STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN.
Chapter Six Part Seven
I live on an island in the Aegean sea. I live on its shores with the sand and the wind. I have not counted the suns and the moons that have crossed the sky since the boat that brought me here sailed away. I live as a hermit who waits for the world to unweave itself and lie passively at his feet in one long thread, from horizon to horizon, so that he can stand at its centre and look one way to the past and the other way to the future. I want to see clearly. I want to look through mystery and see simplicity. So I must write.
I was in Switzerland when the shadow came. I was walking in mountains. It was spring, the air was clean, the emerald grass was filled with flowers of many colours. My heart carried no burdens. I was a traveller. I was free. The mountains were mine. The climbing, winding road was mine. It was while my heart was wild and smiling that the shadow came.
I heard the quiet murmur of an engine. I looked behind me and the nose of a car rounded the bend and its murmur grew to an angry roar. The long black car drew up and stopped at my side. Its flanks were sleek and gleaming, its spokes and grill were of silver and its glass lamps shone like jewels. A chauffer in black coat and cap jumped out from behind the wheel. He was a small, dark man with thick eyebrows and a grim, unopened mouth. He opened the car door behind the driver's seat and stood aside like an obedient racoon. I looked inside and saw the Contessa. A woman of elegance, a woman dressed in black. Diamond rings on her black gloved fingers, black feathers in her black hat and over her face was a veil of black spidery lace.
The Contessa bade me ride with her in the car. My freedom was in the wind that blew me and I let the wind blow me into her darkness, a deceiving darkness that shone a deceiving light so that I thought that I could see when I could not. My heart was not looking for shadows so how could I see the harm.
I got in beside her, the racoon closed the door and then nothing was mine, not even my soul. She laughed at my rags. We drove down the dark side of the mountain to her fairy tale castle on the shores of a glittering lake and there I let her clothe me in finery and still I did not see the harm. I saw only by the light of deception shining on each outfit she dressed me in, each place of fashion and importance that she took me to on her arm, each cold act of her bizarre egotistic love. I could not see the harm. Even as my mind, soul, heart and strength receded from me and began to fade like distant stars, I still could not see the harm.
I accompanied the Contessa from castle to villa to palace to grand hotel, from European capitals to country retreats. We paraded and postured at operas and balls, high societies soulless worlds and battlefields of viscous charm. The Contessa hung her bird like body on my arm and made a great pretence of my being her mainstay, her constant companion, her rod and her staff when I was nothing but her puppet. The Contessa had put the strings deep inside my psyche and tied them to fear, negation, repression and self-doubt and she held and pulled them tight so that my pose was tall and manly at her side, afraid to show or see its own worthlessness or loss of pride.
The Contessa believed that my past was empty, that she had taken me from my rags and been my unselfish creator and benefactor who had bestowed upon me her selfless generosity, her guidance and her care. She insisted that every word I had ever spoken and every thought I had ever thought had not been of my own making, but inspired by her. Her mania was powerful. I weakened to her will. I began to believe in my non-existence and I fell ill.
I saw nothing of the countries we visited. I saw nothing of the cities of culture and art. My eyes would look on scenes of great beauty and see nothing, because I no longer had a heart to see by. The Contessa was the light of deception that shone in her own darkness, it was the only light I could see by and it had no heart.
Maybe deep inside I did see the harm, but my mind had been enslaved and would admit to nothing and in the Contessa's world of untold riches and lavish gifts my spirit was securely imprisoned in the darkness of denial. I had not the strength to question my life. All that I had been had indeed receded and faded and all that was left was a body that suffered fits and fevers , emptied of everything but a crying soul.
The Contessa thrived through my illness. She wrapped me in warm smiles and soothing kisses and she took me back to her castle to watch me die.
I lay on my deathbed and looked out at the lifeless, land trapped waters of the spurious glittering lake. I was after all the unicorn. I had failed in my quest for life and lain fallow in the arms of wealth. I was lost too far inland and too close to death for my soul to ever be freed in the waters of the ocean. So I clung to the vision of the girl in the woods I would no longer find and the words of the book I would no longer write. They were the my only secrets, the only treasure I had left and although both of them were unresolved their existence made me peaceful.
The Contessa appeared in the doorway. My peace disturbed her. It was not the way she wanted it to be. So she filled the room with a fiery passion of premature bereavement and violent weeping. She spoke of love and happiness never before felt. Her words like her love were empty and oh, how her kindness was so cruel.
Suddenly I could see. In a time-locked moment of horrific enlightenment I saw that she was the harm I could not see. I saw that her coming into my room was how she had come into my life. I had lain in the room peacefully so she took my peace away. I had walked in the mountains freely so she took my freedom away. All my failure and sadness that I had thought to have come from within me, had come from her. The black widow had devoured. The back widow had destroyed. The Contessa was the sergeant and the sergeant was the Contessa. I had killed and claimed the sergeant so the Contessa was killing and claiming me. Again Satan had come to me and shown me lowliness and humiliation, but now that I saw it to be Satan I would again escape.
I looked back at the Contessa with a strong heart and eyes that showed thunder held back by calm. I said nothing. My wall of silence was both a weapon and a shield. Her venom could not cross it and by denying the black widow her need to kill she would in turn be defeated and destroyed.
She saw that she had failed. Her display had not hidden her deception. White powder flaked from her ageing face, her eyes smouldered like black coals and her mouth was bitter. Looked inside her madness and saw her belief that as my creator she had the power to choose the moment of my death. I rose from my bed to show her that I would not die. She panicked, she screamed in the pain of her own venom. Her screaming was high pitched and vile, it echoed the frenzied fears of the poisoned and the insane.
I took back my rags and I walked back into the mountains.
I was alive and free but the stain of her venom was still within me. My soul was embittered and my blood ran sour. My strength writhed and fretted, I clung to the reins but I had no control. I travelled, tormented over land and sea until I came to this island. And here I rest. My solitude quietens my confusion. My heart has grown again and my eyes can see.
I am alone with sky, sand and sea. We are all of us pale and uncoloured but for the sun god who taints us in the morning with a smiling pink and makes us warm and golden in the day and in the evening he leaves us sitting peacefully in the light of dusk and we watch his red fire fill the horizon and sink through the ocean to behind the world where we cannot see. Then night comes to us but we do not sleep. I sit on the silky coolness of the sand and listen to the sea. I listen to its whispering as it rushes forward and I listen to its silence as it draws away. The white light of the moon touches the crests of the waves and turns the black night deep blue. The tide moves with the moon and the moon moves with the tide. Neither one rules the other. Like distant lovers their worlds touch , yet remain apart.
I am still haunted by the horror of spurious love and when these nightmares taunt me I let the ocean take my anger away. I look out at the water and my imagination watches the Contessa's thin, black body being carried like a dead insect over the swell of each wave and with the vision my bitterness and my shame drift away and I am soothed again and calm.
Like the moon and the tide, love draws on love, love has no ruler. If one is ruler then the other is ruled. If one is destroyer then the other is destroyed and there is no love. I was ruled. I was destroyed. I must accept that I am weak in order to be strong. I must forgive those who have shown me my weakness and thus made me stronger and my shoulders broader to carry both weakness and strength, humility and courage.
I look up and see a million stars in the sky and there are a million stars in the ocean. They are reflections of each other. That is the love I seek. They are joined in the spirit, the ghost that will journey far, from ocean bed to furthest star.
Tomorrow I will swim out, far from the shore and I will dive to find the most beautiful shells. They will be gifts from the Ocean to the Starshine.
Then I will leave this island and soon I will know her name. She is Starshine, she guided me through my journey. I am not the unicorn. I am the Ocean and my anger is drowned.
I have been ruled. I have been destroyed. I am weak. I am strong. I am free. I am found. My search is at an end.
---------------------------------------
I am in Italy. I have walked many miles through its summer. In the night I came to this place. I felt the bird of sleep swoop down and touch me with its gentle wings. So I lay down. My weariness paid no heed to the stones and the roots on the hard, uneven ground. I looked up at the sky and I understood why long ago, from my tower, I had seen clouds pass the moon . They had foreboded the shadows that would pass over my heart, then clear and pass again. But now the night was clear and the perfect fullness of the moon was undisturbed by clouds. The bird of sleep flew over me and took away the tiredness in my body and the wanderings of my mind.
I awoke in an olive grove. I sit with my back against the grey bark of an ancient tree. Its branches encircle me in great arcs of kindness and concern, like the gnarled and twisted arms of an old man, and the tree looks down on me from above like a father blessing a child in the last embrace of boyhood before the child is sent forth into the world as a man. The ancient smiles on me and encourages me and a light breeze whispers through the tree's tiny leaves of silver green.
The cool mists of morning rise and I see that I am on the outskirts of a red city. Her love is near. I have her shells wrapped in muslin. My book has reached its end. I have no more words and no more pages.
Tuesday 9 August 2016
Sunday 31 July 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Six Part Six
I am at the foot of a mountain. I sit in the cool of a forest. I am enclosed and safe in deep coniferous green. I sit here blind to the rest of France, its cities and landscapes I have roamed, its wide, regal rivers and dusty summer roads. I sit here to revisit them inwardly in my mind's clear visions and I sit here to write.
France's fields are once again sown with life and growing with tall, proud maize, yellow wheat and golden corn. There are vineyards of succulent vines in neat ordered lines, there are crops of dark green tobacco and there are miles of sunflowers , giddy headed and laughing in the breeze.
I remember walking down a lane. It was long and winding and it rose over ridges, then fell again to rise over the next. And as I climbed and reached the crest of each ridge, I could see another stretch of land before me, like a painting of colours growing from the ground. Each painting was different and each one was beautiful. Sometimes there were sleepy farmsteads, as old and timeless as the land, their ancient walls quietly tumbling while their rafters showed like ribs through the red tiled rooves.
I climbed a steep slope through a field of stubbled straw. At first I did not see the grazing cows because they were straw coloured too. Then I saw the lazy shake of the head and some large brown eyes. I looked around at the hidden herd. They were silent, unhurried and chewing. They barely moved from their painting. Sometimes an ear would flick or a slow, single step was taken towards another mouthful of straw. Then the sun began to sink and the straw cows with their straw field were tinged with the palest pink. I felt like a small boy in a world of enchantment where God is not a wrathful Lord but a kind magician.
