Under The Fable, Issue 6

Contents Page 4- Funky Toadstool Crusher. Charlie Jones Page 5- A note from absent friends. Andy Brown Page 6- Antisonnet. Andrew Neil Carpenter Page 7- Frame. Sunil Sharma Page 8- Back Then. Meg Shipham Page 10- I want to know you. Book Review Page 12- Wanting to know Bethany McTrustery. Interview with a Poet Page 14- Incondite. Liz Adair Page 15- Images from Verse Case Scenairo.

Page 16- Last Candle. Cameron Grace Page 31- Make a Wish. Neil Brosman Page 38- My Pixilated Lover. Jonathan Terranova Page 39- Not My Black Dog. Rob Harding Page 44- The books I didn’t pay for. Ghazal Choudhary Page 45- Oasis. Elizabeth Gibson Page 46- The Boatman. Rob Knipe Page 57- Images from Verse Case Scenario.

Page 58- Verse Case Scenario. Poetry Tour 2016 Review Page 62- The Ride. Gary Hewitt Page 66- To a Piano. Miguel Acheson Page 67- Reality has no plot. John Short Page 72- Trawler. Barry Woods Page 73- What is it about you. Bethany McTrustery Page 74- Larry’s Poem. Larry the Cat Page 75- Images from Verse Case Scenario

Content Page 2

Editor’s Nonsense.

Well I am back in the saddle again, and I must say I have missed doing this job. Under The Fable will always be special to me, and being allowed back as Editor in Chief means a lot to me. So welcome to our ‘Verse Case Scenario’ edition of the magazine.

We have had fun this summer, traversing the country with poetry, meeting up with performance artists from different cities and town, and I am glad to have met so much incredible talent.

So what is this all about? This is about celebrating the best fiction and poetry that we could find from emerging talent all over the world. Our submissions, as always, have been plentiful and of outstanding quality. I wouldn’t want the editing team to have an easy life after all.

So with that, I thank you for cracking open the pages.

Regards Adam Ward Editor in Chief Under The Fable.

Our Team

Editor’s Nonsense 3

Funky Toadstool Crusher I remember when they said to me that I would soon discover the best that I could hope to be was a funky toadstool crusher.

Just a funky toadstool crusher, just a stomper of the ground, just a leveller of land –– now I wear them like a crown.

I, the leveller of land, raise my head above the trees, mushrooms growing from their roots, toppling mountains as I please.

I, the stomper of the ground, jump and dance while toadstools talk, leaving footmarks in the earth, quaking caps from off their stalks.

I, the funky toadstool crusher, crush the funky toadstools in my path.

Now these toadstools feel the funk, and I throw my head and laugh.

Ghaz’s Editor Pick

Charlie Jones 4

A note from absent friends Body! What is the matter with you?

We have not seen you in such a long while, I suppose the last time you spoke to us was in that confidential manner of yours during the winter of 2012, probably in midFebruary when the cold started to bite. Can you remember that time?

I am sure that you do remember, we certainly do, you kept us so close back then didn’t you? It was brilliant, all that empty void in your stomach, so much space for us to make ourselves at home and didn’t we fill it? Rocking and rolling, chortling and churning, tearing tears from those bloodshot eyes, joy jumping everywhere at your anguish and torment. Where are they now eh? Those tears you wept so easily back then?

Now the only tears you shed are ones of joy and laughter and we do not understand.

Sadness and Melancholy

Andy Brown 5

Antisonnet:

The sonnet? Well, I’ve always loathed those things; Their strictures and their structure piss me off ‘Cause all they share is shite iambic guff And boredom, which their quaint traditions bring.

And worst of all they’re like translucent skin: So thin and slight it’s barely there to slough Yet gratingly it’s just robust enough For me to see the blood and pus within.

And damn, they get their tendrils everywhere, These worst of memes: they pucker on the face And suck all thoughts to bastard kingdom come With rabid tongues that catch one unaware.

Thus so it is, and much to my disgrace, This rant of mine has—fuck—turned into one.

at d ar n, e h do s se r A Lon a C Tou e rs rio Ve na e Sc

Andrew Neil Carpenter 6

Frame The house washed in golden light by an autumnal sun.

The house held in veined hands vibrates, ready to tumble out of the still photograph frayed on edges--once bright.

Sepia memories forever imprisoned in that snapshot pre-digital age Indian town that boasted a good tree cover that time.

Now, echoes from a past forever lost except for the grieving heart searching for signs of a scattered family in a dusty album sitting in an old folks’ home.

Sunil Sharma 7

Back Then I can see her, the twenty-four year old, the cheap sunglasses running through her hair on top of her head, like a Primark Alice band. She is sitting cross-legged on grass with the blue top and denim short shorts she used to wear. That was my favourite outfit, nice and easy. A drink in one hand, enjoying the company of her friends, while feeling the vitamin D. She has dark brown eyes. She is most likely wearing black eye liner and mascara. It was my attempt being somewhat girly. Her hair is cut short, dark brown with flakes of grey running through it - this wasn’t by choice - just ageing. She has a little tattoo on her ankle and the comfortable dolly shoes that were to hand when she left the house that day. The loud music blasts away, just feet away from here, some band trying to make their mark on the world. *****

I’m old now. Sitting in my chair, with the sun hat covering my skin. I can’t sit in the sun like that anymore, it burns me a lot quicker than it used to. The cardigan I wear protects my arms, but I can feel it melting through the layers.

Looking upon myself, I know where I will end up. What I have done, where I have been, what amazing things I have seen. But the twenty-four year old knows nothing.

She has no concept of what she will become, who she will marry, what job she will end up doing that she really enjoys, how many kids she will have. She worries about what tomorrow night will bring, if she will be staying at Tesco her whole life, just slicing bread for the ungrateful customers she interacts with.

I drink a sip of whisky, the smoky taste hums in my mouth. I can feel the buzz coming from the drink, numbing my mind. I look back at the scene in front of me. *****

She sits with her two friends, Adam and Beth, each on either side of her. Beth wears a little blue dress, her hair is golden blonde. She reads through papers, most likely checking the poetry she has written. Adam has tattoos up his arms and he wears his red hat, jeans and a black top displaying a skull screaming from his chest. I remember asking him once why he wears jeans on sunny days.

Meg Shipham 8

He replied saying “gingers don’t tan well”. Adam is talking to the girl next to him, most likely his new lady friend, I don’t remember much about her, except she had dark hair and a dragon tattoo on her leg.

My younger self pulls everyone in to pose for a selfie, something I did all those years ago. They still litter my walls now, old moments I captured with friends that are no longer here. It shows the moments I captured with that little phone I carried everywhere. Everyone returns to what they were doing and I just lay back on the grass not doing anything in particular. I wish I could be her, with the smile I used to have and everyone told me so, with those happy eyes that showed the pain I had seen within my years but also showed how strong I was. I sit on the opposite side of the stage to myself, just enjoying watching her, when she was happy.

Truly happy.

Adam rolls a cigarette, kisses his lady friend and leaves. She is considering missed opportunities, drinking sweet cider. She sits up and fiddles with her camera.

She has so much to look forward to and she doesn’t see it. A year from now it will be completely different, with different people in strange places.

The sun shines on the scene. I think back to what I had done at that age, twenty-four I was such an adventurous young lady, never said no, always up for a challenge.

My husband gives me the clue to leave but I don’t want to, I want to be in this moment forever, just watching her be her. Happy with her camera in hand, exploring the world.

And just like that I see no more, pulled back to reality.

Meg Shipham 9

I want to know you: Review Review of I want to know you

by Bethany McTrustery This review is written by Ghazal Choudhary Poetry does not receive the attention and recognition it deserves and so I can’t help but smile when new collections are published that are so full of talent. A perfect example is a delightful collection called I Want to Know You by Bethany McTrustery.

Having read some of her work in the past, I am not at all surprised at how much I loved her anthology. All the things you hear about poetry; how they are supposed to touch you, how they provoke contemplation or cause goosebumps can be seen to be true in the case Bethany McTrustery’s work.

As I read through the book, her words danced in intricate patterns between humour, Irony and sobriety. Her tone teasing as it changed its mind across pages. In her brilliant anthology Bethany interacts with a wide range of situations thoughts and feelings; creating images that flood the mind like a beautiful montage.

“I Want to Know You” takes its name from one of the poems inside. In keeping with the title the poem expresses the desire to gain information about another person. It reads in the form of questions that are both amusing and endearing. The reader finds themselves wanting to know what the answers may be. The questions are not ‘standard’, Bethany does not ask questions like “Where are you from?” or “What do you do” and so on, they take a more individual stance asking after habits, preference, taste and imagination. It works wonderfully as the rhythm gains momentum only to be hindered by the statement “I want to know you” before setting off again. The poem makes you question in turn, what it actually means to know someone or even whether or not you know the people that you had assumed you knew.

Reading Bethany McTrustery’s work one piece after the other allowed me to pick up on things I may not have noticed otherwise. I have always acknowledged that Bethany has a talent to make readers see and feel things; while reading through “I Want to Know You”, I found that she enjoys using imperatives in her poems. I loved the way she created an authoritative environment: by embedding images in her

Book Review 10

imperatives she is telling/encouraging readers how to feel, what to imagine and at the same time she is showing them what it is like. This has an eerie effect and urges deeper connections to be made.

This anthology has so much to offer its readers. After rereading it a couple of times I just had to sit back with my eyes closed and let it all wash over me. Each poem pulls you in from different places. Every one of them is unique in its tone, length and meaning and yet Bethany manages to ensure that they fit. Like a family, the book is full of different poems with varying characteristics but still they emit an aura of collectivity and unity. Her poems talk about personal experiences, relatable episodes, relationships. There are poems talking about food, clothes, interaction, creativity, love and so much more. One of her poems titled Dad is very moving Bethany manages to reveal a change without saying it out right; she uses fragments of memories from different time periods and gives us a picture of deterioration. Her writing leaves you feeling both, numb and full of emotion.

I have a quite a lot of favorites and it is difficult to pinpoint ‘the best poem’ in the collection; that being said there was one poem among many that stood out for me.

The very last poem of the book is I think the most different considering its tone, theme style and pretty much everything else as well. The poem is titled: The Horseman. It tells a colourful story (that I won’t ruin for you) and has unusually fascinating images. The flow and meter and the layout reminds me of more traditional poetry and it clashes nicely with the postmodern metaphors; creating a brilliant overall effect. It rhymes softly but effectively and just sounds grand when read aloud.

Her poems are intelligent, imaginative and matter of fact all rolled into a tasty binding. Fans of modern, post modern and contemporary writing will instantly fall in love with these poems. There are no sappy, gooey declarations of undying love or irritatingly disastrous rhymes in this collection. Bethany focuses on the honest feelings and the everyday life that most people can relate to, which only adds to its appeal.

“I Want to Know You” is a perfect example of lighting up random moments and colouring in complex feelings.

It’s a double thumbs-up from me!

Book Reveiw 11

Wanting to know Bethany McTrustery Written by Adam Ward There is so much to uncover about Bethany. She is not the sort of girl who would readily court the media, in fact the very idea of being interviewed almost seemed to embarrass her. Such is the humility of this timid poet, whose poetry has been so captivating. Her collection “I Want to Know You”, will be hitting coffee tables everywhere from October this year. And even if we didn’t like the poetry, we would want you to buy her book purely on the basis of her sweet giggle and ready humour.

Yes Fable readers, we have managed to meet one of the nicest human beings to ever been graced with considerable talent. But, enough of the fan-girling. What did this tiny woman from Peterborough have to say for herself?

“You don’t expect to be published”, Bethany mused. “It feels bizarre”. She was reliving the experience of first opening her acceptance email.

“At first I stared at the screen, the response was really quick. I think I forwarded the email to a friend and asked them to just make sure I hadn’t misread it.” Bethany giggled as if feeling foolish admitting this to me. “I messaged my best friend and he responded with capital letters “WOOOOOO” and then we were both happy dancing in his garden”.

As she spoke, it was obvious that the excitement was still fresh, and it wasn’t hard to imagine her dancing in the sunshine brandishing a freshly printed email.

Bethany is a poet filled with childish energy. It made me wonder how this fizzing jack in the box could have written such eloquent and mature poetry.

“I would love to say I spent a long time on this, but I actually just pick up a pen and bullshit, then bullshit some more. Usually I send it to an editor who usually rips it apart some more. By the second draft, I would love to say I thought about it, and came across wise, but usually I spend time screaming at the laptop until it is done.” I had to laugh at this, it is difficult to imagine her screaming at anything really. I can almost imagine her apologising to the laptop for her attitude shortly afterwards.

Bethany went on to discuss how I Want to Know You came to life. “I use a lot of childhood memories, and memories of other people to write my work, places I have been, and flowers I have smelt. All the nancy pantsy poety stuff. A couple of them were written drunk (At least five of them) and they tend to be the weirder ones.”

“Someone told me it would be a good idea to submit this manuscript, so I had nothing to lose. A lot of bullying, and a lot of people telling me to get my head together and get a manuscript sorted. I had to bring a load of scattered poems and make a book out of it. I did this and realised I had to actually write some more content.”

Bethany sent her Manuscript to the relatively new American publisher GenZ unsure exactly what to expect from the entire process. And this is something that we have found with all the debutant authors we have interviewed. Eva Holland, Cameron Grace and Jeffrey M Thompson all seemed taken aback by the publishing process. Bethany was no less surprised by the whole experience.

“The editing and publishing was actually longer than I thought it would be. You don’t read about emails between authors and publishers, and the front cover

An interview with a poet 12

designing. Yeah it was a really bizarre process. You are talking months of just waiting, and hoping you will get the email that says you are needed now.

“I have held the proof in my hand, and I know it is real, but I am still kind of hesitant, and I still don’t know why it has happened. As if someone is going to hand me it back and say “no thanks it is cool, made a bit of a mistake.””

But there hasn’t been a mistake. I Want to Know You is set to hit Barnes and Noble, Amazon and all responsible retailers later this year. But it does beg the question, what on earth has she been doing with all this waiting time?

“I have attended a poetry tour, and have read my work aloud in various cities on the Under the Fable poetry tour thing. It was a pretty snazzy and decent affair.

It was nice to connect with poets and writers. I got to travel with the illustrious Cameron Grace and perform on the same stages.” Bethany had indeed performed with us on the tour, and we had many chances to witness her read. But the important question was, which venue stuck out for her the most.

