Here is chapter 2 of Heaven Sent. If you need to read from the beginning of the story just hit the Heaven Sent link on the title banner.

2

The next Friday, having arrived early, Carlo sat on the same bench in that same park, his right hand in his pocket holding tight the money he had brought for her. It was chilly. Unwell clouds had been coughed into the sky, smokers splats to block out the sun. Behind him a line of terraces that were blue, into orange, into red, into white, two tall rooms high with skylights scattered into the roofs. Ahead of him young kids with their mums on the slide and swings. A little monkey on the climbing frame.

Fidgeting he looked for her, scanned all the entrances to the park in between continual glances at his watch. She had been on his mind all week. Every word they had said to each other he played out all over again. She had talked about the fella on the telly that had whipped his troozers off in front of that crowd and the judges belled im out, an it was funny as fuck, and he had asked why, and she had said cause folks can be right fools, I mean that cunt was a dad, like, think what his kids must think on him now.

As the week went on he began to change what he had said. This meant that he changed her answers too, so she said, that maybe they shouldn't have let the man on in the first place because it was clear that he was not right in the head, and he was so nervous and how desperate he was for some bit of fame that he could humiliate himself like that.

And then Carlo created new conversations with her, sometimes stopping in mid flow to repeat a bit or to change the direction of what they were saying or to alter the meaning. When he was talking to himself the voice he heard in his head mutated from hers to his as they discussed the issues that he believed were important in life, declaring that she was the reason for his living, over and over again, and this would bring her out in a smile, but not before she looked at him strangely because his words were touching her in a place that no one had ever reached. Carlo had never kissed a girl before, not properly in the flesh, but Daizee he showered in kisses. There was never any fantasies of sexual intercourse with her, even though the desire was there, Carlo felt that he might bedevil what they had and he wanted her to know that his intentions were honourable that he would act with decorum, having been brought up to behave in such a manner. When he got to that moment of his fantasy he would replace her with someone else. His French teacher usually, a petite woman of the Dordogne. She would wear a sleeveless blouse that, when she wrote on the blackboard, would reveal her unshaved armpits that looked liked vaginas. In the summer, when it was hot, her pits would glisten like nectar rich flowers.

Carlo took another look at his watch, it was still early. His hand held her cash tightly in his coat pocket as if it were a magic charm to summon her. Stretching his feet out he stared at the little children playing on the swings. Mothers were pushing them or standing around talking. A boy fell from the climbing frame and started crying, his mother rushed over and picked him up and the boy was crying uncontrollably so his mother held him tight and spoke to him softly. Carlo could not hear what she said, instead he looked at his watch, stood, walked the circumference of the park, looking at the houses, with their coloured graffiti painted on. Dawdling along he fancied that he was late and she was early, framed her sitting on the park bench waiting, dressed her in a white skirt, then a black one, then jeans, always in the t-shirt with the heart cut into her breasts. When he arrived at the bench he was no longer early but bang on time, looked to each of the entrances to the park to see if he could see her. But she wasn't there.

The traffic piled up at the lights at the junction on the main road, before changing. Vehicles came and went. For ten minutes there was an enormous queue that stretched back 100 metres, which dissolved as quickly as it appeared.

The boy that had fallen from the climbing frame was yelling at his mother because she wanted to go home. She snatched him up and bundled him off screaming. Carlo turned away he saw a red car pull up at the lights. Daizee got out of the passenger side, said something to the driver and shut the door. The traffic lights were still red. She ran in front of the car and crossed the road.

She was only an hour late. She had a black eye.

What happened to you? he asked.

Nothing, perk o the job, and putting her hand into his, said, shit happens.

She hung out with him for more than the hour, at one point putting her head on his shoulder, which floundered his conversation causing him to sit stiffly, in a formal Victorian black and white mode, so she took his hand and raised his arm around herself. They sat quietly watching the kids playing as she smoked a cigarette, and when they were done she said, same time, same place, next week?

No, he said, I've got somewhere special to go.

Whir?

He told her with a smile.

She winced before she said, sure, whatever.

It was then that he thrust the money into her hand, said this is for you and she looked at him like he'd said something hurtful but she took the cash anyway.

HEAVEN SENT

The last moult of a caterpillar is quite an event. The new skin of the organism is not the skin of before but a new form, the pupa. The dermal cells of a butterfly are trimorphic: caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly are all the same. The pupa is a metamorphic transmorphification machine. The larva is dismantled chemically and the embryonic cells divide. Within hours of pupation the adult comes into being, its characteristics are formed, wings, mouth parts, thoracic muscles and legs. When the butterfly breaks free of the pupa haemoglobin is pumped into the wings and they expand and the hormone buriscon makes them hard. In the wind the wings twitch until they take command of the air and in a multi-coloured moment of self-expression the creature lifts, floats and flies.