I crossed other terrains that were dry and hostile, their land blistered by the sun. I crossed the marshes of wild horses and there I had feelings of madness and death. I tried to cross quickly to avoid them but my heart was nervous and oppressed, heavy and burning, like white hot lead, molten and running with fire. I felt panic. I felt there was an assailant behind me driving me forward too fast so that I would fall and drown in foul mud. There was no escape. Capture was imminent. Running was futile and the more futile it became the more I ran. These moods were feverish and tangled. They wove darkness and unhappiness around me like a black shroud that kept out light. There were no reasons. The suffering was suffered but unexplained.
At last I came to a town. The strength of the sun turned its pale stone to white so that its beauty stood clear and sharp beneath the sapphire sky.
I found the market place. I stood amidst its bustle. I felt the touch of humanity as its crowds brushed past me and I heard its voices, its shouts and its whispers close to my ears. My dark pain was eased and my loneliness withdrew. I stayed all day and watched the colours. Canopied stalls and barrows of peppers, tomatoes and aubergines, ripe and shining. Pale pinks and greys of shellfish. Yellow cheese and dark red hams. Chickens and hens scratched and flapped in their cages. Pigs squealed. There were rolls of bright cloth, rows of leather shoes, piles of pots and pans and pyramids of brown and white eggs. It was a place of plenty. It was a place of sweat and haste, frowning brows, and lips moving fast with the fury of barter and business.
At midday the church bells rang out. A young woman came to me with wine, bread and cheese. She was small and elfin, dark eyed and olive skinned. She wore a cotton dress of red flowers on pale green, her arms were bare to the summer heat and her hair was in long black braids. In the evening when the market disbanded and drifted away, leaving me alone in an empty square, she was still there. She took my hand and led me to her home. She nursed my weariness and she gave me her warm, unashamed love. Her dark, lithe body was gentle and wild, silent and alive. Her young girl's breasts, the sweet dew between her slender legs, she gave and I took. I stayed with her too long. I stayed with her until one day I saw her pretty eyes were seeing me forever, then I knew I had to go.
As I left the town I saw its broken bridge. Half a bridge spanning half a river, as though its heart had broken half way across and it was never able to reach out and touch the other side. She yearned so to give. I could not give myself just so that I might take. I left her with a child growing inside. I hope she will not always be sad.
There is only one I search for. Her eyes were filled with the fear of giving. She stood before me in the woods knowing that her fate was to give herself and lose herself without knowing where or why. And all I could do was give her an apricot stone.
Now that I sit in the quiet of this forest I realise that the apricot seed is my heart. It is my heart that I put in the palm of her hand. I am still compelled to search for her even though I do not know her name. So I know that she has kept my heart and I will search until I have found her.
First I must sleep. Then I must leave this verdant womb and climb the mountain. I must climb high so that I can fall and climb again.
There is so much more to understand.
Chapter Six Part Six
I am at the foot of a mountain. I sit in the cool of a forest. I am enclosed and safe in deep coniferous green. I sit here blind to the rest of France, its cities and landscapes I have roamed, its wide, regal rivers and dusty summer roads. I sit here to revisit them inwardly in my mind's clear visions and I sit here to write.
France's fields are once again sown with life and growing with tall, proud maize, yellow wheat and golden corn. There are vineyards of succulent vines in neat ordered lines, there are crops of dark green tobacco and there are miles of sunflowers , giddy headed and laughing in the breeze.
I remember walking down a lane. It was long and winding and it rose over ridges, then fell again to rise over the next. And as I climbed and reached the crest of each ridge, I could see another stretch of land before me, like a painting of colours growing from the ground. Each painting was different and each one was beautiful. Sometimes there were sleepy farmsteads, as old and timeless as the land, their ancient walls quietly tumbling while their rafters showed like ribs through the red tiled rooves.
I climbed a steep slope through a field of stubbled straw. At first I did not see the grazing cows because they were straw coloured too. Then I saw the lazy shake of the head and some large brown eyes. I looked around at the hidden herd. They were silent, unhurried and chewing. They barely moved from their painting. Sometimes an ear would flick or a slow, single step was taken towards another mouthful of straw. Then the sun began to sink and the straw cows with their straw field were tinged with the palest pink. I felt like a small boy in a world of enchantment where God is not a wrathful Lord but a kind magician.
I crossed other terrains that were dry and hostile, their land blistered by the sun. I crossed the marshes of wild horses and there I had feelings of madness and death. I tried to cross quickly to avoid them but my heart was nervous and oppressed, heavy and burning, like white hot lead, molten and running with fire. I felt panic. I felt there was an assailant behind me driving me forward too fast so that I would fall and drown in foul mud. There was no escape. Capture was imminent. Running was futile and the more futile it became the more I ran. These moods were feverish and tangled. They wove darkness and unhappiness around me like a black shroud that kept out light. There were no reasons. The suffering was suffered but unexplained.
At last I came to a town. The strength of the sun turned its pale stone to white so that its beauty stood clear and sharp beneath the sapphire sky.
I found the market place. I stood amidst its bustle. I felt the touch of humanity as its crowds brushed past me and I heard its voices, its shouts and its whispers close to my ears. My dark pain was eased and my loneliness withdrew. I stayed all day and watched the colours. Canopied stalls and barrows of peppers, tomatoes and aubergines, ripe and shining. Pale pinks and greys of shellfish. Yellow cheese and dark red hams. Chickens and hens scratched and flapped in their cages. Pigs squealed. There were rolls of bright cloth, rows of leather shoes, piles of pots and pans and pyramids of brown and white eggs. It was a place of plenty. It was a place of sweat and haste, frowning brows, and lips moving fast with the fury of barter and business.
At midday the church bells rang out. A young woman came to me with wine, bread and cheese. She was small and elfin, dark eyed and olive skinned. She wore a cotton dress of red flowers on pale green, her arms were bare to the summer heat and her hair was in long black braids. In the evening when the market disbanded and drifted away, leaving me alone in an empty square, she was still there. She took my hand and led me to her home. She nursed my weariness and she gave me her warm, unashamed love. Her dark, lithe body was gentle and wild, silent and alive. Her young girl's breasts, the sweet dew between her slender legs, she gave and I took. I stayed with her too long. I stayed with her until one day I saw her pretty eyes were seeing me forever, then I knew I had to go.
As I left the town I saw its broken bridge. Half a bridge spanning half a river, as though its heart had broken half way across and it was never able to reach out and touch the other side. She yearned so to give. I could not give myself just so that I might take. I left her with a child growing inside. I hope she will not always be sad.
There is only one I search for. Her eyes were filled with the fear of giving. She stood before me in the woods knowing that her fate was to give herself and lose herself without knowing where or why. And all I could do was give her an apricot stone.
Now that I sit in the quiet of this forest I realise that the apricot seed is my heart. It is my heart that I put in the palm of her hand. I am still compelled to search for her even though I do not know her name. So I know that she has kept my heart and I will search until I have found her.
First I must sleep. Then I must leave this verdant womb and climb the mountain. I must climb high so that I can fall and climb again.
There is so much more to understand.
Sunday 24 July 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Six Part five
This morning I arrived in Southampton. I went straight to he docks. I helped load a cargo of fine walnut furniture and in return for my labour a kind captain has let me aboard to sail the channel.
I was once before bound for the same shores, but they were the shores of a battle field not the shores of France.
The day is pale grey. Gulls surround the ship with their ugly flapping and squawking. In spite of their noise I feel peaceful, I feel free, no wishes, no purpose, no burden, no soldier's pack, no rich man's wallet, just a pocket knife and a lead pencil in the pockets of my leather jerkin and I carry my precious book of words already written and pages yet to be filled, in the deepest most secret pocket , close to my heart.
I look at the grey waters of the channel and I wonder at all the depths and all the secrets of all the seas and all the oceans. On land I stand above the ground so that I have to stand and live as a man, but I cannot stand on the sea, it is not my home, it overpowers my existence, it humbles me, it drowns my confusion, it drowns my life and its meaning and makes me feel at peace. The ocean is independent, unrepressed in storm or calm.
I watch the waves drawing and swelling. I watch the ebb and the flow and I wonder what lies ahead, what will be given to me and what will be taken away. I try to think but I cannot, my peace is such that there is no future, no past, just the ocean.
If ever I do not find the girl in the woods and cannot know her name, then I will let the sea bury me. Like the unicorn, I will let the ocean swallow me and make me a part of it, another myth it will hold, another secret that is glorious and free.
Chapter Six Part five
This morning I arrived in Southampton. I went straight to he docks. I helped load a cargo of fine walnut furniture and in return for my labour a kind captain has let me aboard to sail the channel.
I was once before bound for the same shores, but they were the shores of a battle field not the shores of France.
The day is pale grey. Gulls surround the ship with their ugly flapping and squawking. In spite of their noise I feel peaceful, I feel free, no wishes, no purpose, no burden, no soldier's pack, no rich man's wallet, just a pocket knife and a lead pencil in the pockets of my leather jerkin and I carry my precious book of words already written and pages yet to be filled, in the deepest most secret pocket , close to my heart.
I look at the grey waters of the channel and I wonder at all the depths and all the secrets of all the seas and all the oceans. On land I stand above the ground so that I have to stand and live as a man, but I cannot stand on the sea, it is not my home, it overpowers my existence, it humbles me, it drowns my confusion, it drowns my life and its meaning and makes me feel at peace. The ocean is independent, unrepressed in storm or calm.
I watch the waves drawing and swelling. I watch the ebb and the flow and I wonder what lies ahead, what will be given to me and what will be taken away. I try to think but I cannot, my peace is such that there is no future, no past, just the ocean.
If ever I do not find the girl in the woods and cannot know her name, then I will let the sea bury me. Like the unicorn, I will let the ocean swallow me and make me a part of it, another myth it will hold, another secret that is glorious and free.
