Despite her diminutive 5'2" frame Louisa Harwell was a force de jour with a seemingly unbreakable spirit. Blessed with a natural charm, it left anyone who came into contact with her feeling that despite everything that's clearly wrong with the world, maybe it wasn't such a bad place after all if people like Louisa existed. She gave people hope. Louisa was the lighthouse that stopped you smashing into the rocks and being sunk on the darkest, stormiest of nights. Usually all it took was her beacon of a smile to make even the most guarded and jaded of people lower their walls and let her into their inner sanctuary. Your life instantly felt better when she was in it. She was the extra spoonful of sugar in your tea making everything feel sweeter.
If she had a pound for every time someone asked how tall she was, which is actually to say how short she was, she'd have been a very rich woman. Despite her lack of height Louisa wasn't one of those women who gave the metric answer and then added what she'd be if she wore heels. That's because she had a penchant for Converse high tops in the spring and summer and Doc Martens in the autumn and winter. Between her feet and a pair of high heels, to quote Rudyard Kipling never the twain shall meet. Alongside her uniform choice of footwear invariably she'd be seen sporting dungarees over a blue and white striped horizontal striped sailors t-shirt or something equally as practical. You're not going to open her wardrobe and find she's started dropping five large on a Hermés handbag, let's be very clear about that.
Louisa had a smile for everyone she met irrespective of whether she knew them or not. Hate wasn't a word in her vocabulary, at least not when it came to people because she didn't have time for hate. Maybe a few minor irritations here and there but definitely never hate. Despite being 26 years of age she was wise beyond her years. Somehow she managed to escape the trap of labels that the rest of the world seems so desperate to bestow upon everything with their invisible label maker. Whilst everyone else was mentally attaching those black strips with the embossed white letters to everything and everyone they saw, to Louisa people were just people, things were just things and… well you get the picture. No concept of fat or thin; young or old; black, white, brown or yellow. None of this mattered to Louisa. If you didn't like her she didn't take offence, didn't harbour a grudge, didn't take to her diary at the end of each day to bemoan perceived slights and injustices against her. Sure some women threw her daggers, jealous of the male attention she received despite looking like she'd spent five minutes getting ready to come out. Then they'd hate themselves at the end of the night for wishing ill against someone who turned out to be really, really nice. Few things in life turn out to be as worse as when you judge a book by its cover, discover how wrong you were and having to spend the next few hours wishing your head hadn't been shoved so far up your own arse in the first instance.
We'd all learn an awful lot from Louisa if we stopped to take the time. It seems too easy to suggest the world would be a better place if we all started to become more like her, but that's exactly what it would be. Everyone, no matter who you are anywhere in the world, needs a Louisa in their lives whether they care to admit it or not. She'll tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear, which isn't most people's cup of tea, but like a 5’2” female Derren Brown she'll leave you scratching your head at how you've come away richer for the interaction and as to how you've not been offended when others would have left you seething with the same message. You somehow feel like you've been part of something magical and special. The NHS should hire her to train their staff in the delicate art of delivering bad news but somehow leaving you feeling that things could still be much worse.
You can choose your friends but you can't choose your enemies as the old adage goes, so choose Louisa because as Irvine Welsh would have told you if he was ever lucky enough to cross paths with her - you'd be choosing life.
In short, no slight intended in respect of her height by the way, Louisa is the sort of woman you should be taking home to meet the parents.
Max Harwell on the other hand, younger brother of the aforementioned Louisa wasn't cut from the same cloth. At four years her junior his outlook on life seemed to centre on one thing, namely his current path to self destruction. Maximus Aloysius Harwell to give him his full name as it appears upon his birth certificate wasn't a beacon of light, he was the ship on the sea heeding no attention to the lights warning him about the rocks. Max was too busy listening to the sirens sat on the shore singing him to a tragic ending with which he would be all too happy to oblige. Despite being the tender age of 22 and not long into adulthood Max had no taste for life. He didn't even have the drive to make it to the 27 club and join the illustrious list of members' names that included the likes of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Curt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. If meeting Louisa warmed your soul and left you smiling, then a meeting with Max often left you with words like fucking and arsehole escaping from your lips be it under your breath or with an intense use of vocals. Mostly those two aforementioned words were coupled together beautifully as they left people's mouths like they were the vocal equivalent pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Aiming them dancing Max's way felt right.
Max didn't leave you smiling after five minutes in his company. Even the most placid of people found themselves wanting to smash his face in with the nearest inanimate object they could lay their hands upon first. Ironically this would have suited him just fine but sadly despite all the bluster no one ever did as if a mental switch clicked inside everyone's minds that getting banged up for twenty years for having killed Max would never be worth it despite it being all so tempting to do so. Despite his best efforts Max hadn't managed to make someone finally snap enough to put him out of his misery though it wasn't for lack of trying. Neither had he managed it through the copious amounts of narcotics he'd put into his bloodstream through every conceivable orifice that was available to his body. He was Eyeball Paul on steroids. If by some minor miracle he made it to 27 it would surely be without his nasal septum currently being corroded by his expensive cocaine habit. If Jarvis Cocker had a time machine he could well have been writing about Max when he wrote the line about being sorted for E’s and Whizz. You name it, chances are he's taken it. The A-hole stupefied in a K-Hole.
His parents had expected great things from their son. If ever the names given to a newborn were an indication of that then Maximus Aloysius's were exactly that. Maximus after the Roman Emperor Aurelius and not to be confused with Decimus Meridius the fictional Hispanic gladiator played by Russell Crowe in the 2000 film Gladiator though you could be forgiven for thinking so given he was born two years after its release. Aloysius meaning 'famous warrior' or 'glorious in battle.' Maybe his parents had gotten something right with his middle name considering his confrontational style which resulted in a battle of sorts with everyone he met and his willingness to take on any sort of drug he was offered head on without any fear of the consequences.
Max is the sort of man you should never admit to your parents that you even know let alone have them meet.
Comments
Post a Comment