Xavier Leret

Hi here's another chapter of Daisy.

Caring For Daisy Byatt Chapter 12 - Damp Spores on the Ceiling

It was a month before Carlo was able to reconnect. There were moments of consciousness through the delirium. Moments, nothing more. In all that time Daisy had not left his side. She coexisted with him. She administered to him. There was nothing she would not do for him. Perhaps it was just her luck that she had experienced the full severity of winter weather on her journey through life, yes, perhaps it was this that had kept her clear of the worst ravages of Block’s infection. No-one can be sure. She had fallen ill, of course, she had plunged into the mire, but the mire was where, from whence she came and thus it was no great jolt to her. Conservative colour, if she had any, would, no doubt, wash clean from her bones should those of a predetermined orientation cast their callipered eye in her direction. Concrete boots would sink her in time’s melancholy and the future would remain the same as her past. Thankfully, this was not to be, for we do not start out as we conclude, although, for some, the seeds of destruction are sown very early on, or at least the habits which later magnify into ruin are conspicuously formed. The cloak of Daisy’s history was not her own, she would not knit her future from the scars of her past.

In this month had the world moved on; now that is the question? What mammoth change can take place within the breath of a calendar month? Perhaps a revolution had been sparked, an invention recognised, an idea adopted, a war concluded, a peace achieved, a small coin of a great horde unearthed? Could it be that a life had been improved instantaneously for someone, but, more importantly, did the recipient recognise their advance? Were they grateful, or was it, as is so often the case, that the miracle was the knuckle to a new branch of worries? These were the questions that Carlo asked as he woke.

Daisy opened the curtains to the Carlo’s room. He watched her. The sun cracked through the glass and cut out her shape into a black paper figure. She was cut by God’s scissors it seemed to him, shaped perfectly before stepping into the prism of her own colour, crossing the room to kiss him. You don’t have to worry, she told him, he’s got it all in hand. We’re safe. We can stay hidden for as long as we like.

Carlo stretched his hands and felt that the bones under his skin were not the same.

They have found Block, she told him, but deep inside he felt Block in his marrow. She knew, because Block was in her too. Elliott reckoned that they would have to come clean about him because they had found his body and that something of Carlo’s had also been discovered there. His mother had been fraught and had pleaded on television for his safe return. However, behind the cameras she had craved Daisy’s blood and refused to accept her son’s guilt in the whole affair. These were her first steps on the road to denial. She was impotent to accept the reality of her son’s disposition and as such would never rendezvous with him again. He would disappear further and further before finally bidding his farewell via a video diary sometime in the future. This is no surprise, as we have already learnt. But it is a tragedy. There is no reason why offspring and progenitor should see eye to eye. DNA is not a champion of friendship, neither is it a programme for personal survival, the Titanic, it must be remembered, began life as a blueprint.

Carlo raised himself up on his pillow. He felt weak, not himself. He looked at Daisy. The corners of her eyes looked a little worn.

He asked her what had happened, and so she explained, said it was something like a disease and that she reckoned that they had it for life, but really it was more like something that holy people get just by living. This made him grin, despite feeling the ropes pulling his face into a frown. He stared out of the window at the house opposite. It crowded his view. It was too thuggish to be spying.

There was a gentle knock at the door. They both looked at each other. The door opened slightly and Diana asked if she might be able to come in. Carlo didn’t mind, but as he said so Daisy didn’t take her eyes off him.

When Diana entered Daisy told her that Carlo was feeling right a lot better. Diana found it difficult to look at the youth, she wondered whether he could re-collect any of events preceding his prolonged illness. She fussed a little, opened the window, stood by it for a while looking out in silence, hoping that his memory was a blank, for his sake poor love.

It wasn’t her age that clung to her like a musk, it was her husbands secrets. They both sensed this so that when she faced them they gave smiles of compassion. She relaxed a little. Carlo asked her if he could have some water. She went to his bedside table and poured him some. When she handed it to him he could feel the residue of her fingertips still lingering on the glass, an imprint often mistaken, by those who do not understand the material nature of this world, to be that of a phantom. Everything has a memory, that’s why rocks have bones. For a moment he lingered there before handing the glass to Daisy who allowed herself to enter Diana through her wraith residue. She could see that she was ashamed. It is a terrible thing to live life in the shadow of shame, particularly when the shadow is not of your making, because it twists its imprint into the shape of your own. “Sometimes life makes us act in ways that don’t best rightly show off our character,” Daisy said. Diana smiled, as if Daisy could never really understand.

Carlo lay back. Daisy held his hand. Diana’s empathy was dictated by her relationship with her husband, which as it stands, now, was hitting rock bottom. As much as she believed that he had more than dipped his toe in the great lake of moral metamorphosis, it was impossible for her to turn the corner on her taut feelings of abandonment and betrayal. For this reason no amount of charity could sweeten her attitude towards these two adolescence. Joy had been stolen from her, pinched by the very fellow she had given her life too and palmed to this girl.