“Peterborough, my home town, was a phenomenal gig. The people who came to the event were so different and I haven’t laughed so hard in a very long time.” If you want to see Bethany reading her poetry, it is available on the Under The Fable Facebook page, the first live streamed event that we hosted. It must be said, that Bethany’s hometown came out in force to support her. She certainly poses a popular figure upon her local people. She deserves the support she gets, as you will all know as you rush to buy her book in October. But enough about I Want to Know You. What is next for the Peterborough Belle of the Ball?

“I really want to publish a novel in some kind of format. I want it published, on paper, not in my head. That would be decent. Perhaps get another poetry book out, and perhaps I should finish my degree.” Yes Bethany. Perhaps you should.

As always, we cannot say goodbye to a writer without asking them that all important question. What advice would you give to young writers?

“Don’t let other people tell you that your work is rubbish, or take it with a pinch of salt. The amount of times I have heard that it isn’t worth pursuing it. OK, your first draft is most likely to be dire, but you will edit and draft and something will come from it. Nothing to lose, other than your pride and dignity and money. But keep sending your work into various different writing magazines. Yes you may get a lot of rejections, but out of them you may get a really good magazine that accepts your work.”

Very wise words indeed. It was almost sad to say goodbye to Bethany. But it does give us great pleasure to say that we have collected her amongst our ever growing list of professional writers. Another notch on the bed post if you will.

Readers you must make sure that on the twenty-first of October you are up at the crack of dawn. As soon as her book lands on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or anywhere in fact, you must fill that crack in your bookshelf with it. If you don’t, you will never forgive yourself.

An interview with a poet 13

Incondite If the sky were an ocean, the stars would sink like thick velvet kisses and I would know you by your eyes and the curve of your hip.

Your scars would make a constellation and your fingers, long and slender and ringed, could be my noose – Be my executioner. Kiss my cold lips with burning metal and braided steel. Our love is like the chaotic dead.

Words are dust, but my blood sings devotion to your bruises and cuts. Touch me with your fists, I’ll turn to sugar and salt.

Liz Adair 14

Images from the Verse Case Scenairo Poetry Tour

Verse Case Scenairo 15

Last Candle Nana is sitting outside Danny’s school, waiting for the bell to ring. She pulls on her sunglasses and lights a cigarette, watching the school windows for the tale-tale signs of dismissal. Kids running in and out of their classrooms fetching bags, coats, and baseball caps. It has been as hot an April as Nana can ever remember. Just last weekend she let Danny wander around the garden without his top on, squirting him with pistols and throwing water balloons. Her own mother would be wagging a finger at her from heaven. Never cast a clout, until May be out. Nana smiles, Danny had loved the games and the paddling pool, and he survived without a sniffle. Danny needed a bit of fun now and then.

Nana had been worried about him of late. Most of the time Danny is the usual bubbly jack-in-the-box firework, tearing from one end of the local park to the other as if his backside is on fire. He is so much like James when he was little. Never a moment of thought, always ready to dive into something, regardless of how high they could fall. It’s like having her son all over again. The way he laughs, the way he argues back. Both father and son are life-sized crash-test-dummies, with wonky smiles and red hair. But there have been these moments with Danny, like when he was having a bath, when he would just sigh.

Two weekends earlier his other Nan had died. Random heart failure – Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Apparently her electricity just short circuited, heart had stopped beating before she had even hit the floor. Danny asked her whether he should cry.

‘What do you mean?’

‘About Nanny Estelle.’

‘Do you feel like crying?’

‘I’m sad Nana. I just can’t cry.’

‘Doesn’t mean you didn’t love Nanny Estelle. Some people don’t cry.’

Cameron Grace 16

‘So I shouldn’t cry?’

‘You will cry if your eyes want to cry Daniel. Do you miss Nanny Estelle?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Then shall we light her a candle tonight?’

‘Why? What will happen? Will she come back?’

‘She won’t come back. But she might see from heaven and know that you miss her.’ Danny seemed to think for a minute, and then he nodded. Nana had found a long thin white candle. When she found a clean holder, she lit it and turned off the light. Danny’s red face glowed in the dancing light. He was quiet, a rare thing for him.

Nana thinks about Estelle, and how she had treated James after Caroline had thrown him out of the house. She thinks that James was just too bloody soft. He had let that bitch spit at him, and then did nothing. There would never have been any love lost between Nana and Estelle. But even Nana had to admit she was shocked, and saddened by Estelle’s sudden death. Not because she gave a shit about her either way, but because Danny loved the drunken witch.

When Danny was born, Estelle always seemed to be at James’ house. Nana would pop and see them once or twice a week, bringing a new cuddly toy, or a pack of rusks and Estelle would be sat bouncing Danny on her knee. It felt very much like Estelle was doing it on purpose.

She would have Danny, and wouldn’t pass him over until Nana announced that she would have to leave in five minutes. She would get Danny’s tired gurgling, and let him tug at her frosting curls. Not that Nana would ever admit to point scoring, but she puffed up when Danny took his first steps at her house. She could imagine how Estelle would have taken the news. Caroline had to send her a grainy smartphone video of Danny wobbling, before jerking forward again. James had laughed, said that Danny looked like he had been at his Carlsberg. Danny enjoyed the whooping and clapping as he took another shocked step forward before sitting down hard on the carpet. The boy’s face looked as though he had surprised even himself, but clapped along with adults nonetheless.

That is the story that Nana had told for weeks. He took his first steps in the living room. Down at the coffee shop, the women oohed and awwed at the story, telling her how proud she must be. And she was. It didn’t hurt that Estelle only got to see the pirate version either.

Whilst she sits in the car waiting, Nana can’t help but smile. She tries to think of a time before Danny. It is like Danny has been here forever. Now don’t get me wrong, Nana loves both of her grandchildren the same. She makes a point of putting money aside for Danny’s cousin whenever she buys Danny a little something.

Cameron Grace 17

It is just a rare occasion that she gets time with Lauren, they have lived overseas for nearly two years now. Lauren is two years younger than Danny, always with a crayon in her hand, or a jigsaw puzzle on the go. A memory hit Nana as she drew on a cigarette and she laughed, almost choking on the smoke.

It had been about three years ago, Lauren and Danny stayed overnight together.

The evening uneventful, both children fell asleep in front of ‘Inside Out’ and had to be carried upstairs to bed. In the morning Nana woke up to light streaming through the window, cars could be heard hissing through puddles outside her window. It took about thirty seconds to realise why this was strange, Danny would have had Nana up and out of bed before the birds had found a song to sing. This day however, the house was silent. Nana had put her feet in her slippers and was about to go into Danny’s room when she heard his voice from downstairs. There you go Lorry, eat your breakfist.

Nana tiptoed down the stairs listening to the kids chatting. She reached the kitchen and looked around the door frame and had to thrust her hand to her mouth to cover a reflex laugh. You see, Danny was only four and short, just like his father. He could reach the Ready Brek from the pantry, the milk from the fridge, and the spoons from the drawer. What Danny couldn’t reach was the bowls. He had tried, you could tell by the stool he had dragged from the living room. In the end, Danny settled for the next best thing. He had made Lauren her breakfast on the tiled floor of the kitchen.

It was everywhere. Powder up the walls, all over the kids. Danny was sat there stirring oaty clumps into the four-pint stretching white lake. Lauren had clumps hanging from her ears, and a long slug of porridge slithering down her neck. Both cousins were slathering their breakfast across their mouths, and Nana was fighting back laughter in the living room. Of course she intervened after a couple of minutes, once the initial hysteria had calmed down. Danny pleaded for Nana not to tell his parents.

‘Please Nana.’

‘But look at the mess you have made. Look at the state you’re in.’

‘But Mummy will be mad. She will shout again.’ Loud sobs exploded from Danny.

Lauren flicked her confused blue eyes from Nana to Danny and began to cry herself.

There was something not quite right about Danny’s crying. It didn’t happen very often, normally he would wobble his bottom lip. Nana wasn’t even angry, well, not bad angry. She was frustrated that it would take an hour of cleaning, instead of taking the kids to the park. But not angry enough for two kids to be wailing as if their lives were at an end. Nana shushed Danny and ushered them up to a bath.

They still managed to get to the park, despite Lauren needing a second wash and changed of clothes when she tried to help Nana clean it up. Nana didn’t tell Caroline and James, although the story did its rounds or a couple of weeks at the coffee shop.

More oohing, awwing, and quite a bit of laughing. She was still so proud.

Cameron Grace 18

The bell rings, and Nana steps out of the car. She hadn’t realised how hot it was sat with the windows up until she felt the tickle of a breeze against her cheek. The large gaggle of children pour from the red buildings and into the playground, and Nana looks for Danny. Most days, when he runs out, he holds pole position, chattering like a monkey, shrieking like an hyena. On an ordinary day he is shoulder barging his friend Thomas, bouncing across the fading hopscotch, before leaping into Nana’s arms. Today, Nana notices him at the back of the pack dragging his bag across the playground. When he catches Nana’s eye, he smiles. Not the bright glowing banana of a smile you see as he opens presents on his birthday, or the flashing pearly toothed grin that accompanies a trip to the fairground. The smile was straight and thin, a customary smile, a facial tic on autopilot. His teacher shouts goodbye from somewhere behind the teeming throng of parents and children. Danny doesn’t seem to hear. He just cabbages forward until he is standing at Nana’s feet.

‘Hey you.’

‘Hey Nana.’

‘Are you OK?’ ‘I’m fine Nana.’ His sigh was back, and his voice was sloth-like. He draws his words out, and never once raises his eyes.

‘Are you sure?’

‘We staying at your house tonight Nana?’

‘No Darling, we are going for something to eat, and then I am taking you to your Dad’s.’

‘OK.’ Danny scuffed his feet on the playground.

‘Is that OK?’ ‘Yeah.’ Danny sighs, ‘I just wanted to light a candle again for Nanny Estelle.’

Nana doesn’t know if Danny is about to cry or not. He swallows, and his eyes seem to dim. She grabs his hand and squeezes it.

‘How about we go and get something to eat, and we buy a new candle for Daddy’s house, you can light it there if you want.’

‘I don’t think Daddy liked Nanny Estelle.’

‘That doesn’t matter. She loved you, and you loved her. Shall we get the candle?’

‘Where are we eating?’

‘Where would you like to eat?’

Cameron Grace 19

‘McDonalds.’

‘Not McDonalds Danny. Something proper.’

‘OK,’ Danny sighs again. ‘The Saxon?’

‘That is a good idea. Then we’ll go get the candle.’

Danny squeezes Nana’s hand and they start walking towards the car. Nana doesn’t remember when Danny’s hands got so big. It doesn’t feel like that too long ago when Danny gripped her finger and slept against her chest in her garden. When he got a little bit bigger, perhaps two years old, he used to pull her finger until she blew a long wet raspberry. When James brought him over for visits, Danny used to run at her screaming Puuuuuuuuuullllllllll fiiiiiinnnnger. She wondered if it was a boy thing, laughing at fart noises. When James was a boy he used to do the same thing, pull on his father’s finger when he needed to fart. Nana used to think it was disgusting, often chiding her husband for it. But when Danny started doing it, Nana couldn’t help but smile as Danny cackled. Perhaps she has mellowed in her old age, or perhaps a stupid sense of propriety was to blame for James’ closeness to his father, and his aloofness towards her. Particularly when he became a sullen, long-haired teenager.

Nana looks down at Danny and wonders what he will be like when he hits adolescence. She imagines he will grow his hair long, listen to music all about how horrible the world is. James did that, bands with names like ‘Limp Bizkit’, and ‘Disturbed’ written on black t-shirts. Jeans so baggy that they scraped through puddles. His voice adopted the timbre of a bassoon. Danny would probably be much the same. But this doesn’t stop Nana daydreaming.

She imagines him in a suit, sitting at the table eating dinner with them on a Sunday. She imagines him playing cricket. Danny will hit a six over the pavilion and signal to Nana and James sitting at the boundary line. Danny will take that stunning catch, he would bowl a hat trick. Danny would meet a girl, beautiful and smiling. He will call her things like ‘Angel’ and ‘Sweetheart’. Danny will ask Nana advice on what flowers to buy his girlfriend on her birthday, what chocolates for Valentine’s day, what perfume for Christmas. Danny will invite Nana to their wedding, and she would sit in the pews clutching a tissue.

Cameron Grace 20

Danny will go to University and become a doctor. No, a lawyer. A teacher.

Something that will make his family proud of him, something that means he could buy a house in Nana’s village, come over at weekends to mow the lawn. Nana smiles all the way to the car, and helps Danny into his booster seat.

‘Can we listen to Music Nana?’

‘Of course we can my love.’ As Nana pulls out of the school yard, Nana turns her CD player on. It always amuses Nana when they drive anywhere, Danny asks for music, she plays Westlife, and he sings along. He doesn’t know all the lyrics, so his voice and his words waver in volume and comprehension. She muses that James always liked music, even as a tiny baby. She used to rock him off to Boyzone, Take That, or Eternal. As he grew older, James would play the tennis racket to Garth Brooks and The Eagles.

Can we see beyond the stars, and make it to the door?

Danny sounds a little happier now Nana thinks. His voice is perhaps no louder than a mouse would make. Nana keeps her eye on the road, although she is listening to him, she is aware of all the idiots that are on the road. Take Caroline for instance.

She has had three crashes in as many years. Now Nana knows that it isn’t for her to judge, but surely by now she would have learned that she was not meant to drive. It worries Nana sometimes, what if Danny were in the car?

For all the things that na ma try to make it ooo na night, love will find you.

The one thing Nana has always dreaded was that phone call. Caroline has another accident, and Danny was in hospital. What if he hit his head or something?

She tried to ask James not to let him in the car with her. Apparently, according to a polite translation by James, Nana was being unreasonable.

What about now? What about today?

How would Caroline live with herself if she were the reason Danny was seriously injured, or worse? Nana shakes her head, it isn’t the time or place to be thinking like that.

What if our love neh ma nem away?

Nana checks Danny in the rear view mirror. He is smiling now, his voice a little louder. Good. With any luck by the time the get to The Saxon, Danny will have forgotten about the candle. Nana knows what James will say, she knows that he doesn’t believe in all that spirituality nonsense. She would probably talk James into lighting the candle, but if Danny asks him about Heaven and God and things, he might confuse the boy. The last thing the boy needs right now is more confusion.

