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

Chinese Lantern

 It seemed appropriate.

You were going.

You had always loved them so we made one in the afternoon, from tissue paper and fine wire.

At seven, we carried it to the top of Melham Hill.

You said it was like saying a prayer. It would be good luck.

We set the burner alight - just a couple of candle stubs stuck to a jam jar lid. It took a few minutes to heat the pillow of air but then, at last, it slowly began to rise.

“Wish on it,” you said, “Wish on it, quick, before it gets too high.”

“What? Wish? Don’t be daft,” I said.

“Do it! Close your eyes and make a wish.”

You closed your eyes tight. I watched you, your face pale in the gathering dusk. Your eyes flickered beneath your eyelids. You lips were closed still, but I could see them moving, as if you were saying a prayer in your mind.

You were beautiful.

I didn’t need to think. I knew what I wished for and I knew it would not come true. Could not.

Up it went into the still, evening sky.

We watched it climb higher and higher, getting smaller and smaller. A tiny living thing in the darkness.

“How high do you think it’ll go,” I said.

You turned and looked at me, a slight frown on your face.

“All the way, of course,” you said, your voice tinged with mild indignation.

“Yeah, right,” I said, and you hit me on the chest.

“Don’t spoil it,” you said.

“I’m not spoiling it - it’s lovely.”

“Yes, you are,” you said. “It’s a dream, it’s a wish - it goes up and up and up until it comes true.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to spoil it for you. You were going. We didn’t know when you would be back.

“Come on,” I said when we couldn’t see it any more. “Let’s go home.”

You turned in to me and pulled my coat around you.

“I don’t want to go,” you said.

“No,” I said. I could not say anything else.

You pulled on my coat collar and our lips met. Then I kissed your eyes and face. There were tears on your cheek.

The taxi came at six in the morning.

It was misty waiting for the London train. The rails disappeared into the grey. We heard the quiet grinding growing steadily louder and then the train loomed out of the mist. Suddenly you were busy. You kissed me quickly and gathered all your bags together, pulled up the handle on your suitcase.

“I’ll get that,” I said.

We guessed where the door might be when the train stopped. We were nearly right.

There weren’t many other passengers but a few doors opened for people to get off.

I picked up the case and carried it onto the train, but my being on board made you edgy.

“Get off quick,” you said, “or you’ll be coming too.”

It was hard to say anything, so I just hugged you and went back to the door. You chased me back down the carriage and grabbed me again. Kissed me. But the guard was slamming the doors. I had to get off. I ran back along the platform to where you were sitting, but the windows were so dirty we could barely see each other. And there was someone sitting in the window seat.

I ran a little way beside you as the train slowly moved off, trying to keep up with you. But it was soon too fast for me. I stood and let the train slip away, watching the end door as it grew fainter in the mist, getting smaller and smaller.

I walked home.

It was still early and the dew was still wet on the grass. Down the lane the cow parsley was in full bloom. It leaned out into the road, glistening in the sun.

I had not even told you I loved you.

I felt sick.

I stopped at a gateway and looked into a field. The mist had lifted. Cows were grazing. One lifted its head and looked at me but soon lost interest. I watched its tongue wrap around the long grass and tug it up into its mouth. I remembered the tip of your tongue touching my teeth as you kissed me goodbye. The taste of your lip balm.

I came to the path we had taken to climb the hill the night before. I wanted to climb the stile and go up again, to find you there again, for it to be you and me, there, together again. For ever.

I could not. I hit the stile post.

You were gone.

I walked on past the honeysuckle in the hedge that you had stopped to smell. A spider had caught a wasp in its web. The wasp was buzzing still, but the spider had already wound it in silk and held it wrapped in its legs. It could not get away.

I held you in my coat last night. You escaped.

Then as I walked on, there it was, lying in the road - a tangle of wire and sodden shreds of tissue paper. I picked it up in my fingers, felt the coldness of it, the tattiness of it, felt how it was wrong.

“It goes up and up and up until it comes true,” you said.

It had not. It was not magical, it was not a wish - it was a dead thing, a piece of trash. I flung it into the grass beneath the hedge. Then I went and picked it up again. Held it again. I crushed it in my hands. Crushed the wire frame into a small ball in my hands.

And I put it in my pocket.

Until it comes true.

prompt: Ten Chinese Lanterns (I lost nine somewhere along the way)

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

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

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

Ill Wind

It didn't snow straight away but she knew it wouldn't be long.

She'd woken in the morning to an unfamiliar metal squealing as the weather vane on the barn swung round to the North. And to the sound of banging. But she didn't think. Patrick would have known to go and close the barn doors but Patrick was gone. There were so many things he used to do of which she was simply unaware. They'd made a good team. But now, alone, she was a novice again, and she cursed herself for the things she didn't do until it was too late.

