Show Me The Way

There was nothing particularly unusual about today, except that when I arrived home from work, my house was no longer there.

I had slept well enough, considering how cold it gets in the guest bedroom, and got up nice and early to make my usual porridge with low-fat Greek yoghurt and organic honey. I left for work at 8:15 am, as always, and arrived in enough time to brew myself a nice coffee before I sat down at my desk. I was in productive form, so I didn’t finish until 7:30 pm. On the way back, I stopped twice: at the Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner, and then at the off-licence, just to treat myself. None of this was out of the ordinary, which made the absence of my abode all the more mystifying.

There weren’t any signs that the house had ever been there – no driveway or foundations, not a single brick or crumb of concrete. There was nothing but a quarter of an acre of fallow land, just as the site had been when we bought it. Everything else looked perfectly normal on the road, with lights and shadows dancing on the drawn curtains of neighbouring houses. Outside, the calico cat that belonged to nobody stalked along, throwing me a curious glance before dashing up a tree. An auburn leaf fell in the opposite direction, settling silently on the ground. The only change was the wide, empty space where my dwelling once was.

It frustrated me, because I had put in a long day’s work and felt I deserved to wind down. Now, in my left hand I held a bag of duck spring rolls, chicken satay, Singapore noodles, and unnecessary prawn crackers – so much food, and no utensils to eat it with. In my right hand was a bottle of not inexpensive Redbreast 15-year, that I was now tempted to quaff straight from the bottle.

I left the whiskey and my quickly cooling dinner in my car, still parked in the middle of the road, to investigate my absent house. I walked along where my driveway once was, and right through where the front door should have been. I had always liked the marble floors of the hallway –the grass and mud felt far too agricultural.

A house couldn’t simply disappear without someone noticing it, I thought, so I rang next door’s bell. ‘Mr. Foley? I’m looking for my house, and I’m quite hungry, so I wonder if you could tell me what happened to it?’

‘He won’t help you,’ a familiar voice called from behind me. ‘He’s watching an old film about the future.’

I turned to see the calico cat, descending gracefully from the tree. Sure enough, Mr. Foley turned the volume up on his television.

‘The old grouch. Did you see what happened to my house?’

‘I certainly did,’ she replied, pacing slowly towards me. ‘I’ll tell you, if you make it worth my while.’

‘I don’t have much to offer,’ I told her. ‘Would you like some chicken satay?’

‘I’ve already eaten. What about your whiskey?’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘I tend to notice all the little things that go on around here.’ She grinned smugly, the way only a cat can.

‘That sounds a bit tedious. Anyway, the good crystal was inside the house, so I haven’t got it.’

‘That’s fine. Just pour some out on the ground, and I’ll lap it up.’ The cat sat on the road licking her coat clean while I reluctantly fetched the bottle. She slurped up the golden liquor the instant I dribbled it in front of her, much too quickly to truly savour it.

‘So, my house?’

‘Oh yes.’ She paused, no doubt feeling the tingle down her throat. ‘It was blown away.’

‘Blown away? My five-bed, four-bath dormer was blown away?’

The cat nodded slowly and deliberately.

‘By what? It hasn’t even been windy today! That leaf didn’t even blow away, it just fell straight down from where it was hanging.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you. I was sitting right there in my tree, minding my own business, and I saw the whole thing get blown away.’

‘But where to?’

‘That, I don’t know. It just, sort of, flew up into the sky.’

‘Oh.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘And what about my wife?’

‘Was she inside the house?’

‘She usually is.’

‘She probably got blown away too, then.’

That, in particular, was a shame. It meant the chicken satay would go to waste. At that moment rain started to fall, quite heavily, straight down onto our heads, so we made a dash for the car. The cat made herself at home on the passenger seat, plucking the fabric with her claws.

‘Would you mind?’ I asked.

‘Sorry, force of habit.’

I looked out through the window at the barren quarter of an acre.

‘I’m going to miss that house. I spent a lot of time and money building it.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I never had a house. I just curl up wherever I can find some shelter. This car will do nicely tonight.’

‘For sleeping, at least. But I need to have a shower before work tomorrow.’

‘Just lick yourself clean, like I do. It’s quite effective.’

‘As long as I look and smell good.’

The whole ordeal had ruined my appetite, so I only ate the spring rolls and some of the noodles, both lukewarm. Since I don’t like peanuts, I tipped the satay out on the side of the road. After a night cap – straight from the bottle, ashamedly – the cat and I settled down to get some sleep. I closed my eyes, content that even if my house never returned, at least my office would still be there tomorrow.

by Stephen O’Leary

Colder inside the tiny cruiser than outside. But with lighter and spoon, away he would fly. Sitting on his case of oils, tubes hardened beyond use, he beamed himself up. He glanced sideways; a garden gnome stared back. It marred his escape, the dusty sunrays in front of Diogenes’ huge pipe distorted by the gnome’s strident reds and greens.

