a twenty first story - 'the best value in town'

‘Two pints of ale, and a packet of pork scratching’.  He was tall and thin, with big, mother me eyes, and a rakish beard.  He wore a long, lank blue-grey cardigan over the top of a red T-shirt.  ‘A packet of pork scratchings?’, I repeated, unsure whether I had heard him correctly the first time.  ‘Yeah, mate’.  ‘Right’, I said and took a pack from above the cash register and handed it to him.  He was shuffling his bank cards clumsily, eyes half shut.

‘You alright, mate?’, I asked warily.  He looked up at me, blinking.  ‘Yeah’, he replied, steadying himself against the bar.  ‘Two pints of ale then?’.  ‘Yeah’, he said again, swaying in a circular motion as if he’d just been clubbed on the head by Fred Flinstone.  ‘Sure you haven’t had enough already?’, I ventured, aware he was four sheets to the wind.  ‘No, mate, I’m fine’.  His voice was a stoned slur, but he looked fairly harmless so I poured him a couple of pints and placed them in front of him, beer frothing over the rim of each glass.

‘That will be five pounds, twenty please’, I said.  ‘Five pounds, twenty’ he mumbled to himself, and began searching in his wallet for loose change, his long fingers picking out coppers, and five pence pieces.  A small collection had gathered between on us on the counter, about sixty pence in total.  ‘There you are’, he said, ploughing the money towards me with his outstretched palm, and taking a dizzy step backwards.  ‘I think we’ll need a little more’, I replied, half smiling inside.  ‘A little more?’. ‘Yes, please’, I said and asked him if he had any notes.

Once again, he returned his attention to the contents of his wallet, and presently a pile of scrap paper had been assembled – old receipts that had been through the washing machine, train tickets that had suffered the same fate, a couple of flyers.  ‘Any notes in there?’ I inquired when the fourth or fifth receipt had been produced.  It was as if this was his way of proving he had good credit, and after a little more poking around, he presented me with a dry cleaning bill.

‘Fabric-care dry cleaning & laundry services’, announced the writing in bold italics at the head of the piece of paper, ‘the best value in town’.      

a twentieth story...'vinopolis'

It was Friday lunchtime, and it was hot and muggy in the office.  The building had long since stopped being serviced, and the air conditioning blew dust everywhere.  Michael was desperate to get out and get on with his evening plans.  But the emails kept pinging into his inbox.  If he was alone on his floor, as he sometimes was, he would have kicked off his shoes and removed his socks, put his feet up on the plywood desk and unplugged his telephone.  He was not alone.  The only mercy was the absence of his boss who bought the likelihood of the unenviable task of filing documents the company no longer had any real interest in, but were required to keep under law.

He scratched his head, scratched under his eyes, behind his ears. He picked small residues of dirt from his finger nails.  He tugged at his chin.  Another email alert came in.  He switched back to the email screen and read the ‘urgent request’ before him.  Today, there seemed something offensive and wholly irritating about the red exclamation marks accompanying these messages.  ‘Go away’, he said under his breath.  

Even the boundless prairies of the internet could not contain his anguish and boredom that seemed to stretch across the whole afternoon.  The remaining hours in the working day fell about him like a great tarpaulin, the onerous weight of which he simply could not throw off or escape from.  A vaguely defined sense of duty, and a fear of guilt at not being a useful employee kept him at his desk in spite of his inertia.

The telephone rang.  The display screen showed 155 - a general call to which the whole office was privy to answer.  He looked up in hope someone would pick up their telephone before he felt compelled to.  Three, four, five seconds passed.  His hand hovered over the receiver.  Six, seven seconds.  He picked it up. ‘Hello’, he began, but the line was dead.  Someone downstairs had taken it.  With a feeling of impotence he put the receiver down.  His shoulders were aching, and he noticed more flecks of white dandruff.  With a sticky hand he brushed them away before rubbing his face to relieve some of the wearisome tension.

When he was in this kind of mood Michael felt a strong desire to flee the city, and recreate paradise lost on a hill in a forest, yet he was smart enough to realise even the simple life could become tiresome.  How had civilisation developed to fill his existence with so many trials? And were boredom and fatigue simply the result of the loss of childike wonder, as well as the unavoidable consequence of adulthood? 

Another email came in.  Sara had cancelled their date at Vinopolis.  

a nineteenth story...'a prelude to Crash'

Somebody’s feet were sticking through the smashed windshield.  The passenger seat was soaked with blood.  The blood dripped from the seat onto the chassis, from the chassis onto the tarmac, and half merged with a pool of motor oil.  The motor oil was seeping from a hole the size of fist in the fuel tank of the motor cycle, front wheel caught under the crumpled bumper of the motor car, back wheel still spinning.  The driver of the motor cycle was spread-eagled in the road ten yards away, limbs splayed at all angles like a mangled and discarded puppet.  The distant hum of the freeway provided an indifferent backdrop to sudden and unequivocal death.

I unscrewed the lens cap of my single lens reflex camera, and adjusted the focus, zeroing in on the dark flecks of blood across the windshield, drying in the afternoon heat; white sunlight glancing off the steel and chrome body of the motor car.  The brutality of the collision was remarkable. 

After taking a few close up photographs of the front of the motor car, I moved round to peer in at the driver with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.  The driver was a female, between seventeen and eighteen years of age.  She had been thrown violently forwards and then backwards by the impact of the crash.  A shard of window glass had pierced her neck below her right ear and a deep wound was throbbing blood at intervals.  Her jaw was a hundred and twenty degrees to the rest of her face.  She was wearing tight, blue denim hotpants, and a T-shirt with the Sign of the Cross.

I placed my camera on top of the roof of the motor vehicle, and tentatively reached inside the cockpit, searching for a pulse on her neck.  The cooling fan on the dashboard was hissing.  I had to put my fingers inside the wound.  With my eyes closed I felt around for a few seconds.  The wound was warm, and I sensed again the pristine smell of blood.  But there was nothing.  She too was dead, gone.  Gone before the paramedics could save her.  Gone before she had ever been fucked.

The paramedics.  In the frenzy of the crash I had forgotten about them.  A sudden realisation caught me:  while fate simply decreed I had been following the motor car when the motor cycle bored into it, and the motor car into the concrete reservation, perhaps it would have been expected of me to drive on by, leaving the chaos and calamity behind in the same manner as traffic passing on the distant freeway. 

In a mild panic, I swept up my camera and retreated from the accident, past the dead motor cyclist, to my Sedan on the hard shoulder twenty yards beyond.  The motor was still running, and I opened the side door, throwing my camera onto the back seat among the sprawl of porno magazines. 

About a mile along the winding B road, I pulled over again in a lay-by surrounded with trees.  Witnessing a car wreckage of such magnitude first hand had aroused something inside of me.  The afternoon heat was stifling and oppressive.  The air beneath the canopy of the trees would be cooler.  I took off my jean belt and got out of the Sedan, carrying a magazine from the back seat with me.  

an eighteenth story...'sugar or granulated happiness'

‘Those glasses never suited him’ she said to her friend.  ‘And would he ever take them off?!’  She shook her head, her friend smiled.  ‘I mean talk about seeing things from one perspective!’  They were having coffee, both cups had gone cold.  ‘I never wanted it to come to this though’.  Her friend shifted uneasily in his seat, he was the silent type, people thought he was a good listener.  They looked at their plates.  The radio on the counter was playing sentimental AM rock.  ‘I don’t know’ she said at last, ‘maybe this will change him for the better’. ‘Maybe’ said her friend.  He was poking around in the sugar bowl.  ‘I was so angry at first.  We were in the kitchen and I remember looking around quickly, half intending to throw something at him’.  A cute young couple sat down at the table opposite. 

She dabbed her top lip with her napkin and wiped the corner of her eye.   ‘Would you like another cup of coffee?’ he asked.  ‘Oh, you’re sweet’ she said, and touched his wrist.  ‘Yes’ she said and sniffed loudly.  He asked if she was alright. ‘I’m okay’ she replied.  Then the waitress saw him stand up and came over to their table.  ‘Two more coffees please’ he requested.  The waitress was also young and pretty and had thick brown curls that fell to her shoulders.  ‘I’m so glad you agreed to meet’ she said.  ‘It’s good to have company just now’.  ‘I bet’ he said.  The tears were rigged in her eyes.  He looked at her hesitantly, he had a little plastic teaspoon in his right hand and kept pressing the base against the table top. 

They sat quietly for a minute and the waitress returned with two cups of coffee, a pot of milk, and a fresh sugar bowl.  He thanked the waitress and spooned some sugar into his coffee.  ‘I’m not normally one for crying’ she said to him.  He breathed in deeply.  ‘It’s fine’ he replied.  ‘In public too.  Who would have thought?’ she continued.   He began to stir.  She looked tired and unhappy.  ‘When was the last time you had sugar in your coffee?’ he asked.    

