It seems strange after a few years of being, first, in a group based at Eden Court Theatre (Inverness) and then a founder member of what is now, rather grandly, called  The Highland Literary Salon (HLS) to be moving on.  That should not be taken to infer anything other than support and respect for the HLS, and I still receive their splendid newsletter every month.  More power to their collective  elbows.  The thing is that I have moved to a new part of the country and I’ve finally been obliged to join a new writing group.   My first meeting, attended by only two other men in an otherwise female and, it has to be said, “older” group, had been set a task to write up to 500 words on the topic “Riding the Buses”.  I wrote two – here they are.

Riding the Buses (#1)

It had been a year already; a year of avoiding spaces where Danny had been.  A year in which Maureen still half-expected to tidy up things he’d lost interest in or plain forgotten about: a year of making allowances for a presence no longer there; a year of an absence tangible as a presence. 

Most of all he was absent from the No 52, one of the buses they took to the start of their country walks which, despite his inexorable terminal decline, he enjoyed with enthusiasm. Almost to the end he had insisted on dragging himself to the top deck, and right to the front, from where he could see the world as if he owned it, clinging to the possibility he could, would, still do anything he chose.  A denial, of course.  In that last winter she had even had to wipe the condensation from the window, so that the breath from his open, dribbling, mouth did not obscure the view.  Some other passengers, who did not see his innocence and childlike pleasure in the journey, were repelled.  She even heard them say, in hushed tones calculated to be overheard, “they oughtn’t allow them on buses in that condition”. They did not have a Danny in their lives.

Alone she still walked, mostly to please her doctor, but his loss had made travelling by bus almost unbearable.  For a long time Maureen had shunned buses completely, often arranging lifts with friends, even if it meant walking somewhere she disliked, or taking shorter routes, but when that was impossible she chose walks served only by single-deckers.  Then she would sit at the back, and in a window seat, though even that felt odd as if it were really his by right.  But slowly, almost imperceptibly, this new view of the world, less lofty, less detached, brought her back; she saw the view herself, not obstructed by Danny’s matted black hair and head pressed against the glass.

Over the following months Maureen was able to look on others walking together, with less pain and more fondness until, one summers day, stepping off the bus she suddenly knew she was ready to move on: perhaps not a big dog like Danny, when fit he was almost too much for her.  Perhaps a spaniel?  Yes, a spaniel.  Then she would ride the top deck again.

Andrew Gold©

March 2014

393 words

 

Riding the Buses (#2)

 

It wasn’t an entirely routine accident, but Superintendent Nelson still didn’t bother to look up; “You’re the detective, Fry, so detect. But hurry up, we need the road re-opened for the school run, and take young Nixon with you.” 

Sergeant John Fry stood in the half-dawn, unwrapped a toffee and sucked.  He stared at the road, the bridge, the dark stain under the arch, and thought “detect what?  This is for traffic division, or uniform, not C.I.D.”

But the young body had suffered a massive head injury, yet there was no sign of an accident: no skid marks, no broken glass or plastic, no oil or water, no soil from under the crumpled wing of a car – nothing.  All the damage was above the waist; if he’d been hit by a car he would have had leg injuries but even the trainers had been unmarked.

“Well, Nixon, it appears it’s not one for traffic after all.  The ‘super’ said “Detect”, so let’s detect.  Tell me how a kid gets killed at 4 in the morning on a quiet suburban road, leaving no trace, and nobody hears anything?  There must have been a helluva bang.”

“I don’t know guv. Could he have jumped off the bridge, do you think?”

“Suicide? Why? Poor kid was clean, well dressed, obviously cared for, money in his pocket.  He was wearing school uniform, apart from the trainers – his proper school shoes were in a back pack with books and a sandwich; it’s as if he was running to school, but 4 hours early.  Anyhow, he was at St. Joseph’s, a catholic, so not likely a suicide.”

“Pushed?”

“What, from a railway bridge, by who?”  

“OK, thrown from a train, then?”

“Maybe.  I don’t really see that, though: he’d have to have gone clean over the parapet and come down head first.  You can check the times of trains later, but start on the blue tape and re-open the road. Oh, and see if you can find his phone; you’re all glued to ‘phones these days but we didn’t find one on him.  I’m going up on the bridge.”

By the parapet, with the smell of diesel drifting in the cold wind, Fry unwrapped another toffee and looked down at the street, his foot unconsciously probing at trackside rubbish.  The first house lights were coming on, other families were getting up, other kids packing their school lunches. What was he doing here?  Judging by his address, it wasn’t even on the route to his school, so why here?  His toe moved something solid. “Well, someone’s been up here, several someone’s by the looks, and recently”.  Amongst the pile of crisp packets, juice bottles and cans he found a mobile ‘phone, still on. It was the boy’s and it had been recording video: happy, mischievous, conspiratorial ‘selfies’, normal teen stuff – except the last one.  Presumably taken by his friends, it was of a boy surfing the roof of the first bus of the day.

Andrew Gold ©

500 Words

29 March 2014

Somewhere in the middle of a blue, blue, sea was a group of eight islands: the Wei archipelago.  Western Wei had six islands and Eastern Wei had two.  The islands were always ruled by Queens, not Kings, but the Queens took consorts whom they called ‘King’.  Queen Wei’me XXV, who lived in a palace on the main island, Wen, had married King Wei’nat.  The King was joyful, strong and handsome, and the Queen, who was rather plain and sickly, always felt beholden to him for marrying her.  However the King loved his Queen very much and, over the years, she bore him several children:  the princesses Wei’wei, Wei’nau and Wei’dem; the princes Wei’wauri, Wei’bodda, Wei’wok.  The seventh, and youngest, child had been sent away, for reasons that will become clear, to a different group of islands to be brought up.  She was called Wei’natme (after both her father and mother).

Sadly, after many battles, the King died and Queen Wei’me had continued controlling the islands alone and, without the loving hand of her dear husband to moderate her, bringing up her children with fierce authority.  She became an increasingly sad and fearsome ruler.