She looked out of the window. In the garden, next door, she saw her neighbour’s three young children playing happily. They had their lain all their dolls down in a row. They looked so peaceful waiting for life to be breathed into them by play, not knowing whether they would fall foul of infantile treachery or jubilation. From her distance she could not discern whether their owners were discussing plans like proud parents for their prodigy or killers drawing lots over their naked plastic bodies. One wore half a dress and a left over shoe. The children laughed. Last night Elliott had laughed. He had done so with childish abandon. The lightness of it left an indelible impression on her, his recovery from the whole affair advanced - which pulled the carpet from under her own. She lay next to him that night, still sharing the bed, ordered as a half naked pliable manikin. Half naked to prove to him that she had teeth, her pubic hair a wired brush, not quite the way he liked it, but he bravely did his best for her.

She turned to Carlo. Your parents must be worried, she said. He knew this, felt it deeply. Of course they were worried, they cared, he knew that, which is why it was better this way. She assumed that he couldn’t be humane about it. Her cunt was feeling clammy, she sensed that Carlo somehow knew. Actually it was Daisy who could smell it. It took her back to her room as a child on the Hartcliffe estate. It was damp with spores on the ceiling.

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Posted by Xavier Leret at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here it is Chapter 11.

Caring For Daisy Byatt - Chapter 11 - Diana’s Delusion

Diana’s youthful frame was as much to do with being barren than a healthy addiction to exercise. She had a flat stomach because she had no working womb and a perfect pair of legs that were long for her body. Her only contradiction was that her breasts were more than ample, plenty to sustain the most famished infant well into childhood. But, alas it was not to be, a tragic decision on her part for having once discovered her husband’s penchant for the young and being profoundly of the old school as far as marriage was concerned she had secretly altered her ability to breed with the help a surgeon’s knife. It was contrary to her upbringing, which although protestant held enough of a tinge of modernity to be intellectually liberal, even if she found certain excesses of free thinking munificence a challenge to tolerate. What kept her from self consummation, due to Elliott’s disorder, was the truth that when she had been little more than thirteen she too had been involved with a gentleman considerably beyond her years. The experience had been a liberating rather than debilitating one, his attention not unwanted, his touches welcomed, his caresses desired. She was ready for him. It was not until years later whilst chatting to a thirteen year old that she realised that youth is youth and that perhaps there was something more suspect about the man who bagged her cherry. Even so, she didn’t regret it, at the time it was what she wanted, conversation didn’t sit high on her agenda either.

For Diana this chapter of her education was the armour that kept her marriage alive once she had discovered Elliott walking a dark path with an engaging and intelligent niece whose conversation was as deep as her looks and her self knowledge clearly beyond the maturity of her body. She simply treated it as an indiscretion, nothing more, and so it was that a sterile protestant property faith tied her to him - that with a touch of love and, of course, the money was good.

Because she found herself mostly sexy her appetite had never dwindled, although she knew how to shut it off, at least when Elliott was concerned – there are certain advantages to tied up plumbing, especially when knotted by sea men and exercised by bristle in the garden. She had no worries ever of being caught out, Elliott rarely returned early and was always good enough to phone if he did and so it carried on for as many years as she could remember, quiet indiscretions here and there, his legally more questionable, hers more or less enjoyable, together they made a fighting team.

Even for her he would never remove his socks and garters. She did know the truth about him though. He had invisible feet, an important quality for a lawyer used to creeping up on the facts and a vital attribute for a silent serial pedophile.

When Elliott married Diana he had sworn an oath of honesty to her, an oath he had never, to her knowledge, broken. There were things in his life of which he was ashamed, it was not just the girls, he disliked his propensity for success, he was always, with out fail, at the top of the pile, the pick of the crop, he was ruthless, revelling with demonic satisfaction as others fell, catching the flash of terror in their eyes like the Emperor Claudius savouring death’s little jig in the pupils of vanquished Gladiators. But unlike Claudius, Elliott was racked with guilt, it played a central role in his life. Honesty was the only anaesthetic he knew of which could calm the pains of his over enthusiastic conscience, yet he had enough foresight to share his dissatisfaction only with his wife who was dutifully secretive. Somehow they fed each other paying off charities like pain killer addicts, bribing them, slaving pro bono, fighting corners, pitching for the good cause in the hope that it would stave off the truth that may, at any time, attack their flank with all the self righteousness of marauding crusaders. Theirs was a partnership in the traditional English sense, a marriage that was open, provided they adopted discretion, and fruitful provided neither desired children. On the latter issue, however, the sound of little feet haunted them via the staircase of their neighbours, laughing, playing, taunting, running, tripping, crying, halting, vaulting, stabbing, needling, keeping them awake, tossing, turning, wishing, hoping that Diana’s condition could be redeemed, reversed, re-activated, re-learned. It was the one seed of a secret between them, for she never told him the truth about her knotted, scarred, fallopian tubes, her discretion a cell that divided, multiplied, mutated, grew; the conversation sore point that neither bothered to raise anymore, a perpetual sadness that sometimes clouded Elliott to the point of invisibility and a viscous slash of resentment for Diana, for she knew deep down she would have performed the role of motherhood to perfection, had she not felt that slight modicum of resentment towards her husband, the man to whom she was heavenly attached (for there could never be another), bound by a genuine unmovable love. Diana had known from the first time she saw him that Elliott was her match, she would rather loose a leg than loose him but even though her self-imposed infertility was a constant throb of pain the knowledge that Elliott suffered, felt incomplete and totally unfulfilled somehow evened it all out, made every drool over some porcelain child forgivable, bearable, and, in her uniquely warped fashion, understandable. She knew that he was an out and out gentleman, he was incapable of harming a fly, desiring only that the flesh was young, not the mind, never the mind, innocence was beyond his boundary, he was unmotivated to steal it, could never wreak it, an impotent destroyer, powerless to encourage it astray, he only followed where he was lead. In return their partnership brought the world such charitable riches, acts of good hung about them as a silver shimmering summer cloud of insect magic and in winter a jewelled cloak making the cold not just more bearable but worthwhile. They had never had a social ladder to climb, they just populated the summit, procreating not children but images of themselves, rumours, extraordinary acts, they were the talk of the town and in return they possessed keys to the rooms in which, as long as they never fully abused their position, some less than savoury home truths could be locked away from the public arena with a loyal unquestioning retinue to protect them. That is the truth of power and money. Give and you shall receive. Help and you shall receive. Enact your empathy, play out your sympathy and you shall receive.

