One persistently fiddles with the top button of her blouse, a little distressed perhaps, whilst another observes her with care and winks towards someone I can’t quite see. A single-heeled black suede shoe droops dejectedly from the hand of its owner, not needed for the nonce. A polished silver pocket watch links a couple together briefly before resting from its chain. Two middle fingers touch slyly for a moment. An index finger breaks a circle to explore an open mouth. Too many hands touch too many faces for me to remember each one. Tired wrists are rubbed, squeezed or simply inspected. The right knee eases its way out of the thick grey tights, already too late to mend. Many white tissues are consumed, some with tears, most not. Two of the younger women sit on the edge of the kerb, gilding the gutter. What? What are they saying?
Maria Fusco is a Belfast-born writer, working across fiction, criticism and theory. Her latest work, Master Rock, is a repertoire for a mountain, commissioned by Artangel and BBC Radio 4. Her books include: With A Bao A Qu Reading When Attitudes Become Form (Los Angeles/Vancouver: New Documents, 2013), and The Mechanical Copula (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2011). She is founder of The Happy Hypocrite, a journal for and about experimental writing, is a Reader at University of Edinburgh and was Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Text by Maria Fusco
Header image by Jaki Irvine