Like their father, King Wei’nat, the princes had a carefree attitude to life, preferring to enjoy whatever the new day would bring and go to bed each night thankful for life and eager for tomorrow.  The princesses, on the other hand, were like their mother:  always looking back at the hour before, jealous of each other and generally discontented.  Over time, as they each came of age, Queen Wei’me’s children went away to live in their own islands, in other archipelagos, where they married and had children; some were so afraid of the Queen’s fierceness that they went far away, almost to other seas entirely.

After many years the old Queen became frail and, as she expected to be soon reunited with her beloved King, she called for a council of her children to see who would become the next ruler of the whole Wei archipelago.  However none of the princes and princesses would come; Princess Wei’nau thought that there were more pressing things at home, and could come to see her mother ‘nearer the time’; Princess Wei’dem was sure that it wouldn’t be her that was made ruler, as it (whatever ‘it’ was) always happened to benefit somebody else; poor Wei’wei could never get beyond the nagging doubt that she had forgotten something more important than the thing right under her nose and, consequently, never left her palace.  The Princes would never rule anyway, so Wei’wauri and Wei’bodda were on permanent holiday and could not be contacted.  The other prince, Wei’wok, had formed a successful little federation of his own with some other islands and was too busy.  But, most of all, they were all still afraid of the Queen, and agreed it would be best to send an emissary to represent them at the dowager’s bedside: so they sent for Princess Wei’natme.

Wei’natme was also still afraid of the Queen but wanted to please her brothers and sisters, and perhaps return to the body of her family, so she agreed.  Having been brought up without the influence of either King Wei’nat or Queen Wei’me, Wei’natme was, in many ways, quite unlike either of them.  She was gentle and pretty but, unlike her mother, unconcerned about her looks.  She was quite brave and carefree but, unlike her father, diligent.  She had married a commoner and had only one child, a daughter, but lived an independent and fulfilling life as a teacher.

The old Queen Wei’me was both happy and sad, and perhaps a little guilty, on seeing Princess Wei’natme.  The years of separation, and her memories, had led her to assume all kinds of things about her daughter, things about her beliefs, her attitudes, her likes and abilities.  For her part, Wei’natme assumed only one thing: that her mother did not love her because she had sent her away.   The Queen hid her happiness on seeing her daughter, even though she reminded her of her beloved husband.  Instead of saying “Hello, how are you?”, she said “Why have you come, I called for the others?” and, instead of saying how nicely she had turned out, she said “I preferred you when your hair was shorter”.   Wei’natme was hurt at first, and then angry, for it seemed as if the Queen had, indeed, not loved her – and still did not love her.  But she had learned from teaching that not everyone knows how to say what they really want to say.  She supposed that the Queen could not acknowledge her daughter’s beauty because it was a painful reminder of her handsome lost husband, and she could not say “I love you” because it was too painful to face up to having exiled her.

The Queen, in her anger and loneliness, found it easier to fulfil her fear that her child hated her by antagonising her.  And she preferred to be proved unhappily right than happily wrong because, in sole control of her children and her islands, being right had always been the one thing she could be sure of.  She brooked neither disobedience nor contrary opinion.  They stood in silence for a while as they wondered how to bridge the gulf between them.  Wei’natme spoke first.

“I have come because my brothers and sisters would not, or could not – perhaps you should ask them, rather than me, why they are not here.  I am as I am, and I please myself, and my husband, with how I look and what I wear.  Since you seem to dislike me so, perhaps I should go away again?”   Queen Wei’me was shocked by her daughter’s directness, for it had been years since anyone had dared speak their mind to her.  “Disobedient child!  How dare you speak to me like that – I am your Queen and your M….”  She stopped, as the word ‘mother’ was stayed by Wei’natme’s gentle hand on hers.  “Yes,” said Wei’natme, “you are my mother, but not my Queen any longer – remember I live far away from Wei, where you sent me.  And as for ‘disobedient child’, I am grown and married with a child of my own.  Perhaps we can agree on ‘respect’ as a place to start?”  The old Queen rose from her throne, with such pain and difficulty that Wei’natme moved to steady her but was brushed away.  “I am tired”, said the Queen, “come again tomorrow and we’ll talk about your respect then.”  And with that, she went to her chambers.

The next day Wei’natme was by the harbour, arranging for a boat to take a message to her husband, and buying some cloth for a child’s dress, when the Queen’s secretary found her.  He stayed only long enough to announce “Her Royal Highness, the Queen Wei’me, commands that you attend her at once – come with me”, before turning on his heel and marching stiffly away.  Wei’natme finished her purchase and sent her message before following, through the cool palms, to the summer palace where the Queen sat in the sun, by a well, reading.  She was grandly announced by the secretary, “Her Most Royal Highness The Princess Wei’natme”, before he withdrew, bowing so low that his billowing sleeves trailed in the dust. For a long time the Queen did not acknowledge her daughter’s presence, instead she continued to read several more chapters before finally closing her book and looking up.  “You wanted to talk about respect” and, roughly dismissing the servant who was fanning her, “then why did you keep me waiting – is that the kind of respect you mean?”

Wei’natme, trying to not embarrass the Queen, waited until the servant was out of earshot before replying.  “No, Your Majesty, I meant mutual respect.  I might ask why you kept me waiting?  After all it was you who had me commanded to appear ‘at once’, when I was occupied doing something for my husband and my daughter, but you continue to read while I stand before you in the hot sun.  And why were you so rude to your servant, she was only trying to help keep you cool?”   The Queen hurled the book at Wei’natme, but her arm was weak and her aim poor, so it fell into the well instead.  The well was all but dry, and Wei’natme retrieved the book and handed the muddy parcel back to the Queen, the ink running black onto her hands. “There, see what your anger achieves – you’ve destroyed something important to you”.  The Queen tossed the book onto the ground saying, “I don’t care, it wasn’t very good anyway and I’ve plenty of other books…..and servants.” before tottering off into the shade and slumping, gratefully, into one of two elaborate cane chairs by a hibiscus bush.  Wei’natme followed and, without being invited, took the other chair.

