“Is this a towel?” Lyra asked pertly
“I have no evidence either way.”Annie announced.”Where did you get it from?”
“That big blue window”replied the rosy blue cheeked girl ironically.”It may be a curtain”
“Oh,dear.Have I erred?” she pondered.
“No,you look very clean to me,though one can never be absolutely certain.” Anne said thoughtlessly.”I suppose all one can do is to keep the dirt between certain parameters that each must decide for themselves.The Tudors only bathed once a year. And King Henry Vlllth founded the Church of England just so he could get a divorce from himself,not to mention a little gold too.”
Lyra worked for a publisher in Oxford Street,They were always on the look out for new titles and for money.
“Would you ever consider writing a  self help book,Anne?”
“You can make a good deal of money that way.Self help is in Vogue now. I was thinking of:How to divorce yourself in three easy stages using self hypnosis.
We already have :How to found your own Church.” and “How to steal somebody else’s Church in three steps.”
Anne was keen to get an interest as since killing her husband for his money,she was feeling lonely,remote and schizoid, and her affair with Stan was proving a bit slower to take off than she had narcissistically expected.
“I am already a unqualified hypnotist.”she lied intensely.
Just then they heard a strange crash.Stan had been standing on his Habitat chair trying to eavesdrop on the women’s conversation,and it had fallen apart under the weight of his hiking boots.He lay on the carpet looking pale with blood running down his aged head.”Can you ring 999 please ?” he yelped .
Lyra looked at the chair.”No,Dad it’s o.k.I can fix this with some U.H.U glue.I have some in my purple tote under all my medication.
She whispered saucily to Anne,”I’ll text you tomorrow,my darling angel.Love the dress.”Lyra was a trans sexual lesbian paramedic you see,as well as a publisher’s clerk and also did not have other intriguing money making jobs into the bargain as the English say now and then.
Mary was in the kitchen finishing off her baking.She lived in a world of her own mainly focussed on her second hand Raleigh small wheeled shopper bicycle and its wicker basket that she bought in East Anglia or, to be exact,in Wells-next-the sea.It was now grey but still functional like many other towns in Britain and their inhabitants.She put the cheese scones and butter onto a large elliptical plate and went into the dining room followed by Emile her cat ,who was partial to a knob of butter on a Sunday teatime.
Where was his sister Emily he wondered?And so do we