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A driver beeped as she changed lanes without signalling. The road was full, though not as full as the other side going in the opposite direction. Now that the school holidays had started, it was time for the city evacuees to head to the coast. Ashamed, she pulled back into the slow lane. She was much too early anyway, having been compelled out of the house by an unknown force. She couldn’t quite name what it was, only that the eventual disclosure of her main source of income was a factor. It would make him uncomfortable, a vocation subjected to the dog-chorus, a demonic cacophony of desires, such as it was in any room with a beautiful woman and men present. One of Cyndi’s acts took place on a make-shift pool table. Was that all it was about? Repression released through sports: sticks and balls clashing, the empty holes completely still; spermatozoa collaborating on the football field to the waiting goal; cars racing to arrive first; boxing to establish who is the greatest. After filling in time at the music shop in Gandy Street, she was actually a few minutes late at the club. “…she’s had all acting ability botoxed out of her!” Victoria was exclaiming to Scarlett and Jasmine when Jules burst in. “Ah, here’s a more promising subject. Your mystery guy keep you, Santara?” Jules brushed aside the chorus of laughter with a smile. “Shut your trap, Vicky, and give me a hand.” “Sure thing.” Penelope came up as they rushed preparations. “Jack wanted to see you about something.” 143

“Did he say what about?” Jules asked, then her hand slipped, daubing mascara across her forehead. “Fuck.” He hadn’t but there was a knock on the door a minute later. She went out in her white gown and bare feet. “Something wrong, Jack?” “Something potentially awkward perhaps. We want to use that slow song of yours for the intro. Tonight. Maybe other nights.” “‘Erotik City’? That’s much too slow.” “We’re trying a different approach. More subtle. Look, I’m sorry to spring this on you last minute. Do you have another song you can replace it with?” Jules looked at his amiable round face with round glasses, and well-groomed moustache. In Bristol nobody had ever asked before nicking any of her material. Was he simply being respectful? For the first time she considered that he could actually be afraid of her. “Hold on.” She went back into the room, returning with a shrink-wrapped CD. “Brand new,” he commented. “There’s a track called ‘Six Days’. It’s all I can come up with quickly.” “Thanks, Santara. We’ll try and get you an extra slot.” This was a very considerate offer. The club flourished from an opulence of flesh and colour, ensured by rapidly changing acts. “Oh and tell the girls, please.” “The opening song will be different,” Jules announced loudly as she dropped back in her seat for the final touches. “He’s going for subtle.” 144

“I’ll give him subtle!” was Scarlett’s response. The girls were all vocal in their opinions, except for Devon who was quietly wondering why the manager had chosen to talk with Santara, what was going on between them. Victoria was the usual, unelected spokesperson. The song didn’t actually work as far as the girls were concerned. It was a good crowd that acted as if mesmerised, and consequently slow with the tips. Any that came seemed perfunctory. Awe had triumphed over boisterousness, at the expense of financial gain. Jules didn’t get an extra slot that evening, but did extremely well later, and was also on point for the intro, hence staying for the second song. To her surprise, this was also slow, and no less seductive than the previous. Sven the DJ had taken it from the same album, which she had lent him two evenings previously. The men were starting to wake up. There being only three girls present, each were the beneficiary. The other two were Penelope and Scarlett and there was a harmony, a synchronicity, between them as they all moved languorously, hips up and down, pouting and eye-contact doing more than the mere removal of clothing. There were a few women present in the audience, as there often were, and one of them was standing with her boyfriend near Jules. She had a fragile, heavily made-up porcelain beauty that would be betrayed by a single line over the years, lacking foundation in life. Jules admired women who came for their gumption and, presumably, lack of judgement. She locked stares with the woman, as she writhed within the sanctity of 145

the stage, peeling her dress gracefully off her shoulder. The woman smiled, understanding. Jules was down to her underwear when the couple rewarded her amply in her garter-belt. They were going to have a good night. She did even better with her solo later on in the evening. It was one of a few new performances she had been working on; more for pecuniary than artistic purposes, she told herself. Devon already did the Catholic schoolgirl act in a pleated skirt. Jules was aiming more for the severe traditional boarding school look and, by so doing, was hoping not to threaten her fellow dancer. She had tried discussing it and Devon had merely shrugged; which could or could not signify indifference, it was hard to tell with her. However much Jules and others argued that they were performing art, calling themselves burlesque or exotic, they all knew it was repression that paid generously, and had numerous charms and devices to ensure that happened. By tapping into stunted adolescence, Jules was certain she could capture the entire male population of the country. In the meantime, she would settle just for those in the room. She wasn’t sure how the last-minute replacement song would work. It sounded great but lacked the sensuality of that which it had replaced. Ironically, it was René who had opened up the world of trip hop to her. He had very quickly become part of her world here. There were thirty seconds before the lyrics began. It was a deceptively jolly intro, and the audience was mostly quiet when she came in dressed in the navy-coloured uniform and carrying a light stick back chair. As the words 146

began, she gleaned political content for the first time and feared it might detract. Seated, throwing her legs apart, tossing off her bonnet and letting loose her hair, ensured any profounder meaning quickly became subtext. The juxtaposition of personal and global conflict became forgotten, if it had ever been remembered, the more clothes she removed. The men were enthusiastic, and eager to leave their seed in the form of bank notes. The song took five minutes by which time she had only a thong and suspenders bristling with money. The furore showed no signs of dying down. She glanced towards the dimly lit box and thought she got an acknowledging look from Sven, confirmed when he allowed the CD to run on into the next track. She felt she could milk it for just a couple more minutes, which she did, removing the financially laden suspenders, writhing and crawling some more, and accepting further endowments in her thong, garters or her mouth. More notes fell like rain. The track was only two minutes, which was all she needed. She took a bow, gathered her clothes, money and chair, and left the stage. René stayed a while in her house. Following the lead she had given, he sought more of the director’s work online. He found, among others, a promotional trailer for ‘2046’. It featured a beautiful prostrate android, followed by the colourfully-attired actress Faye Wong walking up towards an unknown sky in an uncertain landscape. That brief climb fuelled a short-lived obsession in him. He searched all over the internet for her, a search that could have resulted in frustration, if he didn’t come to realise it was the movement 147

through time that did the magic. She was attractive certainly, but it was the fluidity of that moment, allowed by the cinematographer. which rendered her transcendent. He was anyway with this quest avoiding the beautiful storm raging through his heart. Now that Jules had been gone an hour, he had become aware of its presence all the more. Perhaps it would pass, which was fine, he told himself, as it would leave valleys moist, gleaming with new life. He hardly slept, waking easily in his van at the throaty purr of her car. He waited but she never came, and soon it was dawn. Left in the void, Marina found she didn’t even want the cup of tea she had made. Ed was on a bike tour for a few days with his mates, the rest of the house was sleeping. She wished she weren’t an early riser. Clinging to her phone for support, she went outside and sat on the kitchen step. The sun was beginning to peer around the house. It was nice but couldn’t assuage the cold winds that threatened her anxious, vulnerable heart. She attempted to steer herself away from the abyss by texting furiously to many people, one of whom was René who received the shortest message: ‘IM SORRY. HOPE U R WELL. LOVE MARINA.’ Thus everything always freezes, returns to a default position, because everything is forever stuck; a bucket world, the same ideas and opinions going round and round like a washing-cycle that never ends, the ultimate, eternal soap opera. 148

