In this section:
The sharp doughiness of ripening wheat wafts warm in the night. Descending, air sweeping over grassland rinses us briskly, gathering cold in pockets. Rising again: another hot breath of bread. Hand-in-hand, womb-heavy, verge quickened, we come to blacked-out buildings.
'Here’s where we lived until Father couldn’t make it pay,' he intones into the abandoned farmstead. 'Henceforth, he sits in an apartment in town. He buys shit bread from the Boulangerie d’Antan. I don’t live here anymore, nor with Dad in the Priority Urbanisation Zone. I live in the University.'
He drops my hand; strides ahead back to the car. 'Tea?' I suggest, home safe after a breakneck, silent return. I’m blowing covertly on an ember of hope I keep in a reticule of tinder. The poignant night impaled me. I am heavy with a desire to make art that I can’t yet distinguish from lust. Back turned to me, he sits on my floor warming himself with Sartre.
'When Pierre doesn’t arrive as expected, everything is not-Pierre: his non-being is as concrete as anything in the café...' he lectures, abstracted. I want to knead his tender nape, to drink his words, but he rises to leave. Bleakly emptying my teapot, I see he left his pullover on my bed. A terracotta jumper. Sloughed skin marks snake’s absence. Beyond sleep, I draw; envisaging my dawn-greening pines as backdrop for a fetish. I will have pinned his pullover to a cruciform of twigs. And yes, I will paunch it. I will have made a tangle of tender, frantic probes, soft whispering horns. They will tumble earthward, arresting the viewer. Stumbling across it, as magpies chatter and the nightingale briefly tucks his head having called all night for love, she will make meaning in a moment.
Hand in hand, on the floor, next to a friend, by a cupboard with a broken door, close to a stranger, near a lover, in the wrong waiting room of the right hospital, uptown, upper East Side, overlooking East River, Queensboro Bridge, Rykers Island, on an old chair, on a broken chair, on a broken day, negligent, on a poor broken chair after a cold drunken room in which you may or may not have said things you thought were true, on a sturdy chair, floor again, unfamiliar, broken, next to the window looking out you remember the Prospect first designated as common land in 1696 with the seesaw whose wood had worn to a permanent shine. Children. Under the branches of the Cedar to hide from the rain, straight back, with a curved back, with no spine at all. Fatidic. Your lids would wish to close the eyes but are kept apart by swelling: organ failure, blue tinge, with all the will in the world, your hands, with forward motion, with stillness, with and towards you, Rebecca.
On the bus, on the subway, on your lap, held in your lap by your enormous smile, in your thoughtful worried mind, with blossom and care and doubt and madness and pushing, with your body breaking and your definition, with your thoughtful definition.
On the tram, on the bus, on the subway from the Met I caught your pained smile and thought, 'in memory of… in memory of…', with mind and sighs of doubtful wry unfamiliar again, broken again, the bone of your shoulder, waiting, chair, chair curved, we are designated and with madness pushing care half way towards a house called Fathom.
A girl goes to collect her essay mark from the admin office and is handed a clear, plastic zip-lock bag. The bag is full of vomit. 'What is this?' she asks the office administrator with the thick glasses.
'That is your grade, my dear,' says the administrator, and turns her back.
Lighthouse. As if something could be a dwelling made entirely of light. Photons stacked onto photons. Or a house so weightless it floats above the rock, which is how it looks at high tide. There are sprays of vomit on her life jacket. Look at the horizon, the skipper growls. But the dark brown waves triangle up like a street of drunken buildings. There is no horizon. There are puffins in their tricksy masks. The seals, coming into view as the waves dip, have faces like her grandma’s bridge group. Clouds touch the top of her head. They warned her of the choppy crossing, with laughter at the corners of their lips. But only the research mattered.
This is what the relief boat would have seen, approaching the isle more than a hundred years ago. Not with this beam that scopes mindlessly over the sea, but with the light a haunting black. They land with a thud and the skipper hoiks her up the rocks. She stumbles into his arms, the scritch of his beard on her cheek. Rabbits, shocked at the human presence, scatter, basalt-eyed. She walks that same path, behind the striding boatman, opens that same gate, pictures the front door open, the chair overturned. All three keepers gone. One oilskin hanging on its peg.