Not only that, Danny might think Nana was a liar if he asks too many questions to James.

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Summer bake a nin your ryes, to start a new day.

The traffic is being kind today, normally Friday afternoon traffic is a like a long metal slither of treacle sliding through the town. Today though, Nana has made it to the main road without having to stop once. She hopes it is like this in a fortnight’s time when she gets to pick Danny up and take him on his birthday treat. His birthday is in eight days, but Caroline won’t let him go that weekend. Nana supposes that it her right as Danny’s mother.

Shallows fade into the light, I am by a sign where love will find you.

Nana has planned to take Danny to Legoland on the Saturday. She has read that they have a working Lego submarine and a log flume. Danny will love that. It will be an excuse to get him high on sugar, ice cream, and burgers before letting him sleep in the car all the way home.

What if our love neh ma nem away?

Last year she took Danny to Twin Lakes. He and James spent nearly an hour in this large play area where they could fire sponge balls at each other. She had allowed Danny to have one can of coke as a treat which led to burping competitions around a picnic table. Danny laughed so hard when some of the coke came out of James’ nose.

There is num a nuh me yur, for I am right beside you.

This year James is taking Danny somewhere on his own. Nana doesn’t mind so much, she will enjoy time on her own with Danny, going on the rides, eating junk food. She will even steal a hug or two when Danny gets cranky and tired. It will be a birthday that Danny will remember for years to come. Nana listens to Danny singing and decides to join in.

‘What about now? What about today?’ Danny giggles as Nana begins to sing.

She asked him, a couple of months ago, whether he liked Nana singing. He had just laughed, told her that she sounded like the cats did at night. Nana pretended to be shocked, stuck out her bottom lip. Danny had laughed harder, and the mock argument led to a tickle fight. All their little jokes did. Every time Nana pretends to be upset, she punishes him by blowing a raspberry on his neck, and digging her fingers into his ribs until he can’t breathe for laughing.

‘Baby before it’s too late, baby before it’s too late, Danny before it’s too late, what about now?’ Danny was dancing with his head and shoulders. His coppery fringe bouncing off his brow. For the rest of the drive to The Saxon, Nana and Danny sing at the top of their voices. About a hundred yards away from the restaurant they stop at traffic lights. With their windows down, and their crooning, the driver of the car adjacent to them turns and smiles. He gives Danny two thumbs up before the lights go green. Danny blushes a little bit, and Nana finds herself chuckling as he lowers his voice.

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After parking as close to the restaurant as possible, Nana frees Danny from the booster seat and watches as he charges towards the restaurant. He likes to sit by the large windows looking out across the beer garden. They have a play area there that Nana lets him run around after their meal. Sometimes he spots some school friends swinging from the bars, or spinning down the pole. He is always allowed to go and play, as long as he finishes his dinner. Well, not necessarily his dessert, Nana doesn’t mind too much if he doesn’t finish whatever sugar-loaded treat he has chosen. As long as his dinner, and all of his vegetables are eaten. He normally manages to eat everything, smearing ice cream or chocolate across his face in the process. The last time they had eaten here, Danny ordered the Spaghetti, and proceeded to decorate the windows, the tablecloth and even his white trainers with bolognaise sauce. Nana had to wash little pieces of tomato from his hair.

Danny and Nana enjoy their meal. He talks with animation about his school project. Ancient Egypt. He talks about pharaohs, pyramids, and the sphinx as if he had been there when they were built. He showed Nana a crayoned scribble of a crocodile, telling her that it swims in The Nile. Nana listens, inserting ‘oohs’, ‘ahs’ and ‘that’s nice’ in all the right places.

Just after Danny has swallowed the last of his sticky toffee sundae, the double doors open, and two children walk in. One of the girls, a bespectacled and gangly blond thing waves at him. Danny jumps up from his seat and runs towards her. Nana is annoyed for a moment. The boy didn’t ask permission to leave the table, and he was running as fast as he could through the restaurant. She was just about to shout and remind him that this wasn’t a playground, when he ran into the corner of a table.

Danny fell beneath the table.

There was a lot of fuss for about three minutes. Danny was dazed, and the restaurant’s first aider came over. It didn’t take long for Danny to stand up and ask if he could go and play in the play area. Of course, Nana was worried, but the first aider seemed unconcerned. She told Nana that she thought everything was OK. Boys will be boys.

‘Never a truer word spoke’ Nana replied. The first aider presented Nana with the accident book to sign. Danny was out in the play area kicking the wood chips with his little blond friend. Nana sits on a bench smoking, watching him flirt in the violent way little boys do. She often wonders why boys feel need to show affection through wrestling and rabbit punches, but Danny isn’t hurting anyone, so she says nothing.

James turns up and sits next to her.

‘Hey Mum.’ ‘Hi James.’ She hands him one of her cigarettes, a practiced greeting. ‘You here to steal the tear-away from me?’

‘Afraid so. He behaved?’

‘Not at all. Been stealing cars, throwing bricks through windows, and I lost sight

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of him for two minutes and he went and got a tattoo.’

‘Trained him well. Good boy.’

‘He had a bit of a bump, that’s about it. Ran into a table. First aider had a look at him.’

‘Sounds about right.’

‘Oh and something else James.’ Nana takes a drag of her cigarette until the end glows like a halogen heater. ‘He seemed down when I picked him up from school.

Think he is missing Estelle.’

‘Oh.’ James tugged on his bottom lip. ‘I will see if he wants a chat then.’

‘He might want you to light a candle.’

‘Oh might he? I wonder where he picked that up from.’

‘James, please don’t spoil it for him. He thinks Estelle can see the candle. It makes him feel better. He is too young to understand.’

‘OK.’ James holds his hands up, ‘OK.’ Danny sees James sat with Nana and runs towards him with his arms out. Danny leaps the last few steps into James’ arms and kisses his cheek. Nana watches as Danny and James talk at one hundred miles an hour. To Nana, this is like watching the future converse with the past, they are so alike. They have dimples in the same place, identically shaped eyebrows, and a tendency to bite their lip when they smile. The word “awesome” must have been used fifty times within ten minutes as Danny recounted the history of Egypt again.

Nana drives home on her own, having said goodbye to Danny as he clambers in James’ car. There had been no mention of Estelle or candles before they left, so Nana thinks that Danny might have forgotten to be sad. She knows James won’t push the agenda, or bring up the conversation, but she is sure that James will listen if Danny wants to talk. James has always been good like that. Nana always thought him a great big softy. Doesn’t matter how many tattoo’s James gets on his arms or his legs, when it comes to other people he is a sponge. Danny is lucky to have a father like James. Well at least, that is what Nana thinks.

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Caroline hasn’t made it easy for them though. She remembers last year, when Caroline took it upon herself to stop James from having Danny overnight. As far as Nana could tell, James had done nothing wrong. Well, except meet Bethany. In the three years that James and Caroline had split, this was the first serious girlfriend that he had found. Serious enough for James to introduce her to Danny.

From what Nana could make out, Danny went home to Caroline and spent two solid days talking about Bethany. Bethany and Danny had a food fight. Bethany and Danny went to the park. Bethany had a dog called Mouse. Bethany let Danny play on the Xbox. Bethany got Danny covered in jam and peanut butter. Bethany Bethany Bethany.

The next week Caroline decided that it wasn’t healthy for James to have Danny over when Bethany was about. Caroline decided she didn’t like Bethany. She didn’t trust that Bethany wouldn’t be at his house, so James was only allowed to see Danny when Caroline was there. It was a shame in the end, because James left Bethany over it.

Nana had liked Bethany. They had met at a barbeque in the summer, and hit it off immediately. Caroline had every reason to be threatened. Bethany was the very definition of an upgrade. Nana wishes James hadn’t backed down, that he settled down and sorted things out, instead of agreeing to that woman’s whims. It was Bethany herself that broke the news to Nana. Turned up at her house, wanted to wish her the best for the future, sorry that they couldn’t have had more fun together.

Nana had never been so angry with James. But James only had one answer.

I can’t not have my son over Mum. I can’t not see Danny.

There is little argument as far as James is concerned. Nana knows that Bethany is happy now anyway, saw her in town a few weeks ago with her arm wrapped around a rather fetching young man. Good. She deserves happiness. Well, Nana thinks so at least.

It is ten o’clock at night when Nana goes to bed. Nothing on television, she has just finished reading her Catherine Cookson novel. The stars blink slowly behind the curtains, and Nana begins to yawn. Nana is sure that it is time for bed.

**** Mary leaves The Saxon on her own, walking dazed towards her car. The sun has been heating up the metal, but Mary doesn’t notice her hand burning as she props herself against the roof. Two people walk by and glance at her, one squints his eyes in the belting sunlight, before moving on. He wonders if everything is OK. He has seen Mary here before, never drinking alcohol and always in the evening. She always seemed a nice lady, dressed well and always smiling. Perhaps she is just having a bad day. He has never seen her crying before, never seen her stumble. Watching her

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vomit against the side of her car is awful. But it isn’t his business, so he walks into The Saxon and forgets about it.

Mary stops throwing up and looks towards The Saxon. She has left her son in there, and her son has no way of getting back home, but she knows that he won’t want to leave with her now. She sits in her car and rests her head against the steering wheel and cries. These are not slow tears, not silent ones. These are wrecked sobs, pleas to a God she doesn’t believe in, apologies to her son, her grandson, her late husband and to a dead woman she didn’t like. Mary thinks over the last two hours. She finds it strange that her day was changed by the sound of a Machine Head song.

Eleanor, a very close friend of Mary’s, had this idea once. Instead of using your own favourite songs as your ring tone, set your ringtone as one that your family chooses. It is their song, and you will always know who is calling. That is what Eleanor told Mary anyway. This explains why Machine Head scraped from her phone at one o’clock in the afternoon.

Mary lounged on a floral deckchair, the sun only shares the sky with one splinter sized aeroplane. Glorious weather, Mary had remarked at the coffee shop that morning. The ladies agreed. Mary decided to enjoy the weather for a change, you never know when Britain will give you another day like it. If it lasts three hours, then it is a heatwave, Mary had joked. The ladies laughed at this, and bid her goodbye as she walked home with a carrot cake in her hand.

We’ll wave this flag of white – Mary’s phone rattled from the kitchen. She lifted her head from the deckchair and smiled. It is her son calling. He might be calling to ask if it is OK to bring Danny over for a few hours. It makes sense to Mary, he lives in a town where all the parks sport vile graffiti. There is this one park, just around the corner from James’ house with “Gaz fuct Jen hear” scrawled down the slide. Mary imagined James having to explain what that means to his little boy. No no, it is much better if he comes to Mary’s little village, where there is space to run around.

Gretton has a big field, with football courts, and a zip line. Danny would stay there all day given the choice.

We’ll pray for closed eyes – Mary’s phone persisted. She swung her legs over the side of her deckchair and settled her feet on the hot grass. Best part of summer is scuffling barefoot through a fresh cut lawn. Mary spent most of the week in heavy shoes and at the end of a day her feet throb as though she has had them in a vice.

Trade no humanity – Mary’s phone insisted. She reached the handset and smiled.

‘Hey honey.’

‘Mum.’ There was something about James’ voice that stopped her dead. An edge to it she didn’t recognise. It wavered like he was nervous. His voice high as if he embarrassed.

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‘James, are you OK?’ And then it happened. A waterfall of words.

‘Mum I need you I’m at the hospital and Danny oh god Danny is dead Mum he didn’t wake up oh Mum can you come please can you come the doctors couldn’t do anything Mum I am sorry I am so sorry…’ Mary had stopped listening.

She heard the words. Her knees felt like warm jam. ‘…Caroline’s here and her family and I don’t know what to say Mum are you coming are you still there can you come to the hospital I am on my own…’

Mary felt her carrot cake creeping back up her throat. She made an involuntary choked hiccup. ‘…please Mum I am so sorry I didn’t know who to call and I didn’t know what to say…’

She grabbed the worktop to stop her falling. Her eyes began to sting. ‘…brain compression…’

Mary stuttered into the phone, words that she won’t remember later. Not even as she is trembling in the driver’s seat of her car.

Danny.

The name sends a chill down her back, a trickle of frigid sweat begins to bead on her brow. Mary puts her hand to her chest, breathing has become very difficult. But then a lot has happened in two hours.

Danny.

Thinking his name. Seeing his beaming face. Remembering his wonky smile and water balloons and pistols and a meal at a pub and hitting his head on a table and thinking nothing more of it. She feels the pain in her chest, in her arms, at the back of her neck.

Danny – died of brain compression due to a head injury after running into a table at The Saxon. Not where the corner of the table had crunched against his forehead, but when he fell back and his head hit the floor. The silent killer, the injury nobody saw, the place nobody was worried about. The doctor had tried to explain it to James, and James relayed words in staccato, bits of information that Mary had to piece together to make up the picture.

Mary arrived at the hospital at 13:37. Her son was stood in the shade, his tattoos vibrant against his chalky skin, hair looking like he had just taken off a motorcycle helmet. Caroline was screaming at him. The scene looked disconnected from Mary’s car. Her radio still playing the CD that Danny had been singing to the

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evening before, songs of love, songs of hope. Yet through the window, Caroline was a scarlet silent film. She was miming anger, acting out a primeval rage that Mary had never seen before. Caroline’s father and brother had her under each arm as if she would pounce like a lion at any moment.

James was standing like a statue, looking at the ground, hands pushed into his pocket. It looked as though he didn’t even know Caroline was there. Not a flinch, no looking up at her, no motion whatsoever. Mary had turned the engine off and the CD died. She could hear what Caroline was screaming at him.

You killed my son you fucking cunt I hate you and I will kill you you hear me I will kill you my son is dead because of you and your fucking family he is dead and I will never forgive you oh god oh god my boy Danny Danny it is because of you that he is dead.

James stood there, as if her words were just a breeze passing by. Mary saw the tear hanging from James’ nose. The only sign that he could hear anything. Feel anything.

‘James.’ Mary called from the car.

Caroline carried on screaming as if she hadn’t heard. James looked up for the first time and walked towards the car. Two security guards came around the corner, running as if they sensed danger. When they saw Caroline screaming at Mary’s son they moved in to calm her down. James reached the car, his face never changing once. He just opened the door and sat inside. That was less than an hour ago.

Danny.

Mary tries to draw a deep breath. James has not yet come out of The Saxon.

