Even in the loose light of that November afternoon, when the sun is round the other side of the building, if there was ever any sun at all, I could see muck smeared on the window; smeared there by the weather, the dust of the earth, oils from the traffic. Checking that the cat was dozing behind me in the height of her tree, I opened the window inwards. Although it was full-height, the bottom of the openable window came down to my gut and the top was up at the ceiling, just underneath the curtain rail on which there was a distorted reflection of myself opening the window. On the other side of the window was a endless swim of grey air. Through the frame and the hinges, I felt the seals stick and crack at being pulled the first time in months, since long before summer, how those daily swellings had pouted and sucked, stiffened.

My opening of the window, though, disturbed no fewer than half a dozen spiders. They scrambled not away but towards. In! Big spiders, full from September and autumn, plump between the lithe elegance of their eight legs. They were so big that I could see them entirely: each leg in definition, a sentence of segments, hairy, nimble, jagged in movement but very quick. If their bodies were bulbous I noticed that, or if they were slender. I noticed their eyes and their chelicerae. I noticed that all around them were old webs and in the webs was the dust of the earth and oils from the traffic. Among the old webs were eggs that had failed. Some of the spiders really panicked and leapt into the air, on thin strands they fell, landing on me, the carpet, dangling from the ceiling. They fled from the world and its grey air into my bedroom.

Soon all of the spiders disappeared. Who could find them once they had set their heart on a crevice or corner?

I took the warm wet cloth in my hand and wiped the window. Whatever was there got smeared everywhere. I ran the cloth in hot water and went again, taking the webs and all that clung to them. I closed the window, sat down on the corner of my bed and sighed to see that I had only smeared the window much more, but it was darker now, so quickly, and underneath my bed were no fewer than half a dozen spiders.

THE EVENING

PARTY