They never found any of them. Only the tangled box of ropes in the gully, like so many inert eels. Everyone wondered. Was it a love triangle: some jealousy of flesh in the loneliness? A fight: a shove then a not letting go? They’d settled on the sea, a force that came and went as a rogue thought, exploding into the rock. And one had seen it from the window, far off, and tried to outrun it, warn the others in his shirt-sleeves.
The skipper is shocked when she resolves to stay the night here. Can’t guarantee he can land the boat tomorrow, or the next day. Reluctant to leave her. She smiles. Begins to lay the table for supper.
It seemed from where she stood on the upper deck that the mud-brown estuary was steadily pulling the ship into its wide mouth. Something in the bowels of the ship responded to the slow gravitational pull of the river so that the expanse of Atlantic behind her appeared suddenly insignificant. They'd been at sea for three weeks, long enough to establish familiar routines that took the edge off the panic that gripped her in quiet moments when the children were settled in their cabin and her husband, too, had fallen asleep. She'd never been on a boat before; had never travelled more than fifty miles away from the small market town in the middle of the midlands where she’d grown up. And here this huge river was sucking the ship - and her - into its deep interior with a lazy purpose that made her feel that now she really was entering foreign territory. Much later, when they flew in a little Dakota plane to see the famous waterfalls in the interior, the pilot had swooped in a low arc away from the coastline and out across the estuary before heading up the Demerara River to Kaieteur falls. From above, the mouth of the river had seemed sluggish and unthreatening, despite its wide expanse. By then she’d abandoned her English frocks and wore shorts and breezy open-necked shirts. Now, in her dark travelling outfit, she punctuated the long railing of the deck like a solitary exclamation mark. Her breathing quickened as she watched the vessel negotiate the wide muddy channel. She thought she could see the air thicken as the tangle of deep green on either side of the river exhaled. Her own breathing became laboured as if competing with the vegetation for air.
Microphone in hand I look out across a sea of mostly unknown faces settling into some kind of order, as they turn to face the stage.
A remembered T-shirt flashes to mind, depicting an array of randomly positioned silver fish and the caption ‘Cod moves in mysterious ways.’
Two minutes ago I had been asked to make a speech for my brother’s surprise birthday party, filled with his friends and two of our cousins, so here I am, mike in hand, facing the hoard, and feeling comfortable.
I open by relating how I’d been born thirteen days after my brother’s second birthday and, instead of getting his expected train set, he got me. Gentle laughter lifts above the heads, and a greying, red faced, bloater calls out, 'Is that when he went off the rails?'
It gains a chuckle, but I respond, 'No, although he did try and plug me into the mains to see if it would make me go faster.' Laughter rips upwards. Don’t mess with me mister I was a karaoke compère, for Christ’s sake, and I have a mike. I outgun you and I’m faster than you, but I won’t antagonise you. I’ll just go along with you and beat you.
I’m into my stride now and I relate colour-enhanced tales of how my brother stranded me in a cesspit, how he gained the Chief Boy Scout award through industrious buffing up of his woggle on lonely winter nights, and I even call him stupid for the delectation of the crowd and my applause.
I look above the heads and see his broad grin and, at the end, he hugs me and congratulates me. I don’t feel proud of myself, but I know he is proud of me. That, I suppose, that is what brothers do.
Sigh. Excuse me, madam; excuse me, full stop and perhaps later on, a comma. I have been drowning cherries since 1911. I think I know a thing or two or twenty thousand about drowning cherries.
Everyone has grammatical slips once in a while. I should know, mine is purple and laced up like a shoe. Donkey tight.
As he was saying, he enjoys it. That is the main pierce; point of our repertoire tonight. He enjoys it, ladies and gentlemen, there you go. What more justification can there be? Watching their puffed up pink faces, spherical shining skins, bloated, not reacting at all, comma and full stop. To the surrounding pond.
Their single, eyes, on stalks, or amputated. Either way they, see.
And therefore your point would be, sigh, what, exactly?
Well, stunted, that’s what it is.
Exactly. You’re talking garbage. Yes, I can say that. Don’t, condemn me. You are not in the rabbit hole. You are, not even in sight of it. No burrows, warrens, wardens, dogs. Just drowned cherries, sigh, and this is my point.