Wei’natme broke the awkward silence.  “I like hibiscus, don’t you?  The blooms are so vivid, and yet so temporary: here one moment and then gone.”  “Rather like children,” said the Queen, with a contemplative voice that surprised Wei’natme with its sad and unexpected insight.  But she took her chance and said “Then, why did you send me away?”  Without showing any regret, the Queen said “I suppose I feared that your father favoured you over the other children and, if truth be told, over me.  You were different: pretty and wilful.  I worried that my place, as matriarch, would be threatened if you came to be Queen one day.  And yet, of all of my children, here you are.”   “Yes.  Here I am. But if you were jealous of father’s affection, why were you so fierce with us after he died?  I was so afraid of you that, had I not been sent away, I would have left as soon as I could anyway, just like the others.”

“I only treated you as I had been treated by my own mother and father.”  Wei’natme was puzzled by this.  “And did you enjoy being treated like that?”  The Queen’s eyes were misted by tears, the first Wei’natme had ever seen from her mother, as she said “No, I hated it.  But I was afraid, of my mother especially.  She could be cruel and spiteful if you disobeyed her.  But it was necessary, I realised that.  The world is a bad place, fighting and danger everywhere.  She taught me that no child has a right to an opinion about its upbringing.  You are still headstrong – had you remained at court you would have learned that obedience is everything, whether it be your subjects or your children, otherwise there is only chaos and disintegration.  Perhaps I should have kept you here.  Obedience has held the islands together all these years.”   Wei’natme, though filled with compassion for the pain of her mother, could not allow her to escape.  “Compliance without respect, or reason, is not obedience – it is fear.  Since father died your islands, your people, and your children, have been bound together only by fear, not obedience.   They had respect for father because he showed them that life was for living, not controlling.  You taught them only fear.  And as for your servants, they may make your life tolerable, but you abuse them so that I am surprised any of them stay with you.  If they had any choice I imagine you would be quite alone here.”

The old Queen stood up, as if to make an escape from the awful answers to the awful questions that confronted her, but she was frozen.  The only parts to move were her eyes as they searched in vain around the courtyard, the sky, and the ground before her feet, for a way out.  Wei’natme continued.  “And what of love?  Did you respect, obey and love father, or only fear him?”  The Queen, her face no longer frozen, spoke through her sobs.  “I do not know.  I was not taught to love by my parents, so how could I know?  When he asked me to marry him, I supposed my mother and father would be pleased that somebody would take me.  I was still afraid: afraid to say no, afraid to disobey.  Perhaps it was love, perhaps dependence, perhaps companionship, perhaps escape; and then there were so many children there was no time to find out.”

Wei’natme also stood, and held her mother warmly, but feeling only her stiffness and emptiness through the fine clothes, she stepped away.  “I feel sorrow for you, mother, but not love.  You cannot disguise your fierceness and brutality as a necessary lesson in obedience.  It was only anger.  You visited your anger with your parents, for treating you so badly, on us your own children.  You were angry with us for preventing you from discovering yourself.  You still are angry with us – perhaps now because we are there, while father is not.  I believe that, if you had the power to turn the tides, you would prefer it if we had not existed.  We’ll, I can cease to exist for you.  I can return to my island and my husband and child.  I can leave you here with your poor servants, your ‘obedience’ and your other books.”  And, with that, she turned and strode toward the gate but, as her hand reached for the latch she heard the sound of her mother in her own flailing, angry, voice and stopped.   Across the courtyard she saw, not a figure of hate but only a joyless old woman.  Unlike her, she did not know love; unlike her, she feared the power of her own emotion and, unlike her, she stared down an empty well of happiness.  For Wai’natme had learned love from her father, had recognised it in her husband and given it to her child.  Her well of happiness was full, and always replenished.  She had learned that the more love she gave, the more she received.  Wei’natme returned to the Queen’s side.  “I cannot pretend that I love you as a daughter ought to love her mother, but neither can I ignore my compassion.  I will return to my brothers and sisters and tell them what has happened here, and then come again.  Perhaps, by then, you will have thought more about respect.  But know now that, when I return, I will not submit to any more of your anger or spite.”  Queen Wei’me watched her go, still with a little anger, some pride at her daughter’s assurance but, mostly, sadness at being reminded of her lost husband by, despite her banishment, how very much like her father she was.

Wei’natme travelled around the other islands, visiting her brothers and sisters, bringing the news of the Queen’s health and trying to explain why her mother had been so harsh with them all.  It was very hard for Wei’natme to be even-handed, for she too was still angry, and also sad at being reminded of her lost father.  Yet she was proud of what the Queen had achieved as ruler.  The princes and princesses were all still angry too, but more concerned for themselves and Wei’natme.  They told her that she should return to her husband and daughter and forget her mother entirely.  The Princes Wei’wokwok and Wei’bodda, and the husband of Princess Wei’wei were the most outspoken.  “Why should we go to her now; it was her beatings, that drove me away as soon as I was old enough to leave?  Let her face the consequences alone!”  “She made Wei’wei’s life a misery and tried to stop our marriage, let her rot!”  “Let her physicians and courtiers tend her, I still feel the scars of tongue whippings as if they were from a real lash.  I’m not going anywhere near her.”  The princesses, made meek and uncertain by years of being ordered what to think, did not know what to say.  Wei’natme, however, had seen the terror in her mother’s eyes and could not forget it:  she returned to Wen island, the capital, and her mother.

Queen Wei’me was happy to see her daughter again, but could not help herself and, instead of greeting her with affection, scowled and scolded her.  “What a poor dress!  You may live as a commoner but you don’t have to come here dressed like one”, and commanded “ go and see the court dressmaker before you come next time!”  Wei’natme felt the pain of years, as if her ear was still being twisted or her mother’s knuckles were still being rubbed into the top of her head.  She backed away, and blazed through her tears:  “Next time?  NEXT TIME?  Why should there have even been a this time?  I wish you could hear yourself, mother.” and she ran away.  The Queen’s secretary found her, weeping, by the harbour.  “Madam, the Queen is feeling unwell.  She has asked me to find you and plead with you to come back to the palace.  She sends this dress as a gift.”  Wei’natme accepted the dress (for, in truth, her own dress was a little shabby) but refused to return, saying that, though she thanked the Queen for her present, if she was really unwell she should send for her physician.  She would come again in a month, but only provided the Queen promised to be more civil, and with that she boarded the boat for home.