Coombe Farm nestled in the rounded belly of the valley end and usually benefited from the shelter of the rolling hills that cradled it. The fields on the northerly side bathed in generous sunlight and the wooded slopes of the hills opposite softened the breath of the warmer winds from the south. But at this time of year, the wind swung around and sharpened its edges. It smelled of frost and peat and smoke and damp. It seeped through the cracks in the door and rattled the glass in the windows.

The wind wrapped itself round the back of the house and found the year's gathered detritus – old sacks, leaves, straw – and scattered it back across the yard. She felt as if she'd been found out. Everything the wind said was cruel. A judgement. The songs it sang were bitter and grating. It found her flesh between her clothes and dragged its sinister blade across her skin. There was no getting warm. The smoke backed down the chimney and smutted the clothes on the dryer in front of the hearth.

She cursed the wind every moment she had to venture outside. She cursed Patrick too for leaving her to this, this bitter solitude. She stayed in as long as she dared, putting off the tedious tasks she knew she must perform. She went to the back bedroom and opened the blanket box, cursed the moths that had evidently been feasting on the blankets and garments within. At last she found it Patrick's old Guernsey and the looseknit shawl her mother had worn. She wrapped herself against the oncoming grief of the wind.

She battled across the muddy yard and opened the henhouse. The five were hunkered on the lowest perch, their heads pulled down into the shoulders of their wings, feathers ruffled up such that she could see the purple grey roots of their plumage. She tipped grain into the feeders and cracked the ice in the water trough but the birds remained in their maudlin meditations, sullenly blinking at her for disturbing them. She could feel their annoyance. Should she leave the flaps open? They showed no inclination to venture out into the gritty wind.

'You've got drink. You've got scran. You'll survive a day,' she said.

It was only after she had lowered the flaps again that she heard the beating of wings come from inside,

'Ah, bugger you,' she said. 'Bugger the lot of you! You'll stay in there now and like it!'

Now the snow had started, thick and fast. It had plastered itself across her back much more thickly than she had realised as she tended to the chickens. She turned her head as if to challenge the beast wind but was forced to squint her eyes against the icy blasts. Snow crystals stung her cheeks. Head down, and pulling the shawl tighter around her, she set off across the yard to the barn.

And now she saw her mistake, the barn door had been flung open before the wind. She should have come here straight away – as soon as she had caught the sound of the weather cock grinding its unfamiliar wail. The barn had shuddered and swallowed gust after gust of the shouting wind.

During the night the milker had given birth. She had heard the animal lowing, a dark rich guttural moan. Patrick would have recognised the signs and she would have left her bed and followed him to the barn, lantern in hand, to see to the animal. She knew how to follow him. She knew how to be at his right hand. She knew what he would need before he knew himself. But with Patrick gone, the rhythm was upset. The natural order was in chaos. The sound and sights that were language to him, cues and clues as to what he needed to do, now went untranslated for her. She was alone and the wind sharpened her aloneness, tattering the memories of their life together, ripping their story from the landscape and leaving her with broken words, fragments of their togetherness that no longer meant anything but just hung like brittle flags, dissolving under the acid breath of the North wind.

The milker lay on her side. A black motionless mound was spilled in the straw beside her.

Snow still gusted in through the open barn door. It had been closed the previous night as usual. She had made sure of that. But as had so often happened before, the wind change had challenged the latch and caught the great timber panel full force, splintering the wooden closure like kindling. Patrick had had to repair it many times, had often said he should get an iron fixing from Howlett the farrier, but had never got round to it.

She cursed him again, this man whom she had loved so deeply, relied on so completely and who had left her so suddenly.

It was her grief at losing him that was transfigured into this anger at him and now, as she stooped to test the little corpse for any vestige of life left, she cursed Patrick until the tears ran. She held the head of the calf in her lap, pulled at the mucus that still clung to its muzzle. But nothing. The animal's eyes were half open but glazed and dim. The neck was stiff and cold.

The milker turned her head towards the woman and a deep rolling growl rippled in her throat.

'Tis too bad, old girl. Too bad. I'm sorry.'

She stood up. Pushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. She bent and found the calf's front hoofs and, holding them together in one hand dragged it out of the barn. The umbilical cord trailed after it, terminating in a massed clamp of blood and slime and mucilage. She would figure out what to do later. It would come to no harm now, no greater harm anyway, and the cold wind would slow the rotting. She left it around the side of the barn and covered it over with some old sacking.

The snow was falling thicker still and no sooner had she pulled the sack over the little corpse, than the flakes began to blanket it.

She rubbed her hands on her skirt, cupped them together and blew into the opening between her thumbs. As she stood and looked down the valley, into the very throat of the wind, she saw a dark smudge among the falling snow, moving vaguely, slowly, towards her. The smudge moved in the rhythm of a person walking, head down, trudging through the thickening quilt of powder.

She saw the body opening and closing with each heavy step.

A person, a woman, coming towards her – a dark, hooded figure looming out of the snow towards her...

19.02.2019