Wells Festival of Literature
Winning Short Stories 2008
First Prize 2008
£500
Coming of Age
By Maureen Maher
They eyed each other and looked away. The table was littered with the remains of breakfast, the Royal Doulton smeared with egg yolk and bacon fat. She watched her fingers picking beak-like at crumbs of toast. Mozart’s Requiem, her choice, played softly in the background.
Ned’s hands shook slightly, rustling the Telegraph. ‘It’s going to rain,’ he said. Julia could see the tension building, the lines of stress around his eyes, the tendons in his neck. He folded the paper and slammed it against the table. ‘I didn’t know they were coming.’ The tremor in his voice affected her more than his anger.
They sat absorbing, if not change, at least the manifestations of it. She leaned towards him, speaking gently. ‘I thought I’d told you.’ Once she would have argued.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t.’ He was crunching the paper, knuckles ridged like headstones, veins cyanic streaks against fading skin.
But she had. She was sure she had.
He looked at his watch for the fourth time since they had sat down. ‘Why are they coming?’
‘They’re just coming. To see us.’ She tried to stop, but the words spilled over. ‘We’re their parents. You haven’t forgotten?’
He laughed, normal again. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
She took his hand then and they sat over the ruins, together once more, on all fours as the lawyers say. Their son used the term. There was something obscene about it, she thought. Ad idem, with its slightly religious flavour, was much better.
The music came to an end, a coda punctuating a passage which neither really understood.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said.
She studied him, trying to fathom his mood. He squeezed her hand. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Will it?’
The others arrived before lunch, daughters and grandchildren, flesh of their flesh, genes of their genes, heirs to their fault lines.
The children jumped about, giggling. ‘Gran,’ they said, clutching, pulling at her. ‘Granda.’ He stood there smiling vaguely.
Their daughters watched, waiting their turn. She sensed an air of expectancy. Perhaps she imagined it. They exchanged hugs: ‘Mum, Dad.’ ‘Darlings.’
‘We’re a bit of a mess.’ She always said that.
Sarah, their first born, hugged her again. ‘You’re talking rubbish, Mum. It’s pristine.’ She wondered at the word. Her daughter lived in Dublin. Perhaps there it was in vogue. It reminded her of that girl Keeler, John Profumo’s bit on the side. Was she any different? Me and Christine, she thought. Sisters. For a time.
How they had loved. All bases covered. That’s what he called it: physically, spiritually, intellectually. Going through his American phase. She had been amused. Why did he have to dignify it? For him, chats about Wittgenstein took it to a higher level, raised it above adultery. For her, it was all about sex. A degree in philosophy did little for your life. A good man in your bed was what raised the level.
He listened behind the paper.
‘How are things, Mum?’
A normal question, one a daughter would ask of a mother. Looking for hidden meanings was paranoid.
‘Fine, darling.’ He noted her hesitation. ‘Why shouldn’t they be?’
‘Mum,’ the tone, that mixture of irritation and kindness used on mothers.
‘Sorry,’ the tone that mothers used to daughters, not sorry at all, but knowing when to know your place. He smiled, having heard it all before.
She fought the urge to articulate the unspoken, bleakly amused by her mental phrasing. What indeed was there to say?
She saw him listening, pretending to read the paper. Her mind drifted back to a time when complexities seemed simple.
They had met at the opera – Turandot - introduced by a mutual friend. Nessun dorma became their song.
The attraction was instant. Was it love or lust? Was there a difference? Was the one any more than an evolutionary means of dignifying the other?
As the relationship progressed he talked about his marriage, the pain of a fracturing relationship masked with words of flippancy. Frances, his wife, was boring, he said, not on the same intellectual level.
‘Shall we just talk then?’ she asked him once.
He had laughed, tossing her onto the bed.
They had lunch on the patio. She had put out the umbrella and cushions, green and white stripes; the early shrubs, rhododendron, azalea, had begun to flower, a hint of summer. It was comforting to have her daughters home. They were there to support her. She knew that, trying to overlook the fact that support was rarely unqualified, particularly in families. She didn’t blame them. It affected their future, too. It.
She was grateful for Wittgenstein when the affair became important. Sex alone would never have kept him. Like Scheherezade, she bound him to her using not tales of adventure, but words of provocation, nights of love following hours of debate. Philosophical foreplay, she called it.
What could she tell them? Dad seems to be forgetting. He was seventy-five. Forgetting went with the territory. It started with names. She forgot people’s names all the time. ‘How are you? Lovely to see you,’ followed by talk of the weather, health, family.