1.

The first time he saw her a shudder passed through him like the word of God through a virgin. He was fourteen years old. She was the same age. On that first day she was dressed for work in a short skirt and a tight t-shirt with a heart cut into it to reveal the crest of her young breasts, her figure tall and slender, her hair short, spiked and fiery red, her eyes emerald volcanic gems. He was on his way home from school and lost in thought thinking about Christ and pain and torment, scourges, blood, demons and eternal damnation; all the subjects that dominated his life as he had grown up. Walking with his head down, not noticing the empty street. The rise of the black tarmac in the road. The foundation brush of dirt. Or the crisp packet in a crinkle twist on the wind.

His lips were mouthing an argument he was imagining he was having with his mother, who had started berating him for watching a movie on a friend's mobile phone, that lunch time, involving two naked girls writhing one on top of the other. The argument had escalated, as it always did, into a full blown ecumenical onslaught, as his mother frantically fought for the safety of his soul, an organ he felt sure did not exist, by employing ever more complex theological debate, veering further and further from the issue at hand, insisting that there was no other God but Christ, who is the light and the truth and his kingdom is full of angels who can pass through this world, under the nailed down lino of our dreams, to walk though walls because they are of another dimension, without their intercession the world would be a far worse place and his love is a beauty that transcends and renders all else inadequate.

With his head shaking he told her that this cannot be true, that angels and demons, gods and sprites just couldn't be and that all the problems and solutions of the world were man-made. Not come from above. And that there is nothing more beautiful than the human form, or the human imagination. The sheer complexity of our organism is God-like. So entangled was he in debate that he didn't see the girl ahead of him in a little skitter with her feet, flashing the pantless dimple between her legs at the traffic, high as a kite. His mother yelled no, you blaspheme, there is nothing more beautiful or perfect than Christ, born of the virgin. It was at that moment that the girl turned abruptly and he crashed into her, found himself looking into her eyes and, feeling the kiss of the wind flush him of all the baggage of saints and sinners, he heard his inner voice say, no mum, she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She is perfect. And when the girl said, look whir ya fucken go'en ya cunt, he saw the sun halo her and flash her hair with a gunpowder dance.

Later, when he got home, and his father said grace before supper, he hardly heard the long paragraphs of prayers or saw the saints nodding on the walls or the Christ grimace on the cross behind his mother. He was watching the girl as she walked away from him, the sass in her buttocks and back, the bounce in her heels, teasing him on, and he imagined that she stopped and looked back and smiled at him and it was a perfect smile. A holy smile, the kind of smile the virgin gave to the angel before he had his way with her. Yes, lord, yes, she said, I am willing.

And he lay in bed that night and thought of her, tossing and turning, through the darkness of the night, once more beguiled by the fireworks that rollicked in her hair, crackling with all the colours of spring. When he woke, the next morning, he did so with a start. The day began as his life had jolted awake the moment he first saw her. He came in for breakfast but just stared at it and rose early and left, without saying a word to his parents who talked around him. After retracing his steps back to the street corner, he placed himself on the wall opposite to witness the in situ re-enactment of his bump with her and shot in for close ups when he transformed her curse to a smile.

At school he was shut off, staring out into the playground, and when he should have been writing down French, he wrote poems to her. He prayed at church that he would meet her, he prayed even though he did not believe in God. In the bathroom, at home, he would stand in front of his mirror and practice what he would say to her, sometimes engaging in arguments so that they could kiss and make up. When he walked home from school he would loiter in the hope that he might catch a glimpse of her. And, more often than not, she was there, outside the old houses with big windows and bins outside, smoking cigarettes, laughing and chatting with the other girls working the afternoon traffic as he shuffled by with his head down. Pretending not to look. When he saw her a flash of anxiety would cut through him and he would cross to the other side of the road to avoid her and when she passed he would look back after himself and watch her.

One Friday afternoon, whilst engrossed in a phantom conversation with her, explaining that life was not exclusive to earth, but it might be that intelligent life was exclusive to our planet for this moment in time. When our time is done, he mused, a new intelligentsia may sprout into being in another cosmos millions of lights years away. Whose past light has taken whole extinctions to reach us. Giving us a snapshot of time at the birth of stars, heating into being new planets with whole new permutations of life, whose evolution was out of tick with our time. Turning the corner he stopped dead in his tracks. Under a wall that was painted with stars and a moon, ten metres to the left of a bin that looked like a docking pod with the number 1 on it, she stood in a short skirt with bare legs and a T-shirt with the words, heaven sent, embolden in gold across her breasts. At first she pretended not to see him keeping her gaze on something way off down the street, but when he didn't take his eyes off her she shifted her attention to him, scowled and said, fuck off.

