Gold Medals & Silver Dollars

Photo by Alex Lentati

As Juliet Sargeant stepped up to receive her gold medal for her Modern Slavery Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016 in London, I dearly hope Nigel Farage’s nose was well and truly rubbed in this amuse bouche of diversity in a field dominated by the white and the male. Aside from that triumph, it’s a startling reminder that centuries down the line from William Wilberforce, slavery still exists and in our modern, globalised existence it’s impossible to detach ourselves from it.
 

In the BBC’s recent Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit, the titular outspoken classicist explores slavery as a horrible economic necessity that Romans simply took for granted. How else would the spectacular monuments to Roman ingenuity ever have been constructed, the luxurious lifestyle of its wealthy citizens upheld, or the booming economies of ports such as Ephesus have happened?  This was a time when there was no more moral queasiness attached to the purchase of human flesh than to buying oil or wine.

Yet, as she traces the footsteps of household slaves whose unsightly toil was kept invisible in networks of passages beneath the fine mosaics and banqueting halls, Dr Beard is keen to warn us against feeling any sense of moral superiority. Just consider, she says, all the invisible people working to support our lives.

Oh, yeah…

I might not trot off to a market to procure some human property, but am I really any less culpable? From the computer beneath my fingertips, to my phone, my trainers and the shirt on my back, some invisible person, very possibly a child, has laboured in very likely uncomfortable conditions for many hours and perhaps not even received a derisory sum for their trouble.

And then there are so many who are not just invisible but obliterated.

A friend who recently worked in a Middle Eastern country as a video editor was instructed to edit out ANY Indian workers from the film footage.

Civilisation seems always to have existed at the expense of slavery. To increase profits and allow as many people as possible to enjoy luxuries (which subsequently become necessities) the exploitation of humans (and animals, of course) is a necessary evil in our economic model.  During the 18th and 19th centuries, the slave trade triangle between Britain, Africa and the Caribbean produced 300% profits, and was instrumental in the extraordinary wealth enjoyed by cities such as Liverpool and Bristol.

I began this blog to help publicise my pirate adventure novels, and what better symbol of gleeful buccaneers and untold wealth than the Spanish dollar (peso de ocho/piece of eight). The Spanish dollar became (Dr Beard would probably dispute this) the first world currency. The silver was mined, made into crude bars which were then chopped into discs and trimmed with shears. 

Cerro Rico Mountain, Bolivia, from where the Spanish dollar silver was mined, actually became shorter as over 40, 000 tons of silver was extracted for Spanish coffers.
 
And who endured the misery and danger of mining the silver? Slaves, of course. An estimated 8 million Incas died extracting silver for the Spanish.

Yet, this is not safely between the pages of a book, or in the past. Cerro Rico is still being mined today. The miners may not be technically slaves, but the conditions are so horrendous, the work so gruelling that the miners work themselves into an early grave. The charity, Cultural Survival, refers to it as ‘The Man-eating Mountain’.

I’m sorely disappointed that the press coverage of Ms Sargeant’s success, while keen to celebrate her score for diversity, seems rather less enthusiastic to broach the complex and unpleasant issue which her garden was created to highlight.

Monstrous as it is, slavery is here. Behind the closed doors of homes, in factories, in fields. All over the world. If the mammoth task of stopping it seems just too much to face, at least we can learn a little more.

Be aware.

Accept that we are all part of the problem; because that means we are all part of the answer.

Tarantino Violent? Racist? Sexist? Try Agatha Christie

*Spoiler Alert*

The Hateful Eight, Tarantino’s latest blood splattering, head-popping epic, has moved some to criticise the film-maker for his treatment of the only female protagonist of the titular octet, Daisy Domergue -  grimacingly and grittily played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. 

Tarantino, perhaps despairing after suffering over two decades of journalists whining about merciless violence, responds to this latest accusation with something akin to bewilderment. Why should he be expected to spare one of the villains simply because of her gender? 

Exactly. The clue’s in the title. Hate breeds hate - and vengeance - not mercy or redemption.