Sunday 17 July 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Six Part Four
I have returned to my tower. The war is over. My body is whole. My life is mine. I feared death so badly. Every day I thought it would take my search from me so that I would never be found. I saw the faces of the dead. Wide, staring, rigid fear as the moment of their death showed them that they were lost forever.
The sky was light with no sun and dark with no moon. Sun and moon had forsaken us. Every day and every night there was mud. Every day and every night there was blood. Every day and every night there was screaming. When the shells and the gunfire ceased, the silence was wretched, too long and too evil to bare. Our breaths and heartbeats were soundless as we listened to the black silence and while we waited for more gunfire the gas would seep in.
All of this we returned to the enemy. We exchanged our deaths for theirs, our mutilations for theirs. Our guns and their guns were made by women whose labour had been withdrawn from homes and fields. Our gas and their gas were cruel, cunning chemicals produced by the minds of learning and science. On both sides were men who dug ourselves into the ground and lived as rats. If our flesh was not ripped and our blood not spilt then we waited for the gas to dissolve our lungs, and if not the gas, then we waited for the trench mud to rot us from the feet up and turn us into gangrene. Why ?
One night the reaper showed himself to me. Guns rattled. Shells sang. I ran crouching, ready to throw myself down. My boots were caught in barbed wire and the ground exploded before my face. No fire, no flash, just a wave of dark earth under which I lay suffocating. It closed in around my face, around each limb, no part of me could move. Its weight pressed down on my ribs and chest and my breath began to empty from my body. I waited for the scythe to sweep low, for my search to end, for my life to escape me into sleep and death. And as I lay waiting I could still hear the sergeant's commands. Commands I had obeyed. Commands that had led me to my grave. I heard hunger in his voice and although I was buried deep in the ground I saw madness in his eyes. They were predator's eyes, they trembled with an intensity, a vile greed. The sergeant had led us like a lion, no soldier had doubted him. In our foot weary weakness his strength had made our dead limbs move. He held his face in stiffened expressions of forthrightness, concern and even kindness. I lay beneath my mound of earth and saw clearly that the masks his face had worn had mocked us. It was not strength but fear he had sown and nurtured inside us. He had disguised his devilry and confused our souls. Our minds were inert. Our hearts were pushed down beneath the bulk of a dark mountain that was ignorance and blindness. The sergeant stood at its summit, wielding supremacy and power. He gained our trust and summoned our deaths. Our obedience was unsuspecting while he despatched his orders to the reaper, the most obedient and servile of all his subjects.
I would not die for the sergeant. My body surged up. The heavy mud flowed like the loose, caressing waters of the ocean and I rose from my burial to see that the black velvet sky was jewelled with many bright stars. My search had not reached its end. I had to find the girl in the woods. I had to know her name.
The sergeant did not see my shadow return. He was alone in the trench. He looked out at all that was destroyed, his breath rasped hard and fast, his joy was insane. I faced him. My strength rose and burned like the sun. I looked into his eyes. I saw treachery, I saw malevolence. He was a soul of Satan, a purveyor of death. I had never before seen these truths, I had never believed in these evils. Anger pierced me like white fire. I felt his darkness tremble, discovery was striking down his guise, his pretence was tumbling like walls, there was nowhere for him to hide. I was killing him with white fire and black silence. There was nowhere he could run. Satan had turned his back on his servant. The sergeant was alone.
Few returned. Those who did had heard their misplaced deaths being called in the sergeant's command. They too had snatched at life and been reborn. Behind their pale faced exhaustion their fires burned with the awfulness of the revelation and the terror of its truth.
Our small company retreated. Days of marching followed. The sergeant led us. We killed him slowly. We watched his madness writhe to our cold immunity. The sergeant awaited our mutiny. He tried to resume his insidious ways but his cruelty would not manifest itself in us. We would not liken ourselves to him. We would not blackmail, we would not persecute, we would not speak. Our anger was silent, our violence was enclosed in calm.
We came to a wood one warm day. We sat in dappled shade with our backs against the trees and we dozed. There was birdsong high up in the branches. I heard the snap of a twig underfoot. I opened my eyes. The sergeant had realised that he was a prisoner and was trying to escape his guards. I picked up my rifle and shot. I shot him dead. I shot him in the back. I shot him in cold blood. I shot him in hatred.
I have returned to my tower, yet I feel I have not returned. I must leave again at dawn to continue my search. I will not return until I am found. May be I am the unicorn. There is so much I do not understand.
Chapter Six Part Four
I have returned to my tower. The war is over. My body is whole. My life is mine. I feared death so badly. Every day I thought it would take my search from me so that I would never be found. I saw the faces of the dead. Wide, staring, rigid fear as the moment of their death showed them that they were lost forever.
The sky was light with no sun and dark with no moon. Sun and moon had forsaken us. Every day and every night there was mud. Every day and every night there was blood. Every day and every night there was screaming. When the shells and the gunfire ceased, the silence was wretched, too long and too evil to bare. Our breaths and heartbeats were soundless as we listened to the black silence and while we waited for more gunfire the gas would seep in.
All of this we returned to the enemy. We exchanged our deaths for theirs, our mutilations for theirs. Our guns and their guns were made by women whose labour had been withdrawn from homes and fields. Our gas and their gas were cruel, cunning chemicals produced by the minds of learning and science. On both sides were men who dug ourselves into the ground and lived as rats. If our flesh was not ripped and our blood not spilt then we waited for the gas to dissolve our lungs, and if not the gas, then we waited for the trench mud to rot us from the feet up and turn us into gangrene. Why ?
One night the reaper showed himself to me. Guns rattled. Shells sang. I ran crouching, ready to throw myself down. My boots were caught in barbed wire and the ground exploded before my face. No fire, no flash, just a wave of dark earth under which I lay suffocating. It closed in around my face, around each limb, no part of me could move. Its weight pressed down on my ribs and chest and my breath began to empty from my body. I waited for the scythe to sweep low, for my search to end, for my life to escape me into sleep and death. And as I lay waiting I could still hear the sergeant's commands. Commands I had obeyed. Commands that had led me to my grave. I heard hunger in his voice and although I was buried deep in the ground I saw madness in his eyes. They were predator's eyes, they trembled with an intensity, a vile greed. The sergeant had led us like a lion, no soldier had doubted him. In our foot weary weakness his strength had made our dead limbs move. He held his face in stiffened expressions of forthrightness, concern and even kindness. I lay beneath my mound of earth and saw clearly that the masks his face had worn had mocked us. It was not strength but fear he had sown and nurtured inside us. He had disguised his devilry and confused our souls. Our minds were inert. Our hearts were pushed down beneath the bulk of a dark mountain that was ignorance and blindness. The sergeant stood at its summit, wielding supremacy and power. He gained our trust and summoned our deaths. Our obedience was unsuspecting while he despatched his orders to the reaper, the most obedient and servile of all his subjects.
I would not die for the sergeant. My body surged up. The heavy mud flowed like the loose, caressing waters of the ocean and I rose from my burial to see that the black velvet sky was jewelled with many bright stars. My search had not reached its end. I had to find the girl in the woods. I had to know her name.
The sergeant did not see my shadow return. He was alone in the trench. He looked out at all that was destroyed, his breath rasped hard and fast, his joy was insane. I faced him. My strength rose and burned like the sun. I looked into his eyes. I saw treachery, I saw malevolence. He was a soul of Satan, a purveyor of death. I had never before seen these truths, I had never believed in these evils. Anger pierced me like white fire. I felt his darkness tremble, discovery was striking down his guise, his pretence was tumbling like walls, there was nowhere for him to hide. I was killing him with white fire and black silence. There was nowhere he could run. Satan had turned his back on his servant. The sergeant was alone.
Few returned. Those who did had heard their misplaced deaths being called in the sergeant's command. They too had snatched at life and been reborn. Behind their pale faced exhaustion their fires burned with the awfulness of the revelation and the terror of its truth.
Our small company retreated. Days of marching followed. The sergeant led us. We killed him slowly. We watched his madness writhe to our cold immunity. The sergeant awaited our mutiny. He tried to resume his insidious ways but his cruelty would not manifest itself in us. We would not liken ourselves to him. We would not blackmail, we would not persecute, we would not speak. Our anger was silent, our violence was enclosed in calm.
We came to a wood one warm day. We sat in dappled shade with our backs against the trees and we dozed. There was birdsong high up in the branches. I heard the snap of a twig underfoot. I opened my eyes. The sergeant had realised that he was a prisoner and was trying to escape his guards. I picked up my rifle and shot. I shot him dead. I shot him in the back. I shot him in cold blood. I shot him in hatred.
I have returned to my tower, yet I feel I have not returned. I must leave again at dawn to continue my search. I will not return until I am found. May be I am the unicorn. There is so much I do not understand.
Sunday 3 July 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEANAND THE UNICORN
Chapter Six Part Three
I have returned to my tower. I return to my house as I left, with nothing.
I looked back to when I left here. It was dawn. I walked many miles through the early mists, then I climbed a hill. I climbed up high out of the mists and into the sun. I stood on the hill top. All that I had been was behind me, left in shadow. I looked out over the world. A mist lay over it but I knew that it was there. It was there for me. I was filled with ecstasy. I walked its pathways and lanes, I worked its fields and seasons.
Colour, texture, sky and earth, summer heat and winter chill, they touched and clothed me and I lived within them. I ate, I drank, I slept, I woke, I ploughed, I sowed, I harvested. I made no judgements. My mind was silent. I toiled, I let my body flow with land and season. At harvest time and Midsummer's night, farmsteads revelled. Folks feasted and the fiddler played. I sang, I danced, I made love to bright eyed maidens whose kisses were warm and yielding, their caresses unhindered, their secrets unsealed and flowing. All this time I was happy.
