Category: Writing

The sound of Lorcan’s thumbs rattling the controller kept her there. She was just watching him in his own world. In the time before Lorcan took his PlayStation upstairs, she had asked him about the game. You collected runes to level up, but if you died all those runes were lost. There was another game in which these runes were not runes but souls. It was the same idea. ‘I am Malenia, Blade of Miquelle.’ Lorcan waited, then it all started up again. She understood the appeal.   

Siobhan saw Elsie floating on the beck. It was quite an achievement; the beck was so shallow. She was face down in the water. Siobhan knew that red puffer jacket. It was too tight around the arms now, the jacket. Siobhan had suggested it was time to buy a new one, but Elsie wasn’t interested. She liked her old puffer. Bradford was the Promised Land, with all its shops. They could get a proper brand, something cool. But Elsie wouldn’t budge. Siobhan stood by the nettles. The beck was busy in the summer, but not now. Sometimes kids would slip trying to reach the middle. She could walk to the bridge and call for Elsie, and maybe her body would bob the right way up. What would that achieve? On her way back, she passed the husky lady. She never had control of them. She had this pained expression. Siobhan wondered how the husky lady had managed to land herself with her five huskies. It was almost like they’d arrived by accident, like they were an unexpected hassle.  

Lorcan was in the kitchen eating toast. Siobhan took her pint of water upstairs. She drank her water and lay in bed. Helen would be here later. The mother of Lorcan’s child; imagine that. Christmas. That word felt too heavy. Her parents as well. David’s mother was arriving in less than an hour to lend a hand. Siobhan should have cancelled the day altogether, but you can’t really cancel Christmas, it wouldn’t actually be feasible for Siobhan to do. But we’re not up to it this year. How could we possibly be up to it? There was a wet ring on her bedside table. She could wipe it away with the sleeve of her jumper. She could use a coaster in future. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of fucking coasters in the house. 

David had decorated the tree three weeks ago.

The bauble with Elsie’s name across it. She had misjudged the first ‘E’. It’s like icing a cake, okay, just a small amount of pressure. The feel of her hands caked in glue and glitter.

David came into the living room. He kissed her, then went to the tree.

Open this one now, he said. You have others, don’t worry.

Siobhan told him she wasn’t worried. She loosened the purple ribbon, opened the box.

It’s lovely, thank you.

He turned her around. She felt her hair being moved out of the way. The necklace stopped at her clavicle.

David said he’d make bacon butties. She heard the radiator clank.

They would call it something very English, like Lily. She could hear David now, singing to the baby. 

We’ll drink the drink the drink, to Lily the pink the pink the pink, the leader of the human ray-hey-ace. 

He would bounce that baby up and down, and the baby would be none the wiser. She couldn’t stand the idea of Lorcan, now a father, toasting his sister, in a couple of Christmases. 

When Lily was older, around four, people would say she was mature for her age. She was a credit to her mummy and daddy. And Helen would still be so young.

One Christmas, Siobhan would be helping in the kitchen. Helen would leave to check on something else, and Lily would find her granny to ask if there was anything she could do.

Yes, leanbh, you could hold this for me.

Lily would always do what her granny said, because her granny’s voice was different to all the other adults. It made her feel nice.   

Siobhan handed over the pan of boiling water. Lily struggled. It was so heavy for her, but she was determined. She lost her balance with it, and the water splashed out onto her white hands. Lily dropped the water all over herself, then dropped herself onto the laminate floor, squirming around like a fishy on a little dishy. 

They would live with Helen’s parents first, but eventually they would need to find their own place. This was the crux of the conversation. It was Christmas now; the day was happening. Siobhan had sat herself next to David’s mother. They formed a sort of bloc.

Helen’s parents were looking at new builds, and Helen had been looking at flats on Right Move. 

You want a house, Helen’s father explained.

The two of you could move into a flat, and Helen and Lorcan could have next door. That would be an idea. This was Siobhan’s first contribution for a while. It was supposed to be a lighthearted interjection.

For the first time in a long time, Siobhan felt drunk.

Do you talk about names, you two? She was looking at Helen. 

Helen was wearing a red Alice band, which made her look younger than she was. She had finished college and started an office apprenticeship in an office opposite the old wool exchange. 

It’s hard without knowing the gender, Helen said.  

This struck Siobhan as a very sensible answer to her question.

I always knew I wanted Lorcan. The name, I mean. I had a boyfriend called Lorcan at school, in Dublin, and I think I only went out with him because I liked his name. He took me to the Foggy Dew. Not a euphemism, a pub. And I was only sixteen, but he said I looked old enough to get served, and I must have, because we stayed there for hours. And he made me drink Guinness, even though I didn’t want it. He said I had to. But it was nice.

You picked Elsie, Siobhan said, pointing her fork at David, and it took me a while to warm to it. Scottish name. I don’t know if you knew that, David. 

It was a good idea, by the way, the baby. The pregnancy. It’s taken the heat off your sister. All the horrible things that have happened to her, Lorcan, can you imagine? 

She pointed her fork around the table. Like a little ray of light after a long spell of darkness, she said. That was the idea, wasn’t it? Or did the condom split.

It wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, being put to bed. She reached across to David’s bedside table and found a blister pack of something. 

She saw a story in the news a while ago about the head of a girls’ school shot dead by her husband. They showed a photo. They were all smiling. Of course you never would have guessed from that photo what he would go on to do, what was bubbling away. 

Elsie had a habit of not smiling in school photos. There was a nice one of her playing Zelda on her Switch, but Siobhan didn’t want to send them a picture of Elsie’s bed. In the end, she chose a photo of her in the garden. It was green and light and she had smiled in that one. 

Both girls eventually admitted that the photos were faked. The fairies were cardboard, or something. But one cousin was adamant that the last photo, the fifth, was real. She couldn’t let it go, not fully, the grooves were too deep. Was it Elsie or Frances? For the life of her. 

