The View From The Window

Flora could climb the door frame.

    She had seen Joe do it, and now she could do it too.

    She learned to push her hands hard against the wooden jambs on either side, then lift her feet one by one to do the same. Holding her arms strong, she could climb right to the top - like the chimney sweep’s boy she had heard about who climbed the flues in Offord House. Flora could not imagine such a thing: climbing the dirty stonework in the dark chimneys, brushing the soot down as he climbed, soot falling in his face, in his eyes and mouth - and the sweep below shouting up at him, “Faster, boy, faster! There are seven others to sweep before y’are done.”

    She could hang like a spider in the top of the door frame. From
there she could see out through the kitchen window, across the yard, over the valley to Offord House which sat upon the hilltop like a tiara crowning the town, dressed around with cedar trees and pines. Flora loved it when snow fell and blanketed the whole town, and it looked as if all the houses were wrapped in ermine with charcoal black smudges for windows. And Offord House was like the palace of a great snow queen. But then Flora’s arms would tire and she would drop like a cat to the floor, and go and curl up by the fire and hold Lucy, the rag doll Aunt Glad had given her, and whisper stories into her ear.

    Father grew worse with the snow. The fires were lit and black coal smoke hung heavy in the air. He coughed in the mornings when he sat up in bed. Flora could hear him as she broke the bread crusts into her warm milk. It was as if he could not stop. She was glad when mother told her to step out and feed the rabbits and hens. She could hear him still but the animals took her mind from him and let her smile again. She breathed misty clouds into the brisk air and traced her finger along the ice ferns that glazed the kitchen window.

    When she came inside again Mother had gone upstairs to him. She could hear the creak of the bed springs and the soft murmur of her mother’s voice as she talked to him in soft breaths. She could hear her father struggling to swallow down the vile infection, and then the wracking cough once more. Flora sat on the bottom step of the stairs and picked at the splinters of wood on the edge of the tread.

    Mother came down again when he was calm, but her face was ashen.

    “Will he die, Mother?”

    “Don’t ask such things, girl.”

    “But will he?”

    “‘Tis not for you to consider such things. Now get off to school.”

    As she walked down to the school house, Flora counted the icicles that hung from the porch of St Mark and St Matthew’s. Flora could add numbers in her head. She could read and she could draw. She would one day, she hoped, go to work in Aunt Glad’s shop - folding up the handkerchiefs, or lining the shelves with paper, straightening the gloves or re-rolling the ribbons when they were unravelled. She would prepare the orders for Arnold to deliver on his bicycle, package up the lacework and damasks, the bobbins of silken thread and parcels of pearl buttons. Working in the shop would give her ‘standing’. She knew that, she had heard Mother talking to Aunt Glad about it. To work in the shop would give her standing and Aunt Glad said she would consider it, but not until Flora was fifteen.

    “Fifteen?” Flora complained to her mother. “How can I wait so long?”

    “You’ll wait, if you’ve any sense, girl.” But Flora could hear the disappointment in her mother’s voice.

    In January, Father was worse still and could not work at all. And though Mother took in laundry for Aunt Glad and some of her customers, and cleaned the schoolhouse on Fridays, and although Joe sent money home from time to time - times were hard and money was scarce.

    On Saturday, Mother told Flora to put on her best dress - the dark grey one with the lace bib - and to clean her shoes.

    “Are we going to Church?” said Flora

    “Not today, girl. Not today. Now hurry. It won’t do to be late.”

    Mother gripped her hand tightly as they walked. Down past the church and the schoolhouse and into the market place. The snow had turned to brown slush and Mother kept on at Flora to mind her shoes. They climbed Angel Lane and passed the Museum then out along Cranbrook Road and on towards Offord House. Flora felt her heart racing - she had rarely been this far before, except in her mind. In her thoughts she had walked the length of the great stone wall and stood before the great iron gates. And the great iron gates had opened to her and she had walked between lines of footmen who bowed before her as she passed, and the maids who curtsied low, and up the steps to the magnificent front door through which came a fine lady dressed in jewelled crinolines with snow white hair piled high upon her head.

    Flora’s mother pulled at her hand.

    “Come along, girl!”

    Today they did not stop at the great iron gates. They walked straight past and on to where the wall turned a corner and opened through into a stable yard at the back of the great house. As they walked into the yard the stable boys paid them no mind at all. Mother stopped a moment, then led Flora to a small black door with a brass bell pull. Mother pulled on the bell and Flora could hear a distant jangling. Mother turned to her and pulled her collar straight and tucked her hair behind her ears.

    “Speak only when spoken to,” she said, “but then mind you do.”

    “But...”

    “Hush now.”

    The door was opened by a young man in a white chemise, powdered wig and breeches. He led them down a stone-flagged corridor to a room with a glass-paned door upon which was a brass plaque bearing the word “Housekeeper”. The young man knocked. Flora could see a grey-haired woman sitting at a desk, writing.

    “Enter,” said the woman without raising her eyes.

    Mrs Gateley stood Flora in front of her. She held her shoulders between her thumbs and fingers.

    “Stand up straight, girl.”

    Flora felt her mother straighten her own back, behind her.

    “Show me your teeth,” said Mrs Gateley.

    Flora clamped her teeth together and stretched her lips back.

    “Hmm,” said Mrs Gateley.

    As Mrs Gateley continued her examination of Flora, Mother spoke quietly to her of Flora’s accomplishments. Mrs Gateley sniffed.

    “Well she'll need no reading here,” she said. “Be here at six o’clock on Monday morning. Bring underclothes but nothing more. You will work for Mrs Dunbar in the kitchens until we discover any aptitude. You will be known as Sarah, for the sculleries are always Sarah.”

    “But what about school, Mother?” said Flora as they walked back down into the town. “And what about Aunt Glad’s?”

    “Needs must, when the Devil drives,” said her mother.

From the window on the landing of the servants’ stairs, Flora could look out across the town - down past the Museum and over the market place. There was St Mark and St Matthew’s - there the schoolhouse - and there, as the road climbed up out of the valley, she could see the rows and rows of cottages. And there in that one, that fourth one along, she knew her mother would be sitting on her father’s bed and stroking his hair until his coughing ceased.

Prompt: the view from the window

Home and Away

“We’re thinking, Dad... We’re thinking of moving.”

Christine watched her father’s hands as he washed the cups. Suds clung to his fingers as he lifted the dripping cup from the bowl and rinsed it under the tap. His wedding ring glinted through the bubbles.

“Oh are you?” he said, taking another cup and running the dish-mop around the inside. “Well I hope you’re not going too far.”

She felt a cold grip around her heart.

“You need to be in striking distance,” he said, “so I can keep an eye on you, eh.”

“Perth, Dad.”

“Perth? What do you want to go there for? Can’t say I know it really. Your mother and I stayed a night there on the way up to Orkney that year, but I can’t say I... we didn’t see much of it really, you know, just went to the b’n’b and straight off in the morning...”

“No, Dad...”

“We went for a stroll by the river - that was lovely actually, but more than that... Why? Has John got work up there or something?”

“No, Dad, it’s not...”

“I mean it’s not close but, well, I suppose it’s on the train line up through, eh... I mean Scotrail was pretty good, I seem to remember, but...”

“It’s not Scotland, Dad.”

“What..? Course it is, it’s what... fifty miles north of Edinburgh, isn’t it... something like that. We were driving then of course. I wouldn’t drive it now mind, not with my back...”

“It’s Perth, Australia, Dad. Western Australia. John’s family are...”

“It’s what? No, no, no, it’s definitely in...”

She saw the realisation cloud his eyes as he looked at her. He looked back at the bowl of bubbles and the cup slipped from his hand and splashed back into the bowl. Soapy water splashed onto the front of his shirt.

“Damn! Damn fool thing!” he said.

Christine reached for a tea towel from the radiator and tried to wipe at the wet shirt.

“Here, give it here,” he said, “I can do it.” He snatched the tea towel from her. “Damn fool thing!”

Christine grabbed the roll of kitchen paper and tore off a length. She squatted to mop at the pool of water on the floor.

“What are you... Leave it, will you, just leave it!”

“Sorry, Dad, I was just...”