Once they were going somewhere, once even a holiday to Cornwall offered the possibility of adventure. ‘Welcome to Asda’, ‘Welcome to Sainsburys’, say the signs now visible from every car and train, the bucket leaking. A journey by train as an experiment, to save money: Cassie viewing the sporty types in shorts with disdain, their arrogance and testosterone sprawling across the aisle; Andie scowling into a book; little Alex, always a strange child, screaming that they should get off at a random station, yelling “The light! The light!” as he rushes towards the closing doors in anguish. Later, Hugo and Cassie have to admonish him repeatedly at the campsite. There is a young couple at the far end of the field. The boy has long hair, the woman short. This seems fascinating to Alex and he keeps wandering over. The couple are friendly enough, but it just isn’t done. Cassie and Hugo take turns to retrieve him, apologising politely, the necessity of which, refuted. When the girl starts practising on her flute, Alex becomes even more determined to get closer. The last time he is saved from the benign siren’s song, merely standing in awe a few yards from the girl, is the last time. They actually have to tie him to the tent pole, using his harness and a spare rope. Even so, he runs around gleefully within the imposed limits, till Hugo finds it necessary to bark, “You’re not even running properly! That’s not how you do it!” How to escape, brochures and other islands always promising something better. Glassy-eyed pensioners on buses going nowhere, using their bus passes to keep warm. Coming back from London after the Tory win in 2015, the 149

train full of devastated travellers, posing the question, ‘How did that party’s supporters travel?’ Hugo always told Cassie he was for the Greens, but secretly voted for the Conservatives, one of the few rebellious actions to which he still had recourse. He didn’t belong on a train, and it was only a regular feature in his adult life for a short duration. Someone had called his wife a Cornish banana tree. He had no idea what they had meant, suspecting it might apply more to him. The only others that particular day not adversely affected by politics, were the young couple across the aisle from him, the beautiful blonde delirious with the power she had over her man, he unsuspecting, grateful to be on offer. Trains had their good side, you met other people, or saw them at least; unlike cars with their confined insanity, journeys often taking longer on the back seat: Andie singing badly at maximum volume, “You said not to talk! I’m not talking!” Leaving the station, life’s ebbs and flows, the joy of separation needing to be celebrated as that of unity – divorce and death, new beginnings. “We are sorry to announce…” echoing discordantly from opposing platforms on a day of high winds, fallen trees and broken engines. A late train is an opportunity. Gathering in the fresh air, away from Mum and Dad. Grandpa locked in the merciless onslaught of Time, his two lively charges free of such concerns, expressed in each other’s play, excited by their new hat and footwear: matching red and pink baseball caps, shiny black boots and lime-green sneakers. “We are sorry to announce…” 150

Hugo doesn’t think he ever had a sister. He does remember, before Cassie and before travel became unethical, on the Metro in Paris, platforms spaciously opposite each other where you could view others, fall in love perhaps; unlike the London underground where, trapped by propaganda, you face a wall in dirty polluted air. This was his life now. Locked in perpetual commute, he would never see the light, the flames that once sufficed being long subdued. His muddled lubricity thus touching on the subject of inaccessible fire, he took the road up the hill again. There she was. He wound down the window. “I know you shouldn’t get in the car with strange men, but we’ve seen each other a couple of times now. Would you like a lift?” She looks at him, assessing the situation, smiling broadly, gossamer wisps of hair trailing lightly over her eye. “It’s raining,” he says. “Only a little bit,” she says. “Well…” He is not going to insist, he’s not one of those guys. “Okay,” she relents, going round the other side. “I’m Hugo Munby,” he says as they drive off. “I live at Maplecroft. Down below the McCoys, opposite Gail Raymond…” “The witch?” she exclaims. “Is that what they call her?” They converse. Her name is Sheila Tabram, and she lives at a farm a mile up the hill. Normally her mother collects her after school – she goes to Newton Abbot comp – but the family car is broken. They’re looking for a new one. She doesn’t mind. She likes the walk. Her accent is more London than Devon, not what one would expect from a farming family. He wants to ask her about this but they are 151

at the farm. He gets out with her to introduce himself to her father who is fixing a tractor in the yard. Mr Tabram wipes his hands on a rag before greeting Hugo. His grip is firm, he looks Hugo straight in the eye. Hugo explains he often comes that way at that time, and would be happy to give Sheila a lift if he sees her, and if it’s all right. Mr Tabram is unsure about the situation. It’s only because he trusts his daughter’s judgements that he ever agreed for her to walk from the bus. He tries to read the other man’s mind through his eyes, then Hugo keeps talking and gives him his business card, identity confirmed by a piece of cardboard, numbers on a car plate and knowledge of the neighbourhood. The situation is deemed safe. “I forgot about the violin till I came across it while cleaning!” Cassie explained. “Of course it’s a good idea to sell it.” Hugo was dubious, knowing as he did that her unpasteurised milk scheme wasn’t working out. Totnes people being who they were, there had been a general outcry regarding the plastic bottles in which the milk was delivered. They were signing off by the dozen, with the assurance they would return if more sustainable containers were used, which wasn’t going to happen. The hands of the supplier, and consequently Cassie’s, were tied. The selling of the violin was in the adumbration of the milk failure, not even an avocation. Yet it was a simple enough idea, perhaps it would work. “Just don’t expect me to have a hand in it,” he grumbled. 152

The would-be buyer is Liling, from a family in Totnes. She is ten years old. Coming through the front door, her adoptive mother just behind, she removes her shoes without being asked and enters the living room at Cassie’s invitation. She sees the violin resting in its open case against the blocked-up fireplace, picks it and the bow up without hesitation. Hugo is in the office upstairs, checking his bank balance. They haven’t planned a holiday yet and he doesn’t know what they can afford. The first discordant notes reach his ears as the girl tightens the strings, establishing harmony. Next door, Andie is blasting out a bizarre combination of opera and death metal. Between Scylla and Charybdis, he snorts in derisory, involuntary sternutation. It cannot get worse than this. His mind is also on the encounter with Sheila Tabram. Should he mention it at dinner time? Why should he? Was it important? Or did not mentioning it, make it important? Thereanent, he is driven downstairs to get a snack. It might be a long time before they eat, depending on how long his wife can draw things out. The answer is, quite long, because she enters the kitchen soon in a flurry of importance and berates Hugo for filling up before the meal, while she makes nettle tea for the girl’s mother and herself. Hugo sits alone eating his marmite toast and drinking his PG Tips, thinking about Sheila Tabram, thinking about where they can go for a holiday, about his past, about work – anywhere but here. The assault on his eardrums from upstairs suddenly ceases. This occurs often, like a war with 153

unexpected interims of peace followed by sudden bouts of violence, both children of prolonged secret antagonism. In the hiatus, the sound of the violin the other end of the house reaches through the chain of open doors. Hugo shudders at first, remembering his son’s early attempts and the howls of evisceration, yet this is different. At one time too the girl must have been cacophonous, harmony inherent albeit hidden, unmasked by the dance of progression. Now she is transcendent. Bruch flies through the inconsequential centuries and sweeps gloriously through the house. Even upstairs is quiet, listening. Hugo’s thoughts lie forgotten on the floor. He is where he is, without need to be elsewhere. The notes touch what is left of his heart, and he experiences contentment in a way he may once have known, neglected till now. Then the music ceases, the bartering is made in the sitting room, and Andie starts up again in the relentless heavens. Finishing his tea, he thinks again of the Problem, that he is attempting to turn into a Mystery. There seems to be no solution, they could each have done it: Lizzie, Bridget, Emma, Uncle John, the illegitimate slaughterer, unknown assailants, each one a potential murderer. How could a question exist without an answer? Perhaps it was the question that had to change: not so much who did it, as who will do it, he ponders vaguely, in his own bleary way pushing back the frontiers of time. 154