Smallest Graves - a new one from Phil

On Saturday morning Izzy announced grimly to her father that Caramel had died.  “I touched him and he was cold and hard and gone.”

Her father, Iain, frowned at Izzy, regarding her small-for-her-age frame and ladybird hair clips.  Then he got up from the dining table, pressing his hands on the edge to lift himself up, and went with Izzy to examine the body.  “That’s Caramel, not Toffee?” he asked his daughter.  The guinea pig was dead alright; it looked slightly deflated and was wedged up against the side of the hutch, some brown fur poking rudely through the wire mesh.  The other guinea pig chewed on the other side of the hutch.  Iain fancied there was a triumphant glimmer in the eye of the survivor, but dismissed the thought. 

“Daddy, I think I know which guinea pig is which,” said Izzy with the tone of a six-year-old confident that are at least some things that she knows better than her father.  “Are we going to stuff Caramel and keep him?”

Iain looked at his daughter quickly.  She looked back at him with all seriousness.  He wondered at how well she was taking the loss of her pet, and with this comment, her easy familiarity with death.  He felt far more uncomfortable with the situation than she seemed to be.  Iain pictured for a moment a macabre stuffed Caramel on the mantelpiece, mounted on a bevelled and varnished wooden stand, head turned like a predator.  A conversation starter, that’d be for sure. 

“I think we’ll bury Caramel in the garden, Izzy.” 

Iain, Izzy and her mother, Sally, chose a spot at the end of the garden; it always has to be at the end of the garden.  Iain dug a little hole in the lawn, preserving the square of turf to top it off afterwards.  Sally had carefully placed Caramel in a shoebox, like a cake into a tin, having to suppress a feeling of dishonouring the dead by doing so.  Izzy laid the shoebox in the grave; she was solemn as a court hearing but still eerily composed, Iain mused. 

Spontaneously, Izzy said: “You’re life was shorter than it should have been, Caramel.  But you have been well-loved.  We’ll all miss you.”

Again, Iain was perplexed at just how adult Izzy was being.  He sighed, examined the earth under his fingernails and tried to be grateful for the absence of tears and tantrums.  He avoided mentioning Caramel’s feeding of the plants now.  Izzy looked slowly, with concentration, from one parent to the other then asked her crucial question, voice high with trepidation.

“Will Caramel be in heaven now?”

Iain and Sally looked at each other for a moment.  Iain only noticed now that Sally had an apron on; images of gory butchery, filmic in intensity, flashed across his mind.  They had spoken of how to deal with this sort of question before, and had agreed then on a shared approach.  Yet, now, at the end of the garden rather than comfortable on the sofa with a glass of red wine, it seemed so reductive, so precise and final.  Sally mastered the awkwardness first, rationality coming to the fore where it belonged.

“No,” said Sally.  “He’s just gone.”  Izzy just stared, defeated by the radical honesty of those she really expected, relied upon even, to build up the protective ring-fence of childhood mythology.  To tell the falsehoods that would keep her nascent psyche safe.  “Oh,” was all she said.

~

That Saturday night, Iain and Sally had two friends come over for dinner.  Felicity was a good friend of Sally’s from work, all swooshy hair and assurance of her place in the world.  Jock and Iain had come to know one another through their wives.  As a result, their friendship was a little more forced.  While the women chatted about work, the book club they both attended and other shared interests, the men talked in an ill-informed way about the on-going Wimbledon championship.  Jock’s hands were unusually heavy and hard, as if he had once been an oarsman on a quinquereme, although he was a manager in an online marketing company.  Iain looked at those hands now as he made some vague comment about the tactical use of serve and volley play. 

They sat around the table, Iain pouring wine and Sally serving the starter, a red onion and crème fraiche tart.  Felicity said she was starving, at ease in someone else’s home. Iain looked at the dwarfed cutlery in Jock’s hands. 

Sally was enjoying herself.  She noticed how her coral dress fit comfortably but with a little glamour; she felt her body responding pleasantly to the wine and the food she and her husband had cooked.  A thought persisted in invading her harmony, though.  Looking fondly at Felicity, she reflected on why most people’s best friends were of the same sex; these were the ones you wanted to spend time with but rarely did.  What was with this mad dash across the hall to the other side, usually in your early twenties, to where the other sex await?  You committed to a life with someone with whom you couldn’t ever be best friends.  Sure, they seemed exotic in their difference at the time, but you doomed yourself to differing interests and hobbies and tastes, incompatible with the shared life. 

Jock turned the conversation to their children, one of whom was in the same class as Izzy at school.  “We’re trying to decide whether to get a dog.  I just hope it wouldn’t be a novelty for them that wears off in a year.  Plus, the trauma of their pet dying worries me.  I can still remember our family dog dying when I was eight.  It’s almost too much for a child, I think.”  The advantages of dog ownership were self-evident, apparently.

“Funny you should mention that, Jock,” said Sally.  “Izzy’s guinea pig died this morning, but she took it so well.”

“Hmm… Do you think she really understands that she won’t get him back sometime, though?” asked Jock, probing a little unpleasantly.

“I reckon so; she proposed stuffing him!” Iain tried to add a little black humour.  “We told her straight up, he’s gone forever, too.  I think she grasps it.”  It was easy to take credit for this now.

Felicity caught her breath momentarily.  “You didn’t tell her the guinea pig is in heaven now?” she half-whispered with the embarrassment of catching her friends at some bad parenting.  She felt the way you might feel if you saw a flustered mother grab her toddler’s wrist a little too hard in the supermarket, watching but trying so hard not to judge as she marches on, red-faced, with the tearful child following like a bad past.  Felicity could sense the tension as she waited for a response.

“No,” said Sally.  Her ordinarily soft features sharpened slightly with conviction.  “We don’t believe in telling our child lies.  It betrays her trust in us, and she won’t forget later in life.”Iain could see Jock shifting around in his chair.  Then he revealed himself in a tirade on the importance of keeping childish beliefs alive.  He pontificated on the loss of innocence, on the security afforded by white lies and the heartlessness of dismembering a child’s simple illusions.  He used lines that sounded rehearsed, like: “Childhood is the only time you can believe in magic,” and: “Killing a child’s sense of mystery is tantamount to removing their soul.”  He spoke with feeling and a degree of regret.  Sally, beaten down by the lecture, could only ponder that Jock wished he could return to childhood and live without knowing.  The guest continued, speaking of the modern fostering of cynicism in young people from the off; then he went onto the arrogance of atheism.  “Who are you to say there is no heaven and there is no god anyway?  You’re brainwashing your daughter!” Jock finished, shortly before he and Felicity left, all smiles and shaking hands by then.

~

Iain awoke on Sunday morning with a bitter taste, of wine and of a good night with a left turn.  He brushed his teeth in front of the mirror, then scrubbed his tongue so vigorously he sliced its soft edge and gobbed pinkly into the sink.  Iain went downstairs in his dressing gown.  Sally and Izzy were already up, but not having breakfast as he expected.  They were at the end of the garden; he went to join them.

Iain stood beside Izzy.  Together, the three formed a little horseshoe around Caramel’s grave, heads bowed.  The burial site had been desecrated by a fox or a cat.  A pale brown shit, in three pieces of differing sizes, arranged like a witchy symbol, sat provocatively in the centre of the square of turf over the grave.  All three goggled at the scene.  Iain examined it like an artefact, and sniffed the air.

“Fox,” he pronounced as if that could diffuse the awfulness of the imagery before them. 

Izzy was crying now.  “Why would a fox do that to Caramel?” she asked. 

Neither parent could answer.  Sally couldn’t stop thinking about the size of the grave, how the smallest graves always seemed the most tragic.  She put her arm around Izzy.  Iain was contemplating the sheer improbability of the thing, trying to resist conclusions about malice in nature.  Red in tooth and claw, indeed. 

“Let’s leave daddy to tidy this up and we can forget all about it,” said Sally to Izzy.  She smiled at Iain, feeling this morning like a team with adversity bookending their weekend.  She revised her thought process of the night before with an ‘and yet…’ 

Sally led Izzy by the hand back to the house, noticing her daughter’s dancing, tip-toeing gait as though for the first time.

As they walked, Sally bent down to her daughter and muttered conspiratorially, “I hope that fox rots in hell.”    

a seventeenth story...'Beyond Calais'

I walked through the double door.  Three or four of them were gathered around a high table in the middle of the room.  They all looked up in unison.  The table had wheels.  ‘He’s come to identify the body’, announced the escort, on seeing their collective complexions darken.   

The tall one in the long grey laboratory coat beckoned me over with a grave nod as the escort snapped her high heels together, and turned sharply to leave.  He had a face the colour of wet clay.  I could see the perspiration on his forehead. 

One of his assistants, a young woman with sandy hair, vacant eyes of the palest blue and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose whipped out a clipboard from behind her back and clicked the top of her retractable ball point pen once, then twice.  She was also wearing a long grey laboratory coat.