“Leave it. I’ll get the mop in a minute. I’ll do it... Just ... Just... why don’t you go through. I’ll bring the tea in a minute. I won’t... I won’t be a minute. You go in’t room, I’ll bring it through. Do you want a biscuit?”

“No thanks, Dad.”

“I went to the VeeGee, John’ll want a biscuit... I bought a pack of... You go through and make sure he’s not mucking up the settings on the TV. I’ll be through in a minute.”

Christine popped the pedal bin open and dropped the kitchen towel into it. She turned and slipped out into the hall. She felt the tightness in her throat. Her cheeks burned red beneath her eyes. She couldn’t face John straight away. He was happy enough flicking through the channels on the television.

As she reached the sitting room door she stopped.

“I’m just popping upstairs a moment, love. I won’t be a min... there’s something I’ve been wanting to find.”

John was sitting on the sofa. He didn’t respond. She watched him for a moment looking from the TV to the remote and back again. He pressed a button and suddenly the volume boomed for a second before he found how to mute it again.

“John? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah... sure... whatever.”

She started to move towards the stairs but he hissed to stop her.

“Hey, Chrissie,” he whispered, “did you tell him?”

“Yes.”

“Is he, you know... how did he take it? Is he ok?”

“I don’t think...”

“He’ll ... give him time, he’ll get used to it. Did you mention ... you know...?”

“One thing at a time, John. One thing at a time.”

She climbed the stairs and was instantly engulfed in her childhood. While Mum and Dad had made many changes to the house downstairs - the kitchen extension, the French doors from the dining room - since Mum died nothing had changed. Upstairs they hadn’t even redecorated. The brown stair carpet, the textured wallpaper on the landing - the very air of the house felt unchanged, still, thick with the memory of dust and central heating. The towels hanging on the landing banister to dry - that slight odour of moisture from the bathroom, not damp but... used. The afternoon sun threw a certain glade of orange light from the frosted bathroom window out through the door and onto her bedroom door. Here was the ceramic plaque bearing her name that Dad had put up on her sixth birthday when she and Cicely finally stopped sharing and she got her own room. “Christine” in black cursive writing on a pink background with little primroses and bluebells framing the word. She fingered the dent in the door that Dad and Uncle Kev had made moving her new bed into the room. How mad Mum had been.

Christine stepped into her bedroom and cast her eyes around the familiar shelves: her childhood books; her collection of ceramic animals; the peacock feather in the heavy-based glass specimen vase. She glanced at the shade on the lamp, decorated with teddy bears dancing and hugging each other; the string of fairy lights strung across the wall above the bed; the array of stickers gleaned from her youthful magazines and stuck randomly across the headboard. She sat on the bed for a moment, felt the strange silence of memories crowding through her heart.

A noise from outside broke in upon her consciousness. She stood and walked to the window and drew back the curtains. Her father was stood in the garden, his hand resting on the bike shed. She couldn’t see his face but, silently, his shoulders were shaking.

Me reading 'Home and Away'

prompt: baby thoughts

In Place Of Sorrow

In place of sorrow he grew a crust of incivility, a shell of resentment that most whom he encountered found difficult to navigate and ultimately, almost inevitably, walked away from. This proved to him without a doubt that he was unlovable and that they, whoever they might be, were inconsequential and irritating.

There was lodged within him a grizzled heart made from gritted teeth, clenched jaw, and snarling lip. He could picture it - the scar across the nose, the dragged lines around the forehead. This was his heart, woven from leathery sinew, not pumping blood but rather spitting venom into his veins. He knew this creature - it bought him solitude, preyed on the charity of others, stole their generosity, seized it and belittled it in the same moment. This monstrous heart hated love and kindness and beauty because these feelings showed him how he was wrong with him. His heart judged and closed down the world, spat at it, sneered at it, until it became redundant - worse than redundant - worthless, despicable.

The letter sat unopened on the mantelpiece for three days. A handwritten envelope. This implies that a human had generated it. He could tolerate correspondence from machines because it justified his world view - machines, computers, corporations simply wanted to take from him. This he understood. The taking was clear, unambiguous, unsullied by emotion. He used electricity, they took his money. It was logical.

But this - a cursive script outlining his name, his location... someone’s hand had done this. Someone who knew his identity, where he lived, who had some information to impart or some request that they wished to make - someone who needed something.

It could only cost him.

To open and read the letter would cost him - he would have to allow his mind some form of engagement in the task, to summon some sort of energy. Enthusiasm - no, never that. He would have to be prepared to receive information - to open himself, and receive. What if this information affected him? How could it not? It already had.  Whatever this information was that this person wished to relay to him, would demand a reaction, a response. His world would be altered in some way, threatened, challenged. Tectonic movements may take place. It would be safer to leave the letter there upon the shelf, unopened - safer still in the bin.

He took the letter from its resting place leaning against his father’s clock. He picked it up gingerly between finger and thumb, his other fingers spread to avoid contact. He carried it into the kitchen, placed his foot upon the pedal of the bin. Pressed. Waited until the mouth of the bin was fully open, dropped the letter in.

An hour later, he rose from the armchair beside the bookcase in the sitting room and went back into the kitchen. He had not been able to concentrate on the BBC Four documentary on the fire bombing of Dresden. The letter had leached its poisonous, demanding presence into his thoughts. He looked at the bin. He depressed the pedal again and peered into the black plastic maw. It had slipped from view.  He reached in, moved a plastic bag aside and spotted the letter slipped beneath it. He gripped the protruding corner and drew the tea-stained envelope towards him. The paper had absorbed liquid, tea, and the ink had run, softening the edges of the characters, blurring them together. It brought an irritation.

“Dah, stupid...!” he said.

He picked up a tea towel, dabbed at the envelope but simply made it worse. The wet paper began to crumble and roll under the contact of the cloth. His fingers detected a disturbance on the underside also - he turned the envelope and discovered drops of tomato sauce and a single baked bean, remnants of his meal from the previous evening. He found the mess intolerable.

“No, no, no...”

He wiped at his fingers and then at this reverse side.  As the cloth moved across the surface it lifted the corner of the sealed flap, a small blistered opening, an invitation to a fingernail to enlarge it.

“Damn you,” he said and slapped the letter down upon the counter. He knew now the letter would be opened.

“Not yet, you bastard.”

He took the kettle from the hob and filled it at the tap. As the water ran he looked through the kitchen window across the overgrown patch of grass that some would have called a garden. Through the fence at the bottom he could see into the neighbouring property. Two boys were running around, chasing a ball probably, although he could not see their faces - just bobs of hair over the fence top and flashes of a yellow t-shirt and a red one, glimpses as they passed gaps between the panels. There were shouts and laughter, too.

As long as the ball didn’t come over the fence he could tolerate these boys. He had been aware of them since they first moved in, without ever truly seeing them. He had known they were there and were growing up, but as children they were less of a trouble to him. It was only as people got older that they became heart-poisoningly annoying and intrusive. Men, women - all of them just out to take from him, to steal his peace with their knocking on the door and offering to shop for him. “Fuck off!” He would never say it, but he breathed it in as he waited for them to leave him alone.

Suddenly the whistling kettle penetrated his consciousness. He turned, and flicked the gas off.

“All right, all right,” he muttered.

And there on the counter - the letter.

“All right, all right!”

He crashed the cutlery drawer open and took out the butter knife he had sharpened to an edge. He slid the round point under the lifted flap and slit the letter open across the top.

With fingertip and thumb he withdrew the folded page within. He lay it on the counter - he would not be rushed. But the paper immediately found drops of water that had fallen unnoticed from the kettle filling.  Blots appeared at the corner and rapidly spread across the field of white. Fearing the ink would once again suffer, he lifted the paper and shook it.

“Damn! Damn you!”

He opened the folded page.

Again the cursive script - younger, female perhaps.

Sender’s address at the top right hand corner - Well, that’s not something you see much nowadays.

Underneath the address, the date - 22nd May 2017. Taken nearly three weeks to get here, he thought. He picked up the envelope again and studied the postmark - 19th May. Oh? Someone had forgotten to post it maybe - or didn’t know whether they should.

Who was this? At the bottom of the page, a signature and printed in capitals beneath it KELLY HARRISON.