She bit her cheeks. There was noise below her. David’s sister was supposed to be showing her face. She might be downstairs right now. Siobhan took her pint glass to the bathroom and filled it with tap water. She drank by the toilet, avoiding the mirror above the cistern. She decided to get out of the house.

Are you okay? she called. He didn’t say anything back, but he showed his face. She hadn’t been able to know for sure until that moment. He’d fallen in the beck. The sound of his knee hitting the rock was enormous. It was the only sound. This man. She also saw the backpack, which was obviously more battered than the last time she’d seen it, but it definitely was the backpack. He’d discarded the puffer, kept the backpack. It was over one shoulder and it looked ridiculous on him. 

There you go, you’re up. He immediately tripped, and Siobhan had to catch him, then support him. Have you been in the wars, mister? It was something she used to say to Lorcan. A graze on his knee: he’s been in the wars. A bash in the eye from football: he’s been in the wars. And this man had been in the wars. His hands were covered in cuts. 

From what she could hear, they were playing a game in the living room. David’s sister had arrived. She had a very distinctive laugh, how you’d imagine a crow might laugh. 

The man was leaning all his weight on Siobhan. Occasionally he would grunt, and Siobhan would pause. You okay there, sweet? 

When they were leaving the woods for the field, she asked if he knew what day it was. 

It’s Christmas. What made you want to take a walk in the water on Christmas, get your feet all wet? 

It was true, the man was not wearing any shoes. We’re coming up to mine now, you’ll be able to rest. It took all her strength not to laugh.

One of the things they had looked for was a garden, and they certainly got that. They bought a trampoline from B&M. Elsie was scared she’d break a bone. Lorcan was never interested. 

That was the only problem with them, Siobhan thought. They never really played together. They barely even argued. If Siobhan was honest with herself, she was pleased when the trampoline went to the tip. 

But the shed remained. It was now mostly a deposit for junk, which was a shame, wasn’t it?

Can you sit there, leanbh, in the corner? He did as he was told. We used to have a chair in here, a little garden chair, but no one used it, so we gave it away. Where do you live? I’m imagining a lookout in the woods.

She wanted to sound like her mother, but she couldn’t get there.

If I went with her, you wouldn’t have taken her. I think it’s important for you to know that. My dad said, he used to say, if someone looks like a wrongun, they probably are. And you do, you know. There was a rake leaning against the window. I’ll be back in a second, you make yourself at home. 

At the Foggy Dew, Lorcan told her about the man he’d seen drowning in the river. It was a story she found difficult to believe. 

Later, when they were crossing the bridge, she looked down into the water. 

They got the bus to Lorcan’s house; his dad worked lates and his mother lived in Carrick with Lorcan’s aunt. 

Siobhan returned to the shed with a steak knife. She rested his head on the backpack and made the incision below his eye. 

The backpack was George from Asda. When David had seen it, he’d argued with her. It had been an actual argument, which Siobhan couldn’t believe. The argument was sexist, and he must have realised this. Elsie had picked out a Spider-Man backpack. 

It’s not appropriate.

Not appropriate?

For school, it’s not appropriate for school.

Lorcan had a Harry Potter one. Because she’s a girl, you don’t want her liking Spider-Man. That’s backwards.

It’s not for school. 

She remembered going upstairs to bed, and that night David slept on the settee in the living room. 

Elsie carried on with that backpack until the end of Year 8, at which point Siobhan told her that it wasn’t right for Year 9.

Why?

It’s a kids’ one, El’, it’s not for Year 9.

What if I want to keep it? 

You can keep it but not take it to school. And after that, Elsie made a point of wearing it everywhere. If they went on holiday, it was there with her. 

They’d gone to Anglesey one August bank holiday. On the beach at Newborough, she’d worn it all day, until Siobhan had snapped and taken it off her. She walked to the car and threw it in the boot. She was sweating.

I have no real plan here, sweet, but you tell me if you need to stop at any point. She lay a choppy finger on his skinny lip. I’ll cut out your tongue soon if you don’t tell me what’s happened.  

Sam unlaces her boots. 

‘There is a girl in the shop now who looks exactly like Lauren Bacall.’ 

Sam kicks her shoes into a corner near the door. Her socks are odd. They’re soaked. 

‘You’re not interested?’ 

‘I don’t know who that is.’ 

‘Clarion’s in the shower. Are you staying?’ 

On FaceTime, weeks ago, Caroline had mentioned her new lodger. They come and go. They’re usually students.

There’s the sound of water dripping from Sam onto the tiled floor. She has already been told off for not properly forewarning Caroline vis-à-vis her arrival.   

‘He’s mostly in your room.’ Caroline starts to smoke. ‘No, not meaning the rest of the time he’s with me. He likes to wander. You’re fine in the living room?’ 

‘Sure.’ 

‘You’re very quiet.’ 

‘Did you see the news?’ 

‘No.’

‘David’s been – he’s in hospital, intensive care. He was attacked by one of his constituents.’ 

Caroline holds the cigarette up to her mess of orange hair. 

‘Obviously, you’re not doing your job, dear. And don’t say intensive care.’ 

Clarion makes his first appearance as Sam is bedding in for the night.

She has drawn the curtains, arranged the cushions so she has somewhere to rest her head. She has removed her bra. She has thrown on the white Nirvana t-shirt with the Sriracha stain.

‘Caroline told me what you do. Today must have been difficult.’ 

‘Yes. Clarion, like the bird?’

She shared a bottle of red with Caroline earlier. 

‘I’m writing my thesis in this house. It’s perfect. Surrounded by fields. You know, Caroline doesn’t bother locking the doors.’ 

‘Yes. Thesis?’ 

‘Current chapter is the pros and cons of exlingulation.’  

He is leaning against the door jamb like a child. 

‘Removing the tongue,’ he says. ‘Might have been useful for your boss. Breaking news. He’s not made it.’

Sam drops onto the sofa.  

