Being Light 2011 Read Online Free PDF

Sylvia had a vision in her head that she was shining and metallic and swift and hard like a silver arrow. The other reminder is the high wire and the net she stretches in the garden sometimes, just to practice, just for old times’ sake. It was as well for Roy she was feeling sentimental the day he flew overhead because the net probably saved him from breaking his neck as he fell.
    In her twenties, Sylvia sometimes thought she didn’t need sex if she could eat fresh bread every day instead. In her late thirties, with cupboards full of flour and yeast, the time and patience to bake every day, and a man who has dropped from the skies to be her companion, Sylvia is pleasantly surprised to find she doesn’t even have to choose any more.

    Mrs Fitzgerald is at home with a cup of black coffee. It is late but she is still working, straining her eyes as she bends over the paper trail she has amassed in her latest investigation into animal welfare.
    Animal welfare is of such great interest to young people in Britain that it has been estimated that at any given time, up to fifteen per cent of casual workers in zoos and circuses are undercover agents working for animal rights organizations. Although the elaborate concealment of fragile miniature video cameras can occasionally restrict their capacity for heavy work, the majority of them can make themselves useful with a spade. Given declining ticket sales, it’s doubtful whether the zoos and circuses could survive without the contribution made by these young people.
    Following her seminal report about the circus industry, published to wide acclaim ten years ago and credited with being in part responsible for growing public distaste at the spectacle of performing animals, Mrs Fitzgerald is acknowledged as something of an expert in the field of animal welfare. Mrs Fitzgerald’s current investigation aims at the heart of the supply of performing dogs and other animals – to Mrs Latimer. Mrs Fitzgerald is not the sort to arm herself with a pair of dungarees and a pitchfork to monitor the daily care and feed of the animals. Reports from America suggest that Doris Day has been visiting the new homes of dogs adopted from their local pound. She rakes her film star fingers through the animals’ fur looking for fleas and she goes into the owners’ kitchens to check on the freshness of the water in their drinking bowls, although whether she tests this by actually drinking the water is not clear.
    Mrs Fitzgerald does not operate like this. In the first instance, she asks the questions and tracks down the answers from her office and her home in Brixton, visiting the suspects’ premises in person only when she needs to collect forensic evidence.
    Mrs Fitzgerald has checked Venetia Latimer’s animal balance sheet; elephants in, elephants out. ‘Where has she hidden that elephant?’ Mrs Fitzgerald asks, over and over again. There is one elephant that has not been accounted for.
    Mrs Fitzgerald looks into the accounts and assesses the quality and supply of feed, the integrity of the relationship with the supplier, the regularity and nature of medical care, the turnover of staff and the provision of training. She enquires into the pressures created by client expectations; she collects anecdotal evidence from past and current employees. Mrs Fitzgerald is a professional investigator, with all the resources of her profession at her fingertips. Mrs Latimer is a professional animal trainer, treading the fine line between discipline and cruelty. As Mary Chipperfield once famously remarked of an elephant in her care, ‘I’m not beating it, I’m encouraging it with a stick.’ If Mrs Latimer crosses the fine line, Mrs Fitzgerald will find out. Mrs Fitzgerald cares very much about animals.

    In Paradise , Sylvia is dreaming about the circus again. On special nights like this, images of the twentieth century’s greatest and most dazzling aerialistes and high-wire performers thread through Sylvia’s