reekierevelator
Tales from the Reekie Revelator
Short fiction
188 posts
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After the Party
(a short radio play in three scenes)
CHARACTERS
Yvette Late twenties, smart clothes, carrying a handbag
Murdo Late twenties, smart-casual clothes
Jack Middle aged, jeans and polo shirt
Bob Late teens, jeans and polo shirt
SCENE ONE
Location - In a black taxi – FX taxi noise
Time – 4pm, Saturday afternoon, March 2023 (the new age of austerity)
1 Yvette
And the way that guy kept on about his yacht… What was his name?
2 Murdo
Oh yes, that guy - Guy
3 Yvette
Oh yes, Guy – humblebragging about almost drowning himself when he fell overboard off St Lucia after drinking Cristal champagne all day.
4 Murdo
It wasn’t Cristal that Roger was pouring into our glasses back there.
5 Yvette
Some sort of fizzy plonk for the plebs I think. I saw Lucinda take a sip and she screwed her face up at him. And the place, I expected at least a decent three course sit-down – just a buffet – and nachos and melted cheese. I ask you, a ‘buffet restaurant’, and they called it a Swiss raclette or something. It was definitely cheddar. I thought that fondue business went out with the dinosaurs. Slices of cold ham, potato salad, French bread, and that gateaux was awful. I could have made a much better meal at home. To be honest, I think Roger and Lucinda are feeling the pinch.
6 Murdo
I got that impression too – though admittedly they were paying for everything. Guy could have stumped up. I heard him virtue-signalling, telling you his usual story about how he started out as a brickie’s hod carrier and ended up owning the whole nationwide company. It’s sort of true. He did work on a building site for a couple of weeks during college vacations. But it was in his uncle’s building firm. His uncle never married. No kids. Guy inherited everything. But anyway, it was only a Saturday lunchtime get-together. Roger just wanting to mark his birthday with some old pals.
7 Yvette
Saturday night is more appropriate. Shame about Lucinda’s working – what did you say – second job driving nightshift taxis? Lunchtime is more like something for kids, a children’s birthday party. The only thing missing was candles on that dreadful cake.
8 Murdo
Maybe they didn’t think about it? They haven’t got any kids. Kids are such an enormous expense, aren’t they? If you were keen we could maybe think about children in a year or two. Roger’s NHS salary must be worth a lot less that when I first met him a few years ago. But at least he’s managed to get on the housing ladder – huge mortgage – Lucinda’s taxi work must help pay for it. He was gobbling food like he hadn’t eaten for weeks. What is it Wodehouse says – ‘getting himself outside of’ - whole platefuls of cold ham, pakora, sausage rolls and samosas.
9 Yvette
Not quite the haute cuisine you’d led me to expect. What does Lucinda do?
10 Murdo
She was waitressing for a couple of years after graduating. Hotel receptionist now… I got some hot runny cheese on my best shirt. One for the dry-cleaner’s. Even dry-cleaners charge a fortune these days.
11 Yvette
At least we can drop the forced smiles now and have a pleasant evening with a glass of decent wine and some chocolates.
12 Murdo
That’s true. We may not be in Guy’s league but we aren’t quite counting the pennies yet.
13 Yvette
Well, as we agreed when we moved in together last year, you count your pennies and I’ll count mine – except of course for the big things, like me being lumbered paying the rent.
14 Murdo
You’re not going to bring that up again are you? We agreed. You’re the rent -and your phone contract of course - but I’m everything else – council tax, gas, electricity, water, broadband, tv licence, tv subscriptions – Netflix, Disney+, Prime, -food, drink, taxis…
15 Yvette
No need to rattle on about it Murdo. I sometimes think dividing up our finances this way suits you because whenever we’re out with other people you can give the appearance that you pay for me, for everything - meals, alcohol, entertainment, - that certainly seemed to be the impression that bitch Sophie had when she joked that if we were a business partnership I must be the sleeping partner.
16 Murdo
She was talking about herself, her own business Yvy, not us.
17 Yvette
She was implying I sleep with you in exchange for financial support. How does that Sophie besom manage to live so well anyway? What does she do?
18 Murdo
Her dad made money. Spent years buying old flats cheap, doing them up then selling them at a profit. He moved on to letting them out instead of selling them. Then he let Sophie take over. These days I think there are more than a dozen properties she lets out.
19 Yvette
Sounds like easy money to me. That man Cameron she’s with. Grinning like a hyena. ‘Isn’t it great how house prices keep shooting up’ he says. I just smiled sweetly. I know you said Cammy’s parents bought that place for him when he was a student but it doesn’t help. I tried talking to him about my work. He said he was sure I made a wonderful shop assistant – I am not a shop assistant Murdo!
20 Murdo
Of course you aren’t Yvy. You’re in retail, you’re the deputy manager of a classy little boutique in the St James Quarter.
21 Yvette
There’s still that prat James above me; thinks he’s God’s gift. But I could hear that Sophie sniggering behind my back, implying to your friends that I was some kind of kept woman.
22 Murdo
That’s a little paranoid Yvy. You make it sound like she was trying to undermine you, gaslighting you.
23 Yvette
She sort of threatened to come into my shop and make me serve her while she tried on the most expensive dresses – talked about haute couture – wouldn’t know haute couture if it fell on her head. Well, anyway, gas lighting would be up to you. You certainly wouldn’t want to stump up for gas lighting.
24 Murdo
You’re right there. The way fuel and food prices have been rocketing up I think I got the worst of the bargain when we divided up our overhead costs.
25 Yvette
The rent’s not cheap Murdo. I think they’re planning to put it up again soon.
SCENE TWO
Location – Front door of flat on arrival home
Time – 4.30pm, Saturday afternoon
1 Murdo
[about to put key in door] The fares black cabs charge is really getting beyond a joke Yvy.
2 Yvette
Well I don’t understand why you’ve let the garage keep our car all this time. That must be three weeks now they’ve been working on it. I mean how much repair work needs doing after an MOT? Unless you make a fuss tradesmen are just in no hurry at all these days are they?
3 Murdo
I know Ubers and minicabs look a bit cheap to you Yvy but honestly these days you can make a good case for just taking the bus – a proper and sensible thing to do - fighting climate change and so on. The bus would have been just as quick. …. Wait a minute, did you forget to lock the door?
4 Yvette
No, of course not. And you were last out as usual.
5 Murdo
[peering closely at the lock] Well anyway, it’s still open. Hells bells Yvy, it looks like the lock’s been forced.
6 Yvette
Oh God, has someone broken into the flat?
7 Murdo
There’s a light on inside. I can hear people talking. We should call the police.
8 Yvette
[striding into the flat] Oh for God’s sake Murdo. These days the police won’t bother getting here for hours, maybe days. I pay the rent on this place; I pay for that door. I’ll bloody well sort this out myself!
9 Jack
[rising from a kneeling position in the hall] Oh, ah, hullo there. Just back are you eh? Been on holiday?