On the phone, hardly any reception, ridiculous broken conversation, leaning out the window. Dark and heavy, hot like it never seems to be anymore, suffocating even, terraces of houses refracting heat, smothering one another into stillness. Something about those streets parallel to nothing but themselves, meeting others at awkward 30-degree angles, weaving peculiar pockets of silence. Leaning, I’m sad, but I’m not going to say it, this is what it’s come to, now, I spot it, a small creature, creeping tentatively into the road, as I note the strange shift these conversations have taken, my mother now talks more than me, like she’s trying to cast a net, I’m sad, but I can tell from her voice so is she, but she doesn’t say either. It crawls out farther. What is it? Not a dog or cat. Not escaping, not returning home, not stealthy, not purposive. Besides, the shape’s not right. No raccoons or possums here. A rat? I say nothing of this strange presence. A giant rat? I ponder this, but its body is too unoffending, benign, tortoise-like, yet soft, with what look like downy spikes, peaks of hair. Too large for a hedgehog. Distracted now from the words. Engrossed totally in this thing. It’s no thing, and something’s not right, I know already, wounded it seems, tortured, even before the reflected headlights blanch the haze, even before I hang up in order to see it happen alone, untranslatable anguish to witness. Mindless acceleration and I hear a strange disembodied moan rise up to me still leaning. Molecules of moisture sick with this. Writhing and then it ceases. I, too, am paralyzed. The car doesn’t stop at first. Then it reverses. Second thoughts. Someone gets out. Opens the back door. Bundles the creature into the car. And moves off.
There is a tap in the corner of the room, she can hear it dripping. She tries to find the rhythm in it. To isolate the sense of constant time, and be soothed by its constancy. She will not touch it; it is in the corner, out of her control. Its strangled voice. It is choking. The acoustics of the room are strange; someone could talk brightly, addressing her directly, but seem mute or far away. The leaking tap echoes louder. It sounds like pain.
Her forehead creases, her mouth opens. Oppressive, forlorn, despairing pain. She feels it.
It is getting harder to distinguish between the dripping and her pulse. Both are uneven, and the water bleeds through it all. She cannot remember consciousness without this incessant beating. There is a void where memory should live. Drips are becoming letters, harsh but dumbly rounded. B, be, ben, with a sharp ‘t’ as the liquid strikes the porcelain. Bent. The rhythm deviates without warning, gaining a syllable. Bitter. She deciphers the message thus:
Bent, bent.
Bitter-bent.
Bitter-bent bitter.
Bent, bent.
This repeats in varying combinations.
What great truth is this? From her bed she urges it on, birdlike, straining. Everything depends on understanding it. With it nothing can harm her. Without it she is alone.
In he comes. He is ruddy and beaming.
'How are we today?'
She rolls and turns her back to him, facing the wall. It is cold against the end of her nose. The water tells him to go. Leave monster leave.
'This dripping must be annoying. No wonder you’re not sleeping well,' he speaks cheerfully, entirely to himself.
The tap shrieks under his hand, the pipes rattle and moan.
And then there is silence. It is dry and empty and there is nothing left.
If she hadn’t burned the gravy, he wouldn’t have felt he had to tell her how much he’d always hated the way she made it. She would never have known that it was his considered opinion that she overdid the flour and had no intuitive sense of the appropriate moment to stop adding stock. She wouldn’t, therefore, have felt the need to confide in him how much she had always resented his flatulence about the house, nor complain that this increased her distaste for the business of washing his underwear. He, in turn, probably wouldn’t have mentioned his own distaste at her fondness for short skirts, a fondness that, in his judgment, was not wholly appropriate in a woman approaching the menopause, actually. And if he hadn’t mentioned that, she wouldn’t have felt that it was only fair to point out that it might be considered unseemly for a man of his age to wear his hair so long and his trousers so tight. In which case, he might not have opined that it was pathetic of her to resent him for achieving a better class of degree, and she would surely not have countered that nobody in their right mind would want any class of degree from the university he had attended. He wouldn’t have suggested that she was turning into her mother, nor would she have responded that, in point of fact, he was turning into his mother (and also his great aunt Agatha). And if all that hadn’t come to pass, she probably wouldn’t have ended up pouring gravy over his head and he wouldn’t have assaulted her with an organic parsnip. Hell, they might still be married!
