Brixton

Rain fell in Brixton this morning, I looked out the window and saw little spittle fields on the bricks. Searching for my keys while News 2 blared, I felt a shadow cloud my concentration. I trudged up and down the stairs three times in my squeaky new boots. If I keep this sort of exercise up they’ll soon be worn in.

The word “Brixton” waves in gold from the glass panel above out front door. It’s running writing, as I recall, though few people see it, or us, behind our first floor balcony railing, through the wires of our hastily-erected hammock.

I often hear glass smashing in the back shed of the picture framers next door. They have a weird Christmas scene arrangement inside their front window. We have a little tree in the hallway. Its lights are green and purple. When I come home in the evening their light pleases me, as a small trinket would engage a child.

The street we live on intersects about twenty metres down the road with the main street of our suburb. This means it can get quite noisy at night and in the early morning, when the garbage trucks come to collect broken glass from the bar on the corner. They have recently installed sound proofing but it seems not to have made much difference. It’s sad because the bar used to be a much less pretentious cafe, with little tables and odd chairs, that served hot chocolates and cakes. My mother and I went there the first time she came to visit.

Now it’s awash with the brushstrokes of djs, while I sit here, thirty-something, brushing lint off my new fawn pants, my dress shoes gleaming in the midday Brixton breeze.