Chapter 6 The Night Side of Nature It is time to separate the weak from the chaff. It is day when it should be night, all the terrors confined, growth when there should be calm. Control is paramount, absolute control the near side of cancerous chaos. The crusaders of empirical inquiry, the dogs and bitches of parabalani reborn, roam the tall new estates on the edge of towns casting huge shadows over tidy lawns, keeping the streets safe from widows and orphans. The cathedral clock chimes a minute before the town clock, and a battalion of identical, hideously disfigured dolls marches down the tower steps to an uncertain midnight in rows of three. Windows are dripping. There are no human beings in the bus station, and the clowns are all silent. The world strains to comprehend innocence; believes it evasive, fictitious, so invents poor imitations, dull echoes to keep itself amused. In the background an organ plays deeper than devotion, unheard and unnerving. The message is clear: You cannot outrun the lumbering monster, no matter how slow he is. Do not shine too brightly, be so gay. So long one sleeps with a despised spouse, absorbing too much, a never-ending invisible rape you don’t even know is happening; cowering from an angry vacuum cleaner, histrionics the order of the day; entendered by fear and powerlessness, remission denied. The wind is knocking to get in. Skeletons in bow-ties move forward, driven purely 155

by ghastly will. An ice-cool assassin with blissfully long legs and wonderful cleavage is one of the saviours. Inappropriate manifestations on the bedclothes. Only Xela can master this anarchic existence, triumph over the dark heavens of cities. Only Xela… “What are you doing?!” Hugo’s voice thundered into Alex’s world. Alex froze. The mind is made up, nothing can move, a cold fixation of Time. He hadn’t been reading the comic on his lap, but daydreaming about Xela who saw and heard everything. Alex hadn’t even heard the door open. Evidence in colourful garish pages was strewn all over his bed. “What in blue blazes is this?!” his father yelled. He strode forward and tore the offending article from Alex’s hand, tossing it on the floor. The cold worm inside him had turned, and was about to strike out. “They’re comics,” Alex said weakly, needlessly. “Of course they’re comics, you blithering idiot!” Hugo’s face was turning red. “What are you doing reading them, when we specifically asked you not to? We agreed that you were not going to waste your time this way.” Alex said something below a whisper. “What was that? Speak up!” “You and Mum agreed,” Alex mumbled. “I never did.” The blow seemed to come from nowhere. Even Hugo, lost as he was in a cloud of intolerance, wasn’t aware of its source. 156

He smacked Alex so hard across the face, the back of his head bounced off the wall. At that moment, Cassie and Andie had come to see what all the shouting was about. It took a second or two as Hugo reeled back from what he had done, for Cassie to grasp and exploit the situation. “Oh my poor baby!” She ran to Alex, holding his head, and smothering him with kisses, finding time to yell at Hugo, “What have you done?!” Andie remained in the doorway suppressing a grin. There would be no need to deal with her father, this was even better. She didn’t have to do anything, not even take notes from ‘Shades of Grey’ to fabricate details. She turned and went back to the kitchen, to continue making a cup of tea. Ladies’ withdrawal would be devoid of computer time this evening, postprandial plans taking a different course. She went upstairs to get her Southern Gothic romance, then sat with it and the tea in the kitchen, listening to the shouting. Despite the hullabaloo she read contentedly sipping her tea. The young vampires were murdering pigeons and cats. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, whether it were a necessary rite of passage for a New Goth. Only that morning she had rescued a seven-legged spider from the bath. Kindness to animals. Hugo stormed through, his face pallid with shame and horror. Cassie came in to get aloe vera and arnica. “You saw it, you saw it,” she insisted. “Yes, I saw it,” Andie stated. 157

“Good.” Later Hugo was making up his bed on the couch in the sitting room, when Cassie went at him again. Andie was on her way upstairs. She heard the altercation and stopped outside the closed door. “There are two witnesses. You could go to jail for this. If we make it quick and non-contested, you leave me the house and car, and that’s it. It could all be over in two months.” Cassie had been researching legal sites for weeks, erasing her history carefully. “That way, you don’t go to jail, and it’s a clean break for all of us. Do you agree?” Hugo did. He felt he had no other option. Jail was probably an exaggeration, it was the shame he couldn’t face. “Good. I’ll take Alex to the doctor tomorrow, say he hurt himself playing rugby inside.” That way she would also have any injury on record. Andie, satisfied, knew she couldn’t go upstairs yet as she would be heard. She went back to the kitchen to sit awhile, and read her book, smiling. One down, two to go. In Cassie’s eyes, Hugo’s banishment was not so much condign as a short-step. She could get on the same without him, once she had the car. He dragged his heels in every way he could, loath to or incapable of leaving the turbid swamp that he had helped create. His hours became stranger, he ate by himself in a corner of the kitchen, avoiding eye-contact; he said he couldn’t move in to his Exeter bedsit for a month. The sitting room became a waiting room in Hades, emanating invasive odours in its 158

sleep of verdigris and ptomaine, the choking corpses of an era. He would sit in his purgatorial stupor through much of the night, watching television, whisky by his side. His wife meanwhile would pass out in the dining room if she didn’t make it to her bed upstairs. Surprisingly, during the day she acted with reborn vigour, even finding another women’s group more to her liking. She still didn’t have free use of the car so would get a lift or start using the bus again. Hugo, catching glimpses of her new life – phonecalls, snatches of conversations with the children, unprecedented brochures and leaflets lying on the table – was consumed with jealousy. Like the couple who wake up together exclaiming, ‘How did that happen?’, not once did an iota of responsibility affect his conscience, not once did he apologise. As far as he was concerned, he had married a demon who had him fooled from the start; there may have been a killer on the road, but there was a bitch behind the wheel. In his cell, he watched anything, random shots of wisdom accidentally aimed at the screen, before dropping useless to the floor. The beauty of nature documentaries did little to assuage, deceitful as they were about a world populated almost exclusively by livestock and pets. It was animal porn. They would be more honest depicting groups of people emerging from the caves of housing estates, accompanied by their salivating dogs. Falling asleep, talking heads. He remembered them from his youth: an evolution from the physical, the joy and 159

abandonment of life during wartime, then the restraint and divine sensuality of white clothes and angel voices; nothing sexier than Sister Christian in a smart, tight sweater, the breasts emphasised. Alex retreated deeper into himself, far from the congeries of his home, from a murkiness he did not understand to a world where everything was crystal clear. He tried hard to put aside the memories revealing more than was comfortable, comprehension beyond his age: like when he came home with Rowenna to work on an English project together, Hugo giving her more attention than was normal, homage to a lifeforce no longer his. He lay on his bed, comics now openly on the floor beside, his mother granting him permission to read what he wanted, her husband’s opinion no longer significant. He couldn’t read them. His father’s cruelty lurked far beyond the blow; steely words mere servants of darkness, nipping any self-belief early in the bud, thus ensuring dependence in perpetuity. What was he seeing? His eyes rested upon an ornament on the shelf opposite, below where he used to hide his comics. It was a hand-made wooden lighthouse. The costermonger in St Ives had been really rude, as if he had offended her somehow through his enthusiasm, yet taken his emolumentary offering nonetheless. He always thought of her when he looked at it, thus its failure as a souvenir due to veracity. What was he really seeing? “Are you sure we’re okay?” Hugo glances around nervously. “This is the old road,” Sheila Tabram says, 160

