Rose Leopard by Richard Yaxley Page A

all this could be taken the wrong way?’
    â€˜No. Of course not. How do you mean?’
    â€˜Well, remember your readers. Apart from putting all practising Christians offside, this book has a woman deliberately and maliciously messing up the Kingdom of God. There goes the feminist vote! Worse, the woman is black — dreadful tokenism, Vince! — so you’ve lost the race vote as well. Worse again, you’ve happily gifted her with enormous boobs, described in one hundred and one different ways, I might add, so you’ve cruelled the sex vote too. Vince, you’ve alienated most of your potential audience. The only people who won’t be offended by this … this allegory … are white, masculinist, flat-chested rednecks.’
    â€˜Most of whom can’t read anyway,’ I added gloomily. The muse was, as always, dishearteningly correct.
    â€˜Exactly.’ She nibbled my ear affectionately. ‘So, keep the allegory idea — but maybe it’s time for a re-write?’
    I miss my muse. When somebody close to you dies, everything becomes weird and binary. There is bright light juxtaposed against an utter darkness, a pain which wrenches at your entire system cast against a bleak, nerveless calm. You oscillate: you can be the most sought-after star in the night-sky, observed by all and cosseted by their sympathy; or you can retreat into the soft comfort of memories, shuffle through the mind’s filing cabinet and find moments of joy and togetherness, other snapshots, some heartening, some appalling.
    After the funeral, after my refusal to go to the cemetery, Bernice stayed three days. She drifted around the farmhouse, touched objects that I had always petulantly regarded as ours, sniffled, cooked too much food. We were polite and distanced until the final day, when she came into the barn. I had been intending to clean — scrub walls, pack rubbish in boxes, replace rusty nails. However, there was another job which needed to be done first. Just as I leaned down to pick up the shears a shadow fell over my forearm. I glanced up and there she was, framed against the sunlight.
    We paused for reflection, then I hurled the shears hard into a small wooden crate.
    Tears pricked Bernice’s eyes.
    â€˜Time for me to go,’ she said tightly.
    I said nothing. Instead I took a hammer, placed the top on the crate and began smashing nails into place.
    â€˜Vincent —’
    â€˜I’m busy!’
    I kept hammering, harder than necessary. The banging and ringing echoed madly throughout the barn.
    Eventually I finished. The crate sat before me, ready for disposal. Sweating, dishevelled, angry, I looked up — and Bernice was still there.
    â€˜I … I don’t like to leave the children,’ she told me after a moment. ‘Poor little mites. It’s going to take them — all of us — a long time. Has Francesca spoken to you yet?’
    I shook my head. Outside, some witless arthropod was buzzing in the long thick grass.
    â€˜We’ve been talking,’ said Bernice. Despite her imperious tone there was an unusual quaver in her voice.
    I stood and waited, shifted the hammer between my hands.
    â€˜I know it’s only been a few days,’ she continued, ‘and it’s going to be painful, but Vince, you have to start looking at options. The children will need stability, more than ever. I’d like … why don’t you talk with Francesca? She has some good ideas.’
    I said nothing — because no response was required.
    Bernice bit her lip, hovered closer.
    â€˜I’m sorry to have to say … I could never condone —’ she began but then stopped, as if the impending words couldn’t tell it all, not properly. Even now, I thought, she resents me, resents my disorder, my fractured and immediate lifestyle. I am, I suppose, the antithesis of all that she values — a certain ethical solidity, routines, the innate