Short Fiction

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Who brings the dawn now, do you reckon?

Now I'm here, sat on this mountain watching the sky fade in, I see the star that draws it from the ground. It pulls the sun up by the roots of its hair and puts it to work. Everyone and everything getting along, doing the job for which they were created. I don't think I'm so different. The pale sparrows-egg turquoise is a nice touch I think. Who would have thought it would set off the dusty pink so prettily. That's some nice work there, isn't it? I did it better, but still, nice work all the same.

Yes, of course I know that that is Venus. Yes, it sure as h..l doesn't pull up the sun. The sun will do what it d..n well pleases and the earth will dance to its tune. I don't think that that is any less magic to be honest. I don't know why people think that it should be. Don't you think that it is incredible that everyday rain and sunlight can conspire to create something as stunning as a rainbow? Isn't it great that moulds can cure diseases? How brilliant is it that some spiders developed the ability to look like flowers? or that some fish grew lights on their heads? or that millions of years ago human beings were apes?

Sorry. Was that wrong of me?

No, fuck it. This is not wrong. Just because things can be explained by science or even by sheer coincidence does not make them somehow sullied. Chance leads you to the point where you can explain nearly everything and create almost anything else. I mean, you made me. You made H.m. That's a h..l of an achievement. Well done you. I for one am very grateful.

Yes, it is a beautiful place up there. I really think you'd like it. Yeah, yeah, really good times. I could tell you stories! The new place? Wouldn't call it nice, per se, but no-one's in it for forever. Best keep that one under your hat. Hey, it's not a pleasant stay, you know? You're there for a reason, keep that in mind. It's for your own good, is my opinion. That's why I stick with it, I guess. Grown rather fond of you lot. Bird song comes along now. It's changed, you know. More blackbirds than there used to be. Fewer nightingales. Alters the pitch. Still pretty though, isn't it. I'd call that a miracle.

How did I end up down here? I walked didn't I? Oh right, the big question. Sorry, it's been a long night. Well, like I say, I like you fellows. Problem is, I liked H.m more. Nothing personal like, but you made us all that way. And therein lies the problem. I watched you. For years and years I watched you and felt something mean and strong and powerful, but I couldn't tell why. Then one day, I realised that you lucky bastards got to choose. Not like us. It was part of the job-description, but you could do it right. You must have felt this. When you choose to love someone, that's what true love is, and it's terrifying and joyful and ugly and beautiful and you're not sure for a bit and then you are and it's the best feeling in the world.

I wanted that too. To love H.m like you can love H.m. So I left.

Yeah, they weren't kind. They say some pretty cruel things. Oh of course there's evil. Don't be an idiot. Light and shade, man, light and shade. But it was all your idea. Shakes up that chicken and egg thing, doesn't it? I'm not a good guy. Getting your souls clean and shiny so you can have a taste of the kind of bliss I once thought I knew will certainly earn me some brownie points, but I won't say that I don't enjoy doing it. L..d no! It's a great laugh. And I walk around here and I see the fucking rotten shit you lot do to each other and yes, it makes me smile. Envy's a biggy, you know. But I didn't put that in your brains. Don't ever think it's me leading you anywhere. You did that.

I like what you've come up with for me, by the way. This is a nice suit. I mean, I get put in suits a lot these days, but this is a good one. Versace? Oh don't worry about the beard, I'm used to it. At least you didn't make me look Arabic, that's one of my peeves about you fellows. Just can't get along.

Well, the star's faded now. That was a nice little show, but I should really be off. Oh I can't tell you that, don't be silly! You'll find out eventually. Cigarette? Suit yourself. All the more for me.

Loneliness...loneliness I understand. But I suppose I'm rather glad I do. If you'll excuse me now, I must be getting on. It's Sunday.

3 extracts from "The Suck" (a work in progress)

-"Shit, this sucks"

Anna is pretty. Often I watch her just standing, perhaps with her head forward as she reads a message on her phone. I love her hair. It is a beauty I can't quite grasp. A perfect bob, it swings across her eyes like a sheet of mahogany silk. Idly I'll watch her, twist my own dirty locks, and imagine what flowers it smells like.

"Bastard isn't fucking picking me up today. Would you believe it? Katy?"

Please don't ask me. I can't see my way out yet.

"Katy, you awake?"

