“This is your first time, right?”
The knife slid from my already-sweaty palm onto the ground with a thud. Someone had seen!
She was perched on a branch above me, swinging her legs. Behind her, gossamer wings sparkled in the half-light.
My heart stopped. This was it. I’d gone mad with the stress of it all. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
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The postmistress had a bad reputation and specialised in being irritable with everybody. She was perhaps in her fifties, but almost of a geological age. You were put in mind of a slab of granite behind the serving hatch in the corner of the mini-supermarket. Her face was stony, her resentment hard.
‘NEXT!’ she barked from behind her counter. ‘First or second? Put it on the scales. ON them, not under them. Where’s it going? WHAT? Gib-raltar?’ She pronounced the word as though it were the most awful place on the planet. Then she forked the parcel off the scales with a plump paw, eyeing her customer in the manner of a prison guard with a felon.
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Carmichael’s curse came true.
She proclaimed in her base voice that Angus, Sean, and Ian would never see their twenty first birthdays.
“You’re all going to die,” she cackled.
And sure enough, they did.
Angus was the first to go, dropping dead in Spain, whilst partying with his college chums, Sean meanwhile died during his missionary work in China. Both croaked at the stroke of midnight on the eve of their birthdays.
Continue readingThe Krill Bay Mysteries: chapter 1.
Brian knew a good deal about Eric’s life story from the first research interview. What he didn’t know was that Eric’s life (but definitely not his story) was going to reach its final destination in one hour and thirty minutes. Nor did Brian know that Eric’s account of his past in the next forty-five minutes would contain (if anyone cared to listen and adequately interpret) the answer to why he died. This, the second interview, began at 2:30 pm Eastern Time in a small room in Krill Bay’s large central library.
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Steve sat back with a hearty sigh.
“I,” he said, “don’t have an answer. Don’t have any inspiration either. The series is finished. This was a guaranteed BAFTA winner; the camerawork’s exquisite, for once the animals mostly behaved, the narration… well, I don’t need to add anything there, the man’s a legend. There’s just that one little problem, and I…”
“I know,” Jennifer interrupted. “This isn’t a disaster quite yet, but it’s close. So, what are you going to do? I mean, we can’t have titles with no music, let alone that footage… which you’re right, is beautiful, and kudos to the team for it… but you’ve got some budget left, yeah?”
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Lorenzo had booked the local pub, boasting to a few hopefuls that they’d win “oh fifty quid” and have the attention of a hundred people when they performed.
The worst thing that could happen was that they’d be laughed at, although this crowd tended to look away in embarrassment when a no-talent embarrassed themselves.
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A thin ribbon of green viscosity slithers under a flautist’s door. It slides along walls and meets other slender ribbons – deep, glistening chestnut from the folk club, vivid scarlet from a classical concert in the town hall and vibrant, earthy umber from the mellow notes of Miles on a stereo. Together they dance solemnly, rising up, coiled together in a strange braid of colour and light, and then part to pursue their solitary tasks. They are creatures of great beauty and ingenuity.
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He strokes the canvas. With his eyes closed, and with a gentle enough touch, he can almost convince himself that he is feeling her skin, petal-soft, beneath his fingers. How he misses the feel of her. He can look at photos, listen to recordings, smell her perfume. But the sensation of his skin on hers, that can never be revisited. He swallows the lump in his throat.
In front of him, a meticulously mixed palette of colours – her colours, matched to the exact shade of her eyes, skin, lips and hair – glistens in the hazy garage light. It is as though she is here, all the parts of her, just waiting to be put back together. The thought brings him comfort. She has not gone, not really. Not when she can be re-created again and again, each time a greater likeness. If he just keeps going, perhaps he can conjure her back from the dead. He wields his paintbrush like a magic wand. A super-power, that’s what this is. This artistic gift of his. Dare he say it, he’s a God of sorts, if you really think about it.
