Two Short Stories
'For Your Thoughts
A soft breeze sprung up, redirecting the aromas around us. Beforehand, the extractor hood located in the kitchen was pumping cooking smells towards us. Something was baking, a sponge or muffins, something as a tasty treat for the staff or the relatives; a handy fund-raiser for the ubiquitous Bring and Buy or White Elephant. Now the breeze had driven the smell away and replaced it with a flavour equally pleasant. Could that be the honeyed-vanilla of honeysuckle, the soft fruitiness of primrose or the rustic sweetness of lavender? The nose was not usually so assaulted, it was hard to tell. The bees were certainly on overtime. Virtually every other bug worth its salt was in evidence. There was nectar for all. The colour in the banks of petals, from whites to luxurious purples through the whole spectrum, the hiss and buzz of a wealth of miniature flyers; all life was here. In mid-July all of nature was alive and celebratory in the enhancing, recharging summer sun.
Not so on the other side of the French windows.
We sat, my mother, my sisters and I on teak benches gathered around a glass table, enjoying a fresh pot of tea in this Eden, buried secretly and silently in the centre of a busy conurbation. My father was not with us. He was near; just fifteen, twenty feet away, asleep, unaware of the riot taking place outside. He may have been hearing the call of the birds and insect noise, hearing, as they say, being the last sense to go. Maybe even the smells had penetrated his closed off countenance. Little else showed any signs of recognition. He no longer saw and he no longer spoke. The eyes were shut for good and the lips only responded to the random memory waves shooting across his brain like erratic flashes of lightening.
Two months earlier when my twins were delivered in one hospital it was touch and go for him in another. We’d reached a point where the treatment had been working and the disease was being driven back, only for a quirk of fate, a cruel blow from a god that he’d denied, snatching back the time that he had fought for. He took each trial as a stoical man of his generation was expected to, with acceptance and a dark humour. He’d dance, cheek-to-cheek across the wards with his drip stand. She was a thin platinum blonde, a little stiff, almost robotic in style, a tripod on wheels where her shapely pins should be. He called her Ginger. He was Fred. The rawness of his throat that spoilt his last Christmas, the best meal of the year, was only ever going to be a temporary setback. When his voice was taken he resorted to the written word, punning on a wipe-clean whiteboard. For a man who was a professional user of words, with letters after his name he had a playfully macabre reaction to his nemeses. The C he took with a pinch’, never expecting to succumb. That awful, pernicious woman, coined as Mrs A just needed a slap. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
He knew of my daughters, met them a few times, but the idea of two screaming mouths pounding inside an already fragile head was always going to be beyond his endurance. He’d wait until this minor hassle was over. Then he could resume the life of the living. My wife, largely kept them at bay.
There was a sense of the natural cycle when my girls were born that no-one was prepared to acknowledge. Each birth in the family was balanced by a death. In my case, my mother’s favourite grandfather, hung on for five days to see me, his new great-grandson. The same with my siblings. On my father’s side, my elder sister saw off great-grandfather Fred and the younger, his wife Ellen.
It’s almost as if children are sent with a purpose to reap.
He’d never have any truck with that; the most pragmatic, scientifically-led man in town. He’d rejected his faith years before and lived by physics and empiricism as a matter of course.
“Coincidences are acceptable.” he’d say, “But never simultaneous coexistence.” He’d wink.
There was no rabbits foot, no matchbox with a dried out four-leaf clover. But there was the ‘shilling’.
His grandfather Fred was a difficult character to read. He came from Victorian stock and was a traditionalist with a sense of propriety and was unwilling to accept ‘that damn tomfoolery’. He wasn’t cold or stern, but he kept his grandchildren at a safe distance never permitting himself to strike up a loving relationship, whilst trying his best to remain approachable. Whenever he saw my father he’d pat his back a little too forcefully and press money into his tiny hand with his large artisan thumb. Always the same words, in a jovial working man’s accent. “Here’s a shilling for you, mister.”
We took turns by the bedside, finding that staying in one place for the whole day, day after day, was not only a cause of anguish, it was physically demanding in the aches and pains and sores it gave. The numbness and loss of circulation virtually made you assume the symptoms of the bedridden by proxy, as if you too were suffering the same fate. With other friends and family assisting on the vigil, father was rarely left alone for long, and was always in sight, unless the curtains billowed in the wind for a brief instant.
