Lawrence Upton

A House among the Waves

She wanted, she said, a house among the waves; and someone called out that, with global warning, it was an only a matter of time before everyone got one. Something like that. If they had a house at all, someone else shouted.

The chair called us to order. If that hadn't happened, she would have done. It was the first time I'd seen her interrupted - first time I'd seen her speak in public - and you could tell straight away that she didn't like it; and wasn't going to take it.

She continued, her resentful voice echoing in the half-empty room, and no one saying anything else. I was still confused as to what she was talking about over all, though I must say that it was interesting enough. But having said that, I can't tell you what it was about. I wasn't used to it, you see. I didn't know or expect her evasiveness.

It all made sense in its own way; but there didn't seem to be a point to it. At the time, I kept guessing, first, that she was going to start showing us paintings; paintings of hers, I mean; or sculptures - I couldn't see any, but maybe she had pictures... I looked round for a slide projector, but there wasn't one. Nor was there any sign of a screen, so I stopped trying to find the tiny expensive computer shining among the glittery bits and bobs she had put down. Then I thought she must be a writer, introducing the background to her new book, like all the others most like; and, if so, it was going to be a long evening.

I was thinking that when she stopped and said Thank you very much; and then we all clapped and started moving about, aping each other's roosting patterns, couples close together or grouping with other couples; men making broad drinking gestures when most of them would leave after a pint; and so on.

I went home.

Next day Jeff asked me what it was all about! We did the verbal dance you do at times like that, saying I thought you might tell me and that sort of thing. He said how attractive she was; and I said I supposed so.

Now I know that she gave lots of talks; and that they were greatly respected as being almost unique of their kind; and that we were lucky to get her at all at our gathering. So be it if they say so.

When I saw the road being cut through to the sea, I didn't connect it with her. Why should I? There isn't a part of the area that isn't being changed. Later, though, I was struck to see them digging deep into the sands and dropping hard core. It seemed a very silly thing to do. Silly because pointless. You can't stabilise a beach with hard core.

You can't build a road on hard core laid between the tide lines; and only an idiot builds a road going into the sea; but that's what they were doing. I watched them one day, creeping after the receding tide, till they were very near where it's always sea; and they were pile-driving. Of course, it was no time at all before they had to pull back; but they just pulled back, while the other lot went on building what was now clearly a road towards whatever it was they were building. And the next day they started again.

I approached one of the workmen, but he wasn't saying much. Maybe he didn't know much. Yet I thought he was lying when he said the road was temporary.

I asked about it, round and about. No one seemed to know. A lot knew nothing of it and the rest wondered why I was bothered. Got to be good for business, etc. Till one day there's a bit of concrete sticking above the waves even at high tide and not moving. Then there's more than one. Then there's a structure; and I realise I am looking at the foundations of some kind of building raised above the sea.

I remembered her saying she wanted a house among the waves; and a bit of pushing established that indeed she was involved though exactly how, no one knew. The word Money was used several times, in the same way that people might say Microsoft or The Rich.

In no time at all there was an ugly boathouse further out to sea; and a little kind of fly over thing winding around to a garage - a bloody garage, out in the sea. You could just see it. And Jeff took me out in his boat so I could see it properly. It looked ridiculous.

In the other direction, what I call the fly over came down to the hard core. They had finished and tarmaced it roughly and left the sand to build up: a causeway to a house among the waves.

Then the house itself went up, though some said she was living in the boat in the boathouse already, so keen she was; and the house hid all of the ugly stuff from the shore with the shine of glass and some kind of plastic cladding.

It was three storeys high above the above-sea base. With a roof garden of sea side plants. It was tall.

Of course by this time there was quite a fuss, with people objecting because there was something to object to; or because they didn't like her; or because they wished they'd had the idea and didn't like competition.

Wiser and less impetuous people remarked that the easiest thing was to leave the sea to take it away,

Later we'd found that she had had trouble finding an architect and settled eventually for an engineer who said he could do it but couldn't guarantee it would hold. The job set him up for life and she did all the design work. Beautiful design work. Easy money for the engineer, I think.

Most of the day it was somewhat in the ocean; and much of that time she was well in. Swimmers stayed away while the building was on; and then she dropped some kind of mesh that made it quite impossible to swim there. There were those who thought she could be prosecuted; but we were all warned off individually, such was her power or the power of those she had in her power. Human relationships can be geared to put force where it is needed and so concentrate the effect. Her mind was an appropriate gearbox, that was clear.

In the winter, of course, that place is almost deserted; but in the summer you get a few picnickers and now they came in some quantity just to look, using the road she had made for herself; though she rarely used it, nor anyone attached to her. Then the curtains would close, on an electrical pulley; or blinds would fly across. She liked both effects; and higher up the glass wasn't clear on the shoreward side.

Out to sea you could look in, but there were powerful lights there and they shone them at you, dazzling, if you slowed your engine.

Up the ramp from the boat and car, yes, I went out there, it went straight through a glassy porch - bullet proof of course, because of the waves' force and the chance of flying pebbles - a porch bigger than some cottages, in which she grew exotic plants; and you could look down through into the clear water underneath. The rest was one big space with part of it half closed off for the kitchen; but she rarely cooked. It was all salads and stuff from the refrigerator. I'll tell you all about that some time. It was easy enough to get to know her slightly.

