When writing of cruelty it is impossible not to recall King Lear, the cruellest scenes of all. A play filled with birds and insects; small things feeding off other small things, tearing them to pieces. It only needs a few bites to take out their eyes. The nervous system is frail, and our hearts, more diminished than we think. Take that out and what have you left?

After she left, Dorothy went back into the garden. She wanted to gather herself. Edith’s news was intended to be a warning; a shameful finger pointing back at her vanity, her folly, her little experiment. Nothing had happened, nothing at all, but the woman had deliberately provoked her.

        Dorothy sat and considered the cruelty of it all. The man was nowhere to be seen, as though banished. Perhaps he had overheard, but no, he wasn’t one to listen in. That poisonous woman! Like all those women are if you peel them back. Sister Marguerite, vicious as a serpent; she’d eat out your heart if she could. Slapping your face in the morning with a wet towel and cackling with delight; the gums in her teeth all showing, her face pressed up against you.

Dorothy loathed cruelty, especially in women. Somehow, she thought it more reasonable in men; there was more need because atrocities pushed them to it. War, storms, floods, famine, more war --- Dorothy was vague on violence -- but she knew it came in animal form and distorted the soul. Best to banish it.

She crossed the lawn towards the back steps and passed through into the dining room. Henry had opened the French windows that morning. Thoughtful Henry, always for her these openings. She gripped the handle, then the back of the chair. She felt sluggish; her feet filled with granite, stone. A heaviness was passing over her, lead in her stomach. She froze and held onto the table edge; pointed her fingers towards the door. They were sticky, and she was sweating. Her head was swimming, but she could see his face. Brown and covered in leaves emerging from the topiary --- he’d been clipping back her hedges --- leaves scattered across his head. He brushed them off. Pan in the undergrowth looking for --- she couldn’t say, but she knew it wasn’t her. End of the summer and he was moving on. Oh how people loved that phrase! To move, to move, to move on.

She pushed against the table surface. So smooth and silky, someone had been polishing. Janet? No, she hadn’t been back for a few days. Henry. She must stop him, really, she must. Bring Janet back; they couldn’t go on like this. Henry wasn’t made for such things; or was he? He seemed content, it was her who was not. It was she – Dorothy Elizabeth Fortescue – who could not manage the world as it was, as it is. Herself. She saw her face in the mahogany surface and glanced away. Not now, she didn’t want to look now, better not to know how far it had settled. How far down he had gone, plunging under the weeds, swimming inside her belly. She gripped her stomach; her hand was warm, her pulse thudding. Something was wrong. Where was she?

Her dining room.

There was the ivy fluttering against the window. It was fluttering across her eyes – what was it --- a moth, had a moth got in?

A brown streak ran across her face, frilly, lacey, crimped edges. A moth with lacey legs, what was it, legs dangling? She could not see. Something against her cheek, tickling, swiping, what was it? She must move, lift her legs, cross the sands. Filling up around her ankles, warm pools of sand. She was on the beach. There were rock pools. Hilary was there. They were shouting and laughing. Hilary’s mouth was open imitating birds. Cormorants, shags, the birds that flew along the coast and swam beside them. Dolphin birds. Dark beaked birds, mouths firmly closed, skimming alongside them.

Hilary was pointing, she liked to point. Somehow, she managed to point and swim. How did she manage it? Dorothy never knew, but Hilary was always in control. A sensible girl, everyone said so, while Dorothy was more fey. How would she survive life? Where would she go? What cliff would she hang herself from? She was no chough bird. Glossy black plumage, red legs, bright red beak alone on a cliff top liked to remain unseen. Granny had taught them all the birds. The choughs that wing the midway air show scarce so gross as beetles. She remembered, birds wheeling along the cliff tops, they liked to look up from the sea and wave. Hilary liked to caw. Granny had taught them well to imitate the birds. In case you should ever need to take flight. And Dorothy pulled herself up and lurched towards the dining room door. The heat had got to her, she would have a lie down; later she would go to him.

(POND LIFE: A STORY OF BIOGRAPHICAL EXTINCTION): a fictionalised biography in progress.