10 Yvette
Holidays? … [aside how do we divide the cost of holidays?] ….You’ve been caught red-handed, give yourself up…
11 Jack
Knocked and rang the bell. No answer. Let myself in.
12 Yvette
[threatening to hit Jack with handbag] Let yourself in? Who the hell do you think you are breaking into my flat? …
13 Jack
Ah, hang on, see missus, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there…
14 Yvette
[Yvette startled as Bob pokes his head out from the under-the-stairs cupboard] Another one! And who the hell is that?
15 Jack
Ah, well this little chap would be Bob. We work as a team see, I…..
16 Yvette
A bloody gang of thieves. Murdo, there’s two of them! Don’t let them escape. Block the door. [She searches in her handbag and pulls out a pair of nail scissors.] Try to run and I swear I’ll poke your eye out with these.
17 Bob
Easy on there missus, we’re only swapping the meters aren’t we.
18 Yvette
What do you mean, ‘swapping the meters’?
19 Jack
Well we’re Northern Gas missus. [Jack turns and points to the writing on the back of his polo shirt – ‘Northern – it’s a gas, gas, gas’] Just here to do the meters … gas meter…
20 Bob
…and I’m on the electricity…
21 Yvette
[perplexed, brandishing scissors] ‘Do the meters?’ ‘Do the meters?’
22 Jack
Yes, both … your dual fuel contract see…
23 Bob
You’ll have had all the text messages…
24 Jack
…Or emails…
25 Bob
…The envelopes with big red lettering.
26 Murdo
[slapping his forehead] Ah, oh dear, my goodness. Well, now I think about it I might be able to explain some of this Yvy.
27 Yvette
What do you mean, ‘explain’?
28 Murdo
Well, it’s true, there were emails – rather a lot of emails in fact – and then there was a letter… letters… – printed in red.
29 Jack
Yes, that’s right, see that’s how it works missus.
30 Yvette
Good God Murdo, are you trying to tell me that these… these people, really are Northern Gas employees, and they’ve broken into my flat…
31 Jack
Well not ‘broken in’ – that’s not right missus. All legitimate, above board. See gas, water, electric – right of entry anytime – case of emergency and so on, so…
32 Yvette
…broken into my flat because, because, because they’re converting, force-fitting, turning our gas and electricity meters into prepayment meters, because, because…
33 Jack
Because the bills haven’t been paid, have they missus? Payments stopped weeks ago. Company left with no choice.
34 Yvette
[turning angrily on Murdo] For God’s sake Murdo, is this true? How could you forget to arrange the direct debits? That’s all it takes – a little bit of competent household management. No need to stand there looking like you’ve lost a pound and found a penny. Get it sorted!
35 Murdo
[shame-faced] Ah, well, actually it is a little more complicated than that really. I did set up the direct debits pretty well, but, well…
36 Bob
Stopped working, did they? - no money in the bank account? – [aside] that’s usually the way of it, isn’t it Jack?
37 Yvette
[stunned] No money!?... but surely… automatic bank overdraft….
38 Murdo
Yvy you know when I said at least we aren’t quite counting the pennies yet, well it’s not quite true. To be honest…
39 Yvette
[hitting Murdo with her handbag] No money?...No money in your bank account?...
40 Murdo
[squirming, ashen faced] Sorry, even the overdraft up to the hilt. Financially embarrassed. Skint. Boracic… See, it’s the job.
41 Yvette
What’s wrong with the job? Working hard, going out to the Brewery’s offices every day, pottering about filling in computer forms and spreadsheets, - you say it’ll all be fully automated soon, but not yet, no not yet, - then home by six-thirty every day. You’ve always enjoyed admin, clerical work. What’s wrong with the job?
42 Murdo
The thing is, when the government pandemic subsidies – furlough and so on – stopped, the beer prices still went up - drinkers cutting back, pubs closing, exports plummeting – bloody Brexit - they just didn’t need so many people to organise deliveries…
43 Yvette
You’ve lost your bloody job!?
44 Murdo
That’s the long short. Two months ago. Negligible redundancy money - not there long enough. But then your shop re-opened and you were busy checking stock, encouraging sales, helping on the counter, still people with money out there… and I, well I’ve been, eh, hanging around, walking around the parks mainly, hoping my savings would stretch till I found a new job. Hoped your salary might tide us over if I had to ask. Actually, lots of vacancies out there – hotel cleaners, burger flippers, call centres – that kind of thing - zero hours – how do people live on those wages? I even looked at fast food bicycle delivery...
45 Bob
Your legs aren’t strong enough guv, nothing personal, just saying. Amount of deliveries you got to do to make a living wage… needs strong legs…
46 Murdo
And people cutting back anyway – can’t afford delivery – cost of food up nearly 20% - Just Eat, Deliveroo – all letting people go or forcing them to be self-employed again – companies never made a profit anyway, and…
47 Jack
Driving though? – You could drive a van – help clog up the streets like all those Asda and Amazon and…
48 Murdo
… and utilities company vans.
49 Jack
Here, somebody’s got to fit PPM. It’s a living.
50 Murdo
Maybe not for anyone with scruples? A bit morally dubious sometimes? Cutting off heating – kids – old people - disabled…left freezing, hungry…
51 Yvette
For God’s sake Murdo. You’re the bloody slough of despond. At least the rent’s still paid. I’m still paying the rent.
52 Murdo
Oh well that will keep Sophie happy at least – the only way I managed to find a flat…
53 Yvette
Oh, that’s great! Our landlady – that bitch! And the car in the MOT garage – no doubt the repair bill’s still unpaid?
53 Murdo
[apologetic] And the tax, insurance, not to mention petrol… One thing just leads to another…
54 Yvette
[aggressive] Oh for God’s sake get a grip Murdo. Listen, it can’t be too hard to learn how to convert meters can it? – and it looks like there’s going to be a lot of demand for people to do these conversions for some time yet…so…do you want to eat or do you want to have scruples?
55 Murdo
[brightening up] You’re not wrong Yvy. It’s an idea. In fact you could be absolutely right. I’ll get on to Northern Gas right away. [Turning to the workmen] What are your names again boys - Jack, Bob is it? – Any chance you could put in a word, give me a decent reference?
SCENE THREE
Location – Pavement outside shop doorway. It is raining. FX rainfall
Murdo - unshaven, dirty clothes, sitting cross-legged on pavement, paper coffee cup in front of him alongside a piece of cardboard with ‘Hungry and homeless’ scrawled on it.
Yvette - striding along the pavement holding an umbrella, suddenly stops, aghast, stands over him, staring down at him. FX footsteps coming to sudden halt
Time – One month later – 9am Monday
1 Yvette
My God, is that you Murdo?
2 Murdo
Ah, Yvy, yes, I’m afraid so. You never think it could happen to you, do you? Then you fill in all the stuff to apply for Universal Credit and it takes forever. You fall through the bloody trapdoor before you even realize it’s there. Penniless. On the street.
3 Yvette
You could have been fixing gas meters.
