Fallen Angel

By Lynne Lexow

Set in South Africa, with all its current problems, Mo Quinn is born into a family with an indifferent mother and an alcoholic father. Although very intelligent, far above average, he has little hope of becoming someone of significance. Yet when life deals him another bad hand, he embarks on a journey that teaches him the tremendous highs and terrible lows of life.
Throughout the story, the reader becomes aware that Mo is no ordinary man, and that he has another quest to complete, a quest not of this world.
We meet the people who become Mo's friends and family, and we also live through their pain and happiness, how it affects him, and how it ultimately brings him to the final conclusion of his quest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496986252

Lynne Lexow

Lynne Lexow was born in South Africa to parents who were both teachers. From an early age she was fluent in both English and Afrikaans and excelled in languages at school. Being from a background where the arts were not considered a career, she opted for a professional career in property management. Now that the children are grown and leaving the nest she dedicates her time to her passions, traveling, writing, reading and painting. To date she had brought out two other novels, had an anthology of poetry published in Afrikaans and writes short stories for South African magazines.

Book preview

Prologue

Anyone seeing the man sitting on the pavement that afternoon would have stopped in shock, not believing their own eyes. His long blonde hair was falling over his face and although his clothes were reminiscent of him having been on the road for a long time, he was engulfed in light by a single ray of sunshine shining on him and him alone, not unlike a spotlight highlighting an actor on a stage.

He had an air of desolation, of being utterly fatigued, yet there was something serene and angelic about him. Yes, that would be an apt description of the scene playing itself out at that very moment.. angelic.

How long he sat there no-one knows and neither would anyone know exactly when he left.

Chapter

1

It does not matter what you believe in, whether you believe in the stork or angels, Mo always believed that he was delivered into the wrong family. His mom named him Mo, not Mo which was short for something, just Mo. It was a reflection of her indifference towards him. Like he told his teenage friends later

It could just as well have been Mo or Do or Re, Me, Fa, So, La, ti…

It was the first sound his mother came up with when she had to name him and the only reason why she even bothered to name him was so she could yell at him in later years.

Mo’s younger sister though, was definitely born into the right family. She was a quiet child who seemed as indifferent to the people in the house as they were to her. As she grew older she kept to herself playing quietly with some sticks or stones and using odd scraps to make all kinds of fabulous things with. To Mo his sister was a stranger, just another body in the house.

Mo was a bright kid, the brightest in his class and throughout his primary school years teacher after teacher came to see his parents, trying to convince them of his brilliance, trying to convince them that he needed extra stimulation, be it extra classes or extra mural activities, but his father, who may have been the one that could have been influenced and convinced was mostly so drunk that he thought it a joke and his mother so self absorbed that she most likely did not even hear what was said.

In High school his teachers predicted that Mo would soon get into some kind of trouble and their prediction very soon became true. At the age of 12 years and six months Mo’s father died, his liver had had enough. At thirteen Mo ran away from home for the first time.

Life in the street was hard for Mo, but he was smart enough to survive. Being a beautiful child as well as clever, he manipulated and charmed people into giving him food or money and sometimes even shelter, and all without getting into trouble. The stories he told were so incredible that it sounded credible and most people believed every word of every yarn he spun.

On a quiet Saturday afternoon however, when the hunger was turning his stomach he made his first error of judgement. He accepted an offer for a milkshake from a clean, decent looking man. The man then proceeded to invite him home to watch movies with him and with the promise of a decent meal, he willingly accepted and thus he had his first sexual experience.

He felt dirty and degraded and rather than buying food he used the money the man gave him to buy a bus ticket home. In his mind anything was better than what he had just lived through.

Exactly a year since the death of his father and exactly six months after he left home, he walked back in. Nothing much had changed, his mother greeted him as if he had just been off to school for the day, his sister was listening to music on her walkman and barely looked up at him. One thing had changed though, there was a new man in the house.

Anton was a qualified chartered accountant, who, due to some shady deals he pulled for some rich and influential client had turned to doing some creative bookkeeping for certain small businesses in the area. Anton did not drink, did not smoke, but was paranoid. He was forever hiding from an ex-client whom he believed was looking to kill him and the government who wanted to lock him up for fraud.

After being back at school for a year, Mo again scooped all the academic awards at the end of his grade nine year. Certificates and silver cups which he hid in a box at the bottom of his cupboard. It was the best of times (as far as Mo was concerned) and the worst of times as it was also the first time that Anton abused Mo.

Mo was watching television when Anton walked up to him and started kicking him, telling him what a useless piece of @$** he was. Anton also started slapping Mo’s mom around, who have by then started where his dad had left off. Mo’s mother was so drunk by mid morning that she hardly ever left the house anymore, yet Anton would accuse her of being disloyal to him, splitting on him to the neighbours and his pursuers and she was too drunk to deny the accusations.