Then one day the sky was dark grey and a heavy rain fell, I was leading two sturdy shires while Sam guided the plough. Sam was a man of the land and its creatures. Sturdy and tall like his horses as he fought his bare chested battle with the soil. He fought for his family's livelihood come drought or storm and he never lost. Sweat on muscled shoulders, naked back and muddy arms as he struggled to guide the heavy plough. Its blades were dragged through thick, wet earth, turning over the brown sticky mud and churning up stones and the dead white roots of the last crop, like scattered bones. I felt a darkness and a fear. It filled me. I did not know whether it was a nightmare not remembered or one not yet seen. Then I saw the gypsy at the side of the road. We stopped the plough. Sam walked over and offered the lonely traveller bread and cheese. She thanked him for his kindness and she warned him to stay at home with his plough for there was another field of mud and another dark sky across the water from which he would not return. Sam laughed, his heart did not head her. She looked at me. I stood with the horses. I saw her tired, furrowed face and her deep sad eyes where secrets hide. Her sorrow was my sorrow. The darkness is yet to come.
So I put away pen and paper and go to war. The moon is but a fingernail. Time is still unwound and sleeping. I am still lost. I wish I knew her name.
Chapter Six Part Three
I have returned to my tower. I return to my house as I left, with nothing.
I looked back to when I left here. It was dawn. I walked many miles through the early mists, then I climbed a hill. I climbed up high out of the mists and into the sun. I stood on the hill top. All that I had been was behind me, left in shadow. I looked out over the world. A mist lay over it but I knew that it was there. It was there for me. I was filled with ecstasy. I walked its pathways and lanes, I worked its fields and seasons.
Colour, texture, sky and earth, summer heat and winter chill, they touched and clothed me and I lived within them. I ate, I drank, I slept, I woke, I ploughed, I sowed, I harvested. I made no judgements. My mind was silent. I toiled, I let my body flow with land and season. At harvest time and Midsummer's night, farmsteads revelled. Folks feasted and the fiddler played. I sang, I danced, I made love to bright eyed maidens whose kisses were warm and yielding, their caresses unhindered, their secrets unsealed and flowing. All this time I was happy.
Then one day the sky was dark grey and a heavy rain fell, I was leading two sturdy shires while Sam guided the plough. Sam was a man of the land and its creatures. Sturdy and tall like his horses as he fought his bare chested battle with the soil. He fought for his family's livelihood come drought or storm and he never lost. Sweat on muscled shoulders, naked back and muddy arms as he struggled to guide the heavy plough. Its blades were dragged through thick, wet earth, turning over the brown sticky mud and churning up stones and the dead white roots of the last crop, like scattered bones. I felt a darkness and a fear. It filled me. I did not know whether it was a nightmare not remembered or one not yet seen. Then I saw the gypsy at the side of the road. We stopped the plough. Sam walked over and offered the lonely traveller bread and cheese. She thanked him for his kindness and she warned him to stay at home with his plough for there was another field of mud and another dark sky across the water from which he would not return. Sam laughed, his heart did not head her. She looked at me. I stood with the horses. I saw her tired, furrowed face and her deep sad eyes where secrets hide. Her sorrow was my sorrow. The darkness is yet to come.
So I put away pen and paper and go to war. The moon is but a fingernail. Time is still unwound and sleeping. I am still lost. I wish I knew her name.
Monday 27 June 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter six part two
I have been to London and returned again to my tower and my desk. It is three days since I saw her. But what are days? What are nights ? What is time ? Now that I have begun this journey time must be ignored. Haste would lead me to some vile compromise, a disillusionment that it would have been better never to have begun, never to have stepped out onto the road. It is not a journey of roads and directions I will choose and then travel, it is a journey of roads and directions that will come to me when it considers me ready and there will be no accounting for the passing of years, if I am to find her.
Time has always stood like a cloaked spectre at my shoulder, pushing me on towards death, holding up its black robes to block out the lights of discovery and reflection. There will be no clocks or calendars while I search.
My trip to London was the first stage of my journey. It was a preparation, a purchasing of a ticket.
I had packed all my clothes and trinkets, my suits, my tweeds, every outfit for every occasion, my insignia of wealth and belonging. They filled three trunks. At Waterloo station I watched them being unloaded from the train. I looked at them on the platform. They were unnamed and unlabelled. I walked away. My step was light as though I had shed many skins that had grown hard on my back and shadowed my heart.
I walked through the city from office to office, from broker to banker to lawyer. My task was to extricate myself from the web of finance and the compulsive, infinite weaving of its sticky threads. I sold my stocks and recalled my shares. I held my wealth in one hand in deeds, bonds and bankers' notes, three million pounds, just pieces of paper. I folded them down and put them inside a small leather pouch. I drew and tied the thongs and the pouch was closed. I placed the pouch inside a leaden box embossed with a unicorn. I sealed the box with candle wax. I took the sealed box to my bank and locked it in a vault. I went to m y lawyer and gave him the key to the deposit box. Then I was free.
The summer heat baked the city streets, while each office was chilly. I carried the sun with me into each meeting, its light shone from my eyes. My face was stern while my heart smiled. I said little. I watched. I had once carried their faces and their armour as my own. I had also been a warrior blind to the loss of life in battle. But now I had laid down my shield and my spear, my knuckles were no longer white with the need to clutch them and believe in their protection. I had no protection and no weapon. My defencelessness was my power. I had uncovered my body and my face. The light that shone from my eyes said,
" This is who I am "
In every office, across every desk my silence said,
" This is who I am. "
They could not draw me back through the wheels and the cogs because my silence simply said,
" No. "
I could not be drawn back to their sense of duty, their established patronage and competition. My silence said,
" No. "
I watched their fear rise as they realised that to question me was to question what was to them unquestioned. I watched my conquered rivals falter and die. My commands were obeyed and my enemies slain.
I gave Mr Hodgekins the key. I told him it must be submitted to no one but the unicorn. I did not know why. I hope I am not the unicorn.
Tomorrow I will leave this notebook and pen in my desk in my tower. Tomorrow I will leave this house. I will wander through its rooms and touch its furniture. I will wait until the old grandfather clock stops and then I will leave. I will leave Time unwound and sleeping.
I love this house. My mother and father lived here. They were distant and quiet. I did not know them. They did not know me. I lived here alone as a child and still I live here alone. This is my home. Tomorrow I must close it up.
But I will return. I sit at my desk and look through the window of my tower. It is night and the moon is full. Clouds like black smoke pass in front of the bright moon so that it fades and clears but it never disappears.
Chapter six part two
I have been to London and returned again to my tower and my desk. It is three days since I saw her. But what are days? What are nights ? What is time ? Now that I have begun this journey time must be ignored. Haste would lead me to some vile compromise, a disillusionment that it would have been better never to have begun, never to have stepped out onto the road. It is not a journey of roads and directions I will choose and then travel, it is a journey of roads and directions that will come to me when it considers me ready and there will be no accounting for the passing of years, if I am to find her.
Time has always stood like a cloaked spectre at my shoulder, pushing me on towards death, holding up its black robes to block out the lights of discovery and reflection. There will be no clocks or calendars while I search.
My trip to London was the first stage of my journey. It was a preparation, a purchasing of a ticket.
I had packed all my clothes and trinkets, my suits, my tweeds, every outfit for every occasion, my insignia of wealth and belonging. They filled three trunks. At Waterloo station I watched them being unloaded from the train. I looked at them on the platform. They were unnamed and unlabelled. I walked away. My step was light as though I had shed many skins that had grown hard on my back and shadowed my heart.
I walked through the city from office to office, from broker to banker to lawyer. My task was to extricate myself from the web of finance and the compulsive, infinite weaving of its sticky threads. I sold my stocks and recalled my shares. I held my wealth in one hand in deeds, bonds and bankers' notes, three million pounds, just pieces of paper. I folded them down and put them inside a small leather pouch. I drew and tied the thongs and the pouch was closed. I placed the pouch inside a leaden box embossed with a unicorn. I sealed the box with candle wax. I took the sealed box to my bank and locked it in a vault. I went to m y lawyer and gave him the key to the deposit box. Then I was free.
The summer heat baked the city streets, while each office was chilly. I carried the sun with me into each meeting, its light shone from my eyes. My face was stern while my heart smiled. I said little. I watched. I had once carried their faces and their armour as my own. I had also been a warrior blind to the loss of life in battle. But now I had laid down my shield and my spear, my knuckles were no longer white with the need to clutch them and believe in their protection. I had no protection and no weapon. My defencelessness was my power. I had uncovered my body and my face. The light that shone from my eyes said,
" This is who I am "
In every office, across every desk my silence said,
" This is who I am. "
They could not draw me back through the wheels and the cogs because my silence simply said,
" No. "
I could not be drawn back to their sense of duty, their established patronage and competition. My silence said,
" No. "
I watched their fear rise as they realised that to question me was to question what was to them unquestioned. I watched my conquered rivals falter and die. My commands were obeyed and my enemies slain.
I gave Mr Hodgekins the key. I told him it must be submitted to no one but the unicorn. I did not know why. I hope I am not the unicorn.
Tomorrow I will leave this notebook and pen in my desk in my tower. Tomorrow I will leave this house. I will wander through its rooms and touch its furniture. I will wait until the old grandfather clock stops and then I will leave. I will leave Time unwound and sleeping.
I love this house. My mother and father lived here. They were distant and quiet. I did not know them. They did not know me. I lived here alone as a child and still I live here alone. This is my home. Tomorrow I must close it up.
But I will return. I sit at my desk and look through the window of my tower. It is night and the moon is full. Clouds like black smoke pass in front of the bright moon so that it fades and clears but it never disappears.
Saturday 25 June 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THEUNICORN
Chapter Six The Ocean Part ten
Joe awoke still huddled on the floor. It was dawn. Outside the sky was pink. He looked around the room, Clare has disappeared. He ran upstairs to the tower. The puzzle lay unfinished on the floor, but he knew now what the puzzle would say. It was the school desk beneath the window that was the only thing left for him to know and understand. He sat at the desk and lifted up its lid. Inside there was a pocket sized book bound in leather. The ink well rattled as he brought the lid down too suddenly with a bang, in his eagerness to discover the contents of the book. He looked through it, the pages had yellowed, it had been written in a neat, slanting hand, the first half in watery brown ink and the last half in faint lead pencil. He turned back to the beginning and sitting at the desk with his face bent close to the page and his tired eyes squinting at the faded lettering, he began to read.