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Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
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Randolph Crow remembered his boy Martin as an excited ten-year-old, leaping out of bed Saturday morning and hurrying to the local library two miles away, before returning arms loaded with books on moths and roaches. His bedroom was transformed into a museum of mounted bugs.
An obsession that, Martin’s old man noted with some relief, was replaced with a love of chemistry in his teen years.
At an age when one should be sullen and moody, Martin had the bright-eyed look of a curious toddler, treating the world like a big playground, his bedroom now a laboratory of powders and test tubes.
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The Bishop was shrouded in a sterile melancholia. No Paul, no Barnabus. The preoccupied silence intermittently splintered as believers, heads studiously bowed to their books, whispered ritualistic rejoinders to the calls to silence. Not like the pub book-reading club at all!
*****
My thoughts drifted back four, no five, months. The conversation flowed then with that lack of embarrassment of familiars who knew exactly where the boundaries of safe conversation lay.
“Can’t bend… belly’s in the way.” The speaker, Betty, strained to retrieve a biscuit for Barnabus, a particularly yappy male Jack Russell, enthusiastic to the point of obvious sexual excitement whenever a woman entered the bar. That was one reason I routinely assumed a seat in the snug opposite; in clear view but removed. The other was discomfort. The invite “Come and join us” was no longer repeated, – no doubt deterred by my repeated rebuttals. I swigged a mouthful of stout and continued my solitary reading. Chapter 5 “The Surprise Accident.”
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Billy Thomas and his little gang were sitting around a table at the back of the rugby club sipping their shandies.
The steward was keeping a watchful eye, the club was busy after a local derby. Both teams were strutting their stuff to impress the girls. They in turn were pretending they weren’t interested while quietly sizing them up.
The gang looked on from afar. Finally Owen Parry piped up.
”Don’t know why they bother, bitches all of them.”
They nodded as they knew Owen had fallen heavily for a girl, showering her with gifts only for her to turn him down when he asked for a date.
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Mike Hoban was sitting in the armchair of his apartment in Finchley, London. At his feet, Amanda Abraham, his girlfriend, was working on a quilt she’d started just before Christmas. Mike is reading “The World According to Garp”.
“Is that good?” Amanda asked without looking up.
“Very,” Mike replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.”
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Hubert approached the freezer door gingerly. The seals were failing and he was fearful of triggering an ejection of its replenished contents. DIY maintenance was not his forté. Opinion on this had been unanimous since the incident involving pergola components, a hammer drill and his newly numbed left hand and truncated thumb. Lifting the door handle and easing outwards whilst bracing with his knee usually worked.
He had been re-examining the previous evening’s chronology – the pier’s shadow in the fading light, the incoming tide and Jenny paddling at the water’s edge. They were discussing wedding pros and cons – woodland versus church – when interrupted by a commotion out in the bay. A boiling murkiness was expanding as it rose from the ocean’s depths. Bubbling and spitting it ran towards the shore; the coral-pink darts of the drowning sun were unable to disperse it. Overhead competing clouds of gannets and seagulls quarrelled in a screaming circular tornado. And at their feet, tickling their toes, the advancing flume line turned silver with thousands of doomed sprats. Fleeing the mackerel’s strike they wriggled and squirmed on the reducing ribbon of sand.
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I must say, it was the weirdest outing ever. I can try to laugh about it now but really, it just reinforced all my early fears about not getting into things where you can’t see a clear way out. (I completely blame the Brothers Grimm for this, what with Hansel and Gretel having such a close encounter with an oven – nightmare).
Dilly, my sister, (Delia, but she hates the name)and I live far apart so we take the occasional weekends together and meet up for hotel stays, meals out, the odd show and whatever we fancy.
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‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there isn’t any way out of this contract.’
Meg crumpled onto the settee and wept.
‘Thanks for taking a look, Andy, I owe you one,’ said Doug.
‘What we going to do Doug, we’ve no more money to pay them.’
‘Come on love, whenever have I let you down, something will turn up.’