A month later the inter-island ferry was delayed by bad weather and Wei’natme had been terribly sea-sick, staining her new dress.  The Secretary had been too afraid to relay all of Wei’natme’s message, especially the part about promising to be more civil, so the Queen, who knew nothing of weather and it’s effects on the lives of commoners, scolded Wei’natme again.  “You’re late.  And what a state you are in.  I would never have dared let my mother see me like that.”  But then, with a little more softness in her voice, she added “But, tell me, how is my grand-daughter?”  Controlling her urge to respond to her mother’s criticism, or to run away again, Wei’natme replied “She is well, thank you,” and after a pause which she hoped the Queen would fill, but did not, “ as am I and my husband.”  She took a cloth and cleaned her dress by the fountain, before siting down by the Queen’s chaise longue and asking, in return, “And, how are you today?

The old Queen, unused to the niceties of conversation between equals, or genuine enquiries for her health, could not measure her reply; she unleashed a torrent of complaint and, for good measure, some unconcealed jealousy:  “How do you think I am… I am old and sick….and nobody comes to talk to me…..you’re young and pretty….and you still have a husband.  How do you think I feel – how would you feel?”   “Mother!” Wei’natme recoiled, ducking mentally under the distant memory of a slap to the head.  “STOP!  I only enquired about your well-being!  If it is true that nobody comes to talk to you, why do you imagine that is?  If you behave like this with everyone, you must frighten away all those who might come to see you – it is hardly a pleasant experience.  As for me being young and pretty, and not old and sick: I expect my turn will come.  Yes, I have a husband and a lovely child: it is the natural order of living things that mothers and fathers pass on to the other world before their children.  Until that happens I mean to show my love for them every day, as they love me, not thrash around like a wounded animal at bay, spitting anger and frustration like you.  Now, tell me again, how are you?”           

The Queen subsided, her angry turmoil giving way to sadness, but did not know how to apologise.  “You are right of course.  I am tired and in pain.  I eat little and my eyes are failing.  It will soon be my time.  You might think that I would be impatient to be free of pain and to see your father again – but I am frightened.  I know, in my heart, that I treated him as I have treated all of you.  He may not want to receive me in the next life.  I cannot bear the thought of eternal loneliness.”  Wei’natme comforted her mother but her kindly reply was firmly given.  “Father loved you, even though you treated him badly.  I am sure he will be pleased to see you, have no fear.  Now, ask me how I am – and listen to my answer.”  The Queen did as she was asked, and Wei’natme went on.  “I had a terrible journey, and was very sick.  My husband has no work and we struggle to buy bread and clothes on my teacher’s salary.  My beautiful daughter has to work in the fields to pay for her own schooling and it costs a great deal to travel here: my brothers and sisters have paid my fare.  You see, others have problems too.”  The old Queen seemed, at last, to understand a little and together they walked slowly around the courtyard garden talking of ordinary things like flowers and the weather, until it was time for Wei’natme to return to the ferry boat and home.  “Please come again – I enjoyed our talk” called out the Queen as Wei’natme left “and, perhaps bring my grand-daughter?”

Wei’natme conferred with her brothers and sisters, telling them of the Queen’s changing attitude.  In spite of her own fear and difficulties, Wei’natme knew the power of love and tried to tell them that they, too, might benefit from seeing the Queen again.  A month later, on her next visit to Wen Island, Wei’natme was accompanied by her own daughter, Poppy.  The Queen looked sternly over her pince-nez (which she found more ‘regal’ than spectacles, even though it was difficult to see clearly with them):  “Come closer child, let me see your face.”  Poppy, who knew no fear, advanced right to the Queen’s feet and jumped up on her lap.  “There granny” she said cheekily, “Is that close enough?  What are those funny things on your face, they make you look like a … frog”  “Silence!” ordered the Queen.  “How dare you speak to me like that?”  Poppy did not know that rhetorical questions required no answer.  “But you’re my granny, how should I speak to you – you’re funny!” and she slipped from the royal knees and skipped away to investigate the garden.  Once the Queen had recovered her composure, she was secretly amused by the bright little girl who inquisitively flitted around her courtyard with the butterflies, like them never settling for long in any one place.  “You see how a childhood without fear can be, mother?” said Wei’natme before Poppy returned with a Hibiscus bloom which she thrust under the Queen’s nose.  “What’s this called?  It’s very pretty isn’t it – but this is the only kind of flower in the garden, why is that?”   The Queen looked at the brilliant bloom and smiled at Poppy.  “Not enough water in the well.  But it does not look beautiful for long, child, – they quickly fade.  And it has no smell, well, not a flowery one anyway.  It should have a nice smell, shouldn’t it?”

“Well, I think it is lovely enough without a perfume, Granny”, said Poppy.  “not everything in a garden has a perfume that we can smell you know, but everything has its place:  the butterflies and the birds seem to like different things, don’t they?”  The rest of their visit passed in rare gentleness and good humour but, after Wei’natme and Poppy had gone, the Queen sat alone watching the butterflies and the hummingbirds that had joined them.  She thought to herself.  “The child is right.  Even though I cannot smell the Hibiscus bloom, the hummingbirds and butterflies are drawn to it.  Everything does have its place and a purpose.”

And so it was that, over succeeding months, Wei’natme brought her brothers and sisters, one by one.  With each visit, and especially those from Poppy, the Queen’s temper grew more even.  The other princes and princesses shed some, though not all, of their fear and, with it, their envy of each other.  In time, although she never quite got over being most important, and still barked at her servants sometimes, the Queen was more accepting.  The well in the courtyard was less empty, the garden had more flowers and the matter of succession seemed, somehow, less important.  And she thought that, one day, Poppy would be Queen – but only if she wanted.

© Andrew Gold

August 2002, revised January 2012

School Dinner

It is a hot June afternoon, the last-but-one lunch of term, and the dinner queue is impatient for playtime and the holidays.

