Page 6

Venn, the architect, let slip at their first meeting that he was appealing to the pipedreams of the nouveau riche. Parnell didn't like it.
"Venn, don't pin upstart labels on me."
He was damned if he'd have his preferences vulgarised by that kind of association. He took his hurt pride to the developer.
Experience taught Parnell gratitude. Developer Burr was a short-change merchant, Venn an honest Quaker. Burr milked
Parnell's complaint and gave Venn a hard time but the man bore no grudges; he took his peace from God.
An uneasy October wind quickened the cascade of leaves from flittering trees. Parnell delighted in the display of autumnal colours even as passing thoughts caused unease.
"Your sisters shouldn't be caged-up with your Grandparents. Too many war industries in Bristol. I'm bringing them back whatever your mother says."
Rory enjoyed his own silence. Parnell recalled father-son bonding in his own teenage years; Rory was sympathetic. Not so long ago he'd fought street battles with mates to back an assertion his father was a hundred years old. Nearing the family's timber-gabled pile the boy's expectations rose and his questioning curiosity latched onto every new detail. He knew his dad was about to unwrap tangible proof of his uncanny survival in a hostile world; he'd long disowned his mother's tales. She had played no part here. Whatever had saved the family from drowning in the 'shitty midden of their father's making' clearly she was not involved. Lately her bitter asides were tinged with doubt, as if she was being prompted by a fair-minded God. A morning outburst had ended with the confession that she couldn't change the world.

"I never missed an eisteddfod as a kid."
Parnell pointed to stunted shrubs among sad trees, "I can see in those shapes a gathering of bards."
Rory's sharper eyesight dismissed his father's twilight fantasy.
"The Bard never said a wiser word when he declared that life's sound and fury signifies nothing." He fidgeted to relieve aching shoulders. "Damned street life has caused arthritis."

Rory had enjoyed poverty and its freedoms. Gang pride empowered hungry kids and his mates, all in the same boat, nicked from shops to acquire the small luxuries of life. Now that dad could pay for cakes and sweets they hardly seemed worth the eating and what had he gained from wearing unpatched trousers? If 'life's sound and fury' was no longer threatening might it not get boring?
From autumnal coppices the composting stench of organic decay drifted through the car's half-open window and Parnell absently brushed his coat lapel. Olfactory memory revisited battlefields and corpses abandoned in trench mud - his spirits slumped. This latest domestic upheaval crowned his career and justified the risks he'd taken but the joy was tempered by the knowledge that he was chained to the wrong woman. He couldn't explain to Rory that the marriage had failed because his exquisite bride was a frigid harpy. Against instinctive caution he'd sought relief outside marriage.
And he'd found good women, no match for Gladys's beauty, but he was not a celibate and needed sex to stay sane. He'd admit no fault to God.
Rory was growing restless.
"Son, you asked my views on death the other day. You suggested I ought to be an authority after surviving war. In war, death is meaningless. Whole armies die. When death is commonplace, sentiments die. I've stood beside mass burial pits honouring friends with my mind on good food, pretty women and Swansea sunsets. Soldiers fear slow death but a bullet in the heat of battle can be sweet relief. Religion invents the notion of salvation and given time to think we die fearing God's wrath. But living is mostly risk, sin, guilt and pain - always will be."
Rory shifted uncomfortably.
"Mum says the old house is full of foul secrets. She blames you."
"It's deeply seductive for women to hold themselves blameless. They hide behind gender as well as petticoats. Men don't have that luxury."

This is a page from Milk and Honey by Gerald Moore, available for purchase from Lazarus Press.

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