‘There’s the TV in my room,’ Clarion says. Sam knows the TV. It’s hers. It’s Hello Kitty. ‘Your lot are going mad on the old tinternet. They haven’t gone as far as singing “The Internationale”. I’m sure lots of them wouldn’t even know it.’   

In town the next morning, Sam gets her mobile data back. She hadn’t connected to her mother’s wi-fi yesterday.

There are a slew of texts from people she actually knows, some she would call friends, but they represent such a small percentage of her notifications.

Sam logs into David’s socials. She has a coffee. She sits herself next to a window and every now and then looks out at the church. Slowly, she reads through what everyone is saying. She very much doubts she can bill David for this hour’s work. Now, instead of death threats, Sam is sent party popper emojis.

Later, on the way to the train station, she stops at Co-op. There’s the girl at the till. She’s young. She would have voted for David, if properly persuaded.

‘You have a look of Lauren Bacall.’ 

The girl – the name badge says Riley – stares at Sam. She doesn’t know how to respond.

‘Just this, please.’ She puts the bottle of water and Twix down on the counter. ‘Thanks.’

Liam added ‘Antonio Vivaldi Essentials’ to the family Spotify. Finn bought a book from Amazon on Mussolini. Bridget sorted the travel and health insurance, sunblock, luggage and early check-in at the airport, and on the Wednesday she asked next door if they would catsit. She packed. 

Finn had turned a quiet sort of feral. It took Bridget until the week of the holiday to notice. She marched him to the shower. She dragged a black comb through his hair. She hadn’t held his head like that for a long time. When she saw how she’d combed it, she saw how ridiculous it looked. Her Aryan boy. She left him to his own devices. Her little outburst over. Before Rome, she wanted to make headway with planning. Her PPA time was always interrupted. She settled in the living room. Next door were busy building an extension. The hammering and the drilling and the music. The endless bass sound thrumming against the walls. 

At the airport, they went to Burger King. Finn got the book out from his rucksack. He started to read, ignoring his burger. Bridget waited for Finn to notice his dad glaring at him.

‘You’re not reading that on the plane.’ 

‘Why?’ 

Liam waited. ‘It would be like reading a book about Hitler in Germany.’ 

‘That’s such a reductive thing to say,’ Finn said, and Bridget laughed, she couldn’t stop herself. 

Liam got out his wallet. He put a fiver on the table, between him and Finn.  

‘Go to the Smiths and get another book.’ 

‘For a fiver?’ 

Liam replaced the fiver with a tenner. Maybe he thought he was winning this. Finn took the money and left their table. He returned ten minutes later with a big bag of Haribo, and no new book. Liam removed himself from the situation. As Finn read, Bridget asked if she could open the sweets. ‘Knock yourself out.’   

On the plane, they were sat separately. Liam was in front and across. After take-off, Bridget saw that he was twitching, trying to see what Finn was up to. But he’d be up to nothing. When they landed, she wished the flight had lasted longer. The heat was immediately oppressive. 

Bridget found their passports and gave them to the receptionist. She watched as they made photocopies. She followed Liam to the lift. Finn wanted to take the stairs. ‘Third floor,’ Bridget said, as he vanished around a corner. Nothing was said in the lift. It wasn’t that there was an atmosphere, it was more a lack of atmosphere. Finn had his own room for the first time. His was next to theirs. Bridget handed Finn his keycard. They all went into Finn’s room first. Bridget inspected the bathroom, while Finn fell onto his bed, and Liam looked at the view. Liam dragged their case back into the corridor. ‘You want to see our room?’ Bridget asked. Finn said he was fine where he was. She went out and heard the door lock behind her. 

It had been bothering her all night. She went to the loo and shone her phone torch over her thigh. She pushed up her pyjama bottoms and saw that it was, in fact, a series of bites spreading from one red pulse. She googled the nearest chemist. There was a farmacia on the same street as the hotel. It opened in three hours. She returned to the bed, like a prisoner returning to their cell. There was her book on the bedside table, and there was a reading light. She scrolled. She saw that Aretha Franklin had died. She knew nothing about Aretha Franklin, but something about the photo and the two dates in white underneath, and the fact that the young woman in the photo had no clue how this photo would be used, made her cry. 

Her Italian was better than she remembered. It came back to her. The girl was wearing a retainer. She turned and presented the cream to Bridget. This would be the recommended one. This would be the one that she would use, if she was bitten. Bridget thanked her and paid.  

It was a short walk back to the hotel. She crossed the road to avoid a lady asking for money. 

In the lift, there was the smell of sunblock. Bridget touched the back of her neck. Was she burnt? She found their room on the third floor. Liam was on the bed masturbating, inhaling a pair of Bridget’s knickers. ‘No.’ She used her classroom voice. He stopped and the knickers dropped onto the bed. Bridget took her cream into the bathroom, dropped the empty box into the bin, and applied it to her sore left leg.    

What was their problem? Just in general. Why were they like that? 

As well as Mussolini, Finn had taken up Larkin. He had screenshotted his favourites, but he wanted to learn them by heart. You didn’t really know them if you were just constantly looking at them on a phone screen. He was peeling off bits of his croissant, while his mother stood in line for the coffee machine, and his father, looking crestfallen for some reason, dipped a spoon into a pot of yoghurt. Finn tried to remember the start of ‘This Be the Verse’. The Mussolini biography was on the table, the spine broken. Finn dipped his little finger into the red compote and smeared it over one of the pages.  

She was talking quickly to the girl behind the counter. Finn couldn’t understand the conversation. Mum put the tube on the counter and turned to leave. He couldn’t look the girl in the eye, even though she was obviously the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, prettier than all the girls at school, combined. She had a retainer, like him. 

The tour started at three. They got the bus from near the hotel to somewhere closer to the Vatican. For the first time in his life, Finn felt actual beads of sweat on his forehead, underneath his fringe. He was wearing all black, out of defiance. It didn’t help that the bus was rammed, more rammed than any bus he’d ever been on. He noticed Mum pulling up her shorts again, scratching her leg. It was embarrassing. People were noticing. ‘Mum. Stop it.’ She stared at him. He’d never seen her look at him like that. He felt something building in his throat. 

