A cheerful vegetable gains sentience and mobility and steps out into the world...
The story should be no more than 4000 words.
The story should be no more than 4000 words.
Deadline: 4th May 2013
AM
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Jacob's Garden
Even before the autumn came, the leaves fell into Jacob's garden. It wasn't a particularly windy September and neither was it warm. The sky stayed blue and the clouds away, but the air gnawed like November.
"It's dying," he said, looking up at the oak tree. "Almost dead."
Mark followed Jacob's gaze to the top of the tree expecting to see some evidence of Jacob's feeling but he only saw the oak, bare of leaves, a shock of branches against the late summer sky.
"Maybe just an early season Jacob, feel how cold it is today. It's in the air." Mark hugged himself as he walked across the grass to stand beside Jacob.
"Perhaps, but....." Jacob sighed. "I think this one will go."
Jacob walked up to the oak and nestled his feet between the roots overflowing from the ground around the base of the tree. Still a yard or so away from the trunk, he reached forward to lean one hand against it.
The rough skin of his palm made a rasping sound against the bark as his hand rubbed carefully across seeming to feel for the signs of life he was sure had gone.
He swung his other arm around and now both hands were pressed against the tree shoulder width apart, taking his weight. He put one leg forward finding a new stable foot place between the roots and bent his knees slightly. Behind him Mark was anxiously rocking from one foot to the other, flicking his gaze between the top of the tree and Jacob's back tilted against the trunk.
There were seven oak trees still standing in Jacob's garden and this is where it had all started.
The garden as it was known was two hundred acres of woodland in the Forest of Dean, bought by Jacob shortly after the accident. For most of the small group of people, six men and four women standing by a pond thirty foot or so away, this was their first visit to Jacob's garden but not their first time. They huddled closer together, each face lit with anticipation and excitement, but from somewhere deeper, a yearning flushed their skin scarlet.
The feeling never diminished for Mark. Despite witnessing it so many times before, he never grew tired or any less than overwhelmed by being with Jacob, and once again his stomach flutters as he hears him start to inhale deeply and his back expands beneath his coat.
And each time as before, at this moment, Mark tells himself that it looks like Jacob is actually trying to push the tree over. Then, as the ground heaves and things begin to crack and groan Jacob expels a giant breath and Mark holds his in silence. And the tree begins to fall.
Jacob skipped backwards and jumped clear of the roots rising up out of the ground and as the oak descended it clipped and flicked the branches of other trees and the air rushed away from beneath its falling weight with a deep booming thrump. Finally it came to rest and the sounds thinned to a whisper.
The oak was dead.
*****
Mark met Jacob shortly after Maria died and he was the first. In the four years since they had become close friends and now Mark travelled with Jacob to the trees. Jacob had bought a large leather bound journal and in it he'd written the names and telephone numbers of those who had contacted them. Whenever a call came in they would let everyone know before throwing a couple of overnight bags into the car and heading off to whatever part of the world the call had come in from.
Secrecy was a problem in the beginning. There was an understandable scepticism towards Jacob when he'd first started to make contact with the various parties about the trees, and of course whilst he offered his services without charge he didn't reveal his methods during the first exchange. The extraordinary truth was only made known when they had witnessed it first hand with their own eyes. Mark had argued that Jacob could have asked for privacy as part of the deal but Jacob had said he really didn't mind and wouldn't want to draw attention to himself or raise suspicion before he'd actually carried out the work. Mark soon realised it was all part of the process for Jacob needing a witness, someone who was unfamiliar and nonjudgmental.
For Mark, without Maria everything made sense to be here, even if he couldn't yet fully understand why, and ultimately what the consequences of everything would be. His family, or rather Maria's parents as Mark had no living relatives to speak of; they told him that it was time to start rebuilding a new life without her. They loved him and prayed that he found some happiness again. Enough time had passed. For what though? To forget? To begin believing he could have a life without her. This was his life without her and it began one moment in the dark four years ago whilst he slept, and wouldn't end until he was finally and eternally delivered into the light.
After seeing such a fantastic feat, those who'd led them to dying trees became very protective and wanted to keep their involvement to themselves. As time went on Mark began to realise the effect their work was having on those who witnessed it for like himself they found it a powerful and cathartic experience.
He started inviting each person who had led them to a tree to come along and watch the next time it happened. This is how the group grew to around ten or so people, and those that could travelled to wherever Jacob and Mark were heading, to whatever place the call came in from.
Inevitably, about three months after they'd first begun, there was a farmer in Suffolk who valued a few pounds and even fewer minutes of fame, over the privilege of watching Jacob, and had sold a story to the local press. Being such a preposterous idea, Mark had easily dismissed it arguing that he had been there too, and seen Jacob standing next to a diseased and rotten tree when it fell. The real story Mark said was in fact how lucky Jacob was to avoid serious injury. The original whistleblower didn't pursue things and the story died as quickly as the speed in which he'd no doubt spent his money. The Suffolk Herald ran a small piece about the incident with the headline 'Timber!"
Mark had learned how to deal with the press after Maria had died. After the initial reporting of the accident they had latched on to his developing relationship with Jacob. When Mark was unable to give them any specific reason, they concocted their own, some even suggesting sinister motives.
The cruel series of events didn't seem story enough for them, and most resisted the simple conclusion that here were two men whom had both lost their wives, so undoubtedly and unexpectedly they now had much in common. The reporters focussed on the twist, the element that sold their newspapers for nearly two whole months after the accident and it trapped Jacob, under a daily microscope of intrusion that no polite requests to desist could stop.
Mark had become the spokesperson for the both of them, by default really, because of Ellie. Sometimes Mark struggled to reconcile his loss with Jacob's. He was actually asked in one interview whether he felt Maria's right to justice and his own loss had been usurped by the tragic circumstances of the accident. Mark had lost his wife, but poor Jacob, with Ellie already gone, had now lost his whole family.
Ellie was Jacob and Jenny's daughter five years ago just three days before her sixth birthday, she had emptied out the contents of the refrigerator, a fairly old free standing unit in the family kitchen. She removed all the food, jars of sauces, the odd nail polish and placed them neatly, regimentally on the floor. Beside these she stacked the two wire shelves, egg tray and plastic thermometer. She had then climbed inside and to make herself fit would have sat with her chin tight against her knees. No would ever know what new game she had invented, but once inside she had pulled the door shut and even as the light went out, as it would have done, she hadn't attempted to get out again and it was there in the darkness and the cold that she died.
Jacob had been working in the garden for most of the morning. He had walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle before he noticed the contents of the refrigerator neatly ordered on the floor. He shouted for Jenny as he continued to make tea. She appeared in the kitchen yawning and rubbing the back of her head.