*****

Carlo and Daisy, “the children”, were asleep. It seemed prudent to allow them to share a room. They were quite clearly together. Their entrance into her life had been eye popping to say the least. It quite gave Diana the shakes but her sense of duty and vocation worked on her, boosting her tolerance for all that life could throw at her as if preparing her to better nurse the casualties of battle. Now was not the time to raise questions of impropriety with her husband, whatever her fears and reservations. She accepted his explanation of the quandary of their corner, that they had come in from out of the cold and she was prepared to warm them with the hearth of her heart. Her understanding of humanity was simple but nonetheless admiral missing the complexities and contradictions of ideology, her foundation was her faith. She was not watered down by it. Her simplicity of faith was more pure than her husband’s, who was substantially better read in the philosophical and legislative department, if not the literary. Here was a mission, a cause, a corner, two young lambs, two youthful faces unploughed by age and experience, two gently breathing bodies in need of aid.

Lying in bed that night next to her husband she felt a purpose making itself within her. A new reason for their relationship was forming. However, the journey through the evening had not been an easy one. She knew that Elliott’s chance meeting with his two young heroes, at some M4 black hole, was not uncomplicated, that the girl’s thick West Country accent gave her away. She did not have a warm Dorset Hardy voice to compliment her astonishing good looks but a rough Bristolian lilt which had been sand papered by cigarettes and the experience of a life that can’t be imagined. The purity of her beauty contradicted what lay beneath. She could also detect a hint of her husband on her or perhaps it was the way that he looked at her, although he too was a little shocked by the way she caste out Carlo’s demons. At first she thought it was some odd sexual joke, that finally her husband had over-stepped the mark hiring the couple to try and in-vigour his palette in her. Often men persuade their partners to engage in acts not traditionally encompassed by marital living, introducing their spouses to a life more clandestine with numerous new partners, satisfying those imaginative tracts that can leave many feeling dirty but fired by the danger, the uncertainty, a desire that can blind judgment. For some of course it is a great freedom, the ultimate love not manacled by the oppression of monogamous coupling, a love of the spirit that revels in whatever can be attained by the body, cherishes the other’s craving and celebrates fulfilment, especially if there is a degree of performance involved. Diana had never been subservient to this area of Elliott’s needs or anyone’s for that matter, she lacked that Roman gene, playing to the voyeur was not a match in her box. It didn’t take long before it was clear that there was something more powerful at play and that the boy was actually in some kind of mortal danger and the pretty priestess was placing herself in tremendous risk in trying to aid him. She felt humbled by this act of love. The room had been transformed as his affliction grew in stature. Unlike a haunted house which gets cold when the primordial is awoken their lounge had become hot, as if it had sunk into the earth and was about to be engulfed by the molten core. Perhaps the heat was hers, and as it turned out her husband’s, sheer embarrassment? No, this temperature was not manifested from within, it was not the blood warming into a blush but the excruciating heat of something much more external, untypical, unnatural, searing in a way that the sun can never be, even when the atmosphere is disarmed of Ozone. To begin with she had confused the sensation with anger and once the two had been taken to bed she tore at Elliott with all the venom that her heart’s pride could muster, her love it seemed on barter just to satisfy his lower depths. So now he had trolled the streets and dug up some poor young wretches, what was he thinking, it was enough for her to just sense that he had been up to whatever it was he indulged in and yes she knew all about him that there was nothing he could hide, and, by God, she should have gone to the police years ago, did he have no idea of what it was she went through? But of course, neither had ever spoken of these things before, their honesty had all been imagined, it had always gone unsaid, she had lived it all for so long that she had forgotten that she had neglected to raise her grievances with him. Her assumption had been that he had noticed each one of her indiscretions, her “retaliations” as she styled them, felt them on her lips when he kissed her, noticed the brushed red on her cheeks which she clumsily hid with foundation – purposely so in the hope that she might raise his suspicions. It seemed all too obvious, but Elliott, like many men, was so wrapped up by the intricate mechanics of his life, webs of precise language, the challenges of adversarial advantage, floating some way up there gaining the practical overview of a landscape, watching the movement of the masses but unaware of the individual, so much so that he was entirely self centred, unaware of how those closest to him felt, oblivious to minor nuance changes, slight frissons, friction or fissures which are manifestations of symptoms far worse below. The detail of feelings escaped his observation or were back-logged for interpretation, catalogued somewhere in a pile ready to be forgotten, but more often than not just unrecognised. It was this which hurt the most, that there was a proportion of her life which was invisible to him as if she was the victim of the super hero radiation blunder that she had once read about in a discarded magazine on some train excursion some years before, a freakish talent inflicted upon her that many would desire which was in fact a curse. She had thought that it was just some cheap tat at the time becoming a cliché of her class as she ridiculed its childishness with her friends. If only she now had that special responsibility to make it all seem worthwhile.

