Turtle Diary

52 Neaera H

It used to be that I stayed up till all hours and still felt time-starved, none of the day seemed to be metabolized into living. Now the minutes make me strong.

Frost this morning. Sharp it was, the air rang with it. I got up early and walked down the New King’s Road to Parsons Green. Near where William lives there was a dead cat by a bus stop, pretty well flattened out. He looked as if he’d been run over by a lorry. A grey stripy tom he was with a head like a Roman senator, one eye open, one eye shut. His whole corpse seemed expressive of the WHAM! when his life met his death. He looked as if he’d been one hundred per cent alive until the lorry closed his account in the flower of his tomcathood and his mortal remains were cheerful rather than depressing. To live with a yowl and die with a WHAM! Thinking about him whilst walking back I stopped and wrote:

Stiff but not formal

A dead cat says hello

This winter morning.

Later I’d be having lunch with George at the Aquarium: sandwiches by the salt-water tanks, the poshest spot in town. Between now and then were all kinds of minutes, all of them good. Who knew what might happen at the typewriter?

Before going up to the flat I went into the square, played hop-scotch in it just as it was, with no fountain.