4 Murdo
Couldn’t bring myself to do it in the end. Heart-breaking. There again, they only hire and pay wages to people with a fixed address. Bit of a catch-22 there, the old ‘no fixed abode’. Couldn’t even get a job pouring coffee – mentioned body odour, wrong image for customers. You know Yvy, they always said money is the main reason couples argue and break up, but I didn’t properly understand… I know you chose the role of paying the rent but, well, I didn’t think you’d take it so seriously, react so badly to my new-found, er, impecuniousness… poverty… I had nowhere to go. Are you still living there?
5 Yvette
I managed to get back in touch with Guy. He spoke to Sophie. She’s letting me stay in the flat rent-free for a couple of months until I find some flat-sharers. Couple of people in the boutique are interested – shop takings are down – staff salaries not keeping up with inflation – employees rents still shooting up - lots of people looking for cheaper places to live.
6 Murdo
James, by any chance?
7 Yvette
Well yes, he’s expressed a strong interest. With the rent going up and pay in the boutique not moving Sophie says I’d be better off working for her – property management assistant.
8 Murdo
[aside, under his breath] bloody rent collector putting the squeeze on. - Spare some change Yvy? I can barely afford to eat – prices getting ludicrous. Citizens Advice gave me a voucher for the food bank but I’m soaked through Yvy, hoping to get enough for a hostel bed tonight.
9 Yvette
[dropping some coins into Murdo’s cup as she turns away] I’ve got to get to work. Money’s a bit tight. Cost of food’s high for everyone. My present post may not pay too well Murdo, but look at you, things could be worse. Maybe I’ll see you around.
10 Murdo
Maybe. Goodbye Yvy. Hope James is good for you. [aside, peering into the paper cup] No need to despair old son, looks about enough there for a couple of cans – funny, working in a brewery I always fancied wine - but if special brew can blank me out of this for a while… help me forget the state of the world….well, oblivion beckons.
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Cowboy Boots
What’s there to say
about fashions today,
Mary Quant’s gone
But the world carries on.
Roll up for your cowboy boots,
Real leather made in China.
Oh, you want the real old Texas job?
My friend I’ve nothing finer.
So you want to dance in a line,
Wear a stetson, tasselled skirt,
Or lasso little dogies
And fight them in the dirt?
Maybe wear your boots to work in
At the office or building…
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The Rescue of the Gaelic Ghost Dance
A Short Story
The once a year traditional event rolled round again. The ceilidh with ‘the 1950s’ as its theme would be held in the community hall that night. Somhairle Mhic Leòid - Sorley McLeod - had been looking forward to it for weeks. There was a lot going on in Stornoway these days but the 1950s ceilidh was a real horo-gheallaidh – shindig, still his favourite day on Leòdhais - Lewis.
The long mirror on the bedroom wall of his small flat reflected a satisfactory image. It was the way he saw himself, the way he wanted to be, his soul made manifest. The fair Viking hair dyed black and brylcreemed into a DA, the powder blue drape jacket with its black velvet collar, the drainpipe trousers and black brothel creepers. He would have tied a bootlace tie to complete the image but it hadn’t arrived in time. Otherwise, what was not to like about this gloriously authentic outfit, assembled from car-boot sales and online auctions, other than his own thin and wiry twenty year old frame on which the dazzling jacket hung a little too loosely? He smiled widely, preening himself, turned his head left and right in narcissistc admiration. In his mind he was already jiving, birling round the hall with local lassies, twirling and throwing them while Chuck Berry skipped addictvely through the verses of the black boy reaching the Promised Land, Buddy Holly joyful with Oh Boy!, and Eddie Cochran insisting on Somethin Else. It struck him that too many great rock ‘n’ rollers died young, Buddy in an aeroplane and Eddie in a car, but at least none had died at sea.
Finally forcing his gaze away from the mirror and thinking of preparing a some sgadan – herring / black pudding - for tea Sorley glanced out of the bedroom window. It was late afternoon and already getting dark. He saw the usual end of winter winds were getting higher. Black clouds scudded across the dull sky. He heard the squawking of the gulls as they scurried inland ahead of bad weather. He bit his lip, suddenly seized with fear that the dance might be cancelled, and just then his phone rang. Scowling apprehensively, he hurried into his tiny living-room and grabbed the handset.
“Hallo,” he barked.
“Sorley, there’s a shout,” a rough voice spoke urgently. “Get down to the quay. Five minutes.” And the caller hung up, gone before Sorley had any chance to reply. The Coxswain, Captain McLeod, never wasted words.
Sorley was out of his front door and onto his motorbike in a flash. Reaching the station house he saw the rest of the crew hastily donning their bright yellow kit and checking their equipment. No-one but his friend Uilleam had time to comment briefly on the bizarrely attired apparition that was Sorley. Concentration and effective preparation were all. Sorley was soon in full waterproofs and at his allotted station onboard the Lord of the Isles as it ran down the slipway and splashed into the choppy grey swell of the North Minch.
“A mayday?”
“Only two crew,” his friend Uilleam - William, an older family man, replied.
“Not quite the Iolaire cò-dhiù - anyway.”
“Don’t joke Sorley. Every life matters.”
“Ochone - sorry, of course Uilly. But why were they on the water?” shouted Sorley, the smell of brine in his nose and taste of salt water in his mouth as the lifeboat skipped across the towering waves like a flat stone sent skiffing across a pond.
“History re-enactment,” the older man shouted back, showers of spray washing over them both each time the high speed boat bumped over the next big wave.
“History re-enactment?” puzzled Sorley.
“Academic – mad scientist - wants to test old sea routes - historical text in some library - Bishop of Man and Sodor. Aimed to follow the wake of longships from Islay to the Battle of Largs - but coastguard forbade it. Ended up opting for Loch Broom to Stornoway. Engines failed halfway across.”
“Radio working though.”
“Luckily - emergency call. Pump failed – not checked properly beforehand either. Taking on water fast. Blown well off course – drifting south near Na h-Eileanan Seunta - The Enchanted Isles / The Shiant Isles. Captain will have us there no no time.”
“Surprised they got past the Summer Isles.”
It was after seven o’clock by the time they reached the supplied co-ordinates and the sky was black, the squall now in full storm mode, water battering down on them from above and crashing up over them from below, no moonlight and minimal visibility. But the radar had returned a signal and, while hoping to sight a distress flare, Captain Mcleod switched on the searchlight and screwed up his eyes. He managed to pick out a tiny flickering light and hoped to find a small boat adrift, bobbing like a cork tossing around in the wild sea. But as the lifeboat bounced up as near as possible alongside he saw the hull of the boat was under water.
Sorley could make out a young woman, anorak and jeans, drenched to the bone, hair glued to her scalp, up to her waist in water, a small torch waving from a trembling hand. Waves now crashing over the boat’s gunwales which occasionally glistening above water. Only the boat’s small cabin, rocked left and right by the gales whipping round it, still protruded much above the surf.
