NOT MADE MANIFEST — ROBERT LEEMING
/A sea breeze blew the music charts from a horseshoe of silver stands sending pages of yellowing staves and treble clefs slicing through the air.
I told Greta that clothes pegs might be needed but she begged me to stop concentrating on the tiny details and consider the larger picture. She ordered me into the undercroft of the hall to carry out several stone heads of musical notables that I had to arrange on a four tiered table top, each head facing a different direction, to create the impression of a gaggle.
Nothing is more disheartening than the giving of a concert to an audience that isn't listening and as I weaved my way around the cabinets at the reception for the Governor of Barbados, the talk was of anything but the music.
Maria, leaning against the curve of the curved room, she said was only there because an empty Sunday would have left her with too much time on her hands and I said I was tired of working. So we took on our roles and she started to talk about flirting, while I adopted the style of a connoisseur, as the cable car ticked from tooth to tooth in the thin mountain air.
The air was cold, we sipped in the cold air, as the sculpted miracle, garlanded with fairy lights, was guided down the steps. The patriarch passed guarded by lines of green dragoons. The sensation in the flesh is never as fascinating as a sensation in the air and nearly everyone saluted as the man of the moment moved through the crowds.
It’s strange, but of all the things I learned that night, the fact that carousel means little battle in Spanish is what still sticks in my mind. The magic of life is in the skirmishes.
Robert Leeming is a writer, journalist and photographer from London (via Manchester). His writing has been featured in The Belleville Park Pages, theNewerYork, Rasasvada, Flux Magazine, Port Magazine and GQ. A collection of his work can be found here: www.robertleeming.com.