"Oh. I fell asleep. Is Ellie in the garden." She frowned and chuckled at the food on the floor. "Oh no, is the fridge playing up?"
No one asked why Jenny had turned the steering wheel that night. She was the one who had bent down and opened the refrigerator door. The one who had felt the weight of Ellie's stony body slump across her feet, ice against her shins. Jenny had said later that she didn't know, didn't have an overwhelming feeling and really expected to see an empty fridge, and for Ellie to skip into the kitchen explaining with innocent sincerity and in great detail why on earth she had dismantled the contents of the fridge.
Jacob knew. He was already sitting on the floor trembling and pushing himself back between the corner cabinets with his feet. His socks kept slipping on the tiled floor as he tried to stop himself falling into the giant chasm which was unfolding before him.
The coroner's report stated that based on calculations of available oxygen inside the refrigerator, Ellie probably lost consciousness after around two to three hours and asphyxiation would have occurred shortly after.
Whilst Jenny was found to have caused death by dangerous driving, there was little other evidence to explain her actions that night and she quickly became another victim in the whole terrible story. For Mark this left Maria's death somehow unexplained. Not that he didn't understand, hadn't agonised to truly accept the circumstances behind the accident. He just needed a reason, something to keep inside, a place to go where it could all be explained. On those days when suddenly nothing made sense again, the only answer he had to wrap around himself was someone else's grief, and it just wasn't enough. Jacob understood this and when they met, he had told Mark that despite Jenny's fragile mental state, he acknowledged with a heavy heart that she was directly responsible for Maria's death.
They had spoken at length about how they were both coping, and Jacob had told Mark about the day he'd first pushed over an oak tree in the woods behind his house some four weeks after Jenny and Maria's accident.
Mark initially thought Jacob must be speaking metaphorically because he recognised the anger he was describing, the debilitating emotions which at times rendered him mute with anger. But in those woods Jacob had placed his hands upon the tree and the things he couldn't say, the feelings he wasn't able to communicate had burgeoned and unravelled with such a ferocity. Three weeks later Jacob found another tree and Mark was standing beside him when he did it again.
Though the trees were dying, their roots shrinking away from the soil around them, there was no doubt about the extraordinary force required to rip them from the ground and whilst Jacob's strength appeared superhuman it didn't manifest itself in any other situations irrespective of his emotional state. Mark had thought a lot about the symbolism of the trees and what they must represent to Jacob. Was he simply ridding himself of death, clearing away reminders of the tragedies that had devastated his family or perhaps it was just a simple act of frustration. Jacob had bought the forest land so he could continue to push the trees, but Mark wondered how much Jacob was doing it for himself now rather the others in the group whom had come so quickly to rely on him.
Ted came because he missed his wife and they had argued the day she died. Mrs Rowe, their newest member lost a son in Afghanistan and Rachael Everett's seven month old baby was never born.
Jacob lost his beautiful daughter and hurt everyday because he couldn't understand why she had chosen to sit inside that dark unfriendly place until sleep and finally death consumed her. Jenny his wife finally surrendered to the demons which had hunted her since the day she herself fell asleep and wasn't there to save her baby. Her desperate action that night on a country lane three miles from her home unwittingly changed Mark's life forever.
***
Jacob was looking at his hands and he walked back towards Mark. The group of people were also walking over, some milling around and inspecting the giant mesh of the oak's root bowl which out of the ground stood much higher than any of them.
Mark shook Jacob's hand. "Thank you Jacob," he said. The others in the group had now joined them and they repeated the gratitude, some patting Jacob's back and rubbing his arms.
They slowly made their way out of the garden, through the trees and to the road beyond.
By Darren Seeley
"It's dying," he said, looking up at the oak tree. "Almost dead."
Mark followed Jacob's gaze to the top of the tree expecting to see some evidence of Jacob's feeling but he only saw the oak, bare of leaves, a shock of branches against the late summer sky.
"Maybe just an early season Jacob, feel how cold it is today. It's in the air." Mark hugged himself as he walked across the grass to stand beside Jacob.
"Perhaps, but....." Jacob sighed. "I think this one will go."
Jacob walked up to the oak and nestled his feet between the roots overflowing from the ground around the base of the tree. Still a yard or so away from the trunk, he reached forward to lean one hand against it.
The rough skin of his palm made a rasping sound against the bark as his hand rubbed carefully across seeming to feel for the signs of life he was sure had gone.
He swung his other arm around and now both hands were pressed against the tree shoulder width apart, taking his weight. He put one leg forward finding a new stable foot place between the roots and bent his knees slightly. Behind him Mark was anxiously rocking from one foot to the other, flicking his gaze between the top of the tree and Jacob's back tilted against the trunk.
There were seven oak trees still standing in Jacob's garden and this is where it had all started.
The garden as it was known was two hundred acres of woodland in the Forest of Dean, bought by Jacob shortly after the accident. For most of the small group of people, six men and four women standing by a pond thirty foot or so away, this was their first visit to Jacob's garden but not their first time. They huddled closer together, each face lit with anticipation and excitement, but from somewhere deeper, a yearning flushed their skin scarlet.
The feeling never diminished for Mark. Despite witnessing it so many times before, he never grew tired or any less than overwhelmed by being with Jacob, and once again his stomach flutters as he hears him start to inhale deeply and his back expands beneath his coat.
And each time as before, at this moment, Mark tells himself that it looks like Jacob is actually trying to push the tree over. Then, as the ground heaves and things begin to crack and groan Jacob expels a giant breath and Mark holds his in silence. And the tree begins to fall.
Jacob skipped backwards and jumped clear of the roots rising up out of the ground and as the oak descended it clipped and flicked the branches of other trees and the air rushed away from beneath its falling weight with a deep booming thrump. Finally it came to rest and the sounds thinned to a whisper.
The oak was dead.
*****
Mark met Jacob shortly after Maria died and he was the first. In the four years since they had become close friends and now Mark travelled with Jacob to the trees. Jacob had bought a large leather bound journal and in it he'd written the names and telephone numbers of those who had contacted them. Whenever a call came in they would let everyone know before throwing a couple of overnight bags into the car and heading off to whatever part of the world the call had come in from.
Secrecy was a problem in the beginning. There was an understandable scepticism towards Jacob when he'd first started to make contact with the various parties about the trees, and of course whilst he offered his services without charge he didn't reveal his methods during the first exchange. The extraordinary truth was only made known when they had witnessed it first hand with their own eyes. Mark had argued that Jacob could have asked for privacy as part of the deal but Jacob had said he really didn't mind and wouldn't want to draw attention to himself or raise suspicion before he'd actually carried out the work. Mark soon realised it was all part of the process for Jacob needing a witness, someone who was unfamiliar and nonjudgmental.