“Throwing a lifebelt” Sorley yelled. But even as he threw it with all his might he saw the gale simply send it back again.
“Never work - winds too high,” the Captain bellowed, “and that boat’s too far sunk for a tow rope.”
“Launch the inflatable?” Uilleam roared into the gale, though it was obvious the sea swell was now probibitively high for this suggestion.
Captain McLeod gripped the loud-hailer, pressed it to his salt and pepper beard and pointed it at the crew of the wreck, even though his words were distorted by the storm, carried away in the gale, he announced that he would attempt an immediate rescue. He then gave the command “Fire the breeches buoy - Aim for the cabin wall.”
Almost immediately Sorley heard the explosion as the line was fired, but the crunch as it made made contact could not be heard above the roar of the storm. Still, the line held.
Yet still the woman stood swaying against the gumwale, petrified, scared to move lest she would be washed away, despite knowing she was only a short prayer from drowning anyway, and oblivious to the line’s purpose even as the breeches buoy swung close behind her, twisting in the gale.
“I’ll go,” shouted Sorley immediately, and began winching the harness back towards the lifeboat, hauling maniacally, and quickly tied himself in, letting Uilleam release him back out over the violent sea raging between the boats. Reaching the sinking vessel he released himself from the harness and found his feet no longer reached a solid surface. He had only trained in rescue swimming in a wet suit, not in full kit. Fortunately, a couple of strong strokes between the biggest waves and gusts of wind allowed him to grab the now floating wonan by the arm and drag her back to the harness.
Only then did the terrified woman attempt to speak, shouting almost hysterically. “My father, Professor Fraser, in the cabin. Save him. You must save him.”
Sorley grabbed the rope hanging from the end of the breeches buoy and tied it round the woman’s waist to anchor her, all the time talking to calm her, mentioning the dance he’d be missing. She said her name was Peggy. He could hear the Captain shouting through the short wave radio unit built into his kit “Load her up fast, let’s get her over,” but for this the woman’s co-operation was essential and she refused to move until her father was dealt with first. “He’s injured – flung down as the boat bounced and twisted in the storm,” she shouted.
“This is some merry dance you’re leading me,” Sorley complained.
“That’s what my father says. But it was him called me Peggy Sue, taught me to jive. Old rock ‘n’ roll. I love to jive.”
Sorley smiled at her hysterical ramblings despite the devastation around him, and found it impossible to refuse a favour for a woman with such an evocative name and impeccable musical taste. As the Captain bawled over the radio “Get her into the harness, there’s no time” he instead swam to the cabin entry and saw a half-dead man at the helm, eyes closed, white hands gripping the wheel, blood washing down the side of his face from a gash in his temple. With difficulty he pulled the fingers from the wheel, put one arm round the man’s waist and, gripping the wood of the cabin wall with the other, he floated himself round to the outside again where the woman was able to grasp her father’s arm and hold him.
Together, Sorley and the woman managed to hoist the Professor into the buoy, and then, after necessarily untying her from the breeches buoy rope, Sorley circled his arm, gesturing to Uilleam to start winching. He yelled “Haul away now,” just as the cabin was sinking below the waterline and Professor Fraser’s short journey began.
Through the dark spray Sorley made out the shadow of a figure being taken on to the bobbing lifeboat even as the cabin immediately behind him disappeared entirely beneath the waves, dragging the the breeches buoy down with it. Left floating in the raging sea Sorley held on tightly to the woman as if performing some grotesque modern dance, both now entirely reliant on Sorley’s lifejacket. Struggling desperately in the broiling sea he managed to tie the loose strings that hung from his lifejacket to the woman’s arms, preventing the waves from washing her apart from him.
Captain McLeod was desperately trying to discard the breeches buoy and manoevre the lifeboat round towards them when a massive swell rose up to drive Sorley and the woman much further away from the lifeboat, with the heavy tide pushing them rapidly towards the jagged outlying bare rocks of the Shiants.
Throughout the stormy night the lifeboat searched the darkness even after power for the searchlight gave out and only the beam from Scalpay’s lighthouse twinkled in the distance. Sorley’s radio had failed and the seas were too violent, the tides moving too fast for the floating bodies to be located. By the early hours Captain McLeod was forced to give the command to return to harbour.
The puffins had emerged grunting from their burrows and crevices on the uninhabited Shiants into the calm sunshine of the following day when the search helicopter spotted a yellow jacket at the foot of Garbh Eilean – Rough Island. It closed in on the battered bodies, still entwined, floating in a dark pool between deadly Shiant rocks.
The lifeboat reached Stornoway in the early morning, the crew devastated, having saved only one of the two in peril and having lost one of their own.
Uilleam was sombre as he trudged back to the family home. Not sure how to tell his sixteen year old daughter Eilidh what had happened he talked to her first of how a severe storm brewed up suddenly in the Minch, the weather at sea becoming horrendous. He was surprised when his daughter interrupted with her own exciting news that despite the storm she had been so very pleased because the ceilidh had gone ahead and that his friend Sorley had put in an appearance for half an hour or so. “But,” she complained, “he danced all the time with a girl I’ve never seen before and she hadn’t even got dressed up. And he didn’t talk to anyone - not even me,” she pouted.
Uilleam pulled his daughter towards him and said “Look, I’m sorry Eilidh, you’re mistaken. You see, Sorley was on the call with me last night and... well,... I’m afraid he never came back with us.”
But before the full implication of his words had time to register Eilidh insisted “But that can’t be right. He came in late and all the girls were watching him. He did fantastic jiving with that girl, swinging her back and forwards, twirling, sliding her through his legs, having so much fun. Everyone saw them.”
Uilleam’s face took on a very worried, perplexed expression. “What did the girl look like?”
“She was nothing special, just in an anorak and jeans, but she could really dance.”
“And Sorley – long blue jacket, narrow trousers, thick soled shoes?”
“Yes, that was him.”
“And tie?”
“Yes, he’d dyed his blonde hair black, combed back in that funny way, and he had a lovely matching bootlace tie.”
“I think maybe that girl was called Peggy Sue” Uilleam murmured under his breath”, incredulous, “and he even got his tie”. His face had turned ashen as he dropped to the sofa feeling he might otherwise collapse altogether, the tempest in his mind as hard to handle as the one so recently experienced at sea.
A couple of days later a grieving Professor Fraser insisted on funding the following year’s rock ‘n’ roll ceilidh in memory of his daughter. “It will be twice as good next time,” the organisers promised.
And indeed at the following year’s 1950s themed ceilidh in the dimly lit community hall many dancers swore that, when the DJ let Chuck Berry’s Promised Land rip, the glitter ball hanging from the ceiling sparkled, projecting a ghostly shadow image on the wall, the silhouette of a man in lifeboat gear. He was jiving with an unknown woman, both of them laughing, happy and carefree.
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Language Evolves
While the Earth revolves
language evolves.
