Sunday Afternoon at Fulham Palace

Abstract

A Sunday afternoon in late September, one of the last good weekends before the long dark, old couples taking the air along the Thames, sunning themselves, their arms and legs so pale, exposed, while the young press forward, carry us along in the crowd to the fair at Fulham Palace where a few people have already spread blankets and tablecloths for the picnics they've brought, laughing and talking as they wait for the concert to begin at three o'clock. Inside the palace gate, a man inflates a room-size, brightly painted rubber castle, the children impatiently waiting for the walls and turrets to go up, the spongy floor they like to jump on. The palace is empty. The Bishop gone. Now overfed goldfish swim slowly round and round in the crumbling courtyard fountain, and farther on, a white peacock stands still as a statue, still as a stone, whether in pride or sorrow at being the last of its kind here I don't know. A low door opens into the Bishop's walled garden, but once inside nothing miraculous or forbidden tempts us, just a few flowers and herbs among weeds (unlike those illuminated scenes in books of hours), the past passing away too quickly to catch or recognize.