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Today I saw a girl in the woods. She was beautiful. She was lost. I love her. She stood before me but I have to search for her to find her. If I find myself I will find her. I ate the flesh of an apricot and I gave her the seed. Then I left her to begin my search.
So I sit at my desk in my tower and write. There is only this school desk. Algebra and alphabet, history books and maps, my sweet governess, her soft eyes and tidy bun of shiny hair are all gone. I am alone with the memory of the girl in the woods.
Her figure is slight and nimble. Her face is uncertain and childlike. Her eyes are deep brown, they are intense, foreboding sadness, filled with a fear too close to see, filled with a thousand tears not yet shed. Her hair is the red brown of chestnut, its thick locks flow over her shoulders, uncombed, disarrayed. She is clothed in wealth and sophistication that is not hers. She wears cream satin and white lace but she has walked through the fields and the earth's dust has marked them. Her dress is a casing that cannot contain her. She is wild. She is fay. I know this vision but I do not know her name. I wish I knew her name.
Chapter Six The Ocean Part ten
Joe awoke still huddled on the floor. It was dawn. Outside the sky was pink. He looked around the room, Clare has disappeared. He ran upstairs to the tower. The puzzle lay unfinished on the floor, but he knew now what the puzzle would say. It was the school desk beneath the window that was the only thing left for him to know and understand. He sat at the desk and lifted up its lid. Inside there was a pocket sized book bound in leather. The ink well rattled as he brought the lid down too suddenly with a bang, in his eagerness to discover the contents of the book. He looked through it, the pages had yellowed, it had been written in a neat, slanting hand, the first half in watery brown ink and the last half in faint lead pencil. He turned back to the beginning and sitting at the desk with his face bent close to the page and his tired eyes squinting at the faded lettering, he began to read.
------------------------------------------------------
Today I saw a girl in the woods. She was beautiful. She was lost. I love her. She stood before me but I have to search for her to find her. If I find myself I will find her. I ate the flesh of an apricot and I gave her the seed. Then I left her to begin my search.
So I sit at my desk in my tower and write. There is only this school desk. Algebra and alphabet, history books and maps, my sweet governess, her soft eyes and tidy bun of shiny hair are all gone. I am alone with the memory of the girl in the woods.
Her figure is slight and nimble. Her face is uncertain and childlike. Her eyes are deep brown, they are intense, foreboding sadness, filled with a fear too close to see, filled with a thousand tears not yet shed. Her hair is the red brown of chestnut, its thick locks flow over her shoulders, uncombed, disarrayed. She is clothed in wealth and sophistication that is not hers. She wears cream satin and white lace but she has walked through the fields and the earth's dust has marked them. Her dress is a casing that cannot contain her. She is wild. She is fay. I know this vision but I do not know her name. I wish I knew her name.
Tuesday 31 May 2016
SUNSHINE, THE OCEAN ANDTHE UNICORN
Chapter Five Part Ten
In the drawing room Joe lost his smile. The air was leaden, filled with Clare's anger and Joe felt all his hope turn bad inside him. The necklace was broken, the pearly beads were scattered over the carpet. Clare sat stiff and upright in a chair beside the dying fire. Her hair was mussed as though she had dragged her fingers through it in grief and despair. Joe looked at her bitter profile. She would not turn her head to him.
" Damn you !"
She spat out the words like an old crone. The godmother whose love he wanted had turned into a witch, an evil witch. Confusion and pain ran amok, the chaos inside him paralysed him so that even his tears could not flow. He understood nothing.
" Damn you ! " she said again. " Damn you and damn those beads. I can smell the blood on those beads. How dare you bring them to me ! "
Joe fell to the floor, his tears flowed, they flooded and choked him. He had thought he was safe here , but Clare knew of his guilt. He screamed and writhed unable to bear what she could see. He was a prisoner of his own fear and guilt, he did not even know how it was that he had come by them, but he had and fear and guilt were his and they imprisoned him. His hands were covered in blood and death, he did not know why, but they were and they were his hands.
His screaming stopped, he sobbed and his body trembled and shivered as the crying left him. He opened his swollen eyes. He saw Clare rekindling the fire. Her joints were stiff, he could see that it pained her to move. He no longer felt her anger in the room. He felt weak but there was a calmness in him after his crying. Clare sat down again. Joe looked up at her,
" Forgive me, " he said and more tears fell silently from his eyes, " Forgive me. "
" Come here. " she said softly. He went to her, he knelt beside her and laid his head in her lap. They sat in silence and she stroked his hair. Then she said,
" Why did you bring me the pearls? " Her voice soothed him, there was no anger in the question, so he answered easily."
" Because you used to have some pearls. You treasured them. You said they comforted you."
They sat in more silence. Then Clare began to talk, her gentle hand still stroking his hair and Joe listened knowing that her words would bring him solace and healing.
" Yes I treasured them. But they were never a comfort to me. That necklace was a yoke that made my head hang sad and heavy, and the years that I wore it were long and weary.
It was given to me the same day I saw George for the first time in the woods, the same day that I planted his apricot stone. I did not run from my husband as his mother wanted me to. Instead I chose to be a dutiful and loving wife. So his mother awarded me with the pearls. She handed them down to me as they had been handed down to her and in my innocence I accepted them as a gift and thought them very beautiful. But they were a punishment. I had not heeded her warning so she handed me down a yoke, a bondage to a poisoned man, an enslavement of fear and ignorance of my own heart, a weight that would bury my soul and my self expression and then taunt my emptiness.
Even when I left my husband and sucked and spat his poison from my wounds, I still wore the pearls believing them to be my friend. But they were never a friend, they remained as a scar of my marriage, an excuse for weakness. The necklace was still a yoke in which I locked myself so that I was never quite free, always restricted, still afraid of myself. The pearls became a burden of shame and bitterness at my willingness in marriage to be hollowed out and broken like a china doll. I had put up no defences. I had been weak. Instincts and intuition had been ignored even though they had cried out to me each time his slow poison had reached in and taken another part of me. I had laid them by the wayside while I travelled a dark road. I had courted my own madness. I could not forgive my husband, neither could I forgive myself.
Like the crocodile in the dream. I swam from it in fear, a fear that it had put into me. But when I climbed out of the water and looked back it had not moved from the centre of the river. Just as my husband had filled me with fear, he could not finally kill me or destroy me, but in my fear and madness I imagined that he could. I could have left him any time, I could have swum for the shore and left him stationery in the middle of the river. It was the fear in my imagination that weakened me all the more and so prolonged my marriage and my unhappiness. As in the dream I did eventually reach a shore and my body became strong again and the barren landscape of my life became fertile.
More and more I began to find peace of mind when I lived in Bath and on my travels in Europe. I stayed away from darkness. I ran from the shadows to the light and saw beauty in everything. I found joy but not love. I found joy in solitude, in loneliness. I made the world mine, I made it what I wanted it to be. I would not let the darkness in. I would not let other people in, in case they brought the darkness with them. I skirted the darkness, I narrowed my life to avoid it. Still I wore the pearls and still they restricted me. I knew there was a bigger world beyond the one I lived in, a vast world where darkness lived alongside light, where there had to be evil for there to be goodness. I knew there was a life to be led in that world, a long and full life that was waiting for me to lead it. I kept trying to reach it, but while I wore the pearls I could not. All the gates were locked and I was afraid to unlock them. I knew what had to happen but I could not make it happen while I carried my fear and my shame. I had to know that weakness was not shameful but a strength in itself. I had to realise that my marriage was just a small part of my life and that what it had taught me about myself would stand me in good stead. I had to forgive my husband. But forgiveness was a hard mountain to climb. I kept thinking that I was reaching its summit when more of the mountain would appear, and the summit would still loom way above me, its sides smooth and sheer. I could not forgive my husband for his cold, loveless eyes and stony heart. I could not forgive his constant need to take and destroy. Though his life was surrounded by riches it was spiritless, it was a poor and squalid life with no feeling and no colour. And because his soul was so full of hatred, his bitterness had constantly ridiculed and destroyed mine so that my soul had had to fight to stay alive and so many times it had nearly died. I could not forgive those years that had been so wasteful and so full of pain.
I kept on trying to climb that mountain and every time I slid back a little I would try and understand the good that had come from marriage. I had leant to trust my intuition, to trust my instincts. I knew now that I believed myself, I believed that what my eyes saw was true and there could be no doubting them. This discovery meant that I could live a full and burning life, it meant that I was filled with myself, I was no longer empty and waiting to be filled with whatever came my way be it good or bad. I was no longer a china doll, hollow and broken. I was me, strong mind, strong body and strong spirit. All this was good, but I still could not reach that mountain top. My heart had to expand to acknowledge the darkness in order to find the light, to accept evil in order to find good. My shoulders had to broaden to carry sorrow and joy alongside one another. I knew all these things but I could not make them happen alone.
So you see Joe, it was only when George threw those godforsaken pearls back into the ocean that I became free. George freed me. Love freed me. He unclasped the necklace, he broke each pearl from its knotted string and scattered them over the ocean where I watched them sink out of sight beneath the dark waves. And suddenly there were no chains around my heart, no reins that held me back. There was nothing I could not do, there was nothing and no one to fear. It was a sweet and long awaited release. It was like new birth, new life out of the old one in one light breath, young yet wise, tender yet wild and the breeze was light and easy around us and love whispered and love smiled. The end of one journey and the beginning of the next.
If I had not been freed then maybe my own heart might have turned cold and stony and my soul might have finally died having been unable to climb the Forgiving Mountain's high summit. And even though I had left him, my husband would have defeated me because I would have likened myself to him and my life would have had no beauty, only bitterness and sour immortal tears.
The pearls had at last disappeared and I forgave my husband and hoped that one day he might be rid of his poison and find an end to his misery.
