Blue Sea Writers

In Safe HandsWed, 07 Jul 2021 12:00:00 Z
When the creaking began, and the floors began to tremble, our first thought was “earthquake”, but when the whispers began, we knew we were dealing with something more than a seismic shift.
We always thought of the house as a haven. Four strong walls to keep out all the monsters of the world; a roof to shelter us from the rain and the eagles that prey on the livers of small boys; tall windows so you could see the evil coming; shuttered and bolted to keep out the cold and the terrors that haunt us all in the middle of the night.
I could not make out the words. “Take time” or, maybe “Take Tim”. Then I heard it clear: “Take them, take them, take them.” And I knew that we were the “them” that were to be taken.
The “them” in question being mother: on the outside strong as unconditional love, on the inside soft as wet kisses; my brother Ken: seven years, the baby of the family; my sister Sam: short for Samantha, only five years of age, but older than Methuselah’s elder brother; and me, Tony: 15, and because my father was “away on business”, the assumed head of the family.
Of course, this was only assumed by me.
I was the only one of the children who knew that father was never coming home.
I heard the ringing of the phone in the middle of the night. I saw the look on mother’s face over breakfast. I overheard the phone call to Aunt Miriam. I felt the tears on the pillow. Some of them were mine.
“Take them! Take them!” The voices now sounding more menacing, grew louder and louder, until we were forced to cover our ears, fearing that our eardrums would burst.
Without hesitation, mother led us up the stairs to the bathroom: the only room in the house with a lock, apart from the cellar, and that dark and spider-infested cavern was never the friendliest of places, even when monsters were sleeping.
How mother thought a simple sliding lock with two small screws would keep out all the evil in the world, God only knew, and God was saying nothing on the subject. He was as far away from this world as I had ever imagined him to be. I began to have doubts that He even existed at all or if He did exist, the full extent of His power. This was the moment He lost his capital “H”. Suddenly it seemed all bluff. God was just a poker player. All would be well until he was forced to show his hand. Then you were on your own. Having to face demons. Without a god. Without a father.
It took just five seconds for the force to tear away the bolt and send the door crashing into the bathroom. We were all huddled in the shower with the curtain drawn across. Investing our protection from the forces of evil in a flimsy sheet of plastic decorated with brightly coloured cartoon fish.
Something was in the bathroom with us, I could feel its presence but not see it, as my eyes were shut tight. It moved closer. Its breath, sulphuric and hot. Its breathing: gasping, like the final desperate breaths of a dying man, and then mother turned on the shower, drenching us all in cold water.
Was it the water that confused our enemy? The terror changed, transforming itself into a fire filling the bathroom with licking flames and smoke, within minutes, the water cooled its hot tongues, extinguishing them with a hiss.
Huddled in the shower tray, wet and bespeckled with ash, we clutched each other.
The breathing of the house began again: “Take them, take them.”
Mother led us quickly out of the smoke and up the next flight of stairs. Like the chased one in a B movie who climbs higher and higher to escape, hoping for a golden rope ladder hanging from the sky, which was never there.
But there was the loft ladder and pulling it down mother led us up through the trapdoor into the dust and the cobwebs. She switched on the light, revealing those familiar things of yesterday: the old rocking horse with the hideous smile that I had always been too scared to ride; the tortured violin lying on its back, its strings grown thick with dust, that father had failed to teach me, would now never teach me; the winter clothes cosying up to the snow boots, dreaming of winter, and the old brown suitcase father always took with him when he was away on business.
Mother bolted the trapdoor and I helped her to lift the old Singer sewing machine to place upon it. But the evil did not need this point of access, it seeped through the floorboards, filling the room with a cloud of yellow smoke, slowly transforming itself into a floating horned beast.
What was it that made mother take her next action? Was it that she felt at home in the attic with these familiar objects? Holding out her open palm she began to gently stroke the smoke, as if stroking an invisible pet: our lost cat Freckles perhaps, or our long-gone red setter Lenin, now running six feet down in the back garden. As she stroked, I fancied I could see the mist of perspiration lifting from the beast’s skin, as there in front of us, a monster with fluorescent amber eyes rolled over onto its back, stretched out its spidery long limbs, sharp talons and began to … purr? Maybe not quite, but as close as any hellhound could get to sounding like a tabby having its tummy rubbed.
I began to doubt the simple order of cause and effect.
“Take them!” The voices screamed, this time more insistent.
Before our wide eyes, the purring beast began to dissolve. Taking its colour from the yellow pus of its eyes it filled the room, a mustard gas, choking all that breathed it.
Before the gas overcame us, mother opened the dormer window and led us, wet and gasping, onto the roof. The black sky was overfull of stars all shouldering each other for space. Growing in number they moved closer, ever closer, until following mother’s lead, we stumbled our way across from the roof onto one star and then on to another and another, crossing them like stepping stones in a river, up and up and there … Could it be? Oh, you of such doubt, such cynicism, now eat your words, for there, before us, swaying in the warm breeze of the night sky: a golden rope ladder leading up to the heavens above us.
“And now,” said mother, putting aside the book and climbing into the bed beside us, “it is time for us all to get some sleep.”
There we huddled, the four of us, mother, and children, holding on to each other tightly, for fear that we would slip through each other´s fingers, breathing sighs of relief, for the nightmare that had threatened to extinguish us all was over.
 