The place was underground. Mum stood under the ceiling fan. Finn and his dad took one of the sofas. It was such an odd place for a leather sofa, Finn thought. Finn avoided touching it with his bare skin. They’d been given purple stickers, so their tour guide could pick them out. The guide was late. Finn had stuck his sticker centrally on his chest, but now he thought he should have picked the left or right. He couldn’t change it now. The sticker would lose its stickiness. Dad had barely said a word all day. He wasn’t even looking at his phone, he was just sitting there. Finn stood. Mum had found a new cream. They’d been into a couple of chemists. He was close to her now, under the fan. Not whispering, speaking quite clearly, she said, ‘If you talk to me like that again, like you did on the bus, there will be consequences.’ She had stuck her sticker on her shoulder bag. Finn returned to his dad. He crossed his legs. The guide came down the steps, gathered them up. Finn decided that he’d stay up all night in his room to finish the Mussolini book. The text was so small it made his eyes hurt. The text was so small, it was like a joke at his expense. 

Finn was usually good at feigning boredom, but it was proving difficult in the Vatican. He was seeing things he never thought he’d see. It was like being on a film set, sort of. 

He didn’t know how to put it, and he prided himself on having quite a good internal monologue; he often spoke to himself in proper sentences, as if he was narrating his own life, which he was. 

They were coming to the Sistine Chapel. They were told not to speak, or to take any photographs, and it was important that they kept moving around the room, so they didn’t cause congestion. The guide said there was a special way out of the chapel for the people on her tour, and this exit would lead them right to the square. Finn went ahead of his parents. He followed the throng. He came to the middle and looked up. God in his pink brain, reaching out to Adam. It all felt pretty important, and Finn thought he understood then why people believed in this, devoted their lives to it. There was a shout from somewhere, he couldn’t tell from what direction, and he looked around to see people moving their heads from up to down. The shout was followed by a crack. Finn got a glimpse of the woman on the floor. 

She had felt European. Bridget saw herself watching all the people on their bikes, and she remembered thinking that she would get a bike, and a beret, not that many people were wearing berets in Oxford in 1994. Not that her memory was good nowadays. The bikes were black. Sitting in the wicker chair on the rooftop bar in Rome, acclimatised to the heat, she saw Oxford as was, or she thought she did. It was at this point, drinking a martini she didn’t really want, Bridget realised life was not short, that it was a long line. Three hours earlier, the woman’s head had hit the floor like a rock. She was drunk when she met Liam in Oxford. Maybe that was significant. She laughed. A text came through. The boys were going for a walk. Liam thought it was a good idea to have a chat about what had happened, in case Finn was upset. Perhaps she’d burn all their boxers, or she might do absolutely nothing at all. 

There is Tupelo.

Elvis celebrates – in his own way – turning seventy. He lies back in his barber chair, and buries his toes into the hot sand. The chair was taken from a barber shop on Beale Street, although he has no actual proof of that. He has to trust his man.

He shuts those tired eyes, beds his head into the leather. He feels beaten but rested. He had an argument with Sam before Sam flew away. He’ll be back in five days with more presents.

Elvis crosses the island. In the house, he settles into another chair, and then after not too long in that chair, he goes to his bed. He then visits Sam’s room. The sheets on the bed are so tight. Pulled to within an inch of their life.     

Kneeling by the bed, he presses his right cheek into the mattress. He presses down until his eye waters. He thinks about the toucan he saw yesterday. All the colours of the rainbow.

Mum learns about ECO stooped over her laptop at the dining table. It seems to give her a lift. She’s talking at me about it.

‘We have a date.’ 

She’s playing ambient music through her phone. 

‘They’re doing the pre-survey on Tuesday.’ 

‘Pre-survey?’ 

‘I’ve been emailing them. I’ll tell Corm later.’

I imagine Cormorant in his room, birding away, his hands caked in the strongest glue available from Amazon. He’s the reason we’re eligible for any of these ECO measures. I tell Mum I need to leave now or I’ll be late. 

‘Be safe, love.’ 

At work, I tell Karen about the pre-survey. Work knows about Dad and everything, so they give me some leeway. Karen’s going to update the rota.  

I ask Mum to text me the name of the company. Energy Bulb. Their logo is a smiley lightbulb with a green hue. Its eyebrows are so thin it creeps me out a bit. 

It’s nearly midnight when I get home. Mum’s asleep in front of her screen. I guide her upstairs and meet Cormorant on the landing. His eyes are bloodshot. 

‘Is she alright? I’m going out.’ 

‘She’s fine.’ I don’t ask where he’s going. He hugs my shoulders and then he’s off.

On Tuesday, a van parks outside the house. I spot the cartoon bulb. I go out with Mum to greet the man as he walks up our drive. He’s wearing a bodywarmer. He explains that Cormorant needs to sign all the documents, as he’s the one eligible under the scheme.

‘Go get your brother, love.’ She turns back to the man. 

I give Cormorant’s door a knock. Inside, his curtains are drawn. The smell is Cormorant concentrate. I see large clumps of dust in the air between the door and his single bed, and two model planes hanging from the ceiling. One is a Lancaster Bomber. It’s held up by the thinnest piece of white string. 

Cormorant’s head is under the covers. 

‘The man’s here. You need to come down.’ 

But another head pops up. A blonde head, like Cormorant’s. She looks up from the bed at me, confused. 

‘I’m Julia,’ I say. She doesn’t say anything back.

The man’s going through his plastic wallet filled with documents. There’s the header ‘Ofgem’ at the top of each page. The borders are faded orange. The ink in the office printer must be running low. I imagine an office in the middle of a quarry, although this doesn’t make much sense.

He gets a call but declines it, then says something I don’t catch. His phone has one of those stupidly bulky cases that would survive a nuclear strike. 

‘Corm awake?’ 