It was three weeks and two days after receiving the awards at school that Mo tried to prevent Anton from hitting his mother by swinging a cricket bat at him. That same night he ran away from home again.

Chapter

2

He woke up at Germiston Station cold and wet as it had started raining during the night. He had not eaten anything in a day and a half. Although he was only fifteen Mo was already six foot tall, thus needing more sustenance than his peers.

Mo took off looking for a bathroom where he washed his face, brushed his teeth and raked his fingers through his longish blonde hair. Though he had no money he set off looking for the first fast food joint he could find. Within half an hour he was back at the station opening a lovely take-away meal. Yet another family succumbed to another one of his incredible stories.

Although he felt better with a full belly, he realised that the weather would not change for the better soon and decided to try and find a proper bed to sleep in that night.

Mo did not know it at the time but his uniqueness, the event that was the beginning of the rest of his life was, about to take place.

About one and a half city blocks away he saw the house. It could have been described as early Victorian. It stood out amongst the grey semi-industrial buildings surrounding it. Mo’s fifteen something year old brain did however not question or notice its strangeness. He approached it with all the bravado of a teenager.

He noticed the woman watering the pristine garden immediately. She looked so serene that he was hesitant to disturb her. He decided to cross the road and wait, not even knowing what he was waiting for. Mo must have fallen asleep where he had propped himself up against a wall because his next awareness was that the woman was no longer there, the skies have cleared and judging by the position of the sun it was either late afternoon or early evening. To Mo all this meant nothing at the time as he prepared himself to approach the house.

He could hear the doorbell echo through the house but heard nothing else, no television, no music and no voices. As he was about to leave, cursing himself for falling asleep and not watching the house catching the people before they left, the door was opened. The woman in front of him was in her mid forties (he knew this because that was his mother’s age) and had the most striking blue eyes he had ever seen.

He launched into his tale no 97 – yes, he numbered his stories in his mind and have long ago worked out which story worked in which scenario. Without hesitation the woman invited him in, at the same time inviting him to follow her to the dining room for supper. As far as Mo could see the house was immaculate, however, the dining room stunned him. The crystal glasses on the table, the chandelier hanging low over the table, cutlery, crockery, everything was shiny. To Mo, who had burgers in front of the telly all his life, this was something from the pages of a storybook, luckily one he had read otherwise he would not have known how to behave at a table such as this. Mo, also, never had a meal like this before. The first course soup was delicious and he could not help himself and wolfed it down.

For the first time the woman’s husband spoke up.

Slowly young man, there’s still much more to come. For the first time Mo studied the man. He looked more or less the same age as his wife, wore rimless glasses and was clean shaven. Mo smiled at him and slowed down.

The next course was the type of meal Mo had many a time dreamt about and something he had only ever seen in friends’ homes. A lovely beef roast, glistening with tasty basting, vegetables of various sorts, roasted potatoes. Mo was so fascinated that he could only stare. The woman kindly started dishing up for him. By the time dessert was served Mo was convinced that he had died and gone to heaven.

The meal was hardly over when the woman invited him to follow her. She showed him a bedroom and bathroom that he could use. His last thought before he fell asleep between the clean and fresh sheets was that this was the home he had always wanted.

He woke completely rested and content. Going downstairs he found the house completely quiet. Not sure whether it was appropriate to call out he opted to peek into every room downstairs. The lounge was tidy and quiet, no magazines, no newspaper lying around, the dining room was tidied and immaculate, not a thing out of place. It looked like a photograph from a magazine. Walking into the kitchen he was surprised to find it almost sterile, not a dirty cup, no coffee brewing in a percolator. It actually surprised him that there was no smell, it was hard to believe that such wonderful food were served from this kitchen only a few hours before.

Being unable to find the occupants, he took an old school book and pen from his backpack, ripped a page from the book and wrote a thank you note which he left under the sugar bowl in the kitchen.

Wishing he could stay there for ever, Mo knew instinctively that life had something different in store for him and that he had to move on.

Chapter

3

Johannesburg Station was a better bet, there were more people around and at nightfall there were even some kids getting ready to bed down for the night. Yet instead of feeling comforted by their presence Mo felt uneasy and sure that this was one place where he did not belong. For one thing, he was definitely not interested in sniffing glue or petrol and could not join in the giggling. He was also hungry, his last meal having been the one he had the night before. He had seen some of the other children scratching in dustbins, but up until then he has never had to go that far and he was determined not to ever do it.

Mo was not keen on venturing out into the dark streets of Johannesburg, but as if his empty stomach was not motivation enough one of the children decided to relieve himself against the wall only a metre or so away from Mo.

The flashing pink neon sign of a restaurant was a welcome sight. The smells coming from the door every time it opened was enough to cause Mo’s stomach to summersault. This was not a fast food joint, at which Mo found it easy to score a meal (the food was relatively cheap, there were families with children of their own..), but a posh joint and the patrons mostly couples dressed in their Sunday best.

Before Mo could