She tries to decide whether or not to drive away. Should she wait for her son? Try to explain? Try to reason and hope that he understands? But what could she say?

Danny.

Her breaths are becoming short, and the pain in her stomach and chest like a hundred soldiers with bayonets are stabbing at her insides. She feels her left arm going numb. Mary is crying, and choking on the thick hot air of her car. Sweat

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begins to gush from her forehead, drenching and stinging her puffy eyes. James won’t come back. James won’t listen. She wished she hadn’t brought him here, but he needed to come. He needed to find out.

James had sat in the car for a few minutes watching the security guards kneeling down in front of Caroline. She had fallen, her legs just given out and her father and brother had lowered her to the concrete.

‘Need to go restaurant, Mum.’ Mary jumped a little at the sound of James’ voice.

‘The one where Danny…’ James began to sob. His shoulders rocked up and down as though he were sat on a space hopper.

‘James.’

‘He hit his head. You said he was fine. Said the first aider said he was fine. He fell backwards. The first aider sent him away. His head hit the floor though.

Something about bleeding slowly and crushing his brain. He was fine though. Just tired a little earlier than normal. I thought he had a busy day. Sent himself to bed.

He had hit the floor with the back of his head. Nobody knew it did they? The first aider didn’t tell you did he? He missed it. My boy is dead. I need to speak to them.

I need to go to The Saxon.’

Mary wanted to argue, she didn’t see how it would help. James’ voice was hollow and firm, not a tone Mary had ever heard from her son in all of his thirty-two years.

His eyes were glazed and glistening as he looked out of the window. He was biting his lip between sentences, his eyebrows scrunching up against his eyes. It wasn’t pain Mary was seeing. He was snorting air through his nose as though he was a bull in a paddock. James was grinding his teeth.

‘OK. We will go now.’

Danny.

Mary’s hand goes to her chest. She realises now that this isn’t simple panic. The shooting pains up her arms, the breathlessness, the sweat and the tightening of her chest. She fumbles for the lock of the car.

When Mary and James had arrived at The Saxon, James had jumped straight out of the car and was striding towards the door. Her little legs couldn’t carry her as fast, and entered the restaurant ten steps behind James. At this point he was already shouting for the manager.

Mary looked around to see a lot of startled faces. People with forkfuls of food hovering above their plates, a jaw or two stopped mid chew.

‘Where is the manager, and the first aider who killed my son?’

Mary recognised the first aider straight away, standing behind the bar cleaning a

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glass. He looked at Mary with wide eyes and it all clicked into place. Mary could see his face drop, knew that he remembered Danny, remembered the accident. A manager came out of the bar.

‘What is going on?’

‘My son was here last night and…’

‘Excuse me sir, but before you say anything you need to read the accident report.’

The first aider’s voice was shaky, as though he was speaking in public for the first time. James stopped and looked at him. The first aider disappeared into the office and handed him the book. The book that Mary had signed herself when she was here with Danny.

Danny.

Mary no longer has the dexterity to open the car, to manipulate the handle and let herself out. Her head slumps against the window of the car and her eyes close.

Sometimes heart attacks can take hours, or days, before any serious damage has been done. Mary stops breathing at 14:24, it has taken twenty minutes. She whispers Danny’s name again, and just before she closes her eyes she pictures the signature at the bottom. Her signature. Right below the sentence that killed both Danny and Mary.

“Advised Grandmother to take the boy to A&E.”

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Make a Wish Make a wish, they said; close your eyes and make a wish… a wish… wish…

I squeezed my eyes and wished, and wished, and wished.

Blow, they said; take a deep breath and blow, blow. Blow!

I blew, and blew, and blew, and not until my lungs ached did I open my eyes. I hadn’t got my wish; they hadn’t disappeared.

It must have been that seventh candle; I decided, as it flickered mockingly before succumbing to a cyclone of exhalations from the halo of distorted grins that corralled the oak dining table. I still blame the seventh candle – the last one lit – but it could have been the sixth, or third, or even the first.

Seven, they’d insist, is the age of reason: the age when we become accountable to God for our actions, are deemed capable of mortal sin, and eligible for eternal flames.

I didn’t consider myself ready for any such responsibilities. Was that why the candle hadn’t blown out? Was it God’s way of telling them I was only six-and-a-half?

But why should God suddenly care about me? He certainly hadn’t when – according to Dad – He had called Mam to be with Him in Heaven. I don’t remember much about Mam, but I still have occasional flashbacks of her lying in her coffin in the front room, the insidiousness of the pearly-white rosary beads wound around her enjoined yellow fingers, and the incongruity of her rouged cheeks and wine-red lips. Maybe Mam had told God it wasn’t my birthday.

My friend Matt reckoned that the party was staged solely for The Bishop’s visit; and, as the recently-donated navy suit fitted me best of all, I was the one soaked, scrubbed, shorn and sprayed to within an inch of my life. I’d also been subjected to crash-courses in catechism, hierarchical etiquette and table manners; I felt as if I was being prepared for ordination before I’d even learnt The Act of Contrition by heart.

I did enjoy the slice of cake, but it was scant compensation for my lengthy incarceration with The Bishop, The Canon and The Brothers, in that fetid room. My ordeal continued long after the dignitaries had dispensed with the formality of addressing me – or even referring to me in passing – and, hours after I’d finished my glass of orange juice, bottles of whiskey and brandy were still being conjured from The Head’s walnut cabinet. Finally, with my eyes smarting from tobacco smoke and lack of sleep, I asked permission to use the toilet, and then wandered through a black-and-white maze of statue-infested, tiled corridors until I finally stumbled upon our dormitory and my bed.

Though never pretty enough to rank among the special ones, I didn’t have to attend class next morning; instead, I found myself being assessed and re-dressed by the soft-spoken Brother Clancy. Nancy – as the older boys referred to him – was responsible for organising groups of boys for seasonal work on outside farms, and for odd jobs and rodent control in many of the town’s more prominent homes and businesses.

An open tractor-trailer bounced us, through the chill of a November dawn, to a tyre-rutted gateway on the other side of town. Unloaded into a soggy, ploughed field, we were issued with battered galvanised buckets by a black-coated, middle-aged matriarch, whose pinched features were barely visible through a muffle of dark

Neil Brosman 31

woollen helmet and knotted neck scarf.

Picking potatoes was to prove almost as demanding as the classroom: an endless sequence of bending, probing, filling and carrying, before hefting the buckets above our heads to empty them, over the side-boards, into the body of the trailer. The work was especially severe on backs, fingers, knees and shins and, while our constant motion initially generated enough heat to counteract the cold and damp, my stockingless feet soon felt like blocks of ice inside a pair of porous, over-sized boots.

A bell tinkled in the distance, I wondered if it was my sister’s summons to school.

She would have been four by then; her brother almost two. I’d seen them, with their parents, when we’d been carol singing in the church on the previous Christmas morning. I’d tried to catch Dad’s new wife’s attention when she’d briefly scanned the choir loft on her return from receiving Holy Communion. I doubt she’d recognised me, but I will forever remember her: the barmaid from Dad’s favourite pub who had served ham sandwiches and swissroll, tea and sherry, and porter and whiskey at Mam’s wake. Although her glance had been more of curiosity than interest, she had looked up; Dad had not, at the end of Mass he had shuffled on by, his downcast eyes totally focussed on his blonde-haired son, fast asleep in his cradling arms.

I was fantasising about a warm bed when Clancy cycled up to the gateway with our lunch. After saying grace, we tucked into thick wedges of margarine-skimmed white bread, which we washed down with slurps of cold milk from a chipped enamel jug.

The farmer had already driven away on his tractor, returning about an hour later with the trailer emptied in readiness for the next load. During the farmer’s absence, Clancy bathed and disinfected our blisters and gashes, allowed me to swap footwear with a bigger boy whose boots had been too tight, and then rolled and smoked a curiously fragrant cigarette, before pedalling away again.

It took twelve of us two full days to pick that field, an operation we would repeat on numerous other farms over subsequent weeks. We worked hard – we were too cold to idle, despite Clancy’s efforts to secure first pick of whatever cast-offs the town’s do-gooders happened to send our way. We found ourselves returning to many of those fields after Christmas, picking stones instead of spuds, until the lengthening days saw us sowing corn and sugar beet, turnips and mangels, and a whole new potato crop.

My real seventh birthday passed without fuss or fanfare and summer arrived in a whirl of thinning, weeding and spraying, until the completion of the hay and corn harvests reminded us it would soon be time to pick potatoes again. I’m not sure exactly when I began to enjoy the routine but once my body had become accustomed to the regime, I no longer sat down to supper feeling like I’d endured a day of classroom caning and leathering.

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It was late August when Clancy confirmed my suspicions that my schooldays might have ended – ironically, my education had just begun. Though naturally more agrarian than academic, Clancy was determined that everyone in his care should achieve a basic grasp of reading and arithmetic. We were soon spelling the names of animals, birds and tress, singing out the manufacturers of machinery and tools, and reading off the ingredients of animal feeds, doses and drenches. Counting wynds of hay, heads of cabbage and livestock came just as naturally to us as estimating the acreage of corn fields and gauging the distances between tyre tracks, telephone poles and fence posts.

Most farmers would return to their homes at lunchtime, often allowing us as much as an hour free for football or other games. In inclement weather we would huddle beneath hedges and trees, sharing the stories that had brought us to where we were – stories that would ultimately have endings just as dramatic and diverse as were their beginnings. I was shocked to discover that I was unique in being able to claim a father; and, while a few other lads had vague memories of mothers, many had no concept whatsoever of what a parent was. Most had been in the nuns’ care until they’d reached the age of four; my friend Matt always enjoyed relating how, as a newborn, he had been discovered, in a cardboard box, on the convent doorstep.

Though I’d never mustered the courage to ask, I still wonder if his name had been inspired by the circumstances of his introduction to the holy sisters. It was with Matt I’d first shared my dream of having a garden of my own; he had assured me that anything was possible, as long as one believed. Through Matt I learned to believe, and I continued to believe even after pneumonia had claimed him, just days before our Confirmation.

About a month before I turned sixteen, Cyril – as Clancy had been encouraging us senior boys to address him – told me he’d found me a job. Clearly underwhelmed with my response to his news, he explained that it was a proper job – out in the real world. I would live in a family home and learn a useful trade. Seeing my doubts at being apprenticed to a farrier, Cyril quickly softened the blow by explaining that my future employer had several acres of land, a variety of pets and farm animals, and a wife who was a very keen gardener.

Breakfast was a sombre affair on the morning of my sixteenth birthday and, after a blur of bravado, handshakes and promises to write, I left the refectory for the last time. At the bus stop, Cyril presented me with a gardening book from The Head’s library and a rucksack full of clean clothing, and then left me totally speechless by hopping aboard to accompany me on my first ever trip inside a motorised vehicle.

It being mid-April, there was much to admire on that memorable voyage through the reawakening countryside. I’d never imagined there could be so much land: the countless acres of rolling fields, cleansed by recent showers, looked truly resplendent in warming spring sunshine. I marvelled at the undulating quilt of greens, its varying shades stitched together by dividing ditches, walls and hedges, while clusters of gorse, dandelion and primrose glinted like sprinkles of lost gold beneath tassels of willow and hazel catkins, and blizzards of blooming blackthorn. But, as Cyril dozed peacefully beside me, I was becoming increasingly aware that each pick-up and set-down – whether town, village or crossroads – was only delaying the inevitable: the end of both my first bus journey and the only life I’d ever known.

After almost two hours, it was some consolation to feel my feet on solid ground again. Cyril had another surprise: my first meal of chips, with eggs, sausages and

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beans, in Drumquin’s only café. After our lunch, Cyril ushered me inside a public house where he introduced me to Dan and Minnie Hogan – the middle-aged couple into whose care he was delivering me. Dan ordered half-pints of stout for Cyril and himself, and then presented Minnie and myself with glasses of fizzing lemonade.

While the men chatted and smoked on high stools at the counter, Minnie steered me to a snug where we sat in uneasy silence and stared at the bubbles rising in our tumblers.

After what seemed like an age, the men got to their feet, drained their glasses, and started towards the exit. Minnie and I followed suit, reaching the street as Cyril’s slender fingers emerged from the enveloping grip of the shorter man’s gnarled hand.

After briefly embracing Minnie, Cyril reached towards me. I responded to his hug, acutely aware of the bemused expression on Dan’s sallow face. Stifling the urge to follow Cyril back to the bus stop, I waved once before turning away and falling into step behind the strangers.

A chestnut pony whinnied a greeting from between the shafts of a varnished tub trap. Dan patted the mare’s withers, gathered her reins and, to the protests of creaking springs, helped Minnie mount the little metal step at the rear of the conveyance. Once settled facing his wife, Dan motioned me to the seat beside him, and then clicked the pony to a trot. It was an amazingly therapeutic experience: the clip-clop of iron-shod hooves on the tarred road, the whirring hum of the ball-rubber wheels, the squeaky swaying of the trap and the intermittent hushed exchanges between husband and wife. I strained my ears at Cyril’s mention.

“But his heart is in the right place.” I heard Dan mutter.

“Ah, ’tis, the misfortune,” Minnie sighed, crossing herself, as the tinge deepened in her rosy apple-face; “solving everyone’s problems except his own.”

It was then I noticed the sea, something I’d ony ever seen in the calendar pictures on Cyril’s bedroom wall. Though it was too distant to hear its surges and sighs, its saline tang seemed surreally familiar.

“That’s Pa Kate Murphy’s place.” Dan said, nudging me gently. The iron-roofed, whitewashed cottage had already caught my eye, with its profusion of budding bluebells, bisected by a flagstone path to a crimson half-door. “Don’t confuse Pa Kate with Paddy Moll Murphy – beyond,” Dan indicated a large, two-storey farmhouse, set someway back from the opposite side of the road. “Pa Kate always settles-up as soon as he can, but don’t ever start a job for Paddy Moll while he owes you for another.

Then, there’s Patcheen Han Murphy – on the shore road. You can’t believe the light of the day from Patcheen, but the poor old devil would give you the top off his egg.”

Dan paused, tugging pensively at the shiny peak of his grubby tweed cap.

“I believe you’re handy at the writing,” he whispered, nudging me again.

“I’m all right, I suppose,” I mumbled.

“And the sums?”

“Okay,” I shrugged.