That night it all blew up in Elliott’s face. He had never seen her like this, she was devastated, tears ran black rivers down her face. The truth was out, it ran around the room mocking him, screaming loud enough for the neighbours to hear. He felt bad about it all, terrible for Diana. He sat quite still, expressionless, except for a slight twitch in his lip as if he was short circuited by empathy, his eyes slightly lowered. After a while he played with the solid gold ring on the little finger of his left hand. The ring was a fusion of his parent’s wedding rings and sported the large and dazzling diamond that had been the centre piece of his mother’s engagement. Experience had taught him that words, whether they be excuses or advice were useless at this juncture. It was better to let her get it all out and anyway he lacked the drama necessary to throw himself at her feet, trying to hold her was simply not his style. His refined sense of dress, his beautifully cut suit and trousers, slightly starched shirt with jewelled cuff links, also made physical contact seem uncomfortable. They had been fashioned for distance not intimacy. He looked at his distorted face in the shine of his shoes and wished that he was still a child so that he could scruff them, scratch himself away. Even the most stoical and aloof want to run away sometimes. Life had a habit of reminding him that he was still a child, to have pretended otherwise by playing the English card would have been foolish now. They had been together too long he and her. Besides he loved her and she him. Theirs was a quiet conversation kind of love, the love that plotters have for each other, a camaraderie and comradeship. It made their lovemaking tender, if not entirely fulfilling, most of the time it was enough to hide his inability to play the gypsy; but then he was much more enlivened by gentle exploration, undressing, and exposing. It was Diana, it now turned out, who exploded all Hispanic, throwing her hair to a wild wind, allowing the passion of some cottaged moment to null the ache she felt for him.

When all was quiet he looked up. He was practical in the way that he observed her. He noticed that she was still beautiful, in fact age flattered her. She sat opposite him composed. He pointed out that she failed to clean up one tear of mascara from her cheek and offered her his handkerchief. In the silence she took it and wiped the mark away. It left a black splodge on the silk. She handed it back to him. He smiled as he took it, a small mouth stretch of a smile. His eyebrows momentarily raised, his mouth puckered for a second but he said nothing. What impulses he did have were small sparks of electricity, gently twitching facial muscles rather than words. To Diana it seemed as he was embarrassed by her display, but the truth was that he just didn’t have anything to say, he was flummoxed by his own ineptitude and the desire for it all to be so much different.

Her face needed a wash so she excused herself and left him to his thoughts.

As she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, he stared at nothing into nowhere. As she asked herself what had happened to all those years, he was numb - except for his beating heart. He would have done anything at that moment for it to stop, but he was afraid that he had now squandered his ticket for redemption so he might as well suffer this hell rather than bring on the reckoning of the next. It wasn’t a particularly useful way of bridging the gap between himself and his estranged wife, guilt is a comfortable cloud to hide behind, its counter productivity working like an opiate and if he was not careful he could loose everything to this one, retreating further and further into himself the more damage and devastation he created around him.

By the time Diana had returned into the room he had resolved not to withdraw but to tackle it all head on. He determined to adjust himself, privately conceding that perhaps he might be in need of external help, the kind of help that he had suggested might be of use to one or two of his clients without really believing that the rope was ever strong enough to pull them back from the brink. He had to admit to himself that for first time he was unhinged by a sense of terror. Diana’s outburst, however justified, was, to put it bluntly, disturbing, which led him to believe that perhaps she might, in a fit of peak, bring about his down fall by leaking the truth about her and him and them; and there were a lot of young thems, and many more besides which any journalist with a cheap shovel could exhume to ruin his reputation. It is one thing to face the accusations orbiting a mistress but only film stars can get away with underage sex, as for lawyers – well he may as well begin weaving his shroud. He knew of course that prison would never be an option, he was too well placed for that, he had performed too many altruistic deeds, disposed of additional wealth on numerous charities and good causes, once or twice even making the national papers; but his status, his character, his name would be relegated to the very worst shadows of conversation and suspicion. The shame would be too much, he would have to become a recluse, hide from the attention of his peers and colleagues. They would probably distance themselves from him anyway. He knew too well that, for some, he would arouse disgust whereas the others, who occupied the same shadows as himself, would rather the judicial lamp light shone elsewhere. People like him form easily identifiable sea choral clusters, once found, are effortlessly, gleefully, physically smashed. Christ, he didn’t want to be forever associated with that aged horde of the sullied, the dirty old men. Oh God no! There was only one thing that he could do and that was change. Not just say it, or make some gesture, no this time he would change, confront those demons head on and stick the stake in. Yes, for Diana he was going to change. And of course Daisy... and the lad.

