The estate is going bankrupt and processes, proud
and haughty, are likely as not for the chop. Education
has – no-one’s admitting it – twinges of regret.
Grandfather’s portrait would hang on the wall but,
instead, decides to keep its secrets. Out of respect for
the kind of decay that opens a restaurant one minute
and closes it the next. On account of nothing so weird
as maggoty fruit and a waiter who died in action
and refused every heart-rending request to come back.
Would that ‘The Pleasure Factory’ had hung on just
a little bit longer, but neither the City nor the clientele
chose to intervene. Learning creeps up slowly on
the wisest. The unlikeliest, with a hell of an artistic
flourish, put distance between the UPVC front door and
what – still no-one’s sussed it out – goes on inside.
.
Peter Dent