155. Wake up call

I put the phone down with a smile on my face: it is nice to catch up with friends and to hear about people you have not spoken to for a while. Life moves on. This is truly reassuring these days when I try to resist going mad. So here I am, musing at my desk, feeling a wave of inspiration and reaching for my sketch pad.

I smooth the paper and look out of the window. Above the red tiled roof of the 'dépendance' the trees are still bare and their black spindly branches are reaching to dull grey skies, as if desperately trying to get the sun's attention, eroding it so it will pierce through the thick mist. Soon little buds will form and then they will be bushy and green. I should paint them before spring arrives. It may turn into a meaningful scene but that would take time, effort and something I will call insight. I think back to the phone call and to the news of the colleague moving from the country into the town. And about how he too had a tale to tell about the maze of tunnels linking the this town's cellars altogether (that definitely is a meaningful image).

I laugh. During these days of curfew there still seems endless possibilities. His new address is at the top of the town and mine is at the bottom close to the canal ... About half a mile as the crow flies ... My mind wanders off again as I trace the first lines on the paper. Thin, light pencil marks barely visible and making sense only to me. The lines turn into branches and the trees appear on the blank page. I am ready to paint and I get up to get water.

As I turn the tap on and watch the water fill the cup I am imagining the journey from cellar to cellar. Maybe now and then one would have to pop out and cross a garden over to a 'dépendance' only to duck down again and reach a new passage. I know enough history teachers in this town so why have not asked them yet? How about an underground tour of the town? But better still why not turn these hideaways into boozy places? The curfew could go on, people would come and go using the cellars. I'm thinking I could pinch the colourful arrows from work and stick them on the walls so people would not get lost.

As I can see the bar and hear the music (saxophone 😉) I suddenly freeze. OMG. Silly me. The cellar. The pile of bricks 'blocking' the way through to the neighbours' house and therefore to mine!! They're the dope smokers! They might have a stock down there somewhere and if one day the police comes they will think I am associated with that business. I abandon the watercolour project in a whiff and rush down the stairs. I get into the kitchen where an other kind of chaos is taking place. My son is baking what must be his 11th banana cake. I make a mental note never again to buy bananas during holiday time and count the days till he goes back to school. 

I move the kitchen table.

'Hey Mum! What are you doing? I'm trying to bake something here!'

'It's an emergency. A real one!'

So we move the table and lift the trap door. It's freezing down here. I get to the rough pile of stones and sigh deeply with relief. Nothing has moved. I put the stones back up as neatly as possible so they resemble a wall and reflect that I should never have moved them. Upstairs they're screaming.

'Mum! Hurry up! It's freezing. What are you doing down there anyway?'

Maybe I should ask my husband to cement the bricks? I am not sure he would agree and anyway that would block one access route to the speakeasies.

I go back to my watercolour. The trees are dark and black and the sky a sombre shade of purple but if I look closer a bright pale pink and yellow line is starting to light up the scene, like an arrow pointing towards the music and the drinks and the laughter and the meeting (and touching) people. Yes, madness definitely gaining territory here.

References made to: Back to work! (41 to 44, 47, 60) and Peaceful weekend (151)