…Tarantino can never be accused of glorifying violence against women…

While some eschew Tarantino’s films for their breathtaking killing sprees, he can never be accused of glorying in violence against women. Female characters invariably hold their own. In Kill Bill, a trilogy in which the protagonists are almost entirely female assassins, the sexual assault of the Bride, while she is unconscious in hospital, occurs off camera, unlike her subsequent bloody revenge. 

Hateful’s Daisy Domergue is no less ruthless, but no figure-hugging catsuit for her. She is a gang member, living a hard brutal existence on par with men. She is as foul-mouthed, vulgar, defiant and blood-thirsty as any of the film’s male characters, and thus ‘unfeminine’ in every aspect. 

But society’s norms regarding women’s behaviour, have hardly really shifted since the period this film is set, over a hundred years ago. If anything, women’s sexuality is exploited more blatantly than ever thanks to the cross channels of global media. 

But there’s nothing sexy about Daisy Domergue and, significantly, despite being held in chains amongst a den of cut-throat murderers, she is not targeted for sexual assault or exploitation by any of the characters. The only time she lets down her hair and sings prettily to a guitar, she does so to mock her captor, John ‘the hangman’ Ruth. 

Tarantino does shock with depictions of sexual violence, but it is conducted by men, against men. Who can forget Pulp Fiction’s infamous ‘Gimp’?

…But society’s norms have hardly really shifted since the period this film is set…

And in The Hateful Eight, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Major Marquis Warren, gleefully depicts his torture and sexual assault of a white male bounty hunter. It was, we learn, a retaliatory act for the war crime of his victim’s father. And this awful confession, which reveals the horrifying extent of Warren’s cruelty, brings to a climax the vicious racist sparring of characters still living in the shadow of the Civil War.

The audience, hours into this tense battle of wits and sleight of hand, might wonder what could possibly trump such deep-seated racial hatred. 

Well, perhaps deep-seated misogyny.

Until the very end, we are unsure where would-be sheriff, Chris Mannix, will place his alliances. This is a character who has established himself as immensely proud of his father’s military role and so, surely not one who will side with a black man guilty of murdering both a Confederate General, his son and allegedly slaying white soldiers without regard to their allegiance?

But, given that Mannix’s only other choice is to side with Daisy, he chooses instead his erstwhile enemy. Could this be proof that hatred for a woman who eschews her proscribed role far exceeds that for a black man daring to command equality with whites. 

Warren, author of the bogus Lincoln letter lionising Mary Todd Lincoln’s domesticity, and who we can infer had a longstanding friendship with homely, caring Minnie in whose haberdashery we find the characters trapped, has no less contempt for Daisy. It is his idea that rather than shoot her, she should suffer a far more protracted death.  Mannix eagerly agrees. He wants to punish her for not acting to protect him from being poisoned. 

Warren and Mannix lie back, slowly bleeding to death on Minnie’s mattress, as generous and cushiony as her bosom was in life, and watch Daisy’s slow strangulation with the satisfaction of justice well-served.

…On the surface it looks rather like comparing an ocean liner with a stagecoach…

It is this final scene that evokes an unlikely bedfellow for a modern shoot-em-up Western: the recent BBC dramatisation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (originally Ten Little Niggers…Ehem!). 

On the surface it looks rather like comparing an ocean liner with a stagecoach, yet both stories end with the portrayal of a woman being hanged by self-appointed male arbiters of justice.

Indeed, this is not the only parallel. In both cases the audience is intrigued by the suspense of suspicious, cagey characters trapped inside a building, carrying their own guilty secrets close to their chests. And by the end, no one is beyond the savage justice visited upon them for their crimes. Particularly not a woman who shirks her duty of care. 

Tarantino might well argue that if Agatha Christie does not spare her female character, why should he?

Is Doctor Foster A Modern Medea?

**********WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS************

As the delicate ceramic pomegranate falls from Gemma Foster’s carmine nailed fingers and splinters into pieces, we know all attempts at reconciliation with her straying husband are over. 

It’s war. 

The pomegranate - symbolic of marriage - is as irretrievably broken as Gemma’s trust - but not her will. 

Far from it. 