Harrison... Harrison?

Just read the damn thing, he thought.

Dear Mr Sanderson,

You don’t know me, so I hope you will forgive my writing to you, but my mother, Mrs Evie Wright (née Harrison) gave me your address. She feels it is time for me to introduce myself, and so do I. She told me about you and how she now feels bad about how she treated you when she left with her baby - your baby - me, in 1981.

She hopes you might find it in your heart to forgive her after all these years. And so do I.

A Messy Job

He could hear her through the wall.

Singing.

She was some species of Christian he decided, because it was nearly always hymns. Good old fashioned hymns... Now Thank We All Our God... Onward, Christian Soldiers!

He remembered them from his schooldays, although he probably hadn’t set foot in a church since then. But on a Sunday morning, more often than not, he’d hear her through the wall. Singing.

It became part of his Sunday morning too, along with the bells from St Anselm’s. 10.15 they’d start, just when The Archers started, and he turned the radio off. Bells calling people to the service at 10.30. ‘10.30 Holy Eucharist’ - he’d seen it on the noticeboard - followed by ‘11.30 Coffee and Chat’. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than that, Coffee and Chat, with a bunch of do-gooder Christians. Oh no. Trying to get him to come along, hold hands or something, making up wishes to some nonsense in the sky. No thank you. No Coffee and Chat for him, thank you very much.

But he liked to hear her singing through the wall on a Sunday morning - that didn’t feel like nonsense. That felt like something real. Somebody feeling something real inside - like a sunny memory. And it touched something real in him - like Nana singing when he was a boy. It didn’t really matter what the words were, he could hear that something in her voice. All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small... And did those feet in ancient times...

He could hear her when he was in the kitchen too. Well, he could hear her moving about, turning on taps, opening cupboards and drawers. He wondered what she was cooking. Water in the pipes. Kettle on. Water rushing down the drain. The washing machine spindrying. Sometimes he could hear her kitchen radio - Two Counties Gold she listened to - he recognised the jingle. She’d sing along to that, too. All the oldies - Gerry and The Pacemakers, Glen Campbell, Nat King Cole. Actually, he preferred sensible talk, not the nonsense they gabbled between songs. He could hear the presenters joking with each other. That wasn’t proper radio. It’s like the listeners weren’t even there - just these two smart alecs having a joke with each other and chatting about rubbish.

And the music. It took up too much space in his head. He couldn’t think with all that noise going on. No. If it wasn’t sensible talk then he’d rather have silence.

But he didn’t mind hearing her sing along to the radio. That was different. Like Nana used to. Kind of comfortable. Reassuring. Even when she couldn’t remember the words and just made things up that sounded like they might be right. No. He didn’t mind hearing her singing along through the kitchen wall. He found himself tapping his foot when he was washing up. Sometimes he’d turn off the PM programme while he was sorting his tea out, so he could hear her better. His knife chopping the carrots would slip into the rhythm of the song. He’d stir the soup in time to the chorus.

She’d been living next door a good few weeks before he actually saw her. Then he did see her one morning setting off for work. About eight thirty. Younger than he thought she’d be. In her forties, maybe? Hard to tell. She was greying, but not grey. Silvering. Nice smile, though, he thought. Good teeth from what he could see. They looked real. Although they could be dentures. That might put a different spin on things. Mother had had all her teeth out when she was forty. Save on the dentist bills. Just easier, she said. Did people still do that? No, he didn’t think people still did that. Did they?

Good nose. Not too small. Little bit crooked but that didn’t matter. His was, after all. Everybody’s nose was a little bit crooked if you looked closely. Unless they’d had a nose job done. Then they looked odd. Straight. Or like a pixie. No better a bigger, crooked nose than one that had been messed about with.

She was a handsome woman. Not pretty, no. Not a conventional beauty by any means, no, but handsome.There was a grace about her. Grace? Well, a straightforwardness. She moved with spirit as she walked down the road. A generous spirit, that lit up her face. Attractive. Definitely attractive.

Maybe he should pop round one afternoon. Take her a house warming gift. A plant or something. He’d think about it.

He ought to get a haircut. And a shave. Yes.

He thought about a house warming gift. But couldn’t think what the best thing would be. And then it seemed like too long after she’d arrived anyway. And it’s not as if she had come and knocked on his door had she. Although maybe she had and he hadn’t heard. Or he’d been out. Oh dear, he didn’t want to seem unfriendly. He hoped she wouldn’t think he was stand offish. He could be a friendly neighbour. As long as there weren’t too many demands. He’d feed her cat if she needed him to. Did she have a cat? He wasn’t sure. But if she did.

He found himself standing more often in the bay window at the front of the house, at different times of the day. He found it was a very convenient place to stand with his coffee in the morning. At about eight thirty. Every morning. During the week. He’d often see her leave the house at that time. Coat on over some kind of uniform by the looks of it. Nurse, maybe, or a carer. Definitely a carer rather than an authority figure like a police woman. Not that. She looked like a carer. Someone who cared for other people. Yes.

She looked very smart. He hoped she didn’t think he was stand offish. Perhaps he should still pop round and say hello. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. It’s never really too late to be neighbourly, is it. Perhaps he should bake a cake and take it round. No perhaps not. That would be a little too forward.

He would often stand in the window, too, at around a quarter to six. He’d take a yellow duster from the kitchen cupboard and dust along the windowsill. Pick off the dead flies and pop them in the waste bin. He wanted the place to look nice. If she happened to glance in. Tidy. Clean. He liked things tidy and clean. He could look after himself after all. He wasn’t needy. He didn’t need help.

Or he would stand there and drink a cup of tea. He decided it was a good place to stand and drink a hot beverage and watch a little of the world. And often he would see her coming back along the road just then with a carrier bag or two. Lidl. If he was honest, he preferred Sainsburys. But wasn’t that a lot of shopping for just one person? He could see she struggled with the gate and all that shopping. Perhaps he should pop out and help her. She’d done some shopping yesterday. And now here’s more. All for just her? She didn’t seem overweight. Perhaps some of it was cat food. Although he hadn’t seen a cat. And he’d never seen anyone else in the house, or come to the house, or leave the house. He never saw anyone, a man or anyone, come to the house to collect her to take her anywhere in the evening. Or at the weekend. No family ever came to visit her. No children. Perhaps she was lonely. Perhaps he should pop round one weekend and see if she wanted to play cards or something. Or was that a little too presumptuous? Yes perhaps it was.

He found himself wondering about her as he cleaned his teeth. Wondering what her story was. Widowed maybe? Oh how sad. She’s only young to be widowed. Cancer probably. Or divorced. Oh dear, yes, maybe divorced. That put a different complexion on things. So she was married but she couldn’t live with him, or he couldn’t live with her. Couldn’t stick at it, though, and work it through? That’s disappointing. When people can’t stick at it and work it through. But then maybe it would have been for the best. Maybe he was abusive and she was just better off out of it. Like Nana with that bastard of a man. She stuck it out too long and look where that got her. Nana should have known from the outset really. But times were different then.

Or maybe she was lesbian. No. She couldn’t be. She was too attractive. She often had lipstick on in the mornings. And besides she was a bit too old for that sort of thing.

She seemed happy though. Content. She’d smile at him when she saw him there waiting. With his cup of tea. She’d give a little wave perhaps. No, she definitely wasn’t lesbian. Sometimes she’d do a little face to show him how heavy the shopping was. Or what a tiring day she’d had. Or that it was cold and that it looked like it might snow.

Sometimes she’d mouth a question at him - Are you ok?

Me? Oh yes I’m fine, thank you. How are you?

Tired.

He couldn’t hear her properly. Not through the double glazing. But they’d smile at each other and were neighbours for a moment. And she’d fish out her key and struggle with her shopping as she unlocked the door. Then she’d give him another little wave as she pushed the door shut with her bottom. He’d just get a little glimpse of the inside of the hallway when the door trapped on something. Something on the mat. Letters. Post. Circulars. There was a lot of post on the mat. A lot for someone who lived on their own. Why didn’t she pick them up? Was she too busy to pick them up? How busy do you have to be not to pick up your post from your doormat. Even if it is just to put it in the blue bin. Was she untidy? Was that the problem? Was she one of them hoarders who never threw anything away? Is that why her husband left? She was so untidy he couldn’t stand it any more and left. So that was why she was on her own.