‘Yeah, he’s coming.’ 

‘Is it every room?’ 

‘Yeah. The whole house.’ 

He takes out laminated pieces of paper: ‘KITCHEN’ ‘BATHROOM’ ‘BEDROOM 1’. 

‘I need these to tell me where I am.’ This is possibly his attempt at a joke. 

‘Who sees the photos?’ 

‘I can blur anything, don’t worry.’ 

We follow him into the kitchen, where he takes several photos on his phone.  

He holds up the ‘KITCHEN’ sign, so it’s in the shot. 

We repeat the same process in the ‘LIVING ROOM’. 

‘That photo, could you blur that one out?’ Mum asks. 

It’s a photo of the four of us sitting on a wall, squinting, in Whitby. In the photo, I’m about six.     

When we’re about to go upstairs with the man, Cormorant appears on the landing. 

The girl is behind him. She’s got on his grey UCLan hoody. I imagine all the stains on the inside of that hoody, all the ones that don’t come out in the wash, and I cringe a bit for her. 

The man then carries on upstairs himself, as if taking control of the situation.

‘You carry on,’ Mum says after him, as Cormorant and the girl come down.

In the living room, Mum sits them on the sofa. Mum’s in her chair. I sort of linger.  

‘So, what’s your name, love?’ 

‘Mary.’ 

‘Mary, well. You don’t get many Marys your age, do you? Do you not think, Cormorant?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘You don’t have many people your age called Mary?’

‘I don’t know.’ 

‘Well, you don’t. I didn’t know you were staying over, Mary. But it’s nice to meet you.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ 

‘Oh, no.’ 

‘I didn’t mean to, like, upset you.’ 

‘You haven’t upset me. There are things to be upset about. Upsetting things. But you haven’t upset me. It was just impolite.’ 

Mary doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She’s pulling at the sleeves of Corm’s hoody.

‘You don’t get many Cormorants,’ she says.

Mum’s back in the room again. She points at the girl.

‘You don’t, no. I’m so used to it now, though.’ It’s like we’re not in the room. ‘It wasn’t my choice, though, make that clear.’

Dad would have said something now about the man upstairs, because we can all hear him wandering about in his big boots from BEDROOM 1 to BEDROOM 2. And wasn’t it awkward when he just went upstairs on his own?

Eventually, he’ll make it to BEDROOM 3, which in my head is Mum’s room.  

‘You didn’t ask him to take his shoes off,’ I say to Mum.

‘No, but he can keep them on.’

When he returns, Cormorant goes to the table and signs everything, while Mum puts the kettle on. She is absolutely elated to learn that Mary drinks tea. They’re talking about Mary. She lives with her parents. Her dad works at BAE.

‘And do you have insulation?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mary says.

Mum points at herself. She’s wearing a t-shirt with Madonna’s face, faded, on her chest.

‘I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. I’m wearing this just to feel the benefit.’

It was something to do. Enough red and blue to keep me awake. Watching GB News became my nine-to-five job. On Facebook, I shared AI generated images of roaring lions. I visited Emily in the spare room. If I sensed movement, I described the news to her. I told her what I’d called someone. I wasn’t sure if my insults were correct in context. It was always the first thing that came into my head. But there was something appealing about incorrectness. She never really acknowledged me. It was enough to say it, though. I didn’t have the bottle to change her bedding. 

I was approached in The Ship by a beanie and grey tracksuit bottoms. His breath smelt like Euthymol. 

Catherine Clayton’s father is drinking at the bar, he said. 

It took a second for the name to register. Over a certain period I’d heard it so often. He asked if he was right in thinking I was Elaine Proctor’s dad. 

When I looked back to my pint, carbolic put his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he was trying to comfort me. He left. 

There were reasons I wanted to avoid Catherine Clayton’s dad at The Ship. I remembered how he’d looked the last time I saw him; his face was exactly how I felt. I thought it was expected of me, the confrontation. People wanted that, didn’t they? 

I went to the bar and there he was.  

Can I get you a drink? 

I could not hit him even if I’d wanted to. Weeks of GB News had made me inert. I bought him another drink. A side of chunky chips went by us, towards the dining area. 

She was going to meet her friend Catherine in Lytham. I checked to see if she needed a lift. Fatherly duty. She refused. She would get the bus. I told her to be safe. They ended up in Blackpool. The bus terminated at Market Street. What was the timeline? At what point did she think, maybe in not so many words, I’m in trouble here. 

It’s a fucking. He repeated this after every sup of his pint. We were on the Shipyards. The thought had crossed my mind. What was I going to do with him?  

It was clear now that we weren’t going to talk, not properly. Your man who smelt like toothpaste was patently wrong if he thought this meeting at the bar would be in any way useful, or cathartic. If anything, it was carcinogenic. There was a cancerous aura around John Clayton. I felt infected by his presence. A fucking.

No. I know. When you visit Catherine, what do you say to her?  

I haven’t seen her.  

Does your wife see her?

He laughed. He drank.  

John caught the attention of the lad pulling pints. He mustn’t have been older than nineteen. I wondered if he went to the same college as Elaine. Surely, he knew what had happened. But it had been months, and how long is a month when you’re that age?  

You haven’t seen her at all?  

She’s gone to her sister’s. I had meant Catherine, but it didn’t matter.  

How about a night cap? In the same way he had wanted me to attack, I wanted him to reject this invitation. We left The Ship together. They were relieved to see us go.  

We weren’t worried until a few hours after her last text. I was sent out to Lytham in the car. I didn’t have the radio on, as a mark of respect for the potential seriousness of the situation. By that point, she was already dead.  

John walked home with me. It was raining. His long hair stuck to his face.   

I left him in the kitchen and went to check on Emily. I turned on the light. The bed was made.