Maybe I missed the meeting,
or the memo seemed meaningless,
but tell me anyway –
When did
very become super,
reaction become pushback
backtrack become row back
conclusions become takeaways
my fault become my bad
and my mistake even badder?
When did
I’m well become I’m good
in future become going forward
an increase become an uptick
a…
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After Bagpipe Music
It’s no go the big tick shoes, it’s no go the Facebook,
All we want is a life to live and money for some new look.
Their houses are made of old cardboard, their jobs suck more than Dyson
Their flats are lined with pizza boxes and their ears with fashion items.
It’s no go the three stripe breeks, it’s no go video walls
It’s no go streaming music and dodgy avatars for pals.
All we want is a…
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Fraying at the Edges - novel available
This is the story of a murder in Scotland at the time of the Scottish Independence referendum. The main suspect is a young member of an established family which runs a private bank, some of whose members hold strong views for and against independence. The suspect’s brother finds himself taking the lead role in trying to prove the suspect’s innocence. Dysfunctional family relationships, political…
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My Body's Giving Up On Me
Arthur Williams – mural by Shona Hardie, – Arthur Street, Leith
My body’s giving up on me, it says it’s had enough,
I asked it what’s the problem, it said there’s lots of stuff.
Said there’s been too much stretching, bending, twisting, treated rough,
Now it’s shrinking, no-one cares, and it doesn’t feel tough.
My body’s giving up on me, it says that now’s the time,
It helped me through the…
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The European Monarch
Here’s to Harald, Carl Gustaf, and Hans-Adam Two
And all the rich people who travel with you.
Here’s to Margrethe, Philippe, Albert Two
Henri, Felipe, Willem-Alexander, who knew?
Francis, Joan Enric; yes it’s really all true
Charles Third’s not alone though Europe’s not grown
And John Dunlap’s Smom keeps it small.
Albert IIPrinceMonacoCarl XVI GustafKingSwedenCharles IIIKingUnited…
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School Mates
I was thinking about old school mates
But I couldn’t remember their names
And I worried, what were their fates?
I was thinking about old school mates
And how forgetting their names was a shame
How decades on their faces remain the same.
I was thinking about old school mates
But I couldn’t remember their names.
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Dark Days
Some days are short some days are long
Light’s always at a premium
Dictators divide then start war’s sad old song.
Some days are short some days are long
Scan ‘friends’ online to relieve the tedium,
Or smash the screen, see beyond the medium.
Some days are short some days are long
Light’s always at a premium.
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St. Valentine
Eichteen hunner year or so ago
A bishop lost oot tae Roman gods.
Christians, miracles, were a’ no go,
Eichteen hunner year or so ago.
Sae they kilt Valentine, the sods,
Fur protectin bees agin the odds.
Eichteen hunner year or so ago
A bishop lost oot tae Roman gods
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Friday the Thirteenth
I was still stacking shelves that afternoon, a zero-hours job in a supermarket, when the call came through. A flat. A genuine offer of a Council flat after all three of us had been living for almost year crushed together in that dingy single room. I only had to review the premises and agree to move in. The keys to the flat would be left for me in the supermarket supervisor’s office. The urge to desert the shelves and rush out immediately was almost overwhelming. It took a great deal of effort to control myself. I rushed off to collect the keys the minute my shift ended.
That morning my fellow workers had been chatting about Friday the Thirteenth being unlucky. It led them on to talking all sorts of nonsense about black cats, walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, and thirteen being unlucky because of the Last Supper. But far from unlucky this Friday 13th seemed my luckiest day in a long time.
The bus dropped me outside Greenview in no time at all. I had to bend my head all the way backwards to squint up to the top of the tower block. I counted the number of rows of small windows and guessed eighteen floors. I pushed open the big front door which was fitted with reinforced glass and stepped into a bare concrete litter-strewn entrance hall. There was no-one else around and I felt vulnerable. There were some places where even a brown skin could bring danger. Stuck to both lifts there was a crudely written ‘Out of Order’ sign. In smaller writing under one of the signs someone had written ‘Engineer may come Monday 16th. There was nothing for it but to climb the concrete stairs. I had to remind myself that it would be a home, and a home in the Elephant and Castle would be relatively central, handy for work. By the second floor the amount of litter had decreased but a stench of rot and decay persisted. I could see the local wildlife had found its way inside the building. Pigeon droppings, - perhaps bats - were commonplace. In a corner I spotted dead pigeon, half devoured by mice or rats.
On the third floor landing there was no lighting. A sudden yowl sent a shiver down my spine until I glimpsed the shadow of a black cat racing past me down the stairs. I picked my way forward as a gurgling death rattle sounded, louder the higher I climbed unil it screeched like a banshee. On the eighth floor I found the landing window was somehow in the process of detaching itself from the wall, swaying and groaning in the evening breeze and grinding against the frame as it did so. I felt my way through the darkness of the ninth and tenth floors and wondered at no-one having passed me on the stairs. Breathless, and with the joy of being offered a flat rapidly dissipating, I staggered on to the thirteenth floor landing. No lighting again; just a cold draught from another broken window.
I pressed my nose up against doors to see numbers and at last identified number thirteen. But as I went to push my key in the lock the door creaked open. I found myself staring into blackness. At the sound of shuffling footsteps approaching I frantically felt around the walls for the light switch. My fingers located it and I flicked it down urgently. Nothing happened except I shuddered to feel a hand fall on my shoulder. A ghostly presence murmured in an ethereal voice “Have you come to sit with me chaber?”
“No, no,” I stammered, “who are you?”
“I’m Joshua, here for my brother Noah. Are you a friend?”
“Can you put the light on?” I managed to ask.
“Ah, the light.”
His hand moved slowly down my shoulder till it held my fingers. He guided my index finger up to his face, drawing it over his cheekbone until I shrank back and shivered as it traced an empty eye socket.
“I am blind,” murmured Joshua. “There is no light in my world. Now Noah has gone too and the electricity company has decided he no longer needs light.”
“Noah? Living here?”
“Noah is dead now my friend. He let me live here with him, but maybe the Council didn’t know. There are rules. Sub-letting. And now maybe other rules - squatting.”
“Listen, the Council has given me the keys to this flat.”
“Ah. But you won’t be here long my friend.”
“I’m moving in with my family, my wife and child.”
“And next year Greenview is scheduled for demolition. Very few people still live here my friend. Soon no-one at all.”
The blind man must have sensed my bitter disappointment. “Come,” he said, “it’s been a shock. Sit with me awhile until you feel better.”
Holding my hand he led me through the darkness until my ankles bumped into something and he said “Sit here on the sofa.”
We sat in silence, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. I could make out heavy curtains drawn across the window.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Haroon,” I replied.
“Ah,” said the blind man. “A Muslim?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Today is Friday. Holy day, your day for prayers.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But every day is a prayer day and yet when I am called to work I must work without breaks to face Mecca. My family attended the mosque this afternoon. I will go tonight.”
“But you can stay with me for an hour, help me sit shiva?”