He hoped she didn’t think he was being rude, by not going round. He would feed her cat if she asked. But he wouldn’t offer. Not yet anyway. But if she asked. Although it would be tricky to find everything if the house was so untidy. Poor cat. Probably hungry if it wasn’t getting fed regularly. Perhaps he should buy some cat food just in case. Just in case it came looking for something to eat. No, he’d better not interfere.

Besides he’d never met one of her type before. He wouldn’t know what to say.

prompt: Messy job

Electric Tomatoes

3^rd April, 2020

Me, reading A Messy Job

The Last We Heard

They’re late, said Connie

Fashionably, said Mike

Typical, said Connie, flicking the switch on the kettle again. She slid the tea tray onto the counter and loaded it with cups, milk jug, sugar, a plate of fig rolls.

You wait, she said, she won’t apologise - it’ll be some hold up somewhere. Something about the one way system or something, you wait.

Mike went back through to the lounge and dropped onto the sofa. He picked up the paper, folded it back on itself then reached out a hand and picked a tortilla chip from the bowl on the coffee table.

Don’t touch them, snapped Connie from the kitchen.

What? said Mike

Those tortilla chips. They’re for later.

I didn’t.

Yes, you did. I can hear you.

I can have one - I only want one.

Leave them alone. And don’t lounge about, you’re messing the covers.

Oh, for f...

The train pulled into Bengaluru station and was immediately surrounded by peddlers, young boys selling watermelon slices and mangoes, girls hawking spicy dalls, lassi in old yogurt pots, puris and bananas. Older men had bags full of mobile phones. Women were selling sunglasses and scarves made from old sari material, packets of sweets, some of which she recognised from home, others with gaudy wrappers emblazoned with incomprehensible Hindu script. The noise and the heat and the smell of the city assaulted her. She felt her heart race. She grabbed her rucksack from the overhead rack and pulled her cotton neck scarf up over her mouth.

The aisle was already jammed with passengers trying to disembark. After a month in the country she had learned to assert herself and demand her space among the thronging travellers. Even as she did so though she felt a hand on her bottom as she pushed past an elderly gentleman. She reached behind and pushed his hand away, turned and looked scathingly into his eyes. He smiled lasciviously at her and licked his lips. She felt the urge to lash out but pushed on past and allowed the flow to carry her down the train to the door.

On the platform, she closed her ears to the clamour, avoided eye contact with anyone and resisted the hands holding out their wares as she made her way through the crowd.

At last, said Connie, as she heard the car door slam outside. Get the door, Mike, they’re here.

Mike was already in the hall.

Connie heard them greeting each other as he opened the door. She dried her hands on a tea towel, checked her hair in the reflection of the glass-fronted kitchen cupboard, brushed her hands over her hips and breathed.

Come through, Kat, she called, I’m in the kitchen.

She heard her sister noisily double-kissing her husband.

Mwah, mwah, Michael, sweetheart. Ooh, you’ve put on a few pounds I see. Well, why not, eh?

It’s just puppy fat, Katrina. Besides Connie likes my love-handles.

I’m sure she does, darling, I’m sure. Don’t mind me. I love a man with an appetite, don’t I, Derek.

Derek didnt respond, he was still at the car handing the suitcases out onto the pavement.

Connie felt the bustle of the woman approaching down the hall, heard Derek talking to Mike behind her.

You all right, old bean?

Fine, Derek, just fine. Just leave them by the stairs, we’ll take them up in a minute.

Put on a few, have you? Too friendly with the beer, Mike, eh? Need to get down the Virgin Active, Mike - a bit of cardio, weights, get them abs back. That bloody one way system's a bit shit, isn't it?

Connie, my darling!

Kat was in the kitchen, arms outstretched demanding her sister’s embrace.

Hello, sis. Mmm, you smell nice. What’s that?

Oh Conn, I’ve discovered this heavenly website selling vintage perfumes. It’s absolutely delicious. This is a 1956 Hermés - it’s divine. I’ve only got 5 mils and it cost a fortune but I just love it!

How can you buy perfume online? How do you know what it smells like?

Oh, you’d be amazed! Amazed! People who know write reviews and they’re so brilliant ...they can just describe it absolutely, like fine wine... and you just get to trust certain vendors, you know. So if they like something you just know you will too. It’s sooo addictive. Don’t tell D, but I’ve spent an absolute fortune. But better that than alcohol and drugs, that’s what I say. I’ll send you a link, darling, you’ll absolutely die!

Tea, Kat? said Connie.

Have you got any lapsang? I’ve just got really into it, we don’t drink anything else at home, at the moment.

No ‘fraid not. Builders or Earl Grey. We cater for both ends of the social spectrum here.

Oh, Connie, you’re so funny, I forget! Oh well, we’ll slum it and go for the Earl Grey I suppose. With a slice of lemon. I’ve discovered I’m lactose intolerant.

She scoured the map in the Rough Guide and, feeling less than confident, left the station by the main entrance and out into the street. The air was thick with car fumes and the smell of drains, burnt rubber, stale spices, frying onions. She swung her rucksack off her back as she took stock. A rickshaw driver shouted at her from the rank of waiting vehicles.

Missy, missy - you need hotel? I take you hotel? Good price, missy. Best price. I take you?

She had no time before the man jumped into her hesitation and came running over. He placed a hand on her rucksack strap.

I take you, wherever you want to go. Hotel? Guesthouse? I take you my cousin place - very clean, no fuckers. I take you. Safe place. You come.

She looked at him. His hand on her bag - but he wasn’t pulling. Not physically anyway. He waited. She felt...OK? It would be easier than trying to find somewhere herself. The Rough Guide was proving somewhat out of date. Well, it was nearly twenty years old. She’d only brought it because Dad had insisted - he’d found it useful.

Where is this place?

Salliban Street. Very good place. Clean. No bugs. No fuckers.

What did he mean ‘no fuckers’? No fakirs? She should walk away, shouldn’t she? No fuckers, what did that mean?

My cousin, he good lady, he good cook. Keep clean place. Good place, no..

No fuckers, yes, I get the picture.

So the cousin was a woman, was she? Right. Did that make a difference? Yes she had to admit it did. If he was telling the truth, of course.

Salliban Street?

No, no Salliban Street.

She couldn’t tell the difference between her pronunciation and his. But then...

Oh, Sullivan Street.

Yes, yes, Salliban street.

She checked the map again, but couldn’t find it.

How far is it?

Five minutes. Five miles. Five kilo.

How much?

Ten rupees.

Ten?

Eight. Eight rupees.

Ok.

Five. Five rupees. Come I take you.

She looked into his eyes to find her trust. He looked back. Was it there?

How’s work, Connie? asked Derek.

Oh you know - same old, same old... understaffed, underpaid and overworked.

It must be dreadful having to go to that awful place everyday, said Kat.

Well it’s... it’s not awful. The kids are great.

So depressing, said Kat. They can’t pay you enough as far as I’m concerned. So glad I’m past all that. Derek’s had a big promotion, did I tell you? Fortunately! Don’t know how I’d cope otherwise.

It’s more of a sideways move actually, said Derek, but it’s a bit more dosh. Every little helps, as they say, eh Mike.

Yes, indeed, said Mike.

Yep, every little helps.

How’s Cybil, sis? asked Connie.

Oh, don’t ask, said Derek.

Cybs? Oh she’s still off on her travels somewhere. She went to Oz and was working on some organic farm or something. What did they call it, Derek?

Woofing.

Woofing - yes, that was it.

Working on an organic farm, explained Derek.

Right, said Connie.

God knows why anyone would want to do that when you’ve got the whole of Australia to explore, said Kat. Then she spent a week in Thailand and a week in Vietnam of all places. Then the last we heard she was going to stop off in India and find herself for a bit or something. That was a couple of months ago though... She was going to Jaipur, then Bangalore... but we’ve not heard much from her since she got there. But that’s so like her!

Maybe found more than she bargained for, eh Mike, said Derek. She’ll probably turn up with an Indian husband... or a girlfriend, Heaven forbid.

