Pongo #43

Martaro

As I hop, skip and flop down the raised porch of Miffy's flat, I think, as I often tend to, about her body. Her arms, still mismatched to a degree, remind me of an old cartoon in which a plasticine man is given a jumper for his birthday by a well-wishing plasticine auntie. Only problem is that it being her first outing into knitting, she has made one sleeve horrendously long and the other practically tee shirt length. Rather than hurt her feelings by exposing her awful handiwork, the plasticine man comes up with a solution. Upon his aunt's next visit, he dons the wonky jumper and adjusts his own arms to fit. Thus her feelings are spared and she can go on creating knitwear for all and sundry, oblivious to the fact of its lop-sided grotesqueness. Changing the body to fit the garment.

I wonder, and I think she must wonder from time to time, what her sweeper must be like. Do they have a parallel of her body? If you stood them side by side, I wonder if you could play mix and match with their anatomy, or whether they would slot together like the two halves of a sweetheart necklace. His left arm and her right ' a pair, along with their opposites, like socks rescued from the drowning machine on washday. The fan of creases below one eye reunited with its crinkly counterpart; one fat-cuffed ankle and one slender twinned with a separate fat and a separate thin; a cellulited thigh, complete with saddlebags, slapped against another like dumpy spare partners at a ball, watching their slim alter-egos waltz off, rubbing only occasionally and for effect. It would be like one of those talk shows where they haul in a ne'er-do-well long-absent father to be reunited with their genius postgrad daughter and both parties must act like this is the best thing that ever happened to them, snivelling and nodding in each others arms. Afterwards he'll probably ask her for a loan and she'll shout him as far as a taxi on the promise that he never come near her again.

Crossing over Nurphen Street, I think of her outgrown dolly shoes, of the cricket clicks she would make on the pavement as we walked along, the patent reflecting the sun. Of her stiff little frocks, many of which now lie in components in a chest in her wardrobe. I took her shopping the other wek and nearly strayed straight into the childrens' section as I had so many times with her. Then we both stopped and pondered where to go next. Every section was wrong. The store had catered for under fives, tweenies, teens, adults, petite adults, plus size adults, tall adults, maternity, mens. There was nothing for whatever category Miffy fit into now. Her height ' about five foot six ' suggested teen to petite adult. Her breasts ' 32DD ' suggested plus size. Her face suggested we go for a coffee, and that was the criteria on which I based my next move.

I think it was over that particular coffee that I realised this: I love her more now than I ever did on any of those shoots, or even on that sweating, tumbling evening when we screwed. I don't think I've ever told her that, because I'm not sure in what way exactly I do love her, and I don't want it to be taken the wrong way. It's odd. She's like a long-lost sister I have screwed. But in a socially acceptable way. Crap, I know what you're thinking, but no, nothing like Saral, who has never seemed like a sister, so much as a demon who prods me at irregular intervals for kicks. Not like that. Ah, I can't explain it. It's warm, is all I know. But I will tell her, because right now it couldn't be bad to let her know she means a lot to at least one person, even if her manager's swanned off and the fans will soon stray.

I navigate the crapped-up excuse for a footpath, splintered in places and ageless, and turn right down an alleyway off Havigore Drive that leads towards the studio. As my own flats clap damply along, I become vaguely aware of a second pair just slightly off my beat. Bull is that an echo, I should think, but all that fills my mind is: the lights. I need to switch off the lights. And so I don't notice that it is not just one extra pair that steps up behind me, but two.