Diana returned to a distinctly different room. The magnolia walls had a new sheen, the exposed black beams were muscular, athletic and youthful for their age. The feature fireplace stood proud in all its flamboyant original glory, it mislead her into believing that its age was full of wisdom that when lit it was worth searching the eternity of its flame for some good judgment, whose verdict was trustworthy - what that room had not seen or been privy to over the years. It had all the ambience of a biblical arbitrator, almost as weighty as Solomon, and at its centre sat the humbled Elliott, quiet and ready.

Ready to change.

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Posted by Xavier Leret at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At long last chapter 10. It's been a while, I've been busy making The KAOS Dream, a new show with KAOS. So as always the show making has completely consumed me. You can find tour dates at the KAOS site and I have to say that it's a bit of a goody, very funny, powerful in bits and certainly very shocking for some.

Now before the chapter just a quick note to say that I am performing some of my stories, alongside the work of a good friend of mine, Tim Arthur, at the Folkestone Literary Festival on November 8th. You can find details here.

And now...

Caring For Daisy Byatt Chapter 10 - A Q.C. No Less

Eight hours is a long time to be abandoned by a roadside - by anyone’s standards. Junction 14 of the M4 is a no-where place, derelict of everything, plants, insects, worms - all life avoids it as if it has the Midas Touch. The centre of the roundabout is like a deep space black hole sucking all objects into its tiny opening. It stretches everything beyond recognition before crushing it out of existence.

They were both feeling sick, their colour had left them, and what ever it was that had been living in Block had turned their blood a light pink. The sky had been purple with bright streaks in it since lunchtime; the fumes from the motorway flew in and around them like the Bhopal fog. They needed a lot of things as well as fresh air, water, food, rest - all the things you need to survive. They were fading fast.

Daisy put her arms around Carlo, his face was gaunt, his Adam’s apple swollen, he had trouble swallowing and the colours of his face had been stretched into a singularity spectrum rather like a printer's colour strip, each degree of red a bright pantone stage slowly moving from orange into pink. He began to mumble to her, talking about things that just didn’t make sense, he said he had stepped out of the stonework. He could sink into solid matter and from there he could watch the world. No one suspected, which was lucky, because if they had looked they would have seen his eyes blinking. Above them the motorway traffic rushed by, trucks made the ground rumble. Carlo told her that he loved her. He told her that he loved her again and again. He didn’t need to tell her, the act of telling making the statement seem empty, they were just words falling out his mouth, like a conjurer materialising doves or never ending rope of silk handkerchiefs. His words were intended for himself, they were his lifeline, the cord attaching him to this world. He was barely hanging on. She pulled him close to herself.

Daisy and Carlo were locked in an embrace when a black jaguar sidled up to them. The door opened and a hand pulled them in. They were well on their way to Reading before Daisy could open her eyes. Carlo was unconscious. Lying next to him was a copy of the Bristol Evening Post. On the Front Page was a portrait of the two of them. She picked it up. She didn’t need to read it.

A voice from the front said “hello”. She recognised it. She saw his grey eyebrows in the rear view mirror, then his tie and then his mouth; but it was the smell of him. She had a memory for the aroma of men, men she had been with. It had been a long time and he was driving a new car. She remembered the taste of fresh raw beef dissolving on her tongue, meat in its infancy. She slipped onto the front seat, becoming years younger, and said “hello” back.

He took a long look at her before turning back to the road. He said that she had hardly changed, that she was still a very attractive little girl but what a mess she had got herself into, to make the front page of the local paper, a publication he rarely purchased as he loathed engaging in provincial gossip. However, he saw the photo fit and, not quite fully re-calling how it was he had previously encountered her, the young face peering out of the front page and in such a deathly fashion, he felt compelled to buy it. It was not until he was well on his way that he re-called who she was, how it was they had met, how engaging the evening had been and concluded by saying that she was in quite a predicament. He gently guided the car with his fingertips. They were soundproofed to the world outside and should a window have been down it was rushing by too fast to listen in, so what was said was between the two of them and the disembodied Carlo. After a long silence he asked if she had had anything to do with the death of Stanton Parks. She looked at him and he said that there was nothing to fear, that he was a barrister, a QC no less, he could help her if she would let him. He asked her who the young lad was, some other street rapscallion, a drug addict, did he need a fix, was he holding the wrong end of some very shitty stick, was he the guilty party? He asked his questions at a well mannered, measured pace so as not to disorientate her, most of the time looking ahead at the road, occasionally turning to face her. He was immaculately dressed, wearing a silk tie on a white shirt with a gold pin. His pinstripe suit had a gentle sheen and, even though he was sitting, it managed to emphasise that once he had been a most beautiful youth, a beauty that age had left intact, even though he probably still looked a little ridiculous when stripped to his shorts and garters.