Don’t you worry about her, Kat? said Connie.

Me? Worry? Oh she’s a big girl. She can look after herself. We always brought her up to trust her instincts and shout loud, didn’t we, D.

Oh yes, yes, definitely, female intuition and all that malarkey.

A Disappearing Act

Dr Gwendoline Trowell had the capacity to disappear.

Whenever she found herself in the company of more than four or five people she discovered it to be desirable to reduce her presence to such an extent that she might slip away and not be missed by the gathering until they, by mutual consent, decided to part from each other.  At this point there would be a general questioning as to where Dr Trowell might be - did anyone see her leave? One thought perhaps she might be in need of a lift home as the weather had certainly ‘come in’ this evening... And eyebrows would be raised and shoulders lightly shrugged as each member would quietly mumble of their ignorance of her whereabouts.

Dr Gwendoline Trowell never felt comfortable amid such gatherings, be they friends, so called, colleagues or even family. She was one who preferred her own company and found it difficult to accommodate the needs of others - the questions they asked, the responses they required. Small talk was anathema to her. She would lower her voice to a barely audible level, shorten her answers to a phrase or a word and finally an ‘I don’t know, to be sure...’ by which means she would leave her interlocutor adrift in a sea of unknowing, dissatisfied hesitancy. They would start to find their clothes itching and their attention drifting to the lie of the nose hair within their nostrils; their eyes seeking someone else’s, anyone else’s, across the gathering in the hope of more stimulating, rewarding conversation.

Dr Trowell, an intelligent, quietly articulate and informed woman, found she did not require herself to present her acquired knowledge for public scrutiny. Some acquaintances might describe her as introverted, some might say withdrawn, nay, aloof. However, she felt no necessity or desire to defend herself against such judgements. Despite her intelligence she was deliberately, resolutely free from opinion on most matters and consequently lacked any social ambition to present a case or argue a point.

Despite her best efforts however, it was with alarming frequency the Dr Gwendoline Trowell found herself in such circumstances. Being the sole physician within this small community she was regarded with the same degree of respect and honour in which her predecessor Dr Nightingale had been held. She was judged by many of the towns more prominent movers and shakers as an integral member of ‘polite society’. She would be invited to any and every meeting called in the name of some local issue - the inadequacy of street lighting; the lack of receptacles for the depositing of dog excrement; later, after a satisfactory outcome, the continued determination of local dog owners to scatter, willy-nilly, the droppings of their canine companions.

Dr Gwendoline Trowell, also an Elder in the local United Reformed Congregation, was the first name mentioned when local dignitaries were required to populate committees. She was seconded onto the Jumble Sale Committee, the Charitable Donations Committee, was appointed a member of the Harvest Festival Committee, voted prime candidate to chair the Celebrate The Animals Day Committee and many more.  She would dutifully attend and purely by that attendance she felt she contributed, and was indeed thanked by those who had appointed, invited or seconded, for her valuable contribution and the personal sacrifice of her precious time. Inevitably however, the coffee would start to flow after the business was done. Fairy cakes, or if the season required them mince pies, would appear and Dr Gwendoline would find herself closing down, folding herself up, shrinking in form, becoming more and more translucent, until that blessed moment of complete invisibility when she could be confident that her presence was not only no longer required but, moreover, not even experienced by her fellow committee members.

She would step back slowly, allow the space between others to become a void, a vacuum that naturally required filling. She would observe the subtle movement of feet, the shifting angles of toes and elbows, the wordless language of shoulders. She would systematically gather her belongings around her, then build them into the structures required for departure - coat folded and draped upon her forearm; handbag looped over wrist then carried to the crook of her elbow; gloves held in the correct alignment in the palm of one hand. And then after the required period of silent contemplation of the group and with the slightest of voiceless clearing of her throat she would reverse and then turn towards the door, unnoticed, unseen, unmissed.

Back at her front door, as the key turned in the lock she would mentally allow the emotional tumblers within her mind to fall away. She would release the collected tensions of the day with a series of short ‘Ah!’s.
Kettle on. ‘Ah!’
Cat stroke. ‘Ah!’
Jim Reeves, slippers, sofa. ‘Ah, ah, ah!’
A cup of tea and a schooner of sweet, rich cream Sandemans - she would sit and read into the small hours, murder mystery being her favourite fare, preferably with graphic descriptions of forensic autopsy.


So when the local drama group - performing as the Minster Minstrels - asked her to become a patron, she felt, as ever, obliged to accede. She attended meetings quarterly to ensure that the group’s charitable status was held up to scrutiny and that all monies raised and expended were correctly accounted for.

After a twelve months, she was asked if she could assist in a more practical way in the mounting of the Christmas pageant - a retelling with music of the legend of Sleeping Beauty. She agreed to act as assistant to the wardrobe ‘mistress’, Mr Carmichael.

The following year - Cinderella - Mr Carmichael regarded her assistance as understood, and Dr Gwen found herself also undertaking other light Stage Management duties including a brief foray onto the stage itself as part of a sleight of theatrical deceit. Cinderella was to be transformed at midnight back to the raggedy girl of Act One before the very eyes of the audience. There would be an extravagant lighting effect, a cloud of purple smoke (in keeping with the Fairy Godmother’s richly coloured cape and bonnet) and it would fall to Dr Gwen to enact the heroine’s fleeting escape, dressed as the be-cindered urchin, while Annabelle D’Urquhart, playing the titular role, performed a rapid change in the wings.

Dr Gwen played her part competently enough. Annabelle, in her princessly regalia, exited the stage under the cover of purple haze, and Dr Gwendoline scurried out in her rags, an arm shielding her face as if in shame, but really simply to preserve the illusion that the transformation had been magical and instantaneous. But Dr Gwen noticed the shortness of her breath, the racing of her pulse. She recognised the dryness in her mouth and the taste of adrenaline at the back of her throat and afterwards, only afterwards, recognised the pleasure of the moment and the slight fall of disappointment when the performances were all done and the production but a memory.

It was however the following year when Dr Gwendoline Trowell found her voice and as Snow White’s wicked Stepmother, Effluvia, she commanded the stage at every entrance and sent several small children home with dampened undergarments and nighttime terrors.

And afterwards, as she sat in the evenings and cast her mind back to the boos and hisses she had received, and the thrill that such responses had evoked in her, she found herself revelling in the memory of those moments. She found that Sandeman’s Sherry now seemed rather too sweet and that Vodka had a somewhat pleasing fire. She found herself purchasing a packet of cigarillos, despite the professional diatribes she had listened to as a junior doctor and had frequently relayed to her patients.

She decided, as she considered her various duties and responsibilities, that Mr Turbot, whom she had always found to be rather opinionated as Chairman of the Rotary Club would probably do well to keep some of those opinions to himself in future, otherwise, perhaps, she might find she had to ‘say something’. In fact was it not time for one or two changes in the accepted state of affairs in the Rotary Club and in one or two of the other organisations of which she was, was she not, an integral member?


prompt: A poor disguise.

24.09.2019

Sidings and Dead Ends

‘You must remember how Jet tried to herd the ducks, Dad. You remember that don’t you? When we first got him...Dad?’