glancing up before counting the money and putting it in her school bag. “No-one comes here anymore. The ford kept flooding.” Maybe she had a boyfriend, that didn’t matter. If she were choosing to do this, it was nothing to do with him. She grips the condom wrapper between her teeth, dappled sunlight playing on her face, beguiling reflection. Hugo pushes his seat back further from the steering wheel. He is already hard from the thought, anticipation and memory. She unzips him with one hand, undoing her blouse with the other before taking the wrapper from her mouth. Pushing his yellow underpants down, she releases him and, spitting on her fingers, starts to coax the long pink. His cold white fingers caress her dark hair clumsily as she engulfs him. Holding back, holding back, for the promised reward of being a good boy, short warmth, enough to sustain for a minute of a winter’s evening and no more. She rips open the wrapper with her teeth then uses both hands to wrap his penis in the rubber pith. She moves over, facing him, astride, reaching back to release her bra. Her voluptuous breasts swing free into his face. He reclines while she lowers herself onto him, and they both smile with the pleasure. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands as she rises and falls, so holds her buttocks, assisting. An apprentice, he spends too soon and she rides him hard for the final moments, then sits on his weakening self, grinning knowingly, her long straight black hair fallen over her pale face and ruby lips. He kisses her rosy breasts thankfully as heaven passes. She dismounts, returning to her seat. There is a mess to be tidied, traces to be erased, the cold embrace of day to be negotiated. “Maybe 161

see you in a day or two?” “Yeah, maybe,” she says, sticking some gum in her mouth and not offering him any. Confined in what used to be his home, he considers the weird cult gathering at three every afternoon outside the school entrance, awaiting emergence of the initiates with bated breath. What had they done? What had they learnt? Preparation for university when they could acquire many different ways to destroy the world. He would never see that day in his children. The past is certainly prologue. He considers Santa worshippers: the Devil’s greatest joke, hiding in plain sight behind an anagrammatic mask, free to indulge in a mass orgy of materialism and false sentiment. A giant bird with golden plumage and a fierce beak looks down over him, revenge in its gleaming eyes. A flamenco dancer is a gorgeous deadly insect, castanets her clicking powerful hind-legs. He wakes sweating in the television’s flickering light, gets up from the couch and staggers to the wall where there is a mirror. He looks in the mirror, and the mirror looks back. When lust is deprived of its object, the hunter its prey, the policeman his evidence, the thief someone else’s property or the zealot the focus of their wrath, an abyss is formed. Desire of the object possessed, leaping from person to person, thing to thing, reducing that possessed to an empty shell resounding with an uncomfortable silence. The victim can emerge as a potential manipulator, the aggressor a dullard. Still, Xela decides to go hunting. He must be as a super predator, unfelt and unheard. He sneaks into the shed 162

to find the axe-head absent, only the handle remaining. This is puzzling, but only a blip to a warrior. He picks up a bamboo pole that has its end broken off. It is a perfect spear, light, deadly and sharp. There was a dead barrel jellyfish on the beach. It was a remarkable thing even in death, gleaming huge and transparent on the sun-caressed yellow sand. People kicked it. They threw stones at it. One man on a romantic walk with his girlfriend, after prodding it with his Birkenstock, got his lover to stand next to him so that they could take a selfie. The theatre continued between René and his view of the sea. He had hoped for some tranquillity to read his anthology of twentieth century poetry. This was denied him for the angst. He felt he belonged to the wrong species. He knew why he was thinking of this. The incident had happened a year before at Long Rock in Cornwall. As he drove to see Marina, it was his version of flogging a dead horse. Prowling through the jungle above Maplecroft, the smell and flies alert Xela long before the sight. It is the corpse of Lilo the young cat. His throat has been cut, his eyes gouged out. Oddly there is no blood, congealed or otherwise. Alex ran screaming back to the house, seeking Lethe’s charms. René caught a glimpse of movement in the field. He smiled. It was a child playing in the long grass, probably Cassie and Hugo’s young boy. It seemed idyllic. He envied the innocence, sensing it long since lost to him. 163

When he got to the McCoys he found himself driving past. His instinct was to park in a gateway a bit further on, and walk back. That way he could retreat without shame if need be, without being seen. As it turned out, the early morning expedition didn’t take long. He had just reached the gate when he saw a gleaming white Mercedes near where he used to park, an oil stain from his van still visible on the ground adjacent. Marina was coming out of the house accompanied by a gleeful chorus of cheers and yells, escorted by a man in his late thirties wearing an expensive sports jacket. She had found another prince. There was no sign of Ed. René stepped back so the hedge obscured him. His heart pounding, he watched as the handsome newcomer kept one hand on Marina’s back and opened the passenger door with the other. Marina, sensing something, looked around and saw René’s head above the foliage. Their eyes met. She smiled. It was both warm and warning, a plea for him to leave. He did so. He was getting back into his rusty van up the road when he could just hear the purr of the Mercedes as it glided to the main road. Jules knew nothing of René’s expedition, only that he was present for her with a totality that was fresh and new in their weeks’ old relationship. He seemed defeated, gloriously resigned and relaxed. She, on the other hand: “Still don’t know if you’re moving in. We can review your situation in the autumn.” At which he smiled, stretched out naked, not worried at all. 164

“I hope you don’t think this is Fate,” she would chide gently. “I don’t believe in any compassionate All-Loving Being. Au contraire, the greater forces seem indifferent to us at best. It is up to us as individuals to bring warmth and meaning into the universe.” At which he only smiled the more, and she curled up next to him. There were all sorts of reasons why people couldn’t sleep together, she mused – emphatic on ‘sleep’ – the real one being terror of an ultimate consciousness beyond. Yet as vast as Existence might be, the mean-spirited law of entropy has its vengeance on us by wrecking our bodies, limiting us all eventually in the numerous ways it could. “‘Midnight in a Perfect World,’” René said, naming the tune playing. “I know. I like it. ‘Night changes the world and makes the known unknown.’” Her breath warm upon his face. “Who’s that? Shelley?” “Mary Poppins. You know, there’s a part of me that will always prefer a good book to a good fuck.” “Thanks a lot.” “No. Listen. Maybe the Victorians got some of it, sort of, right – a way of saying ‘I am not confined to my basic needs’. Okay, we didn’t have months of courtship but I like the cautiousness, that you respect sex, and don’t just leap into bed with someone.” “We sort of did.” “We sort of got lucky. Really lucky. There was definitely a courtship of sorts.” She wanted to say he had 165

needed time to get over Marina, but thought it best not to mention her name. Men often felt perturbed at just how well the women in their lives could read them. “Okay, the Victorians got something, but not the cigar. Suppression is not transformation nor transcendence. That’s bullshit. Religion, take note.” “Why are you going on about this?” “I admit I can’t stop wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t got together.” She turned onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m also mind-fucking about the future as well: If we stay together, how will we handle jealousy? Where will we live? What will happen to the other if one leaves? Identifying what you really need as opposed to what you want is one of the keys of life, I know this.” “It’s like the dream we shared.” “The… Oh.” The medieval cellar has become a place of potential rather than confinement. Clothes are dripping off the buxom dark-haired young woman as she turns on the charms for the hapless novice monk. He succumbs, inevitably, and her head becomes shaven as she leads him gently up the stone steps to a sensual, higher calling for them both. “That was cool,” she admitted, turning to him. “If I must be a nun, that’s the kind I’d like to be.” “A sex nun.” “Yeah. Hey, you’ve got really good genes.” He laughed at her latest non sequitur. 166

“No. Listen. To use a René analogy, what can the leaves do if the roots are sick? Your biological parents must really be all right. Why don’t you…” “I just haven’t been ready.” He turned away from her. “Well, when you are…I’ll go with you. If you want.” “Thank you,” he said quietly, after hesitating. “Do you know why kids don’t like their greens?” “What?!” This time the abrupt shift in topic forced him to turn back and face her. “It’s because the sweet receptors on their tongue haven’t fully developed, but the bitter ones have. So all they taste is the bitterness in greens which stimulates the gagging reflex. It evolved in mammals so they could detect the alkaloid poisons in plants and vomit them out. Reptiles don’t have bitter receptors, hence the dinosaurs had no defence when flowering plants appeared. It may have been that rather than an asteroid which killed them off, plus the mammals eating all their eggs…” “Jules…” “What?” “Why are you talking about all this? Is this a plea to not torture future – and imaginary – kids by forcing them to eat their mushy peas?” “It might be.” She laughed uneasily. “What is it you really want to tell me?” She remembered the past after rain, the cool brick summer evenings too damp to be aggravated by mowers, strimmers and garden parties; more Manet than Monet, yet deliciously at peace. 167

