Potential

Roger Waters marveled to find himself sitting on the front porch of a house in the south of France, smoking and watching the world around him turn a very lovely shade of blue as the evening dusk settled like a mantle on the town. A faint current of cooling air blew across his bare chest and he sighed in relief.

“Hey, I thought you were dans la plage,” David said as he came outside. He was similarly clad in only jeans.

“No I couldn’t stay out there, so many people in the altogether and whatnot. Is it always so bloody hot here?”

“S’like Mediterranean weather, y’know,” David answered. “Hot and dry even on the shore.”

“How did you two stand it?”

“Me and Syd, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

David shrugged as he sat down on the other side of the door from his bandmate. “I guess we didn’t notice.”

“I suppose you do now, I see you took a bath.” Roger nodded to acknowledge David’s damp hair.

David chuckled. “Yeah, but mainly so I wouldn’t have to bother tomorrow. If my hair is too clean the wind will blow it right in my face and I’ll be blind the entire gig.”

“Just pull it back, then. Or start wearing it shorter, like you used to.”

David gave him a skeptical look and Roger snickered.

“Oh yes I forgot,” he said, reaching out to tug on a caramel-colored lock. “All the better to impress les filles.”

“Quite.”

“Are there any more apricots?” Roger asked after a moment of silence. He was now wholly aware that David smelled like lavender soap, his hair heavy and soft to the touch.

“Dunno. Shall I check?”

“Please.”

Roger watched smoke hang in the air and listened to cicadas while waiting for David to return. It was all so quiet, only distant ambient sounds to be discerned. He could understand why this place was truly alluring, even if the daytime temperature was nigh unbearable.

“Here,” said a voice above him, as a broad hand handed him two pieces of fruit.

“Thanks.”

“And I’ll take one of these.” David leaned down, taking a cigarette out of the pack on the floor and picking up a nearby matchbook. The yellow flame was a veritable beacon in the growing darkness. Roger crinkled his nose at the sharp note of sulfur. He sat back against one of the pillars of the porch, his teeth breaking the tender flesh of the apricot, hoping he didn’t appear too obvious in his observance. It was nearly impossible for Roger to look away when David Gilmour put things in his mouth.

“Your feet are going to be filthy again,” Roger commented, forcing his gaze to move away from the object of his avarice.

David stretched his legs out in front of him, wiggling his toes. “I rather like going about barefoot. Reminds me of when I was a kid.”

“My mother never let me do anything of the sort.”

“Ah poor Rog, smothered in the bosom of parental concern.”

“Quite,” Roger replied, a mocking echo of the same reply.


They suddenly spied a male figure coming up the road which ran in front of the house, revealing himself to be a sunburned Rick Wright.

“Oi, you’re a bit crispy, aren’t you?” David gibed.

They chuckled at his embarrassed grin. “They’ve sent me to tell you we’ve all gone to the caf, y’know, the one down at the corner. It’s got poisson in the name.”

“Ah oui,” David acknowledged. “We’ll be down directly.”

“Or perhaps not so directly. Go on then, just save some plonk for us, right?” Roger advised.

“Will do.”

They observed Rick’s return progress until he had disappeared around the bend in the road.

“Not thirsty?” David asked.

“Not ready for a crowded noisy room just yet. It’s so nice here, once it cools down.”

“Yes but, the heat never really leaves, you see. It’s just not as obvious at night.”

“Lots of things are less obvious at night, I find.”

David laughed in response, but Roger was afraid to ask him why.


The blue faded to black and the landscape disappeared around them till all that was truly visible was the winking fireflies of their lit cigarettes and ghostly trails of smoke. Roger felt as though he were literally melting into the night while his companion retained a kind of faint glow: shining hair and bright eyes. Roger was readily in opposition to almost everyone he knew, but with David it felt suitable – he was the dark and David the light – and they needed each other to achieve completion.


“Was it much different?” Roger asked. “Back then?”

“Nah. These towns don’t change much,” David opined. “Just the people. Always more tourists.”

“So where did you stay when you came the first time?”