In time, the mistress became the wife. One over on Keeler. Not that she really thought that way. She always had this mental bravado. She felt sorry for the wife. Not a meeting of minds, he said. Not like us. It was only later when she became pregnant that he let slip in small ways how much it meant to him, how much he had wanted a son.
Having children had been easy. Two girls and a boy, planned and delivered to order. New rhythms were adopted, philosophy and sex put on hold, resurrected in times of need.
He wondered how long they were going to stay. He was happy to see them. If he could watch them on a screen, he would sit there all day, approving, applauding. Active engagement drained his energy. He looked at her, hair falling gently, more blonde than before, art sustaining nature. She was thinner than in the early days when he had lost himself in the wonder of her body. He had told himself it was her mind which seduced him. It was neither. It was the rapport, the communication that had been lacking in his first marriage, the absence of children more symptom than cause. Frances had never wanted them. He sometimes wondered whether Julia had only wanted them to cement the bond, the fragile link based on philosophy, sex, whatever had drawn them together. She found motherhood difficult. Not that fatherhood was easy. An easy start followed by an exponential curve of difficulty.
‘Mum, we have to talk.’
They had moved into the conservatory. She switched on the outdoor lighting. The night came to life, a prehistoric setting of low-lit ferns and dappled ivies seen through a tracery of vines.
‘Do we?’ she asked. ‘Do we have to do anything?’
‘Mum, I know it’s difficult. You don’t want to talk about it, not face to face.’
‘What do you mean, darling?’
Sarah leaned over and touched her knee. ‘It’s OK, Mum.
He appeared at the door, frowning and smiling. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Of course, Dad. Why shouldn’t it be?’
He looked around as if seeing it all for the first time. ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘Don’t keep her up all night.’
Julia looked at her watch. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? I’ll come now.’ She glanced at her daughter, shrugging slightly as he turned away.
They undressed in silence. She was torn between resentment and relief, knowing neither was entirely rational.
He got into bed. ‘You didn’t have to come. You could have stayed up.’
‘Did you want me to argue? I felt like a child.’ She stood before him, conscious, like Eve, of her nakedness. She reached for her nightdress and held it against her.
He turned away, saddened.
She slipped into bed keeping a distance between them.
‘Mum, we really have to talk.’
‘We don’t have to do anything, darling.’ She could hear the edge in her voice.
‘I think we do. You asked us to come. We can’t go away with nothing resolved.’
‘But I’m always asking you to come.’
‘Mum.’ Her daughter took her hand. ‘Sit down.’
She sat at the old mahogany table. Its surface reflected the life of generations. From Victoria to Elizabeth to Julia. She laughed to herself wondering for a moment whether she had done so out loud.
‘We know what you’ve been going through.’ Sarah shook her head at her younger sister who appeared in the doorway. ‘We just want to work out the best way forward.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She knew, of course. She just wasn’t ready for it. He was forgetting things; that was all. She forgot things. Her daughters forgot things. As for her grandchildren, they always said I forgot when she told them off for digging holes in the lawn or leaving the lights on.
‘Mum, if Dad’s forgetting, we have to talk about it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ It, that impersonal pronoun, covering everything and nothing.
She experienced a moment of uncertainty, a shifting of mental rhythms. Was it like that for him?
He positioned himself where he could see without being seen. His wife and elder daughter were sitting at the table. Sarah was leaning forward. Julia was white-faced. He forced himself to stand back.
‘Mum, it’s not just you. If Dad’s not OK, we’re all affected. We have lives, families. You won’t be able to manage. We’ll have to work out some sort of rota or, I don’t know, residential care maybe.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What are you talking about?’
The greyness came again; she was back in the past. It was the day he asked her to marry him. The divorce, not an easy time for any of them, and she included Frances, the ex-wife, had been finalised six months earlier.
‘How about it?’ he asked. They were lying back having a cigarette. Funny how everyone smoked after sex in those days.
‘How about what?’ She had learned to take nothing for granted.
‘Let’s put it this way,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you would like? Anything more than this?’
She was damned if she was going to ask him to marry her. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think so. What else could there be?’
‘There’s marriage.’ He turned towards her. ‘How would you feel about it?’
And that had been that.
Her daughter’s expression was blank. Had she spoken the words?
‘How did you know about Dad?’ she asked slowly and clearly, an adult talking to a child, or perhaps the reverse.
She would know afterwards in times of clarity that that moment had been her Rubicon. Her mind shifted, the fear suddenly thrusting up through the surface, piercing the meniscus. She remembered meniscus, that aberrant word. She remembered the phone call to her daughter, screaming hysterically. I can’t go on, Sarah. His mind is going. I’m so frightened. I know I’ve told him things and he denies it. Then he pretends to remember. She remembered it all…but she had forgotten. She.