"Yeah, sorry, miles away. What's he done now, honey?" You don't love him. You know you don't love him.

"He's not picking me up from the club after work. You wouldn't think it was too much to ask, would you?" You say you forgave him, but you can't forget it, can you? I think roses, and vanilla. She wants a drink. She will settle for a cigarette.

"Don't have any fags, do you?"

"Sorry, given up"

She gives me her lop-sided smile. Her lips are brown like her hair. She's pan-caked up now and ready to go, but I still see her there, smiling at me.

"Good for you, Katy" Her voice is calm now. Her voice is real. "Good for you."

- You see, I have this scene played out in my mind. The club is a more beautiful place than it is now. Like something from a movie of the sort where steam comes out of vents in the street. She walks through the steam in black stilettos and I see it kick at her heels, kiss her toes. And when she gets there, the guys wear suits rather than football shirts and there will be decor like a tiki-bar or a pagoda where the lino used to be. In honour of her. I built this for her.

      And now, into it she walks, a paper doll on a cardboard stage that I cut out with scissors and painted and glued. She is spotlighted, her lowered head framed by dust swirling, and as the music starts she looks up. Right into my eyes. Her gaze apologises as she swings into her first spin and I can feel that every mind in the room is devoted to her beauty. They take in the flick of her hair as it lights up in pink, the curve of her waist, hip, thigh as the dust motes turn green, and the parting of her lips in the cold blue light. She shimmers, a mermaid, a nymph. They think of nothing but her. And from behind the curtains, neither do I.

      A fight will break out. A sudden, silent burst of commotion and silently will a man rush to the stage. Lust stings his eyes. He bellows betrayal, but she is lost to sound. His mouth makes no noise. I can feel the music, but it is stopped to my ears. The catch of breath, whisper of flung hair, tap of heel, clink of earring. Slowly. Slower now. He is thrown from the room. Later she will walk past him as he lies in the gutter. She will not smile, but pass him just the same.

     Here, now, the sweat jewels her body. My Salome. My own cruel princess. Mine.

     The music reaches its climax. Thirty-two seconds from now I will walk out with a cloth and wipe the place where she just now touched. It is my turn. Nobody cares. There is no pagoda and really, nobody cares. I feel eyes stare into pints of warm lager lightly stuck to scratched plastic tabletops. Their minds swallow glimpses and return domestic quarrels and dinner times and TV and everything that isn't the goddess whirling naked in front of them.

     She isn't. The music stops, changes, and out I walk. She smiles at me as she passes.

-My house is attached to two others. I call it a house when I mean to say that it is a flat. There are two rooms; the living room/bedroom with a little kitchen in the corner, and a bathroom. I like it here. I can play the music I like and watch television and read and there is peace in these walls. My neighbours don't knock on walls. Some days I hear the couple upstairs fucking. I lie back and smile and listen to the knocking and swell of the moans and maybe imagine that I am there too. Casually, idly. I like that.

     I have five mugs. Two are flower-patterned and came from my old home, the one with my family in. One I stole from a coffee house when I was Christmas shopping. One was free with a newspaper and just has the paper's name on it. The last was a gift from when I left my boyfriend’s house. It has a cartoon of Superman on it. In my kitchen draws are cutlery I bought from a pound shop and a corkscrew that cost me seven pounds. My crockery is as various as the mugs. There is not much food in the cupboards. I prefer to ready meals, take-aways, things that do not require my thought. There is salt, pepper, soy sauce, sugar, coffee, cocoa powder and some untraceable pistachio nuts, unsalted. In my fridge I have bread, margarine, milk, cheddar and a soft half cucumber.

      The sofa bed is from Ikea and has a swirly patterned throw over it of red and green and purple. The top end sags slightly and I have to prop it up with cushions if I don't want to get backache in the morning. I have a good sound system linked to an ancient laptop in the corner on a foldout table. I have posters from old art shows on my walls, a photo of me aged nine with my golden Labrador and one of my brother. The walls are kind of lumpy and no good for sticking stuff on generally. The floor is carpeted in some colour that may once have been pink and grey. There is now a stain from a spilt chicken tikka masala covered by a rug with a Turkish pattern in rich blues and deep reds. I fixed a lampshade to the bare bulb in the centre of the ceiling. A Chinese paper one. It is pink.

