Y - Sexdeathhaiku

"Aren't you cold in that?"

"I'm absolutely freezing."

"So why don't you change?"

Colette struck a match, touched it to her cigarette. Angry orange burn.
Her hair hung in coils. She wore a green kimono, underwear beneath.
Cotton with no frills. She was almost skeletal, but pretty with it.
Post-heroin chic, a cadaverous allure, like a mannequin. Colette wrote
fiction; erotic books for women. Shopping and fucking. It was ironic -
she did little of either. She smoked a lot though.

"I can't keep awake, not when deadlines are looming. Being cold helps
me." Cliff looked sceptical. Outside the Hancock chalet, winter in
Lausanne - snow like white icing, nosebleed-inducing vistas, clusters
of tall pines.

"You just like to tease," he said with a well-worn leer. Cliff was her
agent. He was twice her age. He wanted to sleep with her. He liked her
stories. He probed her on them. He asked which bits turned her on.
Colette hated him. "Where's Simon today?"

"He's gone AWOL yet again." Colette exhaled smoke. "I can't control
him. He was on the craps table, wasting more money. It's not even his."
Cliff grinned and sipped his coffee. "I get so worried. He's a loose
cannon."

"Your Dad will cut him off soon," he reassured her.

"I can only hope. Better than an early grave."

"So about the book&;#8230; what's holding you back? Creative juices
stifled?" Clifford stressed juices. She scowled inwardly.

"I'm trying to write haikus."

"What the fuck are they?"

"It's hard to explain," she told him evasively. It wasn't of course,
not to smart people. She just resented crassness. "They're little
poems. They come from Japan."

"The name kind of rings a bell&;#8230; whatcha need them for?"

"As chapter headings. The story's set in Japan - don't you
remember?"

"Sex is sex is sex, whatever country it's in." He shook his bald head.
"This isn't Shakespeare." Cliff had never read the Bard, and Colette
knew it. "What's so difficult? Couldn't you do without them?" She let
out a sigh.

"They've got a set length - five beats by seven by five. That's the
classic form." She inhaled slowly. "They need a 'season word' too, or
it's not haiku, it's a senryu."

"How much longer will it take?"

"I couldn't tell you."

Cliff got to his feet.

"You have until tomorrow," he told her flatly, and left the
chalet.

She stubbed out her cigarette, turned on her laptop.

* * *

Sleet-dappled snowscape

Warm imprint in bed sheets, split

By a single pane

* * *

Things became strange then. Colette received a phone call, some three
hours later.

"Ma'moiselle Hancock? Je suis Agent Balladur."

"Il y a un probl?me?" Colette's chest grew tight.

"Il s'agit de votre fr?re&;#8230;" She felt her heart sink.

"D?sol?, monsieur. Il est irresponsable, mais tr?s jeune aussi-"

"Vous comprenez mal," Balladur interrupted. "Votre fr?re est
mort."

They'd found his body, lying face down in the snow, pockets stuffed
with cash. He'd had a big win, stayed up drinking until three, tried to
stagger home. It would have been dark, Agent Balladur told her. He must
have got lost.

* * *

It wasn't Simon - as she later discovered - but one of his friends, or
more precisely, a guy he had befriended, whilst drunk at the bar.

"I don't understand," Colette said with a vexed frown. "They thought it
was you."

"He stole my wallet&;#8230; it had my ID in it."

"He picked your pocket? Right there in the bar? Didn't anybody see?"
Simon's cheeks went red. He lowered his gaze.

"That's not quite how it happened." Colette looked at him. He was
breathing fast.

"What are you hiding from me?" Simon wrung his hands.

"It's hard for me to&;#8230; He had a room at the lodge. He asked me
back there&;#8230; so I went with him." He glanced up at his sister,
gauging her response. "I'm sorry Colette, I can't help myself
sometimes&;#8230;"

"It's okay honey. I do understand." She threw her arms round his waist.
He began to sob.

"What if Dad found out? He'd totally disown me." Colette squeezed
tighter. "I'm so sorry sis&;#8230; I keep on fucking things up. I
get so lonely."

"It'll be all right&;#8230; things are going to work out. I'll take
care of you." As the two embraced, snow began to fall outside, and the
trees shivered.