“Ah, good,” he puffed, a tiny smile pulling at the stem of his pipe; “very good.”

The sea was still a distant shimmer when the pony halted at a pair of lime-green gates, hung between two yellow-washed gables. Our arrival was greeted by the frantic wagging of a blue collie and a little yappy black terrier. A huge tabby cat dropped from a window ledge to perform an intricate ballet of leaps over the terrier’s glossy back, and slaloms around the collie’s prancing legs. Dan swung down and opened the gates – the pony following quietly into a cobbled yard. Minnie alighted

Neil Brosman 34

unaided and, shooing a flurry of hens, chickens and ducks, unlocked the door of the taller building – the one with the tiny square of gable window, just below the apex of its slate roof.

“We’re home safe, thanks be to God.” Minnie beamed, beckoning me indoors in the cat’s wake. “Come on, boyeen; we’ll have a sup of tea.”

With the kettle humming on the black range, Minnie led me up the narrow stairs to a spacious loft bedroom. The window, which seemed bigger from the inside, looked out on a sweep of fertile pasture that stretched all the way to a tide-washed foreshore.

While having my own room was an unimagined luxury, sleep was to prove a reluctant bedfellow. Not only was the thought of sharing a roof with a woman other than Mam truly terrifying, but the small hours seemed eerily empty without someone’s sneaking, snoring or sobbing in my ears. But night – wherever it falls – has its sounds; its demons and desires; its predators and prey.

Minnie made lots of tea, and every cuppa was accompanied by some tempting titbit from the oven of her ever-radiating range; I could soon add taste, texture and title to the aromas of scones, pancakes and apple pies that had taunted me for so many years. Minnie’s was a table of plenty: breakfasts of boiled eggs and soda bread; suppers of cold meats, salads or fry-ups; dinners of beef, mutton, bacon or fish – with Sunday treats of roast chicken, pork steak or lamb chops, and mouth-watering desserts.

While Dan was supportive of my tentative efforts with hammer and tongs, his main concern was that I record each customer’s transactions in the dog-eared copybook he kept secreted in an old dresser in a corner of the forge. But I was learning: in less than a week I had mastered bellows and fire; within a month I was sharpening tools, shaping shoes and paring hooves; and, on St Swithin’s day, I shod my very first animal: Dan’s pony, Dolly.

In truth, slash-hook and spade featured more than apron or anvil during that initial summer. After I’d spent a few evenings helping Minnie prepare her flowerbeds and kitchen garden, Dan granted me leave to reclaim his scrap-metal graveyard: about a quarter-acre of treacherous wilderness between the smithy and the boundary stream.

It was almost like being back on the farms again but, while the nettles and docks, brambles and bracken, midges and horseflies were exactly the same, I had chosen to clear this jungle, to open the sod to sun and rain, to till and tend its ridges and rows, in the certainty of sharing whatever bounty the resurgent soil would eventually yield.

Not every challenge of my plot was physical: the rhubarb-red nettle stems, sprouting from custard-yellow roots, were a stinging reminder of the daubs of lipstick and rouge on Mam’s dead face. Minnie never commented on my moods, but would

Neil Brosman 35

inexplicably choose my of darkest moments to ask me to bait a mousetrap, dose a piglet, or spy on a hen she suspected of ‘laying out’.

Dan never mentioned my garden, but some evenings, while helping Minnie milk her four cows, I’d notice the forge grow prematurely silent. On investigation, I’d invariably glimpse a furtive dark figure, crouched among my potato stalks, beneath great plumes of contemplative smoke.

I didn’t sing carols that Christmas, but we ate turkey and plum pudding, and I was given a bike so I could cycle to the village, or to football – or wherever I fancied. They gave me a new navy suit for my birthday, and a card, and a party with biscuits and lemonade, and an iced cake from the bakery in town – with seventeen candles.

Make a wish, they said; close your eyes and make a wish… a wish… wish…

I squeezed my eyes and I wished, and wished, and wished.

Blow, they said; take a deep breath and blow, blow. Blow!

I blew and blew; I blew until every last candle was out, but Cyril didn’t appear.

Sam’s Editor Pick

Neil Brosman 36

Fancy being apart of the Team?

We have vacancies!

Simply look on the website and email us to hear more! underthefable@gmail.com

look forward to hearing from you!

37

My Pixilated Lover my firewall can’t protect you, my pixelated lover, we can touch tones like mice crashing, dicing up the spine, we can slam the lid when we feel the rush of hormonal dross has depleted. Your voice can dance in my ear when the time is right but only when it’s right, because when the lid’s down you don’t exist, you’re flushed out, discarded, swiped left. Filthy pipes...a non-existent kiss. Is it better this way? To use static waves and blend heartbeats instead of the painful physicality between bones... between skin...somewhere in between love and hate, just a taste of what might have been. You look pretty in contrast and so do I, so you kiss the screen and bid me good night

Gavin’s Editor Pick

Jonathan Terranova 38

Not My Black Dog She says it’d been there for weeks Sniffing round the garbage Scratching in the dirt It’s dark, shaggy hackles superimposed Against the sickly ring of the moon I didn’t notice it She says it barked in the night Or howled It’s scarred head tossed back A guttural reverberation rattling out of It’s ragged throat But I hadn’t heard it She says it watched her Followed her When she went out When she came back from the shops When she played with the kids in the garden It was always just out of her eyeline She says But she knew it was there In the foliage Hunched in the brambles Growling in the hedgerows Lurking Watching I’d not seen it Not until the other week It came in the house It sauntered into our home Into our lives Thinking itself welcome now And it sidled up to her

at h, d g ar rou e h bo se r As er a t C Tou e e P rs rio e V na e Sc

Rob Harding 39

Like it knew her Like it belonged to her Or her to it Still I didn’t see it as such I saw its prints though Saw the markings of its claws on the walls Smelt it’s heady musk in the air Dark clumps of coarse hair Caught in my throat She didn’t mention it at first The vast, dark padding thing That ate her cereal through her mouth That watched TV through her eyes That spoke with her words So I didn’t mention it either Maybe this phantom hound Was but a mist of my own mind But it wasn’t It wasn’t my black dog Eventually, one night, As she lay in bed This rough brute sprawled across her chest Resting upon her, Squeezing moist, sugary-sweet air from Her bellow bag lungs She wept and told me of the dog Then things made sense I asked questions but I knew nothing of dogs I asked what it ate and where it had come from But none of that helped The questions didn’t address what the dog had done They didn’t make her feel comforted Or safe As she lay beneath its heaving belly I knew nothing about it It wasn’t my black dog So I researched online But I couldn’t make heads or tails I could recognise its breed By either its head or tail It was unidentifiable, totally different And just like all the other black dogs Dark gods Primeval, primordial, primitive deities Feeding on desperate desires and daydreams Feeding on her Not me Not my black dog

Rob Harding 40

It didn’t take long for me to become accustomed to it At first I tried to keep her from the beast To stand between her and it’s slavering jaws But quickly I forgot it was even there It curled in the corner of our room And I regarded it no more Than I regarded the wardrobe or her slippers or our daughter’s cot When she woke me in the night Having risen to the heat of its breath or the glow of its eyes I mumbled hollow sympathies And rolled back over Content in my own peaceful cacoon of sleep It didn’t disturb me Soon she didn’t either It simply wasn’t my black dog And I’d fight I’d grow impatient and angry at her Her thoughts all bent houndward Bothered me, frustrated me My life was not all about this damn dog So why was hers?

Why could she not just forget it Even for a day, an hour And take a walk in the sun Beneath the clouds Without looking back To see if it trailed behind?

I had no patience for her fear Her sheer, writhing terror I resented not just the dog But her After all, it was her it’d followed into the house It wasn’t my black dog!

I didn’t know how to calm the creature Each time I approached it growled Through her teeth Last month it locked her In the downstairs loo

Rob Harding 41

Where we keep the medicine I had to fight it Grapple, Herculean fashion To toss it aside I’m not sure I won I’m not sure I even got a grip on it I think it’s just that my Useless epithets and tears Wore it down until it stepped aside And she stepped out Just to put an end to my pathetic grovelling I didn’t understand how to speak to it Let alone fight it It was totally foreign And she tells me I’ll never understand it That emotional mongrel I’ll never know what it wants because it has no interest in me It’s not me it picks at when it hungers It’s not even slightly my black dog As the dog began to mount her I could no longer tell brute from woman And no longer tried I’d not been able to settle the animal I didn’t try to rescue her Not anymore All my attempts did were remind me How frail, how useless any shred of strength I possessed were Compared to it Compared to its rippling flanks And harrowed hide I lay back And watched it feast Let it feast I forsook her Left her to its jaws And satisfied my shameful soul With the knowledge The mantra

Rob Harding 42

That it wasn’t my black dog I knew I couldn’t defeat it alone It wouldn’t be shooed off by the waving of arms Or projection of voice But I didn’t need to let it in Keep it in doors I didn’t need to feed it Pass it scraps from the table I didn’t need to taunt it Provoke it into baring its snaggled, yellow fangs I didn’t need to just let it lie I could have insisted we call a professional To help remove it But I didn’t And it kept eating And it got bigger Then we moved We left that house and left that creature She gladly fled from it And I certainly had no interest in leaving any trail for it to follow It wasn’t, after all, my black dog It had nobody now In that old empty place we’d left behind We had consigned it to starve It’d die through lack of neglect, unnoticed It was nobody’s black dog anymore Last Tuesday I found dark hairs on the rug

Rob Harding 43

The books I didn’t pay for Blood splattered the walls like raindrops on windshields and she sat in the corner, bottle snug between her lips; as though the stuff was a never-ending supply of wood to burn.

I tiptoed over the battered bodies to pull the bottle like a cork and so she fizzed around the edges but quickly settled down.

She tasted of sweet grapes and sugar.

I moved to bring her closer and she looked up at me, mid-embrace.

I felt my dimples dig deeper as she told me “I want to know you.”

at , r d ar ste e h he s se r A nc a a C Tou M e rs rio e V na e Sc

Meg’s Editor Pick

Ghazal Choudhary 44

Oasis Sometimes I feel that daytime is just the absence of night.

Night is when I can breathe; daylight is too crowded, too loud.

Night is silent but for its own little noises: they aren’t deafening, they are all a melody.

People shouting, cars driving past, skidding through puddles, the odd bit of chatter, the wind, the leaves, siffling.

The lights, all different colours, and the smells, and the feel of the cool wind in my face and the echo of my feet on the ground and the way the night seems so strong like it governs us all.

We are tiny in comparison.

We all see the same moon at different times.

We all have our little time of cool, our little patch of night, our time to catch up, to remember who we are before the daylight begins again.

I prefer the night, the cool, the silence, the escape, the stillness, a little oasis in the desert of daylight.

And we know however long a day may seem we will always have the night.

It is all our own, always coming around and around again.

Sleep well. The night is ours in all its strangeness and beauty until if time ever ends, when it can rest contented in whatever comes next, smiling with stars.

Elizabeth Gibson 45

The Boatman 1 I’ve been holding the tarnished copper disc so long that it’s no longer cold to the touch. I turn it over and over in my fingers, its worn design barely visible. One side shows what appears to be a circle, with a moustache that coils around the coin’s edge. I can just about detect its metallic smell over the old wood and musty books of Amal’s shop. The chunner of passing shoppers is barely audible through the wooden-framed glass frontage.

‘This is genuine?’ I ask. It is either very worn or very fake. Amal nods to me enthusiastically. His deep brown eyes are sincere and he wears his warmest smile.

‘Yes, yes. My cousin, he… acquired it, here, in the UK.’ I catch sight of someone looking in my direction, but it is my likeness in a floor to ceiling mirror.

The imposing bookshelves loom around us, and I glance over my shoulder, feeling as though someone is watching me.

‘Where’s it from? I’ve not seen anything like this before.’

‘Few have. It’s ancient, from Roman times.’ Amal nods again. He knows I collect useless old junk and I know he sells it; he wants the sale and I want the coin.

It is the ideal business relationship. ‘Its makers worshipped a black planet.’

‘Black planet?’ The moustached circle stares back at me. Could that be the gentlemanly black planet, or a not so elaborate fake?

‘Scholars think the name may have been the result of an eclipse. If it was powerful enough to stop the sun, it was worthy of worship.’ I turn the coin a few more times. Amal laughs. ‘But what do I know?’ I join in the laughter.

‘Usually quite a lot.’

‘If you were alone in here as much as me, you would know as much.’

‘How much?’ I tuck the coin into my shirt pocket.

‘Two hundred.’

‘Have any documentation for it?’

‘What do you think, Mister Brown?’ He glances at a lady with wild grey hair standing at the opposite end of the shop. She is engrossed in an old book’s pages, and pays us no attention. When Amal speaks, it is almost a whisper. ‘I’m not sure me selling it is legal, so you ask no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.’

‘You know I appreciate it.’ I hand over a wad of folded twenties and make to leave. ‘Any of these books contain anything about it?’ He thinks for a moment, and

Rob Knipe 46

strokes his thick black moustache. ‘I think some might, basic information, somewhere. One moment.’

I pause by the glass-panelled door and watch as Amal moves along the shelves. He stops and traces a finger along one. He turns to the lady and gets into a discussion.

She appears irritated, and her greying eyebrows slope inward. Their words become heated until eventually Amal snatches the book from her wrinkled fingers and points at the door.

‘Get out. You’re not welcome here.’ She scowls as she storms past me, muttering something I don’t catch. A bell jingles as the door opens, and again as it slams shut.

Amal shrugs and smiles, shaking his head as he walks back behind the counter. ‘I don’t think she likes me.’ He slides the book onto the counter. I approach and pick it up. ‘She wanted it, but she isn’t a regular here, while you, Mister Brown, you are.’

The book is a drab olive-green, hardback, with few remnants of a spine and corners worn through to the tattered cardboard beneath. The cover has faded gold embossing; England’s Green and Pleasant Lands – A History of the land’s Ancient Cults, Religions and Beliefs, by Arthur D Clutterbuck. I leaf through the first few browning pages, and I’m surprised to see it is nearly a hundred and forty years old.

I notice that the letter b has the lower portion entirely black, and it runs through the whole book. I know it will infuriate me as I read.

‘How much?’

‘To you, fifty.’

‘Here, and thanks.’ I pass over two twenties and a tenner. Despite being two-hundred and fifty quid lighter, I can’t help but feel I’m getting the better end of the deal.

