Interludes

Afternoon in Dublin for Italian lesson with Angela. She's been my teacher for a year. She arrived gorgeous as ever. The most beautiful girl I know. And the last one I would entertain any romantic feelings for. Mainly because I trust her as I would adders fanged. Let me put it this way. I've always had the feeling she'd willingly knock me over the head for fifty bucks. That is, if she for a moment in her villainous little heart of hearts, believed I had fifty bucks.
But I digress.
She's a genuinely superb teacher.
We have our lessons in a cafe.
Today she sang some sort of a love song in the halflight of the cafe.
It was part of the lesson.
She would sing a line and then translate it.
Some classic lyrics...
"I want to grasp you to my bosom. I want you to see me as you have never seen me before."
The effect of this nonsense coupled with Angela's hypnotic brown eyes was a tad startling.
All this time I've simply considered her a villain who happened also to be a very good teacher of Italian.
All this time I was sure I had her figured out.
All this time I felt in no danger at all.
I still don't know if I was wrong about Angela. But I just may have been wrong about myself.
Later in the day met Hodders for coffee at Starbucks. We drove to Kilcullen and collected some of her clothes and books which I'd housed for the past year. Back to Dublin to deposit them in her apartment. We drank tea and watched television for a few hours.
I got home again to Kilcullen around 2am. Dropped over to Uncle Bernard's to see Aunty Marie. She was in bed. Aunty Eileen, who has been minding her, was still up. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw me at the window.
"You won't believe this," she said when she'd calmed down. "I just thought of you five minutes ago. I thought to myself: One of these nights James is going to arrive at the window and scare the wits out of me."
I told Eileen that this thought had actually been her guardian angel letting her know I was on the way.
We had coffees. She told me she could see Marie was fading fast and asked had I noticed. I said no.
Outside beneath the most splendid array of stars I asked the Lord for a miracle.
Back home to do some arteekling. Dawn rising before I got to bed. I took some photos. The sky was striated gold. I felt the pulse of artistic purpose.
This is why I live.