Tag new fiction

Once And Only Upon a Time

Laurel Lindström 2 Comments

Life began on a sunny day at an open air concert in a west London park. She was there with her best friend and it was the first time they’d been allowed to go to London on their own. They had taken the train up from Kent, clutching bags with squash and sweets, spam sandwiches, cheap eye pencils, lipsticks, small mirrors. Such traumas, checking make-up and hair without the other passengers noticing. The journey was long and slow, steam powered and loud. A flurry of hurried squeaks and whispers, and tangled groans beneath hunched and restless shoulders. Flashes of colour passing by, the warmth of the sun on the windows, noise and smoke. And being serious and grown-up in their carriage, not looking up and staring when the compartment door slammed shut and strangers with their curious scents sat down.

Not yet fifteen they were still, barely, the sort of girls who hadn’t yet forgotten that being a grown-up looked like a lot of trouble, like something best avoided. They had no need to hurry yet, no need yet for passion or anger, nor resentment, argument. They didn’t yet hate their mums or dads, nor yet seek conflict. Still just young enough to hold instead the threads of childhood, they knew not yet furies, nor nameless fears, or anger. Soon enough they would take this turn but not now, not today.

Arriving at Victoria station all grime and black specked, shuffling their way out of the train and stopping midspill on the platform, staring amazed, unaware of an unwritten story. Young and pretty and bewildered, floating on an ocean of hurried strangers. A young man turned and stared and the two didn’t notice him look away embarrassed for his thoughts and their youth. The girls saw him working through the crowd, narrow shoulders in a black leather jacket and darkish hair too dirty to be black or brown. He was in his early twenties and he disappeared.

The pair went slowly forwards, floating out of the station with the crowd. They had written details of what to do next. If they got too anxious for the tube the instructions said to wait under the clock for Evelyn’s dad coming up on the next train. Jostled in the crowd the paper clutched in a white gloved hand that was already grubby, no way would they wait. A sea of shapes and colours, unnavigable as they were moved along anxious, excited with frequent glances at the note. They found the District Line.

The tube monstrous big and openjawed and begging, as they hurried down the wooden escalator and scrambled into a carriage with the smoke and loud like the train, and hot and grimey. Watching as the darkness slides by, sudden halts and unravelling strangers’ tales, the chaotic mess of colours, shapes, alien forms and gazing into other peoples’ pictures. A world unfolding around them and it could never look like this again. The spell of the first time of seeing, first awareness of life passing along on the other side of a window. Strangers stinking and rumpled, the men watchful, the women with their eyes away. Shunted about for six stops, getting out and then following the hand drawn map to the little park. It took only half an hour from when the train arrived at Victoria for them to reach their stop at Parsons Green, triumphant, timeless and surprised to be there at all.

The concert was some sort of charity benefit for an aging musician friend of a friend of Ella’s dad. When he’d asked her if they’d like to go, Ella couldn’t believe he was serious. Up to London almost alone? It hadn’t much mattered what charity it was, the details were ragged remnants, crumpled and buried.

By the time the girls were going through the park gates, the first couple of acts had already been and gone. The crowd was buzzy, up for a good time, drinking and smoking, some dancing. The girls moved nervous, blushing by turns, weaving to get close to the stage, giggling when their bottoms were pinched and never seeing who did it. It wasn’t much of a stage because it wasn’t much of a gig. Meagre trappings with just a few banners, and tents with warm beer and cheese and ham rolls. A small London park and a small tribute concert to someone mostly long forgotten. Evelyn’s dad’s friend was already smiling out from the stage, watching as the girls inched their way forward. He was drumming to some slow jazz, musing on their prettiness, their youth and sweetness, wondering how he got to be so old.

The girls hadn’t even noticed there was jazz playing. They had had no idea about the music, pulling faces and rolling their eyes when it started up. But a steady beat, everyone bopping along, jigjiggily, cheerily, gentle afternoon contentment warming through the crowd. Mostly the people seemed to Evelyn and Ella to be ancient, but there were some teenagers there. Not many, and mostly girls just enough older than them to be in another, far more vigorous league. The song bumped along, and all around them even the teenagers were having a good time. The song ended and a young man ambled on stage. He glanced reluctant at the crowd, waving, smiling, leaning into the microphone to sing.

Years later the young man was famous, an international star, renowned, respected, rich, unreachable, but that day his fame glimmered only slightly. That day he looked everywhere else but at the audience, at the ground, at his feet, off to the side of the stage, everywhere else. But there was a sense of voice, of look that together would have much more to say. It shone from him. Like the girls the young man was on the edge of what comes next.

Ella didn’t remember whose son it was and nor did Evelyn, but they both remembered him for the rest of their lives. An edgy sharp memory tangled up with how the squashy warm sandwiches tasted and the sound and rhythm of the train, the roll and rumble of a dirty tube carriage. He sang a lazy, drawly song, dragging out the notes from phrase to phrase, idling along never out of touch, bar to bar. He was why so many young people were there. A bright young thing, a soon to be rising star, still playing with his dad’s friends, still waiting to pounce on a world he would own.

He asked for requests from the audience. Bold and brave Ella blurted out her’s in a sudden rush of brash unexpected excitement. She always remembered the moment and how Evelyn had taken up the shout more clearly and loudly. He refused unless she agreed to come up on stage and ask out loud into the microphone. She blushed and said no, but never forgot the echo of the repeated request, not just his but of the band all teasing, tempting her reluctant, growing courage. When she made her way towards the stage, her heart was pounding, knees shaking and suddenly willing to talk a strange man. To hear him teasing, laughing, flirtatious, in front of all those people she was suddenly willing. Such wicked delight, such power. Evelyn turned and faced the crowd and saw her dad waving at the back. Bold and loud “please sing Seven Golden Daffodils” and he smiled, heard the murmurs of approval from the band and cleared his throat, watching as she walked to the edge of the stage, climbed down and disappeared.

And much, much later he was much, much older, dying on some distant shore, career and seven marriages long since gone. Memories of countless children, grandchildren, and a life that was altogether too complicated, he still remembered that day, that moment. He remembered her long pale blonde hair, her grey eyes, the sullen scowl that turned suddenly into light. And he remembered the wondrous beauty of her youth, her luminous unguarded smile and the polite thanks. He could still see her relief, the wave of sudden trust and confidence as she thanked him for bringing her this moment in this wonderful day. She had turned and walked away, burning hot amidst shouting applause and raucous cheers, he smiling as she went and wondering how old she was. Too young he knew, and yet. She was gone before he could find her, but he too never forgot that day, that moment.