He coughed, said, sorry, didn't know what to do, turned, felt her watching him, and, feeling like he was performing unrehearsed in a costume two sizes too small for him, he began to walk away.

Wait, she said.

He stopped and turned back.

You've gone red.

Have I?

Yeh.

Afraid of the silence he said the first thing that came into his mind. What school do you go to?

The question made her blink. Skol?

Yeah.

I don't go a skol.

You don't?

Nah.

How come?

Ain't no skol that wants I. It's a fucker.

She took a drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out.

Whir you go? she said.

Bart's.

She nodded.

My name's Carlo, he said. What's yours?

Daizee, she said.

That's a nice name, he said.

Is et?

Yeah, it's a summer name like the flower.

She almost laughed. What you a fucken poet?

He felt limp with embarrassment.

What can I do for you then, Mr Shakespeare?

I'm going to get a coke, Daizee. Would you like one?

Carlo began to hear music. Her hips began to hustle. A coke? She said.

He couldn't help but smile as he watched her do a little jig. The movement of her hips made her breasts sway. Yes, he said.

I don't just go with any ole cock, she said. I'm no that sort o'... You got any cheddar?

Carlo had managed to save two days dinner money, which he planned to spend that weekend at the church youth club. Fasting to save was his parent's idea.

I got a righteous feelen about you my sweet, she said as she took what little Carlo had, like destiny just poke I.

Have you?

Yah, tis true.

They went for a walk. He brought her an ice cold coke and they sat in a park with swings, a slide and a climbing frame, crushed in by houses and the main road that ran by it that was rammed with the rush hour traffic. They chatted. It was like a real date. For a breath moment he almost heard is mother's voice but Daizee managed to pull him back by saying that his time was up, he said, can we meet again, and she said yeh, sure thing sweetz, I'm hooked all week but I can squeeze a bit of room for you on Fridi, so how about that?

Will Xavier Leret.

Will was alone, his ear to the door, the pain beyond it near splitting the wood. He heard the doctor issue orders and pushed himself away from the door as the Nurse, whose face and hands were covered in blood, dashed out of the bedroom to call for hot water. The sight of the blood made him shudder. Through the door he could see his wife lying pale and exhausted on the bed. The doctor was by her side talking, though she was barely able to listen. The whites of her eyes showed, her face contorted and then her whole body buckled in agony. Her scream wrenched the nurse back.

Will snatched the large black kettle from the hearth, dashed down the two flights of stairs to the pump which stood in the courtyard behind the tenement, thrashed it until he had filled the kettle with water, ran back up.

There was no wood or coal with which to build a fire to heat the water - nothing but two chairs and their table, at which they had imagined themselves to be King and Queen. Her screams were coming quicker. He put the kettle down, seized his small axe, and began to hack at the furniture in an unsentimental frenzy that reduced it to a dismembered heap.

Other than her bible, there was no paper with which to set the kindling he had split from the table. The book had survived three generations and contained the names of her father, mother, grandfather, grandmother and her great grandfather. He ripped pages from the middle, crushed them into balls, placed them in the grate, built up the fire with the kindling he had split from the furniture and topped it with the thick mutilated legs of the table.

Reaching from the hearth to the sideboard he retrieved a box of matches from a drawer, fumbled it and the entire contents scattered across the floor, forcing him to scramble on his hands and knees. He snatched up a match, struck it too hard. It exploded uselessly in an arc to the floor. He picked a second and forcing himself to be more gentle it flared alight. He put the match to the paper in the fireplace. The flame caught. It flicked and fought as though it would drown if it could not keep its hold. He began to blow to help it on. His first breath was too strong and he nearly put it out. With the second and then the third breath the wood began to crackle and spit as the flame grew. He grabbed the kettle and hung it on its hook above the fire, reached for another piece of wood, but stopped. For a moment he listened. Beyond the sound of his breathing and that of the fire there was nothing. Not one sound.

Into the silence the child cried.

He stood and turned to face the door. There was a flicker of movement in his hand. His chest rose and fell and he waited. After a while the child's crying subsided. He heard whispering and the shuffling of feet before the door opened slowly to reveal the Nurse standing there, blood smearing the edge of her hairline. In her arms she held his babe, wrapped in the swaddling that his wife had so lovingly prepared.