He was there, taking her into his arms. ‘It’s all right, darling. It’s all right. You’re fine. We’ll be fine.’ He met his daughter’s glance, seeing the shock and fear in her eyes. He shook his head slightly.
‘Dad.’ She lifted a hand to touch him.
‘Not now,’ he whispered.
They stood on the step watching the car move down the avenue.
‘You always miss them when they go,’ she said.
‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘we’ve still got each other.’ She turned to him trying to ward off the bleakness, taking comfort from his nearness.
*******************
Second Prize
£200
Flick Chick
By Joanne Riccioni
I don’t like dusk. Everything turns monochrome and the day gets heavy with conclusion but isn’t quite done. Like one of those deep and meaningful films shot in black and white – the arthouse sort. I like the idea of them, but then I remember watching the black and white set as a child, and why would you want to go full circle? Like flares or platform shoes – not quite as appealing the second time around. At home, I always give dusk the flick. That neat little click of the light switches breaking the silence is comforting. I usually check the clock then, yes 6.05pm, and I pour the first glass from a bottle of red that’s breathing on the counter. It’s never quite as good as I anticipate, perhaps because I’m too busy inspecting the yeasty loaf of skin swelling over the top of my work heels, or counting out the last seconds of daylight against the throb of the varicose vein behind my knee. Then again, it could just be the preservatives in these mass produced wines: that’s what you get for buying specials by the case.
I make sure I don’t drink every night. Usually Tuesdays. It’s discount night at United and I go straight there from work with takeaway sushi from Ginko’s. I don’t always choose the latest chick-flick or blockbuster, but sometimes you just need something easy that takes your mind off the MSG in the miso or the metallic taste of the raw tuna that will probably give us all Alzheimer’s. At least in the dark I can’t see that rainbow sheen on the fish that reminds me of oil slicks and the state of the planet. Anyway, sushi’s about the only low-fat takeaway you can buy in under a minute. Something to dilute the réduction of guilt that slowly simmers when you’re watching Angelina Jolie’s buttocks on the big screen. On the way home I lament the state of modern cinema: the formulaic stories, the female role models, the special effects budgets that could feed an African nation, and promise next time to make the effort and choose a subtitled movie at the Dendy. Something Robert would have approved. It’s not that I mind going to the cinema alone, it’s just that I don’t want to let my mind sag along with everything else.
Of course, I didn’t always go alone. I used to favour the cinema for first dates. It avoided those restaurant dinners of insufficient silences and furtive mutual scrutiny from the bathroom door, the tiring bravado of first date flippancy. You can get a good sense of someone in the dark, without conversation. There’s the size and the weight of their presence; the quality of a coat or sweater against your wrist; the snorts and chuckles to the screen; the smell of a whisper. By the time the film was over I always knew whether it would go anywhere. If you can’t sit next to someone for two hours in the dark, what hope is there for the light of day?
Well, that’s been my rule of thumb, anyway. Admittedly, there have been exceptions: Robert for one. With him, I almost got up and left halfway through Baraka. He twitched and fidgeted, scrunched and sighed so much, I assumed it was doomed. But during the credits he took my hand and spoke into my ear so convincingly, “When something’s this good I can’t sit still.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes, it was good, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not talking about the film,” he said.
We lived together for three years. We had preferred seating at the Orpheum and nearly always agreed who should have won the Oscar. And then one day he didn’t live with me any more. Everything else was there, looking tired and rather smaller than before, but not him. He left a note saying something about life not being a dress rehearsal. After that I couldn’t believe I had spent three years with someone who could end it on such a cliché.
After Robert, the years of same-sex cinema outings made a come-back. At the time I saw it as the grown-up version of the sisterly solidarity I’d relied on at 15. As teenagers, we used to feign annoyance through third and fourth viewings of Greece or Saturday Night Fever while boys in the back row threw popcorn down our imagined cleavages, secretly thrilled that they found us more interesting than the film and worth the popcorn. Twenty-five years later, I can’t say I didn’t appreciate that strength in numbers again. Only this time it was less about attracting attention, than being able to blend into the queue behind those same boys who had married other, younger girls; to sit in the dark next to the small habits of long-term monogamists. Of course I wasn’t the only one. We all needed the support of shared sugar hits and no judgements to see us through the highs of our vicarious screen lives, where we re-inflated our ideals of manhood and steeled ourselves against compromise for the sake of conformity. How else could we have dealt with the key in the lock of the silent flat, the vaguely interested cat, the bedtime wine and a couple of Zoloft? There’s nothing wrong with having high standards.