The title of BBC drama, Doctor Foster, was not one to seduce me, but it was at the insistence of friends, already bewitched, that I began to watch it. Both women had experienced wandering spouses, and were impressed at the show’s verisimilitude: ‘That’s how it feels - they really capture how it feels to have that happen,” my friends explained. 

Immediately plunged into the about-to-be-rocked world of Gemma Foster, the viewer encounters a successful GP, the adoring wife of property developer, Simon Foster, and mother to pre-pubescent Tom. This beautiful family reside in a stunning statement Cotswold house with a bare-brick open-plan kitchen that would have interior design mags hammering on the door. 

But this is Simon’s home town, Simon’s neighbourhood, Simon’s friends, and Gemma, like Medea, is the stranger transplanted by marriage to a place where she is regarded with suspicion and envy. 

And, in the same way Medea assisted Jason’s quest for the fleece, Gemma has supported her husband through one of his toughest business ventures, only to discover he has fallen in the love with another woman. And his lover Kate, like Glauce, is the daughter of a powerful man - Simon’s main (and secret) financial backer. 

Two clues to the husband’s infidelity are introduced within the first few minutes and all too soon Gemma’s extraordinary resourcefulness comes into play, determined to uncover the truth. But we also see her maverick side. Medea bribes Aegeus with her witch’s fertility potion, Gemma promises sleeping pills to a patient in return for snooping on Simon. 

Like any of us these days, Gemma turns to the internet for information about her situation, yet in using this very 21st century method she turns up a 17th century text that sums up her feelings perfectly: “Heav'n has no Rage like Love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury like a Woman scorn’d."

Medea’s ability to exercise her vengeance and fury is limited by the society she lives in; distorted by the lack of power in a world where intelligent, creative women turn to witchcraft and sorcery, becoming liminal creatures who cannot not flex their intellectual muscles and realise their own potential alongside men.  

And while Medea, and Lady Macbeth suffer the frustration of  exercising their power through the men they serve as wives, Ford Madox Ford’s notorious Sylvia Tietjens becomes a petty tyrant of epic proportions. Rich, pretty, spoilt, nothing drives her more than the desire to wreak havoc and misery on her husband. One wonders how things might have been different if  she’d put all that effort into a career. 

But Gemma Foster refuses to be the victim and boasts that her cleverness will ensure that she doesn’t lose out, if her husband leaves. But in contrast to the unhinged Gone Girl heroine, Amy, who takes murder and self-harm in her stride as she takes revenge on a cheating husband,  we are always reminded that Gemma retains a moral compass. 

While her ethics may be questionable, she fiercely believes in doing what she sees as the right thing.  

She can be weeping and beating her head on the dashboard, watching her life unravel before her eyes as she unearths her husband’s other phone and realises her supposed friends already know about his affair, but it doesn’t stop her from having the cojones to threaten the violent drug-addled boyfriend of one of her patients, or phone the pregnant wife of a patient to tell her about a serious condition he has been concealing.

And, incredibly, on discovering that Kate is pregnant, Gemma’s moral dilemma is that Simon should know that he has fathered a child, even if this threatens their marriage still further.

The backstory of Gemma is subtly revealed. Orphaned at 16, she has attained everything she has and is through her own intelligence, determination and hard work. 

But faced with the enormity of her husband’s betrayal, it isn’t enough just to be clever. As a former colleague reminds her, “I’m clever and I’m a drunk who hasn’t showered for three days.” So, while Gemma might share the sexual scheming and ruthless allure of her literary prototypes, she is also a modern heroine who wields genuine power - to own property; to earn money; to have legal redress. Her ambitions may be modest by Lady MacBeth’s standards, but she also wields power in her own right as a pillar of the small community she has joined. She has independent wealth and her own home. She plans to keep it that way.

As the story reaches its denouement, our anticipation teeters on an edge of what we believe this character is capable of - we may know that Medea’s perfectly appalling punishment of Jason was to murder their sons, but we certainly don’t want to believe it of Gemma. Yet, when she returns home from the school pick-up brandishing scissors and a hank of Tom’s hair - but no Tom - we slip under Simon’s skin to live the eviscerating horror of believing our own child to be dead. 