Hell, the Twin Towers might still be standing.
Pan! Approach the bed of Lord Shiva, s/he of the rings, s/he who lies in wait. Hail!: She-of-Head-in-Birdcage. Sing! All must dance when Lord Shiva delights. Net on fur is a rug. Pan must look because his beauty requires him to thus. Approach. Pan, look in desire at those who desire Pan. Remove blue. Approach. Remove blue. Hold nothing in hands. Nothing escapes, becomes ball, becomes larger ball, all in space we cannot see. Approach. Lord Shiva, accept this ball. Ball become pearl or pea or pill. Red watches. And Blonde. Fly Shiva on wings of post-production. Lord Shiva will green and wig. All will surface.
A present arrived on my birthday last month, the only one I received. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and packed in bubble wrap; not a heavy thing, but not light either, and just the right size for me to hold in one hand. So I unwrapped it, and inside was a jam jar containing a small nodule.
I held it up to the sunlight, and the nodule, which was about the size of a marble, grew, and glowed a little. I puzzled over this and every time I examined the thing, it changed slightly, but so slowly that I doubted my own perception. I sat it on the table and went about my own business for the day, glancing at it now and again, and noticing any small changes. At one point it turned a smoky colour and another time, around early evening, a spark flew out of it and hit the edge of the glass. Later that evening, I watched what would have been a very fine film, but the damn thing kept flickering at the edge of my vision, and distracting me from the plot. Then I tried to read, like I always do before bed, but it pulsated and danced and jumped and screamed to be looked at, and just when I looked at it full on, it stopped. I leaped out of bed, smashed the jar against the wall, and the thing inside ricocheted and fizzed out through the open window like a small firework. I sighed, forgot about it and slept peacefully.
A minute ago, as I sat working, a dark dot appeared in the distance. I stopped typing. The thing gathered speed, shot through the window and smacked me straight between the eyes.
Sometimes I feel uneasy, like a miniature pony. I cannot tell whether those climbing up on top of me are boys or girls. What are these ribbons and patches? And then, when I crunch, it is sweet. I have no field of reference.
‘Organically approved, Atlantic sea salt’ droned Martin, ‘traditionally Harvested Sea Salt Crystals, contains Magnesium, 1.4%, Calcium 0.3%, Potassium 0.3%, store in a cool, dry place. Satisfaction guaranteed, if you’re not entirely satisfied with this product…’
‘Martin. Please.’
‘Police In Hospital Death Inquiry’ he read out. ‘And, Two Courses for £10 at Local Restaurants. Sorry - at Top Local Restaurants. Ooh, Jenny..’ But Jenny had gone to fetch the car.
‘Slip road closed due to Works’ read Martin ‘lucky we don’t need to know that - look at that Dutch bus, Snier Oop Transveldt, Toilets on Board, that’s in English’ he added. Jenny’s mouth tightened. She saw the electronic board before Martin and braced herself.
‘Delays due to new gas main construction’ Martin read out ‘Diversions Around Town Centre. Avoid Gyratory System. 30 mph’.
‘And Have a Good Day?’ inquired Jenny.
The new shopping Centre lay before them, twinkling with electricity and seductive red banner posters. Martin paused, and then made his selection. ‘ Buy One, Get One Free’ he read, ‘that’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, with shoes?’. Jenny walked faster through the mall.
‘70% or More Off - more off, and off what?’
‘And who cares’ said Jenny. ‘We don’t need pillow cases’.
‘All Products Guaranteed’ said Martin, bending to read the lettering on a Debenhams display ‘and No Cruelty to Animals involved in this Product. Hey, Jen, wait for me’.
Next day when he came down to breakfast, Jenny had already left the house. Martin read out the label on the jam pot. ‘Raspberry Jam. Ingredients. British Sugar. Raspberries. Gelling Agent. Fruit Pectin. Storage Instructions. After opening, refrigerate and use within six weeks.’ There was an envelope propped up on the tea pot. He opened it up.
‘Dear Martin. I am afraid that from now on, you will be reading out loud to yourself.’