“Shiva … ah, of course, … and then I understood. I am not a wise man, but I am not ignorant of Abraham’s other followers, other customs.”
“And the next time you come I will be gone.”
“But if you have nowhere else to go…?”
“Your family need a home.”
In the dark silence I thought about that, about family. Then I replied “Listen, Joshua my friend, I can move in here with my wife and child and there will still be room for you. The Council need never know. What with the whole tower coming down next year the arrangement will only be for a short time anyway. But it will give us both some space to work out what we do next.”
“I thank you Haroon. I will do that. You are a good man, willing to share any good fortune.”
“Not a better man than you Joshua, welcoming me in this place and willing to sit alone praying for your brother’s salvation.
And as we sat together in silent contemplation I decided Greenview was bad, but Friday the Thirteenth or not I could still count myself lucky; it could easily have been very much worse. And anyway, a home is about people, not about material conditions, and friendship, getting to know one another, is how we overcome fear.
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THE CHRISTMAS CLICHÉ – It’s a Wonderful Life
We were temporary contract labourers on a building site, our Jaikets on a shoogly peg. Most days I would hear my pal Eddie Moore say Don’t let the bastards get you down, Money isn’t everything, We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns, Life is a terminal illness, No rest for the wicked, Tomorrow is another day, and No point crying over spilt milk. Everything always Cost an arm and a leg. When Eddie talked football it was Got his retaliation in first in A game of two halves, and Thrashed them nil-nil, if indeed they were Lucky to get nil. Wonder about his age and he reminded you Sixty is the new forty. When the job was going well he was Cooking with gas, Gien it laldy. When the foreman criticised it was Just as well we’re all millionaires and only doing this for fun. And after the clocks turned back it was Christmas comes but once a year, and when it does it’s very dear.
We had wives and kids but never earned enough to give them the Christmas the advertisers insisted they deserved. Marry in haste, repent at leisure was the wives’ mantra, pointing to furniture or kitchen equipment always On its last legs.
In desperation some like Eddie took a wee interest in particular horses or the lottery and almost always Lost his shirt, ending up even worse off. Cream-crackered after a day on site some tried taking on second jobs and barely ever saw their families. Some abandoned hope and blew their wages on becoming fully refreshed and feeling no pain. But work is the curse of the drinking classes and they were back, under the weather, on Monday mornings, sometimes with cuts and bruises and muttering You should’ve seen the other guy. Some even went to chapel and tried praying for help with the sky-pilot.
On our wages most of us struggled to afford food, gas, leccy and rent. But we scrimped, saved, or borrowed to ‘give Christmas’ to our families. No use telling four year olds the game’s a bogey, there’s no presents but it’s the thought that counts.
So when the boss offered a sub, to be paid back over the coming year, we were keen. Surely the offer implied the job would last long enough to pay back the loan. Just sign a piece of paper and he’d press £150 cash in your hand. Eddie called it manna from heaven, a lifesaver, even as some worried if it looks too good to be true it probably is. And Eddie’s old eyes, though fully aware that it does what it says on the tin, failed him when it came to the fine print. But Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. The kids’ presents and family meals that year were Out of this world. We even donated to charity. Fairy lights twinkled, snowflakes fluttered down softly. It was a Winter wonderland and All’s well that ends well.
But it’s not over till the fat lady sings. We only found out about the 10% monthly interest charge when we saw it docked from our wage packets in January. Should have gone to Specsavers, Eddie ruefully admitted. We were All in the same boat and all shared That familiar sinking feeling.
Suddenly Eddie was shouting It’ll be all right on the night and I had somehow conceived the idea of taking the boss to court for illegal moneylending. The boss’s jowls were shaking with laughter as he spluttered If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard that one. But, bold and brave, I made him Laugh on the other side of his face. I was in court winning the case, getting our money back and, not only that, the legal expenses and guarantees of future job security as well. I looked out over sun-kissed Caribbean beaches from my yacht as we sailed round Mustique to our beautiful holiday villa. I could still hear Eddie exclaiming They think it’s all over – it is now as I eventually woke up. Ach, It was all a dream.
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On The Other Foot - Alle’s Tale
A short fairytale for our times
I had a very happy childhood in Edinburgh. Being an only child my loving mother doted on me. But I saw very little of my father, John Rednic. My mother told me he loved me very much, but during those early years he was in the process of leaving his job as a manager at Oilygas Co. and setting up his own solar panels business. He worked all the hours God gave, seven days a week. He left for work before I woke up and arrived home after I’d gone to bed. I suppose all that work must have paid off. We became quite wealthy and moved to a big house in the Grange. We even had a housekeeper there, a lovely older woman called Meg. She rented a room several streets away and had lots of friends. But sadly, as I entered my teenage years my mother died. Fortunately, Meg took me under her wing. She virtually took over as a substitute mother. Always cheerful and optimistic she liked having a young boy around to talk to. I took to following her as she worked. I watched how she carried out tasks - shopping, cooking, cleaning rooms, making beds, all the jobs necessary for the smooth running of a household.
A year after my mother’s death one of our neighbours, Mrs Trublane, a widow who lived in a small gas-guzzling bungalow nearby with her two teenage sons, Driz and Antsy, began pestering my father with phone calls. Meg told me Mrs Trublane was constantly pleading with him for help, saying how hard it was for her without a husband to keep her house decent, find the money for her sons’ private education, and so on. I’d come across Driz and Antsy before, big lads but not the brightest, and faces like bags of nails. They were aggressive and, till now, I’d managed to keep out of their way.
One day Meg mentioned that to help with Mrs Trublane’s financial problems, and to prevent her persistent phone calls, my father had found her a minor job in his company. And not long after that there were rumours that this had only made things worse for him. In the office Mrs Trublane was said to be constantly flirting with him, flouncing around, conniving to make other staff believe she was his favourite and that she enjoyed a special relationship with him. Her failure to get any work done also grated with the other staff and her constant interruptions distracted my father from important work.
Around that time there occurred one of the few occasions when my father had more than the briefest of conversations with me. He announced he was going to re-marry. My stepmother would be Mrs Trublane. She would stop working in the office and come to live in our house. She would look after me along with her two sons. My father would make use of Mrs Trublane’s bungalow down the road. He explained that that way he could avoid disturbing everyone with his early starts, late returns, and would also have a quiet place to study company administrative and legal documents.
When Mrs Trublane moved in she was grinning from ear to ear. She announced that she would take over everything and that I should call her ‘Mother’. She dismissed Meg right away, saying Meg was unnecessary and her minimum wage excessive. My new step-brothers were proud to tell me that up till then a young African boy, Bashiir, had done all the housework in their bungalow. He worked for no pay at all and never even felt the need to leave the house. They joked that they often gave ‘Basher’ a bashing if he didn’t work hard enough. But Bashiir had somehow been misplaced during the disruption and chaos of the move and had disappeared. After establishing herself in the master bedroom ‘Mother’ allocated the other two big bedrooms, one of which had been mine, to her sons on the basis that they were slightly older than me so deserved the biggest rooms. I was directed into a very small, dark, spare room.
