[I have finally gotten round to writing another section of 200, which follows the Bella/Bell(e) character backwards through her life.  Here is half of it.]

Bell at Seven Part 1

Flashing back through Bella’s life,

the regression moves back over

the rekindled late-coming

love, sweet jubilation in

her jubilee, skip in step

over solstice cornfield and

stone-strewn ancient meadowland;

*

back at sixes and sevens,

fresh out of the faceless old

sanatorium and straight

into care in the local

community, benefits,

and back on methadone and

the streets fishing fish ‘n’

chips out of newspaper in

bins out the back of the chip

shop, cheeky chappy, chip on

the shoulder off the old block

in tow;

*

back through therapy

in a half-way house half way

through three score and ten, putting

sun-yellow acrylic paint

in sunflowers rimmed with black

crayon surrounded by wire

and chains, accepting badness

and sadness and constraint and

still seeking the sweet exit

of depth in this shallow world.

*

Two times fourteen now and it’s

time February’s girl made

up for what she lacks in good

judgment and wisdom and self-

awareness with spirit and

exuberance, and for days

lost to the leap year: snakebites,

V&Os, brandy chasers,

Rizlas, Peter Stuyvesant,

Embassy, Malboro, crack-

pipe cough and track lined forearms,

and promiscuity in

rock fest toilets and smiley-

faced little pills, stretchered out

of the stone-circle like some

Eurydice half way back

from the land of the dead, earth-

bound like that Farsi-chanting

Persephone for the want

of a pomegranate seed.

If her life were a figure

of speech it would be zeugma,

non sequitur, a constant

rolling of dice in quantum

space: alea iacta est.

*

Back to coming of age, key

to the door to Wonderland,

two pills and a spliff in one

fair lace-gloved hand, and a hunk

of iced red velvet birthday cake

on the other hunched over

Rilke’s Duino elegies,

no angel in between her

final cramming for exams.

*

“Orwell was wrong on language;

Lewis Carroll and Ludwig

Wittgenstein had the right idea.

Nothing makes sense: it is all just

a game,” the trendy English

Literature teacher with

the blond ponytail avers

to his class of teenage girls

down the Seven Sisters free

house after Top of the Pops.

1984. Some look

old enough to nurse grown-up

girlie drinks, while others take

thoughtful sips of lemonade

and notes they hope will help with

their Jane Austen homework. Belle

puts Sweet Dreams are Made of This

back on the pub jukebox for

the umpteenth time. “When Jean-Luc

Godard dreamt up the nouvelle

vague, I don´t imagine he

had Spandau Ballet in mind”

*

Belle lets down her long blond hair,

leafing nonchalantly through

this week’s NME and an

unthumbed copy of Dr.

Jacques Lacan’s Écrits. The air

is sweet with rum punch, Gitanes

and Scritti Politti. She

sighs; kicks off her mum’s shoes. Her

lipstick touches his.

*

                                   Mum and

Dad ‘send’ each other the same

Xmas card every year and

lion and unicorn lie

down together in peace through

the wardrobe she thinks. As they

drive back home from the family

planning clinic, in silence,

through the driving rain, wipers

clear way through the pathetic

fallacy of unshed tears.