Letters between M. and Mme. Quancard

My dear Monsieur Quancard,

No word from you for the last few days, and so I am writing to you once more. Can you really not bear to be in this house at all… even to see me? How do you think it feels, sir, to be bound to such a place when our son is not to be seen or heard here? The servants are beside themselves with worry and grief… a fraction of that which I am feeling.

The neighbours do what they can to offer support, but it only goes so far. While I would never presume to challenge your will, husband, I would appeal to your better nature. Allow me to travel to Chartres or the greater countryside if need be and bring our son home! You cannot deny the extremity with which you dealt with this affair.

Answer me, I beg you.

Mme. Quancard

Madame,

Do not mistake that I share not in your pain. The child – our only child – who we raised the right way – betrayed me. I have long held the belief that there is only one way to deal with traitors. I uphold that belief here and disagree when you regard my actions as extreme. And I intend not to return to the house until I deem it free of his pestilence; until I feel I can again walk its floors without hearing his laughter. If it distresses you being there, join me here in Paris. The city air may well be a tonic for you, Madame.

Affection,

M. Quancard

My dear Monsieur,

Has mercy truly deserted you? Can you not even persuade yourself to pen his name? I have surrendered to you time and time again, but in this, I will not concede. If you will not return from the capital to put an end to this, I will do so on your behalf. Jean-Yves cannot have gone far – he knows so little of the country. Chartres will be my first port-of-call and the surrounding towns from there if I am unsuccessful.

You speak of traitors easily, Monsieur… And there may well be one in this family, but it is not our son!

Return or do not return, sir – I would not presume to make that decision for you.

Mme. Quancard

NOW RETURN TO THE VIDEO TO CONTINUE THE STORYLINE.

One more time now — looking behind the writing at the poem I wrote most recently: A Modern Wasteland…

It has honestly been such fun exploring this poem these last few weeks. Definitely going to try to do more poetry, in and around my other writing projects, in the future. But for now, let’s finish off with A Modern Wasteland‘s fourth and final chapter. Titled with my personal favourite line of the four used from The Sermon on the Mount: …AND TURN AGAIN AND REND YOU.

A MODERN WASTELAND

IV. AND TURN AGAIN AND REND YOU

To my little estate I now retire

My sitting-room, my settee

Supine upon this couch I now expire

And muse on how I got here.

They all tell me not to dwell on past failures.

Impossible when all you see around you,

The endless visits from the Duvaliers,

The cards and biscuits – they’re all that’s left

Meanwhile, she’s out there somewhere – the victor with the spoils.

Her crimes were more on par with those of Marion Crane

Than with those of Lady Dedlock.

And yet ‘twas I who was dubbed profane.

A spectral voice inquires, “Could you forgive her?”

“Forgive her? Forgive me!” I realise I’m being an disgracious host.

“Has anyone offered you tea?”

They sit and stare – have I become the ghost?

“Monsieur — Sir Jack and Mr Gibson are leaving,” I’m told.

“Oh God, how rude of me,” I say.

And thus on reality I have an ever-loosening hold,

Lost in this mire of melancholy.

I resolve to sit here in my turban,

My monocle and my cigarette in a holder

And languish here for years uncertain

Diminishing.

It was here that I was really inspired to expand upon the whole poem and turn it into a prose narrative. Oddly enough, the only line where I had to cop out — for lack of a rhyme for “failures” — sealed the deal. That will hopefully settle any queries that anyone has about what I meant by “the Duvaliers”. When I eventually get around to turning the whole Modern Wasteland into a prose piece, the Duvaliers will serve as supporting characters, as will Sir Jack and Mr Gibson (named after two of my best friends – just the latest in a series of allusions I like to include).

Who can pick out the cultural references in this stanza? And what they might mean? Well, for those still unsure, it’s a comparison between Marion Crane, from Robert Bloch’s Psycho (or more specifically Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation thereof where she was played by Janet Leigh), and Lady Honoria Dedlock from Dickens’ Bleak House. Last week, you saw the narrator decide to let go of his failing marriage. Now we learn that, rather than sleep with men she wasn’t married to (as Lady Dedlock did), she embezzled money, as Crane did. Now riddled with grief and almost catatonic with depression, our narrator falls in and out of full consciousness, only partly aware of the visitors who show him support.

And that’s that! Thank you all as ever for your support. More updates and side-projects to come in the new year.

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