But, really, I prefer to go to the cinema alone now. No need to be magnanimous about the choice of film, no need to pretend your friend has not put on weight, or that her latest cyberdate is more interesting than the trailers. No need to suspect that your dismal sympathy for her might be self-pity. Which, of course, it isn’t, because you have so much more in your life than she does. Anyway, there is a point when solidarity of the spinsterly sort becomes too close for comfort. It reminds me of that awful euphemism of my mother’s: women of a certain age. She probably got it from Jane Austen or the Brontes. I only truly understood what my mother must have meant by it when I was with Nicole watching Million Dollar Baby and I bumped into Stuart Simmonds. I’d been holding Nicole’s handbag in the foyer while she went to the Ladies. Stuart had his arm round his new wife, who looked too small and young for the enormous belly that swayed before her. They spoke a few bubbly sentences about the baby’s due date and probable names, and all I could look at were her straight, unstained teeth, like a teenager’s with the braces just removed. He asked me if I had come alone and I laughed and said, “Oh, no!” That was when Nicole returned, taking her bag from me and tucking my coat label into my collar at the same time. Stuart raised his eyebrows and pulled his lips taut into what was meant to be a smile. But it was the way he so diligently held out his hand to her and pointedly said, “Nicole, very pleased to meet you,” that made me see what he was seeing. Two women of a certain age. Sometimes, I wish it were that simple.
After that I thought about Stuart for a while, how still he was during our first date – Dangerous Liaisons – our wordless lovemaking on my stairs afterward. We never needed the movies much, he and I, just each other in the dark. Or perhaps that’s just my memory of it. It was a long time ago, after all. I might be confusing it with a film I saw. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Four months after it began he told me he was going back to his wife and kids. That cut. But not as much as being overlooked in the running for the new family.
And now I’m losing my teeth. Last week the dentist mumbled through his mask that I needed two root canals and a crown. He held that little stainless steel pick on the exposed nerve of my molar as he told me the cost. It’s not the money that matters. I’ve done all the things single women of a certain age should do these days: private health insurance, topped up my pension, paid off my apartment, invested in blue chips to cover the nursing home fees. The financial adviser tells me I’m in good shape. I remember his eyes on my breasts and feeling a little excited, even as I cringed at the nylon crackle my thighs made rubbing together on the way out. In the mirror of the Ladies I saw that my shirt button had popped off and was dangling by a thread, the mockery of a favourite bra, once white, now dishrag grey, peeping through. Perhaps that blouse has shrunk a little since I bought it. Well, that’s what you get for buying cheap clothes made in Asian sweat shops. It’s amazing what the poultice of a Belgian Chocolate Connoisseur ice cream and 27 Dresses can do for burning embarrassment.
Really, it’s not like I’ve never had a proposal. Marriage, that is. When I worked in Singapore in my thirties, Michael my housemate proposed to me. He was an American landscape architect and we shared a 1920’s black-and-white terrace, which crumbled and cowered under the shadows of condominium blocks. On Sunday afternoons, we’d escape the clack-clack of mah-jongg games from the balconies overhead to watch anything at the Lido, luxuriating in the air-conditioning that didn’t come with the colonial charm of our house. We’d collapse into the velour seats that smelled of pandan leaf and hokkien mee, refusing to let our hangovers take hold by sipping the margaritas that Michael poured from a chilled thermos into plastic martini glasses. The cinema with Michael was never just about watching the film. Half way through he’d be shouting insults, perhaps at the projectionist for cutting the sex scenes in Leaving Las Vegas, or perhaps at some unsuspecting Singaporean for dealing with phlegm during the great kiss in Before Sunrise. Afterwards we’d toast our superiority with more margaritas at Harry’s until we fell into a taxi and then into the gutter outside our little house, the last vestige of architectural integrity in the jungle of development which we were both being paid to fertilise. One night he sang to me in the smooth tenor voice that Mom and the Lutheran choir back in Iowa had so carefully nurtured. At the end of Abide With Us, the Day is Waning, he continued, “Marry me, marry me, marry me, Sarah. Have my babies and make it all OK.” Then he dropped his head onto my lap and fell asleep, while I pulled out his tight child’s curls, listening to the mosquitos under the bougainvillea. We really loved each other, he and I. It was such a shame I had to refuse him. “We could get married, Michael,” I said, “but you’d still be gay.” Anyway, I could never have married anyone who talks during the movie. Eventually he met a nice Jewish boy. They still send me Hanukkah and Christmas cards from Seattle.
Yes, I really do prefer to go to the cinema alone these days. Then I can concentrate on the stories. No black and whites. Just the glorious technicolour ones that stop a little short of real life. I don’t mind going home in the dark. It’s the dusk I can’t stand.