And for all the boys and men she would meet, for all the friends and lovers she would have and for all the worlds she was to pass through that he would not share, he knew they would all happen and they would all be to him as theft. Smiling as she went, he saw passing this theft he could not counter, could not prevent or undo. A moment history stole away, a moment fragile, glittering, shimmering forever on the edge of his powerless, endless sight. She stayed there always on the edge of his reality, waiting not for him, watching not for him, toying forever with only the promise of her own world. That theft and its memory remained with him always and could never be forgiven. The theft of promise untold, of love unknown.

 

When Angus met Audrey

Laurel Lindström 2 Comments

It’s always the same types, these people who mill about. And it’s always the same slightly stuffy private room for the milling Angus mused. And it’s invariably in London. These types work hard to look earnest and purposeful, like they really do mean it. Perhaps they do. He stood alone watching them chat and smile, waving the occasional hand, an offhand nod here and there. Angus lit another cigarette. A passing waiter brought him another whiskey. Angus perused lines of conversation they’d likely follow and calculated pecking orders, his favourite sport. They would say nothing to him until David arrived, because not only did he not wear their uniform, but his distance was clear and his invisible shields were slightly up. Just enough. They would come down for David, the star of the show and then Angus could exist for these people and they would recognise him as part of the unit. He was only here as a favour to David, his closest friend, and with this book the story of Angus was part of the story of David. At least in theory.

They all look so ancient Angus pondered at the same time conceding that he, even without the uniform, did perhaps look the part. He tried to dress for his age, but had never made it past the cords and waistcoats he’d first donned as a teenager wanting to be taken more seriously. And he still looked old, older than his years, even though he and David were nudging forty instead of sixty. Apart from the waiters Angus had noticed only one other guest too young to be in this gathering, and she was barely there, lurking in the corner rather than joining the throng. And then David swept into the room arms aloft, conscious of the need to look and behave in some sort of authorial manner. It wasn’t hard. “Angus, by god you’ve arrived! You must only just have landed! So marvellous that you are here! Where did the heicopter drop you dear man?” This last was a nonsense of course but its effect was immediate and suddenly the wrinkly throng was all about them. Angus noted the young woman as she made the smallest of steps forward, almost unwilling. He had to admit she’s a bit of a looker, a substantial woman early thirties he guessed clothes not too tight, low or short but very stylish looking. Colours he couldn’t name and lots of them, fashionable for the time but not excessive. The skirts looked full enough to sweep engagingly when she walked. And her shoulders were broad but unenhanced with that ridiculous padding. Yves Saint Laurent had a lot to answer for, Angus observed taking another swig. This woman had her own slightly eccentric uniform and clearly a mind of her own.

David in full flow, talking about his book and caught up in inspirations and some guff about where he got his ideas from. His little audience was lapping it up. Cigarette waving, old people nodding, names falling like rain as the little group made their contributions to the conversation. What’s the word for a group of oldies Angus wondered, musing that he would need to include himself in whatever it was. A wrinkle of them? An incontinence?

He hoped he did not look as ill and pale as most of these people looked, and that his fag intake was not so high. He stared at the columns and looked into the shadows to where the interesting looking woman was still standing. Odd he pondered, because mostly women interested him no more or less than men did. There was no room in his life for relationships beyond the wheelings and dealings that filled his head and heart. Still, sometimes he thought it might be nice to talk to someone with a different perspective, a different experience from property and law and money. Well, maybe not the last part, and into this fog came an echo of his name and Angus realised that he was being introduced to the admirers. But as he heard the tagline Angus could not help but let loose a massive guffaw. The very idea that Angus had in any way been the focus of Journeys into the Undergrowth of Commerce and How to Cut Through to the Heart of Success still amused him enormously. The contribution was mostly out of David’s head, based on a few random facts that had only the most fragile connection to real life Angus business deals. David saw the outcomes not the process but together they had put together a credible journey for the Angus case study. Angus was quietly proud that his contribution to the book was easily the most entertaining. 

As David continued to explain Angus’ journey of unmitigated success to his audience, Angus remembered that he was there to play a part, a part that the publisher expected him to fulfil. And it wasn’t entirely ficticious this role. It was indeed true that Angus had managed to accrue considerable wealth at a relatively young age. It had been a few lucky bets one Derby Day weekend and mentoring from a friend of his dad’s who’d felt sorry for Angus. An alcoholic father is hardly an asset to a bright young lad. When Angus was knee deep in A Levels the pair were snapping up private garages in North London and rental income was building up nicely.

By the time Angus got to Magdalen, he was already investing in dull but reliably lucrative businesses: a garage here, an off-license there, and soon he had enough leverage available to move on to flats and commercial developments. His aptitude and intuition were indeed uncanny and money begat more money and more money begat more options. There was no need to fictionlise the case study content for David, but it had seemed better than the inconvenient scrutiny too much attention might attract. David and Angus had been friends since their Magdalen days. They shared an affinity for cautious omission when it came to factual inclusiveness. Subsequent training in law at Stanford in California had brought them closer though not more intimate. They shared the belief that any sense of being in any way accountable to anyone, should be buried very deep. The conviction never weakened.

When his mentor died and left Angus his interests in the garages Angus was well on his way to understanding when to twist and when to stick. Studying History at Oxford and then law at Stanford together, with David Angus had replaced the mentor with the friend and came to understand that friendship should be for life. Watching David smiling and holding forth Angus reminded himself how fleeting it all is, how dearly he missed the many people he had lost. Surveying the room as he tried to gather himself together and engage with the nice people, Angus noticed that the interesting woman in the excess of colours was smiling at him. Or rather she might be, because her gaze seemed to slide off somewhere above his head. Or was it a stare? Got it he thought. The laugh. It’s been remarked upon before. Angus put up his hand, as if he was making sure his hair was still draped down the back of his head. He stared back at her and returned the smile, tipping his glass as he did before moving over to one of the small tables to stub out his cigarette and peruse a sample copy of the book. “Well, Angus, so lovely that you could make it.” This is the editor woman thought Angus, the woman who’s always standing a bit too close and laughing a bit too loud. She’s another one with the ridiculous shoulders. “Yes, of course, couldn’t let David down now could I.” And Angus beamed bluely at her, right in the eye and enjoyed her blush before stepping back a pace and returning to David to hear him say “Well you see Angus was one of my best options for the case studies, since he’s never put a foot wrong in business. At least as far as I can see.” And the man is shameless with that silly little laugh and his fingers over his mouth. The little group were clearly impressed, and the elegant woman on the edge of the circle was still smiling.

