58, back-most lot, collapsible ceiling and underground lung ward.
By Astrid Lorange
Published 1 January 2021
My dear RG. Crates are melting under enamel and asbestos;
whalers are jumping ship for a slant of this rummy sham. Open the
archive to check the mobility, there’s a rotten panorama of a hundred
years of surplus. First the compositers, bakers, and small-time boiled
sweet bankers stocked the clout; second, the house trapped the labour
‘til it moulded the beams. Bad advice suggests that if you grant small
debts to your neighbours—tins of beef, tins of milk, tins of tobacco,
tins of paraffin—you will keep their loyalty and gratitude. My advice:
follow the neighbourhood kids. Born in robbery, tucked into their
dance gear you’ll find notes from the ocean, shanties for mutiny, or
else, wetted and folded pamphlets of every non-rum language, calling
for nutmeg, vinegary kippers, split peas and rabbit skins. Your
tendency to vanish must be your favourite toolkit. Away and wharfish,
deep to the buttonhole in a capital well, pages 1-800 passim.