Rumours were that things were flown in. food and chefs; but there wasn't a helipad; and she wasn't really remote. It was no more than a walled round house, but done in a show off way. Much of what was said was suspicious exaggeration.

That first time the engineer was there and he kept showing us the plans and how he had managed to absorb all the stresses; and we said how clever it was and how thrilling it was.

The next time it was just me and her and that was much better. She talked; and I wanted to listen because I fancied her; and anyway I was interested in the money.

The conversation ebbed and flowed, but really nothing developed; and I never worked out what it was she was doing. Sometimes I thought I might be close to an intimacy; but either I was wrong and things drifted off and away in the talk; or she'd confound me with versions of darling, till there was a mist of them - oh darling, oh darling, darling - and direct approaches led to me being rebuffed upon the word sweet.

She had little furniture. She said the house was all light. But it wasn't. It was all illusory see-thru. It was all observation and under observation. The floors weren't glass, but I was never sure that I wasn't being watched when she was upstairs or in the kitchen. The bathroom was entirely mirrored; and, as it contained the toilet, you watched yourself doing even that whether you wanted to or not. Maybe other people watched... Well, there's nothing that doesn't turn someone on; and I never did get to know her. Nor was I ever sure how many people there were in that house, no matter what she told me. I never saw it all.

The hours I spent there. It seems now as if my life between visits did not exist, as if there were a time when I was there and that was that; so that when finally I was back and had no choice but to stay back it was as if I had returned and was a stranger

The excitement I felt when we went upstairs. I'm not sure what I expected, but I hoped for her bed; and her manner of leading me there was ambiguous at least. In fact, it was more of the same. Frosted glass or something like it facing the sands and almost nothing in any other direction.

Her opening statement up there was I love to be naked up here. I said I'd like to be there to see it and she said darling in a way that was warm and cold at the same time; and I realised that had been exactly the wrong thing said at exactly the wrong time.

She had no interest in me physically. I knew that. But when was that ever a real barrier to sexual intercourse? So much else comes into consent than desire, especially knowing when to speak and of what to speak.

Realising my mistake, I ensured my continuing welcome by saying much of what I should have said outright.

It was her supposedly wonderful home she wanted to speak of.

Either she wanted to be admired because she was important enough to have a marvellous architect - she had stopped referring to him as engineer, which I believe she found somewhat barbaric - or she wanted to be admired for her own architectural vision. I think the emphasis depended upon the state of her relationship with the engineer, who remained around after his work was done; but knowledge of the nature of that relationship was forbidden to me and unclear from their behaviour. He had quite a strong accent, suppressed. He may have been Hungarian, though his name, whatever it was, I forget, was English. He wasn't her type, I'd say; but then I most definitely wasn't and I had hopes.

Where, below, there were the two tremendously long settees - have I said that? - and else only the dining furniture off in one corner, here there were a number of easy chairs; so, one assumes, it wasn't private space or she would not have had them in quantity. The room was smaller. That is, it was divided and not just in one dimension. One went down steps - she went down, I never did - into a box-like office formed of opaque glass, which prevented both others' eyes and her own from wandering from their appointed tasks. Above the office the glass was clear; so that one had the sense of space of the lower floor, and the panorama.

The space between floors was of considerable depth and this she told me - she was so glad I had asked! - contained many of the services of the house.

Beside the office an open staircase went up and out of the building, though it was surrounded on the outside by glass, to the roof garden. She took me. That day, I think.

It must have been that day because there was no other day. I could see that she wasn't happy to have me there although she wanted me to admire it all. It was hers; and it wasn't for sharing. I saw a part of what there was; but there was much I didn't see. It had the quality of a detailed maze.

The cunning manner in which that staircase had been shaped afforded no view of the third floor, where presumably she slept; and I have no idea how it was arranged. I asked if I might see it, if not then perhaps on another day, and she just said perhaps darling.

I neglected my paid work, but I hardly worried. I stayed in a mode of sleep between visits, my life a mode of coma. I saw her more and more infrequently. My fantasies about her grew. As my hopes of wealth failed, my desire for her increased.

All the time I feared for her, which is to say that I feared for the stability of the house and the continuance of a dependence which maintained my obedience. I imagined the winter storms weakening the structure. I imagined myself pleading with her to abandon it; and once I half dreamt a conflict with the Hungarian. Movie stuff.

Yet no storm was needed. The whole thing just gave way. Something gave way and it all fell. The tide was incoming though she was rescued easily enough, I am told. A lot of the glass broke, but much of the rest just seemed tilted.

She was back within the day, but accompanied by people no one else could remember seeing before, stereotypical figures from gangster films. She was led and supported in and boxes were handed out. Then she was handed out. Then she left.

I saw none of this. I was told about it.

There's a little left to see at low tide, I am told. Most of the superstructure was sliced apart, officially or unofficially, I don't know, by a couple of locals with cutting equipment. Now and then the causeway comes into sight, twisted and crumbling. And that is that. I know no more. I have never seen her. She has made no attempt to contact me. Why would she?

Lawrence Upton is a poet / visual & sound artist-- latest publications "Wire Sculptures" (Reality Street Editions, UK) and "Three Rivers" (housepress, Canada); forthcoming "Pictures, Cartoon Strips". Chaired "Sub Voicive Poetry" 1994-2005. Co-chairs Writers Forum