sublime

…above us only stars

 

 

 

 

 

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,” Henry went on, continuing a conversation of which he felt to be an integral part.

 

However, everyone else had stopped behind Smith, who was struggling with the pink plastic canoe, but eventually got it up onto his shoulder, the paddle in one hand, his other hand clutching at the air for balance.

 

Smith now walked with a purpose of someone who was unlikely to lose his head, despite whatever might be happening around his head or whatever might be happening inside his head. With single-minded determination he lugged the plastic canoe across the three lanes of stalled traffic, one end of it scraping along the footpath once it had slid off his shoulder again. This was with the same single-minded determination with which Smith did everything, brushing his teeth, stirring his tea, scratching his head, pushing the plastic canoe into number 25 Railway Street that morning, knocking over two cups of cold black coffee, waking everyone up, eating two bowls of bran flakes, tearing curtains from windows and tugging dust laden Venetian blinds up and away, getting everyone out into the back garden and delivering a sermon, one foot on an upturned mop bucket – “If you can dream,” he began. He ended with the same single-minded determination, rounding his speech off with “meet with triumph.”

 

And so they were off: Oscar, Smith, Henry and Helen, off to launch Smith in his small pink plastic canoe on the Ship canal, a plastic canoe with none of the properties one would expect of a ship-canal going vessel. The likelihood of disaster was what spurred them all on, apart from Smith, who would have been determined to make his dreams a reality, were he ever to distinguish between the two in the first place.

 

“It’s pretty choppy,” Helen said, when they reached the waterfront. The water slapped at the slime covered bricks several feet below them.

 

“It’s two miles into town,” Oscar told Smith, adopting the tone of someone who knew what he was talking about, though not feeling at all the impostor. “That’s a stretch for one man in a canoe. Do you think you’ll make it?”

 

Smith, who never had the least intention of making it all the way into town, now confirmed that he could, that he would, and that he wouldn’t stop until he got there.

 

“I’ll bet twenty you never make it,” Helen said.

 

“I’m in for some of that,” Henry added.

 

“Me too,” Oscar added.

 

Considering these offers for the briefest of moments, before accepting them with no thought to anything other than making a heap of all his winnings, having transformed three twenty pound notes into a glowing mass of gold coins, Smith rubbed his hands together and nudged the canoe towards the six foot drop into the canal.

 

“I’ve tried this before at the water sports centre,” Smith said. “But they weren’t having it. I’m afraid an illegal entry is my only option. The water was higher the last time I was here though.”

 

“Tides,” Henry said.

 

“Canals don’t have tides,” Helen said, though she didn’t adopt the demeanour or stance or look or anything else of someone who was about to debate anything, let alone whether canals have tides; she looked more like someone who had no awareness of canals, of tides, of Henry or of the words twittering around and about her. It was as though she was dredging up long forgotten words up from a distant and painful past, and coincidentally these words coincided with a conversation which was taking place near by.

 

“Where do you think this canal goes?” Henry asked, his questioning glare sweeping the three stood in front of him as though they were his students. Anyone? Anyone? “This is a Ship Canal. It’s little more than a river. It’s a man made river. Up to two hundred feet across. Built for the big ships of the time. Big ships. Huge. Sailing down this river. And where do rivers go?”

 

There was no answer from his class, who all stood there with looks of varying levels of disinterest.

 

“The sea. Rivers flow into the sea. The sea has tides. The water goes up and down. Waves. That’s what waves are. Water pushing itself up the beach and estuary. That water pushes the river water up and down. Up and down. The water in the Ship canal goes up and town. It’s tidal.”

 

The canoe was in the water and Smith was climbing down the ladder to the water by the time Henry had rounded off his lesson with a self satisfied grin.

 

Smith was putting his heart, his every nerve and sinew, into this enterprise though he had yet to cast off, yet to get into the canoe. He could barely keep the canoe in reach with the paddle. When he next managed to pull it near he lunged for it. Then there was a drawn out period of action, struggle, and failure. Pitch and toss. Smith starting again at his beginnings. Breathing heavy words about his loss. Holding on when there’s nothing in him. Except the will. Will. That’s all he had. And it got him this far. As far as him straddling the canoe two yards away from the paddle. The paddle was all too soon three yards, four yards away from him. It was, everyone present would freely admit, floating away from him.

 

“Tides,” Henry said, looking down at the scene as it unfolded. “Where does that current come from if not from tides?”

 

“It’s gravity you idiot,” Oscar said. “Rivers flow down hill.”

 

“It’s a canal,” Helen said. “Canals don’t flow. They’re flat.”

 

“It’s a ship canal,” Henry said. “That’s a whole different ball game.”

 

Smith paddled with his hands in order to steer the canoe about and make his way towards the paddle.

 

“Hold on,” Helen offered by way of advice.

 

“Don’t sink it.” Henry had advice to offer too.

 

“Use you legs,” Oscar offered. “Splash with your legs.”

 

There was little chance of Smith catching up with the paddle, which was by now picking up speed.

 

“The unforgiving minute,” Henry said.

 

“Town’s the other way,” Helen said.

 

“You’ve got to go up hill,” Oscar said.

 

“Against the current,” Henry said. He could sympathise with that – swimming against the current. “Like a salmon.”

 

“Like a salmon,” Oscar said. “Like a salmon.”

 

Helen joined in with the call for Smith to emulate a salmon, but their was little chance of his succeeding in such, what with him straddling a pink plastic canoe, his feet in the water, his hands desperately slapping at the water’s surface, and his paddle floating further away.