Unbidden the thought that he wished he had worn something a little smarter, a little less boisterous and that he had changed his hanky before coming out. He wished for a moment that his hairline was not quite so high and that he was aging less rapidly. As she moved towards one of the little tables Angus was tempted to join her and make some sort of idiotic chat about the cleverness of the book’s title, or how pleased he was that his friend was published. There didn’t seem to be anywhere for such a conversation to go, so Angus stayed put and just watched as she scanned David’s bio on the flyleaf. But it was too much, something pulled him in closer and soon he could see that the conversation would indeed go somewhere, maybe not far before the publisher woman started talking about David and David started talking about Angus, but for at least a furlong or so. Angus pulled his waistcoat down as far as it could go and ran a hand across the back of his head. As he approached the smile grew wider and the eyes brighter and whatever else made their connection endure, its first link was being forged. And the link was true.

Something more than blue

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

There is a man who lived near us, out in the wilds of Cumbria. Our flat over the bookshop has huge windows looking out across hillsides peppered with ragged sheep. The skies are mostly low but when they are not, a soar of blue leaps across the landscape shining brilliant, endless. All around the immense greens clamour loud under the silence of huge skies. Jessica was the first to see him, and then we both saw him many times. She saw on the hillside, random flashes of a wrong, misplaced colour, the muddied artificial blue of a jacketed figure, prone and usually at dusk. She saw it that first time, looking out through the window as she washed up, peering squint eyed through greying light. “Look, isn’t that Ken? It looks like his coat. No one has a coat that awful shade of blue.” I looked to confirm, “Yes. Certainly looks like him. Must be pissed again.” And we turned away to get on with our evening. Not long after, Ken’s slight form was on the ground vomitting and freezing. But we didn’t see that part. By the time we went to bed we hadn’t thought about it anymore. In the morning the weekday routine kicked in and we had no cause to look out of the window at the hillside lost under a blanket of heavy rain.

He used to live above the pub in the next village, with his mum and dad, then with just his dad whose mourning was endless. Ken didn’t care. The mourning got on Ken’s nerves, like the nagging to go to work, get a job, blah blah. Whatever job Ken took, they eventually fired him. Plasterer. Postman. Cellarman. Son. All gone. He took to roaming the local villages, waiting for his dole money, drinking it down, almost in one.

Sometimes people would express concern about poor Ken, traipsing along the lanes and falling down into ditches. They’d say stuff to his dad, ask what Ken was doing roaming about at all hours. Frightening the sheep, shouting at children, collapsing dead drunk. The children would stare wide-eyed at the prone figure, spittle dripping off the edge of the curb. His fingernails were black and ragged, and there were often strange wounds in livid blue and red on the ashen face. His dad would reply that it was nothing to do with him. He had a place to stay, a bed. What more did they want?

Ken came home from time to time, to sleep, to wash a little. To eat whatever was going in the fridge. His dad wasn’t much on cooking since his wife had died. But he worked as a gardener so he had plenty of potatoes and carrots and beetroot stored over winter. He’d get a bit of mince from the butcher to make mince and mash, with baked beans on the side. Ken’s dad said not much and spent his evenings playing snooker in the pub and pretending his wife was reading and waiting for him to come back home to bed. He was an old man now and his son a creature he blanked, had always blanked for his stupidity, for some past and long forgotten sin. Poor Ken was not like his two sisters, who were smart and ambitious. Poor Ken did not have their brains. As all three of them shifted into middle age, it was clear that Ken’s close set blue eyes and thin little lips would never address anything more than the pint in front of him and the unfairness of it all. He took solace in spreading spiteful rumours about his many enemies. His dad. The young man in the post-office who did not want to meet up for a drink. The unruly kids who laughed at him. Their parents. He told grand tales about a girlfriend he had in the south. About a hotel they owned together in Sevenoaks, and about their two houses in Hastings rented out to celebrities.

When they are indoors together Ken and his dad sit in adjacent armchairs staring at the television. But Ken is mostly watching his dad and his dad is studiously ignoring him and his asinine observations about the game or the news. Ken coughs from time to time and shifts in his seat to remind his dad that he is there. But for his Dad he is not. After a while in his spite he takes to hiding his dad’s cue chalk and moving his dead mother’s things. For his dad, it’s as if she is still there.

And then Ken leaves more and more and stays less and less. When he is at large in the village he launches angry tirades at the neighbours about where they’ve placed their bins and parked their cars. He does his best to have a go at the customers in the pub. But the landlady is quick with her hands and cuffs him about his small grey haired head when she catches sight of his skinny form approaching people. Those out walking see Ken in the woods. Appearing suddenly ahead of them on the path they see the bright blue jacket veer off and disappear when he sees them coming. Horse riders and cyclists tell similar stories about his uncanny arrivings and departings. Ken’s always where you least expect him. The flash of blue against the fading summer greens and the browns of autum. And the blue’s getting grubbier and less blue. Sometimes he’s spotted in Ambleside and even Kendall, miles from home, dead drunk, asleep on a bench or verge, even in the rain. His dad never bothers nor his sisters. They figure it’s up him how he lives his life. It’s up to other people if they want to pick him up from the side of the road to bring his freezing drunken body home. It’s up the them if they want to bother with a sick-soaked blue coat and discarded shoes.

And then from our flat window we saw again the blue against the green. Jessica said: “There’s Ken again. It’s bitter out.” We saw ragged crows arcing across the chilled sky, and we saw the cold stillness wrapping itself tighter and tighter around Ken’s lifeless form.