It's a boy, the Nurse said quietly, he's a beauty.

He crossed over to her, his feet creaking on the floorboards. She held the bundle out and he reached awkwardly to take his son.

The boy felt fragile in his arms, his limbs soft and weak. His hands were out of proportion to the rest of him, the palms etched with delicately sugared lines. He watched in wonder as the little body began to move, flickering recitations of labour, his legs winding and weaving muscle together, his face and eyes in shuddery action.

Will lifted him to his lips and kissed his face, careful not to rub the boy's new skin with the coarseness of his unshaven jaw. He felt the child's hand run along his cheek, his long thin fingers hooking into his bottom lip, the tips touching his tongue before searching up, poking into his nose and then journeying to his eyes. The boy's face was wrinkled and wise, and what the father saw was the mirror of himself and her, not at the beginning of life, but at the end, when all that is to be learnt is past and done.

Finally, he looked up, turned his head and saw his wife, lying still on their bed. Her face was ashen. The edges of her eyes were red and her lips were a pale bisque yellow with pink rims, deflated by the exhaustion of the end.

.....

I don't want no pauper's grave for her, Will said. His voice was gravelled in the back of his throat.

It'll be no pauper's grave, Will, said the Priest. He had comfortable furrows in his forehead.

I don't want her lying on someone else, said Will, or someone pressing down on her, cause there's no where else, because I can't pay premium.

What else are you going to do with her man?

Will looked from the Priest, to the boy's cot by the fireplace. He shook his head. His body trembled.

She needs a proper burial, lad, said the Priest. It's what she would have wanted.

To live, that's what she would have wanted.

I can understand your anger, Will-

I'm not angry, he said, looking directly at the Priest. I am broken hearted. His jaw was clenched. His short cropped hair was spiked. His eyes were wide and streaked red with grief. His big hands were fists by his side.

The Priest looked Will directly in the eyes. I don't want to fight with you, Will, he said.

Will sniffed and shuffled on his feet. Then let me be.

There are no words of comfort that I can offer you, Will, said the Priest softly. I can only imagine your pain and that is enough to make it unbearable to me. I would be angry. I would be distraught if I were in your shoes. We are but men and we feel as men do. Sometimes I just want to scream at the sky. At him. God. My God. And I do. I walk out into the hills and I scream and shout. It might get it off my chest but does it do any good in the wider scheme of things? No. Does it rest my soul? No. We are small and insignificant to his will. And he tests us. When that test comes, we must rise to it, even if we know not why. There is more at stake than the everyday trials that we endure. There is more to life. There is reason even if that hidden will of God remains a mystery to us until the hour of hour of our death, it is there and we cannot run from it.

Will looked at the Priest. His gaze fell to the floor. She won't be coming back, he said. That I know. What you speak of, I don't know. The sun rises in the morning, that I know. It sets at night too. And here is something else that I know. She is lost to me. She is lost to the son that she suffered to create.

.....

Will sat in the bare room in the cold half dark, with the boy in his arms. The apartment was pungent with the mildew of decay. Getting onto his knees he placed the boy in his cot, moved to the fire, reached for the cloth that sat on the mantelpiece, put it under the hot handle of the kettle and poured the hot water into the bucket. He crossed to the sideboard and rummaged in a drawer until he found a sharp knife which he took, with the bucket, into the bedroom.

His hand hesitated before pulling back the sheet that covered her body. Her night gown was stained with blood. Using the knife to cut her out of her night clothes he revealed her body, naked, her arms coyly over her breasts, like a virgin, her body frigid in the shame of death.

From the bucket, he scooped up some water and began to wash her tenderly, his hands stroking her, tracing the contours of her features, passing down to her thighs, her legs, reclaiming her body for himself. Kneeling he rested his head on her belly and closed his eyes. For a few seconds.

He stood, brushed his hand through her hair, bent, kissed her softly on the lips and put his arms around her; not so much in an embrace but so that he could remove the soiled linen from the bed, which he did as gently as he could.

Stored in an old chest at the foot of the bed he found a clean and embroidered sheet, the one that had greeted them on their wedding night. This he unfolded and passed under her body before cocooning her in the cloth.

Once her chrysalis was complete he stood over her breathing quietly before he walked out of the bedroom to the cot, knelt and picked the boy up. The child was light and seemed to float in his arms. He carried his son out of the room across the hall to the door of his neighbour and knocked.

.....