 

“Yours is the earth…” Henry shouted after him “…and everything that’s in it.”

 

Oscar and Helen nodded their agreement. Smith had paddled himself into a current and was about to be taken somewhere.

throng

…everyone, everything and everything else

 

 

 

 

 

The gap left in the world, a hole, a hole so big it was gaping, a gaping hole, a hole just stood there gaping at Smith, like it was asking something of him, demanding something, this hole, like all holes do, because that’s all they are, things missing, gaps, nothing, you’re being gaped at by this nothing, this swelling black nothing staring at you, goading you. It was a glaring omission which could only have lasted for a few moments. Maybe a week. Depends on the weather. The season. What’s on telly. A quiet news week. Turn to page nineteen.

 

But gaps get filled in, invariably. Some gaps, really big gaps, those which gape, which are holes, which are glaring, they get filled in all the quicker. Because that’s gravity. That’s how it works. It fills holes. That’s why there are so few holes. Apart from the grand canyon. And it’s only a matter of time before that gets filled in. Erosion. Because by the end of the world the world will be flat, completely flat. A sphere. A flat sphere. Smooth. There’ll be no river valleys, glacial valleys, undulating hills, mole hills or mountains. There won’t even be any rivers. All the rivers will be dried up. Everything will be a river. All the water and the earth would be mixed together in a perfect mix. Which won’t be a river. More like mud. Everything will be mud. Everything will be the same. So that’s why there would be no more gaps. That’s the way the world’s headed. Anyone could see that. But so much for the obvious. So much for mud.

 

It’s like the untimely death of Tommy Kilpatrick. It was untimely. It was a gap. It had to be filled. It’s like a law of physics, chemistry and biology. All three. And mathematics too. Pure mathematics. Not one plus two plus three, and taking away, and multiplication, nothing you can do on your fingers, but the mathematics of infinity and zeros, empty planes and clean lines, geometry, trigonometry, the number of numbers, primes numbers and negative numbers. Logic demands it too. As did Smith. You can’t have such glaring omissions walking around the place like they were people or things or something like that. It just wouldn’t do. Tommy Kilpatrick wasn’t all he was cracked up to be anyway. Not like he was the middle of the x- and y- axis. Bang in the middle. Alpha and omega. Just a mirage. Like ice-cream in the desert. Just because he’s dead in the boot of Smith’s car doesn’t mean that everything has come to some kind of end, like the world’s ended, or everything’s falling apart, or the wheels have come off. Because things never come to an end. Not until all the rivers and soil get mixed together in a perfect mixture. And that’s millennia away. It’ll take a couple of millennia just to fill up the grand canyon alone. Never minds all those other mountains. Rocks.

 

But at the same time Smith had to acknowledge that now he was struggling with his demons. And his car was out of petrol. And the boot wouldn’t lock. Never did. For as long as he knew. And maybe longer. That boot wouldn’t lock. Just wouldn’t. So he couldn’t hide anything away. Nothing. Not even the corpse of Mr T Kilpatrick which would be revealed to the world with the morning sun and by the faintest of breezes. Or a falling acorn would just be enough. And there you are. The dead man in his boot. A dead man. In a car boot. Which was just one of his many demons. But really it was just a dead man in his boot.

 

And there’s that schoolgirl standing at the corner of the road, half hidden by the overgrown hedging. The concrete manifestation of his demons. Standing there like it’s the middle of the day. But it’s the middle of the night. Well, it’s dark. The day’s over. Sun’s gone. Light’s gone. Darkness is everywhere. Like darkness was something that had location and extension and mass. A piece of darkness. And that other girl, also in a school uniform, though a very disorganised uniform, like it wasn’t a uniform at all. Her white shirt stark in the darkness. Like it was a light. And then another schoolgirl. And another. Like school was over. Or about to begin. Like it wasn’t night time at all. Like it wasn’t dark. Like they weren’t demons but school girls. Like being haunted by tins of sardines, jars of mayonnaise, tables and chairs.

 

And some of them walked down the hill to the white light of the supermarket. And Smith followed them. Because this was something. Because darkness was nothing and this was something. Of course, darkness only hides things. But now they were being revealed. Three cars sped past down the hill. The girls were shrieking like it was the middle of the day. Laughing. What were they all laughing at? And pushing each other into the bushes. Disappearing. And then out they’d come again. Like they had returned from a long journey in the darkness and they hugged their friends like they hadn’t seen them for days. Hadn’t seen them for months. Years. It had taken them years to traverse the darkness of the bushes and trees. And such things they saw. Things that only darkness can hide. Things you wouldn’t believe. Couldn’t put it into words. Isn’t the words. Couldn’t even begin.

 