For Mark, without Maria everything made sense to be here, even if he couldn't yet fully understand why, and ultimately what the consequences of everything would be. His family, or rather Maria's parents as Mark had no living relatives to speak of; they told him that it was time to start rebuilding a new life without her. They loved him and prayed that he found some happiness again. Enough time had passed. For what though? To forget? To begin believing he could have a life without her. This was his life without her and it began one moment in the dark four years ago whilst he slept, and wouldn't end until he was finally and eternally delivered into the light.
After seeing such a fantastic feat, those who'd led them to dying trees became very protective and wanted to keep their involvement to themselves. As time went on Mark began to realise the effect their work was having on those who witnessed it for like himself they found it a powerful and cathartic experience.
He started inviting each person who had led them to a tree to come along and watch the next time it happened. This is how the group grew to around ten or so people, and those that could travelled to wherever Jacob and Mark were heading, to whatever place the call came in from.
Inevitably, about three months after they'd first begun, there was a farmer in Suffolk who valued a few pounds and even fewer minutes of fame, over the privilege of watching Jacob, and had sold a story to the local press. Being such a preposterous idea, Mark had easily dismissed it arguing that he had been there too, and seen Jacob standing next to a diseased and rotten tree when it fell. The real story Mark said was in fact how lucky Jacob was to avoid serious injury. The original whistleblower didn't pursue things and the story died as quickly as the speed in which he'd no doubt spent his money. The Suffolk Herald ran a small piece about the incident with the headline 'Timber!"
Mark had learned how to deal with the press after Maria had died. After the initial reporting of the accident they had latched on to his developing relationship with Jacob. When Mark was unable to give them any specific reason, they concocted their own, some even suggesting sinister motives.
The cruel series of events didn't seem story enough for them, and most resisted the simple conclusion that here were two men whom had both lost their wives, so undoubtedly and unexpectedly they now had much in common. The reporters focussed on the twist, the element that sold their newspapers for nearly two whole months after the accident and it trapped Jacob, under a daily microscope of intrusion that no polite requests to desist could stop.
Mark had become the spokesperson for the both of them, by default really, because of Ellie. Sometimes Mark struggled to reconcile his loss with Jacob's. He was actually asked in one interview whether he felt Maria's right to justice and his own loss had been usurped by the tragic circumstances of the accident. Mark had lost his wife, but poor Jacob, with Ellie already gone, had now lost his whole family.
Ellie was Jacob and Jenny's daughter five years ago just three days before her sixth birthday, she had emptied out the contents of the refrigerator, a fairly old free standing unit in the family kitchen. She removed all the food, jars of sauces, the odd nail polish and placed them neatly, regimentally on the floor. Beside these she stacked the two wire shelves, egg tray and plastic thermometer. She had then climbed inside and to make herself fit would have sat with her chin tight against her knees. No would ever know what new game she had invented, but once inside she had pulled the door shut and even as the light went out, as it would have done, she hadn't attempted to get out again and it was there in the darkness and the cold that she died.
Jacob had been working in the garden for most of the morning. He had walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle before he noticed the contents of the refrigerator neatly ordered on the floor. He shouted for Jenny as he continued to make tea. She appeared in the kitchen yawning and rubbing the back of her head.
"Oh. I fell asleep. Is Ellie in the garden." She frowned and chuckled at the food on the floor. "Oh no, is the fridge playing up?"
No one asked why Jenny had turned the steering wheel that night. She was the one who had bent down and opened the refrigerator door. The one who had felt the weight of Ellie's stony body slump across her feet, ice against her shins. Jenny had said later that she didn't know, didn't have an overwhelming feeling and really expected to see an empty fridge, and for Ellie to skip into the kitchen explaining with innocent sincerity and in great detail why on earth she had dismantled the contents of the fridge.
Jacob knew. He was already sitting on the floor trembling and pushing himself back between the corner cabinets with his feet. His socks kept slipping on the tiled floor as he tried to stop himself falling into the giant chasm which was unfolding before him.
The coroner's report stated that based on calculations of available oxygen inside the refrigerator, Ellie probably lost consciousness after around two to three hours and asphyxiation would have occurred shortly after.
Whilst Jenny was found to have caused death by dangerous driving, there was little other evidence to explain her actions that night and she quickly became another victim in the whole terrible story. For Mark this left Maria's death somehow unexplained. Not that he didn't understand, hadn't agonised to truly accept the circumstances behind the accident. He just needed a reason, something to keep inside, a place to go where it could all be explained. On those days when suddenly nothing made sense again, the only answer he had to wrap around himself was someone else's grief, and it just wasn't enough. Jacob understood this and when they met, he had told Mark that despite Jenny's fragile mental state, he acknowledged with a heavy heart that she was directly responsible for Maria's death.
They had spoken at length about how they were both coping, and Jacob had told Mark about the day he'd first pushed over an oak tree in the woods behind his house some four weeks after Jenny and Maria's accident.
Mark initially thought Jacob must be speaking metaphorically because he recognised the anger he was describing, the debilitating emotions which at times rendered him mute with anger. But in those woods Jacob had placed his hands upon the tree and the things he couldn't say, the feelings he wasn't able to communicate had burgeoned and unravelled with such a ferocity. Three weeks later Jacob found another tree and Mark was standing beside him when he did it again.
Though the trees were dying, their roots shrinking away from the soil around them, there was no doubt about the extraordinary force required to rip them from the ground and whilst Jacob's strength appeared superhuman it didn't manifest itself in any other situations irrespective of his emotional state. Mark had thought a lot about the symbolism of the trees and what they must represent to Jacob. Was he simply ridding himself of death, clearing away reminders of the tragedies that had devastated his family or perhaps it was just a simple act of frustration. Jacob had bought the forest land so he could continue to push the trees, but Mark wondered how much Jacob was doing it for himself now rather the others in the group whom had come so quickly to rely on him.
Ted came because he missed his wife and they had argued the day she died. Mrs Rowe, their newest member lost a son in Afghanistan and Rachael Everett's seven month old baby was never born.
Jacob lost his beautiful daughter and hurt everyday because he couldn't understand why she had chosen to sit inside that dark unfriendly place until sleep and finally death consumed her. Jenny his wife finally surrendered to the demons which had hunted her since the day she herself fell asleep and wasn't there to save her baby. Her desperate action that night on a country lane three miles from her home unwittingly changed Mark's life forever.
***
Jacob was looking at his hands and he walked back towards Mark. The group of people were also walking over, some milling around and inspecting the giant mesh of the oak's root bowl which out of the ground stood much higher than any of them.
Mark shook Jacob's hand. "Thank you Jacob," he said. The others in the group had now joined them and they repeated the gratitude, some patting Jacob's back and rubbing his arms.