This morning, Camille comes across some pictures of herself taken five years ago and realizes that it is time for her to book a make-up lesson with Theory, a new brand of cosmetics recently launched.
This afternoon, Camille walks into the Theory boutique nearby and is warmly greeted by the make-up artist, Terry. ‘I don’t want to put on make-up an inch thick,’ says Camille. ‘No problem, my dear. I can teach you how to apply “no make-up” make-up,’ Terry promises. ‘Play up pale beauty by choosing a base that’s slightly lighter than your skin—the paleness will make black hair look shinier,’ says Terry. ‘Pick a shade with a slightly pink undertone and not a yellow one, as the latter will accentuate any under-eye circles and sunspots.’ ‘As Asian features can be naturally flat, you may want to create a 3D-effect,’ Terry suggests. He brushes a pink all over the apples of Camille’s cheeks, continuing up and out to the temples. Next, Camille’s eyes are further brought out with a soft black eye pencil traced very close to the upper and lower lashes. ‘A thick line will make eyes look smaller,’ Terry mentions. He finishes with a pale pink lip gloss. ‘The overall effect is precious and innocent,’ he says.
Looking into the mirror, Camille is so thrilled about her new look that she purchases the following products by Theory on Terry’s recommendation: Sigmund Fluid Foundation in Ivory, Michel Powder Blush in Peony, Roland Myth Lip Gloss in Pink Pearl, and Jacques Intrigue Eye Pencil in Black Velvet. ‘Theory makes you more attractive, doesn’t it?’ Camille reassures herself.
I find myself in the store unsurprised I have ended up here again behind the counter stands the proprietor whose face is always changing it shifts with no particular pattern and takes each form for varying periods of time never predictable but at once always recognizable he doesn’t need to direct me I already know where the products are and know you can only borrow and not own them despite how much you think you might so I approach them even though I know what’s on offer although sometimes I seem to forget but when I do its only momentarily so I look through them as if I were unaware of this first I notice the box that looks like bricks so I pick it up but when I do the sound of a cat screeching from inside it warns me to set it back down so I do and move on to the next one which seems to have an attractive young girl trapped inside although her eyes say something else and I experience an inappropriate sensation I can’t explain but that I know someone has had before so it’s on to the next one which at first looks like some kind of puzzle only more difficult and rearranging it doesn’t quite explain it but it’s rewarding in a torturous way so I feel sadistic and put it back and turn around because I realize last time I borrowed the boxes I was so aware I had them that I felt sick and had to destroy myself because I couldn’t destroy the boxes because I don’t own them so I walk back past the proprietor who is smiling evilly at me because he knew this would happen and once again I leave with nothing but know this only means that I won’t be able to build my own box.
People can surprise you. My brother gave me vouchers for three time travel trips. He’s not usually one to go into things too much, but later, two-thirds through our bottle of Auchentoshan, he said: ‘I’ve found they’re a great way to measure regret. You know, if something’s not worth going back in time to fix, you may as well forgive yourself.’
The dog walked on, getting nearer and nearer, eventually close enough for us to recognise it as a stray, a mangy uncared for, uncaring mongrel. ‘That dog’s looking at me,’ I said. ‘Of course he is. Dogs always chase you, wasps always sting you, notice a pattern? You look for the bad stuff and it finds it way to you. Just relax sweetheart, be on holiday.’ ‘Thank you Sigmund. See, he’s definitely got his eye on me.’
The dog entered the village just about the same time as the bus. The dust thrown up by the bus’s wheels obscured our view but when it settled the dog was only a short distance away. As we were sorting coins for the fare I looked down; there he was at his pre meditated destination. A stone on the ground, a branch from a tree, we rooted round desperately for anything to fend off the menace.
Unnecessarily as it happened, though the dusty brown devil had carefully placed his jaws around my ankle there was no violence, no blood or injury. Seconds later he calmly continued on his way. There had been no malice on his part, he’d made his point, while by the by, incontrovertibly proving mine.
Myriad is proud to be supporting Quick Fictions, a night of short fiction (every story under 300 words) organised at the University of Sussex by Professor Nicholas Royle, author of Quilt. This annual event features new writing by students and staff at Sussex. If you missed the night itself you can read all the stories here.