***************
Third Prize 2008
£100
School Tie
By Christopher Denne
The lift carries Fletcher to the seventeenth floor, and stops with a sigh. His stomach feels as though it is no longer part of him. The doors slide apart, and as he steps forward, blinking, into a space bathed in light he fumbles in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his face. His shirt feels sticky, his collar is tight, and the trousers of his suit have formed a wedge in his crotch.
There is a young woman at the desk facing the lift. She is sleek and pretty, and she greets him with a bright smile. Pointing towards a circle of upholstered chairs arranged around a glass-topped table, she invites him to take a seat. 'The MD has just come in. He'll be ready in a moment.'
'The MD?' Fletcher asks, startled. His fist closes around the damp ball of his handkerchief. He has never before been interviewed by a managing director.
'He saw the list of candidates. He said he wanted to conduct the interviews himself.'
Fletcher draws in a lungful of air. 'Are there many?' he manages to ask.
'This morning, just you.' Her eyes flick to the screen on her desk. 'Three more this afternoon.' Then she looks up again. 'But he may leave the others to the panel. He has appointments after lunch.'
Even in his agitation, Fletcher notices that she has beautiful eyes. In less stressful circumstances he would flirt with her. He knows a bit about office politics, knows the importance of having allies close to the centre. In his last job he was on such good terms with the sales manager's secretary that she told him about the restructuring plans a full two days before he received his redundancy notice.
The receptionist turns back to her screen. She is surrounded by an unnatural quiet. No telephones or office machinery disturb the peace, not even the murmur of voices from behind closed doors. In the silence the rattle and click of her fingernails against the keyboard sounds as loud as a threat of violence.
Fletcher sinks onto a chair. The table bears a bowl of lilies and a copy of the Financial Times. He unfolds the Financial Times. He hopes it will provide an appearance of nonchalance while he tries to master his irregular breathing. The paper flutters as he spreads it over his knees.
It's getting worse, he thinks, the breathlessness and the sweating. It shouldn't be like this. God knows, he has had enough experience of interviews. He tries to think positively: there will have been dozens of applicants for this job, probably hundreds, and he has done well to make the short list! Only four names on the list: that gives a one in four chance! And the MD is chairing the panel himself, which must be a sign of the job's importance. He wonders if he has time to visit the toilet.
The silence is broken by a buzz, which makes him jump. The woman at the desk says, 'They are ready for you now,' and points towards a door. As he opens it he hears her say, 'Good luck!'
He is in what appears to be a meeting room. The walls at either end are in shadow. Sunlight filtered by net curtains glints from water glasses on a polished table. Three men on the opposite side of the table rise to greet him. The man in the middle is Cass, whom he has not seen, nor even thought about, for twenty-four years, but recognises instantly.
And from some deep archive his brain supplies unrequested a set of timeless memories to match the man: Cass on the rugby pitch, a gangling, over-grown, short-sighted boy, unco-ordinated, incapable of catching or kicking a ball, unable, so it seems, even to run for more than a few yards without falling over; Cass in the classroom, blinking at the blackboard through his spectacles, not one to challenge the teachers as the scholarship boys do, seldom one to sparkle, but always up to date with his prep, always prepared for a test or an exam; Cass in the dormitory, the butt of practical jokes, refusing to lose his temper, not letting himself be goaded into showing that he cares.
Cass has lost some weight, Fletcher notices (though this may just be the impression given by the well-cut suit he wears), and he has discarded his old tortoiseshell spectacles in favour of steel frames. He looks sharper and fitter than the Cass of memory, and his hair, which is thicker, is flecked with grey. But he still has the same disconcerting direct eyes, and the same quizzical, detached expression that so provoked the boys who used to tease him. Fletcher remembers clearly why Cass was unpopular. The slight tilt of his head and the twitch of his lips still suggest that he is prepared for the banality of whatever he may be about to hear.
He extends an arm across the table. A cuff-link catches the sun. His fingers feel dry and smooth against Fletcher's clammy palm. He does not prolong the contact.
Cass introduces his subordinates. One is the Director of Personnel. The other is something to do with sales, perhaps the man in whose department the vacancy has occurred. Fletcher reaches across the table to shake hands with them, but his eyes remain fixed on the man at the centre.
Spreading his arms, Cass invites everyone to sit. There follows a silence, before he says, 'Well, this is a surprise!'
He smiles. It is a private, chilly smile, as if the surprise amuses him; though obviously it is not a surprise, or at least not to him, because he has Fletcher's letter of application on the table in front of him.
Another silence. The lenses of Cass's spectacles magnify his pupils, and Fletcher feels as though he can neither meet his eyes nor avoid them.