But it did not take long for ‘Mother’ to realize how much work Meg had actually been coping with. “You’ll have to help out,” she told me, fiercely gripping my arm, a menacing expression on her face. And before long it became clear that I was responsible for many of the jobs Meg had done previously. After that it wasn’t unusual for my step-mother and her sons to call me Basher by mistake. Once she had arranged for me to be ‘educated at home’ rather than attend school I was required to do all of the household tasks together with any other mending and decorating jobs she deemed necessary. My clothes rapidly deteriorated into tattered rags.
Thereafter, on the odd occasion my father did ask to see me ‘Mother’ made sure I bathed beforehand. Then she dressed me in my best suit of clothes before taking me down to her old bungalow for a brief interview with him. My father always looked tired and overworked on those occasions so I tried hard not to give him any additional cause for anxiety. I invariably reassured him that all was well with me. But once we returned home after these meetings my step-mother made me take off my good clothes and replace them with my usual ragged and dirty shirt and dungarees. She said this was necessary because clothes were expensive and all the mucky jobs I had to do around the house would only spoil good clothes. In any case, apart from the one good outfit I still retained, her sons had taken to wearing all my other clothes. My step-mother said this was necessary to save wasting money on buying them new clothes. But somehow they also often had expensive new clothes to wear as well.
Sadly, only a few years after his re-marriage my father died. The ex Mrs Trublane found an old will he had written in which all his worldly goods were left, in their entirety, to his wife. Her solicitor confirmed that as his wife it meant she inherited everything. It seemed odd that nothing was specifically left to me but the solicitor explained it was irrelevant anyway since my step-mother would be financially secure, well able to take care of all my needs.
‘Mother’ and her sons only talked to me when telling me what work to do. The only person I could really confide in was Meg. Having been dismissed as our housekeeper she had taken a job as a shop assistant at the local supermarket. As one of my many duties was to do all the family shopping, regularly struggling home with very heavy bags, I sometimes saw her at the supermarket. She was always pleased to see me and surprised that I had to pay for everything with a credit card in my own name. It was something ‘Mother’ had arranged. She maintained that carrying cash around was very dangerous. Of course I had to give her all the shop receipts so she could check them back against the sums charged to the credit card. She paid off my credit card each month. I once suggested using the card to buy clothes for myself but she was adamant that my existing attire was perfectly adequate and that there was no need for anything else. She also told me sternly “I can’t possibly pay for anything that appears on your credit card statement that has been purchased without my prior approval. If you buy anything just for yourself I won’t be able to pay it off. You’ll be in debt with with no way of paying it off.” In chilling tones she stressed “That would mean terrible things happening to you. Policemen would haul you to court, you’d be put in prison and, as a young man, you would be abused by the worst kind of criminals.”
I found I did not really mind hard work. I was always first up in the morning to organise the log-burning stoves and to cook breakfasts. And I was last to bed after tidying up after everyone and taking out the rubbish. Being perpetually busy I usually managed to keep out of the way of the others. But what with the food shopping, making meals, washing dishes, doing the laundry, washing windows, polishing shoes and glasses, making beds, dusting and hoovering all the rooms, and doing handyman jobs like painting and gardening, I somehow often felt quite tired by night-time. There were times I didn’t even have the energy left to crawl up to my little bed. Instead I just slept beside the remaining warmth of the wood-burning stove. That way I was already on hand to get the stove going again when I woke up cold early in the morning. But it did mean bits of wood ash were sometimes stuck to my old clothes, something my step-brothers laughed about as they poked, prodded and punched me.
One day at the supermarket Meg mentioned that my father’s company was being sold to GigantrixGreen, a huge multinational wind turbine operation. When I’d lugged the shopping home I found my step-mother and her sons shouting and whooping with joy. Not only would she be receiving a lot of money from the company’s sale but she had also received a formal invitation for herself and her family to attend Gigantrix’s huge Hogmanay Party. All the big bosses would be flying in for the event from all over the world. There would be a splendid banquet, free drinks of all kinds, good music from high quality bands, dancing, and all kinds of special gifts for everyone. The boys were euphoric, mad with excitement. My step-mother’s eyes gleamed as she gave them detailed instructions on how to ‘snag a rich executive’s daughter’ and said she would RSVP immediately. It all sounded so wonderful that I dearly wanted to go. Unfortunately, spotting me still standing in the doorway, my step-mother grimaced, and scolded “But of course you won’t be able to go. You’ve got no decent clothes to wear and, anyway, the household duties will still have to be done as usual. They’ll keep you busy till late at night.”
On the day of the big event, as the boys were trying on new suits and being trained by their mother on how to compliment girls on their finery, hairstyles, and jewellery, I was obliged, in rather low spirits, to trek again to the supermarket for another load of fancy foodstuffs - as ‘Mother’ planned to carry on celebrating the New Year for many more days - and a tin of spam for myself. Meg was there. She had already heard about the big party and consoled me when I explained why my step-mother could not let me go.
“Why not just go anyway Alle?” she asked. She leaned in conspiratorially to whisper “Your step-mother probably doesn’t know about the small lockup your father kept. I doubt it was mentioned in the will. It’s where he kept all the things of your mother’s that he just couldn’t bear to part with. All her lovely clothes are still there, her cosmetics too. And he also kept the clothes there that he needed when accompanying such a beautiful woman – silk shirts, tuxedos, exotic Spanish leather shoes. And you know, you’ve grown over the last few years and now you look exactly like your father. I think you must be the same size he was. And I’ve still got a key to the lock-up. I’m sure your father wouldn’t mind.”
I know my face lit up at the thought of wearing my father’s beautiful clothes but then I remembered – “I still can’t go Meg. There’s all that work to be done in the house.”
But Meg had an answer for that too. “Once your step-mother and her sons have left for the party we’ll meet up, go to the lock-up and get you dressed. And after that you can let me into the house and I’ll get all the jobs done while you’re at the party.”
“That would be fantastic,” I exclaimed. “I can’t thank you enough.” For the first time in a long time a huge smile spread across my face. But then, almost as quickly, it vanished. “But how am I going to get there?”
“Oh,” she said, “no need to worry on that score. I’ve already thought about it. There’s a rich man with a big Rolls Royce gets his chauffeur to pop in here regularly for a half dozen bottles of brandy. The chauffeur’s a pal of mine. He’ll be happy to do us a favour. But mind,” she added, “he’s got work the next day and needs his sleep so he’ll have to have the car back and in its garage by midnight. And that goes for me too. I’ll have to leave the house before your step-mother and her sons get home. So make sure you’re back by midnight to give me your father’s clothes to take back to the lock-up.”
“That’s amazing Meg,” I answered full of gratitude. “That gives me a whole evening to thoroughly enjoy myself.” I could hardly believe my luck.
