top left hand corner of your letter it says Vince and not dear Vince and in the bottom right hand corner of your letter it says Jenny and not love Jenny. There’s nothing wrong is there? Because I know that you haven’t seen each other for a week or so now.”

Roxanne was always trying to get me down. And she had to do it by
being sarcastic.

“We’re not up to the dear and love stage yet Rox.” I reply. “And who knows if we ever will reach that stage. But there’s an art form to holding back. You see the difference between my relationship and yours is that you have all the attendance and little passion whereas I have all the passion and little attendance. Sensuality and anticipation fades. It’s best to make it last while it’s there.”

For a while I would set Roxanne off thinking. In life there’s not much
that I’m good at. But setting people off thinking was one of them. I was so beneath my job yet so beyond it. I had a gift and a curse together as one. For a while I would set Roxanne off thinking. Sometimes she would ask my opinion and I would give her an answer.

“I think my Boyfriend’s an alcoholic. What makes an alcoholic?”

“To me an alcoholic is when they spill a glass of red wine and they care more about the loss of the drink than the stain on the carpet.”

But then other times she would ask me my opinion and I wouldn’t be
able to answer.
“I think my Boyfriend thinks about other girls when we’re together.
What do you think?”

“I don’t know Rox. I couldn’t say.”

On one Wednesday night shift while my girlfriend was surfing in and
out of the kitchen in her short skirt. And my boss was accusing me for incompetence, and Roxanne was agreeing and I was agreeing. I decided that it was going to be my last night at work. After tonight I wasn’t going back. There wasn’t much to it; it was just decided in a moment an hour before the end, while I scratched my balls with one hand and circled a frying pan with the other. That hour was the best hour I’d ever worked. I watched Jenny’s gorgeous poetic behind through the kitchen door window, bending at the tables to sprinkle Parmesan cheese. I listened to the planes roar overhead, and no longer regarded the sound with discontent and envy but actually thought about going abroad for the first time in my life. I thought of Roxanne and her sad routine. How will she survive eight hours a day, five days a week, without my company and stimulation, maybe
I’m the only source of healing in her life.

“Vince . .. Vince for fuck’s sake stop day-dreaming. Can’t you get another job... or die or something?

I thought about Roxanne — her mind like a beehive that’s been hit by a stone. She thought about Vince probably — his mind like a giraffe loping in the treetops. What made us so different? Which one of us was in the right in our approach to life? How would we both end up? I hoped that after tonight I would never see her again, I felt so definite and sad and close to Roxanne with this thought. Whatever. The planes roared on and Jenny’s skirt flapped like a pelican’s wing. At 11 p.m. the last shift in the kitchen of a pokey hotel underneath the Airport was over. I never told my boss or Roxanne about my decision. Tomorrow they would be in the shit, they would never be able to get cover in time and the whole hotel
would suffer because of my decision. This gave me a feeling of self-value, a thrill. In the morning I will send off for a passport. And in one month’s time I will be on a plane with Jenny’s arse in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, flying over this kitchen, flying over this earth.

When I get back I will be jobless and broke, scrounging money off my brother to pay for the rent. Then I’ll get another job in another kitchen and work with another Roxanne. Who knows? Ask the fish while it swims.

Tonight I walk alone. Going home. It is a dark warm autumn night.
There’s that moody brilliance in the air. Jenny has gone out with her
friends but really I know she has gone to see her handsome Italian knock off. I don’t mind. I just like how I know things. I walk through the graveyard. The moon winks at me. And from there I could say a whole lot more.