He carried her body into the street, laying her on the bedroom door that he had already placed there and then wrapping the rope in a lattice pattern to secure her. The tenement families were watching him from their windows as he reached for the tools, the pick axe and spade that he had borrowed from a neighbour and tied them to the side of the door, mindful that they should not touch her. He took a piece of rope and threaded it through two holes that he had gouged in the top of the door, tied it into a circle, slung it over his shoulder and took up the slack.

He heaved his way by the figures who appeared in doorways, men removed their caps and bowed their heads; the Autumn wind ran like banshees though the windows and alleys in gusts that swirled around them stinging their ears. Will's pace was heavy and slow. The tenements gave way to terraces which stood hunched up together, their inhabitants lining the streets, some with candles in their hands, others with flowers which they silently placed in the rope work as he passed.

.....

The night was mizzled and curtained in damp. The weight that he dragged dug into his shoulders. The wood of the door chafed the road, bouncing on the uneven surface, snapping the rope like reins and a whip. The boscage, the bosket and the brier cracked under the black mass of the night, the stars hidden behind a thick moss canopy of sweating clouds. His breath, which was frosted and sharp, vanished into the gloom that enclosed him. The tools clunked on the side of the door, their vibration jolting him.

Half a mile out of the town he turned left off the road to mount the hill, his feet slipping under the grass, the door tugging. The firm ground became soft steeped mud and sucked his feet down, forcing him to fight for each step. His thighs were aching, his hands numb, his damp hair flat to his scalp, the sweat under his coat cold and making for his bones. He struggled on in stubborn concentration, his head rolling from one side to the other. He fell, his hands sinking into the freezing clay. His trousers were soaked, the course serge a cold skin against his legs. He stumbled, dropped, stood, fell, fought, gasping, his lungs filling with the clag of the land. He stopped for breath resting his hands on his knees. And then on again, up into the hill where the sludge transformed to rock, sodded by bristled tufts of bracken. Thorns snagged and tore into his flesh, caught on her corpse, the devil's claws trying to claim her for his own.

His feet struggled for grip with the elevation of the climb; his hands grabbing clumps of grass which came away. Feet scrambling and then his hands grasping, this time the grass holding. He lifted himself onwards, foot after foot.

The ground became earthen once more, firmer under his feet and more even. The clouds began to pull aside like curtains revealing veiled head dress of the moon. The walking was easier now and the sheer struggle gave way to relief and collapse as he arrived at their retreat. There, he had smiled and they had kissed and passed many a day there.

He unhitched himself from his load, removed his coat, took the pickaxe and began to hack at the ground. The earth loosened. He swapped the axe for the shovel, cleared the mud and gravelled rock, then once more took up the pick. He worked through the depth of the night. Dawn came and went, the sun rose. By the early afternoon he was finished and for a moment he rested.

Hoisting himself out exhausted and caked in mud, he crawled over to her, dragged her to the edge of the pit and loosened the ropes which held her to the door.

He unravelled the cloth from her face and looked upon her for the very last time. He lent forward, kissed her forehead, then her lips and pressed his cheek to hers. He was still for a long while. With a final kiss he closed up her shroud.

He eased himself back into the grave, took her into his arms, held her and then lowered her gently down so that she lay at his feet. He uttered no words.

He reached up for the pile of earth to the side of the pit and began to bury her slowly, never letting the rock or sediment fall heavily upon her. He buried her as if he was burying his most precious treasure.

When he felt his work could not damage her, he climbed out, shovelled the remaining earth to close up her grave.

Turning to look at their view stretching into the distance, he sat on the damp grass as a breeze blew through his hair and billowed beneath his shirt, chilling the sweat on his skin. Below the rocks, the land was shaded musty lemon, lime, harrowed greens, the slow animation of autumnal browns, sun shot reds, dry hay yellows, amber, cinnamon, deep mahogany, blushing auburn as wild moor blurred to dark ploughed land.

He thought about her in the landscape, her smile, her nose, her hair, her eyebrows - her intelligent eyebrows, which were pointed instead of curved when she listened or spoke.

He thought about the last times he had spent with her.

He thought about her pregnant, her full belly that never seemed to weigh her down or distemper her in any fashion, her smile as she stroked the bump, the distant look in her eyes as she felt their child move.

He remembered too her temper, that once she had thrown her wedding ring at him. He couldn't recall why, or how the argument had finished, just remembered that she had.

Mostly, though, he remembered how she felt at night with her head on his chest, the conversation petered out. As her breathing became heavy, her body would twitch with the last flickerings of the day and always before him, she settled still to sleep.