They slowly made their way out of the garden, through the trees and to the road beyond.
By Darren Seeley
The Boy
The first time – Alice had one ritual in her life; albeit a new one but for the last sixty two days she had doggedly left her house everyday so she could complete it. Sometimes she had somewhere to go, others she would just stand outside and look at the pretty pink flowers in her window boxes for five minutes until the ritual could begin.
Today was a window box day. At precisely five minutes after she’d locked her front door, Alice unlocked it again, making sure to twist her wrist with a flourish so the little bell that hung on the key ring chimed repeatedly. It chimed three times, the way her mother had always made it do.
The next part of the ritual was the most stressful for Alice. Oxygen was the enemy and she felt it cloaking her, ready to pervade, ready to dilute, as she paused on the doorstep. As fast as she was able, though not as fast as she would like, Alice jerked open the door and rushed inside, quickly shutting the door behind her to block the oxygen’s entry. Her heart beat fast but she focused on calming it so she could savour the rest of the ritual. She took a deep breath through her nose, then another. Tears formed in her eyes as she had to take a third; her mother’s scent was so faint but she knew it wasn’t just the oxygen’s fault. Her brother’s shoes were strewn haphazardly in the entry way tainting the subtle scent of lilac and roses she had come to crave.
Despair welled in her but she managed to tamp it down, she still had the sealed bags of clothes under her bed she could inhale from when her grief became too great. If she was fast with resealing the bag it would be years before oxygen stole her mother’s scent from them.
Alice straightened her brother’s shoes, managing not to scream in frustration, and went to the kitchen. She loved her brother, she truly did. She was just having trouble adjusting. For so long it had just been her and her mother, everything had been calm, pleasant and predictable but now her mother was gone….
Her mother was gone!!!!!!!
And hard times had fallen on her brother, forcing him to move in with her out of necessity.
Alice filled the kettle and switched it on. Tears threatened again as she set out one cup, not two, and she noticed her hands were shaking as she opened the fridge for the milk.
She reached into the fridge for milk and a boy with ghostly pale skin and black eyes stared back at her.
Alice blinked first in incomprehension then, upon registering what she was seeing, flung herself backwards in terror. Her hip clipped the kitchen work bench, flinging her to the ground but within seconds she was up and running, screaming all the time.
She heard thumping down the stairs and then Frank, her brother, was in front of her. “What the hell is wrong?” He demanded.
“In the fridge!” Alice cried and flung herself into the cushions of her mother’s armchair.
“What is it?” Frank frowned.
“Just look in the fridge!” Alice begged.
Frank huffed and marched into the kitchen. “Jesus Christ!” She heard a moment later and felt utterly sure that her big brother was about to save the day. “Alice, what is it with you and smashing eggs? Oh,” he paused awkwardly and stepped back to the doorway to look at her, “is this another episode?”
Alice frowned as she straightened in the armchair. She hated the word episode, or at least she had done since it had been repeatedly used to describe her incident. “Look in the fridge, there’s a boy in the fridge.”
Frank looked into the kitchen and then back at her and gave a deep sigh, a sigh Alice interpreted to be of the exasperated kind, and that made Alice burrow back into the cushions.
“Al, come here.” His tone brooked no argument and Alice begrudgingly uncoiled herself from the beloved armchair and walked into the kitchen to his side. She surveyed the perfectly organised fridge shelving, minus demonic looking child, and a shattered carton of eggs on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge.
“I know what I saw.” She insisted before he could chastise her. “He was in there!”
Frank took Alice’s shoulders and the caring expression on his face nearly broke her. “Alice, maybe we should go back to Doctor Whyatt.”
“I don’t need Doctor Whyatt, I’m fine.” Frank didn’t look convinced. “I’m fine!” Alice repeated and the knowing look Frank gave her made her cringe inside.
“Okay, Alice, I’ll clear up here. You should go and have a nap while I make us dinner.”
***
The fourth time - You will beg for mercy…
Your tears will run dry…
You will beg for death…
The murmurs woke Alice from her slumber. She had that groggy, barely awake feeling when the next murmur sounded.
You will die screaming…
Adrenalin pulsed through her as her eyes shot open with a certainty of danger. The boy with the black eyes was hovering above her, his face inches from hers. Alice screamed for all she was worth and then jack-knifed out of the bed to get away from him. She landed awkwardly and Frank burst into the room discovering his sister cowering against the bedroom wall cradling a broken arm.
***
“Mr Ashurst, could you come with me please?”
Frank frowned but followed the nurse. “Is Alice okay?” He asked as they maneuvered corridor upon corridor.
“The Doctor will talk to you shortly.” The nurse’s shoes squeaked as she transversed the corridors but other than that she made no sound.
“Nurse?”
“The Doctor will talk to you shortly.” She answered tartly as she opened the door to an office and ushered him inside.
Frank was faced with three stern looking, white coat cladded men, each wearing grim looking glasses that made him wonder if they were for effect or necessity.
“Doctors?” He greeted, unsure of the protocol of the situation.
“Tell me about your sister’s wounds.” One of the white coats instructed.
“Ah, as far as I’m aware she got a fright and fell out of bed.”
Lots of scribbling on notepads, lots of meaningful looks to each other; at least to everyone but Frank.
One of the white coats cleared his throat. “You know, Alice has quite a few contusions present on her body alongside from the broken arm.”
Frank knew what they were insinuating and he was a proud man. There were precious few things left in his broken life to be proud of but the fact that he’d never dream of hitting a woman was one of them so he’d be damned before he’d let these doctors accuse him of something he hadn’t done.
“I can assure you I would never lay a hand on my sister and this is not the first time she’s had a fright like this. If you must know she’s seeing an apparition all around our house.”
***
Alice tried to move her fingers in the cast encasing her broken arm but they stayed immobile.
She was officially broken. This made her laugh and she laughed hard, though the sound couldn’t have been described as jovial. The reality was she’d been broken for the last seventy six days and no Band-Aid or plaster cast could come to her rescue.
Two nurses tried to calm her hysterical laughing to no avail and then Frank was there; her Saviour, and she calmed.
“Alice I need to know what happened.” Frank said, looking more tired than she had seen him at his worst.
“The boy was in my room, he was threatening me.”
Frank took a breath, seeming to try and calm himself, and then took the hand of her unbroken arm in his. “Alice, there was no boy. I came straight to your room when you screamed. If there had been a boy in there I would’ve seen him.”
“He was there.”
“And he just disappeared? Like a ghost?”
“Maybe.” Alice frowned. She didn’t believe in ghosts but four times now she’d seen something her brother hadn’t and the boy being a ghost sat a lot better with her than the fact that she may be going crazy.
Frank withdrew his hand and scrubbed it over his face. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes and how thin his face had gotten.