‘Your name?’ said the tall one, scrutinising me beneath his nostril hair.  ‘Luke’, I replied trying hard to tear my gaze away from the body, covered by a grey tarpaulin.  ‘I’m a friend of the family’. 

There was a short pause. 

‘A friend?’, whined a short man wearing thick, round, black rimmed spectacles.  ‘Yes’, I replied noticing the short man for the first time.  ‘I see’ he continued, fingering his putty like chin. 

‘Did he have..many?’.  The tall one inquired.  ‘Yes, he did’, I said at once, surprised at their interest in such personal matters.  ‘How many?’ The young woman interjected swiftly, ball point pen at the ready.  ‘Ten, perhaps fifteen’ I replied, rather discombobulated. 

‘His name is Daniel, is it not?’ continued the tall one apace, the beginnings of a thin and unpleasant smile forming around the corners of his mouth, ‘or should I say, was…Daniel’, he corrected himself, pausing for effect.

I was already beginning to feel ill at ease to add to my confusion.

The room was large and sparse.  Three of the four walls were fronted by what resembled enormous slate grey filing cabinets; the floor was green-grey laminate with a dull shine; the sole source of light was from four low energy bulbs attached to the ceiling in a line over the centre of the room where we now stood.

‘What happened to him?’ I asked after a moment had passed, and then rather more earnestly, as if by way of appeal to the tall imposing man, ‘please, will you tell me why I’m here?’

Thwack! The tall one brought the metal scalpel in his hand down onto the edge of the table where the body lay covered.  ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed loudly, ‘Ha!Ha!Ha!’, then peering at me as if I were some strange exhibit in a museum of the human form, he sneered, ‘You know why you are here, don’t you?’.  I shrank back from his protruding jaw, his exclamations still ringing in the air like residual gunshot. 

He drew himself up to his full height, a full six or seven inches above mine and added, his voice full of revulsion and accusation, ‘you’ve known all along haven’t you.  You faggot’.  He spat the word faggot out of his mouth as if it were a scrap of rancid meat.

Instinctively I took another hasty step backwards to distance myself from this violent and verbose attack.  ‘No’, I protested shrilly, ‘no, I really don’t know why I’m here’, and then all of a sudden remembering part of the reason for my visit, ‘except, to identify the body of course..’

‘Identify the body!!!’ guffawed the tall one even louder than before, his small mean eyes popping their sockets, ‘You nasty little boy!!’.   The short man wearing thick, round, black rimmed spectacles echoed the tall one and pointed at me with a stubby finger: ‘tell us what you saw’, he whined, ‘tell us, or we may have to tell you!’

~

Oh! What hadn’t we seen?!  White marshmallow mountains, purple hills, vermillion skies, streets strewn with confetti, great towers of ice and foam melting in the perfect noonday heat, a rabbit, a hare, a fine bowler hat, a talking éclair.  How we had gurgled with pleasure, as if it were the first day of our new born lives, our pupils as big as buttons beholding the wonder of life in a thousand brilliant fragments.  And then in the evening, as the fat old sun was setting, we bathed in a river of champagne steaming with bubbles, before we lay on the warm, flat rocks by the river bank, our bodies soothed and our minds at peace with Mother Nature, God’s good air and all creation.

~

But, I could not tell them of this – the tall one, the short man, the young woman with the ball point pen.  No, they thought they already knew, and I was sure it was what they wanted to hear. 

‘What I saw where?’ I asked in reply.  ‘What you saw…when you went beyond’, the tall one replied, turning the metal scalpel over in his left hand.  The young woman with ball point pen scribbled something on her clipboard, clicked her pen twice.  ‘Beyond?’, I played along. ‘Beyond..’ repeated the tall one.  A light above our heads flickered and went out.  I drew breath.  ‘Replace the bulb!’ the tall one ordered, not taking his small mean eyes off me.  Somebody scuttled out of the room behind us.  ‘Now what did you see?’, he pressed. 

‘Nothing’, I replied as convincingly as I could.  The bulb flickered back into life almost as quickly as it had gone out.  ‘Nothing of interest?’, the short man whined, touching his bald patch sceptically.  ‘Nothing’, I said again, with a surfacing hope I was beginning to gain parity in proceedings. 

‘Do you wish to see the body?’, inquired the tall one, gesturing with his scalpel toward the grey tarpaulin on the high table.  The room had taken on the air of a mausoleum.  ‘Yes’, I replied, but waited for an invitation to step forward.  ‘Show him the body’, the tall one instructed the young woman with the ball point pen.  The young woman rested her ball point pen and clipboard on the table next to where I imagined the head to be and took the edge of the tarpaulin in both hands, between finger and thumb. 

I stepped forward. 

‘Are you sure you want to see the body?’, whined the short man, ‘dead bodies can be disturbing you know’, he added condescendingly. 

Biting my lip, crossing my palms, I asked them to show me.

Slowly and very deliberately the young woman pulled back the grey tarpaulin, the familiar crop of blonde hair emerged followed by the low brow and.. ‘Stop!’ I called out, ‘Stop!’.  The young woman stopped, and gazed at me quizzically with her pale blue eyes devoid of empathy or compassion.  I had realised in that very moment seeing Daniel dead would kill off any chance I had of ever bringing him back to life. 

‘What did you see when you went beyond?’, asked the tall one again, a measure of aggression returning to his voice, ‘we know what you saw..so tell us’, the tone carried a pre-meditated threat.  ‘I saw nothing’, I replied defiantly, ‘not a single thing..’, although fully aware lying was a trick I had never fully accomplished.  ‘Beyond..there is nothing?’, coaxed the tall man, staring at me curiously with his head to one side as if evaluating the truth in my assertion.  ‘You didn’t have any rum per chance?’, he persisted, thin smile returning to his lips, ‘You didn’t pursue any pleasures of the flesh?’, he chuckled maliciously.  And, clearly enjoying himself in the cruel way evil men do when tormenting their victims, ‘you didn’t pop and party pips, did you??’. 

I didn’t know what to say.  What in the hell were party pips anyhow, I wondered, and mercifully I was immediately saved from answering any of these questions by the short man.

‘I can smell meat’, whined the short man breaking the brief silence, ‘I can smell meat in his socks’, he went on, jabbing another stubby finger in the direction of my feet.  ‘Meat!’.  The tall one took his eyes off me at last and turned his smouldering gaze on the short man.  ‘What kind of meat?’ he asked the short man.  The short man adjusted his thick, round, black rimmed spectacles. ‘Raw meat’, he whined, his nose, a fat, bilious knob, twitching ever so slightly.  The tall one swallowed and smacked his thin lips.  ‘MEAT!!!’ he roared, and lunging forward toward me so his angry bulging features were but a yard from mine, whispered with barely controlled ire, ‘where did you steal it from?’

Confronted with such rancour and spite, I decided in an instant that honesty was after all the best policy.  ‘There is no meat in my socks’, I stated summoning a look of what I hoped would be pure innocence,  ‘I did not steal any meat’, and then almost by way of concession, ‘you can have a look for yourself if you like..’ 

The tall one looked down at my socks, back at me and then down at my socks again, unsure of himself for the first time.  ‘No…meat?’ he stammered, ‘No meat’, I confirmed.  ‘No party pips either??’, he moaned quietly, the contours on his wet clay face creasing in anguish.  ‘No party pips anymore’, I confirmed a second time, again utterly confused by this raging monolith of emotion. 

Thereupon, the tall one grabbed my shoulder and before I could react buried his soggy face into my armpit.  ‘No meat, no party pips, no rum, no flesh’, he weeped, huge wet throbbing tears staining my jacket, his right hand clenched in vicious grief around my epaulettes, his left, hanging limp from his side with the metal scalpel, no longer seemingly a menace, loose in his fingers. 

‘NO MEAT!’ shrieked the young woman suddenly, her pale blue eyes rolling into the back of her head before she collapsed in a dead faint onto the body covered by the grey tarpaulin.  ‘No Meat!’, whined the short man on his stubby little knees, his thick, round, black rimmed spectacles misting up.  ‘No meat!’, sobbed the tall one clutching to me like a giant ape.  ‘No party pips anymore’, wailed the girl, momentarily recovering from her dead faint.  ‘No rum!’ whined the short man again, beseeching some imaginary deity hidden in the celestial pattern of the ceiling above.  It was as if I had just opened Pandora’s Box and all the woes of the world had flooded out, the scene before me was of such wanton misery.

‘We want party pips!’, proclaimed the short man sorrowfully, his thick, round, black rimmed spectacles now in his outstretched hand, waiting for an arm to reach down through a crack in the reinforced concrete heavens and provide for him.  The tall one on my shoulder had stopped moaning, but would not lessen his grip on me which sent a swift shot of unease up my spinal column and into my poor overburdened brain.  The tall one was too heavy for my slender frame to sustain upright for very long.  I could feel the strain in my knees and an aching pain in my shoulders. 