In mother´s story the storm has passed and the beasts have been evaded, but in the morning-story, in my story, woven into her own like a double helix, father will still not be here.
I can feel the sobs of mother vibrating through the bed, crying herself to sleep.
Later, at three in the morning, in melancholy honour of that fatal phone call, she will awake with a cry that will be forever trapped in her heart. She will begin pacing around the house as if searching for something lost.
With the covers over my head, I try to sleep but the acid dampness of tears keeps me awake.
Then I hear a sound. A gentle tap, tap, tap upon the window.
It is the sound of the golden rope ladder reminding me that everything is possible.
I hold my father’s hand all through the night.
The effect will change the cause.
When I awake in the morning my father will not be here, he will never be here again, but from this day forth he will never let go of my hand.

My Family and other Circuses

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 12:00:00 Z

Monday

“Daddy, can we go to the circus?”

“Eat your cereal Lucy. Mrs Brown will be here shortly.”

“Can we though?”

“Yes, when you’ve finished your breakfast.”

If we were still at the breakfast table when Mrs Brown arrived there was a good chance that we would both be late for school.

Mrs Brown would begin the conversation, probably about Mr Brown and his lumbago or about her daughter Janet and her disastrous marriage to “the beast” Eric. When Mrs Brown started a conversation you were there for the duration. It was like tearing your skin away from superglue.

“Will they have people in sparkles flying in the air?”

I glanced up at the time on the TV. 7:58.

“What? Where?”

“At the circus.”

“What circus?”

“Next door.”

From outside I could hear Mrs Brown chaining her bike to the fence.

“Okay, time to go.”

My hand reached out to pick up Lucy’s breakfast bowl. She was too fast. Her little hands gripped the bowl and the spoon so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“No!”

“Well come on, hurry up. Mrs Brown is here.”

“And people on wheels throwing balls?”

“I’ll throw you young lady if you don’t hurry up and eat that last spoonful.”

“Okay, fibished,” she said, through a mouthful of oats and dried fruit.

In a trice I grabbed her bowl and put it on the draining board by the sink. The back door flew open.

Mrs Brown entered like a whirlwind, moving around the kitchen, collecting plates and cutlery with one hand, running the water into the sink with the other and squeezing out the Fairy liquid with …? How does she do that?

“Oh, that main road gets worse. Frightens me to death. Nearly came a cropper. Twice. Twice nearly shook hands with me maker, “How do you do” but no not yet, thankfully.

“Morning Mrs Brown, we are just …”

“Needs a bicycle lane. I’ve been on to the council any number of times but all they do is talk. I’ll be in me box and six feet beneath before they do something.”

“Morning Mrs Brown,” said Lucy.

“Going so fast on a road like that, there ought to be a law.”

“I think you’ll find that there probably …”

“Do you need them washed today?”

“Sorry?” I grabbed our coats from the rack and folded Lucy’s arms into the sleeves.

“Or can you waits another day perhaps? I only ask ’cause I have to take Mr B to the docs this after. Up all night with his trouble he was, took so many pills I swear you could hear him rattle as he comes downstairs. Poor thing, nothing touches these days, takes them like Smarties, enough to kill a racehorse but don’t even touch the sides. So, if you are okay for smalls and things then …”

“No that’s fine, we can manage.”

Lucy put her gloves on the wrong hands and then swapped them over. “Guess what Mrs Brown, the circus has moved in next door.”

“Circus, eh?” Mrs Brown was at the sink cloaked in a cloud of bubbles. “Don’t see so many these days I reckon. Back in the day we had elephants and tigers and mangy lions and skinny seals balancing spinning balls on their noses. Stopped all that malarkey now and rightly so I think. God didn’t take all that trouble to put them on this earth just for us to watch and laugh at whilst we eat ice cream. I don’t think. Mind don’t know what they do in circuses these days without the animals.”