The girls were swallowed up by the brightness of the supermarket. The colour of everything. That’s what supermarkets are. The colour of everything. Because this is a tale of exile and belonging. Smith was exiled. And this was where he belonged. The supermarket opened its arms and welcomed him down its aisles. Spaghetti. Long grain rice. Corn flakes. Magazines. Toilet paper. Bread. Biscuits. Milk. Birthday cards. It’s like everything means something if you look at it long enough. But it wasn’t his birthday for another two months. And the longer he looked at the chocolate sauce the more it means. It means everything. But he didn’t like chocolate sauce. Too sweet. Hurts the teeth. Like those little metal sugar balls. Put them on cakes. Decorations. Candles. Whole cubic feet of sponge cake. Could fill a whole room if the bubbles were large enough. Because that’s all sponge cake was. The air between the mixture. Ninety percent gaps. And ten percent mixture. Like bread. Complete rip off. Buying air most of the time. Like you can sell the air you breathe. Theoretically you can sell anything. People will buy anything. In theory. And people love air. Can’t get enough of it. As long as they don’t feel they’re getting a raw deal. Wouldn’t give a brass razoo for a raw deal. Impossibility of a socialist utopia. Uncooked bread has fewer bubbles in it. Less gaps. Then put it in the oven and there you go. Which is the location of the soul. Fresh air inside you. In between the gaps in your muscles. In between cells. And every atom is a hundred percent nothing anyway. Practically empty space. Electrons are more or less nothing. And protons are like mice in a corn field. Get killed by crows. Magpies. Owls at night. A cup of red bush tea would recharge your metaphysical batteries. Should open the box with the kettle in it. Tea’s on aisle seventeen. Never seen anyone sit down and have something to eat here. Like it’s a church. Or a railway line. With everyone’s eyes strafing the shelves. Wouldn’t look at you. Just bump into you. Knock you down. Trolleys pushing through the corn. Barley. Rye. No one would look you in the eye. Everyone has something to hide.

hysteria

…when insanity becomes too much

 

 

 

 

 

Helen’s feet were sore after a long day. What a long day. It was very long. If you consider that it started so long ago, with her pushing Jimmy the Nod in his wheelchair up the hill to the school. That dirty, dishonest, crippled bastard. And that was first thing in the morning. Before the sun had even risen. Not properly anyway. The sun wasn’t sitting up in the sky. It was behind some bushes. Trees. And now she could still hear the sound of the wheels squeaking. The wheelchair squeaking. And the squeaks running into each other as the wheelchair picked up speed, rolling back down the hill, with the flailing arms and legs of Jimmy the Nod thrown out in every direction. And there wasn’t even a crash. He just disappeared. Around a bend. And then there was Tommy Kilpatrick. Though he wasn’t there. Couldn’t find him. Where was he? No sign of him. Unrequited love. Madness. A thorough search. You have to be thorough. Helen was thorough. Very thorough. But not thorough enough. Because her love was unrequited. A very long day.

 

And then there were all those girls running everywhere. And the trees. And the sun. When the sun was up in the sky. The day was bright. The grass was bright. And then it was dark. It was dark when Helen woke up a few minutes ago, having taken a nap, having fallen into some bushes, having given up. Having dreamed. Dreams and dreams. Such dreams she dreamt. She dreamt of such things. Such things she couldn’t name. You couldn’t imagine. Such things. Such things dreams are made of. Dreams of hundreds of school girls. Reporters everywhere. Chaos. Disaster. A monkey puzzle tree. The embrace of Tommy Kilpatrick. A final embrace. Requite.

 

But she hadn’t given up. Had she? No. She would never give up. No matter how long a day was. However long a day can be. Longer even. Not for her was giving up. The thought didn’t even occur to Helen. She could swear to it. She hadn’t given up. What had she given up? She would find that sinister man she had fallen in love with. She was after him. She was right behind him. In control. She felt like she was right behind him. Like he was around the next corner. He was always around the next corner. She could see him standing there, around the corner. Just stood there. That sinister smile. And now, because it was dark, he could have been standing twenty feet away and she wouldn’t have been able to see him, unless he was standing underneath one of the few street lamps. Though if he was in the bushes he could have been standing almost right next to her. The bastard. Right next to her. Helen lunged into the bushes. There he was. Somewhere. Nearby.

 

And there were so many bushes. How could there be so many bushes? He could have been standing in all of them. In every direction. And then there was all that space in the dark. Space she couldn’t even see. It was like it was never ending. It was like she was so small – she could almost see a picture of space, like it was something instead of nothing. Empty canvas. Darks canvas. And Helen was painting a picture on this canvass. Pictures. Hundreds of pictures. Picture after picture of Tommy Kilpatrick. Him just standing there. And pictures of other people too. Other people lurking. Just standing there. There were so many people. It was crowded. The darkness was swarming with these people. They were standing right up against each other. Leaning against each other. Their fingers in each other’s fingers. Filling every bit of the darkness. Until the darkness was full of a million pictures of other people.

 

But everything changed with the white brightness of the supermarket. Everything was illuminated. All the people had disappeared. The million people. And there was no sign of Tommy Kilpatrick. It was as though they had all shuffled behind parked cars, lamp posts and shelves of rice and pasta. Run away. But Helen was undeterred. Unrequited. She went forward. She had always been going forward. Ever since she came down the stairs this morning, yesterday morning, every morning. Forward. With the bang of the front door still in her ears. You had to bang it otherwise it wouldn’t shut. It would just swing open all day. It had often swung open all day. You had to give it a good bang.

 

And Helen hadn’t just found herself stumbling into the supermarket. Into the supermarket and there she was, reasons coming afterwards. Because this was just where she wanted to be. Where she had always been heading. All part of the plan. Here we are. Finally. The supermarket at one in the morning. Or whatever time it is. This was where things were always going to end. Between shelves of tins and cans and packets of crisps. Helen didn’t even pick up a trolley or basket. Didn’t need one. Wouldn’t think of taking one. She stumbled on into the aisles. There were many aisles. As many aisles as there were grains of sand on the beach. Clouds in the sky. Bushes in the darkness.