A Dangerous Moment for Antoine

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

Antoine clicked on his bulging in-box and let out a heavy sigh. There they were, another horde of emails he would have to answer. It was exhausting being a technical manager and his job was beginning to get to him. It just took up so much of his day. Once he had tippy-toed his way around the puddles and pavement cracks from his building to the tram stop, the ride into the office took him fully half an hour. And then once at his place of work he had to take the lift to the twentyfirst floor. The dizzying ascent made him quite weak, even when he indulged in the distraction of staring at other peoples’ shoes. All told his journey to work was about forty minutes, and then at five o’clock on the dot, he had to do it all again in reverse. In reverse! And in between 09:30 and five he had to be there at his desk answering idiots and fools, explaining the obvious. It was endless and his lunchbreak was a joke. Sitting in his favourite café he barely had enough time to recover from the quease-inducing lift ride from his office floor to the pavement, before he had to repeat it to get back to his desk in time. The tedium of it was all becoming just too much. His nerves were shot and his carefully manicured fingernails at risk of splitting. It was so much easier during Covid when he could stay in bed with Charmaine to do his work. But now very often it was hard not to weep. He needed more coffee to even think about tackling the emails.

Antoine was conveniently placed near the office coffee station. His coffee breaks were not so much breaks as a caffeine continuum. In readiness for the next shot he organised the inbox messages into alphabetical order. Then he noted how many there were yet to answer in neat Roman numerals on his notepad. Antoine then rose carefully turning his head from side to side to note who was appreciating the view, and took several mincing steps towards his salvation. He moved with slow deliberation, gently pulling his trousers up and his sweater down.

Back at his desk, Antoine steeled himself and avoided looking at the little clock on the computer screen. Instead he gave himself a shake, brushed an imaginary stray hair from his brow and reminded himself that he is a professional. Narrow shoulders squared he adjusted his mouse and keyboard into positions of perfect alignment. He forced his work into sharp focus, at the very forefront of his mind.

Momentarily distracted by nothing in particular, Antoine pursed his generous lips and sipped his slowly chilling coffee. Staring at the list of emails and the number of unopened ones, Antoine compared what was left with his list of descending Roman numerals. He was working hard and pondering whether it might be wise to go for a short walk around the office, much as his colleagues were doing. Short perambulations are a good way to clear the mind and avoid excess work stress, he considered. And he could see what other people were doing, overhear conversations that are none of his business, Zoom bomb and so on. It would take care of those few untidy minutes before the big hand stretched up to reach the very top of the clock and Antoine could fully enjoy the moment. Or should he simply stay put, finish his coffee and open the next message in the list.

Leaning forwards to avoid the noise of laughter coming from the vicinity of the coffee machine he noted that this message was from yesterday evening. It had arrived after Antoine had left for the day, at a time when his work day was done. He felt the familiar and well-honed annoyance at these people. Why can’t they just respect professional working hours and send their emails in a timely manner? Don’t they have homes and loved ones to go to. Don’t they have lives? He wasn’t entirely comfortable with this cliché but he understood that people liked to say it, so he said it too. But Antoine had no loved ones, not after that incident in the early 2000s. Ever since he had lived alone with a series of cats. The latest is Charmaine, a long haired and profoundly overweight Persian too lazy to do much more than purr and drape herself on Antoine’s lap. Besides Charmaine, Antoine did have the gym and his very many friends on social media, most of whom he knew rather too much about. He was close to people from all over the world, people who loved his precise and slightly opaque witticisms. People who recognised Antoine’s greatness, enthused endlessly and sincerely about his posts, and even told him they loved him from time to time. At least that’s what their emojis said, possibly.

Antoine sniffed, slightly irritated that his reply to this message could not be within his target response time parameters. It wasn’t his fault of course, because the email had been sent out of hours. Technically the mail was sent when it was possibly still a working day in Portugal, but that wasn’t the point. In Geneva the day was over when that message arrived, and the sender should have thought about that. It really was too poor. All this agonising over time and responses was exhausting and his cold coffee now finished, Antoine’s attention was turning to lunch.

But he’s a professional so he knuckles down and stares at the computer screen some more. His hand hovered over the mouse and as his delicate fingers clicked on send, a dreadful bang and the hiss and clang of an awful explosion enveloped him. Sudden, vicious, terrifying, an assault reverberating in his dainty ears, throwing muscles into spasm and his body into inadvertent convulsions and unfamiliar shapes. Within nanoseconds Antoine was crouched quivering in horror under his desk, seeing the castors on his swivel chair spinning in an entirely unexpected orbit.

This is what it sounds like. This is it, his terrified brain screams. This is the end of my life, I can see flashing images, I can see darkness, I can see strange and unidentifiable colours cascading before my eyes in endless strobing arrays. Shaking, Antoine crumpled and shaking has tears streaming from his tightly shut eyes, strands of snot trailing his face. One fist is clenched and rammed between his perfect teeth and the other hand holds it in place.

A few moments passed before Antoine became aware of a curious and unexpected silence rising around him. Shouldn’t there be noise he wondered, slightly loosening his vicelike hold on his fist and removing it from his drooling mouth. Shouldn’t there be alarms and screaming and sirens he wondered. Am I deaf? Am I dead? Where am 

I? Was this what happened when you die? Does it all just seem to continue, except that you’re dead? And then with relief he noted a tingling sensation as the blood returned to his hand. And then he could hear murmuring voices and screams, and they were not screams of terror, but of laughter. How could that be? If he had not survived, was he in some sort of office hell? Was hell a place where the carpets and the furniture were the same, but there was no coffee or views of the river and where people mocked you?

 “Antoine, are you alright” he heard a familiar voice, and cautiously opening his squeezed tight eyes he saw before him a shiney black shoe and an elegantly bent knee. And Antoine’s response breathless and high pitched, “Davide, is that you? Where am I?”. Davide reached under the desk and linked a sympathetic hand around his co-worker’s rigid upper arm. “It’s OK, you’re fine, let’s get you out of there.” As he stood up, unsteady and awkward, Antoine saw that on his desk was still a neat array of pens, notepad, dirty coffee cup. His keyboard and mouse, and his favourite flowery mousepad were still in perfect alignment. How can this be? As he turned away from his desk, Davide helping him to his seat, he saw that he and Davide were not alone. There were several of his colleagues, all peering at him with expressions of amusement, disbelief and inquisitive fascination.