Then, and without warning, the table with wheels, on which the body lay, started to trundle slowly across the floor, moving with a kinetic energy all of it’s own – the unconscious girl draped on top, her long grey laboratory coat giving her the appearance of a mythological harpy. The short man, still caught in his quasi religious entreaty failed to notice, but the tall one on my shoulder, slumped backwards and staggered around to witness the trolley come to rest against one of the enormous grey filing cabinets on the adjacent wall.  The impact of the collision, although slight, had the effect of knocking out one of the large draws and a cold vapour rose from inside.

‘No rum anymore!’ groaned the tall one and lurched in the direction of the enormous filing cabinet like a demented troll.  ‘No meeeaaaaaaat!’ whined the short man at length pawing at the divine air with his fat creamy fingers.  ‘Time to go’, I told myself under my breath, and prepared for what I imagined would have to be a swift exit in spite of all the commotion.

It was at that moment the girl shrieked again, and fell off the trolley where she had been slumbering, the tall one froze in his tracks, and the short man was taken right out of his old testament reverie.  The body under the tarpaulin was moving, the obtuse shapes of the limbs were stirring; the tarpaulin began to rise up and down as the lungs in the chest began breathing.  Inside Daniel’s head a light shone again, and his eyes opened.

The whole room was gripped by an electrifying stillness, hope and expectation had at last dropped in to pay a visit.  I shot a glance at the tall one, and was relieved to see inertia had seized him, the girl was hiding herself under her long grey laboratory coat and the short man waited in a crawl position. 

‘Dan’, I cried out, my voice seeming distant, ‘Dan?’, I tried again, ‘Dan..dan…dan….dan…..dan……..dannnnn.’. 

~

And lo, inside Daniel’s head something registered and the first traces of memory came back to him.  He had been in a garden, and there had been wooden picnic tables, and other people, real people.  And there had been the railway, and the heavily laden goods trains rolling past.  There had been fresh hay under foot and he had felt the late afternoon sun on his back.  There had been pretty bar girls, with foreign accents and fluttering eyelashes, there had been the lilywhite butterfly that had alighted on his knee. 

Yet another memory returned - a touch memory - the feeling of his warm fingers wrapped around a cold mug of beer; then came the taste of salt on his lips and the sharp acridity of lime wedges and the scald of a tequila shot cleansing the roof of his mouth.  And one by one the endless glasses of rum, the party pips, the raw meat, the holes in his old cotton socks, the dawn chorus, his nest of blankets behind the black leather sofa, the wooden floor boards, the hum of drunken conversation, singing Bon Anniversaire,  a lone traveller’s journey beyond Calais, and finally the one AM finish.     

Daniel sat up on his high table, and with every conviction said: ‘Here’s to BLOC!’

a sixteenth story...'Writer's Block'

I cut the engine and listen to the cooling fan whir away.  I wonder what Amy will think of her Dad arriving to pick her up in his 911 and then decide not to worry about it.  There are fairy lights in the hedges surrounding the house and Chinese lanterns illuminating the gravel driveway.  I want a cigarette badly but remember what I promised my wife.  Cutting down.  Part of the whole ‘must-do-better’ routine.  ‘I hate routines’ I think aloud.  Like any anxious parent I’ve turned up early so I put my Kenny Rogers CD on the car stereo.  He’s singing: ‘you decorated my life’.  I’m tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. 

After a few minutes I see Amy emerge from the house.  I open the drivers door and stand and wait.  She’s with her friend Joanna.  She sees me and comes over, smiling.  ‘Hello Daddy!’ She throws her arms around me.  ‘Is it okay if we take Joanna home too?’  Joanna is fifteen but could easily pass for an eighteen year old.  She’s wearing frightfully tight denim hotpants, is tall, blonde and leggy with carolina blue eyes.  ‘Sure honey’ I say, and I ask Joanna where she lives. Turns out we have to take quite a detour to get to her house.  She lives in one of the big pink lakeshore villas.  I ask her what her father does, she blushes and says she’s not really sure.  Amy wants me to put on some music.  Over my shoulder I hand her a bunch of CD’s from the glove compartment.  ‘Corr, Daddy, The Eagles!  They’re like how old?’  The girls both start giggling.  In the end we listen to the radio instead.  In between the garage pop the disc jockey talks incessantly.  I think: he must have done several lines.  Amy and Joanna aren’t paying attention anyway, instead they’re whispering animatedly about some boy or other.  It crosses my mind whether Amy has a boyfriend.  Or if Joanna’s still a virgin.

Saturday mornings are almost my favourite time of the week.  I usually don’t have a hangover and gorge myself on blueberry pancakes.  My wife, nevertheless, cannot ever keep still and today she is fretting about James’ sleepover.  I’m glad the maid has volunteered herself to help out, as I’m sitting comfortably in my dressing gown, feet on the coffee table, idly reading the newspapers.  Amy enters the breakfast room in her pyjama bottoms and bra.  She’s filling out.  In a very attractive way.  I feel the satisfaction of a proud father.  She comes and sits on the couch opposite me with a Nespresso and plays with her hair.  I ask her what plans she has for today but her mobile phone rings and she starts chatting with another of her girlfriends.  I go back to the papers.  The article I come to reads: Anger: How much is too much? But I’m more interested in finding the letters page.

At the Tennis Club I partner with Susan for the fourth time.  I enjoy flirting with her but we’re both happily married.  And if anything she’s better than I am at Tennis, although, I’ve only started playing recently.  My wife thought it would be a good antidote to sitting at home with a bottle of Macallan on the go.  We argued until we were blue in the face but on reflection she probably has a point.  Susan bounces a ball over to me.  This afternoon our opponents are a young professional couple, Frank and Virginia.  They are both effortlessly stylish as well as patently materialistic.  I don’t get the impression they really care for each other at all.  Frank is the kind of guy who‘d wear his sunglasses in the shower.  Anyhow, they beat us three sets to love.  In total I think Susan and I manage to win only two games, and one of those was because of Virginia’s double faults (taken with much chagrin by Frank).  In the bar later I enjoy a G&T and Susan has Prosecco.  ‘How’s your book getting along?’ she asks.  It’s a sore point of issue with my wife yet I’m quite happy to tell Susan it’s going nowhere.  ‘I think I’ve got writers block’ I say.

When I get back from the Tennis Club, I am reminded to take the dog for a walk.  He’s sitting out on the  terrace panting in the heat.  I put his lead on and give it a good tug.  Reluctantly he pads after me.  We walk along past the Pentecostal Church and the parade to the park.  My legs are sore and stiff from the game earlier so I head for the Japanese pavilion.  I buy a Diet Coke and surreptitiously watch a young tan couple necking on a bench in the corner.  It’s calm and quiet except for the drone of an aeroplane overhead.  I wonder why I haven’t tried writing here before now.  Then my mobile phone rings.  It’s my agent.  I let it go to answer phone - not on a Saturday.

My life is really very urbane.  Week days used to be an amphetamine fuelled rush, weekends used to pass in an alcoholic haze.  But now I have a routine.  Predictable and comforting.  All thanks to my wife.  I realise I owe her a great deal.  For accepting me back into the family, our family, after years of ego mania, fast cars, parties, illicit affairs, and of course, drugs and alcohol.  I’m never going to be able to forego a glass of wine or a whiskey but I am completely clean of drugs, except for a little cocaine at the kind of upper middle class parties we are invited to and very occasionally show up at.  And I do write about the whole scene.  My agent keeps telling me of late to ‘write about what you know’. 

This evening, we are at our neighbours for dinner.  The Clerks are a nice enough couple, even if they are typically bland.  Keith works for IBM or something – I can never remember exactly – and Lynette is the archetypal suburban housewife.  Throughout the meal conversation revolves around our kids.  My wife talks about Amy becoming a cheer-leader at school, and James’ great end of year test scores.  Lynette, backed up by Keith, talk about their concerns for their oldest, Aidan.  ‘He’s just drifting through life and we can’t get through to him’, Lynette twitters.  ‘Yes’ says Keith.  ‘And he doesn’t seem to be interested in girls.  Keith thinks he’s very passive’. ’Yes’ says Keith again, ‘it wasn’t like that in our day, was it?’, he directs this statement-cum-question at me.  I wonder if Keith even kissed a girl before he turned thirty but instead pretend to smile knowingly.  Lynette’s keen to discover what mischief I got up to, but I can tell my wife isn’t so enthused and I make some general remarks about the nineteen seventies.

Once dinner has been cleared away Keith and I sit out in Martine garden chairs and have a little glass of port.  Keith’s asking if I think it’s true that everyone has a novel in them.  I reply that I don’t know.  He goes on to tell me about an idea for a book he’s been contemplating for a long time.  It has a Christian theme and is about ‘the enemy within’. ‘It’s about a man battling against his inner demons and temptation’ Keith elaborates.  I didn’t know Keith was a believer but for once it makes sense.  He wants to show me the outline he’s typed up on his word processor so I change the subject.  ‘Do you like it here?’ I wonder.  ‘What, living here, you mean?’ ‘Yes’ I say.  ‘Couldn’t ask for anything more’ Keith replies.  I look him in the eye and can’t decide whether he really means it.  Nevertheless, ambition can creep as well as soar.