“They have clowns,” said Lucy.

“Oh, clowns, not a lover I must say, used to make me tremble, back in the day, afraid I was, long before Stephen King added his tuppence worth.”

“Okay, Lucy, chop, chop, time to go.”

“I like clowns,” said Lucy, “They give you nice sweets.”

“Fairy,” said Mrs Brown.

“Lucy, where’s your bag?”

“Can you add it to the list?”

“Yes, of course, what? Lucy, bag!”

“Fairy,” said Mrs Brown again.

“Fairy?”

“For the dishes.” Mrs Brown held up the bottle.

“Right, yes, got it.”

“Lucy, I won’t tell you again.”

As we climbed into the car I thought I saw the front window curtains move in the house next door. Maybe it was Sam back to take one last look or collect a few things, but I couldn’t see it somehow. He was so distressed when Alice passed. “Got to quit,” he said, “too many ghosts.”

I hadn’t seen any other evidence but I hoped somebody had bought the place. The gardens, front and back, were starting to look like wildernesses, overrun with dandelions and rhododendron. And the lawn, you could hide a lion.

Tuesday

“Do German shepherd dogs speak German?”

“Lucy where’s your sports joggers?”

“Or just dog?”

“And your skorts?”

“Or German dog?”

“Lucy!”

“Eh?”

“Your joggers and your skorts, where are they?”

“In the basket.”

I had forgotten about the washing.

“Okay, well go upstairs and get your second pair of both. I think they’re in your room, bottom drawer.”

“The red ones?”

“Yes, the red ones.”

“But I’m in the blue team. I can’t wear red ones.”

“Well today you’ll have to be in the red team. The blue are in the wash.”

“Won’t.”

“Lucy!”

Lucy stood up, letting her chair scrape noisily on the wooden kitchen floor.

“There ought to be a law.”

I watched the silent TV screen. A news report of a riot somewhere in the world reminded me that I had class 11c for Geography that morning.

I put the sports bag in the boot of the car. Blue material poked out from the zip. The sports joggers, retrieved from the basket, probably covered in mud and smelling of sweat. I couldn’t let her go to school like that …

As we pulled out of the drive I thought I saw a puff of white smoke from behind next door’s shed.

Wednesday

“Sorry Mr C but I couldn’t find Lucy’s sports thingamajigs in the basket yesterday.”

“Ah, no, it’s okay, she wore them again. They weren’t so dirty.”

“Really? There’s normally mud and all …”

“No, they were fine.”

“Well, just as long as you know they isn’t washed.”

“No, of course.”

I made a mental note and immediately forgot it.

“Mrs Brown, did you know that the Queen drinks beer from the bottle?”

“Really? No surely not Lucy, she would use a nice cut glass tankard or perhaps a silver goblet.”

“No from the bottle, I see it. And she smokes cigarettes that you make yourself and she spits.”

“Well, she has got a lot to put up with these days. Enough to make anybody spit I reckon.”

“Lucy, time to go:”

As we turned into the road I thought I heard next door’s toilet flush, but it may have been Mrs Brown emptying the sink.

Thursday

“Do gorillas have to take a driving test?”

“Well, no. Gorillas don’t normally drive.”

“But if they do, do they have to take a test?”

On the TV screen they were showing highlights of a boxing match, reminding me that at 12 o’clock I had a meeting with the Deputy Head.

Friday

The TV was showing a news item. A robbery at the local bank. A gang of masked thieves.

“Look daddy, the circus family.”

“Come on Lucy eat your breakfast, we’re late.”

“They’re famous.”

“Everybody’s famous for five seconds these days.”

“Even me?”

“Yes, even you my lady, one day, I am sure. Now grab your hockey stick and get in the car. Maybe you can be famous for being on time for school for once.”

As I turned to switch off the TV I saw the CC photograph of the gang: the Queen, a clown, a gorilla and a German shepherd dog. They seemed vaguely familiar. Oh yes, it reminded me that I had 11c for drama that morning.

As we drove out I saw an empty beer bottle on next door’s porch. Maybe we had squatters. Oh well, that wasn’t so bad. Perhaps they would cut the lawn.

Scattering David

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 12:00:00 Z

Angela took another drink of wine and wiped away an imaginary tear. “Maybe he wasn’t such a bad man.”

Her sister shook her head. “He was a bastard.”