David laughed, in reminiscence. “We didn’t, actually. The first night we slept in a ditch somewhere near the edge of town, and then after that of course we were in gaol.”

Roger snorted. “A ditch? Well Syd did always like to sleep rough, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he didn’t mind it. We had absolutely no scratch on us, we came down to the beach the next day and managed to make enough to get something to eat but then we thought we’d make more if we went ‘round the clubs in town, and the next thing we knew the gendarmes had descended.”

Roger laughed. “Because you were such shabby characters, of course.”

“Because we were English and had long hair, most likely.”

Roger gave David an arch look. “Typical.”

“Yes, and my French wasn’t so practiced then, they nearly dragged us through the street.”

“How did he take it?” Roger inquired, and David knew he was referring to their mutual friend.

“Syd was Syd, saying strange things, acting wide-eyed and twee. I think the frogs figured he was off his trolley, but they put us in the same cell and Syd insisted that I teach him French while we were waiting for them to sort it all out. Of course, he kept asking me to teach him terribly odd phrases like ‘Where is the vestibule,’ and ‘I need mustard for my wallpaper.’”

Roger was nearly doubled-over with laughter. “Ah Syd.”

“Yeah I think he was trying to distract me, as if he thought I was frightened.”

“Were you?”

David paused a moment, staring at the coal of his cigarette. “Maybe. I remember feeling extremely annoyed, and worried that someone would ring my parents and then I’d have to endure a Transatlantic harangue, but I don’t remember being windy, really.”

“Then he did his job, didn’t he?”

They exchanged a kind of smiling nod in affirmative response.


“He was beautiful,” Roger whispered. “Wasn’t he?”

They both knew they shouldn’t be taking about Syd as if he was dead, but for them a very specific past was just that: dead and gone. Yet they were each haunted by myriad considerations of what had been and might have been.

“Beautiful,” David replied.


“Here, you can have this one,” Roger said, handing David the other piece of fruit.

“You sure? Seems like you ate a bushel of these at the soundcheck.”

“The fruit is good here, it is.” Roger observed, in a nod to one of their favorite Monty Python sketches.

“Yes, it’s very good this time of year,” David replied, in the same type of voice.

“I wouldn’t want to deprive you.”

“Well thanks for seeing to me welfare.”

They couldn’t really tell if they were smirking at one another, but they intuited as much from growing experience.


“I’ll tell you, although I miss him – miss him terribly, sometimes – when I look over at the other side of the stage, it’s good to see you there.”

David let out a breathy chuckle. “It’s good to be there, so glad I could come along and save you all from ignominy.”

Roger scowled, but in a teasing way. “Oh rubbish, as if you haven’t ridden my bloody coattails since the day Nick chatted you up.”

David smirked. “It’s a very nice coat, I think. All sorts of lovely designs.”

“It has potential now, to be a very grand thing,” Roger proclaimed, taking a thoughtful drag on his cigarette.

They eyed one another in the gloom, the cover of night making certain hungers easier to acknowledge.

“Shall we be getting on then, to join the others and raise a glass to potential?” David asked, the smoke from his own exhale dancing in the space between them.

“In a moment. You haven’t eaten your apricot,” Roger answered, tossing the kernel of his own off the porch onto the ground below.

“We’ll share it,” David said, moving to sit closer and biting into the top. He tried to pull it apart but his fingers were uncooperative.

“Here, you’re going to mash it,” Roger chided, taking the fruit out of David’s hands. He carefully separated the halves as best he could, his slender fingers sticky with juice.

David opened his mouth and Roger placed a piece carefully upon his extended tongue. As he drew his fingers away David caught one of them between his lips, sliding wetly across the surface of Roger’s skin.

Roger knew the current temperature was not to blame for his subsequent shiver. He quickly put the other half in his own mouth and began chewing to disguise his reaction.

“S’good, isn’t it?” David asked, and Roger fervently hoped his tone was referencing more than just the fruit.

“Yes,” Roger replied quietly, looking into a pair of eyes he could barely discern in the dark but felt a type of magnetic pull towards nonetheless. “It’s wonderful.”