He turned to look at me although it seemed he was still looking out of the window.
‘Eh, Dad? D’you remember Jet? When he was young?’
‘Jet,’ he said.
‘Yes, Jet. The collie. You loved him, didn’t you.’
‘He’s a clever thing, Jet. He’ll need his tablet. I haven’t given him his tablet today.’
‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that, Dad.’
‘The vet said it’d help.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t need it any more, does he. Not any more.’
Suddenly, he brightened.
‘He was a clever dog, Jet. He really was.’
He looked out the window again but seemed to be catching an image in his mind. ‘Uncle Peter gave him to me. I went over on Sunday and picked him up. Tiny thing he was then. But I knew right away he was a clever ‘un.’
Dad smiled to himself but I could see how the thought faded, the connections in his mind dissolving again. His smile sagged, lost its animation. His mouth held the shadow of it over his teeth, but the life had gone again.
‘Do you want some more tea, Dad? Shall I get you a fresh cup?’
His eyes flickered towards me.
‘Pass me your cup, Dad. I’ll pour you some more.’
I reached for the cup that sat on the table to the side of his chair. He watched my hand move and then with surprising speed he reached out and snatched the cup indignantly - as if it were his final possession.
‘I was just going to pour you some more tea, Dad. Would you like some?’
He lifted the cup to his lips and tipped the tiny drop of cold liquid into his mouth.
‘They haven’t asked me to do anything yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. You’d think they would have all that sorted out, wouldn’t you...’
‘I think they just want you to relax, Dad.’
‘What?’
I don’t think they expect you to do anything... except rest.’
‘You’d think they’d sort all that out before they got us all here, wouldn’t you...’
‘I suppose so, Dad.’
‘We won’t have much time if they don’t get it all sorted out soon, will we? It’d be a rush. A rush job. Can’t be doing a rush job.’
‘No, Dad.’
He looked out across the grounds again. The groundsman was cutting the grass with a large petrol-powered lawn mower. We watched as he guided the machine in gentle parallel sweeps around the edges of the borders. The engine chuntered across the afternoon lawns like a bumble bee in a glass jar.
‘It’s too wet to cut the grass today.’
‘I don’t think it is, Dad.’
‘After all that rain. It’ll be too wet. He shouldn’t do it today.
‘But it hasn’t rained for days, Dad. Not since...’
‘He’ll ruin the lawn with that great thing on the wet ground. On the wet grass. He’ll chew it all up.’
‘I think he knows what he’s doing, Dad.’
‘Where’s my stick? Go and tell him. Tell him to stop’
‘Dad, I really...’
‘Where’s my stick? Go on! He’ll ruin the lawn.’
He bent from his chair scraping towards the floor in search of his stick.
‘Ok, ok...’
‘Go tell him.’
‘Ok, I’ll go tell him.’
I stood up and walked behind his chair, confident that this moment would pass as rapidly as his animation had been aroused. I walked over to the trolley and filled a fresh cup with tea, dropped a splash of milk into it, one sugar cube, and stirred as I returned to my father.
‘Here you go, Dad, I’ll put it here.’
He looked at me, startled, as if I were a stranger. Here we go, I thought.
‘Where’s Sid?’
‘Sid?’ I felt a pang twist in my chest.
‘Who are you? Where’s Sid? Sid should be here.’
‘It’s his afternoon off, Dad.
‘Sid knows how I like it.’
‘Your tea? I know, too.’
‘Sid knows. Where is he?’
‘Listen, Dad. Sid’s off this afternoon. It’s me, Michael, Dad. I’ve just popped in to say hello. To see how you are.’
He craned back in his chair and looked at me.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re looking well.’
‘I’m fine.’
I’d met Sid before. Seen him dealing with my father. He was good. Treated him with respect. I liked that. His was an unsentimental gift to which my father responded well. The infrequency with which I could visit left me always on the cusp of stranger-hood. Sid was here everyday. My father could rely on him. But I felt a subtle acidic flow in my stomach.
‘Where’s Sid?’
My father continued to mutter the question, more to himself than out loud. But I doubted that he asked for me when I was not around.
Again the connections dissolved in his mind. Like points on a railway track splitting his train of thought along different lines. Sidings and dead ends. No thought lasted for much more than a minute. His mind could not navigate a pause in the momentum of an exchange. Synapses would fire and trigger each other but there was no mental network to keep them clustered together.
‘Do you remember your train set, Dad? Do you remember?’ He could usually pick up on this thread. ‘Do you remember how it folded down from the wall? On that platform you built?’
He looked at me and smiled. I could see him remembering. It was a magnificent construction. OO-gauge. Yards and yards of track looping around itself, between modelled mountain scapes. Slopes prickled with wire brush pine trees. Velveteen meadows.  Miniature stations, signals, the paraphernalia of the railway in minuscule detail. And a hole in the centre of this little world where Dad would stand as the Great Controller. He’d lower the whole thing down on Sunday afternoons and pop up through the hole, don his guard’s cap and, with a wink at me, flick a series of switches to start each little electric locomotive off on its journey, announcing each as he did so.
‘All aboard. Mind the gap between the train and the platform.’ Then he’d blow a sharp retort on his Thunderer whistle, saved from his days as a football coach.
‘Have you still got your whistle, Dad?’
Again his eyes lit up. He reached out to his table and pulled open the drawer. Pushed his hand in and stirred at the contents. But a look of panic spread across his face. He looked at me. Then back at the drawer. Started pulling things out and throwing them aside. Letters, a comb, a pot of Vaporub, a palm cross from some ancient Ash Wednesday. His agitation increased.
‘Can I help you, Dad? Shall I have a look?’
I stood and walked around the back of his chair to the table. Gently I placed a hand upon his shoulder and then softly stroked down his arm to his searching hand. He eyed me again, wondering who the stranger was.
‘Let me have a look, Dad’
I gently eased his hand back out of the drawer and placed it on the arm of his chair.  He didn't resist.  I sensed his tension relax as the thought processes behind the search evaporated in his mind again. His mind could no more sustain agitation than focus. I opened the drawer wider and spotted the whistle nestling at the back.
‘Here it is, Dad.’ I took it out and held it towards him. But he looked at it with empty eyes.
‘Here’s your whistle,’ I said again. He reached out and took it from me simply because he could tell I wanted him to but not from any point of recognition.
He studied it, then looking at me he raised it to his lips. The sensation of the metal on his lips must have triggered a muscle memory and he blew a soft stream of breath into it. The pea inside fluttered under the weak current of air. Then this soft sound seemed to trigger a further reaction. He took a deeper breath and suddenly blew a mighty blast on the whistle. It pierced the quiet of the room. A resident on the far side jolted awake.
‘Shut up! Shut up!’
Dad blew again, hard and shrill.’
‘Stop that! Stop it now, you idiot.’
The commotion brought a blue uniformed orderly through the door to investigate. She stood trying to analyse the scene but the whistle had already dropped from his mouth and Dad had drifted away into his familiar mist.




prompt: Part of his memory he did not visit

something in that room

disregard the dirt

the windows, clouded

draped with cobwebbed curtains

I have lived here

and hear the echoes of your laughter

silver cords

bind my heart's bones

to each object

resonant in the afternoon sun

playing the melody of memories

as from each something

in that room

a note vibrates

I had hair then

and skin-soft hands

and we were afloat

in the womb of the moment

and still are here

a fading harmonic

despite the cobwebs

clouded windows

and the dust

7^th May, 2019

Silent Witness

It was the luminous yellow hatching that caught his eye first.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but when Ken saw the ambulance parked outside as he came home from school a stone fell somewhere inside his body. In his stomach. A familiar black stone that he had always felt was there but that now, dislodged, sent a cold shock wave through him. A metallic taste flooded his mouth.
The front door was stood open and Dad was in the garden just looking back into the house. Ken saw the skin shiny and tight on his forehead as Dad pulled his hand across his scalp, smoothing his thin hair.
As Ken approached, he followed Dad’s gaze and saw two paramedics inside, on either side of Mum, helping her down the stairs. She was in her nightie, as usual, and the blue woolly cardigan she always wore against the cold. Pink slippers, the ones Ken and Dad had chosen for her birthday.
She looked old, suddenly, Ken thought.
The paramedics were gentle with her, softly encouraging, allowing her the time she needed to place each foot carefully and ease her weight down onto it.
Kenny stood behind Dad. Slipped his hand into his father’s where it hung by his side. Dad didn’t look at him. Ken felt Dad’s fingers curl around his, but apart from that he didn’t seem to notice. He was too intent on the trio now coming down the hallway. Mum looked up at last when they had negotiated the front door and the steps down onto the path. She looked at Kenny. Smiled a weak smile. She rolled her eyes at him as if to say ‘Look at all this fuss I’m causing.’
Kenny felt himself try to smile but all he could manage was to stretch his lips across his teeth. It didn’t feel like a smile and he knew it didn’t look like one. He looked at Dad - his eyes were fixed, unblinking, on the slow progress the three were making down the garden.
As the paramedics passed them, Kenny felt Dad let go of his hand.  Dad slowly started to follow the little procession down the path but then stole past them to open the front gate. Out onto the pavement they went and round to the back of the ambulance where the doors stood open. Ken watched his mother carefully attempt the steps, the paramedics at her elbows. He could see the weakness of her muscles after these past weeks in bed. But they had her. They had her now, these people. These men. These strange uniformed men. They’d got this. They knew what they were doing.
Ken wanted to run to his mum and throw his arms around her. But he shouldn’t - he knew he shouldn’t. She wasn’t his anymore. She was becoming theirs. Like when the furniture men had come and put all the cupboards in the back of their lorry at the old house. All their things taken away. Ken was only six then, but he remembered the puzzled feeling he had had as everything came out of the house and floated and bobbed past him on shoulders or swinging between the hands of people and then got piled up in the back of the lorry, covered by blankets, tied up with long cloth straps. He remembered how the house no longer worked as he ran from room to room, how it was dying without these familiar things, like when they had turned off the inflatable castle at Kyle's birthday party. He couldn’t settle anywhere in it. Except for in the dark corner of the cupboard in his bedroom. Mum and Dad had been so busy that day, they hadn’t noticed him gone, hadn't wondered where he was. He just sat there in the dark listening to shuffling feet on the bare floorboards, the strange grunted directions the men gave each other.
Mum and Dad didn’t seem to mind that these men were taking their things. They even helped them, watched them stow things in the back of the lorry.