I could hear someone on the bottom step. Elaine went through a sleepwalking stage when she was twelve or thirteen. We hadn’t expected it. We were prepared for angst, but sleepwalking was a bit of a curveball. But it wasn’t Elaine. John called up from downstairs. I looked down at him from the landing, watching him sway. He brushed the banister with his right shoulder. Elaine would always complain about washing up. Any other household task she would complete without much fuss. I thought about this as I journeyed downstairs.  I asked John Clayton to get one of the chairs from the dining room and place it by the sink. In the kitchen, I drew the yellow blinds. I sat him down. He was compliant, if a little dozy. I closed the kitchen door to.  

I pulled open the cutlery drawer and took out a dessert spoon. I wouldn’t fill the spoon, I wanted him to scrape the empty metal space with his teeth, thinking there was something more to eat. There was a Rustlers burger on a side plate which I handed to John. I found a bowl of hardened mac and cheese.  

Although his hair was long, he had a widow’s peak. From the back he looked younger than he was. The whole hairdo said something to me about the cruelty of Time.  

I moved him on to the gunge near the plughole, all the spute that wouldn’t wash away.

Once he was fed, John got up from the chair and he held me. It was difficult to know for sure, in retrospect, who started what. He wore a short-sleeved shirt. His arms were cool. He explored my back. The night was slow. Neither of us slept, but neither of us worried. Needless to say, after our episode at the sink, his ordeal as he would later playfully call it, his breath was foul. 

In the morning, I went to Flapjacks and bought us both a breakfast bap. We ate our baps in bed. We talked about a day trip. We’d get the train. Perhaps that would be the trip, just getting the train. The journey itself. There is something nice about that, he said. John went to brush his teeth. I had a new toothbrush, still in its packet. I told him where to find it. Later, I drove us to Preston in Emily’s Polo. We decided on the Windermere train.  

*

It was a conversation starter. How did you meet? Oh, well, it’s a funny story. I don’t know if you’d say funny, but anyway. It goes like this. His daughter, Catherine, killed my daughter, Elaine. She – Catherine – found a piece of driftwood – handy – underneath South Pier and cracked it on my daughter’s skull. Oh, really? Oh, yes.    

We were at Miranda’s on Friday. Her cousin was there. She was staying for a week and Miranda wanted us to meet her, being such great friends of hers.  

How did you meet? But as John started to tell the story to Miranda’s cousin – there was a routine now – he faltered. His voice broke in the way Emily’s used to. I left the room.  

I found myself wandering around the downstairs of Miranda’s house.  

In the five years since I’d started seeing John Clayton, we had kept moving. We’d found our own place, a little attic flat, and I’d sold the house.  

Even on the days when we were waiting – waiting for paperwork to be sent back, for emails – we were still moving in our heads, still imagining vividly what our new life together would be. We took holidays. I got a new job. We met Miranda for the first time at the arts centre. She was attracted to our story, but she also seemed to like us as people, and as a couple. I could talk to Miranda about the way I felt about Time.  

Time with a capital T.  

How do you mean?  

It’s a fucking disaster. I don’t know what it thinks it’s doing.  

I’m not sure it thinks, even.  

Where was John that night?  

If John was out and Miranda had popped into the flat, I would be in tears remembering Elaine.  

Do you know why we picked Elaine?  

No. Miranda was making me a cup of tea.  

After Emily’s grandma. That seems so stupid now.  

Stupid’s harsh, Miranda said, and I watched as she added two spoons of sugar to my tea, sugar I hadn’t asked for.  

When we were selling the house, I asked John if we should tell the estate agents that the house was haunted. Apparently, I had never mentioned this little theory. It was so obvious to me. I could barely look in that sink.    

I drove on half a bottle of wine. Instead of driving us home, I drove us to The Ship. John didn’t notice that we were nowhere near home. He said he wanted my body. It’s a fucking. The pub was closed. We left the car, and I guided John to the marsh, below. He stood, swayed, and my heart sank. Delayed gratification was the phrase. I found a stick, not exactly driftwood, picked it out in the moonlight, and held it high for him to see, before I brought it down. 

Thank you for reading this slightly longer story. I hope you liked it. You can support these monthly stories by sending a couple of quid to my Buy Me a Coffee, but absolutely fine if not. Happy New Year to you all, have a chilled one.

He saw gold flakes swishing around inside the Grey Goose. Alicia poured what looked like a lot into his cup. She opened a new litre bottle of Coke. It fizzed. He drank, tried not to wince.  

He was early to the party. Mum had dropped him off on her way to collect Chloe from Brownies. 

‘So, that’s it then. Show’s over.’ 

‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

He felt patronised. They had spent a lot of time together, but always as part of a group, rehearsing.  

‘I like your charm.’ On her bracelet, Alicia had a ruby slippers charm. 

‘It’s cheap.’ She touched her wrist. ‘My parents gave it to me when I got the part.’ 

They went through to the living room, sat on the settee with their vodka and cola. 

When Sam arrived, it was a relief. Alicia took Sam into the kitchen. He heard them laughing, then Alicia put some music on. He felt more than a little self-conscious on the settee, like his drink would magically spill without him even moving. He noticed he’d chewed the edges of the cup, like a child. All he wanted now was to get rid of it. 

In the kitchen, the girls were pouring jet black liquid into shot glasses. 

‘Tin Man, have a shot.’  

‘Actually, could I have one of the beers?’

Mum had warned him off shots.  

‘He’s so polite, isn’t he?’ 

‘Such a charmer.’ 

After seven, there was a steady flow of people into the house. He was pleased to see Stephen, the Scarecrow. But he had a different aura outside school. It was obvious that Stephen was operating on a different level. He had brought his girlfriend, who went to Newman College. 

He wondered if the friendships he had made during rehearsals were friendships of convenience. He hovered between kitchen and hallway, trying not to get in anyone’s way. 

Mum had agreed to pick him up at ten. 

Sam called everyone into the kitchen for a drinking game. She made a point of standing next to him. When the game was over – and it went on forever – one of the Flying Monkeys asked if he was going into Preston later. 

‘Everyone’s going Warehouse.’ 

‘Sounds great.’ 

