Ian C Smith’s work has been published in BBC Radio 4 Sounds, Cable Street, Griffith Review, North of Oxford, Rundelania, The Spadina Literary Review, Stand, & Westerly. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.
Cambridgeshire Landlady
You travel to exotic places without leaving home. Yesterday, creaseless Americans in pastel shades enquired about bathrooms, hot water’s efficiency. Today, Australians fill your tiny cottage with shoulders, thighs, rucksacks, bold exclamations of delight. Tomorrow? Who knows? Perhaps an elegant moustachioed Spaniard with soulful eyes shall transport you to Barcelona, or the glory of Alhambra.
Without a map we had hiked until the day dimmed in mid-afternoon, signs pointing across cold fields through barnyard mud where we lost crooked trails only to find them again leading to blue smoke above a serrated cottage roof line. Ducks streamed under stone bridges past black-faced sheep, glimpses of a distant spire charcoal sketched against the sky. Our breath steaming, jewels of mist adorned our hair.
Your fragile tea set warns visitors to take care at the second B after we creaked down slender stairs hearing a church bell’s chime, refreshed from the first B’s swift exhausted dreams under low beams. Radio murmuring, you ask where our freedom leads, offering more cosy tea, aged hands trembling. You recall your late husband, a joyful journey to Scotland long ago, eyes momentarily distant, traversing those headlong years, their heft, the heart’s map.
© Ian C. Smith