Then the journey through the night to this house.
He remembered the Moon following them as they drove through the dark countryside - sometimes swinging behind the car, or hiding behind trees or clouds, but always racing along with them.
And then he had slept. And when he awoke the car was stopped in a lay-by. The sky was pearly grey and Mum and Dad were asleep in the front too. And they had to wait until morning had come properly before they could drive again and find a cafe. He remembered the first time he had stood in this garden and walked in through this front door.
And then the lorry had come again - the same lorry, and the same men had taken all the things out again and carried them into new strange rooms where they didn’t belong yet. And Mum and Dad were busy again telling them were to put things and arguing with each other and shouting at him to stay back out of the way but there wasn't a cupboard to hide in in the new house. Not yet.
But today was different. Ken didn’t feel the same anyway. He heard the men talking to Mum in the back of the ambulance. Were they covering her with blankets, tying her with straps? Were they lashing her round with ropes too like they had with the tall lamp from the sitting room?
Dad stood with his left hand holding the ambulance door. He suddenly looked up and stood back – the paramedics had evidently finished packing Mum in. One of the men stepped back down onto the road. He talked to Dad. Dad nodded as they both looked over at Kenny.
‘Ken. Kenny.’ Dad threw his head back a little, beckoning him. ‘Come over here, son, say goodbye to your Mum.’
Ken walked down the path to where Dad was holding out his hand. It came to rest on Kenny’s shoulder as he approached.
‘Give your mum a kiss, son.’
The paramedic inside the ambulance was crouched just inside the door. He reached a hand out and helped Kenny climb the steps into the back. It smelled in there - strange ointments, Ken thought.
Mum was sitting in a wheel chair sideways on to the side of the ambulance. It had been strapped into place somehow and there was a blanket across Mum’s knees. Her rosary hung from her hands.
She smiled at him.
‘It’s just for a few days, Kenken. I’ll be home again soon. Just a few days.’
‘We’ll come and see you tonight,’ said Dad, ‘ when you’re settled in. Eh, Ken?’
Mum lifted her hand a placed it upon Ken’s head. Her beads dangled across his cheek.
‘Yes, come and see me tonight. Now give me a kiss, Kenny.’
Ken leaned over the side of her wheelchair as she offered her cheek for him to kiss. She smelled of her bed.
‘There’s a good boy,’ she said, ‘ I’ll see you tonight. You come and see me tonight. All right?’
‘Okay, Kenny-boy,’ said the paramedic. ‘Jump out to your dad. We don’t want to be taking you with us by mistake, do we?’
Ken felt a dark shudder, a sudden urge to run, as if a large dog were chasing him.
His feet stumbled and he nearly fell as he stepped down but Dad hooked him around with his arm and pulled him in close to his hip. The pair stood on the pavement as the second paramedic clamped the backdoors shut, walked round the side of the ambulance and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Ken waited in frozen anticipation of the siren and flashing blue lights to kick into desperate life, but actually the ambulance started with a regular juggle of an old bus and pulled sedately away from the pavement.
Ken felt his father’s hand find his again and, Dad led him back through the gate. They stood and watched as the ambulance reached the end of the road and turned right.
'She'll be all right, won't she Dad?'
His father didn't speak. He just put is hand on Ken's shoulder again.
'Dad?'

The Edge

‘It may be the Hippodrome, but please, Clara, my darling, no hippo-dramatics here.’

Clara continued to remove her costume, piece by piece, from her trunk and hang each item carefully on the rail.
‘This is the last show before London, my darling, and I really can’t have any of your clumsiness - do you hear me?’
She reached once again into the trunk and with one hand drew out her boa. She played it across her other hand, pulling it over her palm, feeling the soft kiss of the feathers as they passed through the crook of her thumb. She felt her resolve grow stronger as the gaudy feathers aligned. She carefully draped the lithe snakelet over the hat stand that stood by her dressing table.
‘We really can’t have a repeat of Ipswich, can we. Promise me, my darling. You will take extra care tonight, won’t you. Extra care. You will won’t you?’
The lacquered make up box containing all her makeup - sticks of greasepaint, powder, eyelashes, brushes, lotions, and creams - was the last item she lifted from the trunk. She placed it upon the table between herself and the mirror.
At last, Clara turned to him, held his eye and gave him her most pleasant smile.
‘Of course,’ she said.
He studied her for a second, his gaze flickering back and forth from one emerald eye to the other, always seeking the sincerity he craved.
At last he smiled too. She felt him move momentarily towards her, hesitate, then lift his hands to her face. He cupped her cheeks and drew her lips towards his mouth.
She tasted whisky, stale smoke on his breath.  She felt the bristle of his moustache as his lips pressed into hers. She found the tip of his tongue pushing, penetrating, seeking entry between her teeth. She resisted the pressure to open, locked her jaws and hardened her lips.
At last he withdrew from the kiss.
‘You know how precious you are to me, my darling. You know I cannot live without you. Your love is all I long for, all I crave. You know this, my dearest darling, my angel, don’t you.’
She stood motionless, held her breath as she waited for him to release her from this moment. She waited for the freedom that would dissolve the chill that froze her blood.
But before he relinquished her, he pushed his mouth onto hers again. His saliva lubricating the motion of his lips upon hers. Then with sudden flourish he turned away from her towards the door.
‘I must prepare, my dearest dear. Come wake me at the half. I will need a shave. And please, until then, no noise... no noise.’
He turned towards her again a placed a final finger over her lips.
‘So beautiful,’ he said, ‘so beautiful.’

Alone at last, she breathed, wiped her hand across her mouth, and dropped weakly into the chair in front of her mirror.
How she hated him.
How she hated what he had done to her, what he had made her into.
She reached for her makeup box, flung open the lid and reached into the corner. The razor. She felt its coolness in the palm of her hand. She opened the blade and laid it on the table in front of her. There was a comfort in the reflected light from the blade. The familiar blade. She felt a frissance in the skin of her thigh. The gorgeous terror rise in the pit of her stomach. The skin opening a scarlet smile. Past pains released. Blood on her tongue.
But not today.
Now she saw the blade as it rested against the skin of a throat. The artery pulsing beneath the lightest of pressure. She had learned to shave her father after the accident, carefully drawing the blade across the hair of his chin and neck, severing each at the root. Those days, before she had learned the keen bite of the edge, she had often seen the blood seeping into the white lather on her father’s neck. He never complained, never even winced and slowly she had learned the skill of it. The delicacy.
But this man. If she so much as nicked his cheek, he would reprimand her and scold her, call out her clumsiness, abuse her, ridicule her. True, no hand had he ever laid upon her. Not in anger. But afterwards, after the evening performance and sometimes after the matinee, if the crowd had been appreciative and respectful, had rewarded his efforts with their praise, afterwards he would call her into his dressing room and insist she help him.
‘I can do nothing,’ he would say, ‘I am a child, helpless, completely helpless. Come comfort me.’
And she would stand before him and spread cream thickly upon his glistening face, into the folds of flesh around his neck, the sly intimacy of his closed eyelids. Then she would wipe him with balls of cotton wool. His flesh moving in waves beneath her fingers. And he would murmur to her as she worked.
‘You are my angel, my saviour, without you I am nothing, my darling, nothing. Kiss me, my darling, lay your lips upon mine for your kisses are a balm to me, a healing balm.’
And then he would have her open his clothing, guiding her hands to each hook and button of his shirt, pushing the linen open across his belly, pulling it free of the waistband of his trousers. Then the buckle of his belt, buttons. He would stand and draw her hands up again to his breasts and he would gaze into her eyes as his hands descended and his movements would be rhythmic and she would feel his heart beat as he became more frenzied until... until... She could not, would not imagine it. But he would crumple under her hands, his mouth gaping like a landed fish, a shudder stuttering through his body. His head would drop.
‘Leave me,’ he would say, ‘leave me now.’
And she would withdraw in to her room, into her mind and visit places of her childhood dreams again. Summer afternoons. Ice cream sundaes. The gentle touch of Frederick's hand upon her cheek.