“Alice, we should sell the house, move on, get a fresh start.”
Alice stiffened in horror. They’d had this conversation before, many times, and each time panic gripped her as though he’d get his way. The thought of strangers moving into her mother’s house made her feel nauseous.
“No.”
Frank sighed deeply. “It’s not healthy for you Alice.”
“It’s mum’s house.”
“No, it’s her shrine!” Frank snapped. “I’m not allowed to even open the God damn windows lest her precious scent escape!”
Alice flinched at his tone and he immediately reached for her hand again and gave a weary sigh.
“I’m sorry Alice. I’m just… sorry.”
Alice looked at her brother, really looked at him, and saw how broken he was. For the first time she put her own suffering aside and considered his. He had lost his mother as well but not only that, in quick succession his wife had left him and he’d been declared bankrupt. No wonder he wanted to sell the house he needed a fresh start. And she felt for him, she honestly did, but she couldn’t sell the house. She just couldn’t.
***
The ninth time – Alice stood at the bathroom sink with a towel wrapped around her. The tub was filling with warm water and she had two little blue tablets in her hand. Alice now had a second ritual; take Valium then relax in the tub. She knew she’d been prescribed the pills to stop her seeing the boy but that hadn’t worked, she was seeing him more than ever. They did, however, take the edge off of her all-consuming grief so she took them religiously.
Alice put the pills in her mouth and raised a glass of water to her lips. In the mirror behind her she saw the boy baring his teeth and drawing his thumb across his throat. She screamed as she spun around. The little blue pills flew from her mouth and the glass in her hand crushed under her grip.
She dropped the shattered glass but not before a shard cut into her palm. Frank burst into the room, took one look at her bleeding hand and swore under his breath.
“Alice.” He shook his head as he grabbed up a towel and wrapped it around her hand. She shrunk with shame at the depth of despair he had conveyed with that one word. “You saw him again didn’t you?”
Alice had stopped admitting when she saw the boy as Frank had started mentioning counselling more and more. She didn’t want to talk to strangers about her grief, it was private. No one could understand the way she felt and she wasn’t inclined to try and make them.
This time however, as Frank tended to her bloody hand, she realised the boy was still there. “Look!” she cried as she pointed as best as her broken arm would let her.
Frank looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“He’s right there!”
“Where?” Frank walked over to the boy, stopped right before him, and pulled the door closed to check behind it. “There’s no one here Alice.”
The boy leant to the side of Frank’s legs and stared at her. A strangled cry escaped her.
“He’s right there in front of you.”
The pitying look Frank gave her made her feel totally and utterly alone. He walked back towards her.
“Please.” She begged. She needed Frank to see him, she couldn’t be going crazy.
The boy bared his teeth in a macabre grin and put his fingers to his lips. “Shhhhhh.”
“Did you hear that?!” Alice cried as she gripped the front of Frank’s shirt.
Frank’s expression told her he hadn’t; it also said her fate was sealed.
***
Alice hated Dr Whyatt. She was judgemental, condescending and when Alice made a statement invariably “how does that make you feel?” would follow.
The doctor was scribbling notes onto Alice’s file while Alice sat opposite in a hospital gown. She sent a pleading look to Frank who sat beside her but he just smiled weakly back and squeezed her hand. He clearly wasn’t going to whisk her back to the haven that was their home any time soon.
Dr Whyatt put down her pen, pushed her glasses up on her nose and fixed Alice with a penetrating look. “I’m concerned Alice.”
“There’s no reason to be.” Alice dropped her eyes to her hands as she had done as a child when being addressed by her headmistress.
“Are you forgetting I’ve just examined your body and seen the damage you’ve done to yourself?”
Alice wasn’t going to forget that humiliation anytime soon. Her head dropped a little more.
“Your grief for your mother is manifesting in these hallucinations.”
“I’m not hallucinating.” Alice mumbled but the lack of conviction in her words was clear even to her.
“Really? Remind me of the episode that first brought you here after the assault charges were made against you.”
“That was different. That was a mistake.”
“Remind me.”
“I thought I saw my mother at the supermarket.” Alice remembered the devastation she’d felt when the woman had turned to reveal a strangers face. She’d known it couldn’t be her mother but for a brief moment hope had flared. “But it wasn’t her.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Upset.” Alice replied shortly, desperately wanting to move off the topic.
“Indeed, so upset that you began pelting a woman and her mother with eggs?”
Alice cringed in shame at the memory. The woman and her mother had only approached her to see if she was okay which was understandable considering she was a grown woman crying her heart out in the middle of the produce aisle. One look at them together had filled her with ferocious jealousy. What was so special about this woman that she got to keep her mother when Alice’s had been ripped away from her?
It hadn’t been a conscious decision to throw the eggs, they were just there and she’d hated that woman so, so much.
Alice began biting her nails, a habit her mother had cured her of years before.
“As I said Alice, I’m concerned for you, specifically for your safety. You are going to stay here at the hospital for a while so we can keep an eye on you.”
Alice’s head shot up. “What? No.” She turned to Frank who had a resigned look on his face. “No Frank, take me home.”
“Alice, this is for your own good. You’re hurting yourself and I can’t help you.”
“No, they’re just accidents. I only end up hurting myself because of my reactions to the boy.”
Dr Whyatt and Frank shared a look.
“I’m not crazy!” Alice cried defensively.
“No one is saying that you are, you just need to rest. It’ll only be for a little while.” Frank assured her as he gripped her hands in his.
“But the flowers, the garden, who will take care of them?” She could hear the hysteria creeping into her voice.
“I will Alice, don’t worry I’ll take care of everything.”
“Don’t leave me here.” She pulled her hands from his and fisted his shirt, desperate to keep hold of him. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“I have to Alice. Everything is going to be fine.” He detached her hands from his shirt and she noticed she’d torn a small hole in it. “You’ll see, this is for the best.” His voice was soothing and calm but Alice felt anything but soothed and calmed.
***
Frank let himself into the house and kicked his shoes off. He walked into the lounge and found a pale skinned boy with black eyes sitting on the sofa. He immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.
“Here.” He said as he offered the child forty pounds. The boy took the money. “Now get out of here you creepy fuck.” Frank said as he ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. “Tell your dad to come and have a beer with me later.”
The boy left and Frank rang directory enquiries.
“Yes, I’d like the number of a realtor in the Epsom area.”
By Dayv Metcalfe
Today was a window box day. At precisely five minutes after she’d locked her front door, Alice unlocked it again, making sure to twist her wrist with a flourish so the little bell that hung on the key ring chimed repeatedly. It chimed three times, the way her mother had always made it do.