Finally Cass says, 'Tell me what you have been doing since you left College.'
And so the interview begins. Fletcher gives a brief account of his career: disappointing exam results; a short service commission in the army; a spell in South Africa; return to Britain, and a job in engineering sales; a move to a more senior job in a larger company; the unexpected blow of redundancy. What he wants to say is that his experience has been varied and useful, wide enough to be advantageous to Cass's company. But beneath Cass's unblinking gaze he withers. The words he has rehearsed refuse to be spoken. He begins to stammer. His story, feebly delivered, sounds like a chronicle of failure.
'Why did they make you redundant?' Cass asks.
Fletcher tells him, aware that the reasons must already be familiar: recession in the industry; staff economies inevitable; sales staff not exempted.......
'Yes,' Cass says, 'but why you?'
Fletcher explains that he was not alone. 'There were seven of us. Well, five redundancies. The other two were early retirements.' He knows he is gabbling. 'The sales division was cut by twenty-five per cent at executive level – '
'Why,' Cass demands, his eyes swelling darkly, 'were you not among the seventy-five per cent who stayed?' With a barely perceptible twitch of the corners of his mouth he shows that he knows the answer.
'There was a survey – ' Fletcher begins.
But Cass does not wait to hear. 'Perhaps your record was less good than that of your colleagues?' He nods, inviting agreement.
'I had a difficult area. It was particularly hard hit by the recession – '
Cass interrupts again. 'You have been out of work for six months.' It is a statement, not a question. He fingers the sheet of paper in front of him to show that he has the evidence.
'Yes.'
'What have you been doing during that time?'
Fletcher explains that he has been looking for a job, and Cass shows surprise. 'So we are not your first choice?'
Without further comment he hands the interview over to his colleagues. While they speak he continues to stare at Fletcher with his all-seeing eyes. Fletcher is scarcely aware of their questions, nor of his replies. He remains mesmerised by Cass.
Finally one of them says, 'I think that's all, Jeremy.' For a moment Fletcher wonders who he is speaking to. It had never occurred to him at school that Cass had a first name.
To signal the end of the interview Cass delivers another of his private, not-quite-friendly smiles. 'We'll let you have the decision by post,' he says. 'You should receive it tomorrow.' Fletcher hears himself thanking him.
But he has not seen the last of Cass.
As he approaches the glass door that leads to the street, with nothing on his mind but the thought of escape, he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a voice just behind him says, 'Come and have a drink.'
'No, really – ' he replies. On the other side of the door he can see normal life passing up and down the busy street. At that moment he wants nothing so much as to be part of it.
But Cass doesn't hear him. 'I have a luncheon appointment,' he says. 'I have time for a quick drink first.' And the boy who had been unable to run ten yards without tripping over his feet takes him by the elbow, and with an authority that is impossible to resist directs him back to the lift.
They ascend swiftly to his office, which is huge and bright. The door closes soundlessly, and Cass directs Fletcher to an armchair. He takes a bottle from a cupboard, and pours sherry into a glass.
'Married?' he asks, affable now. He hands Fletcher the glass, turns back to the cupboard, and opens a bottle of mineral water.
Fletcher explains that he has recently become divorced.
Cass is interested to hear that Fletcher's two boys are at College. 'I can see why you need the job,' he says. 'What are the fees now? Twenty thousand? Twenty-five?' He reveals that he has boys himself, but younger. It is the first hint he has given that he, too, has a private life. Fletcher asks him if he is going to send them to College. He laughs loudly. 'Good God, no!'
He asks Fletcher if he still plays rugby. The question shows that he is as out of touch as ever with the world of sport.
For the first time since he entered the building Fletcher feels as though his breathing and his heart-rate are returning to normal. Perhaps it is the effect of the sherry; perhaps it is that Cass is treating him as his equal; perhaps it is that the ancient link between the two of them has at last been properly acknowledged. He explains that rugby is a young man's sport, and that he gave up playing it years ago.
Cass nods. 'I suppose so,' he says, and he smiles again, a less threatening smile this time, as though Fletcher's answer has given him pleasure.
Then he looks at his watch, and says it is time for his appointment. He leads Fletcher back to the entrance. His smile could almost be construed as warm when he says good-bye. He has much enjoyed their meeting, he says; and Fletcher, the ghastliness of his ordeal in the interview room now forgotten, says the same.
The letter arrives the next morning, as Cass promised. It is signed by the Head of Personnel. Fletcher has received many identical ones. He is thanked for his application, but unfortunately, he is told, he is not considered the best candidate for the job.
Beneath the signature, Cass has added a footnote in his own precise black handwriting. 'Greatly enjoyed hearing your news,' he has written. The word “greatly” is underlined. 'So sorry we can't help you.' It is signed with the initial J.