René now had a secret dread of winter, haunted by the previous one at Stroud; a time when everyone spoke a language of affluence unattainable to him; his soul chidden, an unspeakable grief welling up from the heart, spreading to the lungs; a seasonal pressure relieved only by the annual slaughter of trees; becoming a compulsion to move before the black dog gathered strength, and those around revealed their true colours. He didn’t know what to do. He believed he wasn’t smart enough. He wasn’t smart enough to comprehend how a party could win an election when only twenty-four per cent of the eligible public had voted for them; or how fifty-two per cent was considered a clear majority rather than a clear division; nor to engage in the musical chairs of job hunting. He didn’t fit in the world. Jules’s revelation seemed to lead to a sudden plummet where no words thrived, a swallowing of the final gulp of air, a divine infernal helplessness. All the monsters of the evening could theoretically now stand in line: the hidden agendas of those who professed love, the violence of gender, the selfishness of a parent, the control of religion, the smugness of atheists, each and every one demanding their piece of soul. He believed himself to be helpless, whereas his actions reflected a truer serenity. Once Jules left for Exeter he remained steadfastly calm, showering, then getting dressed in her bedroom. He returned to his van, lying in bed and reading ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ – a tongue-in-cheek gift from Jules – until falling asleep. 168

She was angry with herself on the drive to Exeter, for misguidedly permitting a fantasy of futures, the consensus of the past, to erode the present so brutally. Telling him the truth was the one thing she did feel clear about, he had been right to draw her out on it. The appellation of ‘stripper’ could fix her, imprison her for life with a label, yet she had always believed a lover to be the one person who should know the truth. To his credit – and she was really impressed – he hadn’t reacted with the extremes of repulsion and judgement, nor the leery enthusiasm that she had known in the past. They were going to be all right. It was a profound relief to find such solace in a world where the hordes, bewildered by their humanity, acted only heartlessly and carnally; a place dark and inaccessible, as the conscience of a CEO under whose watch the company deprived African towns of water rights, tortured countless animals in the name of research and lied about their accounts; fronted by a snake-oil PR salesman assured in his position as the representative of unconscious millions; sucking the last good stuff from the wounded earth, a dead harvest of ancient beings that once thrived under a forgotten sun. They were caught in an absurd secret war between opticians and optometrists, neither of whom were interested in improved vision. The conquerors were too stiff to dance, move their hips; and the enslaved, forbidden to mock, forced to keep their arms pinned to their sides in eternal constraint. Time to rule the world with the rescuer’s agenda, corruption a kernel of sustainment, invisible to the masses, infected by its own adamant refusal to change, a growing sap of evil. 169

Jules believed herself free to dance. Her solo performances this night were a culmination of sorts, a peak obtained after several years’ off-and-on work, the first of two numbers a tribute to Betty Page – though the reference was too erudite for any in her audience to comprehend. Dressed in a crimson-and-white teddy, transparent black stockings and beige high heels, letting her dark locks traipse upon bare shoulders, she kept what clothes she had on for the short duration of ‘Party Doll’. Jiggling her hips, waving her limbs around and flashing a gleaming white smile, were all that was required. A homage to sensual genius, the performance was brilliant in itself, tainted only by the ignominious task of scrabbling to gather the notes that had hailed upon the stage. “A stripper who doesn’t take her clothes off,” Jack commented drily as she left the stage to rapture and applause. Waiting in the wings there was also Devon who snipped – inappropriately, for that moment at least – “Oh if it isn’t the Queen of the Dead,” as Jules brushed past her. Her second number was with two Portishead songs. ‘It Could Be Sweet’ was merely the tease, an unnecessary prelude in that the audience was already on edge, anticipating her return. By the time the lustrous tones of ‘Glory Box’ began and she was seated on the white armchair, her black coat and green scarf shed, the room was quieter than any church, the congregation spellbound. The grey thigh-high woollen stockings came off as she languished, black tresses flailing, slender legs draped over the chair’s arms as she writhed, she pouted. Fingers caressed milky thighs then disappeared into the folds of a soft white 170

cotton chemise bunched up on her hips when she simulated ecstasy. The song faded. She feigned rest. Loud applause burst into the silence rudely. Notes rained upon the stage. She woke from her pretend sleep. Hands reached out for what they could never have as she scrambled for profit. At some point, whilst acknowledging the acclaim with smiles and nods, she happened to glance at a table in the corner where Jack was seated with a customer. The man was old, very overweight and had sunglasses on his podgy face. It was clear they were discussing her. Another girl may have recognised this as her big break. Jules was far too astute. She had become property. She returned to the dressing room, deaf now to acclaim. This was more than sad lonely men paying through the nose to ply strippers with champagne, too rigid to relax, too hung up on having a good time to have a good time – this was dangerous. She had become akin to a female defendant in past courtrooms, forced to watch as the opposite sex decided her fate. Men seemed to desire the futility of sex- on-tap and an empty life. It didn’t add up. The camaraderie in the dressing room failed to reach her. She was aware only of Devon’s sly glances as she inveigled others against Jules. It wasn’t just men, women played their part too in the inferno waltz. It was their need for beauty obtainable through cotton, after all, that had in large part created the slave trade. The idyll was over. Like an aikido practitioner, she knew to leave the bar before the fight broke out. She would grab some of her more expensive 171

clothes, the night’s money of course, and leave for good. No-one knew where she lived, and she would ditch her sim card. A knock at the door. “Santara!” came Jack’s voice. “Can you join me for a drink?” She is a hare, an owl shrieking under dark silvery clouds. Under the name of the sun god, the men will give chase, to burn the evidence of their shame. Only when she had left the main road and was on the home stretch did she feel safe enough to pull over in a lay- by. She cried, hitting the steering wheel again and again in disbelief till the sides of her hands became bruised. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” How could she allow herself to get sucked in? She had told herself, they were raising the art of erotica. However much she had justified her actions there was nothing sacred about this prostitution. Perhaps they had made an effort, perhaps in another world they would have had a chance. How could she have been so stupid? Even art remained governed by the snakes within, possession the goal. It was a meat trade dependent on discretion, on a lie. There were no glass abattoirs. As the tears subsided, she could see stars through the windscreen. She got out onto the lonely road and stretched her arms high, breathing the night air deeply into her lungs, the tempest passed. She thought of René back home. She had left a dubious career for a different kind of uncertainty, and it felt good in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Time was the one thing that could slow down the sperm race, allow patience and trust to flourish where competitiveness could not. She wanted white picket fences, the lot, and her 172

innate determination would make it possible. The world’s tendency to ‘talk about’ a problem was not, ultimately, Jules’s, whose verbosity was a ruse. René slept through her car’s arrival and was woken only by the hollow metallic sound of the van door opening and the fresh air on his face. He stirred as she crawled under his old duvet, her warmth pressing close to him. “Just hold me,” she said. Andie passed the bottle over the counter. “Careful with that, it’s highly toxic,” commented the sales assistant. “Is it?” Andie looked at the bottle’s label languidly. The girl shrugged, her face lapsing into its default state of utter nonchalance. She wasn’t being paid enough to actually talk to customers, thus doing so was always an error. Andie was buying something because she had to buy something, as in a dream. “Our dog has fleas,” she said in a monotone. The assistant said no more, possibly having attended Cornish charm school, and any attempts to connect were doomed to failure on a granite-strewn moor. “What did you get?” asked Sarita when Andie re- emerged into the hot, busy street. “Oh. Just something for my mum.” “Don’t know why you bother,” Mary remarked. A group from their school was passing by the other side of the street. Their radio was on loud. They glanced warily over, their brightness and popularity wilting beneath the glare of the serious black-garbed girls, an unknown 173