Later my wife and I are trying to make love but she stops after a few minutes.  She says she’s too tired.  I say ‘OK’.  She falls asleep quietly beside me, her head resting on her outstretched arm.  I lie awake for a while and then put my dressing gown on and go and wait up for Amy.  But when it begins to get light I return to bed.  My wife is still in exactly the same position.  As silently as I can go through my bedside table drawers in the hope I’ve some Tremazepam left but since the routine began I’ve only been using herbal sleeping tablets.  In the early gloom I try and study the label.  It says: ‘Kalms Sleep is not known to be habit forming and will promote sleep without leaving you feeling drowsy the next day’.  I swallow a couple without any water and wait.

Amy arrives next morning looking exhausted.  My wife is angry with me because I hadn’t got around to  mentioning that Amy had not come back from her party during the night.  ‘You were supposed to wait up for her’. ‘I did!’ I protest.  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me first thing this morning’.  I finish my coffee.  ‘Amy’s responsible’ I say.  ‘Amy is fifteen’ my wife retorts ‘I don’t care what you were doing at that age, but Amy is my daughter as well as yours’.  I look over at Amy for help but she’s curled up on the sofa watching cartoons.  Eventually I apologise and my wife gets the four by four and goes to collect James from his sleepover.  I ask Amy if she had a good time.  She doesn’t hear me at first.  ‘Did you have fun, honey?’ I enquire again.  There’s a pause.  ‘Is Mum angry with me?’  she replies innocently.  ‘No, honey, I think she’s more angry at me’ I say and head upstairs to put on some sensible clothes.

My agent phones again when I’m in the shower and this time I decide it might be worth calling him back.  ‘William, good of you to telephone, and sorry for interrupting your Sunday’.  ‘No problem’ I say ‘What’s up?’  ‘I’ve some great news for you!’ ‘Oh’.  I’m surprised, I thought he was going to pester me about the meagre progress I’ve made in the last three months once again.  ‘We’ve got a film production company interested in your last book’.  He waits expectantly for my reaction.  I try and sound enthusiastic.  My debut, by far and away the most successful thing I’ve ever done, was turned into a movie.  I was invited to the premiere and in spite of my addled state I was unhappy with everything the producers had left out and how the main character was turned into some kind of moralist played by a very straight Matthew Broderick.  I want to know if this time I’ll need to do much publicity.  My agent says if we - by which he means he and I and the publishers - sign the deal there’ll be a chat show or two to do.  ‘Have they cast anyone, yet?’  I wonder.  ‘No, but Topher Grace is in the frame’.  I don’t know who he is. ‘He’s the guy in Win a date with Tad Hamilton’’ my agent explains. ‘I see’ I say still without any real idea.

‘Have you seen Win a date with Tad Hamilton’ I ask Amy.  We’re sitting outside in the shade by the infinity pool having a late lunch.  ‘God, Dad.  That movie sucks’.  ‘Did you like it?’  She seems to think I’ve seen it.  I tell her I haven’t and that the main actor in it might be in the film of my last book.  ‘They could do better than that, couldn’t they Dad?’  Amy says undecidedly.  I say I don’t know and ask her to pass the caesar salad dressing.   Unbeknown to my wife, Amy has in fact read everything I’ve published.   In a strange way I feel closer to her than almost anyone though I was hardly around for the first thirteen years of her life, and when I was, I wasn’t sober or even noticeably aware of her existence.  Yet I see something of me in her.  I’m curious about why she didn’t come home until this morning but I’m not sure if it’s my business.

My wife is making a stir fry for dinner.  I’m sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen because it’s cool.  The casement is open but there isn’t a breeze.  I ask my wife what her plans are for the coming week.  She smiles and implies she’s already told me several times.  I am reminded she is going to the hairdressers, Monday, working her part time shift at the Spa, Tuesday and we’re having a little soiree for Amy’s friends, Wednesday. And she’s worried Amy’s friend Joanna will bring her new boyfriend.  ‘I’ve heard he’s nineteen.  Goodness knows what children get up to at that age’.  ‘Goodness knows’,  I repeat.  I’m thinking of Joanna, those carolina blue eyes, but I’m awoken from my reverie by James.  It’s his bedtime.  My wife asks if I’ll read him a story. 

I haven’t really studied James’ room before, and now, sitting on the edge of his bed while he brushes

his teeth in the bathroom next door, I take it in.  I’m relieved to see he’s got the Thunderbirds poster I bought him up on his wall, alongside a framed portrait of Woody from Toy Story.  Although he doesn’t seem to have many toys, only a couple of Teddys.  He’s got three games consoles and a blu-ray Dvd instead.  ‘What do you me want to read?  I ask when he comes in.   He chooses Oh, The Places You’ll Go  by Dr Seuss. ‘With your head full of brains, and your shoes full of feet, you’ll be too smart to go down any not-so-good street’.

It’s Monday morning.  I am trying to write but my imagination has stalled.  The Microsoft logo moving

diagonally across my computer screen.  I go into the kitchen and make another cup of coffee.  The maid is cleaning out the oven.  Back in my study I browse the internet for a while, search ebay for vinyl.  Join the five bidders for Changes One by David Bowie from the RCA years.  I also google my last book and read some reader reviews.  Most are positive but there’s one from leeboywonder that states: ‘he truly appears an author clean out of ideas - rich, famous, lauded and thoroughly complacent’.  I sip my coffee and vaguely contemplate his remarks, opening up my word document at the same time.  I start typing only to stop after a few contrived lines.  My wife sends me a message asking if I want her to buy anymore essiac tea. 

Of late I’ve made it part of my new routine to go and pick the kids up from school.  Today it’s a welcome break from work.  I take the four by four.  It’s only a drive of a mile and a half but in this day and age my wife is adamant that children should not be allowed to walk home on their own.  When I get there I try and avoid the gossiping mothers who only want to talk to me about the latest book they’re reading and sit in the car.  James is out quickly, jumps in the backseat and starts playing on his Gameboy.  Gazing out the drivers window I am surprised to see Susan, my tennis partner, appear, waiting at the school gates.  I hoot my horn and she looks over and recognises me.  ‘Hey, how are you?’ she smiles after we’ve brushed cheeks.  ‘Not bad’ I say.  ‘You’re a parent here, then? How come I never knew?’ Turns out she’s a daughter in James’ year, not getting along very well - it’s almost refreshing to hear this form a Summerdale parent.  ‘Tennis again, Thursday evening?’ I ask.  But she can’t.  She’s going for dinner with her husband.  ‘Oh’ I say, a little deflated.  ‘You’re only playing to appease your wife though, aren’t you?’ she teases.

‘Amy.  We cannot have Joanna’s boyfriend over as well on Wednesday.  I think he’s too old, honey’.  ‘C’mon, Mum!’ Amy looks at me for help.  ‘No darling.  I don’t think he’ll feel comfortable with all you young girls and I won’t have him smoking in the house’ my wife continues.  ‘But what about Dad?’ Amy retorts ‘Doesn’t he smoke in the house?’.  ‘What your father does is none of your business, Amy’.  But Amy’s persistent, wants to know why Joanna’s boyfriend, who I gather is called Sheridan, won’t feel comfortable with a  bunch of young girls.  I’m thinking the same thing but stay out of the conversation.  ‘Listen Amy’ says my wife sharply, straightening up, ‘we’ve gone to a lot of effort to host your friends and I think it’s only fair if you allow us a degree of control’.  ‘Isn’t that fair?’  She’s looking at me now.  Duty bound I tell Amy to obey her mother.  Amy scowls.  ‘There.  I’m sure it will be fun without him,’ my wife settles the matter.

On Wednesday, of course, Sheridan turns up all the same.  I wonder if Amy ever told Joanna that he couldn’t come and decide she did not.  My wife is clearly vexed by Sheridan’s presence, does a poor attempt at hiding it.  Although, I find him strangely fascinating.  He’s tall and muscular, wearing black jeans with a black and white checked lumberjack shirt.  His eyes are pale blue and his face cracks into a wicked grin when he’s listening to the girls chattering away.  Later he follows me out onto the veranda and we sit in silence on the relaxers above the swimming pool.  After a while he asks if I smoke.  I say I do.  ‘Hash?’ he asks.  I hesitate briefly, thinking of my wife.  ‘Yes’ I reply.  ‘Would you like a joint?’.  ‘Yeah, great, thanks’.  While he’s rolling he tells me he’s read my books.  ‘Did you enjoy them?’ ‘Yes, I don’t read much though’ he mumbles.  I tell him how my last book is about to be made into a film with Topher Grace in the lead role.  We laugh.  He lets me have the first toke.  I inhale deeply and can hear one of the girls has put on my B-52’s record – there’s a lot of giggling.  ‘Nice’ I say and take another drag, ‘so where do you get this stuff?’  Sheridan smiles.  ‘I can fix you up, no problem’ he says.  ‘Really?’.  ‘Yes’.  ‘Can I, er, have your number then?’ I venture.  ‘Yes’.  And he dictates it to me.