“Davide, what happened?” Antoine said his voice broken with relief at still being alive. “Where did that awful bomb come from? Who is hurt? How many are dead?” Davide replied that there was no bomb and that no on was hurt or dead. “Are you OK now? Can we get you anything?” “A coffee would be nice, if you don’t mind” Antoine sniffed pathetically. Davide smiled an indulgent smile. “Sorry Antoine, it was the coffee machine that blew up. There is no coffee until it gets fixed.” Antoine felt the blush rising hot and sudden from his neck to his hairline. Wiping his wet face with a proffered tissue, he turned his back on the audience. Antoine ignored their sniggers and shifted in his chair to face his screen, where he saw that there were eleven new emails to answer. He sniffed a resentful sniff into his soggy tissue, before sighing and slowly reaching for his mouse.

More short stories here:

Shopping List
H: a love story
Grand National windows
Wasting your time again
Overgrowth

H: a love story

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

H. Parallel lines and a slender fragile bridge. H is for horror, H is for harmony. H is for hurt. H is for hospital. H is for horror. H is for horror. World a silent seamless chaos, mnemonic fragments, shards of faces, of friends, family, pets, idle hours, dreams and desires, silent noise. And all is elsewhere. All gone. H is for hospital. H is for horror. H. Sudden awareness of the space around you, closing in and getting smaller and sometimes shadowed, sometimes curving, a bilious incomprehensible distortion. H. H is for how. You see nothing, no sounds, no stink of surroundings. H is for haze.

You know you’re there. Surrounded. Unfamiliar wirey webs, pathways; strange routes, strange destinations. H is for hope. Slowly something comes. There are lamps glowing, flicking off-on, silent sentinels standing guard. Blue. You lie still and baffled, motionless and wondering what happened. H is not for blue. Where was all that awful noise, and why this silence, except for H again. Do you hear or remember H? And then the walls and machines and the blue distort and slide away coming back into view in different guises, miasma. H is for help.

You know your name, “of course you know your name a voice in your head whispers” but you cannot remember it. You know where you live, how you live, the picture’s vague but you must know. H is for home. You know that you love and that you are loved, but you don’t know how or why or who. H is for hate deep in there somewhere, somewhere far away. H again. H for help. H again. H is for hospital. H.

You need sleep, you need to rest your unreliable eyes, stop them feeding you with the false data and lies flying fast and frightening into your disrupted liquid mind. Your eyes droop away from the blue, your ears full of ringing and muffled humming. Something H hovers in the glittering dark behind your eyelids in the depths of a distant buzzing in your ears, getting louder. H. Is there more, can there be more? Strange shapes and a resolving rhythm of sound is coming through the dark. A shapeless swell. H is for helpless.

He holds her hand watching an empty gaze unseeing, unwavering, bright eyed, vacant, then the eyes flicker closed again. He hears the machines and sees their comforting lights. Outside greys and noisy jackdaws on the flat puddled roof. It’s warm in here so he takes off his coat and sits closer to her, knees tight against the edges of the bed blue jacket across them. He feels latent tension in her hand and then it fades. He knows she’s there though she doesn’t see or feel him. He tries again like they said. Talk to her. Let her know you are there. Keep talking to her. “Helen. Helen are you there?” “Hi.” Soft so soft. Squeeze. Softer still, “Hello honey, hello honey girl”. “Helen my honey love.” “Are you there? Please wake up. Please don’t leave me alone.” H is for her. H is for here.

Wasting your time again

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

In the chicken run three baby rats are playing. They duck and dive to hide under a log or a stone whenever a bird comes near. The bird doesn’t have to be a chicken, sparrows are just as effective. Magpies even more so. We tried hosing all the secret places in the run but we never see the baby rats or their parents fleeing from the water. They must live elsewhere. Or next door’s cat might have dealt with the parents, leaving the orphans to fend for themselves. The baby rats have worked out where the chicken food and water are, but they appear to be homeless. When the water flows through the holes and we lift the stones and logs to find the rats, they are nowhere to be seen nor any trace of a nest. They are living elsewhere, coming into the chicken run whenever they are hungry or thirsty and next door’s cat is busy doing something else. I watch the hens and wonder what they think of their boisterous visitors. The sparrows are keener to hurry them away and our lovely cockerel chases the sparrows in turn. Perhaps the cockerel wants to welcome his murine guests as part of his little tribe. Mustafa is a Peking bantam and he’s less than one foot high. He crows loud and often to remind the girls, the sparrows and the baby rats too, that he is much bigger than he appears. The baby rats are in awe of Mustapha, of his amazing colour scheme, the chaos of his long curved feathers and his fluffy ankles. He looks black but when the sun hits him his feathers shimmer iridescent green and purple. The lighter shades peep out to tease when the wind blows. His bright red wattles are beacons for his ladies, whatever the light and wind are doing. Mustapha is a gentlemen, dignified and with a quiet authority that none of his hens bother to notice. But the baby rats watch in awe as Mustapha approaches, his step heavy and ponderous, his feathered feet muddy and his stride small. They see him coming closer, they see him stop and they watch as he steps suddenly sideways and at right angles. Mustapha is on patrol and the baby rats run away to hide as a brace of sparrows skim overhead diving for the feeder. The baby rats only hide for a little while and as dusk comes on they do not appear at all. They are living elsewhere

 

An extract from The Ashes in the Boot Chapter 5

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

It was while Brenda and Audrey were busy navel gazing and some two days after Brenda had established herself in Audrey’s basement guestroom. At the bungalow in Great Leigh a waning Ford Fiesta is parking wonky on the lane near the drive. The car belongs to Luke and Brenda’s neighbours and it cannot be seen behind a large delivery van with Asda painted in bright and cheery green on its side. As they get out of the car, the occupants of the Ford Fiesta also cannot be seen. Renée Sagemill and Ann Apio have lived in Great Leigh for about as long as Luke and Brenda and for most of that time have observed from a distance a miserable couple living a miserable life. Private miseries keep Ann and Renée tightly squeezed within the confines of their own often silent routines. They know little about Brenda and Luke, except that she’s the carer and he is wheelchair-bound.

But lately, following a series of dreadful losses (the dog, the ancient stagleaf fern, a  final parent or two) Ann and Renée’s constraints have eased a little. They need no longer suffer that fraught blend of guilt and defiance that was their only counter to the sniping and nastiness of their remaining parents. That the remaining parents remained no longer afforded Ann and Renée a previously unfamiliar and unexpected freedom. They were still moving out of the fog to appreciate what that freedom should mean to them, as individuals and as a couple. But less caught up in their own anxieties, they had started to notice the shouts and crying. Ugly sounds and energies seeped from their neighbours’ ill-fitting windows and doors. They had started to notice that Brenda was shakey and dishevelled when she helped her husband from his wheelchair into the car. They had observed that as she tried to lift his legs, she would sometimes crouch over unexpectedly and utter a small cry. And they had noticed that in the last few days, Brenda was nowhere to be seen.