‘But even if we default on the payment, that stupid clause states we are still liable. I couldn’t bear it if they take our lovely home.’
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The land that surrounds me was, up until fairly recently, a lifeline to man’s very existence. There was a time when it was a valley of black waste, tall chimneys, steam powered locomotives and the pit head winding gear. Some men worked and some men died for a meagre pittance with which to feed their families. It was a place whose narrow seams crippled the people that produced the wealth for the owners. It was somewhere I used to work, not anymore. I kept telling myself that I’d never return to this hellhole. Since its closure, I find myself once again plodding over this once industrial landscape.
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There’d been an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the village that morning. The boy was glad to go into the solitude of the woods to search for the fox. It wouldn’t take long. Foxes didn’t hide their tracks, unlike people. He stopped to hoist the shotgun onto his shoulder, then moved stealthily forward. Most of his friends knew nothing about foxes, but the boy knew where they made their dens and when they were most active. He could even tell if they were a dog or a vixen from the muskiness of their scent. The fox couldn’t escape him.
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He seemed nervous. ‘Good to meet you after the messaging, Cassie.’
After that, he Cassied her at the end of practically every sentence. Put him at his ease, butter him up, she thought. ‘You’re even nicer than your profile!’ she told him, and was chuffed when he blushed. No big ego then.
‘I’m more of a listener than a talker,’ he said. She smiled sweetly at this, holding his gaze with lingering craft. She hadn’t forgotten how to flirt.
‘You won’t replace me – not unless it’s somebody frigging desperate!’ Those were the words of Bill, ex-husband number two, on his departure. His words had nagged at her for a while, but here she was back on the dating game. Her confidence was breaking out again.
She’d chosen the café upstairs in Tesco. A late morning cup of tea before she went to work. Malcolm was a compact guy, a few years older than her, a couple of inches shorter . He was barrel-chested, making her think of a bullfrog. A gentle froggy: tender, a nice nature. She’d made mistakes with men before, but this one appealed to her. He was courteous and it was odd how she felt at ease talking with him, once he’d broken the shackles of silence.
‘I was brought up by my gran,’ he said, when she’d mentioned her three adult children in Blackburn. His mother had done drugs and had mental health problems.
Message to herself: Malcolm might need a mother figure. It could be arranged.
‘You’re local, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Belper.’
‘Handy.’ And she gave him a little come-on look. A sheepish expression on Malcolm’s face. She did like his shyness.
‘What do you think of me, Malcom?’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘Smitten?’
‘Well I… you know…’
‘You soon will be,’ and she gave a dirty laugh. No point beating about the bush. She was fifty-one, of large build, and she knew she’d never win a beauty contest. She wanted a man for love, friendship, and nookie. Malcolm would do her nicely.
‘So…?’ he said.
‘You’re sweet,’ she said standing up. ‘Fancy popping over to South Normanton to see me?’
‘Well I… yes…’
She gave him a peck on the cheek, and tapped his bum for good measure. That ought to get the message across. ‘Got to go to work, love. I’m in the next couple of evenings. Okay?’ He nodded, the same mix of embarrassment and interest. She was driving the show, and he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Soon then,’ she said, about to depart. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
Malcom was shaking, then he slid to the floor. For a nanosecond she thought of a frog slipping into a pond. Then her nurse’s instincts kicked in. She used her jacket to cushion his head, loosened his collar and tie to aid breathing, then turned him on his side when the convulsions stopped. She stayed with him until the ambulance came. Needs occasional nursing as well as mothering, she noted, as she drove to work.
Aysha had been running and hiding for two days, and still they followed her relentlessly. Now laying under a thorn bush, she was quivering. Her once sleek body was emaciated, a pale grey colour, her eyes seemed to take up her whole face, a beaten look in them.
The hunters found her the next morning, dragging her out and they set off for the krall. She had to be returned. They placed her in the care of the wise woman who set about treating her wounds, purging her of the parasites that she had swallowed in the river water, feeding her honey water and thin gruel. She slowly recovered .
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