When Sheridan and the girls go it’s around midnight.  My wife heads upstairs leaving me to do the clearing up.  Amy hangs about and does some too.  ‘Dad’ she whispers as I’m mopping up some wine stains off the glass table in the lounge, ‘you smell of weed’.  I tell her strictly and under no circumstances to tell her mother.  ‘It’s okay’ she says, ‘you know I won’t’.  I feel a flood of gratitude tempered by the fact I’m pretty sure my wife already knows.  To avoid any confrontation after I’ve said ‘goodnight’ to Amy I pour myself some left over wine and fall into an armchair.  Somehow I get to thinking about Susan. 

At breakfast early the next day I see I’ve a missed call from last night.  It’s actually  from my old author pal Michael Birkel.  I listen to his message.  He’s in town on Friday and wants to meet up for dinner and or drinks.  I try calling him but his cell phone is switched off.  I suggest drinks and possibly dinner at Le Bouchon, classy enough without being entirely pretentious.  It’s also Zagat rated but really that’s neither here nor there.  My wife comes in dressed for work at the Spa.  I mention Michael’s visit.  She doesn’t say anything and goes over to the sink and washes her coffee mug.  I think: perhaps she’s still angry about last night.  I try to put my arms around her waist but she pushes my hands away.  ‘What is it, darling?’ I ask in my most caring voice.  She sighs.  I touch her hair but she moves to one side and puts her coffee mug in the drying rack. ‘Will you collect the children from school today, please?’ she says flatly. ‘Of course’.  ‘I’ll be back at seven’ she says, and walks out without saying ‘goodbye’. 

In a break with the morning routine I decide to take my Porsche for a drive.  I’m not quite sure what to do about the dog as the maid isn’t too keen on him so I choose to lock him in the utility room before remembering the maid is bound to go in there.  In the end I take him with me, put him on the back seat.  He’s wagging his tail.  As I pull onto the main road I play some Steppenwolf and climb up the flyover above the freeway, then open the sunroof and hit fifth gear, heading out toward the Island.  The dog starts barking excitedly and it adds to my exhilaration as I eat up the ground in the fast lane.

Stationed in front of my computer again, I suddenly find it easier to write.  I’ve a bag of kettle chips beside me and a can of lager I bought on the return home.  I manage a thousand words effortlessly, then make a table reservation for Michael and I  tomorrow night, before posting another thousand in under an hour.  At lunchtime I ignore the walnut salad my wife prepared and ask the maid if she’ll get me some more chips and another lager on her daily run to the shops.  While she’s out I dispose of the walnut salad in the garden compost bins outside.  I wash up the plastic container and take care to wash up fork too.   The maid brings back two bottles of Jamaican Stout as well as the kettle chips.  She grins toothily when she sees how happy I am and I go and type some more.  Although I finish the stout quickly I keep working.  I hardly notice the time moving towards 3pm, and when I do, I leap in the four by four and go to get the kids.  Forgetting the beers I’ve consumed.

On the way to school I’m planning how the story will unfold.  I need to avoid the main characters revealing too much of themselves.  A large part of the book is intended to be about consumerism, social convention and studied indifference; insincerity, infidelity and bad dialogue.  The burgeoning cult of young male Eunuch.  Aka Metro-sexual.  As well as all the usual vices: cocaine, hash and alcohol.  Part of the time you have to write about the things you know.

At the school gates I spot Susan again.  I park the car sloppily and make my way over to her.  She looks a little downcast but brightens up when she sees me.  ‘Hi.  Have you had a productive day?’.  I tell her I have for once.  ‘It’s a shame we can’t play tennis this evening’ she continues.  ‘Between you and I the couple we’re dining with are unimaginably dull!’.  My life!’ she sighs.  ‘I’ve been there’ I laugh.  ‘Where are you going anyhow?’  Susan tells me it’s a new opening.  Tom Hynes.  She asks what I’m up to this evening.  ‘Me?  Nothing much.  Except trying to avoid the wrath of my wife’  I say only half joking.  Susan smiles again.  ‘By the way.  How is the new routine going?’  I tell her it’s going OK. ‘Isn’t it hard though?’ she’s looking at me questioningly.  ‘Well, um, at times’ I admit.  Then she touches my shoulder.  ‘I meant to ask actually.  We’re having a party for Lea on Saturday if you want to bring James along?’  I feel a rush of excitement.  ‘Sure, he’d love to come’ I reply.

When I get home with the kids, Amy’s up to her room talking on the phone and James is playing on his games console.  I’m slightly anxious about the return of my wife and decide to retreat to my study and at least give the impression I’m writing.  I fix a lime and soda first, then try and pick up the story from where I left off earlier in the afternoon but find it hard going again.  Instead I sketch out a plan on a piece of graph paper I find in the desk drawers.  This is often a futile exercise since I change my mind so regularly, however, it passes the time – although when at last I hear my wife come in I’ve been doodling for something like an hour.  I can hear her asking James in the living room where his father is.  I re-open my word document and make it seem as if I’ve paused mid-sentence.  My wife opens the door to the study and puts her head in.  ‘We need to have a talk’ she says.  ‘Ok, honey, but I’m working at the moment’.  ‘Well, when you’ve finished’.  ‘Ok’ I say again.  She closes the door without another word. 

‘So you’re having dinner with Michael Birkel tomorrow evening?’  my wife asks.  So far she hasn’t mentioned my little digression last night.  ‘Yes.  We haven’t seen each other in almost two years’  I say.  ‘I’m sure he’s changed too’ I add feebly.  ‘Changed too?  Have you changed, William?’  My wife only calls me William when she’s angry with me.  I hold her at arms length and look at her sincerely.  ‘Yes’.  ‘It’s so easy for you to say that’ she replies.  ‘Trust me’.  ‘Do I have a choice?’ she asks.  I choose not to ignore this.  ‘I’m doing alright aren’t I?’  ‘You’re doing alright’.  ‘OK’ I sigh, thinking the worst is over.  My wife turns away and gazes out the kitchen window.  After a while she speaks again:  ‘I know you took marijuana with that boy, Sheridan, last night’.  There’s pain in her voice.  Part of me can recognise I’ve let her down, but the other part just doesn’t seem to care enough.  ‘You can’t expect me to be perfect all the time?’  I protest meekly.  ‘What do you mean, William? My wife turns around and I see there’s going to be tears.  ‘For thirteen years of our married life you were anything but perfect, don’t you owe me anything?  Your children anything?’  I tell her I think she’s over-reacting a little.  ‘I care about you,  William.  You may not care about yourself.  But I worry’, and she stalks out of the kitchen.

My wife is out again at a coffee morning for parents.  She didn’t ask if I wanted to go along.  I didn’t  feel like it anyway.  I’m expanding on the plan I wrote the previous day.  It’s a welcome change from staring blankly at a computer screen, and I find more ideas coming to me.  I also do a bit of research on Naphyrone, a stimulant I have no memory of taking but I’ve heard is increasingly popular among the young professionals I’m writing about.  At some point my agent calls and informs me Topher Grace has been cast in the film and I need to agree to a meeting next week to sign various contracts and release clauses.  I make it clear to him that I’m happy for the film to go ahead but want it known that the book and the film are entirely separate entities.  He sounds a little perplexed although he is glad to hear of my recent progress with the current project.  I mention I’m seeing Michael Birkel for drinks and dinner.  ‘Mind how you go!’ my agent replies.

I’m looking forward to our evening together.  The last time I saw Michael he threw a brick through the window of his ex-wife’s place.  I can’t remember why, or even the exact details.  I don’t think she was in.  There would have been a nice irony if she’d been staying over at her boyfriends.  Anyhow, she filed for divorce against Michael on the grounds that his drug use was wrecking her life.  He was severely into crystal meth at the time.  It might have increased his libido but it also exaggerated his paranoia.  Indeed Michael became so convinced that his wife was having an affair he took to hiding pocket tape recorders in his wife’s bedroom – they had long been sleeping apart – to try and catch her at it.  I couldn’t imagine him finding the time to listen to the playback, perhaps he never did.  He was a really talented writer starting out a little after I did, yet, at the time of his divorce settlement, he hadn’t managed so much as a short story in a five years.  While I got clean he drifted for a while before checking himself into an exclusive rehabilitation clinic somewhere out in the country.  Picking at my walnut salad, I wonder how long he’s been back.