He woke to ducks pecking at the hull. Barely dawn; a light from the Eel Pie Hotel ruins. The nights they’d had there, before everybody scattered. They didn’t need to. The cops had said he’d walk if he named his supplier, and he’d been shit scared of prison. But he’d never have squealed. He’d seen what happened – in those ruins - to a guy who did.

He shivered and ached, his stomach burned. Only mortals needed food. Eddie might be parked by the Swan, maybe he could pay with the gnome. Not that Eddie’d have use for it. But he had a mother. Though not all mothers wanted gnomes.

‘A fucking garden gnome?’

‘You could give it for Christmas.’

Eddie chewed his lip.

‘Alright, give it here. I’ll give you a fiver for it. No, no, I ain’t got no gear. Where’d you get this anyway?’

‘The boat.’

‘Just – “the boat”?’

‘Yeah, I don’t how it got there.’

‘Nod, nod, wink, wink.’

The fiver was a sympathy shag. Years ago, Eddie had been the one buying from Jacob and the other Burke’s Peerage escapees. Just pot, that’s all Jacob sold. And all the dude used back then; it helped his nerves. Till prison wrecked him completely, poor bugger.

Jacob shuffled towards King Street.

A man with two little girls skittered to the other side.

‘What’s wrong daddy?’

‘Keeping you safe.’

‘But he’s nice, he drew a picture of me.’

‘What??’

Jacob didn’t hear the rest. He remembered the little girl. Her mother gave him a tenner. He’d sketched loads of locals, and people who came to the rugby internationals. He remembered their names still. But he couldn’t draw humans anymore. He could only draw the gods now, and write their messages.

Jacob settled himself on a spot of pavement outside Supadrug. Julie came out for a fag. ‘You’re late today love,’ she said, ‘Saving yourself for the rugby crowd?’ She gave him face wipes, cough medicine and dry toast. At her insistence, he nibbled. Every nugget stuck in his gullet. He’d have stomach cramps anyway; with the few crumbs he risked diarrhoea. The boat’s shit bucket was already full. He’d have to empty that before Tom returned to throw him out. Julie hoped he’d get a flat before then, she’d put his name down. ‘Just think – central heating!’ But that wasn’t what he asked the gods for.

He broke for the public loo for fifteen awful minutes. Resuming his spot on the pavement, a garden gnome stared out at him from the phone booth. Not the same one. No beard. Did it look like her? For twelve years, he’d been hoping she’d call.

The shop ladies emerged in their street coats after six. ‘What’s that doing there? Not very nice, is it?’ Julie took umbrage, certain the gnome had been placed by whoever had been gluing Hobgoblin beer labels inside the booth lately. ‘Let’s put it in here for tonight.’ She put it inside the darkened shop.

The Orleans Park boys’ Mini Cooper slowed, camera phone trained on Jacob, then panned across to the booth – ‘Shit, it’s gone!’- then to the backseat, piled high.

‘Never mind, plenty more. Told you he’d still be there. We’re going to have to make four runs, your car’s a shoebox. This is going to get sooo many likes!’

‘Wonder if he makes much?’

‘Doubt it. He keeps getting skinnier. I hear his family’s loaded thoughdad’s a famous artist.’

‘People always say that about the homeless though, don’t they?’

It was a good night. He greeted people by name as they dropped pound coins onto his saucer. In the money; fifty quid and a hamburger for the ducks. His body was so empty, his spirit would commune with the gods without need of man’s substances. If he could just find the strength to get back to the boat.

He picked himself up, the coins ballast in his pockets. Pilgrim’s progress, he thought as he inched along. Years of it. Rewarded by so many revelations. Which he tried to pass on, but only the Orleans Park boys, who reminded him of his younger days, listened. They gave him hope, said they were spreading the word on Facebook.

Tethered to a moored barge, the cruiser was lower down in the water than usual. The rope securing it gave slightly as Jacob stepped onto the deck. He slid the hatch, descended the ladder – his foot touched something. There were garden gnomes everywhere, covering every inch of the floor. Awful for them if they were in the head too. Laughter rose up in him, hurting his ribs.

Picking his way towards the berth, he shoved enough gnomes aside to lie down. They weren’t all plastic; some seemed to be concrete. Being among them took him back in time, to the wee hours in tiny garrets with the guys… the talk, the music, on a higher plane…. their own magic circle. That was why he hadn’t gone with her. Normal life couldn’t hold a candle. Yet all the others went for it in the end. He held a gnome to him and slept.

Heavy with its cargo, the boat couldn’t ride the winter tide. With the tossing, the rope securing it to the barge came undone. The boat drifted to Eel Pie Island, hit the pillar of an abandoned pier, and took on water. By dawn, it was completely submerged. Gnomes bobbed in the Thames from Richmond to Kingston.

The outpouring of grief for Jacob was huge. A shrine of flowers and notes grew outside Supadrug. ‘So talented when he was younger.’ ‘Gentle.’ ‘Kind.’ ‘Missed.’ ‘We wish we’d…’

by Sharon Keely