My father gave me his last shilling. It was the one that Fred gave him weeks before my sister was born, days before his own death. He’d kept it as a talisman. The last shilling given to a twenty-one-year-old by his grandfather as his first great-grandchild is due.
I was holding my father’s hand in my left and that shilling in my right when his brother walked in. The oldest voice my father knew called a ‘hello’ with a mixture of cheeriness and reverence. A recognition spark from a time of childhood exploded in his mind and he moved for the first time in days. It was a violent move. The flat figure with no muscle to speak of on his body rose up rampant like an excited pony. The arms lifted, one higher than the other, then crossing, as if reaching out and back into a lost world, a final grasp at his own history. The skin was grey and pulled tight around each bone of each arm. It was more noticeable on the face, nothing more than a skull, cheeks sunken in, jaw protruding, hair absent. The thin, useless lips hugged the worn-down teeth and the mouth formed into the shape of a spectre, a ghoul, a black hole into which his very existence seemed to disappear. The voiceless man projected a cry that was stolen away, and his tired skeleton collapsed back on to the bed.
Hours later, in the dead of night, he passed. Saturday 15th July 2000.
Sunday 15th July 1900.
The timepiece was an inheritance. As the oldest son it was only right that he would receive it. It sat in the parlour on the mantle ticking away, one tick for each second, marking the passing of time, marking the long countdown to the end of a life. Even marking the short countdowns.
At each hour it chimed. The short hand eased ever onwards and landed above each roman numeral, in turn prompting a new chime to indicate the hour.
Ellen lay in bed counting off the tiny bells that permeated the parlour door, climbing the stairs, to creep under her bedroom door to taunt her. She heard each hour marked off, ten, eleven, twelve, one, two, three, each quarter chime, and each half and three quarters. She heard the winding at nine, the ratcheting turn of the key that her husband inserted regularly every evening at the allotted time. Ten turns, then a half for good measure.
He hadn’t visited her since bringing up her tea a little after six. A pot of tea, some bread, with dripping, to get her strength up, even a couple of eggs. He must have eschewed his own. She looked across at the washstand where she’d left the tray, but it was all a vague, dim silhouette. The side wall was the farthest she was permitted to walk. Her jug of water with a small glass sat close by on the stool, alongside the orchard windfall she couldn’t face, and their portrait taken by the photographer chap as a present from the in-laws for their first wedding anniversary. Both in their Sunday finest, her with a new bonnet and Fred with his bowler.
The house was pin-drop quiet. There were no children to disturb her sleep, but the damn clock wouldn’t let her go.
Apart from the row coming up the stairs the only other sounds she heard were the closing of the front door as Fred came and went. He’d left shortly after the winding at nine, returned at the half chime between eleven and twelve and was gone for the final time, the door closing exactly on the third chime of three.
She couldn’t get up to see him off, say her last goodbyes, her condition kept her confined. She had only the company of tea things, wash things and the chamber pot, things of value, but of no consolation. The clock sounded for a quarter past three and she rolled over onto Fred’s empty bedside and sobbed.
Preparation was all. This was the watchword of his master when he was indentured for seven long years. ‘Before tackling any job, no matter how small, always make sure that you have selected the right material for the job, prepared the surfaces, sharpened your tools and have everything to hand. Have you got that, young Frederick? You keep up this work and I’ll give you a shilling bonus come Christmas.’
Fred made a mental note, ticking off all he needed on the checklist in his head. He had the right tools, they were fixed to his body by rope, inside one of the hemp sacks that the horses feed came in. And he had the parcel. He had fixed his leather apron to form a pouch and fastened it tight. The precious parcel was safe inside. More rope, wrapped over one shoulder and under the other armpit would be enough to get the little job done.
He heard the start of the Westminster chime and opened the door, looking out into the rural darkness. As the first chime of the hour struck he stepped outside closing it shut on the third.
There wasn’t far to go and at this hour, no-one should be about. The only man abroad would be old Pilcher and with luck he would now be indisposed.