I don’t see Susan when I collect the kids of from school.  It’s always two o’clock on a Friday.  I assume my wife is having lunch in town with friends.  I am pleased to hear James is keen to go to the party tomorrow, while Amy thinks she’ll go to the cinema with friends to see Zac Effron’s new movie.  ‘Is Joana going?’ I ask in an attempt to make conversation and since she’s the only one of Amy’s friends who’s name I can remember.  ‘No, she’s going camping in the woods with Sheridan and his friends’.  ‘Oh’ I say.  I hope Amy won’t tell her mother.  ‘Did you practice your cheer leading today?’  I continue.  Amy says the teacher was ill so they watched a work out video.  ‘I’m not sure I want to do it anyway, Dad’.  I ask her what she would do instead.  ‘I’d like to be a singer’ comes the reply.  ‘Like Alicia Keys?’  ‘No.  More like Beyonce’.  ‘She’s quite fierce isn’t she?’.  ‘She’s beautiful’ is Amy’s response.

Before I go out to meet Michael my wife and I share a moment.  Her attitude seems to have softened over the course of the day, and I think she accepts my apology for Wednesday.  As I’m searching for the keys to my 911 she kisses me and holds me tight saying ‘be good tonight’.  I say I will. 

The bar at Le Bouchon is lively.  I contemplate wearing my tea shades in case someone should recognise me yet there never seems to be a time or place for them.  Michael’s delayed so I order a beer.  There are a group of art students in one corner, dressed up to dress down, who might have identified me but they’re too cool to acknowledge it.  I drink a long draught and Michael shows up.  After all the pleasantries have been gone through I order him a whiskey straight.  ‘I seem to have developed an intolerance for Beer’ he says.  His voice sounds lived in.  It’s not surprising.  ‘Heard you were writing another book?’ he asks while the barman tries to find the right bottle.  I tell him roughly what I think it’s about.  ‘Sounds familiar’.  ‘Well, you know what they say’ I reply.  ‘Yes, indeed’.  His whiskey has arrived.  ‘Evan Williams’ he says, holding it up to the light.  ‘I like the cheap and simple ones’. We toast and agree it’s good to see each other again. 

Michael’s been out of rehab for almost nine months.  ‘I wasn’t in for long.  You can kick a habit in four days’ he boasts.  I avoid asking about his ex-wife and try to find out what else he’s been doing.  ‘High grade coke, mostly’.  We laugh.  And then he asks, ‘do you remember much of your twenties or thirties?’.  I say some of it.  ‘I can’t’ he goes on ‘and I feel that’s a blessing’.  We start to reminisce about the brick throwing incident.  The police gave Michael a restraining order.  As well as our holidays in the South of France.  The women, the sun drenched beaches, the parties in the hills above Cannes, the hot steam nights, the time I crashed my Corvette and spent a week in hospital.  ‘Do you recall taking Honey Slides?’ I wonder in the middle of all this.  ‘Oh, yeah!  Michael grins, ‘what was the recipe again?’  I think for a few seconds.  Honey Slides were a concoction of Honey and grass.  You would dry fry the grass in a pan until it turned brown and wisps of smoke began to appear.  Then you would heat the honey in another pan before adding the fried grass.  When you ate the mixture it just slid down your throat.  ‘Gotta try that again!’ Michael says enthusiastically.  I tell him about the trouble I got into on Wednesday.  He tells me he always thought my wife was uptight.  I agree.  ‘I do love her though’ I add. ‘Good.  That’s good’ Michael repeats.

When we’ve each had a three or four drinks and nibbled at some tapas we decide we want to keep going.  Michael’s keen to go to a place called Drink Junction but I veto his idea as my wife would not be happy if she discovered I’d been there.  Nevertheless, he’s in a persuasive mood and I’m enjoying myself immensely so we opt for the Loft, a trendy yuppie bar a few blocks down.  When we get inside it’s crowded and loud.  They refuse to serve us draught beer.  Michael has some choice words with the barman and then orders another whiskey.  I have a Corona.  ‘That’s cheap Mexican lager you’re drinking’ he says.  I shrug.  We discuss James and Amy for a moment and then the talk reverts back to Wednesday.  ‘This Sheridan guy’, Michael is saying, ‘sounds like he deals’.  I say he does and mention that he said he could fix me up.  ‘In fact I’ve got his number’ I blurt out and realise I must be drunk.  ‘Want to give him a call?’ Michael says casually, although I suspect I know exactly what’s on his mind.  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea’ I say. ‘You think your wife will find out?’ he’s grinning mischievously.  ‘Come on, Michael, you don’t understand’ I protest.  ‘Okay, okay.  But you are scared of her, right?  I pick up a handful of peanuts.  Michael’s still grinning.  ‘Why don’t you call him?’ I say.  ‘Okay!’ Michael exclaims emphatically.  ‘Okay’ I repeat.  ‘So give me your phone!’ I reach into my jean pocket. ‘I only want some weed, Michael’. ‘Righto’ he says.  ‘Only a little weed for a quick smoke back at your hotel’ I re-emphasise.  Michael puts out his hand for my phone.  But I don’t give it to him right away.  ‘None of that stuff that wipes your memory either’.  ‘Sure’ says Michael, ‘a little weed for you, something a bit stronger for me’.  ‘Right?’ ‘Okay!’ ‘Right’.  And I give him my phone.  ‘You’ll be fine’ he winks and makes his way out onto the terrace to get a signal.  I remember what my agent said: ‘mind how you go’.

The sun is beaming through the bedroom window.  It hurts my eyes.  I turn over and find I’ve blood on my pillow.  Seems to have come from my nose.  I haul myself into a sitting position and my head throbs.  I stagger into the ensuite bathroom, fill a cup of water and drink.  Looking at my reflection I can see my pupils have narrowed to the size of pin holes.  I’ve a cut under my left eye.  I quaff some more water and go back into the bedroom.  My trousers are in a pile on the floor.  There’s a folded up piece of paper beside them.  I woozily pick it up.  It’s an eye-watering bar tab.  I groan.

Once I’ve cleaned my nose, put my clothes in the laundry basket, and had another cup of water I decide to head downstairs.  On the landing I see one of the giant pot plants has disappeared.  James is in his room playing computer games.  No one is in the kitchen, although the papers have been delivered.  I squint at the small print but the concentration required for reading causes too much pain.  From one of the downstairs bathrooms I wet a flannel, drape it on my forehead and lie on the couch in the living room.  Blueberry pancakes are not high on my agenda. 

A little later I begin to feel more alive and find my phone on the breakfast bar.  I’ve three messages.  Two are from Susan.  I open the first.  It reads: ‘just watching TV and thinking of you actually.  What you up to? x’.  The second simply says:  ‘Sounds fun!  See you tomorrow. XX’.  I’m anxious about the whereabouts of my wife.  I open the third message.  It’s from Sheridan.  I swear under my breath.  No idea what happened after The Loft, and while I’m struggling to recall the sequence of events my wife appears.  She looks at me and it makes me uncomfortable.  I mouth the words ‘good morning’ but nothing comes out.  She collects some washing from the tumble dryer and bundles it into a basket.   ‘I think you’d better stay at home this afternoon, William’ she says. ‘Um, what?’ I’m playing dumb. ‘You’re fucked.  Stay at home’ she repeats.  It’s an order.  ‘No, no. I’m okay honey’.  ‘No you’re not’.  I try to seem with it and stop slouching.  ‘I’m alright’. But she pays no attention.  ‘I’m just glad James didn’t see you in the state you were in earlier this morning’.  ‘This morning?’ I rub my chin.  ‘This morning.  Yes.  I suppose you’ve noticed the potted orchid on the landing isn’t there anymore?’.  ‘Um’.  My dialogue is stuck.  ‘Go and have a shower and sober up!’ she snaps and disappears into the utility room.

Despite her hostility towards me, my wife and I both go to Susan’s.  Whether she likes it or not I am the one that received the invite.  In the car on the way there I sit in the passenger seat and speculate on the meaning of ‘Xs’ in text messages.

Susan’s house is more like a white clapboard mansion.  There are coloured balloons on the gatepost and a marquee on the manicured lawn out front.  We are not the first to arrive.  My wife seems to know a lot of the parents, even their children.  I fall into conversation with one of the Dads about his twin boys.  Then his partner wants to know if I’ve read Leanne Banks, and when I say I haven’t, whether or not I think Harry Potter’s magic is evil and unchristian.  Thankfully the arrival of the canapés provides a new line of conversation.  Although I hear my wife explaining her walnut salad recipe and cringe.

‘Hullo You’.  Susan finally appears beside me with a plate of cocktail sausages.  ’Hey!’ I say and kiss her on the cheek.  ’Having fun?’ she asks.  ’Yeah!’ I lie, ’great house by the way’.  ’Well, I should imagine yours is bigger’ Susan winks.  I don’t deny that it isn’t and make a bad joke about the time it takes to clean the windows.  Susan laughs all the same.  ’Need a hand with anything?’  I ask.  Susan says her husband should be helping somewhere.  ’Will you introduce us?’ I’m kind of intrigued to meet him.  ’Yes.  But he doesn’t approve of your writing’ she warns before breaking into a broad smile. 

