K6

15 Minute write

It was hard to imagine it was a coincidence that he was here today. Something larger was guiding him back to the place that had been so significant all those years before. Although this wasn’t where the magic happened, of course. But it was where he spent the majority of his time, during this period of his youth, waiting for the call. Back then, when he had a full head of hair and far less bulk around his midriff, he would come here almost every day after work in the hope of seeing her. She was spectacularly unreliable - but worth it. No one before and no one since had made him feel so alive, full of self-belief and confidence. Even though he knew it could end at any moment, and he was keenly aware of the vast void she would leave in his life. He could not help but pursue contact with her.

He had been living in Finsbury Park with a friend in a bedsit and hated it. Unfit for human habitation, but gloriously cheap. Still, if it weren’t for his miserly living, there would have been no way he could have afforded to see her. Someone of her infamy was not a person you could spend time with cheaply. Although he paid his way, he knew there were many others who could give her so much more, financially. She found it hard to ignore the allure of them, or rather, their money.

She would call him when she could fit him in. These were the days before mobile phones, and the bedsit could barely manage carpets, let alone the mod-cons of a telephone. So he gave her the number of a phone box near where she lived.

The phonebox was a classic K6. He’d never really thought about them before he spent so many hours standing and sitting outside of one, here on Hyde Park Corner. When it was raining or cold, he’d welcome its shelter gratefully. He could still smell the distinct odour of ‘K6’. Even though, on occasion, it would be masked by someone who’d relieved themselves. ‘His’ box was pre-55 - you could tell by the fact it had a Tudor Crown rather than Queen Elizabeth’s favoured St Edward’s Crown. He could still remember the number, forty years on.

That someone could physically affect you with just their presence was unlike anything he had ever experienced since. Here today, he realised that he had never lost the yearning for her touch: precise, delicate, economic from its absolute precision.

Passing it now still gave him a physical reaction, a nervous shudder, almost a fright. She had stopped calling, of course, when she stopped him from seeing her. To try and relieve the agony of parting, he had moved away from London, suffering three long years of misery before finally accepting that he would never paint again. Which, for him, was like weaning himself off drugs. The sobering up that ensued allowed him to regain control of his life and to move on. A wife, two sons and a fresh start.

She was, in every way, a remarkable woman. She had such insight and wisdom that everyone wanted and sought out her counsel. A wild and free spirit. Everything was art to her, the way she looked, dressed, walked, breathed, and, of course, created. At the time, he was convinced that she saw something in him. When he was invited to present his work to her at just two of her impromptu salons, he felt there was a connection. Although she eviscerated the paltry, juvenile sketchbooks, he knew she saw potential. He knew she was pushing him to a place of greatness. And she should have known.

As he passed the box this last time, a melancholic gasp of loss exhaled smoke signals of comprehension. The realisation that it was not what wise words of advice she could offer. It was not the art that she left behind. It was that she herself was her art. Unique, mysterious and beautiful. His life was richer for having been in the presence of it.

Photos: Hyde Park Corner. 2025. Nikon z8