 

Each aisle extended into a distant distance. Far distant. Where another aisle began. And another. From every angle extended an infinity of aisles. Aisles of everything. There were hundreds of jars of pasta sauce closing in on her. Hundreds. There were ten different varieties. Eleven. Twelve. They were stacked five, six, seven deep. Five shelves. Both sides of the valley, all the way up the aisle. Pasta sauce. For all those people who eat pasta sauce. Pasta sauce with mushrooms. Mixed vegetables. With a subtle spice. Real virgin olive oil. A hint of the Indian Subcontinent. Green peppers. Onions. In two easy steps. Suitable for celiacs. May contain nuts. Lighter. Taste the difference. Twenty-three different varieties. Twenty-four. Stir in. Just add meat. Original recipe. Six varieties of tomatoes. Sun kissed tomatoes. Twelve tomatoes in every jar. Taste the tomatoes. Packed full of tomatoes. Chunky. Extra special. Full of Mediterranean goodness. Sunshine.

 

Helen had stacked two hundred on the floor as part of her scheme. It was all part of her plan. She had counted twenty-six varieties, including packets, tins, jars and tubs. And she hadn’t even begun to look at the other side of the aisle yet. Another world. There were twenty six stacks on the floor. The first and second shelves were half empty. The column of mushroom pasta sauce tottered and needed to be shored up. Helen found that she could lean it against the shelving. The packets had to be piled rather than stacked. The tins were the easiest to stack. Jars could only be stacked six high before tottering. Tottering. Helen hated tottering. Couldn’t abide it. Wouldn’t stand for it. A tower of eight jars tottered one last time. Three jars cracked releasing their sunshine goodness in a red gash across the dun white floor.

 

This was the first intimation that all was not going according to plan. Helen wavered. She was struck by doubt. Maybe. Just maybe she was in the wrong aisle. She could just make out the aisle of toiletries in the distance. They were bright. A white and glowing aisle of white and glowing shelves. Red and blue lines. Subtle pinks. Lighter blues. Extending in neat lines. Shelves. Straight lines following the aisle to the end. Where it ended on a black square of the night.

taunt

…the final straw

 

 

 

 

 

Stumbling out from the shadows of the rhododendron bushes, stumbling into the  dwindling light of the dusk, Henry was a different man. Though in many respects he was the same man. He was the same but different. Unfortunately, Henry couldn’t work out in what way he was the same and in what way he was different. He wasn’t even sure if he was different, if he was more different or more the same, or more or less different. He had no idea how he had changed, if in fact he had changed. Was “changed” the right word? Hadn’t he just lessened in some way? Just shifted one way or another? Kind of turned? Sort of sunk down and then risen up? Bobbing in the ocean? Sort of not changed at all? Sort of turned a full circle and arrived back where he came from? Just the exact same Henry Bridgewater? Nonetheless.

 

Is that slice of toast on your side plate a different slice of toast because it has been around the room?

 

Continuing to stumble, Henry made it to the rise of bricks and ivy which made up the school building, its solidity, its substance, its existence, coming as a complete surprise to him; his forward progress came up short because of it. And this substance, this school building, had texture and all of the other properties of an extended object. It was there in front of him, not letting him pass, couldn’t be climbed over, walked through. It was huge. Was there always a school here? There was yellow light seeping through parts of the building’s substance now. Windows were lit up with life going on inside. Things happening. Other people. Approaching one window, which Henry knew by some instinct deeply buried until now was one of the staffroom windows, Henry tripped over his own feet and caught only the briefest of glimpses of what was happening inside.

 

What was going on inside the staffroom?

 

Smiling. What was going on in the staffroom could be summed up in that one word, a word which Henry mumbled over and over again as he wallowed in the flower beds and the darkness. A word which wouldn’t be heard by anyone else. But a word nonetheless, because nonetheless Henry was saying it, not just mouthing it, mumbling it into his arm – he clearly enunciated each syllable (two): smiling. It was uttered as though it was something appalling. The most unbelievable thing. Shouldn’t be happening. How could anyone be smiling? Why?

 

Henry didn’t even know who it was who had been smiling, or if it had been more than one person smiling in the staffroom, or even if there had been more than one person in the staffroom. He was only sure that there was someone smiling in there, either sitting down or standing up, or kneeling at their prayers, or making a cup of tea, or playing Gin Rummy, or fast asleep on their feet. Someone was smiling. The whole room was smiling. Henry suspected that there was more than one person smiling. Even though he could get no picture in his head of what was going on in the staffroom, even though he only had an idea of smiling, he strongly suspected that there were a large number of people collected in the staffroom, all of them smiling. Perhaps they were all sharing a joke. And they all got it. Or at least they pretended to. You’ve got to laugh, smile at least, if there’s a joke. Even if you don’t know it, you have some reason to smile. What’s the joke?

 

Henry couldn’t form a clear picture of anyone he knew smiling. He couldn’t even form a picture of himself smiling. And this was immediately a cause of great distress. His mind somewhat numbed by the one and a half bottles of sweet sherry he had drunk over the last few hours, Henry had trouble forming any coherent ideas. The process of reasoning, which he had often partaken of, was now beyond him, and only flashed and sparked in his head in brief bursts. Bursts of light which served only to illuminate the darkness and chaos of his mind. Its emptiness. Worse, its fullness. Its burgeoning, bursting, falling out, falling apart, fullness. Full of nothing clear. And a spark of the light of reason goaded him every twenty-six seconds. Half illuminated notions. The probability that he had done something awful. Something shameful. He should be ashamed of himself. The memory of Julia Madden’s grey knickers. A quiet word with Mrs R P Merryweather. Sporadic bouts of masturbation. The road to Damascus. It was chaos.