Susan’s husband is called Leonard.  Or Len.  He’s in stocks and shares.  ’Not murders and executions’ I quip, but he doesn’t get it.  He’s a serious man.  Wearing a pointy red party hat, holding a bowl of Quavers.  I tell him he has a nice house.  He regales me with the details of the investment that made it possible.  ’You like it here?’ I ask him, feeling like I already know his answer.  ’‘Why I couldn’t ask for anything more’ Len replies.  ’I’ve a beautiful wife, a smart kid and all this’, he gestures with his free hand.  It strikes me how I’m always the only one asking this question at these sorts of events.  ’Have you met my wife?’ Len continues.  I decide not to tell him I’m her tennis partner in case what Susan said about him not liking my writing is true and instead say we know each other from school coffee mornings.  I am being liberal with the truth.  My wife joins us on cue.  I introduce her and excuse myself, fairly confident she’ll get along with him.

James is kicking a football around, ice cream in hand by the marquee, but I head into the house.  He seems happy enough.  In the kitchen-breakfast bar there are a couple of Mums helping with washing up, and Susan.  ’I’ve come for a beer’ I pretend.  ’Do you guys need a hand?’.  ’How kind’ says one of the Mums.  Susan hands me a cold beer and a tea towel but there are only a few items that still need washing up. ’Why don’t you let me show you around the house?’ she asks.  I say I’d like it and follow her into the lounge.  There’s a seventy-two inch plasma screen surrounded by three brown leather sofas.  A glass table with a stash of magazines on.  ’You like reading?’ I say, picking up a copy of Cosmopolitan with Elizabeth Taylor on the front.  Susan laughs.  ’That’s an old issue - don’t know why I hang onto them.  I’ve told you what I’m reading at the moment anyhow, remember?’  I look blank.  ’You’.  ’Oh yes’ I reply and a feeling of excitement rises inside me.  We go on into Len’s study, the walls lined with college photos.  Len with his Harvard class, Len with the athletics team, Len in his graduation robes.  And certificates.  Including one which reads Ontario Business Man of the Year and another which reads Young Man of Canada.  ‘So Len’s Canadian?’ I ask dumbly.  Susan says he is.

We look over Len’s stamp collection, and then go back into the hall.  ‘Let’s go upstairs’ Susan suggests. Out the window I see my wife still deep in conversation.  ’What d’you think they’re talking about?’  I wonder as we climb the stairs. ’Who?’ Susan says.  ’Your husband and my wife’ I reply.  ‘I don’t know’.  We’re on the landing.  I can still hear the music from the marquee.  ’Do you like it here?’  I ask.  Susan looks at me curiously. ‘Do you?’.  I’m caught off guard.  ‘Erm, it’s, er, different, quieter'.   ‘Just quieter?’.  ‘Well, the routine’ I begin. ‘Takes getting used to’, Susan finishes my sentence for me.  ‘Yes’ I reply and take a swig.  I’m starting to feel a little awkward, clasp my beer can tighter.  Susan pushes her hair behind her ears.

She shows me into her daughters bedroom: pink walls, and a ceiling painted sky blue with fluffy white Disney clouds.  We stand in silence for a moment.  ’It’s cute’ I remark.  ’Yes’ says Susan ’but she doesn’t often sleep in it’.  ’Oh’, I sip at my beer.  ’She usually sleeps in ours.  She’s scared of the dark’.  ’Is, um, that normal?’  Another stupid question.  But Susan smiles this time and sits on the edge of her daughter’s bed.   ‘It’s comfy’ she says.  ‘I bet’ I reply and put my beer down on the chest of drawers.   But I feel like I’ve upset her somehow.  ‘Look, Susan’ I begin again.  She’s looking at me.  ‘Susan when I asked you if you liked it here, I wasn’t, I didn’t, I was only asking…if you liked the area’.  Susan touches the nape of her neck.  I’m trying to make amends and feeling self conscious about it.  ‘You know to be honest’ Susan says looking at the floor. ‘You know this part of town and so on’ I continue braced for some kind of rebuke .   ‘To be honest’, she says again and there’s another pause, ‘To be honest I don’t like it here’.  I am a little taken aback.  ‘Really?. ‘You want to move?’.  Susan sighs ‘No, not exactly’.  I’m about to tell her how I’m feeling like I need a change of scene but Susan speaks again.  ‘It’s my husband’. ‘Len?’ ‘Yes.  What about him?’  A brief pause.  ‘William, I want to leave him’.   

For some reason her admission takes me by surprise.  Len is evidently a crashing bore but somehow I  thought they were happy.  I ask Susan what she’s going to do.  She tells me if they didn’t have Lea she would have left him long ago.  ‘Does he beat you?’  I ask clumsily.  Susan laughs but it sounds hollow.  ‘No, of course he doesn’t.  Len respects women like everyone else…albeit in an old fashioned way’.   I move over to sit down on the bed with Susan.   She’s wearing a low cut top and I can see her perfectly formed breasts.  She leans into me. I’m seized by an almost overwhelming desire to take her and have her there and then but manage to keep my hands to myself.  Not certain what she wants.  So I tell her it’ll be alright, though I’ve no idea why, or if it will.  She moves her head and looks up at me. ‘It’ll be alright’ I say again, and when I press her closer to me, she reaches around my waist.  The noise from outside has died away.  It seems like the room is shrinking.  ‘What do you want, William?’ she asks.  ‘I don’t know’ I reply pathetically, and with a vague sense I’m succumbing to temptation.  Susan buries her head in my chest and I run my fingers through her hair. She looks up at me again.  A wind blows the lace curtains open. 

‘Kiss me’ she says and touches my lips with her finger.  We bump noses, I realise I’m drunk again, and then kiss her lips as gently as I can.  ’Do it again’ she says, gazing mistily at me.  I kiss her once more and roll her over so she’s lying on the bed and we lock mouths.  For an instant I forget everything, lost in a moment.    With my eyes closed I massage her breasts and move my hands up and down her waist.  She begins undoing my jean belt.  ’Take off your shirt too’ Susan whispers, so I sit back and take if off, pulling Susan up into a sitting position, kissing her on the mouth, on the shoulders and under her chin.  Then I reach around her lower back and pull her top up and over her head.  It comes off easily.  I undo her bra and suck her nipples.  We clutch at each other and Susan bites me on my chest and whispers something else.  I’m grasping her buttocks and don’t hear her the first time. ‘Take off your Trousers’ she whispers again. ‘What?’ ‘Take off your Trousers’.  I break off.  ’Are you sure?’   I don’t know why I’ve a bad feeling surfacing inside me.  ‘You’d rather not?’  There’s a hint of dejection in her voice.  I kiss her again.  ‘What if your husband finds us?’.   ’I hate him’ she replies.  ’Do you like your wife?’  I’m still straddled on top of her and suddenly not sure of myself at all.  I kiss her tentatively on the lips, then twice on her neck.  ’Don’t ask.  Please don’t ask’ I say eventually.  Susan apologises. I sit looking down at her for a short while  and then mention something about needing to go back outside.  ‘Are you leaving?’  Susan asks.  I kiss her.  And kiss her hard another time.  ‘I’ve got to go’ I lie.  ‘Really? Already?’  ‘Yes’ I reply and get up on my feet, tucking my shirt into my pants.  ‘William’ she says.  I’m trying to fasten my belt but my hands are shaking.  ‘Yes?’.  There’s a pause.  Susan puts her top back on.  ‘Oh nevermind, it doesn’t matter’.  ‘It doesn’t matter?’.  ‘It’s nothing’ Susan replies.  I pick up my beer, half empty.  ‘Okay’ I say and make for the door. Susan follows me out, pushing up her bra.

Back on the lawn it seems the party is winding down.  A couple and their little red headed boy come up to Susan to say their goodbyes.  I go and find my wife.  She’s not with Len anymore but watching four or five boys including James play a video game inside the marquee.  ’Where have you been?’ she inquires ‘You look a little flustered?’.  I tell her I’ve been helping inside.  ’Doing what?’.  The last half hour is a blur.  ’The washing up’ I reply.  She puts her arm around my waist.  ’That’s more like it’ she whispers and squeezes my hand.  I try and smile back, although I’m torn.  She rests her head on my shoulder.  ‘I’m sorry’ she says quietly.  ‘I’m sorry for cutting you so little slack this last week’.  I say it’s okay, thinking of Susan.  My wife looks at me and smiles.  ‘You’re doing well, honey’.  ‘I’m trying’ I reply, but I can’t get her out of my mind. ‘I know you are’ my wife replies, ‘I know you are’, and she kisses me on the cheek.