factor in the social strata. They didn’t even recognise the fair-haired one lurking at the back of the group. “Great lyrics,” Mary said laconically. “Body fascists,” Sarita snarled. The banal beats hammer on the soul, insistent on youth snapping to attention, doing something, anything, obeying the senselessness. ‘I want nobody I really want your body…’ Andie gazed at her friends in a trance. They were unnerved. The noisy group passed on up the steep hill, ignoring as much as they could the unnamed threat from the five girls. The Chihuahua which belonged to Sarita’s mum started yelping and straining at its lead. “Down, Stimpy!” yelled Sarita hopelessly. It was Gail Raymond’s snarling Pomeranian that was causing the trouble. “Chihuahua Blue Merle,” said the old lady as she yanked back on her leash. “Canis lupus familiaris.” If the dogs had been larger, it could have been a problem. They were really going at each other. As it was, the scene was redolent of two coiffured hairdressers attempting a street fight. “I’m bored,” said Andie. The girls followed her down the street, feeling strong. “It’s a bitch-eat-bitch world,” Andie said to no-one, staring straight ahead into nowhere. 174

The girls sniggered. This is why they followed her. Surrendering to the will of others is a weak destiny. The arrival of something or someone is reflected by their departure, and there is something bigger than either. You think you can’t do without that something or someone, then you have to and you will. Prior to that, you believe, you just have to let go. The circle lasts forever. Andie’s rebellion justifies Cassie’s need for control, which provokes more rebellion. Repetitious torture is the most primitive form of communication available to man and beast, its phrases always missing the truth, no useful connection made whatsoever. Burn the guy slowly to celebrate the regular tapping of agony upon the earth; a trial by fire, like radar blitzing the heart every three point eight seconds. “Children, the best way to remember how to spell ‘rhythm’ is to use rhythm: R-H-Y, T-H-M. R-H-Y, T-H-M. All together now…” The room is shaking. It is the neighbour Gail Raymond battering wood again upon the ground, causing localised tremors. It is not Gail Raymond. “Mum! Dad! The little freak’s trying to get out again!” Andie’s cry permeated Hugo’s beer-addled sleeping brain. It took him a while to push the duvet away, get off the couch, put on his trousers and look out into the hall from the sitting room. Alex in his latest outburst of sciomachy was banging his head on the front door, Cassie’s hands on his shoulders, restraining him. 175

“Don’t wake him, Mum! It’s dangerous!” Andie was sitting at the top of the stairs. She had been the only one fully conscious when the banging had started. “He’s probably still upset about Lilo.” “He died so horribly,” Andie stated blankly. “I’ll just lead him back to his room,” Cassie said, turning her son around with a gentle clumsiness and guiding him away. Hugo glanced at his daughter, a brooding raven perched on top of the stairs, glowering, judging him for his sustained presence. Without a word she returned to her room and he passed through the dining room where Cassie had been drinking her usual whilst watching a movie. He went into the kitchen just as she came in from the other end. They stared at each other across the expanse. “He’s in bed and all right,” she stated. “What took you so long? You were right there.” “He walked past you.” “I was watching ‘The Eagle Huntress’. What took you so long?” she repeated. “You’re still the man of the house, to a point, at least as long as you drag out your leaving. You can still protect your children while you’re here.” “I was putting on my trousers.” “Why?” “I didn’t want to rush out naked.” “You’re so repressed.” “I like being repressed.” It was the language of enslavement: ‘make you my bitch’, ‘ball and chain’, ‘eternal bond’, ‘forever and ever’, 176

‘till death…’ Time unbending, and escape challenging for all. The argument dimmed as the impennous Andie, having returned downstairs, closed the dining room door. She shifted the bolts on the front entrance, turning the heavy key and – as if prompted by her own addictive congeners – stepped into the night air. The sky, darkened by quietly warring clouds, was sublime. Enraptured, in a rare moment of deep introspection even to the loss of self, she looked at the huge mass of water suspended, blocking the full moon, dynamic hints of supreme radiance beyond. Maybe, she thought, this was how it was: the darkest things in life closer to the light. There was power in nature. She would rather, she informed herself, have that than the insipid grey of more distant clouds. This, was a world in which she could live. She raises her arms in caryatid glee. 177

The Wonderful Secrets of the Fourth Monkey A joy proposed. This, here – surprise. The glimpses he had previously were that there was always another man, confident – deservedly he believed – that the girl would choose. The woman had absolute power over life and death, a knowledge that could cut to the quick of one; what did the man have that was real, nothing really, just a brief artificial imposition of will, a male speck on eternity. Now he had struck gold. Nobody had ever found him as interesting as they did now. The only uncertainty was the question, ‘Is this all? Was this all he was?’ A boyfriend, a lover; defined by someone else. Then she would kiss him, or smile, or he would hold one of his babies and nothing else mattered, icy hands of death defeated by the warm glow of sensuousness. Don’t hold the flower too tight. Opening the garden gate, surrounded, immersed by roses pink and red, this summer afternoon of which no-one knows. The first time, when he rises from the forest of jade. Her mouth is half-open, inviting. The blood is pulsing in his loins and he does nothing to hide it, as it pulls him up towards the stairs, the banister a divine wooden cage, the blank paper on which a poet must write, the silence a musician must fill. They kiss between the bars, the smoothly polished wood rubbing on the sides of their faces. “Come,” as she stands, taking him with her, shyness demolished, and leads him round to the bottom step. 178

He is helpless. He takes the naked, slightly dirty-soled foot with its green tips on offer, caresses it, echoing the reflexive contours with his fox-gloved fingers. Her body responds, his blood reverberant with hers. She relaxes, sitting back down on the steps, allowing his hand to move up along the smooth incline of her leg. The intent was the bedroom, which passion has precluded. She falls, aslant, helpless as he, pushing up her purple skirt, kissing feverishly upon her belly, almost distracted by her shaved vagina. She hurriedly pulls off her tight top with its horizontal black and mauve stripes, hair all dishevelled. She is not wearing a bra, not the only thing that suggests foresight. “Come,” she says again, pulling him further up, their breath hot upon each other as their lips meet once more. Blindly she undoes his belt and trousers with the green lacquered tips of her fingers, freeing him. “Come.” “I don’t want to…” “I’m protected.” “Oh.” He is in. Why would he ever want to be anywhere else? he wonders ecstatically as her legs writhe around his waist, her heels chaffing wonderfully on his buttocks. He kisses, licks, her neck, his tongue explores her ear, he sucks an ear lobe tenderly, and she is lost. It is over soon, ambrosial waves rocking them together, and he finds they are parted, her belly sticky with warm cloudy whiteness. “Let’s try the bedroom,” she suggested after a while as they lay, frozen sepulchral statues. “Come on, we’ve both got to get to work. The business won’t grow itself.” She sits naked on the side of their new bed, uncertain of her own argument. The weather 179

outside, too, is uncertain, a delicate spring air poised between likelihoods. Smiling, only half-dressed himself, he pulls her to her feet languidly. He selects a pair of silk black knickers from the drawer and, lifting each leg in turn, slides the underwear up over her long thighs. He wraps her globular buttocks, a shade of dark pubic hair pressing against the lacy material. She is compliant, a grateful subject to a benign puppeteer. He fixes her black bra, kneading her breasts gently into place before the clasp snaps closed. Her head droops upon his shoulder. It will be the calf-high black skirt today. He folds it around her waist, breathing in the jasmine scent from her hair. The belt fastened, he pulls the zip slowly down to the end. He selects purple socks from the drawer. Now upon his knees, he touches her left foot which she raises carefully, her mouth half-open. He caresses the foot, admiring the slender toes, the coral nails. He pulls the sock over, finishing with a firmer caress upon the soft cotton. They do the same with the other foot. He notes, before the sock goes on, a small scar from the rose bush she was helping him trim a few days ago, when she was wearing sandals. He brings over her green satin shirt, her only movement an approving glance. He manoeuvres her sleek arms through the sleeves. Standing behind, he fastens the plastic wooden buttons slowly. The fingers of their hands entwine once he is done. She folds into him, their lips seeking each other as he leans over her shoulder, they kiss sideways. 180