It’s then that Gemma plays her next brilliant move, with beautiful timing Tom is despatched home to be greeted by a trembling panic-stricken father who practically prostrates himself with relief at the boy’s feet. 

Utterly blind with fury at how he has been played, Simon walks into Gemma’s final trap in a heartbeat, assaulting her and sealing his fate to be branded the adulterous and violent partner.  

In its conclusion Dr Foster is no Medea, nor a Lady Macbeth for that matter. The only blood she washes from her hands is her own. She is a feminist heroine; a modern heroine, shaped by a society where scorned women can do far more than sacrifice themselves or their children to get even. 

Semi-detached

They are popping up everywhere, as a panacea to the ills of our high-speed lifestyles; as a secular means to reducing anxiety and reducing stress… Too busy for a class? Download an app! 

I’m talking about meditation and mindfulness.

They have enabled me to experience welcome relief from a prolonged period of depression. My practice helps me to believe that through nurturing my family and friendship bonds with loving kindness I can appreciate the value and pleasure of life, learn to be present, and experience happiness in this chaotic and brutal world. 

But the more meetings I attend and the more practitioners I listen to, the more questions I have. 

While the intention may be to take the ‘middle way’ through regular meditation and mindfulness,  one also has to ask if such a potent tool for tinkering with our minds holds any dangers. 

Finding the most suitable meditation practice is crucial, but so is a skilful teacher. The meta bhavana meditation which focuses on cultivating loving kindness towards all beings has the potential to promote a compassionate attitude to the people that we encounter on a daily basis and appears to be the antithesis of Zen detachment. But even this technique can take for granted a level of self regulation when it comes to choosing suitable subjects to meditate upon (e.g. deciding to send positive wishes to your grumpy postman rather than your childhood abuser).

The apparent paradox of being ‘present’ through mindfulness, yet being detached from the forces that bend and bow our emotions, is not easy to navigate. Just where does one end and the other begin? Good teachers don’t pretend to know all the answers, but they should be able to support and guide you. Above all they should listen and honour your individual experience.

However, while spiritual teachers can be wise, insightful, inspiring and compassionate, they are not professionals. They aren’t necessarily counsellors or psychologists, yet they have the power to impart disturbing ideas about the nature of our existence, or insist that in order to dispel unhappiness you should learn to accept things as they are. 

It deeply concerns me that people turn up to such meetings to sort out their shit, yet without a skilled teacher alert to the nuances of the teachings being espoused, or in tune to the kind of vulnerabilities people carry around, some serious damage could be sustained. 

Through the millennia, it has never been everybody’s calling to detach themselves from life and meditate, to be a ‘renunciate’. Lorin Roche, a scholar of meditation and its social and psychological implications, argues that most people are ‘householders’, i.e. the majority of people who “live in the world and evolve through working and playing with it.” 

The renunciate detaches from the world, the householder engages. But what if a householder is encouraged to detach themselves? To weaken their desires, instincts and emotional intelligence? According to Roche, this can have serious implications.

I perceive a dangerously blurred line between accepting what is - in order to dissipate unnecessary drama and discontent -  and accepting what is morally and ethically … unacceptable. And how are people struggling with past trauma, or living with abuse, given their vulnerable, warped realities, supposed to perceive the difference?

It’s the concept of detachment that both intrigues and disturbs me too. Ultimate detachment from the material world might bring enlightenment, but Buddha was only able to do this after a prolonged and profound journey through his own and others’ experiences. 

Meditation is a powerful tool that can enable us to glimpse our deeper, higher self and sense our human potential. But we need to find the right approach and a skilful teacher to show us how to use it - for ourselves, not against ourselves. As Roche says, “it’s easier to destroy than to create.”

I find an unlikely parallel in Jonathan Glazer’s film Under The Skin where an alien life force, in the process of navigating human existence, finds itself moving from the dispassionate observation of human suffering and emotions to being overwhelmed by wonder, love, mercy and fear through its experience of wearing a human body. 