Carlo began to come to on the back seat. The leather interior of the Jaguar was cosy, the aroma comforting. He sat up and blinked. A voice said “hello”, imagining that he must be feeling quite the worse for wear and that he was glad to see that the young lad was finally with them. Carlo answered yes, not quite knowing where he was, suspecting that he was on route to London, which in fact he was, having been retrieved from quite the worse place on earth, the gentleman in question being a certain Elliott Harrow, barrister, a QC no less, who understood that he – they - were in quite a pickle, that the entire judiciary from plodding bobbies up were by now scouring the land for them with one or two questions that needed answers concerning the corpse of a post adolescent Stanton Parks and a terrorised fat lad, Rufus Tonnes (whom neither Daisy or Carlo had ever heard of), who was so traumatized by what he had witnessed that he had developed the terrible symptoms of agoraphobia in all its severity, but not to worry for providence was indeed an angel shining down on them from on high, for he, the great Elliott Harrow had discovered them first, and he felt a certain compassion for their situation as well as a degree of responsibility for the young Daisy whom he had been fortunate enough to have made the acquaintance of some years before, concluding with a very down to earth and street-wise, so how about it?

Carlo saw the copy of the paper sitting next to him. He had a splitting headache; he was feeling too weak to lift it. He looked out of the window, the clouds were painted in a blur, and they looked emaciated. He thought about grabbing hold of Daisy, opening the door, falling out, and escaping. He imagined that they would fall through the tarmac, sink through the mass of the earth beyond the molten chamber at its core, passing out through to the other side to Australia before escaping on a bus. Of course this was ridiculous and he knew it, he could hardly bring himself to move and Elliott Harrow seemed nice enough, even though he sensed that his previous liaison with Daisy was hardly a savoury one, a sentiment shared by numerous owners of expensive cars who had unwittingly parked their treasured vehicles in the unguarded NCP car park on Bristol’s Park Row some years before. Mr Harrow, who preferred to be known as Elliott, suggested that they hold up at his place whilst he made a few calls, pulled a few strings and such like, assuring them that they would reside in relative luxury wanting nothing, with plenty to keep them occupied, and all the resources necessary to fully recover from their ordeal, whilst he would gather an assortment of his chums to prepare a case that he felt sure would make the front page news for years to come. “This country is in need of a powerful seismic shake up, something that will force our fellows to take a whole new look at themselves and question how and when we engage in the care of the weak and defenceless, because this, if one is to be frank, is what this case boils down to; it is naive to suggest that two teenagers are capable of such a crime – if indeed the guilt is theirs – and not follow the strands out from the centre to discover the web of deceit and neglect which binds this misdemeanour to the most disregarded branches of modern society; has that much changed since Oliver asked for more food?” Clearly Elliott enjoyed the sound of his own voice because he continued to lecture Daisy and Carlo on the subject of collective responsibility, and how in some way every adult was guilty, to varying degrees, of discarding theirs, for whatever reason; doing so with such eloquence and animation that it was clear they were in safe hands. If he could entertain them whilst they were in such a state of degradation then their prosecutors stood no chance for his honeyed words would sweeten even the most hardened jurors. Here was a man of talent, ability and integrity, so much so that it must be urged that certain former and future indiscretions should be over-looked because, unlike many of a lesser intellectual standing or of more brutal dispositions, he for the most part was a vanguard for all that was good and decent in our society, his occasional tumbles from the pedestal not that dissimilar to those of Sherlock Holmes and his intermittent need for cocaine, an addiction less frowned upon during the reign of Queen Victoria, as indeed was the appetite for pre or early pubescence. He was in every aspect, as Daisy would one-day bare testament, a gentle, benevolent man with soft, sensual, altruistic fingertips, not the sort of fellow that would chuck a child into the back of a white van. Of course with his money and his connections he wouldn’t need to; let us just say that for the time being Elliott Harrow would serve a purpose, his eloquence, his suits, his upbringing, his membership of clubs, his position. He was worth riding, if only for a while.

The Jaguar flew into London via the flyover through to Hammersmith, skimming at low altitude over the industrial suburbs, the orange lights flaring through the blue white glow, bleaching out the stars and the headlight stare. As Elliott chatted Carlo drifted in and out of consciousness, Daisy sat beside him holding his hand and stroking his hair. Elliott was talking to himself about the Book of Common Prayer describing its merits as a British treasure the richness of its language and so forth. Quite how he got onto the subject from social responsibility is anyone’s guess but it probably went along the lines that the global moral fracture currently manifested today has it root in irreligion, when all of a sudden Daisy asked him to be quiet. She needed just a few moments of silence to describe to him why such a book is redundant, why it has no meaning, that if indeed it did possess it then it might as well be cased in ice or rock or something like that because to the normal person, by which she meant herself, it meant absolutely nothing, and that there was totally no such thing in the universe as God.

Elliott was a little taken aback by Daisy’s statement and although it was late he allowed himself to be drawn into the debate because lets face it, it was a foregone conclusion that the girl was in error.

However, Daisy was in no mood for a debate as she had a degree of insight into the state of all things heaven and earth. She began by saying that the book is just words, stupid flights of fancy by “cunts of old, who beat their wives, who should have known better, or perhaps it was them that should have been whipped by their women, because generating words that have no meaning means they could have spent their time doing something more productive and words that have no meaning is plain shit so they can’t have no beauty, because for them that don’t get them they are just like strings in a rotten daisy chain, and you just have take someone’s word for it that once they was beautiful and anyway they just turn to dust, which, by the way, is just what happens to us, it was plain and simple, dust or atoms or whatever and that’s the nearest any of us is likely to get to life with out end”.