 

And then it hit him. A sharp pain on the back of his head. It might have been a stone. Or a coin. Someone was throwing coins at him. Or something else. It could have been anything. Anything could have been thrown at him. And then again. Hit again. He was being rained on. Suffering an attack. Being attacked. Turning to face his aggressors, Henry was confronted by the darkening twilight of the school’s grounds. And then it hit him. And it hit him again. Scrabbling about on the ground he found something. An acorn. He was being hit by acorns. This isn’t right.

 

“This isn’t right!”

 

But there was no one there. Unless they were hiding in the bushes.

 

“I can see you!”

 

And he was hit again. Not knowing what to do, and his escape route being blocked off by the surprising substantiality of the school building, Henry walked towards the oncoming fire of acorns, into the darkness. Perhaps it was Oscar. Where was Oscar?

 

“Where’s Oscar?”

 

And then it hit him – squirrels. Why hadn’t he realised it before. They were everywhere. Not that he remembered seeing them before. But that’s just the way with squirrels. Like pigeons. They’re just there. There everywhere. And all of a sudden they’re throwing acorns at you. Another acorn hit him on the head. Squirrels with very good aim. Although there might have been a dozen acorns missing their mark for every one that hit him square on the head. But it was a fitting end to the day. It was the end, being attacked by squirrels, the denouement. The resolution. He could just see them in the trees when they jumped between branches, when they ran along the thin branches between trees or out into the open, before they threw their acorn at him, and scurried back for more. Everything unravelling. Denouement.

 

Not that Henry was being philosophical. He was far too disorientated to be philosophical. He could be philosophical tomorrow, when he considered just how unravelled he was. He couldn’t think now. He could just about be unravelled. And unravelling himself he stumbled forward. At least he was stumbling somewhere. The nuts and acorns continued to rain down on him sporadically, one hitting him in his left eye. It stung. With one good eye he stumbled on. He had to keep going. Wasn’t he escaping? Had to be fully unravelled. And he managed to stumble towards the monkey puzzle tree. Let himself go. The monkey puzzle tree. His anchor. Its firm rise. Its thereness. Its everythingness. Embrace it. He leant against it, his arms holding himself against it, his face pressed up against its rough bark. It was so big. Solid. Hard. He could no longer feel the nuts and acorns the mob of squirrels were probably still throwing. He was fully unravelled.

 

coup

…a turn of events turned inside out

 

 

 

 

 

Large chunks of the lawn are missing at Didsbury Girls’ Grammar School – glaring holes in the green baize which surround the school. The yellow beacon lights at the pedestrian crossing have been cruelly stolen, leaving tiny light bulbs flickering impotently. Four windows are also broken, though one of them had already been broken by a hockey ball last week in circumstances which hadn’t aroused undue suspicion.

 

The holly bushes drip with slashes of white paint. The thicker mass of the rhododendron bushes which run along the front of the school hide any number of sins. The giggles of giggling girls rustle through the glossy leaves and make the shadows flicker. Three teachers are also missing. It is presumed that they either went home or went to do their weekly shopping and were unavoidably detained.

 

Six lower-school girls climbed to near the top of a Scots Pine and refused to climb down, their blazers and shirts awry, their pink and white knickers clearly visible from the main road. In order to ensure that health and safety standards are adhered to, the road was closed off by five members of staff wearing brightly coloured clothing. Members of the public were kept at a safe distance. The girls seem intent on spending the night up the tree. They have refused all offers of mediation. They will talk to no member of the teaching staff or to their parents. It is hoped by everyone at the scene that they will at least narrowly survive this ordeal.

 

Bemused and undisciplined girls spent the day lounged over cars in the staff car park. They were conspicuous from the middle of period three, having blithely disregarded the bells which rang twenty minutes beforehand, the bells that had over the last eighty-seven years of the school’s history signalled the end of rec. Three of the girls were seen to have been smoking cigarettes. One girl wore garish makeup and her shirt was tugged open to reveal her cleavage.

 

Thick strips of bark had been cut and unwound from around the trunk of a great monkey puzzle tree in the grounds of the school; in time it will wither and die, an unwitting casualty of this reprehensible anarchy. Other callous acts had been perpetrated throughout the day. However, whether the girls intended to be callous in their actions is unknown. The bird table and bird bath were torn from their foundations and cast into the fish pond.

 

Girls had been refusing to run along to classes all day. They hadn’t turned up to morning assemblies or to form registration. Period one was cancelled after fifteen minutes due to a ninety percent non-attendance rate. A presentation by three charities, which represented unfortunate children throughout the developing world, had to be postponed until after rec. It was then postponed again. It has since been postponed indefinitely.

 

In the light of the day’s unusual happenings, because of how things were turning out throughout the day, and owing to the day’s various turns of various events, the school’s sponsored walk, planned for the day’s final two periods, was summarily cancelled. What is to be done with the money which had been raised, donations contingent upon the walk being completed by seven hundred girls, was still up in the air when this article went to press.

 

Text books were found to have been buried in the flower beds. Computers were crinkling and fizzing all day, as water dripped through their insides. The stale smell of burnt water filled the corridors near the computer rooms. Three bricks had been torn out of the end wall of the music building. A giant pyramid of chairs had been constructed in the back car park. Rumours abounded that a member of staff has been buried beneath it in a makeshift burial vault. Things may yet take a turn for the worst.

 

There have also been reports of students masturbating in the bushes, behind parked cars, beneath the demountables. Masturbating in the stock cupboards, in empty classrooms, on the roof of the old library. These reports are as yet unconfirmed. Masturbation is explicitly forbidden in the school’s rules, rules based on the tenets of the school’s original charter which dates from the early twentieth century.