*******************
Wyvern Prize 2008
£100
A View from the Middle
By Jude Carr
It was my midriff on the national news. I recognised it immediately. I suppose I didn’t have a leg to stand on legally since they hadn’t captured my face – but how I was misrepresented! It was a piece about the obesity epidemic and my middle was being used as a symbol of all that was greedy and lazy and bad about the lifestyles of today. Me: an organic enthusiast; a fairtrade proposer; a Greenpeace activist. My stomach may be expansive but no way does it deserve that kind of footage. It is not the belly of some pasty fatty. There it was decked out in cooling linen moving down the high street, swaying in and out of the midday crowds. It didn’t look unhealthy; it didn’t look unattractive. In fact it had a grandeur redolent of some ethnic goddess of fecundity, some pillar of plenty. And it was no good pretending it wasn’t mine. Mine wasn’t a little nobody of a midriff – it was the middle of a lady in control of her life but with a certain generosity of spirit. It was unmistakable.
I knew when it had been taken. At midday I had been in town struggling to keep Toby and Ben’s whining to a minimum. It was the last day of a week’s holiday with us and the novelty of Grandma had definitely worn off.
“I’m tired of walking,” said Ben.
“I’m bored of walking,” said Toby. And then in an unspoken alliance they planted their behinds on the pavement in the middle of the busy street and poked out their bottom lips in petulant synchronicity.
I had actually reached that end of tether grandma phase which is not mentioned in polite circles: inwardly spitting at my absent daughter for nothing more than her absence. How the hell did she think I could cope with these two monstrous four year olds while she swanned off for a week of bridge building in Cornwall with their father? I was almost 65 after all. I felt like banging my head against one of the concrete pillars, or perhaps weeping: low blood sugar levels – I recognised the signs immediately and reached into my shopping bag for some dried fruit to restore my glycaemic index and mood.
I thought I’d been quite crafty but the sweet famished Toby must have heard the faint rustle.
“I’m hungry,” he wailed “ I need something in my tummy.”
I finished my mouthful quickly.
“Well, if we can just get home, you can have your dinner. Fishcakes and pasta bake.” Although a vegetarian, I had agreed to serve the very carnivorous boys with fish.
“I don’t like fishcakes. Fishcakes smell of poo.”
“No they don’t they smell of wee.”
And they both burst into giggles so intense that their horrid little faces were contorted.
“No, wee and poo and more wee.”
The more hilarious they found themselves the louder their voices became. And they were now dribbling with laughter.
“No, farts and poos and wees and more farts all down the toilet.”
Although my eyes were averted from all contact with other shoppers, I could sense their interest. It was the usual lunchtime crowd, and I felt my grandmotherly prowess was being called into question by the more professional old ladies around town. The ones with buggies and bottles and serious full-time positions of responsibility; the kind who bossed their hapless daughters around and took charge. They were now sizing me up and finding my grandmotherly status to be fair-weather and fleeting.
I spotted the bakers; the one I have always avoided – part of a nationwide chain and frequented by those very fat greasy people who can’t control their children. But surely there would be something in there without trans-fats and GMs? Perhaps an organic range…everyone did them these days. I reached into my pocket for more strength and found it in the form of a free-range macaroon. A quick look round to make sure that no one from the health food shop was looking (at that point I did notice the camera crew), and then
“OK, boys, we’ll get something in the baker.”
I grabbed their sticky little hands and rushed them into the new environment.
Immediately I could see that everything was completely unsuitable: gingerbread men with additives coming out of their ears, hydrogenated rubbish, and you could feel the sugar fizzing in the air. There was a hot display of savoury pasties, which seemed the only possibility. I steered the two boys – both salivating now – away from the cakes.
“Right, boys, how about a vegetable slice?”
“Don’t want vegetables - they smell”
“Well, you like cheese don’t you? They have a cheese and potato pasty here that I know you’d like.”
Toby drew himself up to his full height of three foot one, and stubbornness swelled his chest and shoulders to make him formidably square.
“Daddy always gets me chicken”.
And they did have plenty of chicken, with bacon, with mushroom. Even in my emergency grandmother mode, I could feel all the eyes of the wholefood cooperative boring into my soul.
“Has daddy ever told you about very sad chickens?”
“No.” Well, no surprise there…
“Those slices are made out of chickens who have spent their whole short lives with other chickens standing and even sleeping on top of them.”
“Like in a bunk bed?”
At least I had caught his attention. Ben was meanwhile licking the glass of the hot display – literally. I pulled him towards me; got down on all fours (the closest my body could manage to a stoop – I was not very bendy anymore) and made firm eye contact.
