Our Dancing Days. Lucy English
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Fourth Estate
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London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Lucy English 2000
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Fourth Estate
‘Each Moment’ by the Incredible String Band. Words by Robin Williamson. Reproduced by kind permission of IMP Ltd. Lyrics from ‘Astral Weeks’ by Van Morrison.
The right of Lucy English to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9781841152424
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780007485390
Version: 2016-03-23
This was our dancing day
So even those with nothing to celebrate
Shook off their unfathomable gloom
And were lost with us in that meadow.
From ‘Albion’ in Spirit Level, a book of poems by Andrew Bell
CONTENTS
Bristol is built on several hills. In Totterdown there is a street that seems to cling to the steepest edge of one on a high embankment above Temple Meads Station. Tessa’s studio was on the top floor of a house in this terrace. From here it wasn’t difficult to entertain the idea that one was floating above the city like the hot-air balloons do on a fine day, but it also wasn’t difficult to imagine the whole street of houses slipping over the embankment; the gardens already lay at perilous angles. It was with this feeling of landing in front of the 10.45 from platform 6 that caused Tessa to stop working and look out of her studio window.
The ten forty-five gathered speed and whirred past harmlessly, but Tessa still felt she had fallen beneath its wheels. She also knew why she felt like this. She had that morning received a letter from her ex. It had just stopped raining and there was a break in the clouds. Sunlight fell onto the other side of Bristol, emphasising the lumpy forms of the university building, the glass edges of the city office blocks, and, pointing up between, the spires of Christchurch and St Mary Redcliffe; Bristol’s skyline was urban but not unpleasant. She could also see the parklands of Ashton Court and the gardens of Brandon Hill, for it was May and the trees were blossoming and fresh.
Smudgy sunlight on pinkish stone, pastel blue between moving clouds, it’s definitely a watercolour, thought Tessa turning from her window and back to her art, but her canvas was dark and red