 

The History teacher, a Mr Kilpatrick, had last been sighted leading a significant portion of the girls across the hockey pitches and through the wasteland on the other side. Mrs R P Merryweather, the school’s headmistress, led some of her trusted lieutenants in a daring pursuit. They got lost in the undergrowth and have since regrouped in the Main Hall, where an emergency assembly has since been called. Sixteen girls attended. Several hymns were sung without recourse to hymn books.

 

Mr Henry Bridgewater, a long standing teacher of English at the school, has been pointed an ad hoc spokesperson. He readily agreed that things had taken a turn for the worst:

 

“Things had been threatening to take this turn for weeks, for months. I always expected the worst. But things have turned out to be much worse than I expected. We should accept that things might get worse before they get better. But once the worst is reached, then things can only get better.”

 

Irate parents started to arrive at the prestigious school, demanding an explanation from Mrs R P Merryweather. None was forthcoming over and above a terse statement printed on slips of paper disavowing any knowledge, suppressing any rumours, and pleading for parents’ discretion. Whether parents will be discrete has yet to be seen, though it is likely, owing to the fact that they know nothing whatsoever. The rumour that the girls were planning an assault on the status quo had yet to be started.

 

It was late in the afternoon before Mrs R P Merryweather deigned to address the amassed parents and local press. She was in fighting spirit. There was to be “no turning back”, nor was this a moment to “turn the other cheek”, and though we cannot “turn back time”, we might be able, she told the crowd, to “turn a corner”. A chant of “no turning back” started at the front of the crowd, where her trusted lieutenants had been planted, and it soon caught on. However, the chant had only too soon stumbled into the terser and more easily mouthed “turn back”.

 

When the chanting came to an end, Mrs R P Merryweather was helped up onto the bonnet of a maroon Landover, from which she lectured the thinning crowd on the dangers of crack cocaine, paedophiles and chewing gum. Skirts as short as pelmets came in for a particularly lengthy and sharp lambasting. Shirts which hadn’t been tucked into skirts would not be tolerated. Brown shoes, the three people remaining of the crowd were told, are and always have been “not part of the proscribed uniform” and therefore on the “exhaustive list of prohibited items of dress”. Typex was also banned. As were brightly coloured headbands and two-tone tights.

 

As the bell for the end of the final lesson sounded, Mrs R P Merryweather dismounted from the bonnet of the Landover and returned to her office in an exultant mood. One of her lieutenants, a particularly distraught looking but buxom gym teacher, ran off into the rhododendron bushes in tears. There were few people left. Almost everyone had disappeared for the day.

 

 

 

besmirch

…to somehow lessen, reduce or undermine, to discolour

 

 

 

 

 

Oscar felt meticulous that morning. A strange feeling to have. To feel meticulous. I feel meticulous. But he felt everything around him very sharply. He felt meticulous. Each thing separately. He felt each detail. He could describe each angle, each line, each heaviness, each coldness and each texture of the world surrounding him. He had felt the sofa gently curving, bowing beneath him, each of the three cushions, the rows of undulating springs, broken springs, the beach towel, which lightly rested on some parts of his body and gently tugged at others, its almost invisible weight falling off the edge of the sofa, not quite reaching the floor, the compacted pillow, solid, and the arm of the sofa. A dead end. He felt the sunshine coming through the slats in the Venetian blinds. He could hear the world around him. Not just the sounds of cars and cats and doors, but the sound of tables and chairs and walls and glass. He could close his eyes and hear everything. And opening his eyes again, he was shocked by the intricacy of the cornflake packet, the texture of the toast, the colour of the butter, the black colour of black coffee. It was so black.

 

And then, later, the way the glossy leaves of the rhododendron bushes in the grounds of Didsbury Girls Grammar School caught the light, as though they contained it, had sucked it out of the air and swam in it, like they were filled with it, almost dripping, the light about to drip form each leaf. But the light never did drip. It just hung precariously onto each leaf. The rough bark of the thin branches. The darkness of the thicker branches further in. The trunk. Four bottles of cheap port, three packets of cheese and onion crisps and a packet of liquorice all-sorts. The greenness of the grass that spread out beyond the shadow of the rhododendron bushes. The sounds of birds signing. The sudden fury of Julia Madden, the buxom gym teacher, running past. The sounds of screams and shouts from a great distance. The screeching of a car’s breaks. The dull sobs which echoed from nearby.

 

The sharp greenness of the grass was transcribed by a black line, the line of the rhododendron bushes’ shadow. The sun must have been directly overhead as the grass’ bright greenness had crept almost up to the dead leaves and damp earth at the edge of the bushes. At the centre of the wide sweep of the bright green grass the school building sat squat. Brown bricks and dark windows and dark green ivy and lighter bricks and more windows and each tile on the roof. At the building’s entrance a small collection of people stood, all looking up at the pale rounded face of Mrs R P Merryweather, whose face undulated in time to whatever words she spoke. The small collection of people were absorbed by these undulations, and when her face all of a sudden stopped, they didn’t move, each head angled upwards waiting for the next movement of the next word. The final opening and closing of her mouth was fierce and sudden. The crowd slowly dissipated once she had turned back into the darkness of the doorway.

 

Oscar was sat in a cave of rhododendron leaves, on top of an overturned empty mayonnaise bucket taken from the back of the canteen. The air was warm. There was a faint smell of stale smoke. The sweetness of the sherry he drunk straight from the bottle was at once glorious and nauseous. The sweetness of life. The sound of the crisp packet being opened and of each crisp being crunched and eaten. Another girl ran past, her white shirt tearing out from beneath her blazer. She didn’t run as children ran. She was running for a reason. Away from something.

