WHAT MEETS WHAT

“I turn into my heart. I look into it, trying to see myself. Or is it perhaps to see you in me. I try to understand myself. Understand why you abandoned me as you did. Now I can see you from afar off. Far out in the distance. There you are. A tiny figure, like a model from a toy army, gazing back at me. Stock still. Solid. Unmoving and unmoved. Caste in painted tin. Brittle as toffee.”

Patricia was lonely now. More lonely than she had been since her years at boarding school, those years in Broadstairs during the second world war. She had promised herself back then that once she was grown she would break free from the pain of others: from her mother. Her silent father. Mrs Hesselmire. Veronica, her best friend.

But it was all coming back to greet her now at the other end. A long way off.

“Charlie.” She had told him on his last visit. “You were my sweetheart. We fell for each other long before no one else would have us. When we were firm, ripe for eating, desirable.” He had looked at her impassively as though he had already made up his mind. “I remember the first time you touched me Charlie.” She had continued regardless. “I don’t mean like that.” She corrected herself just in case he was thinking of that first night in his digs. “Not felt me. But just touched me. You… Well, all at once you became enthused by something you were saying and like a girl put your hand on mine for a second to push home the point, to express yourself more forcefully. Like a girl.” He shifted slightly, readjusting his bulk on the red plastic chair. “My heart leaped just a little, partly from excitement and partly from dismay.” She remembered it all as though it were almost now. She looked out the window, seeing it all again. “It was only then that I realised my feelings for you. It was only when I feared you might be one of those that I recognised the feelings I possessed in my heart.”

The room was cheap and nasty and in need of repair. The staff wore civvies so one could not easily tell them from the patients. There was this though: they would follow those who suffered from certain psychoses ceaselessly about to insure no self harm. They would peer down through small viewing windows to check that those who felt the unending pain of paranoia would not become so distraught as to require further medication. One of the chairs was torn and some of its foam filling had been picked away, piece by piece. Another had an unfortunate stain.

“Hold your hand up to me my love.” She had requested. His large hands remained where they were but it was no matter. “No.” She continued unconcerned. “See there? There is no glow. No halo. You are not one of those chosen ones.” Charlie started to think about how best to make his exit. “You are not one of the special people I meet sometimes on the streets. Like the cobbler near the corner of Chestnut Grove. Special beings. Agents of God in their own way. But I loved you none the less, despite your weaknesses. Despite your arrogance, stupidity and violence. I loved you because you were handsome and I was beautiful back then. And that is what people did, and still do I suppose. Pointlessly. Without shame”

He had taken that last insult as his queue to leave and eased himself slowly to his feet.

She passed her hand idly over an ashtray and watched as the dust responded to her magnetic forces. They seemed strong in her right now. She lifted her palm and the security door on the other side of the room clicked open in response. Someone entered. Casually she got up and walked across the room. Eyes from every corner watched but she focused her mind and their thoughts turned away from her. She became almost invisible. Her departure went by unnoticed. She stepped through the door, down the stairs and out into the open air below.

Gower Street was empty a minute, waiting for the lights to change at the Euston Square end. Patricia stood there patiently waiting for the next onslaught to come.

Words 729

LETTER TO AMERICA [draft]

Dear Frank

I must admit that the first I knew about the coup was when Shaun Rafferty was cut off in mid stream to be replaced by the Brandenburg Concerto. I naturally supposed it to be one of their occasional ISDN line hitches which carries BBC Radio 3 outside broadcasts. For all I knew it carried live studio broadcasts as well.

Need I even say I had no idea that the pleasant strains of Handel wafting through my living room, were coming from a secret broadcast centre somewhere under the Chiltern Hills. While I sipped on some remicrowaved mulled wine left over from a party the Saturday before, crack SAS troupes were attempting to secure the transmitters for the previous Government.

To be brief, the philosophy had always been that so long as the great unwashed never got to know about it, all was not lost. It turns out that this was the fourth attempted coup against the elected British Government since 1976. And now, the first successful one.

Get one thing clear: up till now, or yesterday, this was so secret as to be well beyond top secret. The information was not classified as such, as it was never actually written down. Whenever such events occurred a brief outline was formulated of what had occurred and what agreements had been reached to pacify the situation. This ‘document’ was then committed to memory by the essential players. All others were forbidden, potentially on pain of death, to speak of the affair again.

Away with all that however: it is history. Now all this information has passed into the public domain. We have gone from being a constitutional monarchy without constitution, to a constitutional monarchy with one. At least that is the plan. Several different constitutions are being drafted even as I type which we will get to vote on within the next two months.

Before almost anything else and with immediate effect we already have our first constitutional right and that is a far reaching Complete Freedom of Information Act which was passed earlier today. The Complete Personal Freedom Act is also to be passed early tomorrow. That will strike the death knell for all those illegal drug pushers and pimps. Organised crime will not like this at all, especially as the death penalty is to be reintroduced for heading up mafia style organisations.

Being a little different than before, in future the Executive will be appointed by a slightly expanded Privy Council, which will continue to advise the Queen as normal. The House of Commons will be elected by the people, as it is now and continue to act as a barometer of public opinion. The Prime Minister will have a fixed eight year term to coincide or slightly lag behind your American Presidency and naturally will be appointed by the Privy Council. From now on, all elections will be by proportional representation. The House of Lords is to go. Titles however will be bestowed by the queen in the usual manner. Carpet knights will abound.

Shot in the arm for the Brits, what! Now that there is complete freedom of information it is naturally more or less impossible to claim that something is not clear or fully out in the open. Therefore what I’m about to say is kind of mad and purely due to my own muddleheadedness, but though I’ve switched channels and been glued to BBC Radio 4 for the past day and a half, I’m still not clear who was behind the coup. I may need to metaphorically scrub this last para in the next day or two as the Complete Freedom of Information Act comes fully into force, so do commit to memory.

Save for a few doubters I think most people feel this is a step forward. Very much hoping to see you in person alive and well in the very near future.

Me and all the family are well. All my love and warmest thoughts.

Nick.

P.S. Had a bit of a code but it’s clearing up now. I’m taking ‘Lemsip’ capsules which are the ‘first word’ in cold cures.

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