She fidgets from foot to foot, scraping at the worn wooden floor and absent-mindedly teasing the torn edge of her dinner ticket while she looks for her friends.  Jackie is nearer the front and calls to her “Marion, come on, it’s sausage and mash and chocolate pudding,” and she half wonders about jumping the queue to join her, but Billy, Vanessa and Christine are in front of her.  Billy, held back from the previous year, is the oldest and biggest in the class and Vanessa and Christine hang doe-eyed at his elbow.  She thinks they are silly but together they are a formidable trio and, as they will all be going to the seniors together in September, she decides to wait.

The queue shuffles forwards but she is captivated by lazy motes of dust that drift across the high Victorian windows.  They speak to her of summer, more than ice cream and thin cotton dresses ever have. While she drifts with them she does not notice that the queue has moved on, or that Wilf has moved to fill the gap between her and Billy.  Billy’s crushing fist comes down on the hapless interloper, knocking him to the ground:  he glowers over him.  “That’ll learn yer to wait yer turn, come on Marion” and he grabs at her hand to pull her past the prostrate form.

She moves but, like everything else, now in slow motion.  The smell of fried onion mixes with floor polish; the dust motes, made briefly frantic by the turbulence, seem to hang, somehow brighter in the shafts of sunlight.  A circle of children is mouthing “Fight, Fight” but the chanting is drowned by a buzzing sound; even the rushing dinner ladies, wielding flashing fish slices, seem to be standing still.  Her dinner ticket slips from her fingers, fluttering down, and then she is moving away from them all, faster and faster into warm, wet, darkness.

When the light returns the nurse is gently sponging her legs, with water that slops from a chipped enamel basin. “No more school for you today, poor little lamb.”  She does not know that this will be the last time someone calls her that.  Her mother, somehow different too, brings a long coat for her, even though it is hot.

Now it is the last day of term and she stands apart in the dinner queue; there is a gap behind her and one in front that no-one moves to fill.  Everyone is looking at her, or so she thinks; some in awe and some disgusted.  Vanessa and Christine are whispering behind their hands as if she cannot see, as if she isn’t even there.    Billy, who might understand what it is to be different, is not there: suspended for his last day.  Only Jackie saves a place for her at the table, and she is a child for one more hour: “Roast beef and gravy, and semolina with jam for afters!  Don’t you just love school dinners?”

 

© Andrew Gold June 2009

Anthony was mooning, tentative, and no match for a captain of netball: he gave her mumps.

Hardeep, life after A levels already mapped by his parents, gave her self-determination.

At University, Viktor was exciting and dangerous: he gave her causes.

Alan, unsure of his sexuality, and Nigel (sure enough to become Nigella) gave her self-awareness, but dear Daniel (dearest, it transpired, to Mary) gave her anorexia.

Johnny, challenging – especially to his probation officer – and Pierre, charming, sophisticated, and married, gave her resilience.

But Lionel, who knew the art of compromise, just gave and, in return, Henrietta finally gave herself.

 

Andrew Gold 2012

(reproduced with permission of Readers Digest 100 Word Story Competition)

Ellen sipped at her coffee, flicking toast crumbs off her dressing gown as she re-read the engagement notices in the morning paper.  It was not hard to believe he had a fiancée.  “Pity,” she sighed to herself before moving on to the arts review.

The idea of an affair with him had taken root long before she noticed it: a little seed drifting on an autumn breeze that ruffled her serenity.  She had done nothing to encourage it, but neither did she uproot it; she liked the way it teased her from the corner of her vision as she tended her life. It wasn’t a weed, just something wild and unexpected, even quite pretty: a tiny bit of chaos in the ordered rows.  There was nothing profound about it; it was just an idea: she had never even met him.

A year before she would have ripped it out with a violence borne of self-loathing.  A year before she wouldn’t have even considered it possible.  But that was before ‘Weight-Watchers’: she was turning heads again.  Later, looking at herself in the mirror to see the new earrings she pretended he had bought her, she thought “Still, not bad for fifty-one.”

 

© Andrew Gold 2009

Catriona

She had been watching him from the kitchen window.  The ‘goose-bumps’ and fluttering of her stomach surprised her: after 17 years of marriage, and four children, she did not expect to be stirred.

The water seeping into her Marigolds brought Catriona back to the present and she made to empty the sink.  As she felt the taut resistance of the plug-chain, she looked out again and realised that Murdo was no longer there, and that she was no longer roused, but flustered.  She jerked at the chain and, suddenly, more than dirty water was draining away, the fluttering was a different kind of emotion, panic.

She was still in free-fall when Murdo came in to wash the smell of drains from his hands.  Did it show?  How could he not notice her turmoil, her burning face, her bright eyes.  Why didn’t he say something? He spoke over his shoulder, “I’ll send the bill to Allan.”

“He doesn’t even see me”, she thought “I’m part of the background, another kitchen appliance, another broken drain: an adjunct to another man’s life. A wife.”  She screamed silently, “Why not me, send the bill to me, this is MY house, I’m here, see ME”.   She said, “Fine” and handed him the towel, but held onto it so that, at least, he would have to stand facing her.

Later, the shipping forecast incanting in the next room, Catriona sat on the edge their bed, re-running her life for a sign that she was mistaken, hysterical, hormonal.  Allan would say that.  Anyone would say that.  Everyone WILL say that.   But there was no sign, only a bottomless void where certainty once was, and that was what thrilled her.  She was at the top of the roller coaster, too late to get off, arms raised in exultation and shouting in excited terror.  She was in love, but not with Murdo or her husband: she was in love with the feeling of being in love again.

How could she tell kind, steady Allan, safe Allan, reliable, predictable boring Allan, that she felt smothered, most of all by his compulsion to plan every last drop of spontaneity from their lives – from her life.

How could she tell him?  How could she not?

 

© Andrew Gold

 

 

 

Hamble Axton carefully laced his shoes, hands weaving the same path this day, as every other, in a noiseless ritual.  Each lace exactly the same length, same loop, not too tight, so that his tired feet and sprained ankle would carry him through this last long day’s walk.