     My bathroom has a small bath and a large mirror, which has proved unavoidable. I have a lot of toothpaste stored in the cupboard, with medicines and products that I suppose to be ethical and others that were simply cheap. Blonde hair-dye. Tweezers. Razors. There is a little damp around the shower area, but not enough to offend anyone, I think.

     My window looks out over the city. I like it best at night. I like the lights. They make me dizzy some days. I can feel I am high above and no one asks questions of me here.

     I have a set of three shelves with CDs and DVDs and my jewellery in a lacquer box with a lock. There is a gold and garnet pendant from my grandmother in it. She died four years ago. There is a photo propped against my CDs that obscures them. I sent it to myself from Thailand on holiday. There is a beach on it. I think I may have slept on that beach. I hope I did. I cannot imagine a more beautiful place sometimes.

“My Grandparents, Possibly”

 Golly but that fellow has white teeth. He must get through the old arm-and-hammer and no mistaking. Lovely uniform those boys wear, those sharp edges in that thingummy colour. Not olive. Oh fiddle. It'll come to me.

Anyway, so there he is, with his white teeth, and surely more of them than a normal person has any right to and his khaki, that's it, khaki, and he looked just like that movie chappy. Oh not again. Corn field, dimple, girl's name. Marion or some such. Grant chap, that's him. That's who he looked like. And the air was full of shouts and colours and freedom and white cliffs and that was all I could see; khaki creases and straight white teeth.

I was wearing a friend's shoes. Whatshername's. Kitty's. Stupid Shiny red things that made my poor old feet bleed to look at them. To think of them even. So I wasn't much in the mood for dancing, white cliffs or otherwise. And the others looked so pretty, all rouged and hair-sprayed and nothing at all to suggest that they were straight from the department store or the telephone exchange or what have you. But I was certain that the scent of a thousand Clerkenwell district books would mark me out, clinging to my hair, the cracks in my hands.

I could see him because I wouldn't take off my glasses. "But Edie, men don't..."

Marilyn Monroe could suck eggs. I won't walk into a table for any man. Shan't go blind. Why should I, mother? And what business is it of yours anyway? Can't you see I'm reading, mother, can't you?

And weren't his eyes so very blue? The jazz too loud and the people so very happy. Oh I wish you could have been there. In a way you were my dearest, the dust of you in the smoke of the black market cigarettes that curled under low-lights over gin-breathed bodies. You were there. He said his name was Hank or some such, and you were there.

Hank or some such rock-like name that held a gun and drank beer out of cans, I'll wager. But what charm! What a gentleman, and he asked me for a dance and the air turned red and the girls behind him smiling, turning circles with their own rock-named khaki boys. He said it "Haink" like "paint". Not "Hank" like plank. Yank. Thank. Wham, bam, oh dear me no!

And I don't really know when my feet stopped hurting, or even if they did. I wasn't walking on air or any other such Cole Porter nonsense. It was a background feeling, traffic in the street. I don't even remember his words, only the soft lull of his voice. Twang they call it, don't they? A Southern twang, a lilt. So whadya say? Odessa. Oh-DESS-uhh. You give me the vapours.

Gin doesn't taste so very dusty ginny with a dash of Indian tonic and a slice of lemon in now does it? Isn't it funny how you can swallow five of those without really noticing. Don't you just walk so much taller with a crisp-khakied soldier-boy on your arm. Suddenly, you are no longer the library girl from Clerkenwell, or Edith, Mary's daughter, or ask the nice lady in the glasses. Look over your shoulder just so and be Betty Grable while the band gets fainter and the air cooler, bluer and you can't feel your feet anymore.

And I got a good look at the stars that night, I can tell you. I don't think I've ever smiled so much in all my life. Stung like the blazes and his skin like velvet over iron and I just couldn't stop laughing. "This is life," I thought. And it was life beginning. You were there. On the wet grass behind the rhododendrons with their shocking pink flowers, you were there.

And then he was gone, my blue-eyed, white-teethed, crisp-khakied boy. Don't know where. Don't know when. Some sunny day. So then it was me on a train to an aunt in Scotland. She must have been created for that purpose. What else are aunts in Scotland good for. No more cocooning smog, just mile upon mile of heather, the aunt's porridge. "Pass the cornflakes, Edie."