Detachment is what makes it alien. And, though the human condition encompasses joy and tenderness as much as savagery and pain, we can’t escape this. But like Glazer’s alien, it’s possible to make our own tentative steps towards cultivating compassion - for our own wondrous bodies and the embattled spirits they contain -  as well as for other people we encounter. 

We are householders of our own bodies, our own relationships, our own lives, and I agree with Roche: to detach from these aspects risks destroying our own humanity. What are we then? Perhaps a distant, detached alienated force of existence that simply observes life instead of living it. 

N.B. I'd like to credit Heidi Hanson's superb blog on trauma and healing for inspiring this post.  

#HaveKindlewilltravel? Living Life Unplugged

When you read this I will have travelled through Spain from Barcelona in Catalunya in the northeast down to Cortes de la Frontera in the Serrania de Ronda, Andalusia - the far south of Spain. 

And for once, I won’t be checking audience stats, or seeing whether anyone has actually read this post, because I will be unplugged. 

No phone. No Kindle. No laptop. 

Seriously, how else do you really get away from it all? For all its wonder (complete strangers across the globe can share my innermost thoughts and personal observations) and convenience - ‘How do you make cornbread? Just let me check online… I’ll just email so-and-so …I’ll just make a bank transfer …I’ll just look at Matthew’s wedding photos …’

But it’s relentless. Because, let’s face it, we don’t just stop at the recipe, or the one post or the photo, and before we know it hours have passed and we are still caught in the fascinating labyrinth of Wiki, or sniggering at yet another video on Youtube. Then perhaps your memory dredges up a name from the past, and instead of being content with merely wondering over that person’s fate, we think: ’Oh, Becky Smith! I’ll Google her…’

Have any of you heard of post restante? This precursor to instant electronic communication is still around, but the very name smacks of a previous era.

A traveller would head off to their destination - to Spain, or Morocco, or Thailand - but not before she had made sure all her best friends and family had the address of the post restante in that country. Basically, it is a postal collection point at a post office where your correspondence is kept safe until you call in to pick it up. 

A friend of mine recalls the emotional impact of receiving a cheery letter from her mother after having travelled through Iraq to Pakistan. She had suffered numberless kilometres, bone-sore from being tossed around trucks bouncing along stony, unmettled roads. To top it all she was also dealing with sickness and diarrhoea. On arrival in Quetta, weak as a kitten, she had to be held up by her companions in order to make the short journey from the van to the  post office. But her struggle was worth it for the sheer joy of  holding a letter from home in her hands. As she read the opening salutation, tears coursed down her cheeks.

I can’t imagine the receipt of an email provoking quite as much bitter-sweet drama.

But back to now. The internet age. Despite my nostalgia for real letters, my attempt to go off the network this summer isn’t just a romantic ploy to relive the early 90s. 

I’m seriously concerned about the effect all this technology is having on my child. I hate that we are expected to take it for granted, as inevitable, and accept the giant wedge that this technological hegemony is driving between parents and their children. 

Parental controls are soon circumvented and the blurred line between using a computer for work and for leisure makes usage all the more difficult to police. Allowing internet access to kids means you are walking along a thundering motorway desperately hoping that the distraction of their game won’t lead them into the path of adult content and that the oncoming behemoth of predatory paeodophiles won’t come crashing into your home. 

It’s tough to try and allow our children to merely dip a toe in the ocean of the internet, when they are more likely to take a running jump and dive right in. 

I’d like to spend a whole other post exploring the psychological crack that electronic devices and their entertainment are - repetitive, addictive games are particularly damaging, in my opinion. But suffice to say, I feel I should practice what I preach when I decide to erase the iPad and its seductive games from my child’s summer.  Sitting beside his bored, fidgety little body while glued to my phone or my Kindle, hardly sets the right example. 

So, I'm going to do it - even though Amazon are spending a fortune on dazzling adverts featuring cosmopolitan mothers in Patagonia to remind me how cool and handy a Kindle is, even though I know it would be the easier option compared to humping seven novels across Europe …

Aargh!

#Havedeviceamaddicted

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Skinny?