The boat rocked gently, the water lapped at its sides. We watched the stars in the sky and their reflection in the water. Our souls were reflections of each others', to be filled by each other was to be filled by ourselves, at last we were whole. We made our plans for the future. We had both been the poorer for wealthy lives so we would leave George's money in its wax sealed leaden box, where it would wait for the Unicorn. We would come back to this house where the clock no longer moved so that time would not push and pull at our lives and when it was all over and one of us died, then the other would take no food, fade and follow after.
Then we went back into the confines of the Ark and I no longer feared its beasts because I knew that beyond lay the Starshine and the Ocean, and it was there George and I would live and burn with a light that would see and know and feel all that lay between the ocean bed and the highest star. Once my fears had left me I knew that I could live both inside and outside the Ark and now the Ark was no longer my prison I looked again at its passengers and was able to see the beautiful alongside the ugly. The crocodiles and the snakes still made me shudder, but alongside the evil there were the selfless and the generous. The lion was strong and warm. I saw the elegant shy-eyed gazelles. I saw the apes laughing and fooling. There was much that was joyful alongside the sorrowful.
Only the Unicorn was missing. George and I had left the Ark to go and find the Unicorn, but once we found Starshine and the Ocean we had stopped looking. George said the Unicorn was long gone beneath the waves and that my pearls had followed him. George knew the Unicorn better than I, he had often thought that he himself might be the Unicorn. But I was still curious. I often wondered about the Unicorn. "
Clare's hand lay gently on Joe's head,
" And at last I have found him, " she said.
Joe lifted his head from her lap and looked at her. Her eyes thanked him.
" It was you I was waiting for before I died. I wanted to tell you how it all began. "
At last Joe knew who he was and knowing that he was the Unicorn made him feel at peace. He knew that his crimes were not his but a part of everything and he knew that there was a place for him even though it was not in this world. His burdens of fear, guilt and confusion were lifted from his shoulders and he huddled on the floor at Clare's feet like a contented little boy.
" Tell me about the Unicorn. " he said
So Clare begun one last magical story while Joe closed his eyes and waited for the comforts of sleep.
" The Unicorn was beautiful, pure white, sleek powerful flanks and clear blue eyes in a proud head adorned with its regal horn. The Unicorn was headstrong and free. He had never known the chains of fear, he had no dealings with greed or self pity, only desire and with desire as his companion he climbed the mountain with ease to stand on its summit and know freedom.
The Unicorn knew that to fear death was to fear life and when the flood came he sought refuge in it, rather than in the Ark.
He stood on the mountain top and saw that the flood was coming. He watched the long procession of God's creatures enter the Ark two by two and he knew that he could not follow. For once inside the Ark the confinement would destroy him. If his freedom were taken from him then he would be empty and his desire would be misled into chaos and confusion. With nowhere to run and no mountains to climb he would be shackled to the fears and sorrows of those around him and his emptiness would be filled with their poisons until all his pure white turned black and insane. And inside his prison the crazy, black unicorn would toss its head and wild mane, its eyes would darken and quiver with frightened white. It would buck and rear and gallop in mad, directionless circles, wreaking havoc and destruction, and spilling the blood of its fellow inmates as its twisted horn impaled the innocent and the guilty alike.
So the pure white unicorn stood on his mountain top and watched the Ark sail away and the water whispered to him and closed around him like a gentle shroud and he was unfearing and free as the flood carried him away. "
Chapter Five Part Ten
In the drawing room Joe lost his smile. The air was leaden, filled with Clare's anger and Joe felt all his hope turn bad inside him. The necklace was broken, the pearly beads were scattered over the carpet. Clare sat stiff and upright in a chair beside the dying fire. Her hair was mussed as though she had dragged her fingers through it in grief and despair. Joe looked at her bitter profile. She would not turn her head to him.
" Damn you !"
She spat out the words like an old crone. The godmother whose love he wanted had turned into a witch, an evil witch. Confusion and pain ran amok, the chaos inside him paralysed him so that even his tears could not flow. He understood nothing.
" Damn you ! " she said again. " Damn you and damn those beads. I can smell the blood on those beads. How dare you bring them to me ! "
Joe fell to the floor, his tears flowed, they flooded and choked him. He had thought he was safe here , but Clare knew of his guilt. He screamed and writhed unable to bear what she could see. He was a prisoner of his own fear and guilt, he did not even know how it was that he had come by them, but he had and fear and guilt were his and they imprisoned him. His hands were covered in blood and death, he did not know why, but they were and they were his hands.
His screaming stopped, he sobbed and his body trembled and shivered as the crying left him. He opened his swollen eyes. He saw Clare rekindling the fire. Her joints were stiff, he could see that it pained her to move. He no longer felt her anger in the room. He felt weak but there was a calmness in him after his crying. Clare sat down again. Joe looked up at her,
" Forgive me, " he said and more tears fell silently from his eyes, " Forgive me. "
" Come here. " she said softly. He went to her, he knelt beside her and laid his head in her lap. They sat in silence and she stroked his hair. Then she said,
" Why did you bring me the pearls? " Her voice soothed him, there was no anger in the question, so he answered easily."
" Because you used to have some pearls. You treasured them. You said they comforted you."
They sat in more silence. Then Clare began to talk, her gentle hand still stroking his hair and Joe listened knowing that her words would bring him solace and healing.
" Yes I treasured them. But they were never a comfort to me. That necklace was a yoke that made my head hang sad and heavy, and the years that I wore it were long and weary.
It was given to me the same day I saw George for the first time in the woods, the same day that I planted his apricot stone. I did not run from my husband as his mother wanted me to. Instead I chose to be a dutiful and loving wife. So his mother awarded me with the pearls. She handed them down to me as they had been handed down to her and in my innocence I accepted them as a gift and thought them very beautiful. But they were a punishment. I had not heeded her warning so she handed me down a yoke, a bondage to a poisoned man, an enslavement of fear and ignorance of my own heart, a weight that would bury my soul and my self expression and then taunt my emptiness.
Even when I left my husband and sucked and spat his poison from my wounds, I still wore the pearls believing them to be my friend. But they were never a friend, they remained as a scar of my marriage, an excuse for weakness. The necklace was still a yoke in which I locked myself so that I was never quite free, always restricted, still afraid of myself. The pearls became a burden of shame and bitterness at my willingness in marriage to be hollowed out and broken like a china doll. I had put up no defences. I had been weak. Instincts and intuition had been ignored even though they had cried out to me each time his slow poison had reached in and taken another part of me. I had laid them by the wayside while I travelled a dark road. I had courted my own madness. I could not forgive my husband, neither could I forgive myself.
Like the crocodile in the dream. I swam from it in fear, a fear that it had put into me. But when I climbed out of the water and looked back it had not moved from the centre of the river. Just as my husband had filled me with fear, he could not finally kill me or destroy me, but in my fear and madness I imagined that he could. I could have left him any time, I could have swum for the shore and left him stationery in the middle of the river. It was the fear in my imagination that weakened me all the more and so prolonged my marriage and my unhappiness. As in the dream I did eventually reach a shore and my body became strong again and the barren landscape of my life became fertile.
More and more I began to find peace of mind when I lived in Bath and on my travels in Europe. I stayed away from darkness. I ran from the shadows to the light and saw beauty in everything. I found joy but not love. I found joy in solitude, in loneliness. I made the world mine, I made it what I wanted it to be. I would not let the darkness in. I would not let other people in, in case they brought the darkness with them. I skirted the darkness, I narrowed my life to avoid it. Still I wore the pearls and still they restricted me. I knew there was a bigger world beyond the one I lived in, a vast world where darkness lived alongside light, where there had to be evil for there to be goodness. I knew there was a life to be led in that world, a long and full life that was waiting for me to lead it. I kept trying to reach it, but while I wore the pearls I could not. All the gates were locked and I was afraid to unlock them. I knew what had to happen but I could not make it happen while I carried my fear and my shame. I had to know that weakness was not shameful but a strength in itself. I had to realise that my marriage was just a small part of my life and that what it had taught me about myself would stand me in good stead. I had to forgive my husband. But forgiveness was a hard mountain to climb. I kept thinking that I was reaching its summit when more of the mountain would appear, and the summit would still loom way above me, its sides smooth and sheer. I could not forgive my husband for his cold, loveless eyes and stony heart. I could not forgive his constant need to take and destroy. Though his life was surrounded by riches it was spiritless, it was a poor and squalid life with no feeling and no colour. And because his soul was so full of hatred, his bitterness had constantly ridiculed and destroyed mine so that my soul had had to fight to stay alive and so many times it had nearly died. I could not forgive those years that had been so wasteful and so full of pain.
I kept on trying to climb that mountain and every time I slid back a little I would try and understand the good that had come from marriage. I had leant to trust my intuition, to trust my instincts. I knew now that I believed myself, I believed that what my eyes saw was true and there could be no doubting them. This discovery meant that I could live a full and burning life, it meant that I was filled with myself, I was no longer empty and waiting to be filled with whatever came my way be it good or bad. I was no longer a china doll, hollow and broken. I was me, strong mind, strong body and strong spirit. All this was good, but I still could not reach that mountain top. My heart had to expand to acknowledge the darkness in order to find the light, to accept evil in order to find good. My shoulders had to broaden to carry sorrow and joy alongside one another. I knew all these things but I could not make them happen alone.
So you see Joe, it was only when George threw those godforsaken pearls back into the ocean that I became free. George freed me. Love freed me. He unclasped the necklace, he broke each pearl from its knotted string and scattered them over the ocean where I watched them sink out of sight beneath the dark waves. And suddenly there were no chains around my heart, no reins that held me back. There was nothing I could not do, there was nothing and no one to fear. It was a sweet and long awaited release. It was like new birth, new life out of the old one in one light breath, young yet wise, tender yet wild and the breeze was light and easy around us and love whispered and love smiled. The end of one journey and the beginning of the next.
If I had not been freed then maybe my own heart might have turned cold and stony and my soul might have finally died having been unable to climb the Forgiving Mountain's high summit. And even though I had left him, my husband would have defeated me because I would have likened myself to him and my life would have had no beauty, only bitterness and sour immortal tears.