“Are we ready for the world yet?” he asks, pulling away. “I am. You still need to put a shirt on.” Please don’t ever leave me. “We are here for such a short time,” she will say, in one of their post-coital, nebulous talks, “the preciousness of the moment is all. The sensual quality of everything in this world, the wind in the trees, the sound of waves lapping a shore, the ground beneath your feet, a lover’s touch. The key is to enjoy sex when having it, and to enjoy not having it when not.” “How can one enjoy not having sex?” “Are you kidding? No expectations, space and time to enjoy yourself however you wish, to focus on yourself…” “It would be nice to have them both. Besides, I’m the one with the ‘principal agent of humanity’.” “We agreed, that was me! I have the ‘principal agent of humanity’!” “Maybe we can share the responsibility.” “We’ll make our own rules,” she sighs happily. Jules was secretly terrified of mob rule, judgement and the significance of the fourth monkey. The third was bad enough: ‘Don’t speak the truth, or you will suffer for it.’ The fourth, the secret monkey of which few knew, hands over its genitals, was to hide one’s joys and pleasures, to not be cheerful, happy, in love with life, otherwise the world will punish you. It is the little things that often stand out, inconsequential to outsiders: Their washing machine broke down once, forcing them to Torbay. For René this was already a reminder of how much better his life had become. 181

Having spent so much time in the van, on the road, a machine doing one’s washing at home would always remain a luxury. This is good too. Sitting together quietly in the humid warmth of the launderette, feeling the machines shake, listening to dryers hum whilst hypnotically and indiscriminately tossing intimates and outer layers back and forth, as glimpsed through the thick porthole. There is nowhere to go. No-where to be, cycle of arriving and going, rising and falling of the breath, in-between, sometimes a passionate abandon, sometimes a caring lull, contained within the larger seasons of birth, death and beyond; like the unscheduled festivity of a village festival delayed for the weather, now quiet and personal, for those intimate and without the voyeurism of tourists; a silence between two breaths. The woman learns to entice, the man to love. Once upon a dread time of annihilation’s waste, a poor farmer struggling to survive in a hot country, discovered sweet sticky halva deposited on a river bank. The following day he found more halva, then the next, and the days after that. It sustained him through the bitter summer and he began to get healthy, and to thrive. One day the illustrious sultana from the nearby palace espied him at the side of the road and wondered who this tall, vigorous man was and why she could not forget him. Nor could he, spellbound, forget her gaze. He was tortured every night by contradictory impulses of desire and station, knowing how much he wanted this raven-haired 182

angel and how impossible such a union was. Her beauty was not of this earth, he believed. Then to his astonishment he was summoned one day to the palace. The sultana had given orders for him to be brought to her. Deliciously afraid, he knelt in front of her throne. He had no idea why he was there but there was nowhere else he would rather be. She stood up, hard gold jewellery heavy against soft ebony skin, filigree silver traipsed upon her curves. She took a few steps closer in her bare feet, anklets ringing quietly. She smelt of honeyed sesame, amber and jasmine. He smelt of baked earth, fresh water and something indefinable, intoxicating. They were each other’s illness and cure. She bade him stand, then told him his poverty had come to her notice, and she wished to help. The palace would send a vizier with him to discover what he needed, then supply the necessary materials and labour. The condition, she said, was that he had to report to her in person every other day on how he was faring. It would be a great honour, he proclaimed, hardly daring to look at the strange turquoise splendour of her eyes radiating divine compassion. Not long after, they became lovers. He would delight in licking her from toe to neck, and she would return the favour, sucking pockets of his flesh, finishing with a flick of her tongue. Not long after that, now he was a prosperous farmer, they could marry. After many evenings of passionate embrace, they would lie beneath the silken awning of her bed and indulge in gust-shaped talks. One such time, as he rested between her round breasts radiant 183

with his saliva, she asked, “Wilderness may indeed be paradise enow, but tellest me, how didst thou survive that terrible summer?” He explained about the halva, and how it had stopped appearing by the side of the river some weeks after she started helping him. She laughs, leaning over, her plump breasts pressing upon his sweaty hair-matted chest, and she kisses him. “My handmaidens would nourish my skin with halva every day during that harsh season, cover my entire body with it then, when finished, throw the remains into the river.” Taking care of how one’s body appears, becomes taking care of one’s body. The stories are alike to the thin shifting sands between the repression of voyeurs and natural edification, or celebration, far from the quiddity of reason. Peeling off clothes by rote, laughing at how silly it all is, when the hidden mystery of another being revealing themselves, transmutes lead to gold. The world cannot contain you. “You’re just not into it, Ren.” She tries not to giggle. He looks very undignified, gazing up from between her thighs, a lost boy once more. “I just thought…” “Two babies have long since passed through where you’re attempting to go. It’s not the same place. Last time I looked down on you from this position, I didn’t have a single glimpse of your cranium. I do now. You may be going bald prematurely. Maybe it’s different for other couples, I don’t care. Look.” 184

She rises, dropping her nightdress, pulls him so that he is sitting on the side of the bed in his pyjama bottoms, and gets down on the floor. She grasps his penis which responds slowly. “You were always a grower, not a shower,” she comments. “I prefer this. Not much good for the guys in the locker room, I know. It’s not them you have to please.” “You’ve told me before.” “Thought you might need some reminding. It belongs to me as much as to you.” Then the leisurely waking rod is in her mouth. She sucks, licks around the glistening corona, then sucks again. She engulfs him fully, working hard and gulping lustily. Yet he is not fully engorged, neither of them are. She breaks away, looking up at him, a differently knowing glint in her eye. “You see?” “I just thought…we used to be very…earthy…” “We’re not in our twenties, Ren. We even smell differently now. We were always more of a meat-and- potatoes couple anyway.” She crawls onto the bed, pushing him down so that she can nestle into his arms. “We had a good fuck last week. I enjoyed it. Perhaps you would too if you didn’t compare. It’s not as if we need to go anywhere. I bet my breath stinks.” She blows onto his face and he laughs. “All that garlic at dinner. Sex is really gross when you look closely. ‘Sex is beautiful, sex is sacred…’ All lies! lies! lies! In the morning you realise the truth. We put on make-up and dress to look our best, the photographer takes it to the next level. An illusion is necessary for love-making, setting the scene. It takes the physical beyond itself. 185