 

Some time later, when Henry was sitting facing him, sitting on the upturned bucket of margarine taken from the back of the canteen, Oscar felt the weighty significance of each word he uttered.

 

“It’s very important to me that this isn’t important. That it doesn’t matter.”

 

Henry didn’t answer. He seemed absorbed by the round and dark opening of the bottle of sherry he held between his knees. Even his cigarette smouldered away ignored, the smell of the smoke filling the cave of rhododendron leaves, Henry’s stillness, his quietness almost buzzing, almost humming. His whole body growing to fill a larger space. Reaching the confines of the cave, pushing the leaves to every side, swelling to fill the gaps between branches, the gaps of light between darkness. He lit another cigarette when the first had smouldered to a stub.

 

Oscar and Henry sat in silence watching that cigarette burn itself out. Following the thin line of smoke upwards as it caught the sunlight here and there, they both caught the sight of the face, the features, the eyes, the nose, the lips, the eyebrows, the red cheeks, the rising bosom, the sound of her breath, her open necked polo shirt, the dull line of her cleavage: Julia Madden filled the space in front of them. Oscar looked at Henry intently, with an intensity that looks just didn’t have, willing him not to move. Henry’s eyes quickly switched from the flushed face of Julia madden, framed by the gap in the rhododendron bush, lit up by the sunlight of the bright green grass, and the face of Oscar, a face which barely caught the light, which must have been little more than glinting pupils and a lighter shadow in the darkness. Henry could do nothing else but look from one face to the other.

 

When she had walked off, or when she had disappeared, in a manner similar to her appearance, which was sudden more than anything else, neither Oscar nor Henry deigned to make any comment. It was as though there was nothing to be said. Nor was there anything to be said when Mrs R P Merryweather walked past at the head of the school’s emergency response team.

 

“The girls have been known to climb into the gaps in the rhododendron bushes,” she told Mrs Brown, the senior teacher with responsibilities for pupil welfare, health and safety, citizenship and discipline. Mrs Merryweather’s secretary, who followed close behind, was taking minutes. “Sit there for hours. Can’t imagine what they get up to in there. Just sit there I suppose. Last year a third year girl sat in there for the whole day. She was found at the end of the last period. What were you doing in there all day, I asked her. Nothing, she said.”

 

When the party had stopped, on seeing a pair of shoes discarded before the bushes, they concentrated on the darkness between the glossy leaves until they seemed to register something, as though they could see through the darkness, see Oscar and Henry sitting there on their respective buckets of mayonnaise and margarine, sitting together in the darkness, guilty, convicted, sentenced.

 

“They can’t be trusted,” Mrs Merryweather went on. “Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. The trick is to give them just enough rope with which to hang themselves. No point wasting good rope.”

 

Helen ran past later that afternoon. She seemed to be chasing a squirrel across the green. She wasn’t wearing any shoes.

 

When the sun had climbed back over the rhododendron bushes in which they were sat, and the shadow of the bushes crept further across the bright greenness of the lawn, it shed more light on the intricacies of the rhododendron bushes on the opposite side of the bright green. They were meticulous.

 

convoluted

… turned around and around and around

 

 

 

 

 

What should have been the final scene of the last act opened with the sound of a squeaky wheel. An inauspicious opening, Helen might have thought. But as she pondered the image of herself dressed smartly in a black suit, with an almost imperceptible pin-stripe, her hair brushed back off her face, her cheeks no doubt slightly flushed, her hair beginning to frizz up ever so slightly because of the half rain spitting down, the strain showing in her face as she pushed a wheelchair containing Jimmy the Nod up the hill to Didsbury Girls’ Grammar School early that morning, the shadow of her high cheek bones just evident, soft shadows around her eyes, a strand of hair hanging down the left side of her face, maybe it was, Helen thought, an auspicious opening after all.

 

The full length of the trees she was walking under now became part of the picture, the shadows between them, beneath them, and the wetness of everything, the light sheen of a few leaves, some thin puddles on the ground, a parked car, catching the early morning grey light, the expanse of the dark grey sky, all filling the picture, pushing its edges to every side, the frame expanding, growing, so that her bent over figure and the body of Jimmy the Nod in the wheelchair were only at the edge of the picture, in the bottom left hand corner. Almost lost. Pushed to the edge.

 

As though it was a watermark in the picture she had of the world, his face was always there. The face of who she now knew to be Tommy Kilpatrick.

 

“Why aren’t the birds singing?” Jimmy the Nod asked. Just on cue they started singing. Helen felt elated – her plan was running along perfectly. Around the next corner was the school.

 

That Jimmy the Nod would be reinstated at the newspaper on Oscar’s dismissal was not part of Helen’s plan, at least, not until it happened. And by now it had become a central plank of her scheme, her scheme to drive forward the inevitable. To be in control was everything. Being called into the newspaper offices first thing this morning, before the first thing, before the morning, at half past four, and by Jimmy the Nod too, was a surprise. It was embarrassing. It was too much. It was unbelievable. Her plan was coming together nicely. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Like a maze. Like a game of chess.

 

Of course, her plan was amazingly complex. Plans had to be. How else could you incorporate all the vagaries of the world and the peculiarities of the peculiar. Various permutations and consequences of consequences were flitting through her head. But they flitted by so quickly, they appeared so briefly, as to hardly amount to thoughts at all. There wasn’t a clear structure to her plan. There wasn’t realty a plan. Just a series of pictures:

 

The first picture was of herself, as were all the other pictures in one way or another. It consisted of the present state of affairs, more or less. Helen was at the centre of this picture, more or less, a little to the left, a little to the right, pushing the wheelchair containing the slumped over figure of Jimmy the Nod. They had almost reached the summit of the hill and were beginning to pass the grounds of the school. Tall trees. Tall trees. It was very early. The quiet was prominent. Only distorted by the wheel wheel. But the quiet allowed Helen to appear to be in some way immaculate. As though the world was quiet on her behalf. But then there was the wheel wheel.

