Extract from CLARA

Her eyes skate around the park. Mainly men today, for some reason. Hardly likely that such a delicate chain would belong to one of them. Don’t women come to the park at this hour? Ten thirty a.m. Perhaps they’re at work or, if they don’t work, they’re at home cooking, cleaning and washing either plates or dirty laundry. Or maybe not. She doesn’t want to perpetuate stereotypes.

There’s another woman, walking towards her. Well, not towards her as such. In her general direction. But ... she now appears to be passing through the park on her way to somewhere. Doesn’t look like she’s returning to look for her lost necklace. Otherwise she’d have a more frantic or purposeful gait to her walk. Her eyes would be scanning the horizon looking for the patch of grass where she was when her chain fell. Instead, she looks dreamy and slow, as if with every step she’s savouring the memory of something, someone.

Someone.

Her mind goes back to the two butterflies who had been dancing around the daisies earlier. Maybe, before them, two lovers were there, dancing also, lounging in the grass, sleeping, hugging or making love. In their embrace, the chain must have lost its place on the woman’s neck.

Forget who it belongs to. After all, she found it, so it’s meant for her ...

(Cont'd)

***

(The woman in this chapter/extract is somehow connected to the one in the next)

An extract a day (until the launch) from ...

Daisy Chain
A stream-of-consciousness novel by Elspeth Duncan
Launch of e-version:
Friday May 7, 2010
6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
National Library/NALIS, P.O.S.
You are invited.