“Let’s face it, bodies are disgusting. Clothes are a beautiful part of being human. Swimming pools are a regressed barbarism. Speaking of which, maybe it’s time just to be with each other, again, have one of our special bath weekends, get some more meditation in while we’re at it…” “I still enjoy straightforward sex sometimes.” “Yeah. Me too. But no more fairy stories, please.” “What…” After all these years he still couldn’t follow her thoughts always. “That version you told the kids at the school, where the prince rips off the armour of the sleeping beauty with his sword – not appropriate! Bad man! Bad man! It was almost as extreme as your version of The Little Tin Soldier. Oh,” she adds after turning over to go to sleep, “you’re on Aga duty in the morning.” He could never mistake her crimson-streaked coquettish eyes for twilight, she is much more, the centre of the turning world. He turns out the light on his side. He is almost asleep when she kicks him lightly on the shin. “It’s also your turn to take the monsters shopping.” “What? Already?” he groans. “Anton wants his new skateboard, and to meet his friends in town. Katy needs new trainers.” “I’ve been away from home all week.” “A kid is not just for Christmas.” The thoughts come seemingly from nowhere, a sad aftermath of dirty clothing, burning rags of shame; a passionate education only possible through self- 186

administration, cold white bodies inside; no warmth, no touch, nothing reaching, till a glimpse, a glimpse of the icy sculptures melting, oh too short a time. Post-coitus, Relaxation and Guilt the eternal lovers. His body starts shaking. She turns over hurriedly. “René, René, what is it? What’s happening?” She puts the light on her side back on. “There is no Trafalgar at midnight!” The words are from somewhere else, unrecognisable, nonsense. He cannot speak anymore, and won’t remember what he did say, his eyes rolling out of control. Her touch calms him. There is a glass of water on the side-table. She brings it to his mouth, and he manages a few sips. “Jeez, Ren.” She puts the glass aside, and lies back in a state of relief, staring at the ceiling. “You just about gave me a heart attack this time.” When he speaks, it is in short, stammering sentences. “I…suddenly…felt…we’re going to die. It…came over me…again. Like…a shroud.” “It’s the contract of life,” she states laconically. There is silence inside the room but for their breathing, and the old house creaking, adjusting to the shift in temperature. “Sorry.” “We could take you to the doctor again, but she won’t find anything.” “Not without more tests, no.” “Even then.” 187

He turns on his side to look at her. So often love was hope in disguise. There was no hope here for they had too much. What there was, was a burgeoning affection rooted in the unknown, a mystery. Who was he really? Who was she? The beauty-trap was not eternal, hence the true fragility of any relationship. ‘If it’s real, it will survive the changes.’ “What can I do?” she asks faintly. “Read to me a while, from that book.” She reaches to the side-table, glances over to him and smiles, opening to the marked page. “‘Sex and death are the greatest mysteries, which everyone tries to control – through creed, knowledge, opinion, emotional blackmail... More than being good or bad, the key is in knowing oneself. The problem with what people think of as desire, is it separates the desired from who desires it – a turmoil is created. Yes, desire is fleeting, always shifting, but that is the joy. The villain is time which you can defeat by ignoring; as it is both a procrastination of life, and a signal, an alert to what is absent. Once you remove the object, any dichotomy, any delay, is gone and you are free…’” The curve of beauty within space, an infinite progression. They sat together, the four of them, wrapped in their fluffy white towels, close to the roaring wood fire. Their distorted shadows played on the bare stone wall behind. There was no furniture, the only signs of external comfort 188

other than the fire being the thick old red velvet curtains on the windows, and the Moroccan carpet on which they sat. Jules had insisted on retrieving it from the borrowed van, after their late arrival. Cushions were at the back and would have to wait until morning. She occupied herself now with drying her daughter’s hair. Katy was waiting with mild impatience for her to finish so that she could drink her cocoa. “Are you sure you’re my daughter?” Jules asked. “Of course I am, Mummy.” It was a familiar joke which they still liked to play. “Well, neither your father nor I have such beautiful long blonde hair. Are you sure the fairies didn’t leave you for us to find?” “Mummy!” Anton was motionless as this was going on, kneeling comfortably on his haunches, still as a statue, mug of cocoa held in his lap as he stared into the fire. His hair was not blond, but richly dark like his mother’s, his eyes bright blue like his father’s. René, sitting cross-legged a bit back from the other three, looked at him discreetly with pride. At nine years old there were already signs of the man he would be. He had received more valentines in his class than any other boy that year. Jules finished rubbing Katy’s hair, and reached for the brush. The five-year old exploited the gap, taking the opportunity to have a sip of her cocoa. Jules didn’t have the heart to continue, and kissed her passionately on the neck. “Mummy, you’ll spill it!” was the cross retort. 189

“We’ll do your hair once you’ve finished, darling.” She put the brush back down on the carpet, and looked around at the scene, their pink bodies all flushed from bathing, glowing in the firelight. “A new home, hot water, and a log fire. Isn’t this the best Christmas ever?” she exclaimed. The children caught each other’s eyes and smiled conspiratorially. They knew the deal. “I think we should do this every year,” Jules declared. “Mum!” Anton protested. But she was on one of her rolls. “We did our late-night shopping in Totnes…” “We didn’t buy anything.” “What do you mean? We bought toffee-apples, mulled wine, gloves for you two and these thick lovely towels. (Which is a good thing, as I think the moths are still using our old ones, wherever they are.) We saw fire-dancing and clowns, met a Chinese girl busking with a dog, and heard carol singing. We also gave money to some homeless people. Think about it. Many people don’t have one home. We have this new lovely house…“ “It’s not new! It’s an old mill!” “It’s new to us. Okay, we had to move at the last minute, but it’s worked out. Then tomorrow, when everyone’s stuffing themselves and the roads are quiet, we pile into Tara the Great and Wonderful Goddess, and head to Yorkshire to see Grandparents Numero Uno. Two days later we go to Hampshire to see Grandparents Numero Due. Then for New Year we go to Dorset to see Grandparents 190

Numero Tre! Well, Grandma Numero Tre anyway. I don’t think Grandpa will make it this year. So, we have four homes! Five if you count Grandpa Numero Tre in Bristol. And you know what all those grandparents do? They give you presents! (Even if we don’t.) So, we’re rich, rich I tell you!” While the children were staring mesmerised into the fire, she leaned back, mouthing to René, “We’re doing all right, aren’t we?” He didn’t know if he ever loved her more than in that moment. She looked like she would become even more beautiful with age. “Why do we have six grandparents?” asked Katy, suddenly awake, putting down her cocoa with great seriousness. She was good at numbers, and at times interpreted the world through them. She had long since spotted something amiss in their family. “That’s because your father was greedy and wanted two mums, and two dads.” “But…” Further questioning was delayed as the hair- brushing resumed. “I still don’t know why we have to go and see them,” René now spoke. “You sound like one of the kids,” Jules scolded. “Your parents weren’t ready for you as a child, they’re ready for you now.” She knew he wanted to go – a part of his life once missing now in place – and was protesting on principle. It had been a lot to assimilate, these last few years, a whole new world opening up. They were, indeed, rich. 191

Opening the garden gate, surrounded, immersed by roses pink and red, another hidden afternoon, the cottage theirs for two weeks, its owners having asked them to take care of it, another home away from home. He enters through the front door, its latch clicking down as he pulls it shut behind him. Her voice calls him, accompanied by the chorus of rattling cutlery. She is doing the washing-up from lunch. He kicks off his shoes and goes into the kitchen. She looks at him coyly, her hands in the sink. It’s strange how someone so forthright can be so uncertain, delicate. “I got your message.” “The Gentileschis are here soon. I don’t want to meet them alone,” she says. She is in bare feet, wearing her casual black dress so short he can see her pink underwear as she bends over. “René, what are you doing?” “We have time.” “About five minutes!” He has her knickers down by her ankles and, in supplication, is kissing her inner, uppermost thighs. She cannot move, senses immediately transported. The cutlery clatters dully as it drops into the sink. She hasn’t shaved since giving up the night job, and the new hairs tickle his nose. Her wet hand reaches down to stroke her clitoris which he hasn’t yet reached. He stands, undoing his zip, his prick liberated and entering her engorged labia promptly. She gasps, he sighs. Gripping onto the sink as he thrusts into her, she peers through half-closed eyes into the sunlight-dappled garden. 192