His hands shook gently as he gathered up his few possessions, so carefully set out the night before, and took inventory of his fading memories.  He paused to stroke the engraved surface of an ancient snuff box, long since empty save for a broken needle, some greasy thread and the stump of a pencil, struggled briefly with a painful evocation and thrust it, with the rest, into the pocket of his canvas coat.  Finally ready, he carefully lifted his satchel in both hands, momentarily stopped inside the  doorway of the bothy, then, sniffing at the air, drew himself stiffly up to his full height and ducking through, stepped through into another solitary, windless, and silent day.

Hamble knew it was day because he was awake: he had, after all, slept and after sleep it was always morning wasn’t it?  Certainly there was no other way of measuring the passage of time, the lightening or darkening of the sky having long since merged into a uniform half-light, and since there was nobody else to argue the point, he was satisfied to move his mental diary along just one more space.

As he limped on through the desiccated ground cover of the forest he reprised the forty days since a tidal wave of silence had crested Byers Ridge and rolled down his beautiful valley.  It was the sudden absence of forest sounds that had alerted him on that first day, and he had scrambled into a clearing from where he could see nothing but the peak of Mount Linar and a blanket of yellow fog.  Sensing the danger he had climbed higher still and, by the time he had reached a small plateau above the tree line, there was nothing: no forest, no mountains, no sound and no sun.  He had decided to stay put for a while.

It was three days before he was again able to discern other features below as the, now, white veil parted to reveal the familiar, but strangely unknown, pattern of ridges, peaks  and valleys that had been his home for nine years; it was another four days before he felt it safe to come down into this new world.  Until the thirty fifth day he had seen no other living thing, heard no bird or insect, tasted no food other than the remains of his rationed summer camp store, and drunk no liquid but the condensing mist from the brown and shrivelled leaves. He was alone in a dying world and, he guessed, he was going to die with it.

He had tried to imagine what it must have been like in the city.  He reasoned that the catastrophe, man made or natural, must have overtaken cities very quickly: you could never see anything coming in a city with all those buildings in the way.  After the failure of the last climate control experiment in ’24 people had relied on the vidi-screen to tell them what the weather was like down at ground level.  If you could call it weather. Even then the forecasting had become increasingly unreliable.  In fact it had, for some time, been impossible to differentiate between man-made and natural in anything, even the food had become engineered.  Impossible, that was, unless you were an Outsider like Hamble Axton, but all that “progress” hadn’t helped much in the end.  The factories, fully automated for years, would still be churning out goods until the raw materials or power finally gave out.  All those people must still be lying where they had dropped; kids plugged, now un-sensing, into their ‘Experi-pods’; people in bed, floating in swimming pools, in elevators (doors still musically sliding back and forth), limp policemen presiding helplessly over the traffic jam to end all traffic jams – literally.  As a retired Engineer the macabre humour amused him. He had grown to hate the city and everything it stood for; it was its utter pointlessness that had finally forced him to become an Outsider, like others before him, to live alone in the forest, hunting, raising his own food, and thinking his own thoughts.

On his eleventh day off the plateau he had found the body of Jackson Freyn, the Ranger, at his favourite lunching spot. His cap at an angle, but still on his head, and his badge of office now dull, he seemed oddly unreal.  The paternal bureaucracy had never quite come to terms with the notion of the Outsiders that it had, itself, created.  It was the Rangers’ job to keep an eye on any that survived in case, he supposed, they developed some form of group that threatened to challenge “the system”.  The absurdity of this hypothesis, that those who had rejected any form of organisation would form another one, had escaped Freyn.  He had dutifully come to the Outside to check, every six months;  to some degree they had respected each other and Hamble had thought, once or twice, that Jackson had a little Outsider in him too.  Now, even the ants in Freyn’s open food pack were dead, but the unfinished sandwiches and fruit were mouldy so Hamble took a little solace from the conclusion that dead things were decomposing.  Life, in some form at least, continued but it was the first time that he had thought about bacteria with any affection.  Day on day, he worked his way around the receding edge of the mist, bitter and angry at the injustice of his own ending until, finally, he was down into his beloved forest again and ready to die.  But then, on the thirty- fifth day, something happened.

Tripping over a root, hidden under the pine needles and dead leaves, he fell heavily, twisting his ankle and winding himself. He lay for a while breathing in spasms, the air burning at his throat, wishing that he could just stay there forever, but eventually shook his head to clear the pain and, in the corner of his eye saw a flash of colour.  At first he thought he was hallucinating from lack of food, or the poison in the air, and it took him fully a minute to focus his eyes and longer to believe what he saw.

A flower.  A small, brilliant blue, flower.  A perfect joyful explosion of a blue flower.  He was not alone.  Not everything was dead.  And, for the first time in the longest time, Hamble Axton began to laugh out loud; at first quietly, his big weary shoulders moving with his breath, and then a ripple of giggles building to a huge crescendo of uncontrollable sound that echoed off into the silent trees, until he began to realise the importance of his find.  Here was the only other living thing that he had seen in more than a month and, probably,  it would die too:  slowly Hamble Axton’s laughter turned to tears.  For hours, it seemed, he sat cross-legged in the clearing staring at the flower, afraid even to touch it or to see if it had a perfume, nursing his ankle and rocking gently as he tried to make sense of it all.  Finally he became disgusted with his own inaction and self-pity.  He could not reason why this small plant had survived, but if the flower had survived the fog it would surely, at least, survive him.  Although he had no way of knowing if any other Outsiders had survived, his was the highest territory and he supposed not.  He determined that his only focus must be the plant’s survival.  Even if there were, somewhere, another such flower he could not risk there being an insect left for pollination.  Nor could he risk searching for one and then losing his way back to the clearing – the fog might return. Although he had foraged and lived for years in the forest Axton had no great knowledge of cultivating flowers, but he knew that he had to risk uprooting it, and finding a way of nourishing and watering it, in the hope of finding another, and quickly.