Everyday you grew and I never felt ashamed. No, damn it, I loved that man and I loved you too. I wanted to yell it to the hills, to the blasted, bloody heather, fit to beat the band and make the mountains crack and damn them all! I loved him and he loved me. I saw those letters and I know it was true. Reams of love, paper bound and charred unrequited. He never knew. They wouldn't let me tell him. "Who will want you now?" They said. "Ruined" Oh stop it mother, please. Just stop.

I don't remember clearly the day you were torn from me. Sixteen hours they told me. Two working days. Eight trips to the pictures. All I can recall is your cry. You announced your presence to the world in the first breath and told it that you were here now whether it wanted you or not. I could have killed for you then. I felt like a bear or some other wild mother-beast and if anybody had touched a hair on your dark little head, I would have killed them. I would have ripped them to shreds with my bare hands like paper dolls, tired and torn as I was. It knocks you over, a feeling like that.

For three days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes in April, I was your mother. There was sun and new flowers and the doctors say it isn't possible but I'm sure I saw you smile. Then off you went to some home full of other women's cast-offs and mistakes and I never saw you again. Nothing left but a talcum powdered new skin smell and one already browning photograph and your cry in my ears like a telephone in the house next door. That was all. A black sucking place opened up somewhere below my ribs that could never be filled because you weren't there anymore.

You went away and I am sure that eventually some nice stupid people came along and gave you a dull name and called you theirs. What I named you doesn't matter now. That is my secret and it stays in my head and yours, my little gypsy child. I don't even call it in my sleep. But I always dreamt of you. Did I cry? I suppose I must have done.

I went back to the library and worked and ate and slept and cried (I suppose) and eventually I met him. What was his name? It doesn't matter, he's dead now. Well, he married me anyway. We moved to Norwich and never knew each other, spending thirty-two years in crossword-puzzled Sunday breakfast oblivion. He was a large, sandy-haired fellow. He had a fondness for soccer and Morecambe and Wise and now I think about it his name was Dennis. It was a stroke that finished him off. Rather a shame, I thought. He was very kind to me.

I had two children after you, and gosh but if they didn't turn out very nicely indeed. Stephan and Angela. Dennis and Edith and Stephan and Angela. All bound together with a name and a house with a white front door in a street in Norwich. My happy sandy-haired family. I still see the children, or rather, they see me. Angela works for the council and has a husband in a bank and a girl called Charlotte who is fourteen. Stephan is the eldest and he does something to do with trains. It's rather funny. He was a thingy, a punk, when he was young, with the blue hair and the safety pins and it was all terribly funny.

They none of them ever knew about you. The subject never arose, although I don't suppose it would, so that is a rather poor defence. I just wanted to keep you all to myself. That dark-haired, blue-eyed baby screaming his existence to all and sundry would only ever be mine really. My baby, not somebody else's stepson or half-brother or whathaveyou. Silly, isn't it, the way people think? Must be why there are so very many books around on the subject these days. But they never knew, and still don't know and I doubt they ever will know.

He had a family too. Hank, this is. In those sad monologues he told me that he had met and married and pro-created and all the rest. I had no tears left by then. There is no word I can find, not even a sound, that I could use to tell you the agony those letters caused me. For five years he kept on writing, my broken-hearted soldier boy and I read every letter until the words became less than symbols, mere ink-shapes on paper so they couldn't hurt me anymore. Of course it didn't really work, but it was a little something. Something that made me not want to push my hands into that sick-aching place beneath my ribs and rip my body wide open to let out the howl. He never told me her name, but I imagined that she was called Blanche and had big hair and made the best darn lemonade on the block. He had children too. I don't know, let's say Billy, Bobby and Betty and why not.

I'm still certain he loved you. How can you love someone you don't even know existed? True, but how can you not somehow be aware of a powerful little shard of yourself, the life you made, somewhere in your soul? Insofar as you can love someone you never met, he loved you. What did you do in the war, Daddy? Khaki, blue and white. My heart belongs to...

I suppose there isn't much else to say. All I do these days is sit and stare in a room full of sitting, staring men and women with the odour of death about us. I cannot speak well or hold a pen to write. They look into my eyes and think that I can barely recall my own name. But I recall yours. Whatever became of you, my little love? If there is any good left in the world, you will never be anything but happy. Where are we now? Will you please tell me when it's time to go?

Lucinda Chell-Munks