wash himself. The clue is in the shower head that leered authoritatively down at the hot and cold taps as if they were filthy children. The bath, I imagine, was considered by the Porter an instrument of sloppiness and relaxation. Washing of a vigorous nature could never be accomplished in such a construction. In a bath one lies in one’s own dirt. The shower, on the other hand, positively rips grime off and sends it promptly through the plughole into oblivion.
Directly above the lavatory tank was, curiously, a mirror where the Porter must have watched his face while he urinated, or perhaps porters call the action micturition. Through the mirror the Porter saw his face. And in that face he must have seen a time before porterdom, he must have seen a childhood, perhaps toys. Perhaps even some happiness. On that face were marks. Marks that stepped over each other. Marks all over. Pinpricks of imperfection.
The Porter had ginger freckles.
They obscured his face completely. Untidy groups distorted the precision of his nose, his cheekbones, his eyelids. He had been scrubbing for over fifty years and still theyhadn’t come off. They made him look childish. It was as if his body insisted on retaining the semblance of a child until he stopped being a porter and became one final, happy day a person. A porterless person. A person person.
Porter was his name: porter, beside being the name given to gatekeepers or doorkeepers or caretakers, is also the title of the pyloric opening in the stomach. The pylorus is terminated by the porter, a strong sphincter muscle, which connects the stomach to the duodenum, safely allowing the journey of food to progress down the alimentary canal. This ring of muscle decides when to allow the passage of food to progress or when to constrict its access completely. A condition known as pyloric stenosis occurs when the muscle tightens and refuses to allow anything to pass. This causes repeated vomiting, sometimes of food eaten twenty-four hours previously, and generates alkalosis – when there is too great a quantity of alkalines in the body. If this muscle refuses to relax surgery, known as a pyloromyotomy, is necessary to unbolt the gate by force.
The Porter, muscle not man, may refuse to open, thereby stopping the breakdown, expulsion and digestion of food, and hold the entire body in check to calamitous outcomes.
The Porter, man not muscle, oversaw the expulsion of dirt that lay in the body of Observatory Mansions. We left our full dustbin bags outside our flat doors every night, the Porter removed them every morning. And the Porter expelled, with the exception of Twenty, any intruders who happened upon Observatory Mansions, particularly the adolescent boys who sometimes crept through the broken windows of the ground-floor flats to smoke cigarettes, drink cans of beer and examine magazines filled with naked women.
If pyloric stenosis occurred, if the Porter ceased to clean, we would drown in dirt and rubbish.
On my single visit to the Porter’s flat I gave myself asouvenir. The Porter’s duplicate uniform was hanging tidily, spotlessly in the Porter’s wardrobe. I took for myself a single brass button (lot 803). A while after taking this button the Porter confused me. I always saw him immaculately dressed in his uniform without a button missing . At first I presumed that he only wore one uniform. Then I presumed that he purchased a replacement button. Finally, I understood. Three buttons down, the thread was always a slightly different colour. I imagined the Porter settling himself down when the time came to change uniforms, with a needle and thread, transferring a single brass button from uniform jacket to uniform jacket.
On that first day the new resident spent with us, the Porter, having finished removing proof of my entrance, went in search of other dirt. I descended to the cellar.
The journey to meaning .
Down below where the carpet stopped, where nothing was on display for the
Directly above the lavatory tank was, curiously, a mirror where the Porter must have watched his face while he urinated, or perhaps porters call the action micturition. Through the mirror the Porter saw his face. And in that face he must have seen a time before porterdom, he must have seen a childhood, perhaps toys. Perhaps even some happiness. On that face were marks. Marks that stepped over each other. Marks all over. Pinpricks of imperfection.
The Porter had ginger freckles.
They obscured his face completely. Untidy groups distorted the precision of his nose, his cheekbones, his eyelids. He had been scrubbing for over fifty years and still theyhadn’t come off. They made him look childish. It was as if his body insisted on retaining the semblance of a child until he stopped being a porter and became one final, happy day a person. A porterless person. A person person.
Porter was his name: porter, beside being the name given to gatekeepers or doorkeepers or caretakers, is also the title of the pyloric opening in the stomach. The pylorus is terminated by the porter, a strong sphincter muscle, which connects the stomach to the duodenum, safely allowing the journey of food to progress down the alimentary canal. This ring of muscle decides when to allow the passage of food to progress or when to constrict its access completely. A condition known as pyloric stenosis occurs when the muscle tightens and refuses to allow anything to pass. This causes repeated vomiting, sometimes of food eaten twenty-four hours previously, and generates alkalosis – when there is too great a quantity of alkalines in the body. If this muscle refuses to relax surgery, known as a pyloromyotomy, is necessary to unbolt the gate by force.
The Porter, muscle not man, may refuse to open, thereby stopping the breakdown, expulsion and digestion of food, and hold the entire body in check to calamitous outcomes.
The Porter, man not muscle, oversaw the expulsion of dirt that lay in the body of Observatory Mansions. We left our full dustbin bags outside our flat doors every night, the Porter removed them every morning. And the Porter expelled, with the exception of Twenty, any intruders who happened upon Observatory Mansions, particularly the adolescent boys who sometimes crept through the broken windows of the ground-floor flats to smoke cigarettes, drink cans of beer and examine magazines filled with naked women.
If pyloric stenosis occurred, if the Porter ceased to clean, we would drown in dirt and rubbish.
On my single visit to the Porter’s flat I gave myself asouvenir. The Porter’s duplicate uniform was hanging tidily, spotlessly in the Porter’s wardrobe. I took for myself a single brass button (lot 803). A while after taking this button the Porter confused me. I always saw him immaculately dressed in his uniform without a button missing . At first I presumed that he only wore one uniform. Then I presumed that he purchased a replacement button. Finally, I understood. Three buttons down, the thread was always a slightly different colour. I imagined the Porter settling himself down when the time came to change uniforms, with a needle and thread, transferring a single brass button from uniform jacket to uniform jacket.
On that first day the new resident spent with us, the Porter, having finished removing proof of my entrance, went in search of other dirt. I descended to the cellar.
The journey to meaning .
Down below where the carpet stopped, where nothing was on display for the
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