“Shall we then? Shall we just go and check? What’s a good excuse? I know it’s nosey and none of our business, but we haven’t seen her in days.” Renée looked at Ann with a hard eye. She’s always so nosey, so concerned about other peoples’ stuff. “Look, if you want to barge in on complete strangers, go ahead. But I’m not coming with you. I’ll just wait here.” And Renée folded her arms and turned her head away to stare elsewhere. As Ann clambered out of the car and set off with rapid little steps towards the bungalow, her mind was winding itself too tight and her breathing was starting to stop. What would she say? Should she start with an apology for intruding? Or should she just pretend to be popping in to say hello. How lame is that. Back in the car Renée sighs and leans over to the back of the car to retrieve one of the staghorn ferns. They had bought them in a two for one: a back up if one died, which it wouldn’t. No more dying they had agreed. “Ann” she hisses striding low and fast. “Ann, I’m coming too. We can give them this.”

The couple and their fern round the van to see Luke standing almost upright on the threshold. He’s leaning against the doorframe to pick up bags of groceries. The women look at each other, small frowns and downturned mouths. A light breeze lifts the fern’s antler shaped leaves, a green stag testing the air. As the Asda van pulls away, Ann and Renée as one move closer into the tall leylandii hedge to see what happens next. It’s a first to see Luke Mordrake fully upright and unexpectedly tall. They watch as he moves back and forth carrying many shopping bags into his house. He didn’t move with any particular nimbleness or grace, but he was erect and mobile. The wheelchair was nowhere in sight. The two women again exchanged glances and continued to spy unseen until all the shopping bags had been removed.

Chapter 5 The boiler man – Part 2

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

“I need some other clothes. I mean, I have to get something else.” And she adds trying for laughs, “I can’t stand up in these all the time, can I?” Aretta gave her an appraising look and steered her towards the ladies trousers. With a skillful eye she guessed Brenda’s size and chose a pair of jeans that had barely been worn. Pimlico. Brenda, amazed at the skill, the attention and the clothes accumulating on Aretta’s sturdy arm, could only nod. “You can try them on in here” Aretta said warm and kind. “I’ll see what else I can find.” Some forty pounds later Brenda has had more new clothes in one go than she has had in all her adult life. And she had some jewelry and shoes, even a handbag of her own.

Later that day, while Brenda was parading about the kitchen in selected outfits and getting ready for the boiler man to arrive, Aretta was sighing to her husband. “These women, they never ask for help. They’re so afraid. It’s like a disease.” Michael looked up from his despatch box at his lovely wife, “It is a disease, but they are just the symptoms. You see it’s almost worse because you cannot help her except with her clothes. You said the same last week, the same problem, women with bruises, women who don’t know how to get help, women who won’t tell.” 

Some of the clothes that Aretta has found for Brenda look almost new. They are modern, stylish and Brenda doesn’t recognise herself when she puts them on. She settles on a pair of loose fitting linen trousers in navy blue. The Meringo cardigan looks especially nice with them, moonlight shining over midnight. Aretta has also picked out a sequin embellished tee shirt in pale green which works wonderfully with the navy and cream. Brenda has paid careful attention to Aretta’s advice, memorised the combinations, but still spent the afternoon in the kitchen mixing up different combinations, just to see. To Brenda’s eye all the outfits work. Aretta was right about all of it. When it’s almost time for the boilerman to arrive, Brenda finds herself combing her hair, and stealing a swipe of lipstick from Audrey’s dressing table. But when Brenda hears the doorbell ring she drags her hand across her mouth to wipe it away. When Brenda heaves open the door, Mimis Chipman is standing deferential and polite. “That door wants planing” he smiled and handed her his card.

Brenda ushered him in, pulling at her teeshirt and wishing she knew what she was supposed to say to a boiler repair man. This boiler repair man is younger than Brenda, dark haired, olive skinned and strong looking. As she notes the width of his shoulders, the powerful forearms, she shrinks away and carefully peers at his card. “I am sorry I couldn’t come last week. It was a mess and I hope you’ve been ok without the boiler” his eyebrows raised in enquiry. “Oh, yes, yes it’s fine. I um I yes.” Brenda smiled. They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, Mimis waiting to be shown the boiler, Brenda wondering what she might be supposed to do. “It’s in here” she said, “this way” before stopping at the kitchen door having no idea where the boiler was or even what it looked like. Mimis waited expectantly for a moment and then, “right” he said, “I’ll just get my tools from the van. Shall I bring a dust sheet or do you want to use your own?” Brenda knew about dustsheets for painting but had no idea where one might be hiding in Audrey’s house. Mildly confident she said “er, er you, er you can bring yours”. As soon as Mimis was heading for his van Brenda racked her brains as to where a boiler might be lurking. It wasn’t downstairs in the basement she was sure. And why would it be? It could only be in the kitchen. But she had looked in every cupboard and not seen a boiler. 

Mimis was carting in a large toolbox and noticed Brenda’s slight flush under her messy grey hair. “Lead the way” he said brightly and as Brenda shifted her weight from foot to foot, he jokingly said “is it gone missing then absent in the line of?” “Well you see, I don’t really know. Where should it be? It isn’t in the kitchen …”. “Shall we look upstairs” Mimis replied, unaware of the effect this simple sentence was having on Brenda. She blushed “yes, that’s it, it’s probably upstairs, in the bathroom perhaps.” And as she headed that way Mimis watched her bare heels clip the stairs and found a line running unbidden in his head “her blue veined feet unsandaled were”. It was from Christabel he was pretty sure. And then unexpectedly he said it aloud followed by “Coleridge”. And Brenda turning on the stair saw, she was quite certain, a man who wasn’t there and said so. It was the only bit of poetry she could remember. Mimis was drawing a blank. “Yesterday upon the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, I wish that man would go away” Brenda repeated. “It’s not really a poem, more a nursery rhyme I think. But it’s the only poetry I can remember. I don’t know why I said it. I can see you’re really there”. Brenda felt oddly bashful and slightly too warm in her Merino cardigan as she moved on towards the bathroom, following her Mimis was frowning slightly.