With his burdens about him, Fred raced down the hill, holding to the shadows and turned right keeping low against the churchyard wall. At the spot where a thin wrought iron pillar stood proud he halted and tied off the rope. He threw the rope over and slid down into the full black of the churchyard. It only took a matter of a minute to complete the whole operation from door to sacred soil.
A fit man, a working man, Fred was rarely troubled with breathlessness, but his efforts together with the maladies in his head laid him low for some minutes and he rested against the base of the wall, some twelve or fifteen feet down.
He could see, through the iron railings of the locked gate on the other side of the churchyard, the far end of the village and the tavern where he’d spent a couple of hours. The lights were still burning. If old man Pilcher had left, the lights would have been put out and all would be dark. The glow of gaslight meant he was still there enjoying his final nightcap. With closed eyes Fred recounted his conversation with the landlady, three beers and two whiskeys in.
“Everything’s set. Ellen’s in bed, asleep. I’ve prepared everything. I’m going at three.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, son? You know I’m happy to pay.”
“No Mother, I’ve told you enough times already. I’m not going to let you. I’m not going to let you get into debt over this. Not now you’ve only just cleared your own, for the pub.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can bear a few losses.”
“No. It cost over two quid for our Alice. I know she was five and bigger, but it doesn’t make much difference when they’re littl’uns.”
“When can we pay our respects?”
“We’ll leave it a couple of days. I don’t want to arouse suspicions. Anyway, Ellen won’t be up to it for a while. Then we’ll need to visit carefully. Only two at a time.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Now old Crittenden’s gone home, I need you to keep Pilcher tanked up. I don’t want him staggering out and catching me. If he’s still here at three, keep him ‘til half past.”
Fred lifted the parcel from the makeshift pouch and held it tight to his chest muttering a short prayer, then placed it neatly and lovingly on the ground.
There was a small pile of masonry against the wall close to where he sat in the dark corner of the churchyard. A suitable break taken, he started to dismantle it and within minutes was down to the sandy surface below. Any semblance of life had died out with the dryness of the soil and the lack of sunlight, so nothing grew. Fred began emptying his bag and laid out a couple of the sacks behind him. Taking the coal shovel, he dug into the earth clearing a spot less than a yard across and just a foot from his knees to the wall. He worked quickly without a break between shovels until there was a pile on the hemp behind him. Once he was a foot down he struck some resistance. He carefully scraped around the small rectangle clearing away the last clumps and revealing the once thick, but now threadbare scrap of carpet. A light tap confirmed that the offcuts of wood beneath were still in quite good shape and he started to peel back the layers, finally removing the last layer of carpet.
Two bundles, one slightly wider than the other sat in the grave. He gently eased them apart leaving a small gap between them. He returned to the fresh parcel and placed it in the gap, the heavy end furthest away.
His hand hovered over the newest for a while, then he turned his attention to the others. Each was a similar hemp bundle. He was driven to unwrapping them to take another, hopefully final, look. Both bundles were lightly swaddled, and it was easy to peel the cloth back revealing the bodies. On the left side, the twins, both boys, on the right, the triplets, all girls. The boys had been in the ground longer, but all five still bore close resemblance to their appearance when he had first placed them there. All peaceful, their tears ever dry, their crying at an end. Five faces asleep.
He unwrapped his new born son, face still soft, and leant over, to kiss the tiny forehead.
After another prayer he took two coins from his pocket, placed them over the eyes and sat back to look at his grim handiwork. The donation went some way to alleviate his guilt.
Victoria’s tarnished face echoed along the line. Twelve times, she stared out in to the distance, twelve times oblivious of the babies beneath her. She looked to Fred’s left directly through the hefty main door of the church and up the nave to the altar.
Twelve pennies.
One shilling.
THE CATCH
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”
I shouted this as the Wastell boys stood on the wet grating some forty or fifty feet up.
They wouldn’t have heard. Not above the din. The mixture of rubber-neckers come for a bit of excitement, whooping and yelling for their next conversation-hogging dinner anecdote, alongside the panickers. The, will they/won’t they, jeopardy chasers, looking for a climax and the humanitarians working for God.
The massed shouts of: ‘Will ‘e, d’ya think ‘e will?’ or ‘I ain’t never seen it live, before’ or ‘Those firemen will never make it here on time’ or ‘Which one do you imagine will hit the ground first?’ - banalities cutting through the heightened buzz of a hundred raised voices would never reach the sixth floor.