A tap.
A light tap.
A tap at the door and she surfaces through sunlit water and back into the fusty dressing room. The theatre boy outside the door.
‘That’s the half, miss.’
She says nothing.
‘Miss? D’you hear, miss, that’s the half.’
She rises. Goes to the door. The lad looks at her, startled to see her in front of him.
‘Yes.’
‘The half, miss, your half hour call.’
‘Yes, yes.’
Was her tone sharp? He looks a little alarmed.
She slips her fingers into the purse at her waist and draws out a coin.
‘Thank you, Alfie, I’ll tell him.’
‘But...’
‘I’ll tell him Alfie. Go.’ She presses the coin into his hand.
‘Thank you, miss, to be sure...’
‘Go.’
She closes the door and turns back to her table. The razor gleams.
She lifts it and tests the edge against the ball of her thumb.

prompt: ecstasy
06.08.2019

Paired for Life

‘You have to become the swan,’ she said. ‘You do not simply see the swan upon the water, you have to BE the swan. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, but with little conviction.
‘Try it again, please, one more time before we finish.’
He rested his bow against the string, placed his left hand in its starting position high on the neck of the instrument and started to play.
He knew he was a little flat but Miss Radcliffe was already lost in her imagination of the most beautiful music. She could not resist the temptation to join in.
‘Yaaa da da, laaa da da... she is alone, the swan
Daaada da... Feel the water supporting you...Daaa da da da ... she weeps as she swims
Crescendo as you climb... her grief is overwhelming...
Better...
...and sweetly at the top there - you’re a little flat...’ she sang the words.
‘Let the current flow... it is exquisite pain for her...
the water is cold, powerful...
it carries you along... yes
yes, that’s better... more and more....’
Charlie drew his bow across the final note.
‘There, Charles. Did you feel the difference? You were finding the instrument’s voice there a little, do you not agree?’
‘Yes, Miss Radcliffe.’ He was ready to leave the fusty room and walk home through the afternoon air.
‘Right, well we’ll leave it there for this week, Charles. Good. Some improvement. Definitely. Some definite improvement.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Have you seen a swan swimming, Charles?’
‘Yes, miss, of course. In the park. On the lake. I’ve seen them there.’
She didn’t seem quite satisfied with his answer.
‘Yes, they do come to the lake, I suppose. But in the wild, away from humans and ducks and bread and picnic baskets - have you ever..?’ Her eyes glazed a little as her thoughts drifted away from her.
Charlie waited a moment to see if her sentence had an end...
‘Right. I’ll see you next week, miss’
‘Yes, Charles. Please be prompt.’
‘Yes, miss.’
He slackened the nut of the bow, released the wing nut on the spike of the cello and eased it back into the base of the instrument. He lifted the lid of his case and carefully packed cello and bow away.
Miss Radcliffe watched him, lost in her thoughts. He could still smell the peppermints on her breath with which she tried to mask the sour stain of cigarette smoke.
He stood and gripped the handle then realised he had not gathered his sheet music. Miss Radcliffe noticed at the same time and reached across from her seat and lifted the pages from the wire stand. She glanced again at the title.
‘They pair for life, you know,’ she said.
‘Pardon, miss?’
‘Swans. They pair for life, and if one of them dies the other slowly pines away.’
‘Right... Bye then, miss.’
‘Yes, yes. Goodbye, Charles. Goodbye. Practise please, practise.


At the park he swung the kiss gate open and clumsily manhandled the cello awkwardly through it. He would normally just stick to Clementson Road to avoid the difficult kiss gate manoeuvre but today... there was something in Miss Radcliffe’s tone that had stayed in his mind. So now he looped down between the rhododendrons, past the restored Victorian greenhouses and down into the park proper.
There were handful of children with their parents on the spinners and swings. Three boys were playing football on the grass, their bikes casually strewn across the path. As Charlie picked his way between them the ball came bouncing over towards him and struck the case of his cello. He shot an angry look at the boy who seemed to have kicked it but then, seeing him come running over to retrieve it, Charlie felt a little intimidated.
‘Sorry,’ he said, as the boy came into earshot, then he immediately felt stupid.
The boy didn’t even look at him- just trapped the ball, steadied himself and kicked it hard back to the others.

By the lake, Charlie lifted his cello and rested it on the bench. He stood by the end resting one knee on the wooden slats and looked out across the water. A few ducks muddled around on the grass and a row of grey pigeons sat uniformly spaced along the low wall at the water’s edge. Across the lake a little way, he spotted the swans. The same pair had been here for as long as Charlie could remember. Every year they would nest on the little island in the spring and a few weeks later four or five grey cygnets would follow them as they sailed serenely across the water. Charlie wondered where all those swan children were now. He imagined them flapping furiously across the water, beating their wings, until optimum takeoff speed was reached and then majestically rising into the air, swimming up into the clouds, the sun setting on the horizon. In his mind he saw them arced across the sky, formation flying like old footage he had seen of droning war planes, Lancasters, Wellingtons, brave warriors flying off to their destiny.
The swans had seen Charlie too. They came gliding across the water towards him as if powered by thought alone. Charlie wished he had something to feed them - bread, anything. He bent and pulled at a golden dandelion head. Tossed it towards the water. But it was too light and just fluttered down onto the mud. One of the swans swam closer drawn by the familiar movement of the throwing arm, but without even seeming to look it discounted the muddied flower.
Charlie noticed the moment the swans realised he had nothing for them - they subtly, coolly, simply, redirected their way parallel to the bank to a spot further down where a young woman was freeing her toddler from her pushchair. Charlie and the swans saw the woman reach for a paper bag beneath the seat and start handing pieces of white bread to her daughter. The little girl took each piece and held it extravagantly over her head before throwing it with abandon, mostly in the general direction of the water.
You shouldn’t feed them bread, Charlie thought, even while he envied the little girl. It’s not good for them.
He remembered the excitement of standing just there with his own mother, being handed the same pieces of bread, throwing with as much enthusiasm as this little girl did. His feet started to walk him towards them, until his hand on the handle of his cello case reminded him that he was older.
The swans moved with no hesitation. Theirs were perfect, easy movements, each reflecting the other as the water reflected each of them. A silent duo. A pas de deux. Their heads moved in perfect synchronisation, never deciding where to go but yet swimming with pure intention. Charlie found himself watching the space between them - an invisible silver, silken connection, sometimes stretching, sometimes shrinking, constantly changing shape. They were together and yet separate, a unity of swan and yet two distinct beings. They were paired for life, Charlie thought.
He thought of Miss Radcliffe sat waiting for him each week. He could only ever imagine her in the study, still, quiet, waiting. As if there were no other purpose in her life. Just music, and the teaching of it, the teaching of him. He saw her - a cigarette in her thin fingers, a column of ash growing at its tip as she waited. She had never paired, he thought. Or maybe she had. Maybe she had lost the one who had moved in slow easy arcs with her, the other separate being in her unity.
The bag of bread was empty now.





The swans glided slowly, separately, together, back out across the chilly grey water.


prompt: she asked him if he understood
written in one hour - with a little subsequent editing.
20.11.2018