Angela looked down at the plastic bag at her feet to check the urn was still upright and that David wasn’t spilling out all over the train.

“He always did the washing-up.”

Her sister held up her arms in mock praise “Well, halle-bloody-lujah. A saint.”

Dropping her arms she topped up Angela’s plastic cup with cheap sweet wine. “He was a rat-faced scumbag of a man who only ever cared for himself. He had affairs behind your back and later, to add insult to injury, in front of your face. He was a bully who picked on anybody weaker than himself. In short, he was an abusive, homophobic, bigoted, sexist, racist bastard.”

“Well … nobody’s perfect.”

The two held each other as they laughed. Tears running down their faces.

Somebody looking from afar, seeing the urn at their feet, could easily be confused into thinking that they were overcome with grief.

Angela looked out of the train window and watched the cows lazily browsing the grass. The same herd David and her had passed just a fortnight ago.

It had been the height of summer, everywhere was busy.

David hated crowded beaches, so they had spent an hour traipsing up and down the coast, looking for a quiet spot.

Eventually they found a cove, deserted, only because its beach was covered in sharp shingle instead of soft sand.

Angela set a towel upon the shore, plugged into Spotify, turned on her Kindle and bathed in the sun.

It had been just by accident that ten minutes later she had looked up to see her husband’s head bobbing in a sea of blue and white foam, his hand waving frantically at her.

Her response had been to remove her glasses, turn up the music, lie back, and let the sun warm her face.

By the time the next track had begun David was fish food.

Once off the train the sisters found the most crowded beach, close to the rattle of the amusement arcade, where the smell of fried food dripped over everything, so full of grease that the bathers had little need of sun oil.

Everything David would hate, for eternity.

Without ceremony they tipped the ashes out of the urn. An offshore breeze briefly played with David’s remains before dropping him onto the sand.

Angela knelt on the wet sand, caressed the sea as if stroking a loved pet and kissed the waves. The sea washed away a little of the make-up from her face revealing the yellow swelling beneath her eye. Changed now from the purple and the green, soon even this would fade and then there would be no reason to hide any more.

On the way home Angela slept peacefully on her sister’s shoulder and dreamt of soaring over the sea on the back of an eagle to a distant shore.

She could still taste the salt on her lips.

It tasted good.

The Day Elisa Went Missing

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 12:00:00 Z

Back then, before the unfolding, it was just another grey Tuesday. A school day of endless lessons held in classrooms smelling of damp clothes, sour milk and pubescent expectation.

Tuesday: registration, followed by maths: dull; breaktime, followed by Spanish: muy aburrido.

Boredom hung in the air like a shroud. Time was full of heavy seconds. It had given up all hope. I had to do something, or it would never have moved on.

In front of me, Elisa’s chair, empty, like a skeleton. On the back of the chair, a new piece of graffiti: a badly drawn heart pierced by a badly drawn arrow with AI L ED scratched beneath it.

I looked around the classroom. Mr Grey had left to get the register. Everybody else was busy. Nobody paid me any attention. Ever. Nobody saw me rise from my chair and stand behind Elisa’s chair. Nobody paid any attention as I took the drawing compass from my pencil case and scratched and extended the top line of the I until it became a T.

This simple act of vandalism would be of little consequence until the naked body of my beautiful Elisa was found, two days later, lifeless, beneath a pile of coal sacks, in Andrew Thorne’s outhouse.

By the side of the inkwell on Elisa’s desk I noticed a long blonde hair. I allowed myself a single tear.

I replaced the drawing compass back into my pencil case just as Mr Grey returned. He looked at me with tired red eyes and sighed, “Annie Isles, go back to your seat.”

On the way to school I had run my hand along the rose bushes by the park railings, loving the feel of the dew on the petals and the prick of the thorns. The pain brought me back to reality and the bubble of dark red blood on my finger proved that I was still alive.

Everything can be broken so easily. You drop a glass and in an instant all is changed. All the pieces are still there but it no longer holds water. What has it become? You drop a hammer. What has become of dear Elisa?

Oh Elisa, do you know that I have rescued you from a certain life of hell with your boring baby face boyfriend. Saved you from those perfect blonde babies you would have produced. Nobody needs them. It is too mundane to even contemplate. You always deserved better. I gave you both another way. I gave him notoriety and you, my dear Elisa, to you, like poor martyred Valentine, I have bestowed a day.

I looked at my hands and noticed another blonde hair attached to one of my fingernails. I rubbed the nail against my skirt to dislodge it. I licked my finger. It tasted of blood and soot.