There skulking in a floor to ceiling cupboard was a fairly new combi gas boiler. Mimis spread out his dustsheet and started unpacking his tools. “What was that about the feet?” Brenda asked with some trepidation. Her own were entirely blue with cold, not just the veiny parts. “It’s from Christabel, the poem, Coleridge. I can’t remember all of it, just bits. I’m quite keen on poetry you know.” Brenda adrift in confusion tried to answer. The best she could manage was, “… poetry? Would you like a cup of tea?” Mimis smiled wide “I’d prefer a strong black coffee if you have it?” And Brenda scuttled bluefooted and relieved back down to the kitchen, but the black coffee was to prove tricky. There was no instant coffee in Audrey’s house, and Brenda had no knowledge of any other sort. There was just the strange machine and the kettle. She put the kettle onto boil and pressed a switch on the machine to see if it made a difference. Nothing. Inert. Unwilling. Unhelpful. Unfulfilling as to Mimis’s request. And then soundlessly he was there, suddenly present, at her elbow, watching with a quizzical expression as Brenda looked back at the kettle, her hand resting on the coffee machine. “Can I help? You’re looking like you don’t know what you’re doing, if you don’t mind me saying.” He grinned. “Shall I do it? Let me help. We drink a lot of coffee in my house.”

Chapter 5 The boiler man – Part 1

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

At Longbourne House Audrey was calm, musing, as she watched the nurse remove the syringe, that it wasn’t important if Mrs Snipcock got the message or not. The day looked promising. Perhaps a little outing on the terrace would be in order. She drifted off wondering how much fuss she should make about borrowing a phone cable, deciding on balance that the calls to Cumin Elk & Fancy or Flom and Millichop could wait. Afterall the debts would have to and they, like Audrey, weren’t going anywhere.

Under the same promising day’s sky, the answering machine has told a goggle-eyed Brenda that Audrey’s clients can expect their new wardrobe samples next week. Like the nice voice on the message, Brenda wonders would Audrey like the usual venue booked or to host them at home? Looking through Audrey’s Filofax, Brenda pretends to choose Tuesday week and using a well-buttered piece of toast as Audrey’s phone pings a message to the kind lady who is arranging the clothes, the invites and the venue. What life is this? Brenda is starting to talk to herself more loudly and even to answer her own questions. But this question hasn’t got an answer. For a middle-aged much bullied woman who’s only ever been to Bognor and Great Leigh and its surrounds, the London territory, a London life, is unmapped. She’s parochial, but Brenda hasn’t always been deadminded. She had already been accepted into the civil service before she finished school, but those soul turning eyes got in the way. All memory of the exam, her affinity with numbers, the top marks, the job offer, all of it drowned in that liquid brown. Brenda married Luke instead and now it was all so far away as to be forgotten.

“Clothes are the problem” Brenda said hesitantly to the kitchen cupboards through a bite of Audrey’s phone. She repeated her words to the presenter on the radio and tapped in a buttered message to the answering machine lady: problem is clothes. Problem is, Brenda doesn’t have any unless she pilfers shamelessly from her absent and unknowing host. Washing out her pants every evening was one thing, but the nasty jeans and sweat shirt wouldn’t dry and were now distinctly pongy. Brenda was determined, almost. She checked the time on the hob clock and consulted Audrey’s diary. The Ocado delivery was due today between noon and two o’clock this afternoon. The boiler man was coming at four. Her phone sitting on Audrey’s immaculate granite was buzzing. Luke again. Brenda watched the phone skittering across the glitter and caught it as it fell and Luke gave up. The phone. A world was waiting. Yes. Find the router, hope the codes are on it. Yes. Now what? Find something that does searching. Keep an eye on the time. Hah! Soon. Only been twenty minutes and then. Charity shops and Audrey’s address. Directions from your location said there are two nearby, just close enough to make it there and back in time for the boiler man if Ocado arrives by two, which it might well do. All this trivial activity, all this independent action, all these decisions were intoxicating, thrilling even.

Banging again from the hall and this time Brenda is ready and has practised her grinning and gushing, “hello, great to see you” and the lady driver smiling says “gorgeous day isn’t it” and starts heaving what appears to be colour coded shopping across the threshold. “… well yes, yes it is” says Brenda watching the numerous bags accumulating. “That’s about it.” Mrs Ocado finally says and Brenda smiling back has made her choice. “Yes. That’s about it. I’m doing it today. I am. I’m about it too.” It wasn’t the sort of response Mrs Ocado was expecting and her instincts told her to shift sharpish before the conversation turned weirder. “Off I go. See you next time. Or rather I won’t as I’ll be moving on.” “And me. I won’t see you. I’ll be moving on.” Brenda called to her retreating back. “And me” she repeated, half to herself and again, “and me”. Brenda put the shopping away with immense precision, keeping everything aligned as far as she could, a far cry from the usual shoving of stuff random and messy into the cupboards of the Great Leigh bungalow under Luke’s scathing eye.

Then having surveyed the kitchen for traces of any activity or mess, Brenda picked up the door keys. She remembered to get one of Audrey’s business cards from her desk so that she knew where to return to, and some cash from Audrey’s purse which Brenda replaced with an IOU. Phone, cash and keys safely stowed in her smelly jeans pockets and following the map on her phone, she headed for the Sue Ryder shop some few hundred yards and many corners away. The traffic beyond the little square where Audrey lived was terrifying and the crowds parting around Brenda barely noticed the shabby looking woman peering into her phone and constantly checking for road names, missing traffic lights and tripping on the pavement cracks. Somehow she had the idea that London would be smooth and even and its streets comprehensively named. Brenda passed her destination several times, caught in tides of Chinese tourists dragging luggage towards Victoria Station. After the third time Brenda recognised the shop, and successfully navigated her way across the shoals to fall inside the silence and a curious smell that brought to mind old people and fabric softener.Brenda had no idea what she wanted. Racks and racks of clothes lined the walls and interior of the shop, narrow causeways separated dresses, skirts, trousers, tops, shoes and accessories. Like Brenda they were all anonymous, patient and waiting, like Brenda, for a new life. On a Tuesday afternoon the shop is quiet and the volunteers chatting in the back have taken note of Brenda’s worn and shapeless clothes before one of them comes over. “Can I help you?” The voice is heavily accented and Brenda is embarrassed to find herself staring at a beautiful African face shining out underneath a mad arrangement of colours towering high on the lady’s head. And even more embarrassed to find herself blushing. Aretta noted the blush of surprise, the yellowing bruise on Brenda’s cheek and the manky clothes she was wearing, no bag, messy hair, no makeup and broken looking shoes. She can recognise the signs. “I know what, let’s look together for you.” She flashed an encouraging, generous smile, and gestured to the nearest rack. Brenda nodded inanely and squeezed out a smile, keeping her hands deep in her pockets, fist tight and fearful of being found out, found out a thief, a runaway, squatting in someone else’s home, having never seen a woman quite like this one. Being bold with Mrs Ocado who looked pretty much like her, that was alright. But being bold in the shade of this amazing looking lady in her riotous colours and beads was impossible.