The topic of fat as a feminist issue has hit the headlines again. Namely the gob-smackingly smug missive Michelle Thomas received from her Tinder date, who considered her too fat to fancy. 

Then, in the same week, I watched a video of comedian, Luisa Omielan.  I was expecting to find it funny, and it was - but I wasn’t expecting it to land a punch right quite so firmly on my ego. That ego that still witters on annoyingly in the background with its doubts and criticisms. 

As Luisa hugged her belly and knocked her thighs together (and how the words ‘ample’ and ‘shapely’ beg to be collocated to those nouns) Ego/Vanity - whatever you like to call it - gave a horrified scream and Real Self raised her regal head and nodded - “That’s right, Love. You are still influenced by the bullshit beauty standards that were instilled from the moment your boobs began to bud and hormones wreaked havoc on your girlish, bum-less, beanpole body and turned it into that of a bodacious-buttocked sexually mature female. 

Remember?

Yes. Cue criticism and self loathing. 

In fact I can remember the exact moment. It was a Sunday. I was wearing jodhpurs, about to go riding. I was looking out of the window, my back to the door when my mother walked in and uttered a cry of dismay. I turned around. What could it be, I wondered. What could be so bad that it made my mother exclaim out loud? I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to tell me of a catastrophe, an awful omission…

“Your arse!” she gasped. “It’s absolutely huge!”

And from then on, she felt duty bound to remind me of this, along with her keen observations on my imperfect nose, my meager breasts and my appalling posture. As I described in my post about Marilyn , I came to realise eventually that such afflictions did not preclude me being attractive to men. However, the ‘ huge arse’ comments and the complete contempt in which my mother held anyone even slightly overweight made its impact. 

I recall the first time a man said I was beautiful, I thought he must be slightly mad, or a flatterer, or just kind. I didn't know what to do with compliments.

I was far too busy frantically trying to stave off any trace of fat. It was so hardwired I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I’d say things like ‘I can eat anything I want!’ and partly in thanks to a youthful, maniacal metabolism firing on nicotine and caffeine, the minimum exercise came up with the right results: skinny. 

When I checked my height to weight ratio I was bemused by the fact that it always came up as ‘underweight’. But I’m not! I thought. 

For a while taking the contraceptive pill and being actually quite happy put pay to my skinny obsession. When my ex-husband saw photos of me from this time in my life he remarked: “What a fatty!”

What a crime! I was proving my mother right - inside me there was just a hideous fat cow waiting to slip out when I was preoccupied with silly things like enjoying myself. “I’ll show her!” I thought. 

Living in Japan was the perfect place to nurture such an ambition. Imagine living in a place where no shoes are big enough - and when you tell the shop assistant your size, she exclaims, “Gigantic!” Imagine discovering you even too big for the fat-granny’s oversize department.  Imagine only being able to buy clothes from American catalogues (apologies guys). This was a sorry episode in my personal style. I was so happy when Freemans became available overseas. British fashion in my size! 

But, by then, I had subjected myself to such a gruelling regimen of exercise and food control (in my head I was never on a diet) that I had slimmed down to the largest size available in most Japanese fashion boutiques: British size 8 (American 4, European 36). But I still believed I was too big. Especially when another smirking shop assistant was kind enough to ask me when the baby was due. Miaow! 

It was years later, on that watershed day I have reflected on in a previous post, when my mother was finally too ill with dementia to recognise me, that it finally dawned on me how the chief motivation in my battle with weight-gain was simply to spite her! Now she didn’t know who the fuck I was, there was no one to prove wrong anymore. 

I’ve done enough work on myself to extinguish almost entirely the spiteful voice that once had the power to reduce me to a baseline of self-loathing and self-harming every time I did something ‘wrong’ or looked less than very slim. And now I am suspicious of my relationship with exercise - I question why exactly I do it; whether it’s doing me more harm than good.  

Food and drink are two other contenders for addiction and abuse. That’s a whole blog post in itself.

But, as Luisa Omielan says as she cuddles her middle. “I love this - this means I have dinner with friends.”

She’s so right. Listen up, Ego. 

Something for the Weekend

Baking, scorching, melting ...