The Flying Monkey punched his shoulder. 

He didn’t see Miss Green come into the house, but he heard raised voices in the living room and went with everyone else to see what was going on. 

She was wearing baggy bottoms. He could see that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was looking at the carpet. 

‘Can we have the room?’ Alicia asked. 

Sam closed the door to the living room. He stood in the kitchen with everyone else.

People saw Miss Green leave through the front door. Alicia asked Sam to set up another row of shots. 

Two taxis arrived outside Alicia’s house. He followed the Scarecrow, Stephen. Alicia had changed into the gingham dress, the same one she’d worn for the show. Sam and Alicia had glitter on their cheeks and below their eyes, like the gold flakes in the vodka bottle. He was barely registering the conversation in the taxi. He stared out into the blackness. 

‘Wasn’t your mum picking you up?’ Sam asked. 

‘Don’t be a dick,’ Alicia said. 

‘We’re off to see the Wizard,’ he said, and Alicia laughed. 

‘You know Miss Green fingered her in the drama studio.’ Sam was pointing at her friend. ‘So, don’t be, like, cute.’ 

The taxi was at the corner, near Kirkham Prison, when the driver swerved. They turned over into the field, landing on their backs, like beetles.    

The feeling of his jaw hanging to the right. His cheeks came in from the cold. The rest of his body had the heating on. Dad stood by the thermostat. Chloe in her pink dressing gown. He turned over to be sick onto the grass. There were cows. It wasn’t clear whether the cows could see him, or had any idea what was happening. He sausage rolled over to Alicia. Tumble Tots over here. He squeezed her arm and thought he saw the skin turn white. The Mede was over there. He heard Miss Green telling him to stiffen. You haven’t been oiled – you’re a metal man! He put Dorothy over his shoulder. It was easy, like carrying Chloe. At the edge of the Mede, people were out. Before he reached them, he saw rows and rows of poppies. Feeling drowsy, he dropped onto the floor. 

He was in hospital for two nights. The nurse asked if he wanted to be pushed in a wheelchair on his way out, and he would have said yes if his mum hadn’t answered for him. When they were back home, he thought Chloe might have made him a banner, or something, as a welcome home from the hospital, but the house looked like it always looked. He hobbled up to his room, and Mum came up to tell him that they would talk about it later.

On the morning of the dinner party, June told Claire to stand by Greyfriars Bobby. They were playing tourists. June posted the photo to her story. Claire posted it to her story. Taking him home with me. They walked to the castle and joined the queue for tickets. Claire checked her notifications whenever they stopped. There was no way of knowing how many people had liked June’s story.

June told them where to sit. Claire was next to June’s downstairs neighbours. 

‘What is it you do?’ she tried. 

‘I work at Abracadabra,’ he said. ‘The studio on Canongate.’

June appeared. ‘Babe, a bit of help?’ 

Claire got up from the table and went to help June in the kitchen. She was getting the prawn cocktails ready. It was all a bit 80s. It was difficult to watch her trying so hard. 

The table hummed appreciatively. June nodded. She’d put a record on. She had bought the turntable last payday, as a treat for herself. It was mid-priced.  

As well as the neighbours, June had invited a colleague from the hospital. 

Claire listened as neighbour James talked about an exhibition he had visited recently in Glasgow. He was also trying to remember the name of a piece he’d read about online. It wasn’t part of the exhibition he’d been to, but Claire gathered that his monologue had evolved into being about things he liked. She knew his type. 

‘Break Down,’ colleague Siobhan said. ‘That’s its title. He shredded everything he owned.’ 

‘He didn’t drive, then?’ James said. 

‘He did, actually. But I don’t remember what they did with the car. Destroyed, then, not shredded. Whatever.’ 

It was fruit salad. Claire had been dreading it. When she saw the way June had cut the apple into segments, she pushed her bowl away. She swallowed down bitty reflux. She saw yellow when she briefly shut her eyes.

She was in the bedroom, getting some air. Colleague Siobhan came into the room. 

‘I love June, but a cook she ain’t.’

‘I helped her, so it’s my fault too.’

‘You met at uni?’ Siobhan asked. 

‘Yes. You’re at the hospital, aren’t you?’ 

‘Fancy a walk? We could say we were going to the shops?’

Siobhan either meant she was being quiet now, in the moment, or that she was quiet in general. Claire was quiet with a capital Q. ‘There are worse things I could do,’ she said. 

They had been to the Jolly Judge for two, and now they were at Siobhan’s place. 

‘She talks about Liverpool a lot. And you.’

‘She does?’ Claire said. ‘It feels like a long time ago.’ 

‘First time I met June, she was stealing a Twix from the vending machine.’ Siobhan opened her mouth to yawn.   There was a day during their first year in Liverpool, at the TATE on the Albert Dock. They were in the gift shop. June took a postcard without paying. It was a reproduction of Velázquez’s Las Meninas. June had pinned it to the corkboard in her room.

Siobhan asked if Claire wanted a coffee. She let Claire crank. She’d never had to crank for coffee. She went on until there was no resistance from the beans, or whatever. She remembered a school trip to Lancaster Prison. 

‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’ 

She handed Claire a small knife. She didn’t have any apples; a banana would do. She put it down, peeled, on the breadboard.

‘Wait,’ Claire said. 

She took a photo of the banana and posted it to her story. When life gives you apples. She felt much better about herself, she really did. 

She saw her mother peeling open her mouth to insert another bite of kiwi, as her eyes steamed, telling her she mustn’t talk to that girl again, in case she led her astray.

I finished writing the following three long poems in 2018. It was one of the pieces I wrote during my final year as a Creative Writing student. I sort of abandoned it as soon as I graduated, and since then I haven’t written any poems, really. But I wanted to put it somewhere, in case anyone wanted to read it, but also so I could (shouldn’t use ‘sort of’ again, but ‘sort of’) get it off my chest.