‘Any time.’

As I step outside, in my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of a reflection in the glass door, but it’s gone as soon as I look. The door closes gently behind me and I walk into the chilly December afternoon, pulling my overcoat tight as the cold bites at my face and neck. I pass the Blue Coat Chambers on my left and cut through the city centre, heading for a favoured coffee shop, Lovelock’s, where I order a black Americano, and take a seat at the rustic wooden table in the window.

The book is written like most which cover mysteries or the supernatural. The author appears to have a vague knowledge of the subject matter, and fills the pages with speculation and conjecture.

I slide the book into my coat, and for the next half hour, my attention is on the people and traffic passing by. Cars and busses head toward the Birkenhead tunnel, while people walk quickly in every direction. Opposite the cafe stands one of the city’s few remaining red phone boxes, and I smile to myself. Memories of using such phone boxes flood my mind, and for a short while, I can smell the same stale urine and cigarette smoke which seemed to inhabit each and every one.

Someone steps out from behind the phone box, and I realise it is the same woman from Amal’s shop. She casually glances toward Lovelock’s and catches my eye before heading towards the tunnel and out of sight.

I realise that I’m absent-mindedly playing with the ancient coin, and I slip it back into my shirt pocket. ***** Finishing the last of my coffee, I bid farewell to the dark-haired lady behind the

Rob Knipe 47

counter and make my way outside. Despite being less than an hour since leaving Amal’s, the temperature has dropped, and I pull my coat closer as I cross the road to my car.

A reflection in my car window moves suddenly, and I recoil in anticipation of an attack that doesn’t materialise. Giant gulls fly overhead, and I summise it was the reflection of one such gull. With a shake of my head, I climb into the car and start the journey home.

2 I read the whole book that evening, and while lying in bed, re-read the section on the Braithon religion with more interest than I feel it deserved. Fifty or so pages discuss the worshippers in the loosest possible way. They were first mentioned in Roman texts, and were wiped out by the legions around AD 50. It had two central hubs, one in an area that is now the Lake District, and the other somewhere just south of the Pennines, both near bodies of water. The coins were used to “pay” for safe passage to the Black Planet. It talked of paying ‘the boatman’ who came to lead the spirits of the dead, similar to the Greek god Charon, though there was no mention of them reaching an equivalent of Hades. That the worshippers were always located near to water appeared to be testament to wanting their dead taken quickly.

It vaguely talks of Braithon elders travelling with emissaries to the Black Planet and hints of other destinations, and I presume this was probably similar to the Native Americans experiences with peyote.

On the far side of my bedroom, a full length mirror reflects an image of someone sitting in the armchair next to the bed, next to me. I give the chair a cursory glance, and smile, my discarded clothes heaped atop it, giving the figure its shape. The mirror shows the discarded clothes for what they are and I snort in derision at myself. The reflection of my dressing gown and coat on the back of the door also appear to be a shadowy figure that doesn’t match the contours of the clothing.

I get up and walk toward the mirror. I watch myself, and my reflection is as it should be. It matches my steps, the hair is ruffled the same, but my likeness smiles more than I do. I smile and let out a short laugh as the ridiculousness of the situation gets to me. I stop and scrutinise the shape of the clothes on the door. They look different, but it is very dark - only my dim sidelight illuminates the room, and I am very tired. As I reach out to the mirror, I can’t help but feel foolish.

The glass is colder than expected, like the cold of a lake on a hot summer day, but there is nothing untoward, and, as my image returns my half-smile, I return to bed and resume reading. After a time I lay the book on my bedside table and fall asleep. ***** I’m stumbling through a dark maze, searching for something I can’t recall. I’m holding a paraffin lamp, which casts gloomy orange light onto walls of near-black stone. I reach the maze’s centre with apparent ease and there is a lake which stretches to the horizon. It is still, like a huge sheet of glass. I walk toward the shoreline across cool, damp sand. Though the shoreline is only a few feet away, each

Rob Knipe 48

step barely brings me closer. I reach the water’s edge and wait in the silence. My reflection looks back at me from the water, distorted as though the water is rippling, but still the lake is calm. Maybe I am rippling.

A tall, misshapen humanoid moves into view behind me. One shoulder is hunched higher than its head, which is embedded in the top of its chest. It is blacker than the night, and any detail appears suggested rather than being easily visible. It stares at me with eyes like hot coals and raises an arm. The arm ends in a hand which appears blurred, as though vibrating or covered by a shadowy mist. The hand lowers onto my shoulder. It feels warm, like the heat of a hot bath. I see my reflection smiling, and the warm fuzzy feeling on my shoulder starts to spread across my body.

‘Who are you?’ The response sounds as deep as the ocean.

‘Tahrrathn.’

I’m turned to face Tahrrathn’s blazing eyes. A lurid, green glow comes from it’s grimacing mouth, giving the impression that it is illuminated internally. Wisps of black - like the ends of small black worms – writhe all over it as if struggling to break free.

Tahrrathn raises a hand and points across the water, with a tendril-like finger.

In an instant we are travelling across the still waters, only the distant scenery giving any indication we’re moving.

We are soon on another shore where Tahrrathn gestures to a rocky ridge that runs the length of a stony beach. The loose stones move beneath me, and I stumble as they cut my feet. Near the top, I turn and find Tahrrathn still stood at the water’s edge. The black wisps have grown, and shadowy tentacles many metres long thrash and wave all over its body. A wail of panic escapes my lips and I stagger backwards up the ridge. When I reach its crest, I turn and flee.

The other side is a gentle incline of blackened foliage with a pitch black path winding toward some distant buildings.

Movement in my peripheral vision.

A trio of four-legged creatures skulk around a crude human visage on wide, webbed feet. Their mouths open revealing a mass of eye-tipped tentacles. The eyes are almost hypnotic as they blink in rapid succession. The creatures turn toward me, emenating hostility, and opening two further mouths where I expected their eyes to be. Instead of more tentacles, a phosphorescent white glow comes from behind rows of pointed teeth, and sounds that I can only describe as audible madness. Half-words and sounds enter my head in an instant, as though my brain is hearing a hundred conversations at once.

I stumble as my brain recoils from the onslaught. I can’t think straight and find myself scrabbling on my hands and knees in the dark dirt.

Ignoring my bloodied feet, I head for whatever sanctuary the buildings might offer. I

Rob Knipe 49

draw near and realise that it is the edge of a small village consisting of almost cubic, dark buildings. My head pounds and I squint at them through the pain, and they look like they are made from obsidian that has been scuffed to remove its shine.

I hammer on the door of a square, one-storey dwelling for all I’m worth, before realising that the door is carved from the same block of stone. I run from false dwelling to false dwelling, from false door to false door, realising quickly that they are buildings in appearance only.

I pass a well which is no deeper than ground level, and pass carts and tools which are are all carved from the bedrock that this mockery is built from. The creatures pursue me at a distance as I flee toward a flat-topped hill. Gibbering lunacy assaults me still, and I clamp my hands over my ears in an effort to stop it. It does little, and I collapse. The gritty dirt sticks to my body as I continue my flight on hands and knees, crawling up the hill’s steep side, screaming at the beasts to stop.

I reach the crest and find that it’s no hill. It is a high berm which encircles a structure not unlike Stone Henge. Each of the stones is engraved with images of human figures being dragged or tortured by unearthly beings.

The insane chatter is at crescendo and my arms collapse beneath me. My face hits the dark grass and I roll down the side of the berm toward the stone circle; for a moment, the lunacy subsides. I gather my wits and hide behind one of the tall, vertical stones, and wait.

Moments later, a strange, rasping hiss, as though something is having difficulty breathing, comes from the berm. Foolishly, I peer around the stone.

The mental assault begins immediately. Incessant noises fill my head and I stagger, weeping, into the centre of the stone circle. I fall to the dirt and roll around, tearing at my ears to make it stop. Screaming curses, I rip the hair from my head, dropping blood-soaked tufts to the ground around me.

The madness stops as suddenly as it began, and I lie sobbing on my back while pain courses through me.

My eyes open. The clouds above have parted and I see it high above me.

A solar eclipse.

Only the sun’s corona is visible around the black astral body that blocks it. Ignoring all the usual advice, I squint at it through teary eyes. Silhouetted against the corona, gigantic tentacles protrude from the black planet, moving with a menacing and titanic slowness. As I stare at the planet, the gibbering creatures begin spewing their madness once more.

My back arches as I scream, tearing at my ears once more, trying to stop the onslaught.

Rob Knipe 50

I wake up screaming and drenched in sweat, and pull the covers back to cool down a little. Flicking on the bedside lamp, my eyes focus on the coin, resting next to the old book. When I pick it up, I notice the moustached circle and smile to myself; the mind can play some incredible tricks.

3 The next morning I set off to see my friend, Tony, who has a particular interest in the obscure and mysterious. Last time I visited, I’d enquired about a coin I’d been particularly pleased with, but one that I hadn’t investigated. With some great amusement, Tony had explained that the coin was mass produced in the Middle East a few hundred years ago, and was neither rare, nor valuable. He had mocked me about it ever since.

Tony’s bespectacled eyes lit up from behind a tray of pinned insects and he scratched at his chin through his wild, ginger beard.

‘What have you got this time, another coin?’ His Liverpudlian accent was stronger than mine, and I always expected him to end a sentence with la, or lad.

‘I have,’ I take the coin from my shirt pocket and proffer it. ‘I bought it yesterday, and think it could be a genuine ancient coin. I thought you might know more.’

‘I might know more if it was a species of fly. If it was a Rhaphium Pectinatum I could go to town with it.’ He laughed and slid the tray of dead insects back into a sturdy wooden cabinet. ‘You looked it up yet?

‘I have, online and in the books, but other than the odd mention, there’s not a lot to go on.’

He took the coin from me and turned it over a few times. ‘Looks like copper. You sure it’s not just an old penny?’ Smiling, he moved to his microscope and slid the coin onto the stage. He peered through the lenses. ‘It’s really worn. Could be an old gate or something on one side and a… well, I couldn’t tell you what is on the other side.’

‘I thought a planet with a moustache…’

His green eyes looked up from the lenses. ‘Hah! You could be right.

Where’s it from?’

‘Ancient Britain apparently. It’s pre-Roman, from a people called the Braithons.’

‘The Braithons?’ His voice was incredulous. ‘Which book was that from?’ I handed him the book.

‘I bought that and the coin from Amal.’ Tony flipped to the first page of the Braithons information with ease and started to skim-read, confirming that I had

Rob Knipe 51

indeed spent too much time reading it the night before. His eyes didn’t leave the book when he spoke.

‘I’ve read about them before. Most scholars reckon they’re a Roman writer’s flight of fancy to make Britannia seem a bit better than the cold, dank country it was… or is, and don’t put any credence into them actually existing.’

‘You’ve read more on it?’ He laughed. ‘Who hasn’t.’

‘Me for one.’ There’s movement to my right and I glance at the door of a large glass cabinet. It showed a discoloured reflection of Tony’s workroom, and little else.

‘I was jokin’, mate. They were an interesting group.’ He moved round to his beaten up, old wooden desk, piled high with papers, boxes, unopened mail and the odd clear plastic case of insects. ‘I should have something…’ He pulled a book out from under the pile of letters and parcels without disturbing them. ‘This one is dead handy to have around.’

The book was an old, thick, black hardback, and as he leafed through the pages, they reminded me of the thin pages of an old bible. I couldn’t make out its name as the cover was so worn. It was well-loved, or well-used at least.

‘You could be holding on to a fortune here.’

‘How much?’

‘Says here that their coins are worth nearly thirty grand; Amal’ll be gutted.’

‘If I sell it, I’ll give him a cut.’

‘And me. Where would you be without me?’ I laughed.

‘To be honest, I’ll probably keep it.’

‘I know someone who’d love to take it out your hands.’ I shook my head, and Tony turned back to the book with a smirk. ‘Strange group though, they didn’t use money for trade, they just bartered. The only coins they had were to pay the boatman, Tahrrathn, for the journey to the other side.’

A cold sweat broke out on me in an instant, and I leaned on his desk to support myself. ‘Tahrr…?’

‘Tahrrathn. When their people died, they’d bind the coin in the palm of the deceased so it couldn’t fall out,’ he skipped a few lines as I tried to gain some moisture in my dry mouth, ‘and Tahrrathn took the spirits across the water to the black planet.’

‘The black planet…’ I feel weak at its mention. At the back of my mind are the gigantic, slow-moving tentacles.

‘It’s believed it was a powerful solar eclipse. If it was more powerful than the sun and the earth, should be worsh...’ He paused when he caught my eye, and his

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brow furrowed. ‘You alright?’

‘I’m fine, I…’ my voice faltered. ‘I just felt a little faint for a second.’

‘You still look faint to me, mate.’

‘I’ll be okay.’

‘I think you’d best get off. Give me a bell tomorrow and I’ll come round with more info.’

‘Thanks, yes. The air outside will do me good.’

‘Want to leave me the coin?’

‘Keep hold of the book if you want. Photocopy the coin or take a picture. I trust you, but not with thirty grand.’ I smile. Tony seemed a little put out, but nodded his agreement. ‘No worries.’

‘I’ll keep the kettle ready.’

4 I wake from a night of fitful dreams, sweating and screaming again. This time I’m holding the coin in one hand. How it came to be in my grasp I don’t know, but I place it atop the bedside table and get up to fix breakfast.

I couldn’t face Tony that morning, and sent a text to postpone until a little later on. It was mid-afternoon before I finally got round to calling him. As always, he was leaving in a jiffy, and arrived in Frandley around an hour later looking flustered.

‘Bloody traffic. There’s roadworks everywhere,’ he grumbled, stepping inside.

‘There always is, the sixty two and the six have had roadworks since I’ve been old enough to drive. Seems worse now there’s work going on for the second Runcorn bridge.’ As he closes the door, I point him into my study, and he leads the way through. I continue into the kitchen and pour us both a coffee as he takes a seat on my reading couch.

Returning to the book-filled study I hand him a mug of coffee.

‘Did you find anything out?’

‘Quite a bit,’ he said, and took a sip. He recoiled immediately, eyes watering. ‘You’ve got a new kettle, haven’t you?’ I laughed.

‘Everyone moaned that their drinks weren’t hot enough.’ I placed my cup down; it was hot enough now that I wouldn’t be able to drink it for at least another half hour.

