May 2012
As the slight young female stormed from the studio slamming the outside door behind her the building appeared to shake and the leaves trembled in the trees above. She knew it would not have happened had she not been so angry, she could almost feel the blood vessels exploding in her head, the tightening in her stomach and the urgent need to go to the toilet. Any time she felt this almost pure white rage her bowels reacted almost instantly, at least that part of it could be good for weight loss. What a shame she did not need to lose the weight.
Her anger had come from nowhere and usually it began to dissipate before it reached its peak. It was almost cathartic and whilst leaving her with a terrible feeling of guilt, the release of pressure was palpable. She knew that as her counsellor had advised, she needed to have more control over her action's and in this case over her emotions. Regina was fed up with work, her family, and indeed with life itself. She stormed down the street, people seeing her face moved quickly out of her way. She just really wanted to scream, shout and hit someone or something. But there was no real justified target, except herself and maybe her parents. They were always good in the blaming game maybe now she would turn the tables and blame them, surely what had been good enough for them should, in theory, be good enough for her.
Subconsciously she turned the corner and continued to march - yet again she had cut off her nose to spite her face. She paced furiously onwards. At school she had been led to believe that she was an intelligent student, her three years at university did not detract from this view. Her professors had told her she was talented and indeed artistic, she was advised to let go of her inhibitions and go with her imagination and intuition. Now that she had - she had ended right up the proverbial creek. As she turned the next corner she continued to stride out and continued moving in a very large but predictable square. She needed to hide, then think and recover. The churning in her stomach continued, and for a brief moment she could feel what a sense of satisfaction that woman must have had as she had put the cat in the wheelie bin.
Regina then began to identify with the cat, she felt out of control yet trapped and shut in, a seething mass of emotions, a snake pit of violent hissing. What she needed now was to be somewhere where she could scream, shout and lash out, not at anyone or anything in particular but just at everything, the whole blooming disaster. She had no patience with herself knowing that this time she had screwed up big time the deadlines were very close now. This disaster was her own self inflicted calamity, and she could not see past it. So many months of planning and detailed work almost destroyed. She had fought ferociously for the contract and when it was awarded she had been deliriously happy. The advance had been spent or invested in her new work. Mistakenly she also had increased her overdraft, on the strength of this commission based on Royalty and Majesty. Maybe jumping in the Thames was the right answer, but the pressing need to go to the toilet got in the way.
She walked into the public house and used their toilets, as she came back up the stairs she noticed all the boxing pictures and photos on the walls She stood and looked around the one roomed tavern it was apparently named after Tom Cribb, a bare knuckle fighter, who when he retired from the ring became publican at the Union Arms. The owners had later changed the name to Tom Cribb in honour of his career. She ordered a beer sat in the corner and sipped it slowly; the question for her now was how, or more to the point if she could salvage her honour. She sat in the corner and stared at the photos, Henry Cooper and Lennox Lewis were amongst them. The physical tensions started to ease as she absorbed both the beer and the black and white photographs; there was certain majesty to some of them. The human form was shown in the peak of its condition, variable weights and champions but they were indeed good physical specimens, excellent examples of the male form.
She mused about bare knuckle fighting and remembered that she had glimpsed some cage fighting the other night on late night television when her insomnia had again kept her awake. Brutal and yet majestic, the willingness, or maybe stupidity, to put yourself up for what appeared to be a good beating whether you won or lost you never the less got a beating. Perhaps there was some truth to the maxim where there is no pain no gain. Maybe that was also the truth for her she had just experienced pain now the fight was on to ensure that there was a gain. Surely the exhortation from the champions surrounding her was to work hard and travel through the discomfort. She felt that she had been pushed to her limits but not beyond her limits. She could be very tenacious and indeed now was the time to trust in her intuitions and imagination. Now was the time to dig deep and test her resolve, she drank up, got off her behind and headed determinedly back to her studio, she was now thinking clearly and knew a solution would be within her grasp.