HANNAH LOWE Ink Tor’s off to The Night of the Senses’ annual ball to
collect her award. We
buy a sailor’s hat, a corset, seamed white fishnets from a market stall in Elephant. I
read that Columbians write messages of love on money. Gordis, my love has no price, Memo. The central bank has launched a TV campaign to wean them off the habit. Seems that everyone at lunch is pregnant again. I paint my
life in lurid detail. Let them sip lemonade and see what they’re missing. Siobhan talks about taking off . At Brechon Bouton,
it’s Paris. In El Rincon, it’s Peru or Chile. I know what I’m brave
enough for and its not that but I can eat steak so rare it’s blue. In
Iran, tampering with bank notes is a crime. Students wrote “Death to Dictator” on hundred Rial notes, defaced the Shah with spectacles and moles which reminds me of Lenny, driving his cab in LA. He
left Tehran in a car boot, hasn’t seen his family in fifteen
years. Chicago gave him asthma but Venice Beach was A-OK. I
write his story in my notebook, which these days is
what I do. A photo arrives in the post of my dad on
a roof in Notting Hill. He’s holding a baby who isn’t me. At sixteen he left Jamaica, played poker for his passage, worked the beetroot farms in Texas, past through Manor Park, E14. Some people never stop
moving. Tor gets in at 6. I’ve been up all night too. There’s a
tattoo on
her shoulder, cupid pulling on his bow. On her bicep, a
dollar sign. I lick my thumb and rub it. She laughs when it
smudges.
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