 

The second picture, also with Helen at its centre, though a bit off centre, was a picture of another as well. Helen’s face was inches away from the face of that man: Tommy Kilpatrick. He was sneering for some reason. Though she couldn’t help but love this man, Helen could only picture him sneering. It was a picture of hate more than one of love. A confrontation, not a meeting, not the moment before an embrace, not the moment before anything. It was just a sharp image of a sneering Tommy Kilpatrick in profile, facing, at the picture’s not quite centre, a sharp image of Helen in profile. She was beautiful as always.

 

The third picture was a little blurred and constituted the bulk of the very complex plan which could be said to be passing through Helen’s mind. Tommy Kilpatrick was there somewhere in the background, but in the foreground a raft of images jostled against each other, Oscar smiling, Jimmy the Nod with his mouth hanging open, a dread stained Henry, a confused looking Smith, a rather fuzzy image of a headmistress with her arms folded, and the picture of screaming. It is the picture of chaos. There were half formed people running away from the picture. Running across the picture. People running into the picture, running out of the picture. A picture of disaster. It is the tragic final act.

 

And as these pictures loomed in Helen’s mind, ballooning faces and trees into contorted shapes, there was the world around her to contend with as well, the world as it revolved around her.

 

The thinning hair of Jimmy the Nod loomed large as he sat back in the wheelchair. It filled the world. Whorls of mousy brown hair winding out from a bare circle of smooth pink skin. “Keep to the right,” Jimmy the Nod muttered. Smooth pink skin. His head began to sway from side to side. The ground moved past on either side. His head came back and turned to one side. His nose and one eye. His garbled words. The sound of the wheel wheel. The ground rolled past on either side. On the edges of the picture a low wall wheeled past, atop the wall a sparse holly hedge, patches of darkness and brightness. And then the flash of something brighter. Then spitting out, “What’s that?” The roundness of his head bobbing from side to side. Then almost shouting, his voice rasping, “Who’s that?” The sound of the wheel wheel. A passing car. “Stop!”

 

It was then that the dishonesty of Jimmy the Nod struck Helen. It shone brightly and bleached out everything else. She was blinded by his dishonesty. Not a liar. He wasn’t a liar. Not man enough to lie. Pathetic. Just dishonest. There was nothing worse than being dishonest. Dishonesty. He was a picture of dishonesty. Disgusting. His head turned and angled back, half his face turned upwards to Helen, the dull whites of his eyes: “Don’t you fuck this up Anderson.” The little bastard. “Don’t fall asleep on me.” How dare he? “Your last chance is dangling on a thread.” How dare he utter a single word? “Thin ice.” Every word dishonest. “Very thin ice.”

 

The picture was now of them both on the brow of the hill, outside the school’s main entrance. Helen beautiful. Jimmy the Nod in a wheelchair. Dishonest. His body twisted around so that he could half face Helen stood behind him. His mouth shaping around one word after another. The holly of the hedges billowing out over the low wall. The tall trees. Everything looming beneath them. Helen’s white face. Teetering on the edge. Jimmy the Nod leaning back too far. Helen stood aside to let the wheelchair roll back down the hill. The wheel, the wheel, the wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

kink

…a little bit wrong

 

 

 

 

 

Now that he was moving, Smith felt better. It’s all to do with movement. You’ve got to feel that you’re moving. That’s what’s important. Passing other cars. Not having another car in front of you. Yards. The lengths of cars. Many cars. Space opening out in front of you. Empty space. Because you can only move through empty space. Not through something. That’s just crashing. Smith didn’t want to crash. Which is the very opposite of progress. Not going backwards. Because going backwards was going somewhere. And going somewhere is far better than going nowhere. Going somewhere is making progress and that’s what made Smith feel better.

 

And driving gave him time to think. As long as he wasn’t stuck behind a car going too slow on the outside lane. As long as he wasn’t having to overtake one car and then another. Change lanes. Changing lanes was the worst. There’s nothing worse than changing lanes. Apart from the realisation that you should have changed lanes. That if you had changed lanes half a mile back you would now be half a mile somewhere up ahead. There’s nothing worse than that moment of realisation. Apart from not making progress – that’s the worst. How can you think?

 

Which got Smith thinking about what he was progressing towards – the ultimate goal of his epic journey. Up ahead, at the end of Princess Parkway, was Didsbury Girls’ Grammar School, where his arch-enemy worked as a history teacher. Though he was more of his nemesis than his arch enemy. Or Smith was his nemesis. One or the other. But he’d have him soon. Get him. Tackle him. Confront him. Expose him. What the hell would he do to him as soon as he walked up to this Tommy Kilpatrick, the odd man with the slight limp? He had to do something. He would by instinct. Everything was, after all, leading up to that one point, Smith was thinking.

 

And at this point the traffic slowed to a stop, which snapped Smith out of his thoughts, forcing him to once more confront the vagaries of the particular: why was there a traffic jam at six-o-clock in the morning? Where had all of these cars come from? Why were they all stopped? What was the problem? Why weren’t they going? Moving forward? Smith was losing his peace of mind, because there was nothing more peaceful than free flow, the free flow of thought