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‘Could have warned me. Jesus, I’ve got bits of skin hanging from the top of my mouth, now.’ He shook his head and placed the mug on the coffee table and grimaced.

‘So…?’ I prompted.

‘The coin. Well,’ he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees as I sat down on the leather office chair, ‘turns out that coin you have is one of three coins they’ve never found, or a fourth. You could travel to the underworld with it.’ He laughed. ‘Have you got it handy?’

I pull the coin from my shirt pocket and toss it to him. He turns it over in his fingers. ‘The book said that when a Braithon was born, they were given one of these coins, by the Schlather, a village elder. They carried it around their necks in a pouch which was cut into strips to bind the hands when they died.’ He held the coin up, showing the moustached planet. ‘They believed that the Black Planet had tentacles, and worshipped it like a deity, sacrificing non-Braithons to it, and summoning strange entities.’

‘There’s written record of the rituals?’

‘Septimus wrote them down in his History of Britannia.’

‘I bet they were a hoot.’ Septimus. I remembered the name. ‘Wasn’t he thrown to the lions?’

‘Damnation ad bestias. Nero never liked him,’ Tony laughed. ‘He was something of a black sheep in Rome. The lions ended a very interesting life. They say he took the Braithon rituals back to Rome, and practiced them in secrecy for years before he was discovered.’

‘Hard to believe they had the time with all the other gods,’ I mused.

‘Some say they’re still being practiced today, but that’s just speculation.’

I turned my mug round and round on its coaster. ‘So this coin is genuine? I can’t believe Amal would sell it for two hundred quid.’

‘How much have you spent there over the years? I dare say he realised.’ Tony smiled and handed me the coin. It felt warm in my hand, and I glanced at it while turning it over and over in my fingers.

‘What else do you know?’ I took a sip of coffee. It scalded all the way down, and my eyes blurred for a moment.

‘Have you got a mirror?’ I gestured to the full length one next to the door.

‘Ah, sound, that’ll do nicely.’

‘For what?’ I asked as Tony turned his attention toward the mirror.

‘Terrethakl, amerat esperthherakl em taveratak, Tahrrathn.’

I laughed, loud. It wasn’t the first time he’d started chanting in my study. Last time it went on for fifteen minutes before he started laughing.

‘Don’t drag it out again, please.’ He glanced up at me with an awkward smirk.

‘Ethlekl, alekallethem Tahrrathn emnerthek.’

Movement catches my eye, and a shadowy figure stands in the mirror as if it was an open door with my study on the other side. I shiver as it paces forward.

‘Tony? What the-?’

‘You’ve got the coin, mate.’ He spat the word mate. ‘Tahrrathn is coming to collect.’

Tony has a wicked smile, and his eyes appear darker than usual. I wonder if he put something in my coffee, but I feel fine. A breeze crosses the back of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. My fingers turn the coin over and over with nervous

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repetition.

‘Tony, seriously, pack it in.’

An arm, black as the night and covered with flailing, worm-like growths reaches through the mirror. It is followed by the shoulders, and the same neckless head from my dream. Slowly but surely, Tahrrathn climbs into the study.

‘It’s the reflections,’ Tony says; wind howls through the room, ‘That’s why the Briathons were always near water. The reflections are gateways.’ Documents and papers billow around the room.

‘Tony, whatever the fuck you’re doing, stop it.’ I can barely hear myself over the wind.

Tahrrathn reaches out a hand towards me.

‘Give him the coin. Pay the boatman.’

Against my will, my trembling hand raises, and I hold out the coin. I drop it into the tendrils of Tahrrathn’s hand. It studies the coin for a moment before discarding it on the floor at my feet. Tahrrathn’s eyes blaze, glowing green smoke rifts from it’s mouth. A pungent smell of sulphur fills the room.

‘The coin, why won’t it take the coin? Tony, what the fuck is happening?’ Tony holds the same wicked smile and moves toward the door, where the wild-haired old lady waits, muttering something I don’t understand. I catch a glint of something in his hand.

Tony holds my coin and slips it into his shirt pocket.

The discarded coin is a fake.

Tahrrathn grabs my wrist with an ice cold grip. My body crumples to the floor. The colour drains from everything but the mirror’s reflection, until the room is in shades of black and grey. Mists swirl around the mirror, which now shows a dark landscape beyond.

Tahrrathn drags me away from the mirror, and throws me at a darker swirling mass to its side. Lengths of shadow snake from the black maelstrom and take hold of what I can only describe as my soul, tangling around me. They pull me closer, and I scream as the blackness envelops me, holding me tight and smothering me.

An indiscernible time has passed when I wake up. There is solid ground beneath me, and as I open my eyes, I can see that I have physical form once more. I’m lying naked between two walls of stone, while the clouds broil above me. Eerie, dim light is cast from the skies above, and gives everything a strange hue. I climb to my feet, and on the floor next to me I spy a paraffin lamp, casting its gloomy orange light over the dark stone walls.

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Did you miss out on the tour this year?

Want to join us next year?

Email us to let us know where abouts you are!

We are looking for more venues so all information is helpful!

Hope to hear from you!

56

Images from the Verse Case Scenairo

Verse Case Scenairo 57

The verse that can happen?

Written by Adam Ward Putting on an open mic tour isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Spoken Word tends to be more of a niche interest than Karaoke, or Live Music. But it is a growing art.

The poets we have seen have been every bit as passionate as any ballad singer, as technically brilliant as any lead guitarist, and still had all the energy as any Metalcore drummer. Yes, spoken word is a growing art, and it doesn’t look like it will die anytime soon. Spoken Word gigs are to written poetry, what a live concert is to an album.

This year, Under the Fable made it to many cities, bringing with them comedians, poets and every now and then a guitar. What we would like to bring you pictorial evidence, and some of the highlights of our journey around the country. So without further ado, this is what you missed.

Ian Les – Manchester It has always been a marvel to me, going around the country, how everyone in the Northern part of England has a sharp and ironic sense of humour running through their poetry. Ian Les was exactly one of these poets. Listening to his poem honouring Chris Eubank was one of the comic highlights of the entire tour. If you are ever going to Manchester, I would look him up, pull him into a pub and listen to him.

It was like listening to John Bishop read poetry, with pithy lines and sharp observations. Definitely one to catch up with again.

Chris Harris – Manchester/Peterborough/Northampton This comedian was well worth connecting with. Humour almost happens by osmosis around him. Here we have a rising comedic star who artfully blends groanworthy puns, with sharp observational humour. None of us who saw him on the tour will ever forget his “Nearly Naked Batman” routine. Chris performed at a few of the venues with us, but most memorably Peterborough when the crowd and he found themselves in equally rapturous laughter.

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Bethany McTrustery – Northampton/Manchester/London/Peterborough/Liverpool Bethany grew with confidence at every gig. Among all the raucous poets and comedians that came with us, Bethany was the anchor. The grounding poet, who reminded us exactly how beautiful the art really is. In her hometown she was greeted warmly, and performed like a true professional, her poems touching everything from her father, her new partner, to tongue in cheek poetry designed to annoy her editor.

Cameron Grace – Northampton/Manchester/London/Peterborough/Liverpool (Review written by Bethany McTrustery) The first thing you should know about Cameron Grace’s performances is that they vary from one event to the next. His voice and delivery is captivating and intriguing, and my goodness can he make you laugh. I’ve heard one of his poems read aloud 27 times at various points but on the tour each reading on this tour was different, and memorable in its own right. I followed him around the country this summer and each event found me at the edge of my stool, with a pint. And not once did he let me down. Simply phenomenal. This tour marked him as a true performance poet. From beat boxing to memories of people now gone, from belly laughs to moments where your heart aches – Cameron Grace is one of the best poets I have witnessed on this tour, and I cannot wait to hear more.

Joe Currie – Manchester/Peterborough The most honest poet I have ever heard. This guy has an effortless style, and has been gifted with a sultry and ironic voice. His poetry ranges from serious issues such as cancer, and accidental manslaughter, to Jaeger Bombs, and masturbatory injury.

The highlight of every set is his touching rendition of his poem ‘Clown Wide’. A story of a boy who is dying from cancer, and the impact he made on the world. Joe, hailing from Leicester, is working hard on the circuit and is well worth booking if you have an

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event that needs a good laugh, and a good cry.

Ashleigh Morris – Manchester/Liverpool This northern lass is larger than life, her poetry both moves you and makes you laugh. Everything about her set seemed polished, and although her poetry was shorter than most, the lack of quantity was replaced with some of the highest quality poetry we have heard on the tour. Having seen her briefly last year, it has been amazing how much of a performer this girl has become. You will want to see her again, you would just have to see her again.

Jennie Byrne – Liverpool Jennie’s set could be contrasted to many of her northern contemporaries, mostly because of the serious nature of her work. Whilst others were comparing romance to rohipnol, she was describing loss of life in the first world war. Whilst others were talking about a bloke from the pub, she was describing a friend she had lost. In the midst of mayhem, Jennie was the perfect tonic. Her poetry is well written, and her performance makes you feel every word.

Charley Genever – Peterborough The Poet Laureate of Peterborough more than deserved her title. Her postmodern performance not only played with language structure, but made some very deep points throughout her set. This was an intelligent performance constructed by a very experienced performance poet. Would recommend a trip to Peterborough to listen to her again.

Peter James Norman – Northampton Peter James Norman is the most original performer that you will ever see. His sets consist of poetry, comedy and really entertaining skits unlike anything else I have seen on the tour. Or anywhere in fact. A small man in stature, softly spoken in reality, but an absolute gargantuan on the stage. If you are ever in Northampton, then you need to pop to one of the many events he is involved in and watch this guy

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twist open a stage.

Andrew Carpenter – London Andrew Carpenter is not a writer you can pin down to one particular genre. In fact he is almost anti-writer. He doesn’t care about form and structure, he just entertains both in writing and in person. He writes as though he simply has no care in the world about what anyone will think of his work. His tone conversational, and engaging.

The last time we saw this gentleman, he had travelled to Northampton to catch the Umbrella Fair Spoken Word Stage.

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The Ride Marie’s mind strayed back fifty years. She remembered the magic of the fair; she recalled a youth smiling back at her, how he’d stared into the very heart of her existence. She’d shivered when he’d said his name was Billy and took her hand.

Marie sighed. A solitary tear scribed a path down the side of her cheek.

Her son asked what was wrong.

“Nothing Steve, I’m just remembering your Dad. I met him at a place like this you know.”

“Really Mum, I never imagined you on the dodgems.” Marie’s eyes narrowed.

“And why wouldn’t I?” “It just doesn’t seem you, that’s all.” Marie shook her head. She looked at the rainbow sign above the dodgems.

“I’m having a go.” She bustled in front of her astonished son. A bald man of no more than four foot tall and robed in black waited. She wondered if he was part of the act.

“Good evening Madam. It’ll cost two dollars.”

Marie planted the money in the man’s palm and paid little heed to his instructions. She ignored Steve’s protestations and harnessed herself with the cocoon of living metal. A tired Wurlitzer sprang into musical life. Marie nudged the accelerator. She inhaled the essence of burgers, fries, dead grass. She laughed when she broadsided an overconfident teenager.

Round and round the car sped. Above her the purple and golden lights transformed to a solid cable of ethereal reality. Marie lost herself within herself. Ever faster she raced and the hum of electricity grew ever louder. She saw nothing except the growing light; no-one else shared her arena. The dodgem faded in power and the lights flickered above before snuffling into a dim darkness.

Her breath frosted in the damp air. Marie was at a loss to comprehend the sudden drop in temperature. She reached for her seatbelt and a familiar small man stood beside her.

“Enjoy your ride, Madam? Maybe you’d like to explore the rest of the fair.”

She stared into his rat face. His amber eyes burned and solid bristles poked out his sallow cheeks. Saliva dribbled down his chin and his breath stank of stale milk. He

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didn’t appear to be quite so small now.

“Where is everyone? Why has it gone so dark?” she asked. The vendor shrugged and shone his torch to the side of the dodgem park.

“They’ve found other entertainment. You’ve been here a long time.” He seized her hand and uncomfortable warmth seeped through her. Electricity crackled behind her ears and the side of her neck. She was mindful of every slow step; at last the man led her outside. He pointed to a shack by the edge of the arena.

“What is going on here? Why are you pointing at that shed? Where is my son?”

The attendant sprinted back to the top of the stairs.

“What’s going on is that you’re living your life. Go to the building over there to find your answers - and you’re a bit young to have a son, aren’t you?”

After his last word he vanished into the ever growing darkness about the ride. Marie backed away and turned her attention to an ugly structure. The words Mirror Maze crackled above the shack in a dull shower of fizzy sparks. Her breath clouded and she struggled to see where she was going.

She approached the building and a crimson door cracked open of its own volition. Marie stepped inside and smelt fresh paint. She heard a saw drawing back and forth and the sound of coughing and laughter. The door squeezed shut and a fluorescent green arrow pointed down. She looked to her left to see a dirty mirror.

She did not stare at a woman hunched over with a lazy grey mane. Instead, a fox haired young teenager stared back and her face was filled with the pregnancy of expectation and discovery.

Marie glanced at the emerald dress she now wore. Her black boots had disintegrated into white sandals and she saw perfect tender toes, not the flattened hammers she’d grown used to. She looked to her hands; the wrinkles had faded into velvet. She touched her face and a generous smile sparkled with new life. She pulsed with a red glow and the purest bliss flowed through her.

“Is somebody there?” called a male voice. She knew the sound. She had not heard it for over five years and it was a younger, strong voice.

“Is that you, Billy?” She followed the arrow around a corner. A spiral staircase awaited. Marie peered towards the bottom where a faint verdant flow filtered back.

“Is someone there?” repeated the voice.

Marie took the stairs and raced down. She landed in a carpet of grass where a brick path led through a wall of oaks and willows.

“Billy, it’s me. Where are you?” she yelled. A cough echoed through the strange forest. She sprinted until she came face to face with a gigantic owl. It’s eyes

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blinked in yellow and orange as it studied her every move.

Marie shrank back when the owl shuffled towards her and spread its wings.

The bird swooped and seized her with its great talon, soaring into moonlight as Marie stared down at the diminishing forest.

“Put me down, put me down!” she screamed.

Below she heard a voice scream out her name.