Carefully he circled the plant with a shallow trench dug with his bare hands.  The digging was easy in the rotted vegetation on the forest floor but he went slowly, and started a long way out from the flower stem, not knowing how extensive the root system might be.  Gradually working in, narrowing down the circle, Hamble finally stopped when he had a diameter of about two hand spans across and then probed downwards all around until he could feel his own fingers meet under the centre of the flower.  Then, tearing the end from his shirt to make a bag for the root ball, he tenderly lifted the flower out of the ground and into his satchel.

Each day then, until this the fortieth, he had deliberately moved through the forest around the mountainside staying, as far as he could judge, along the same contour line as the clearing where he had found his prize, for it seemed to him that if there were any other plants of the same kind, they would most likely be at this altitude.  Each evening he collected moisture from leaves where he found it and carried it, lovingly, in his snuff box to the flower, keeping little back and trusting to gather moisture for himself on the move each day.  But each day there was less for them both; each day he could walk less far as dehydration, and his damaged ankle, slowly drained his will to save the plant. Before making camp on the thirty-ninth night he had circled the bivouac in a last vain reconnaissance for another flower, or a stream, but found only the old Outsiders’ bothy.  Without water he knew that he would be unable to make it through a forty first day so Hamble decided to make his last night one of relative comfort and moved his precious cargo inside.

That night he did not immediately sleep, but lay instead contemplating his life.  He was too exhausted for anger now; instead, it saddened him to think how so much promise and excitement had been corrupted.  He had tried to make those around him see the insanity of attempting to control everything, but even after the first two planetary experiments had failed, they did not understand.  He had resigned from the colony, to become the first Outsider in years, and had been disowned by all, except Freyn, for his dangerous heresy. And now they were all dead and, soon, he too would be.  He remembered, too, the stories of ancient cults who had believed in a universal force for good.  One of them, he thought, had an initiation ritual that had something to do with spending forty days and nights in the forest, which amused him.  Now, after his own trial in his own personal wilderness, he would have been qualified to join except that, had the believers not already died out last century, they were certainly dead now.  Anyway, they would have struggled with the most finite proof that there was no such universal force for good: the extinction of the world, to the very last flower.  And so, as he finally settled into sleep, Hamble Axton decided that in the morning he would travel as far as he could and, when he could go no further, he would plant his flower, and lay down beside it where he could at least see it as his eyes closed for the last time.  After his acceptance of the inevitable, the new day was strangely easier and, once or twice, he thought he felt just the merest kiss of wind on his cracked face, but Hamble was well past the caring as he limped into the evening. He could do no more.  Carefully scooping the soil to form a shallow pit, as gently as he had lifted it from the ground just five days earlier, he re-planted the little blue flower and dripped the last of the water onto the fragile petals.  He sat for a while, then he emptied his pockets and satchel and set out his possessions in one last, orderly, act of remembrance.  He wrote his name on a scrap of paper, and even managed a smile to himself as he broke his pencil point, adding a very final full stop, before folding it neatly into his snuff box.  Then, just as deliberately, he composed himself in a protective semi-circle about the flower.  He allowed himself one halting, tender, caress of the bloom with a single fingertip, and waited.  It was not long.  As he floated away he thought he saw a flash of light in the mist, heard voices calling him and smelled fields of summer grass.  But he did not feel the first splash of rain nor see, in the middle distance of his passing, the other blue flower beyond the first, or the rising of his planet’s second moon.

 

© Andrew Gold

Art and Gerry

Gerry was a sort of mechanic, and he could fix anything.  At least his neighbours thought so, judging by the continuous stream of requests to fix this, or that, or for his advice.  If it didn’t work, as long as it had nuts and bolts, screws or wires, metal or wood, he could fix it; even if it did work, he could make it work better.  He was always busy.

Even on his days off he could be found pottering about ‘fixing stuff’.  He could take a pile of seemingly unconnected parts, or materials, and make something useful too – a bit like an inventor.  It seemed as if the parts lived somehow in his hands, talked to him, insisted that he use them for a purpose (sometimes a purpose that he hadn’t thought of before that moment) rather than lie in a box, or on the shelves of his workshop.

One day, after a long week’s work fixing ploughs, washing machines and DVDs, Gerry went into his workshop to…..well, actually he didn’t have a particular reason, just a feeling that he was supposed to do something.  You know, that kind of feeling you get when, finally, you have time to get round to that ‘something’ you’ve been putting off for a long time, something you go past every day that nags at you, but so familiar that now you can’t quite remember what it was?  Gerry had a lot of moments like that, setting off to do something important and, on arrival, thinking to himself that he’d forgotten what it was he was supposed to do.  You know, that feeling.

Anyway there he was, in his workshop, having one of those moments, and scanning the shelves in the hope that he would remember what it was he was supposed to be doing, when he accidentally kicked a small, discarded, something.  The clatter made him look down and there, in between a bag marked “might come in useful sometime” and a box marked “SAVE FOR LATER” his eyes lighted on something not of metal, plastic or wood: it was a mouse.  In the blink of a gnats eye Gerry said to himself, in a kind of benign inventorly way, “Hello, what are you doing here; there’s nothing to eat, do you live in my workshop?” and fully expected the mouse to disappear.  But it didn’t, it just sat there looking at him, right in the eye.  And it spoke back.

“What am I doing in here?  Hey, man, what are you doing in here is more the question, don’t you think?  Well, if you’ve come to tidy up, this place is cool as it is thank you very much, and, as for food, I do ok.  You dig? And now, if you’ll excuse me, some of us have work to do.”  At that it turned and, muttering a sarcastic imitation “Hello, what are you doing here”, pattered off between the half empty paint tins and a box marked “FUTURE PROJECTS – PARTS”, and out of sight.

Gerry was, understandably, taken aback; after all it was his workshop. He was used to talking to himself, and to his tools if it came to that, but not having a lippy, Hippy, mouse to deal with.  What did it mean “Tidy up?”  It might be a bit jumbled, but everything had its place and he, at least, understood the theory of the system.  Gerry was almost offended, and the unexpected confrontation had put his mind right off whatever it was he couldn’t remember in the first place, so he locked up the workshop again and didn’t come back until the next day when he was, very definitely, going to fix something.