Chapter 1 An unexpected fall – Part 3

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

… of biscuits, so Alistair was shooting gleefully between the three and his one true love, thrilled at the exciting shift the mud sliding game was taking.

A crisp and efficient voice said “What service please?” “What service please?” Deirdre repeated in her sing song imitation, before Audrey bellowed out “ambulance, ambulance, tell them to send a bloody ambulance” so Deirdre did, “ambulance, ambulance, tell them to send a bloody ambulance”, while she picked at the little bobbles of wool on her ancient purple cardigan. It was her favourite and she knew vaguely that she had knitted it herself, but that was long ago, at school perhaps, or when she worked in the school after Peter died. She couldn’t remember who Peter was though, nor why he had died. Or indeed if he had died. She sighed and just knew she had once liked knitting. Now it was too confusing for her, more knotting than knitting. As she alternated the bobble picking with fondling Alistairs soft little ears, she mimicked the questions coming down the phone, “are you breathing?” “Yes” Audrey bellowed; “are you conscious”; “Yes” Audrey bellowed; “are you in pain” “yes I’m in bloody pain” Audrey bellowed, this last even louder and making her companions jump, including the dogs. Deirdre forgot to listen to the instructions from the ambulance lady watching instead as the little entourage made their hot and grubby way into the kitchen.

Deirdre was still watching and not listening as her parents, the Labrador, Audrey and the walking frame fell foul of the bricks edging the ancient and slightly undulating kitchen floor. A brick floor was a substantial advance in flooring technology in the 1850s, but no one had fully thought through how the floor would fare over the decades. Neither floor nor bricks were even any more and to the floor’s many undulations had recently been added some very deceptive gaps. One such soon claimed a leg of the walker bringing little injured huddle crashing down.

As they went over Audrey let out a loud and agonised cry, that made the lady on the other end of the phone flinch in sympathy. Audrey’s agonised squeal as she flattened the walker brought additional flinching and new urgency to the call. The walker was a buckled mess beneath Audrey now severely bruised and draped painfully over its contorted tangle. Alistair absolutely adored this new chapter and used the human heap as a special training exercise for his future as an SAS rescue dog. Every sorti brought forth new squeaks and groans that added to Alistair’s excitement. Every paw found purchase on soft and bulging and tender flesh. With every jump Audrey squeaked again. It was terrific terrier fun.

At the other end of the telephone, the 999 lady could hear the series of alarming sobs and squeaks. At the sound of the fall she wisely confirmed that “an ambulance is on its way” before Deirdre dropped the telephone and scurried over to the heap to disentangle her frail and crumpled parents from the pile. “Give me the telephone” Audrey sobbed through her agony, wincing in intense pain as she extracted her injured leg from the grimy heap of mangled walker, aged Godparents and dog leads and decrepit Labrador. As she grabbed the phone, Audrey managed a surreptitious swipe at Alistair persuading him to give up his game and wait behind his beloved instead.

Both the lead with a dog attached and the lead without a dog attached had contrived in the way of ropes and wires to become completely entangled with as many ankles, wrists, leads and bits of walker as possible. The drooling Labrador had no choice but to sit as close as he could to his parents, gagging slightly and panting. Unable to move at all, but feeling quite warm, what with all the bodies around them Stephen and Margaret started smiling and then slowly giggling at each other. They were not at all concerned with getting up again. Their bodies hadn’t been so unexpectedly and toasty warmly close in years. The memories of where this might lead was intoxicating, for all its unlikelihood.

Pulling herself with extreme care from the wreckage and leaning against a vegetable rack full of sprouting potatoes and black bananas, Audrey rapidly explained to the ambulance lady that she now might also have a mild concussion and a damaged back as well as a suspected broken ankle and a twisted wrist. The ambulance lady said “I repeat, an ambulance is on its way.” And so it was.

Deirdre managed to get the three of them fully upright and into chairs. She had taken the almost dry kettle off the hob and refilled it and while she waited for it to boil she told them many times, “a cup of tea, that’s what you need, a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit”. She repeated the phrase, one of her favourites because of the biscuit part, until the kettle boiled and she had made the tea, put the teapot on the table along with cups, milk and biscuits. Deirdre was unaware that the chocolate digestives were rapidly disintegrating in the dog’s water bowl. Audrey sat damp and dirty staring blankly at the tea and dog biscuits, much deflated. She tried to explain the unscheduled slip that had led to the lethal glissade on the muddy slope.

“I fell. I fell trying to get back up your bloody bank. Alistair was charging forwards but this bloody lump of a Lab couldn’t get the momentum going to get up the slope. I tried to pull him, then Alistair came back down to help, and I slipped trying to turn and over I went, pulled in two directions and then none, no balance and the mud like black ice.” She sniffed her self-pity. They vaguely got it. Later when all this was over and far away, Audrey explained more calmly that she had almost made it to the top of the bank separating the house and the drive from the lower lawns and the river. As she was about to take her final step onto level ground, the Lab had stopped and her downhill foot slipped forcing her forwards, almost losing her balance. Turning slightly to get upright her slipping foot had slipped further, forcing her backwards and into an unexpected pirouette, that didn’t include much of her right foot. The foot responded with the sound of crunching, hammered honeycomb toffee and Audrey went over. On hands and knees and with the dogs unintended help she eventually managed to drag herself back to the top where she called and called. No one, not even the person disappearing out towards the lane, had heard her.