The next part of the ritual was the most stressful for Alice. Oxygen was the enemy and she felt it cloaking her, ready to pervade, ready to dilute, as she paused on the doorstep. As fast as she was able, though not as fast as she would like, Alice jerked open the door and rushed inside, quickly shutting the door behind her to block the oxygen’s entry. Her heart beat fast but she focused on calming it so she could savour the rest of the ritual. She took a deep breath through her nose, then another. Tears formed in her eyes as she had to take a third; her mother’s scent was so faint but she knew it wasn’t just the oxygen’s fault. Her brother’s shoes were strewn haphazardly in the entry way tainting the subtle scent of lilac and roses she had come to crave.
Despair welled in her but she managed to tamp it down, she still had the sealed bags of clothes under her bed she could inhale from when her grief became too great. If she was fast with resealing the bag it would be years before oxygen stole her mother’s scent from them.
Alice straightened her brother’s shoes, managing not to scream in frustration, and went to the kitchen. She loved her brother, she truly did. She was just having trouble adjusting. For so long it had just been her and her mother, everything had been calm, pleasant and predictable but now her mother was gone….
Her mother was gone!!!!!!!
And hard times had fallen on her brother, forcing him to move in with her out of necessity.
Alice filled the kettle and switched it on. Tears threatened again as she set out one cup, not two, and she noticed her hands were shaking as she opened the fridge for the milk.
She reached into the fridge for milk and a boy with ghostly pale skin and black eyes stared back at her.
Alice blinked first in incomprehension then, upon registering what she was seeing, flung herself backwards in terror. Her hip clipped the kitchen work bench, flinging her to the ground but within seconds she was up and running, screaming all the time.
She heard thumping down the stairs and then Frank, her brother, was in front of her. “What the hell is wrong?” He demanded.
“In the fridge!” Alice cried and flung herself into the cushions of her mother’s armchair.
“What is it?” Frank frowned.
“Just look in the fridge!” Alice begged.
Frank huffed and marched into the kitchen. “Jesus Christ!” She heard a moment later and felt utterly sure that her big brother was about to save the day. “Alice, what is it with you and smashing eggs? Oh,” he paused awkwardly and stepped back to the doorway to look at her, “is this another episode?”
Alice frowned as she straightened in the armchair. She hated the word episode, or at least she had done since it had been repeatedly used to describe her incident. “Look in the fridge, there’s a boy in the fridge.”
Frank looked into the kitchen and then back at her and gave a deep sigh, a sigh Alice interpreted to be of the exasperated kind, and that made Alice burrow back into the cushions.
“Al, come here.” His tone brooked no argument and Alice begrudgingly uncoiled herself from the beloved armchair and walked into the kitchen to his side. She surveyed the perfectly organised fridge shelving, minus demonic looking child, and a shattered carton of eggs on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge.
“I know what I saw.” She insisted before he could chastise her. “He was in there!”
Frank took Alice’s shoulders and the caring expression on his face nearly broke her. “Alice, maybe we should go back to Doctor Whyatt.”
“I don’t need Doctor Whyatt, I’m fine.” Frank didn’t look convinced. “I’m fine!” Alice repeated and the knowing look Frank gave her made her cringe inside.
“Okay, Alice, I’ll clear up here. You should go and have a nap while I make us dinner.”
***
The fourth time - You will beg for mercy…
Your tears will run dry…
You will beg for death…
The murmurs woke Alice from her slumber. She had that groggy, barely awake feeling when the next murmur sounded.
You will die screaming…
Adrenalin pulsed through her as her eyes shot open with a certainty of danger. The boy with the black eyes was hovering above her, his face inches from hers. Alice screamed for all she was worth and then jack-knifed out of the bed to get away from him. She landed awkwardly and Frank burst into the room discovering his sister cowering against the bedroom wall cradling a broken arm.
***
“Mr Ashurst, could you come with me please?”
Frank frowned but followed the nurse. “Is Alice okay?” He asked as they maneuvered corridor upon corridor.
“The Doctor will talk to you shortly.” The nurse’s shoes squeaked as she transversed the corridors but other than that she made no sound.
“Nurse?”
“The Doctor will talk to you shortly.” She answered tartly as she opened the door to an office and ushered him inside.
Frank was faced with three stern looking, white coat cladded men, each wearing grim looking glasses that made him wonder if they were for effect or necessity.
“Doctors?” He greeted, unsure of the protocol of the situation.
“Tell me about your sister’s wounds.” One of the white coats instructed.
“Ah, as far as I’m aware she got a fright and fell out of bed.”
Lots of scribbling on notepads, lots of meaningful looks to each other; at least to everyone but Frank.
One of the white coats cleared his throat. “You know, Alice has quite a few contusions present on her body alongside from the broken arm.”
Frank knew what they were insinuating and he was a proud man. There were precious few things left in his broken life to be proud of but the fact that he’d never dream of hitting a woman was one of them so he’d be damned before he’d let these doctors accuse him of something he hadn’t done.
“I can assure you I would never lay a hand on my sister and this is not the first time she’s had a fright like this. If you must know she’s seeing an apparition all around our house.”
***
Alice tried to move her fingers in the cast encasing her broken arm but they stayed immobile.
She was officially broken. This made her laugh and she laughed hard, though the sound couldn’t have been described as jovial. The reality was she’d been broken for the last seventy six days and no Band-Aid or plaster cast could come to her rescue.
Two nurses tried to calm her hysterical laughing to no avail and then Frank was there; her Saviour, and she calmed.
“Alice I need to know what happened.” Frank said, looking more tired than she had seen him at his worst.
“The boy was in my room, he was threatening me.”
Frank took a breath, seeming to try and calm himself, and then took the hand of her unbroken arm in his. “Alice, there was no boy. I came straight to your room when you screamed. If there had been a boy in there I would’ve seen him.”
“He was there.”
“And he just disappeared? Like a ghost?”
“Maybe.” Alice frowned. She didn’t believe in ghosts but four times now she’d seen something her brother hadn’t and the boy being a ghost sat a lot better with her than the fact that she may be going crazy.
Frank withdrew his hand and scrubbed it over his face. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes and how thin his face had gotten.
“Alice, we should sell the house, move on, get a fresh start.”
Alice stiffened in horror. They’d had this conversation before, many times, and each time panic gripped her as though he’d get his way. The thought of strangers moving into her mother’s house made her feel nauseous.
“No.”
Frank sighed deeply. “It’s not healthy for you Alice.”
“It’s mum’s house.”
“No, it’s her shrine!” Frank snapped. “I’m not allowed to even open the God damn windows lest her precious scent escape!”
Alice flinched at his tone and he immediately reached for her hand again and gave a weary sigh.
“I’m sorry Alice. I’m just… sorry.”