The pearls had at last disappeared and I forgave my husband and hoped that one day he might be rid of his poison and find an end to his misery.
The boat rocked gently, the water lapped at its sides. We watched the stars in the sky and their reflection in the water. Our souls were reflections of each others', to be filled by each other was to be filled by ourselves, at last we were whole. We made our plans for the future. We had both been the poorer for wealthy lives so we would leave George's money in its wax sealed leaden box, where it would wait for the Unicorn. We would come back to this house where the clock no longer moved so that time would not push and pull at our lives and when it was all over and one of us died, then the other would take no food, fade and follow after.
Then we went back into the confines of the Ark and I no longer feared its beasts because I knew that beyond lay the Starshine and the Ocean, and it was there George and I would live and burn with a light that would see and know and feel all that lay between the ocean bed and the highest star. Once my fears had left me I knew that I could live both inside and outside the Ark and now the Ark was no longer my prison I looked again at its passengers and was able to see the beautiful alongside the ugly. The crocodiles and the snakes still made me shudder, but alongside the evil there were the selfless and the generous. The lion was strong and warm. I saw the elegant shy-eyed gazelles. I saw the apes laughing and fooling. There was much that was joyful alongside the sorrowful.
Only the Unicorn was missing. George and I had left the Ark to go and find the Unicorn, but once we found Starshine and the Ocean we had stopped looking. George said the Unicorn was long gone beneath the waves and that my pearls had followed him. George knew the Unicorn better than I, he had often thought that he himself might be the Unicorn. But I was still curious. I often wondered about the Unicorn. "
Clare's hand lay gently on Joe's head,
" And at last I have found him, " she said.
Joe lifted his head from her lap and looked at her. Her eyes thanked him.
" It was you I was waiting for before I died. I wanted to tell you how it all began. "
At last Joe knew who he was and knowing that he was the Unicorn made him feel at peace. He knew that his crimes were not his but a part of everything and he knew that there was a place for him even though it was not in this world. His burdens of fear, guilt and confusion were lifted from his shoulders and he huddled on the floor at Clare's feet like a contented little boy.
" Tell me about the Unicorn. " he said
So Clare begun one last magical story while Joe closed his eyes and waited for the comforts of sleep.
" The Unicorn was beautiful, pure white, sleek powerful flanks and clear blue eyes in a proud head adorned with its regal horn. The Unicorn was headstrong and free. He had never known the chains of fear, he had no dealings with greed or self pity, only desire and with desire as his companion he climbed the mountain with ease to stand on its summit and know freedom.
The Unicorn knew that to fear death was to fear life and when the flood came he sought refuge in it, rather than in the Ark.
He stood on the mountain top and saw that the flood was coming. He watched the long procession of God's creatures enter the Ark two by two and he knew that he could not follow. For once inside the Ark the confinement would destroy him. If his freedom were taken from him then he would be empty and his desire would be misled into chaos and confusion. With nowhere to run and no mountains to climb he would be shackled to the fears and sorrows of those around him and his emptiness would be filled with their poisons until all his pure white turned black and insane. And inside his prison the crazy, black unicorn would toss its head and wild mane, its eyes would darken and quiver with frightened white. It would buck and rear and gallop in mad, directionless circles, wreaking havoc and destruction, and spilling the blood of its fellow inmates as its twisted horn impaled the innocent and the guilty alike.
So the pure white unicorn stood on his mountain top and watched the Ark sail away and the water whispered to him and closed around him like a gentle shroud and he was unfearing and free as the flood carried him away. "
Thursday 26 May 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Five Part Nine
The room in the tower was just as he had left it. He gazed at all its strange artefacts, the willow pattern punch bowl filled with earth, the dolls, the shells, the wooden ark with its wooden Noah and his wooden wife and all their two by two wooden animals and the picture on the wall of a rowing boat on the ocean on a starlit night. Clare's past was a story in a tower, each relic on its own was bewildering, but together they made a story that Joe was beginning to understand. Most of all he understood the china bride, because like her, his own life was broken and hollow. And just as the china doll had been kept alive by the apricot stone planted in the punch bowl, so had Clare and the tower that contained her story become Joe's own seed of faith where he believed he might find his own truth. But there was still so much to understand. He wanted to know why Clare had feared the animals of the Ark. He wanted to know more of the love that had come with George and his gift of beautiful shells from the ocean. He wanted to understand why George had thrown her precious pearls to the sea when she had held them so dear and they had comforted her so much. Joe had left his granny's pearly beads downstairs on a table beside the sleeping Clare so that she would wake to them and be pleased. The thought of her pleasure at his gift excited him and made him feel warm. He wanted to see her smiling eyes. He was impatient to feel her warmth towards him. He wondered how long she would sleep.
Sunlight streamed through the window, over the desk and onto the floor. The school desk was still a mystery to Joe, he decided to leave it that way for the time being and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the jig-saw puzzle. He began to try and fill the frame he had left. His fingers worked feverishly with the pieces, turning, rejecting and fitting. He was eager to make a picture he would understand. He wanted to find the clues and make a pattern of his life so far, so that he could start again from a place where he knew who he was and what his life had meant, just as Clare had made a journey that had had no meaning until its end where a new journey with George had begun. He wanted to make sense of his bewilderment just as Clare had made sense of hers.
Hours passed. Joe had completed a starry night sky and its reflection in calm, dark water. The centre was yet to be resolved, many pieces were still waiting to be placed and interlocked. He was certain the jig-saw would grant him his wish and show him a rowing boat of his own where he would find hope and happiness as Clare had done. But daylight had turned to dusk and Joe could strain his eyes no more. So he left the tower and went downstairs with a hopeful soul and a smile.
Chapter Five Part Nine
The room in the tower was just as he had left it. He gazed at all its strange artefacts, the willow pattern punch bowl filled with earth, the dolls, the shells, the wooden ark with its wooden Noah and his wooden wife and all their two by two wooden animals and the picture on the wall of a rowing boat on the ocean on a starlit night. Clare's past was a story in a tower, each relic on its own was bewildering, but together they made a story that Joe was beginning to understand. Most of all he understood the china bride, because like her, his own life was broken and hollow. And just as the china doll had been kept alive by the apricot stone planted in the punch bowl, so had Clare and the tower that contained her story become Joe's own seed of faith where he believed he might find his own truth. But there was still so much to understand. He wanted to know why Clare had feared the animals of the Ark. He wanted to know more of the love that had come with George and his gift of beautiful shells from the ocean. He wanted to understand why George had thrown her precious pearls to the sea when she had held them so dear and they had comforted her so much. Joe had left his granny's pearly beads downstairs on a table beside the sleeping Clare so that she would wake to them and be pleased. The thought of her pleasure at his gift excited him and made him feel warm. He wanted to see her smiling eyes. He was impatient to feel her warmth towards him. He wondered how long she would sleep.
Sunlight streamed through the window, over the desk and onto the floor. The school desk was still a mystery to Joe, he decided to leave it that way for the time being and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the jig-saw puzzle. He began to try and fill the frame he had left. His fingers worked feverishly with the pieces, turning, rejecting and fitting. He was eager to make a picture he would understand. He wanted to find the clues and make a pattern of his life so far, so that he could start again from a place where he knew who he was and what his life had meant, just as Clare had made a journey that had had no meaning until its end where a new journey with George had begun. He wanted to make sense of his bewilderment just as Clare had made sense of hers.
Hours passed. Joe had completed a starry night sky and its reflection in calm, dark water. The centre was yet to be resolved, many pieces were still waiting to be placed and interlocked. He was certain the jig-saw would grant him his wish and show him a rowing boat of his own where he would find hope and happiness as Clare had done. But daylight had turned to dusk and Joe could strain his eyes no more. So he left the tower and went downstairs with a hopeful soul and a smile.
Saturday 14 May 2016
STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Five Part Eight
The underground sped down its black tunnel. Joe closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts, but they only rattled and jolted with the train and would not be gather. The train stopped and exchanged passengers. Joe saw that it was a quarter past twelve by the platform clock, but he did not know to which day the time belonged. He knew that after this killing there was only one more. He promised himself that everything would be fine once the killings were done. He wished he could be sure of his promise.
The train drew into High Street Kensington station. He got off, walked up the stairs, past the barriers and through the shopping arcade where a million people walked through him, their unfocused images came at him too fast and made him giddy. He got out of the arcade where the low light, shop windows and clean tiles had closed him in. But out in the sunlight and the cold air the flow of air was just the same, they marched on him, stern and forthright while Joe shrank away. The High Street was full of colours, the colours in shop window displays, the colours of the cars on the road and the big red buses, the colours of people's clothes. The colours were too many and too bright, they added to his disorientation. He panicked as a loud whirring vibration came up from behind him. A roller skater appeared from nowhere, a tall slim negro in tight red and white trousers, head phones and a Walkman clipped to his belt. He circled Joe three times and each time Joe saw his own fear reflected twice over in the black mirrors of the negro's shades. Then he was gone and weaving his speedy way up the High Street, twisting and turning, cutting his way through the crowds. Joe's panic dissolved into paralysis and vacancy. His head was light, he forgot his fear, he forgot everything. He waded his way mindlessly up the street, he saw his feet and legs walking, but had no sensation of his own movement and did not know whether he walked fast or slow. He lost all feeling and although he was tense and shaking with the cold, his flesh could not feel it.
He found the door he was looking for next to a fashion boutique. He looked at the nylon haired mannequins in their expensive and fashionable clothes. They did not look back at him, their impassive gaze went over his head and he was glad to be unnoticed.
He pressed the bell marked ' Sutcliffe '. The entry phone was answered immediately.
" Yes. "
It was a woman's voice, sharp and edgy.
"Uh, Jemima ? "
"Yes! "
"It's Joe. I've got something from Jason. "
The door buzzed so Joe pushed it open and went inside. He climbed the carpeted stairs and found the flat door ajar, so he went in.
"I'm in the kitchen. "she shouted.