The morning was planned to be busy: there was a chair to mend, two lawn mowers (one to sharpen and another whose engine just wouldn’t run sweetly), and a teddy bear to patch for his grand-daughter.  Gradually the parts and the tools were gathered on the bench and Gerry set to work.  It was while the ¼ inch open-ended spanner was saying, “I think the 6 millimetre ring spanner would be better on this, Gerry” that he noticed the mouse again – sitting on the edge of the bench watching him.  “What gives, man?” it said rather dismissively.  The spanner slipped on the nut and Gerry skinned his knuckles; “Told you”, said the spanner.  “I’m fixing this lawnmower,” said Gerry and, nursing his hand, “would you mind not distracting me?”

The mouse laughed.  “Me, distracting you?  Ha!  That’s rich coming from a man who has conversations with spanners.  What d’ya want to be fixing it for anyway.  Don’t you dig, man, that machine is murderous out there in the grass?  Why do you think I live in here? Certainly not for the view!”

“Hey, just wait a minute,” said the spanner as it clattered back into the toolbox, “what’s wrong with talking to spanners – it’s not listening to them that’s your problem, Gerry.”  The lawnmower joined in, “Not so much of the “murderous”, fur face, or I’ll shave your tail.  I’m needed out there, and if it wasn’t for me you spanners would never see the outside of the toolbox.”  “Oh yeah?  Well if it wasn’t for us you’d never get off this bench, much less make your pretty little stripes on the grass.  Buzz brain.”  “Quiet”, said Gerry.  There was a discontented murmuring from the screwdrivers, “That’s right, you tell him” before Gerry slammed the toolbox lid shut, with a firmer “ QUIET. Q.U.I.E.T, QUIET – all of you.”  And at that Gerry scooped up the mouse, gently but firmly, and said “And you, outside, NOW”.

The mouse was still sitting on one of the big stones that Gerry used to prop open the workshop door when he came back from cleaning up his hand.  “Still here eh, mouse?”  “Where else would I be?” said the mouse, “I’m waiting for you to put me back in there.  There was no need to be so rough you know, I’m just doing my job.  And the name’s Arthur, not mouse; you can call me Art.”

Gerry sat down on the other doorstop and looked at the mouse with something that slipped through the crack between bemusement and tenderness.  He started to roll himself a cigarette. “I’m sorry, Art, you’re right of course.  I lost it in there for a while – sassy spanners.  You’ve no idea what it’s like having everyone expecting you to fix stuff all the time, and no time to remember what I’m supposed to be doing for myself.  You know: me, me, me, me me  Anyway, what do you mean, ‘just doing your job”?

“What makes you think you’re the only one with a job to be done, Ger?”, said the mouse, which had, by now, clambered up onto the toe of Gerry’s work boot.    “For example, take those spanners of yours.  Sometimes they ‘hide’ don’t they? – I’ve seen you searching through the box for a special tool that ‘mysteriously’ can’t be found, only to reappear, just as mysteriously, after you’ve stopped looking.  Well, their main job is not to turn nuts and bolts – it’s to remind you that, sometimes, the thing you most desperately seek is right under your nose.  And that crazy lawnmower, the one that runs perfectly well except in the workshop?  That’s there to remind you that there are things that work quite well without your interference.  You dig, yet?  And blow some of that over here.”

Gerry, though not completely comfortable with the idea that a mouse was, apparently, a casual smoker, nevertheless blew a smoke ring that curled gently across the space and settled elegantly over the mouse’s shoulders.  “But I asked you about your job” he said.

“My job, Ger?  My main job is to create chaos, so that you have to think harder about what the heck it is you are supposed to be doing.  I move stuff around, so it isn’t where you last left it; I watch what you’re doing and, if I get the chance, I hide the next thing you’re going to need.  Oh, and I turn the mixture screw on that lawnmower’s carburettor.  Generally, I mess up.  My other job is to eat your lunch.  By the way, I prefer wholewheat bread, not those ditsy crackers that get stuck in my teeth – and don’t believe what they say about mice and cheese – it ain’t true – I prefer fruit.  Could we have avocado once in a while?”

Gerry sat quietly for a while before asking the, unavoidable, next question. “And who, Art, dishes out all these jobs in my workshop?”  Art was close to exasperation and scrambled up Gerry’s leg, onto his wrist where he could see his eyes and, it must be said, closer to the smouldering end of the cigarette.  “Oh Man, you really don’t get it yet, do you?  It’s you, you dipstick.  You create exactly, and only, what you need around you.  None of this is real.  Your reality is not the same as mine, is not the same as the spanners’, is not the same as the lawnmower’s, is not the same as anything or anyone else’s.  What happens in your workshop, is what you want, or need, to happen.  And only that.”

“I see,” said Gerry, “so what you’re saying is that you don’t really exist unless I need you to exist.

“BINGO!  And…..?”

Gerry went on “And….my job is….?”

“And your job…is….?”

“And… my job is…. to work out why I need to create these things, sorry, create this particular version of reality?”

“BINGO again!  And…?”

“I’m sorry, Art… I don’t know; and what?”

Art stamped his feet with frustration and pointed over his shoulder with a thumb, “Oh man, don’t give up now, you’re so close.  Think!  Nothing happens in there without your say so.  The accidents, the machines that won’t run just right, the tools that go missing, the forgotten ….come on man, the forgotten……”

Gerry searched round his head, swatting at ideas like a butterfly collector with a net. The penny finally dropped and he said, rather tentatively, “The forgotten…… reason for me being in there in the first place?”

“Yay! BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!  Give the man a prize from the top shelf!  The whole point of this reality is to remind you of your reason for existence, why you get up in the morning, why you breathe.  It’s all about focus.”

“So, when I’ve worked out the why, and I remember it, what then?  But Art had vanished.

Over the coming weeks and months a subtle change came over the workshop.  Things stayed where they were put, tools didn’t hide so much, the lawnmower got out more and Gerry remembered, most days, why he opened the workshop door.  Some of his lunch still disappeared though, especially when there was avocado.

© Andrew Gold

V3 2011