Alice looked at her brother, really looked at him, and saw how broken he was. For the first time she put her own suffering aside and considered his. He had lost his mother as well but not only that, in quick succession his wife had left him and he’d been declared bankrupt. No wonder he wanted to sell the house he needed a fresh start. And she felt for him, she honestly did, but she couldn’t sell the house. She just couldn’t.
***
The ninth time – Alice stood at the bathroom sink with a towel wrapped around her. The tub was filling with warm water and she had two little blue tablets in her hand. Alice now had a second ritual; take Valium then relax in the tub. She knew she’d been prescribed the pills to stop her seeing the boy but that hadn’t worked, she was seeing him more than ever. They did, however, take the edge off of her all-consuming grief so she took them religiously.
Alice put the pills in her mouth and raised a glass of water to her lips. In the mirror behind her she saw the boy baring his teeth and drawing his thumb across his throat. She screamed as she spun around. The little blue pills flew from her mouth and the glass in her hand crushed under her grip.
She dropped the shattered glass but not before a shard cut into her palm. Frank burst into the room, took one look at her bleeding hand and swore under his breath.
“Alice.” He shook his head as he grabbed up a towel and wrapped it around her hand. She shrunk with shame at the depth of despair he had conveyed with that one word. “You saw him again didn’t you?”
Alice had stopped admitting when she saw the boy as Frank had started mentioning counselling more and more. She didn’t want to talk to strangers about her grief, it was private. No one could understand the way she felt and she wasn’t inclined to try and make them.
This time however, as Frank tended to her bloody hand, she realised the boy was still there. “Look!” she cried as she pointed as best as her broken arm would let her.
Frank looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“He’s right there!”
“Where?” Frank walked over to the boy, stopped right before him, and pulled the door closed to check behind it. “There’s no one here Alice.”
The boy leant to the side of Frank’s legs and stared at her. A strangled cry escaped her.
“He’s right there in front of you.”
The pitying look Frank gave her made her feel totally and utterly alone. He walked back towards her.
“Please.” She begged. She needed Frank to see him, she couldn’t be going crazy.
The boy bared his teeth in a macabre grin and put his fingers to his lips. “Shhhhhh.”
“Did you hear that?!” Alice cried as she gripped the front of Frank’s shirt.
Frank’s expression told her he hadn’t; it also said her fate was sealed.
***
Alice hated Dr Whyatt. She was judgemental, condescending and when Alice made a statement invariably “how does that make you feel?” would follow.
The doctor was scribbling notes onto Alice’s file while Alice sat opposite in a hospital gown. She sent a pleading look to Frank who sat beside her but he just smiled weakly back and squeezed her hand. He clearly wasn’t going to whisk her back to the haven that was their home any time soon.
Dr Whyatt put down her pen, pushed her glasses up on her nose and fixed Alice with a penetrating look. “I’m concerned Alice.”
“There’s no reason to be.” Alice dropped her eyes to her hands as she had done as a child when being addressed by her headmistress.
“Are you forgetting I’ve just examined your body and seen the damage you’ve done to yourself?”
Alice wasn’t going to forget that humiliation anytime soon. Her head dropped a little more.
“Your grief for your mother is manifesting in these hallucinations.”
“I’m not hallucinating.” Alice mumbled but the lack of conviction in her words was clear even to her.
“Really? Remind me of the episode that first brought you here after the assault charges were made against you.”
“That was different. That was a mistake.”
“Remind me.”
“I thought I saw my mother at the supermarket.” Alice remembered the devastation she’d felt when the woman had turned to reveal a strangers face. She’d known it couldn’t be her mother but for a brief moment hope had flared. “But it wasn’t her.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Upset.” Alice replied shortly, desperately wanting to move off the topic.
“Indeed, so upset that you began pelting a woman and her mother with eggs?”
Alice cringed in shame at the memory. The woman and her mother had only approached her to see if she was okay which was understandable considering she was a grown woman crying her heart out in the middle of the produce aisle. One look at them together had filled her with ferocious jealousy. What was so special about this woman that she got to keep her mother when Alice’s had been ripped away from her?
It hadn’t been a conscious decision to throw the eggs, they were just there and she’d hated that woman so, so much.
Alice began biting her nails, a habit her mother had cured her of years before.
“As I said Alice, I’m concerned for you, specifically for your safety. You are going to stay here at the hospital for a while so we can keep an eye on you.”
Alice’s head shot up. “What? No.” She turned to Frank who had a resigned look on his face. “No Frank, take me home.”
“Alice, this is for your own good. You’re hurting yourself and I can’t help you.”
“No, they’re just accidents. I only end up hurting myself because of my reactions to the boy.”
Dr Whyatt and Frank shared a look.
“I’m not crazy!” Alice cried defensively.
“No one is saying that you are, you just need to rest. It’ll only be for a little while.” Frank assured her as he gripped her hands in his.
“But the flowers, the garden, who will take care of them?” She could hear the hysteria creeping into her voice.
“I will Alice, don’t worry I’ll take care of everything.”
“Don’t leave me here.” She pulled her hands from his and fisted his shirt, desperate to keep hold of him. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“I have to Alice. Everything is going to be fine.” He detached her hands from his shirt and she noticed she’d torn a small hole in it. “You’ll see, this is for the best.” His voice was soothing and calm but Alice felt anything but soothed and calmed.
***
Frank let himself into the house and kicked his shoes off. He walked into the lounge and found a pale skinned boy with black eyes sitting on the sofa. He immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.
“Here.” He said as he offered the child forty pounds. The boy took the money. “Now get out of here you creepy fuck.” Frank said as he ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. “Tell your dad to come and have a beer with me later.”
The boy left and Frank rang directory enquiries.
“Yes, I’d like the number of a realtor in the Epsom area.”
By Dayv Metcalfe
Dead Baby (based on a true story)
I remember pissing with him in the 5th floor toilets. I didn’t want to, but we merged at the urinals at the same time, and I was too polite to pull away. He clearly didn’t give a fuck, which made it easy at first because I could adopt the same attitude - we both didn’t give a fuck! He was much better at it than me though, and the urge to say something got tighter and tighter, like cramp.
“Just been at your secretaries PC, helped her with the printer.” It had been an emergency apparently but his grunt sounded like above anything else that had happened in the previous twenty four hours, he gave a fuck about that the least. The sounds of pissing filled the confined area. I could smell it, the man, the CEO of the Rank Organisation, Mike Gifford, could smell it too. Could he detect the smell of sudden unease in my urine? Maybe he could smell last nights weed, maybe he could smell cancer in my piss, and that he was actually extremely discomforted, not wanting to break the news to me. I tried to out slash him but my dribble came quickest, and I turned to wash my hands.
“We didn’t know.” He said, still pissing.
“About the printer? It was just a software problem, no worries.”
“No you goose, about the baby.” I was confused.