“These sad chickens have no room even to put their feet down and they peck at each other and hurt each other and make each other cry because they are so squashed and miserable. Would you want to eat a chicken who had spent her whole life crying?”
“No, she’d taste all watery and squashy.”
“She’d probably taste like wee”, I hissed.
They both nodded - definitely impressed by me. It felt good. I staggered back up.
“Would you like the nice cheesy ones then?”
Two nods. I ordered them and, for restorative purposes only (the walk was very long), I picked an inoffensive bun – almost a roll. I slipped it into my pocket for ease and discretion as we left the shop.
It really was very good actually. I had no idea that mass produced baking could taste so, well, artisan. A good balance of cinnamon and a hint of something different – was it star anise? I reached in for another handful – no, it was nutmeg – although there was an undertone of something else. Surely, nobody would put caraway in a bun? It must have been then that the camera crew struck. Taking advantage of my faraway musing, they preyed on my midriff like a gang of ugly vultures.
And there I was – or there it was – on the television. Luckily I was on my own. It was Tony’s turn to put the boys to bed. I tried for business as usual: drew the curtains; tossed the salad; set the table and heated up the casserole I had cooked earlier – but I couldn’t do away with that out of kilter feeling: me and my slot in the world were misaligned (perhaps because I was taking up 40% more space than I had been allocated). There I was assuming that I comported myself with a certain amount of dignity, while to spectators I was nothing but an outsize figure of fun. And it had taken the national news to enlighten me. I couldn’t even blame it on dumbing down because it was the BBC not the other channel.
I studied my face in the dining room, suddenly unable to ascertain bones or features - just a doughy mass with tiny curranty eyes. I thought of my friends and of my colleagues on various committees. I was well known in most circles (I had even been a contender for deputy mayoress at one point) and I imagined the scenes of incredulity in certain households. Right now perhaps still dumbstruck at that expose of my middle, but with hilarity quick to follow. Katie Frances from the Fairtrade venture for one – I could see her in her slate and old-white living room , switching off her TV, turning her stringbean figure towards her husband, placing a bony finger on her hemp hips and sighing.
“Poor Ruth. Does she really warrant that cruel critique – I think the media have gone too far this time.” Mock-sympathy – that was her all over. “I noticed she was spreading a bit – after all who hasn’t? But to be so out of control she warrants an item on the national news…”
And then the mandatory number of sorrowful headshakes (was it three?) before gleefully embracing the phone: “Yes, Maria. You saw it too. Morbidly obese. I know…”
“Something smells good.” Tony. Relaxed and as normal. How to break it to him that he was married to a public spectacle. I saw no point avoiding the news. Better that he saw it for himself than heard talk. And talk there would be - all over everywhere by the end of the evening - that was for sure. Those unlucky enough to miss the 6 o clock showing would be all lined up for the 10 o clock performance.
We really weren’t that sort of a couple. The kind that liked to wash their weaknesses and air their vulnerabilities. We were perhaps a little old fashioned. If I started wringing out some sort of confession - I don’t think Tony would know where to look. Perhaps just watch the news together. Business as usual. And when he saw my stomach parading across the screen, well then we’d have to deal with it.
“Are you OK, darling?”
“Yes,” I realised I was frowning. “Just trying to unwind from the day. Those boys are a real handful. Still, they’re all tucked up now.”
And I turned my mind to dinner. The addition of some crème fraiche had elevated the dish above the ordinary and with the walnut oil…a cunning alliance of omegas and extravagance.
“Would you like a top-up before the news, dear?”
Tony hovered over me with a delicious burgundy before switching on. I felt supremely calm. Rising above the wrongdoers who had captured my form on film and the onlookers who jeered me. I was prepared and what’s more I had forgiven them all in their ignorance.
First there was the tedious item about the recession and the repossessions doubling. Then something about some African country in the midst of civil war and then,
“The Government watchdog reports a worrying upward trend in the obesity epidemic which has reached a new high due to a 25% increase in morbid obesity. The report speculates that obesity…”
And there I was. My stomach proudly defiant, moving across the screen with its own dignified momentum; rising above its detractors.
I squeezed Tony’s hand. He turned to me questioningly. We weren’t a touchy feely couple. He patted my hand and sighed.
“God, if I hear another bloody item on obesity! It gives me the screaming ad-dabs. Bloody word, obesity! Whatever is wrong with good old fashioned fat…?”
“Tony, I _”
“Sshhh, I want to listen to this. Missed the score earlier, can’t think how…”
And he turned back towards the screen to watch as a crowd of rugby players received some award, while my confession hung unclaimed above us.
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