Elliott, never one for such… he couldn’t put his finger on whether she was expressing nihilism or a profound lack of purpose – gently explained that “without the book, what it represents, the prayers, the acknowledgement of something greater, the great thinker, the great seer , without whom there is no reason, no necessity for us to live and ultimately this can only lead to not just the life hereafter, but the great ever after - the enormity of eternity”. To which Daisy looked puzzled. She told him that she had no notion of what eternity was, she was ignorant of it, like she was ignorant of a lot of things, but that she wasn’t going to let her ignorance scare her, she wouldn’t be bullied by it “to believe in something that was just plain bollocks, because that is what it is bollocks like a fantasy, like Star Wars, and they shares a thing in common in that in both the Bible and the movie a hero dies to save them all and then comes back from the dead, sort of, although they can’t carry on existing, like, with just plain men, because, well, they just ain’t real, you know flesh and blood – but anyway the point is it’s all just made up, especially the fucking angels, I mean how daft is that?”

“How can it be made up,” Elliott argued, “this assumption was a terrible propaganda which was designed to divine beauty, spiritual rationale, holistic design and then mine it until there was nothing left, bleed it out of existence, and then discard it, leaving us without reason to live? Life is defined not by legacy – the things that we leave or the narrative of our lives shot through in past tense, even if it is in fast forward – no, life is defined by that which makes us achieve; what we strive towards is what defines us, and who sets those boundaries, who gives meaning to the good, the bad, the mundane, the tragic, what are all these things without the comfort of – of –” Elliott stumbled over his words here which gave Daisy a chance to butt in because she couldn’t quite keep up with what was being said, “priests, lawyers, teachers, and the like talk in a language which is beyond the most of us, that is why they have jobs for life, because they feed on what we ain’t got so only they get fat – fat full of ideas that most of us ain’t lofty enough to have the time to waste on”.

Elliott Harrow peered into the back of his car at the young couple, Carlo was not looking too good, he was sweating and red with fever. Daisy was sweating too, resembling herself when engaged in sex, her short red hair was sleeked back. She still looked young, angelic even; her perspiration, imagined Elliott, due to her close proximity to the great furnace of the chasms below. She had fallen from on high, her wings clipped and… so she was bitter – it was obvious, she missed the cool breezes of heaven, the fan of Gabriel’s wings and so forth. She certainly made love like an angel. Seeing her there, caring for her young man, brought it all back, that careless afternoon in Bristol, that drive that brought a colour to her cheeks and that wanton night in his country cottage. Yes, he had lied to her earlier when he had claimed that it took a while to remember where it was he had met the police’s artistic impression of her because she had made quite an impact on him, bridging the gap between life and fantasy so that no one else measured up. As he gazed through magazines, in the years that followed, at the flat chested washed out models he saw her childlike form. In the young bodies of religious art she haunted him - but not because she scrambled back from the pit of terrible despair like some of the others but because he knew that in their brief time together their lives, which were seeping away like un-healable wounds, had congealed to form a joint scab – he hated the analogy but there it is. She set the standard in his own personal eroticism, somehow cleansing him of the usual filth, the guilt. Whatever her experience she was an innocent and she had touched him, brought some quiet to his conscience, turned off some of the voices and forgiven him. God moves in mysterious ways and proves his point when we least expect it, sending his messengers into the most hazardous terrain, acknowledging our faults, our natural diversions and when we have sunk deeper than ever before he offers some reprieve or eternal indemnity. God’s beard is long so that we can all hang on to it, reach up for random kisses falling indiscriminately from his holy lips, and Daisy, this child, was the most gentle caress to fall from that aged mouth, and as she fell she divided herself into a shower which graced the brows of an entire congregation. This was the truth of Daisy Byatt, he was certain of it, the angel appointed to touch those for whom sanctity was traditionally out of bounds. She only had to live, to walk, to do, to see. By breathing she saved and that was her charge.

*****

By the time they turned into Elliott’s Chelsea Mews Carlo was delirious, the car seemed to judder and jump and it made a pumping sound on the road. He felt as if his bones would pop, his cartilage was over heating forcing his joints apart, the pain was excruciating. He wanted to cry. He thought about home, his mother and father and for a moment even considered that they were right. Right to hide away, to bury their heads, to refuse to accept anything the world would throw at them, to not even acknowledge that it even had a good throwing arm – to just disassociate themselves from the entire horde of their species and just go along with which ever wave would bash them next, to not even bother steering the ship elsewhere. It was certainly less painful to disregard, to not adopt an opinion, to not challenge and in turn not be challenged. If you run you risk being seen as you run. To continue unaware along the same path - that was the key, unassuming and oblivious. Carlo dug his fingers into Daisy’s arm, he wanted her to do the impossible and take the pain away, take it away and make it like it was, to give him the chains back. He grabbed her arm and dug his fingers in deep. She winced, kissed him on both of his eyes and told him that they were here, it was almost over. Elliott opened the back door of his beautiful pristine Jaguar car, asked Carlo if he was OK. Carlo could not answer, he just dragged himself out of the car and with Daisy’s help he stood up. Taking a deep breath he looked about himself and the world spun.