“What baby?” He paused, then continued.
“My daughter’s baby, I found it in the chest freezer when I got home last night. She put it in there after she gave birth to it, killed it. Like you do fish, if you want to be humane. We didn’t even know she was pregnant. It’s in the papers today if you hadn’t noticed. Damn it! It was there for weeks. We didn’t notice that either.”
I was dumbfounded, The CEO of Rank had a baby in his freezer for weeks and he didn’t know? I thought of the times I had reached into my freezer to grab whatever to cook, I shuddered and wondered what the hell I could say, but he continued.
“We all knew she was mental, crackers, a loon. She fucked someone, anyone, everyone - the nuts ones want to fuck all the time. She might have had one before, who knows? She’s Machiavellian , she might have disposed of any number of babies through her ways.”
I didn’t want to be there for him to unburden on, I thought that after he would turn on me, for being there to listen. Mr Gifford went on, still pissing. His head stared straight ahead, not looking down at his work and not really looking at the bathroom tiles, but through them as if he were staring out to a distant shoreline. “Do you know what the papers are saying? That we knew, tried to cover it up, I’ve been up all night talking to the police. Covered it up? Jesus wept!” He finally finished pissing, washed his hands and suddenly we were face to face. His grim eyes, usually dismissive and hard had a tinge of hurt. His teeth ground and he smelt of last nights scotch.
He said: “Why do you think she did it? We were good to her, we let her be free even with her mental illness, she never hurt anyone, she was shy, promiscuous but shy. We let her come to the Rank Christmas party, she was a wall flower, a very pretty wall flower, no one knew she was my daughter, you lot got drunk and flirted with her thinking god knows what. She was a very pretty girl.”
I was transported back to the party. Rank owned several hotels in London, that year it was at the Royal Garden in Kensington. We all had a room, we all flirted, some of us hooked up, sneaking into each others rooms. Some of us had sex, including me. I was one of the set of people that can do that, have sex, not care about feelings, others people’s feelings, even my own. I was one of the ‘lot’ he was referring to.
I had met a pretty quiet girl, I thought she was the new secretary. Emma. As I remembered her, a coldness crept up my spine. I had whispered to her, she had smiled. We had gone to my room, both of us understanding what we were doing, ready for easy sex. She had wanted a condom and as her doe eyes shone, she said: “I always use one, in case I have a baby, I had to give one away when I was very young, please you must have one?” I had ignored her, letting passion persuade. I looked back at Mr Glifford, my face suddenly caressed by extreme cold.
“Want to see a photo?” I nodded slowly, the coldness swept down my neck and across my shoulders then down my arms, turning my fingers blue . I began to tremble. He pulled from his wallet a photo of the girl I had sex with, pale and pretty, red lips, dark long hair, sad eyes though, vulnerable eyes. The freeze took my belly and my balls, I felt I would buckle at the knees. Mr Gifford put the photo back in his wallet, his sad hard eyes were flickerless.
“The police might want to talk to you too, very bad business putting a baby in a freezer, people want to know why.”
By Andrew Parker
“Just been at your secretaries PC, helped her with the printer.” It had been an emergency apparently but his grunt sounded like above anything else that had happened in the previous twenty four hours, he gave a fuck about that the least. The sounds of pissing filled the confined area. I could smell it, the man, the CEO of the Rank Organisation, Mike Gifford, could smell it too. Could he detect the smell of sudden unease in my urine? Maybe he could smell last nights weed, maybe he could smell cancer in my piss, and that he was actually extremely discomforted, not wanting to break the news to me. I tried to out slash him but my dribble came quickest, and I turned to wash my hands.
“We didn’t know.” He said, still pissing.
“About the printer? It was just a software problem, no worries.”
“No you goose, about the baby.” I was confused.
“What baby?” He paused, then continued.
“My daughter’s baby, I found it in the chest freezer when I got home last night. She put it in there after she gave birth to it, killed it. Like you do fish, if you want to be humane. We didn’t even know she was pregnant. It’s in the papers today if you hadn’t noticed. Damn it! It was there for weeks. We didn’t notice that either.”
I was dumbfounded, The CEO of Rank had a baby in his freezer for weeks and he didn’t know? I thought of the times I had reached into my freezer to grab whatever to cook, I shuddered and wondered what the hell I could say, but he continued.
“We all knew she was mental, crackers, a loon. She fucked someone, anyone, everyone - the nuts ones want to fuck all the time. She might have had one before, who knows? She’s Machiavellian , she might have disposed of any number of babies through her ways.”
I didn’t want to be there for him to unburden on, I thought that after he would turn on me, for being there to listen. Mr Gifford went on, still pissing. His head stared straight ahead, not looking down at his work and not really looking at the bathroom tiles, but through them as if he were staring out to a distant shoreline. “Do you know what the papers are saying? That we knew, tried to cover it up, I’ve been up all night talking to the police. Covered it up? Jesus wept!” He finally finished pissing, washed his hands and suddenly we were face to face. His grim eyes, usually dismissive and hard had a tinge of hurt. His teeth ground and he smelt of last nights scotch.
He said: “Why do you think she did it? We were good to her, we let her be free even with her mental illness, she never hurt anyone, she was shy, promiscuous but shy. We let her come to the Rank Christmas party, she was a wall flower, a very pretty wall flower, no one knew she was my daughter, you lot got drunk and flirted with her thinking god knows what. She was a very pretty girl.”
I was transported back to the party. Rank owned several hotels in London, that year it was at the Royal Garden in Kensington. We all had a room, we all flirted, some of us hooked up, sneaking into each others rooms. Some of us had sex, including me. I was one of the set of people that can do that, have sex, not care about feelings, others people’s feelings, even my own. I was one of the ‘lot’ he was referring to.
I had met a pretty quiet girl, I thought she was the new secretary. Emma. As I remembered her, a coldness crept up my spine. I had whispered to her, she had smiled. We had gone to my room, both of us understanding what we were doing, ready for easy sex. She had wanted a condom and as her doe eyes shone, she said: “I always use one, in case I have a baby, I had to give one away when I was very young, please you must have one?” I had ignored her, letting passion persuade. I looked back at Mr Glifford, my face suddenly caressed by extreme cold.
“Want to see a photo?” I nodded slowly, the coldness swept down my neck and across my shoulders then down my arms, turning my fingers blue . I began to tremble. He pulled from his wallet a photo of the girl I had sex with, pale and pretty, red lips, dark long hair, sad eyes though, vulnerable eyes. The freeze took my belly and my balls, I felt I would buckle at the knees. Mr Gifford put the photo back in his wallet, his sad hard eyes were flickerless.
“The police might want to talk to you too, very bad business putting a baby in a freezer, people want to know why.”
By Andrew Parker
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)