Joe's feet sank deep into the cream shag pile as he crossed the living room to another opened door from where her voice had come. The fitted kitchen was in marble and black wood. It was spotless. Jemima sat at a glass topped table, her tools laid out in front of her, ready and waiting. A new syringe in a sealed, plastic package, a silver spoon, a gold lighter, a strip of black Velcro to tie her arm and a bottle of sterilised water, all in a line, neat and orderly. And in the middle of the table was the cash in new, crisp ten pound notes. She wore a pinstriped skirt and a black bra. Her blouse and jacket were draped over the back of her chair. Se had ivory skin and long , black shiny hair. She looked at Joe accusingly, her eyes were fierce and dark as ebony.
" About bloody time !"
He said nothing. He took the cash and gave her the paper fold. She opened it and began the procedure. She was dextrous and precise. Joe leant against the wall and watched her in wonder and in sorrow. She was very beautiful.
" If Jason sends you again, don't be so bloody late. I've got a business to run, I've got appointments to keep. "
She looked up at him and saw the sorrow in his eyes. She regretted her harsh words ,
" I'm sorry, I'm edgy. I just need the smack that's all. "
Joe nodded and shrugged his shoulders as if to say he understood, but he didn't. He had never understood Roy being wasted and humbled in a mindless squalor of dirty needles and fixing in toilets and he understood Jemima even less with her wealth and her clean, orderly life. She looked healthy except for the track marks on her arm and the hunger in her eyes.
" You look as though you could do with some yourself. " she said.
She put some powder in the teaspoon with a few drops of water. She mixed it with the end of the needle, then heated the spoon over the lighter.
" No, I never use the stuff. " said Joe.
She looked up quickly, dismayed. She uttered a quick " huh " of disbelief that Joe did not understand, having forgotten his weight loss, faded eyes and pale face.
" Why don't you sit down anyway ! " her impatience had returned and her words sharpened again.
" No thanks !" Joe didn't want to watch.
" Well bugger off then. "
Jemima turned her attention to the teaspoon and Joe went into the living room. It had a light, airy feel to it. Abstract paintings hung on white walls. There were two low settees in soft, white leather and a low, glass coffee table on which her handbag lay open on its side, credit cards and lipsticks spilling out of it.
He looked out of the back window. A black mini was parked in a side street on a single yellow line, a warden stood over it and wrote out a ticket. Joe put his head back round the kitchen door,
" Is that you mini out the back, the black one ? "
" Yes, why ? "
" You just got a ticket. "
"So bloody what. "
The tie was round her arm, she was waiting for the vein, needle at the ready. Joe left her to it. He didn't want to witness her last and lethal fix.
There were black silk sheets on a king sized bed in a bedroom of pale grey that led into a bathroom of dark speckled cork tiles and a sunken bath of jade green. Joe turned on the gold taps and watched the falling ribbons of soft, clear water fill the bath. He undressed, took his cigarettes and lighter and eased himself down into the hot water. He thought that these were the surroundings and the life he wanted when he inherited Clare's three million. So he pretended that this was where he lived and tried to imagine that this was his life. He tried to feel what it felt like, but it felt like nothing and the nothingness frustrated and disturbed him. The more he tried to relax the tenser he became. He chain smoked and let the ash and dogends fall into the bath where they floated and danced on the movements of the water. He got out and dried himself. He was angry because to bathe in hot water in a deep sunken bath was nothing. He lay on the bed and rolled around in the silk sheets, trying desperately to feel the sensations of wealth and luxury, but they only felt cold and slippery and made him cringe. He felt his nerve endings tingle and his tension grew until it was unbearable. He leapt off the bed and dressed quickly. Luxury and good taste meant nothing to him, he couldn't feel life through them, he couldn't feel their worth and neither were they any good to Jemima now that she was dead.
He looked at her dead body in the kitchen. She sat on the chair, her legs stretched out and her head dropped forward so that her long black hair hung down over her face. But for the needle in her arm she looked like on of the mannequins from the shop downstairs that had yet to be properly dressed and positioned.
Joe went back into the living room and took the car keys from her handbag.
Chapter Five Part Eight
The underground sped down its black tunnel. Joe closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts, but they only rattled and jolted with the train and would not be gather. The train stopped and exchanged passengers. Joe saw that it was a quarter past twelve by the platform clock, but he did not know to which day the time belonged. He knew that after this killing there was only one more. He promised himself that everything would be fine once the killings were done. He wished he could be sure of his promise.
The train drew into High Street Kensington station. He got off, walked up the stairs, past the barriers and through the shopping arcade where a million people walked through him, their unfocused images came at him too fast and made him giddy. He got out of the arcade where the low light, shop windows and clean tiles had closed him in. But out in the sunlight and the cold air the flow of air was just the same, they marched on him, stern and forthright while Joe shrank away. The High Street was full of colours, the colours in shop window displays, the colours of the cars on the road and the big red buses, the colours of people's clothes. The colours were too many and too bright, they added to his disorientation. He panicked as a loud whirring vibration came up from behind him. A roller skater appeared from nowhere, a tall slim negro in tight red and white trousers, head phones and a Walkman clipped to his belt. He circled Joe three times and each time Joe saw his own fear reflected twice over in the black mirrors of the negro's shades. Then he was gone and weaving his speedy way up the High Street, twisting and turning, cutting his way through the crowds. Joe's panic dissolved into paralysis and vacancy. His head was light, he forgot his fear, he forgot everything. He waded his way mindlessly up the street, he saw his feet and legs walking, but had no sensation of his own movement and did not know whether he walked fast or slow. He lost all feeling and although he was tense and shaking with the cold, his flesh could not feel it.
He found the door he was looking for next to a fashion boutique. He looked at the nylon haired mannequins in their expensive and fashionable clothes. They did not look back at him, their impassive gaze went over his head and he was glad to be unnoticed.
He pressed the bell marked ' Sutcliffe '. The entry phone was answered immediately.
" Yes. "
It was a woman's voice, sharp and edgy.
"Uh, Jemima ? "
"Yes! "
"It's Joe. I've got something from Jason. "
The door buzzed so Joe pushed it open and went inside. He climbed the carpeted stairs and found the flat door ajar, so he went in.
"I'm in the kitchen. "she shouted.
Joe's feet sank deep into the cream shag pile as he crossed the living room to another opened door from where her voice had come. The fitted kitchen was in marble and black wood. It was spotless. Jemima sat at a glass topped table, her tools laid out in front of her, ready and waiting. A new syringe in a sealed, plastic package, a silver spoon, a gold lighter, a strip of black Velcro to tie her arm and a bottle of sterilised water, all in a line, neat and orderly. And in the middle of the table was the cash in new, crisp ten pound notes. She wore a pinstriped skirt and a black bra. Her blouse and jacket were draped over the back of her chair. Se had ivory skin and long , black shiny hair. She looked at Joe accusingly, her eyes were fierce and dark as ebony.
" About bloody time !"
He said nothing. He took the cash and gave her the paper fold. She opened it and began the procedure. She was dextrous and precise. Joe leant against the wall and watched her in wonder and in sorrow. She was very beautiful.
" If Jason sends you again, don't be so bloody late. I've got a business to run, I've got appointments to keep. "
She looked up at him and saw the sorrow in his eyes. She regretted her harsh words ,
" I'm sorry, I'm edgy. I just need the smack that's all. "
Joe nodded and shrugged his shoulders as if to say he understood, but he didn't. He had never understood Roy being wasted and humbled in a mindless squalor of dirty needles and fixing in toilets and he understood Jemima even less with her wealth and her clean, orderly life. She looked healthy except for the track marks on her arm and the hunger in her eyes.
" You look as though you could do with some yourself. " she said.
She put some powder in the teaspoon with a few drops of water. She mixed it with the end of the needle, then heated the spoon over the lighter.
" No, I never use the stuff. " said Joe.
She looked up quickly, dismayed. She uttered a quick " huh " of disbelief that Joe did not understand, having forgotten his weight loss, faded eyes and pale face.
" Why don't you sit down anyway ! " her impatience had returned and her words sharpened again.
" No thanks !" Joe didn't want to watch.
" Well bugger off then. "
Jemima turned her attention to the teaspoon and Joe went into the living room. It had a light, airy feel to it. Abstract paintings hung on white walls. There were two low settees in soft, white leather and a low, glass coffee table on which her handbag lay open on its side, credit cards and lipsticks spilling out of it.
He looked out of the back window. A black mini was parked in a side street on a single yellow line, a warden stood over it and wrote out a ticket. Joe put his head back round the kitchen door,
" Is that you mini out the back, the black one ? "
" Yes, why ? "
" You just got a ticket. "
"So bloody what. "
The tie was round her arm, she was waiting for the vein, needle at the ready. Joe left her to it. He didn't want to witness her last and lethal fix.
There were black silk sheets on a king sized bed in a bedroom of pale grey that led into a bathroom of dark speckled cork tiles and a sunken bath of jade green. Joe turned on the gold taps and watched the falling ribbons of soft, clear water fill the bath. He undressed, took his cigarettes and lighter and eased himself down into the hot water. He thought that these were the surroundings and the life he wanted when he inherited Clare's three million. So he pretended that this was where he lived and tried to imagine that this was his life. He tried to feel what it felt like, but it felt like nothing and the nothingness frustrated and disturbed him. The more he tried to relax the tenser he became. He chain smoked and let the ash and dogends fall into the bath where they floated and danced on the movements of the water. He got out and dried himself. He was angry because to bathe in hot water in a deep sunken bath was nothing. He lay on the bed and rolled around in the silk sheets, trying desperately to feel the sensations of wealth and luxury, but they only felt cold and slippery and made him cringe. He felt his nerve endings tingle and his tension grew until it was unbearable. He leapt off the bed and dressed quickly. Luxury and good taste meant nothing to him, he couldn't feel life through them, he couldn't feel their worth and neither were they any good to Jemima now that she was dead.
He looked at her dead body in the kitchen. She sat on the chair, her legs stretched out and her head dropped forward so that her long black hair hung down over her face. But for the needle in her arm she looked like on of the mannequins from the shop downstairs that had yet to be properly dressed and positioned.
Joe went back into the living room and took the car keys from her handbag.
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