The owl sped on. Marie wondered what it would be like to be eaten, yet the owl showed no sign of stopping. Instead the forest and an expanse of yellow and blue shone beneath. The predator plummeted. Marie’s blood raced to her head and she fought hard for her breath. The ground loomed ever closer and she braced for a fatal impact. She landed instead on a bed of feathers; when she rose, the giant owl had flown.

Marie stepped away from the nest and saw a great beach dappled with dunes. A solitary track led on and she was compelled to follow. She heard no sound now except the trudge of sandy footsteps.

“Billy?” She heard no answer. Her eyes filled with dark tears and a sand mountain waited. Her steps became ever heavier. The moon shimmered above and she tasted the sea on her soft lips. She ascended; before her stood a wooden bench, where, upon the seat rested a figure hunched forward, lost in thought.

“Billy?” she whispered.

The man looked out to the vast ocean and did not stir when she sat. His hands were clasped together and he was muttering a chant; paint, wood and roots.

She placed her hands on top of his. He began to turn his head.

“What are you saying, love? What do you mean paint, wood and roots?”

She looked into his young face but saw instead the years of the lost within his ageless eyes. His breath washed over her and her mind swooned in his presence.

“I know you,” he whispered. Marie leaned over and their lips touched. The memory of their life together sparked within him. She remembered the last kiss they shared with his dying breath.

“You can’t stay here,” he said.

“I’m not leaving you again.”

He hunched forward. The gentle waves grew angry and soon the coast was battered by avalanches of dead water.

“You have to go back.” Marie’s hand burned under his touch. He stood. Fire blazed in his pupils. He pointed to a figure, a robed man all of four foot.

“Did you find what you’re looking for, Marie?”

“Who are you? Leave me here with my husband.” The man shook his head.

“I’m the gatekeeper, but you can call me Anthony. It’s time to go back.”

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Billy stepped towards the watery maelstrom. Marie tried to follow, yet the wind knocked her back, whilst her husband continued to press on.

“I’m not leaving him!” she screamed.

Anthony placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. At once, sunshine reigned within her and an immense feeling of love took over.

“You will see him again, I promise you. You’ve still much to do though.

Your son, your grandchildren, they need you. You need them, and look, he stares back.” Billy stood within a yellow orb in the middle of the storm. An angelic shower sprayed down and he stepped into the divine.

“That’s why you came, Marie. With your love, your husband has finally passed over. He thanks you with all his heart. Now, close your eyes.” Anthony took her hand and she felt him diminish whilst the lost years returned. She blinked twice and found herself within the confines of a dodgem with the gatekeeper’s hand clasped to her own.

“Come on Madam, your ride’s over. Time to leave.”

Steve shook his head by the side of the attraction and his son George waved furiously at his Grandmother. Marie began to move slowly away from the ride. Steve helped her take the steps back to existence.

“You certainly enjoyed yourself. Oh, and George has something to tell you.” Her Grandson beckoned for her to lean forward.

“When I grow up, I’m going to be a carpenter and a painter, just like Grandad. Do you think I’ll ever be as good as him?”

“Oh God bless you son, of course you will.” She reached forward and kissed George on his cheeks - much to his disgust. Marie seized her grandson’s hand as, together, they walked all the way back to life.

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To a Piano In squeezing music from your keys, I savour that cake mum made for me when I mastered ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and passed Grade 7 with distinction.

With my arms craned on the piano, I let my fingers leap between octaves thudding out chords to spell songs like they used to – before I got a job and boarded a plane and flew away.

I can still hear applause tumbling from classmates and teachers, rising in waves in the audience. I would nod out a bow and slink off backstage, then to the street with its orchestra of car-horns; I’d breathe.

Sometimes I still feel the spotlight’s crush.

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Reality has no plot I hadn’t bothered to bring an instrument this time, just a novel to read, a small red notebook and the Kathimerini, whose pages were still plastered with stuff about the last days of the games. I sat on the top deck, drinking fruit juice and scribbling in the notebook. A number of Spanish Paralympic athletes were up there too, enjoying the novelty of a morning boat trip to Aegina. A girl in a wheelchair asked me what I was writing and I said that it was nothing much really – just random thoughts and observations that I might use sometime later to write stories.

“I used to read a lot of fiction but I’ve kind of given it up,” she said. “Plots and endings and all that stuff ... it seems so contrived.”

“I suppose it keeps people occupied for a while,” I said.

“But how can you enjoy it when you know it’s not true?”

“Good question. But people do like reading stories though.”

“Well I think I prefer reality to escapism ....”

When the boat docked in Aegina Town, I helped get some of the wheelchairs down to the quay and then they were off along the promenade. I crossed the port road, looking for a café, and in no time they were coming back towards me in hired carriages, singing and waving beer bottles as the island horses clopped along. I went to the bus terminal and bought a ticket for Aghia Marina on the south coast. I only had No Plot/2 to wait about 15 minutes and soon we were speeding out of town on one of their rickety old buses inland, towards the enormous monastery on the left, leaving some tourists behind. Then we went on into aromatic pine forests with occasional moments of sea flashing between trees.

The bus swung past the Aphae temple complex and made a final curve before

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descending. It went down the main street and pulled to a halt in front of a gift shop that was blasting out a forgotten song from 2 years earlier. It triggered memories of that winter, living with Maria in a small hotel off Omonia Square – her translating the words for me in her own sardonic way, me enthusiastically writing it all down. I’d bought a Grundig radio-cassette player and would record songs off the local stations.

I went out every morning to busk and quickly incorporated the song into my repertoire. Bob used to visit us; some nights we’d eat in the cheap taverna nearby or go round the seedy bars in Plateia Vathis.

At Christmas time I got a miniature tree with tiny lights and bells. On Christmas Eve, Bob turned up with a roast chicken and Maria asked me to buy more bottles to put on the shelf because she wanted atmosphere. An evening of happiness and warmth, but now Maria and Bob were gone and so was the radio cassette, having been lent out to someone who never returned it – and here was the great Dimitris Mitropanos, his voice full of passion and pain, singing that song again: when the daylight fades, your nightmare memory pursues me once more.

I decided to have a late breakfast in a café on the corner and spent some time chatting to the waiter about the Flamenco concert that I’d seen advertised on posters round the port. I said that Greeks playing Spanish music would be an interesting experience, but he said only the guitarist was Greek, that the singer was from Madrid.

No Plot/3 After eating, I went to look for a doctor to try and get hold of some tranquilizers. I was stressed out from too many music sessions in bars and restaurants that stayed open until 4 am. Too much alcohol and not enough sleep, and now they’d started building a block of flats next door; the screaming activity began at dawn. There was no doctor where I lived and I hadn’t felt like traipsing all over Athens in search of one. On an island, I reasoned, they would be easier to find, and I could have a few days of rest as well.

The beach curved away to a holiday complex set on a distant headland. I walked up the main drag in the opposite direction and came upon a building with a large red cross over the entrance. A man smoking a cigarette in the waiting room turned out to be the doctor. There was no one else around as it was already past midday; he took me straight into the consulting room. I asked him if he spoke English and he said no, so I had to explain in Greek that my overactive brain and frequent insomnia were causing me stress and anxiety.

“Profession?” he asked.

“Musician.”

“Do you smoke? Drink alcohol and coffee?”

“I live in Athens.”

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“I’ll prescribe you a sedative,” he said. “But you need to cut down on the cigarettes and coffee ... and no alcohol at all while using the tablets.” * I swallowed a sedative and walked east towards the nice part of the coast, where a path ran past an elegant hotel and led to a series of hidden coves. The sea was turquoise-blue with fishing boats and yachts passing here and there. I came to a spot where the land ended abruptly about a metre above the water with a metal ladder set into the rock for swimmers. I was sorry that I hadn’t thought to bring a towel or trunks, only a sleeping bag and a small rucksack with spare T-shirt and toothbrush.

Starting to mellow out from the tablet, I decided to have a swim and just dry off in the sun. Stripping naked, I dived in and swam a little way out, but, as if on queue, a woman appeared between me and the ladder and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity - but was probably about 5 minutes. There was nothing to do except tread water. When she finally swam off, I climbed out and sat in the sun for a while to get dry, then put on my clothes and sandals and walked around in the woods for an hour. I had a novel in my rucksack – a Booker prize winner from the early 1970s; I kept stopping every half a kilometre or so to read a bit more. The Spanish girl had remarked that fiction was contrived, but how could it be otherwise? If you depicted reality in the raw then no one would read it. And what is straight fiction except a simulacrum of reality tidied up and divested of its boring bits?

It was getting on for mid-afternoon and I doubled back, stopped for a beer and a plate of chips in a place that I knew which had a terrace overlooking the sea.

Alcohol was forbidden but I wasn’t intending to do the whole course – just pop a pill now and then if I felt I was losing my grip. As the waitress brought me the beer, the owner, who remembered me from previous times, struck up a conversation. He was drinking ouzo with another man a couple of tables away.

“Nice to see you back again,” he said.

“Well it’s nice to be here,” I said.

“Not with that Piraeus girl this time?”

“She got too crazy, and then we had a big row.”

“Didn’t they warn you about Greek women?”

“Yes, but I had to find out for myself.” The men laughed as I poured cold beer into a cloudy glass. The chips and a breadbasket arrived. I attempted to change the subject. * That night I sat in a bar on the main drag and continued reading the novel. I managed a half litre of house white and some squid then went to sleep on a sunbed

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on the beach. In the morning I bought coffee and then a blue towel with the image of a naked woman on it. The truth is I didn’t notice this until I took it out of its polythene wrapper. After a second coffee I went to the office and got a ticket for Souvala, a town on the island’s north coast. When the bus arrived at the waterfront the sun was up and I headed directly for the beach. I chose a spot and lay on the towel in my underpants, looking across the sea to where Athens could be made out squatting under a haze of pollution. I’m here and that’s hell over there, I thought.

Somewhere in that vast seething mass of concrete was Maria, although I hadn’t seen or heard from her in over six months. Maybe I should try to find her, go and visit her parents or make enquiries or something? Some large ducks were bobbing on the waves close to where the tide washed against the sand. Soon they came onto the beach and started quacking aggressively at me, so I had to move my ass a few yards.

Only a handful of people were on this stretch of beach; apart from a couple of brightly-painted wooden tavernas, the place was deserted. I tried to eat lamb outside one of them but was harassed by cats. In the early evening I took the bus along the north coast back to Aegina town. There were only four other people on board and as we detoured inland through a number of villages they descended one after another No Plot/6 until there was only me and the driver. We chatted about Greek music and the insane amount of money spent on the Olympic Games. He said his brother owned a pension in the town centre, and when we arrived at the terminus he wrote something on the back of a card and handed it to me.

I wandered through the labyrinthine alleys of the port looking for a restaurant to eat in. Lines of octopus hung outside many of them. Smoke clouds rose up from ash-filled barbeques and there was a general clamour of life. It crossed my mind how you never feel any sense of loneliness in such towns, even when very much alone. That was the trouble here – you could postpone the future, put off all consequences and just float in a timeless limbo.

The squid was not fried this time but cooked in red wine sauce. Later, I went in search of the brother’s pension where the card was supposed to get me a discount. Once inside and checked in, I showered and slept heavily until 10 the next morning. When I woke up I lay there for a while thinking about Maria again. How, on Christmas morning, I’d gone into the bathroom opposite our room for a wash, and after a minute she’d come in wearing only a pair of black briefs with small red flowers; we’d made love against the wall.

I felt waves of depression pulsing through me – not on account of any nostalgic longing for certain happy moments, but more due to a smouldering anger that she

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could just disappear into the wilderness of the city, as if none of it had ever happened.

I stayed on at the pension and the next night I went to see the Flamenco concert. The place was crammed to capacity. French doors gave onto a beer garden which took the overflow, and later, I spotted some of the Paralympic athletes sitting round a table, laughing and drinking with the singer from Madrid. I was surprised they were still here. The girl who’d said that she preferred reality to fiction caught my eye and waved. I smiled back and was about to go over but didn’t.

The next morning I had coffee at the pension and then strolled down to the port to check the times of returns to Piraeus. There wasn’t much left to do and the novel was finished. I could have bought another one but something had changed and I didn’t feel like playing the tourist any longer. I’d decided to visit Maria’s family, ask around, make an effort to find her and give it one more go. Perhaps it had been those casual words on the boat that planted some seed of unrest. Or maybe it had been the song whose words rang too true? Reality may have no plots and ramble along in a messy, disordered way, but it certainly has endings. Perhaps with a little luck I might be able to engineer a better one?

John Smart 71

Trawler Fishing for truths I drop my net overboard, drag the shallows and the deep.

If I could capture them I’d examine them, pick barnacles from artefacts; read all of those messages in bottles.

Leviathans try to sink me, they wrap tentacles around my boat, whip stingers at my legs.

But I am used to sea monsters.

Their poison suckers do not frighten me.

I will find the way to Atlantis, under waves, salvage the treasured heart in this ocean of deciet.

Barry Woods 72

What is it about you?

It could be the light caught in your irises, the shadows of your face when the sun sets or bitten-down nails digging into my wrist.

The exhale when you lay back onto cut grass or how you tuck your chin to your neck and fiddle with your necklace when you’re nervous.

It’s the fact that your shortcut to the bus stop became a half hour amble cus you’ve just moved and you don’t know how to work the gas hob yet.

Or that you don’t mind it when Netflix buffers because that just gives us time to talk about what character pairings we ship.

And you’re the only person I know who has two favourite colours: grey and cyan. The overcast sea.

It’s the pride flag pinned to your wall while the welsh flag is in your closet, even though they were still in the euros.

More than that, it’s that you can talk about the third drawer down without a blush but can’t cope when I say how smart you are.

at h, d r oug a he bor s se r A er a C Tou et e P rs rio e V na e Sc

And you are. Smart, I mean.

A whirlwind of moments within one person.

A sapiosexual. Practising your Alveolar trill and reading enough books to furnish a store.

Keeping up to date with politics and buying from Lush because they don’t test on animals.

It’s just you. From your piercings, to your laugh, or your eyes when you’ve had a smoke and drink and the whole universe is at the corners of your mind.

Bethany McTrustery 73

Larry’s Poem I wake to the sun through the window, my tail wraps around my body, my muscles ache, I push out, as far as i can reach.

Now to create havoc, the flower pot falls through the air, creating the beautiful sound of distruction, my work here is done, I close my eyes, curl up and listen.

Larry The Cat 74

Images from the Verse Case Scenairo

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