Elliott Harrow resided in a Mews of Chelsea. It was tucked away from the main thoroughfare, a cul-de-sac designed for carriages. The quaint little road had not been tarmacked, it was a period feature and although it made for a bumpy ride, even the most modern of car suspensions, the cobbles enabled the Mew’s residence to slip back a century or so to a much more favourable age. On winter’s days the charming Dickensian circumference would trap the smokeless aroma of London friendly coals, so that with eyes closed it was easy to imagine the tip tapping of Bill Sykes’s cane through the smog or Scrooge’s ghosts floating in on the mist – yes past, present and future converged like a mid-western twister in the mews that Elliott Harrow called home and the same twister now knocked Carlo off his feet and into the arms of his corrupt saviour who judiciously carried him into his three story, two and half century old, brown brick, attached house. As Daisy followed them she stopped. She thought that she had heard the sound of breathing. She stood in the pale light of a single black street light. The light emanated a soft pale glow, creamy like ice cream on a stick. She peered out into the darkness. In the distance she could hear police sirens and voices shouting. A bobby in a serge cloak stopping just below his crotch stood in the entrance to the mews, he was playing with a tin whistle. She caught his eye. He had a thick black Homosexual moustache and big leather boots. He watched her as she turned to run into the house.

Elliott put Carlo down on a couch, he was beginning to convulse and his cloths were soaking wet. Daisy stood watching. And something thoroughly unexpected happened - a woman walked into the room. Of course Elliott was married – it made sense, a man of his stature and standing. It confirmed everything Daisy thought about men, their inability to stick to one partner and the rest of it, but what really took her by surprise was that she so upright and in control. She walked into the room and smiled at Daisy, politely saying hello. Like Elliott, age had been kind to her, made her face striking and kept her body in shape. She had brilliant blue eyes – you could drink from them. She introduced herself as Diana, just like the princess, before crossing over to the couch. Carlo was bent double and soaking. Mrs Harrow left the room and came back with a bowl of boiling water and a flannel and suggested that they would have to remove Carlo’s clothes and asked Elliott to get a pair of pyjamas for him and a dressing gown. When he had left the room she dropped to her knees and put her hands through Carlo’s hair and then mopped his brow with the flannel. She turned to Daisy wanting to know how on earth he had got into such a state, assuming that they must have had a terrible journey and not to worry because she was used to her husband bringing back strays, he was a generous soul, although Daisy didn’t quite buy her sincerity on this point and guessed that she had just got used to her husband’s antics, like most women seem to do. Finally she asked if he was on any drugs to which Daisy said no, adding that they had simply met someone on the road who had left a bad impression on them and from that moment Carlo had been struck ill - “it was like something from a film or something, you know, like right black magic like and that there was only one way in which he could be saved” and she didn’t quite feel comfortable enough in these surroundings to pass on just what was needed to be done. Diana looked at her strangely and saw that Daisy’s complexion too had what seemed to be an intemperate glow. She stood up and took her hand telling her “that from now on she should fear for nothing, that her house was a safe house; no harm should come to her or her friend”. She had warm hands and a lovely smile. When Elliott re-entered the room Daisy turned to him and was not quite able to fathom him – they seemed happy, just right for each other. When she caught his eye he was a little embarrassed in a young man sort of a way, it contradicted his stately personality. Diana sensed the exchange between them, but there wasn’t the time to dwell on it, Carlo was in a lot of pain.

The three of them worked quickly prying him apart and peeling off his sweat soak clothes. There was degree of efficiency between them which Carlo did his best to fight and then with a last exhausting effort they prized off the underpants that his mother had bought him before stopping with a start. It was amazing that they hadn’t noticed it before because in the warm lamp light of the Harrow’s tastefully luxurious lounge Carlo’s erection stood as tall as a fierce highland warrior prepared to take on anything for freedom, spitting, cursing and showing off his bollocks to that fucking British Long Shanks who wasn’t as tall as he was big – it made quite a picture. Diana gave a gentle gasp as her husband swallowed hard, neither of them quite knowing what to do. Daisy calmly asked if they had any coke, which of course they did as several of Diana’s friends enjoyed it with a glass of dark rum, but she was afraid that it was only diet which Daisy seemed to think was probably better anyway on account of the sterilising chemicals, which quite flummoxed Mrs Harrow who, because she needed a breather didn’t ask any uncomfortable questions, simply rushed to the kitchen returning with two small cans of the liquid and then Daisy repeated, much to their astonishment, the process she had carried out earlier that day near to Junction 14 of the M4. The Harrows looked on as Carlo bit his lip, moaning gently and his eyes closed. They held each other’s hands, squeezed each other hard. It was plain to see that Carlo’s entire body was polluted by this penile pandemonium for as Daisy sucked his whole organism was drawn in until at last the poison shot towards the back of Daisy’s throat and just as earlier she didn’t allow it touch the walls of her mouth spitting it straight into the long hair of their plush South American rug before swilling her mouth with the Cola and spitting that into the rug too. When she was satisfied that she had escaped infection she stood up wearily and looked down at Carlo who was now lying restlessly asleep. She watched him for a little while before she too passed out hitting the floor with a thud before either one of the Harrows could make a move to catch her.

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