Two little scared boys wouldn’t be able to pick out a single word of that mush. They’d see only a sea of excited faces, the same as if looking at the circus crowd, opposite, through the gaps between the lions, tumblers and clowns. Each face would be as contorted as the thoughts inside their childish heads, each visage different from its neighbour, each another shade of expectation or concern.
When I spoke to their mother less than an hour ago, she knew we’d be here, now. The cops were on hand to console her, give her the usual platitudes, ply her with statistics about how rarely these cases end in disaster. But I knew. I knew. I could see it in her eyes; the way she could only focus on some point in the distance, a future point, a place beyond the heat of the now, a time when her boys would be laid down for good.
One of the cops, that short one, stocky, the one greying and thinning on top, the one wanting to enhance his pension; he was always good for a paragraph of news. I’ve kept him sweet on a number of occasions, courtesy of the quid-pro-quo fund. He’s always been grateful for the donations and I’ve always laid it on thick about his usefulness. He’s too stupid to get it. I’d pay twice as much if he’d haggle.
Elaine Wastell, standard domestic abuse case, absconded with the kids, having taken one too many fists to the face. Michael Wastell, local hoodlum, construction labourer and part-time dealer in all things suspect. She says she left when he started knocking the hell outa the boys. They were smaller, more manageable targets. He needed a rest after a long day at work, not her constant fight-backs. She says she doesn’t want them raised in a climate of drug deals and crime. ‘Didn’t complain much before the beatings, though, did she.
This being the third time he’s caught her, she reckons that he’ll do something drastic. I reckon she’s right.
Those two boys, stripped half-naked, barefoot on a cold grill, don’t know where to turn. There’s a baying crowd below jeering, cheering, screaming for them to do something with their short lives. There’s a strong wind whipping up, throwing freezing drizzle into their faces. There’s recent memories of a warm Mom, feeding them pizza and hot chocolate, with hugs on the sofa. There’s a pugilist on the other side of the glass looking for a punchbag.
How did they get where they are? I guess he must have turned his back for a second, gone for a piss or something, never expecting they’d be that desperate to escape him. Mrs W said he’d promised her that if he couldn’t have custody, no-one would. We’re close to game point, here.
The boys are holding hands, as if they’re about to cross the street together. Always hold each other tight, look both ways and cross safely, she’d told them. Always follow the correct code, whatever Sesame Street teach ’em nowadays.
The window is thrown up at force, the wood of the frame crashing loudly against the buffer, the pane shaking in the loose putty, flakes of paint and putty shards appear like sleet. Big Mike steps out onto the tenement grating and his weight makes the whole metal-work shake like 911. A tattooed arm shoots forward from a sweat and blood stained, off-white vested torso to grab the joined hands of his beloved sons.
She knew if they were subjected to their fathers influence for long enough, they’d forget what she’d told them. They split. They let go of each other as their one-time provider launched a hand of deliverance.
They both fell.
The taller one, the older, Ethan was it? Or was it Tommy? He leans to the left and slips on the metal, his knees gliding off. His little blue hand grasps the bar but slides off and he is gone. The other boy catches his pullover on a rusty nail and is left hanging like an old-time criminal for a fraction of a second until the polyester rips and he follows his brothers lead.
The crowd’s discordant song of shock, delight and moral outrage is the last thing they hear. An accompaniment to my promise.
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”
It takes less than a second to reach the ground. Galileo was right.
There. I caught you. I caught you both. I said I would. I damn-well said I would. KUDOS to me!
They said this camera would never capture squat at this distance. Get yourself the Leica D-Lux 7, they told me. That old thing is a piece of crap. I would never have been able to secure this fucking masterpiece, not going at the speed you two were going, with the Leica. I’m sure of it.
This baby, is the picture of the year. Maybe the decade. Maybe the whole fucking century. Global Markets. International syndication. Front pages, the World over. Every website. This is gonna be worth a mint.
‘You know what? I think I’ll give their old Mom a cut of the profits. That’ll go down well in philanthropic circles. ‘Might even get an award. Huh! Let’s call it 15%. You can’t say fairer than that.