I wasn’t able to replicate the layout here, but all the words are the same. And seeing it as three huge blocks is in an odd way appealing to me. I can’t imagine writing something like this now – and I wouldn’t. But here it is. Warts and all. Thank you to Mike Fox for reading this recently and giving me the confidence to look at it properly again.

1: Devotion

the rag rosina stuck to smelled like milk 

I held her by my wrists 

keeping her in that crook 

before mum was ready to release a bagful from her breast 

I washed the rag in rainwater 

air spiked with dew 

blanketing her sculpted stomach 

skin curdled as she slept 

the clench of my teeth broke trees at the trunk 

I put my hands to my face 

to see the lines of my body 

shallow funnels for sagging clouds 

I walked from my family 

thick headed 

blood shot my eyes 

untwined the cord that kept me at the foot of the hill 

copper wings over church 

teethed breeze with movement 

the breadth of flight 

against the starling sun 

rosina screamed 

over the heads of men 

that came to seal me 

in the taste of clay 

I recite my hours 

rather too soon than too late 

matins by night in winter 

prime in winter early 

spent hours in his company 

I was taught to curl my tongue 

paster noster 

time not wasted

I have control 

he gifts it to me 

seals words in my throat 

with bent wick and candlewax

pater noster ave maria 

arms around each hour 

my faith taut strong 

tightening my sockets 

before matins after prime 

after compline

my hiding place and my shield 

I am yours save me 

I have sought your precepts 

after lights out silence 

let no one of a high life think she will not be tempted 

spent winters learning hours 

now I pack them 

against the pinnacle wind 

my pelican beak 

simply built 

to tip rocks into a pool 

is a more difficult skill 

the bird is passionate 

these leaps of imagination 

threatened by creaks 

my bones more brittle each season 

ingrain time through squint 

from the flooded fields 

this year I have seen it from my cell 

rood lifted in limitless space 

spare me that I may recover strength 

that rigidly determined self 

stay buried below 

be no more a while 

a bird would keep me company 

scratching hairs on my arms 

every now and then perched on the rood 

space above my head could be hers 

I would snap my fingers above it 

clap my hands together 

fresh stone set to shaking 

she would fly through some secret hole 

precious release 

silence take me 

swallow me 

holy curled gullet to my scalp 

suckle me 

slip into precious memory 

the rag rosina stuck to 

the press of adney’s hand 

send me to the night

of her birth 

heavy headed breath 

expelled at sunset 

both pallets glistening

my fingertips scrubbed 

stuck stains on the ground 

I bow to rosina 

for shrinking the world 

to a bloodshot 

seven times my size 

cut my memory 

to the hours I recite 

crick of my bones 

and the smell of milk 

2: Division

blood constellations moonlit 

sunlit 

hills 

divide my month by the curt smell of blood 

full moon 

the iron tang dozing by his nose at calvary 

sifts through my cell 

that stench instead of a sweet smell 

the body 

the bitterness 

and after sweetness 

slate of my belly splits the world in two 

my stare against the ground 

sweat pulled from my forehead 

mutes the pain in my mouth 

I push my body from the floor 

with elbows 

against melting strength 

teeth cleaned in vegetable soup 

back to stone 

knees kissing rock 

that seemed smooth 

before I entered 

inside it is the sharpest 

He made 

to replace the moon 

as it turns to slate 

the rain quickens its pace 

as a stranger asks advice 

he mops his weathered brow 

and takes a breath 

anchoress 

he says 

it is my daughter 

she will not marry 

the boy I brought her 

there is a new stillness in my cell 

an unmoving 

stagnant pause 

that carries his sentence 

the merchant leaves 

takes his breath with him 

to town 

his problem still 

send me to the night 

two thieves were crucified 

Jesus wept 

divide his tears 

adney trudges through mud 

carrying half the river in his boots 

as always 

we split in two 

anchoress 

I have something for you 

a relic 

from abroad 

I unclench my jaw 

but adney 

like all men I have known 

has more to say 

take it 

cate 

until the day breaks 

and the shadows flee 

be like the deer in the wood 

and run 

send me to the night 

two robbers 

divide 

his tears through rivers 

love is not a neat division 

how sweet it would be 

to run like a daughter of salem 

pour wine from my breast 

decanted from golgotha  

red wine staining power 

love must not speak its name 

quiet space in my spine 

place of skulls filled its brim 

with Him 

as I crowd my cell tonight 

with banners of love 

held high by limitless limbs 

blood shot my eyes 

and blood shoots through my cells 

inside the curt 

iron tang 

I am too thin to feel it 

bodied over soul 

taken from the cross 

that smoke almost cleared 

there is no 

inner outer 

destroy binary divisions

that limit 

there are deer by the bank 

company in the trees 

control of smoke 

and the smell of milk 

honeyed constellations 

pushing straight on 

midwinter day 

twelfth night 

candlemas

then 

our lady’s day to 

easter to saint joanna 

uncovering the assumption 

after that 

holy thursday 

whit sunday 

midsummer 

magdalene’s day 

every hour 

fishes for his brother

3: Vision

takes practise 

test flight 

beady eyed pelican sews 

branches in a burning tree 

broken cartilage 

crash landing 

wings cleanly knit 

invisible indivisible flight 

takes practise 

to crack 

my nails to shards

and sinew stars 

blood shoots 

sockets 

countermelody to colour 

shrunk hazelnut to start

brecon beacons 

crystalline light 

casting slow moving shadows 

over breastful mountaintops 

brecon beacon fell 

falls to the tramline 

my son is a ferryman

he splits mersey lines 

with spectacled vision 

by barabbas 

could He have seen 

light 

light of his life 

on the cross 

across time 

ointment poured 

one night in bethany 

freshly papered rosina 

her sonnet split in two 

we are joined 

by a secret cord 

made straight 

the way of the lord 

hours pile up for affect 

she is by the graves 

not in or far out 

fresh mallows in her grip 

breath of our mum in her chest 

fair hair straight nosed 

rosina dances by my space 

and into her own