The current British summer has taken us all (as usual) by surprise. And (as usual) the transport system has failed in a huge way, electrics are blowing up, and many a fair-skinned bod has been toasted a startling shade of scarlet.

As this taste of the tropics continues, the comely invitation of al fresco pleasures and picnics will be impossible to resist this coming weekend. Nevertheless, I feel the lull in my blogging should be interrupted, so that if anyone is so inclined to peruse their 'device',  they might stumble on this amuse bouche.  

An offering that, in my languorous state, requires little more effort than a few clicks, is a story that I adapted for inclusion in a story cabaret held by the delightful editorial duo Little Fishes, here in Lewes, East Sussex. 

The theme of the cabaret was 'Objet D'Art' and offered such an array of talent, that when I finally took my place for the final slot, I felt a tad amateurish and intimidated. However, the cocktails worked admirably at steeling my nerves, and it was well received. 

So, here it is - The Ersatz Idol.

 I was still teaching English when I saw Kinkakuji for the first time. If you're anything like me, that won’t mean much. It means Golden Temple. That golden temple in Japan, on all the postcards and stuff? I went along because that’s what you see when you're in Kyoto. We spent five hours on a train to get there. I bloody wanted to see that temple.

It was almost Autumn, but it was still hot. It was late in the afternoon when we got there, me and my two Aussie colleagues, Chris and Kate. It wasn’t even that crowded, but it felt like there were too many people. I started to feel panicky and suffocated. I fumbled for my camera and watched helplessly as the lens cap fluttered to the ground and disappeared into the grass. The camera felt slippery in my hands as I squinted through the viewfinder at the temple.

It was so golden; I was dazzled. It was delicately perched above a pond like a dancing maiko draped in her wedding kimono. I had never seen a building like this. It was too beautiful to be true. Too beautiful to exist.

I felt butterflies in my stomach. I had senses only for this beautiful object. The incomprehensible muttering of the visitors faded. I only heard birds, the wind in bamboo and I seemed to sense the temple itself resonating with a tone too low or too high in frequency for my human ear. I wondered if it was a time machine hosting the spirits of eagle faced samurai and emaciated zen masters. Shifting in its shimmering form between eras; appearing to me now in my stunned and static present.

Then I felt the tourists pressing against me, anxious to do the next thing on their itineraries.  The brief, magical rapport between me and the golden temple faded. I realised Chris and Kate were both hovering hesitantly, eyes questioning. I ignored them, turning away to skirt the boundaries of the tiny wooden fence, my head inclined awkwardly, with one aim: to capture the temple at any and every angle and fix those visions in my mind’s eye.

Reluctantly, driven on by the surge of the crowds, I followed the path to the gardens, and still my eyes searched for the temple that winked in tantalising  instances through dense bamboo.

I found Chris and Kate near the exit. We sat on a dry dusty rock across from the souvenir shop and waited for the bus. I began to read the creased pamphlet in my hand. I must have gasped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kate.

 “The temple. It’s a fake.”

Chris grimaced as he swallowed cold tea from a can.

“Yeah,” he said. “Some guy burned down the original.”

“I think there was a book about it,” added Kate.

I couldn’t believe they'd known and hadn’t said a word.

“It’s still amazing though, isn’t it?” said Kate.

I didn’t answer. Kate stood to join Chris in an attempt to flag down a taxi.

I thought about how I had been sold this fake thing. How I’d been cheated. I had wanted to possess that thing of beauty -  I wanted to suck up its essence inside me.

And now, here I am in a hostess bar, perched up on my high stool staring at my reflection in the black granite table top.  Now when I try to imagine the man who could destroy something as beautiful as Kinkakuji,  I can. All too easily.

When I hear the door,  I keep my eyes cast down and put on my demure smile that’s twisted into a smirk by my reflection. Mama-san rattles out her greeting with fraudulent delight and I listen to the reply.

It’s for me.

Kimura-san sits at my table, eyes round with pleasure, ready to glug down his gorgeous gaijin along with his whisky. He doesn’t know I’m a fake. The real thing burned down years ago.