The night of the party everything went as Meg had planned. Once the others had left in a taxi we visited the lock-up. I found a beautiful red silk shirt and a hand-stitched black velvet suit. Meg said they fitted me perfectly. Then I noticed a beautiful pair of soft leather Italian shoes with red stitched detailing. Meg pointed out “Those shoes are unique you know, especially made for your father, your mother’s last great birthday gift to him.” The fit was ideal. Meg warned “You’ll need to look after them,” while she expertly applied some hair gel and after-shave. She stood back to admire her handiwork and said I looked stunning.
The car arrived on time and whisked me off to the party.
Seeing me step out of the Rolls in my handsome attire the doorman bowed slightly and did not bother asking to see an invitation. Instead I was ushered directly into a huge room wonderfully decorated in gold and silver and shown to a vacant plush chair at long oak table. Elegantly dressed pretty young women on either side and opposite me immediately began to chat, competing to tell me about the wonders of Gigantrix, about the business activities of their mothers and fathers, their global travels, opera and theatre events they had attended. I barely had an opportunity to reply except to say ‘Gosh’ or ‘How amazing’ or to smile graciously when they raised the bottles of champagne already on the table and re-filled my glass.
The food was an extraordinary celebration of Scottish cuisine - Scotch broth, Cullen skink, or Cock-a-Leekie soups for starters; salmon, pheasant, venison, scallops and langoustines, with all kinds of roasted and baked Scottish potatoes. There were even stovies and Forfar bridies. Then afterwards tall glasses of cranachan together with black bun, Selkirk bannocks, Nevis and Dundee cakes. And not only champagne but a river of fine malts, beers and wines flowed from the free bar. Splendidly dressed men and women were replete, stuffed to bursting point, yet when the famous folk-rock band, and Pete & Denzel, took to the raised stage at the far end of the room dozens of people quickly abandoned their seats and crowded on to the dance-floor.
It was then that I spotted my step-mother, smiling coquettishly in a low cut dress as leaned over a grey-faced old man talking in a monotone about stocks and share prices while intermittently puffing on a very large cigar. And my less than handsome step-brothers were busily engaged at another table trying to ingratiate themselves with a couple of unfortunately vapid young women. I was looking so different that I doubt any of them would have recognised me if I’d stepped right up and introduced myself. When I overheard Driz suggest doing some lines the girls and my step-brothers got up and left the room.
I asked several of the pretty women at my table to dance and was thoroughly enjoying myself. I had only just sat down again when something electric seemed to pass through me as a breath-taking girl with sparkling eyes approached. She slipped her hand in mine, and pulled me back on to the dance-floor. In a well-cut black dress with an understated gold necklace and earrings she was a real princess, the most beautiful woman in the room. She stared into my eyes as we danced through several songs and when we eventually decided to sit down again she insisted on fetching me a glass of the rarest of malt whiskies from the bar saying “My father ordered the barmen to make it available only to his closest friends – but they won’t refuse me.”
Only then did I glance up at the clock on the wall and, shocked, realize that it was fast approaching midnight. A world famous band, Oblivion Beckons and the Swirling Stardust were already warming up on stage. I dearly wanted to stay, eagerly anticipating a possible New Year’s Eve kiss from my glamorous new partner. But I pulled myself away. I had made a promise to Meg and to the chauffeur. I had to leave immediately. I rushed from the hotel and, as arranged, found the chauffeur waiting for me in the Rolls Royce. I clambered into the car, breathing heavily, and it was only as the car raced down the road that, feeling some discomfort in my foot, I realized that in running from the hotel I had somehow managed to lose a shoe.
I got home just in time to tear off my father’s stunning clothes and to apologise profusely to Meg for the missing shoe. But as we embraced and I wished her a Happy New Year she told me not to worry before she hurried away, the chauffeur insisting on taking her home before garaging the car. She called over her shoulder, “Just stuff the shoe in your shopping bag for now dear. I’ll phone the party venue and see if the other shoe has been handed in.”
The next day, New Year’s Day, I was in my usual rags, busily cleaning the oven before loading it with a large steak pie and baked potatoes, my step-mother having demanded the traditional meal, when the doorbell rang. As required, I rushed to answer the door. A well-dressed woman I had never seen before stood in the doorway holding a large handbag and wished me a Happy New Year. She then proceeded to explain “I’m here on behalf of my employer. He held a Hogmanay party last night with very many guests. His daughter, Charmaine, danced with a man she very much wants to see again, but unfortunately he had to depart as the party was preparing for the bells and clamouring to dance to Auld Lang Syne. She searched but failed to find him. She hadn’t had a chance to ask his name. However, in rushing off so quickly the gentleman lost one of his highly unusual shoes which she had greatly admired. I’ve therefore been despatched by my boss, with the lost shoe, to visit all the families who replied to his original invitation. Charmaine hopes we’ll find the owner of the companion shoe so she can meet him again.”
“And who is your employer?” Alle could not help blurting out.
“Why he’s Old Munney, Old Munney Baggs, founder and owner of GigantrixGreen. Although it’s a multinational it’s still privately owned. But Mr Baggs is very old now and when he passes on his daughter will be the firm’s new owner.”
I think I must have gasped audibly because my step-mother suddenly appeared behind me angrily demanding to know what was going on. But once the visitor had explained she grinned enthusiastically and yelled, commanding her two sons to appear. They were with us almost instantly and immediately apprised of the situation. The woman opened her handbag but when she held up the shoe consternation gripped my step-brothers. Their mother seemed near to tears. None of them recognised the shoe and after producing their own shoes and desperately trying to argue for similarity the boys eventually had to admit they were unable to provide a companion.
“That’s a pity,” said the visitor, “since whichever man does own the other shoe is the man Charmaine has clearly set her heart on.”
I couldn’t help myself. My hand reached into the shopping bag which hung behind the door. I slowly produced the shoe and held it up against the one still in the visitor’s hand.
“That’s the one!” she yelled. “You need to come with me right away.” And with that she whisked me away to her car leaving my step-mother, mouth agape, standing on the doorstep, her sons beside her gnashing their teeth.
So that’s the story of how we fell in love. I married Charmaine, or Charlie as she prefers to be called, soon after and, far from being a minion under the thumb of my step-mother and her sons I became the husband of a beautiful climate-campaigning billionaire.
Later, Old Munney Baggs’s lawyers were looking into the affairs of GigantrixGreen’s new acquisition, my father’s old solar panel company, and stumbled across a nondescript brown envelope left in my father’s office desk. It contained a will he had hand-written and signed. Though he had sadly died before formally depositing the new will with his solicitor it being a holograph statement meant it was legally admissible under Scottish law and superseded the will found by ‘Mother’. That old will was no longer valid. The new will made it clear that my father intended his second wife to inherit a modest sum of money together with her original bungalow. But ownership of the company, the main house, and everything else was left to me.
I gave the house to Meg. She greatly deserved it for her work over many years. But I took the trouble, drawing on the expertise I had developed over the years, to offer my help in introducing my step-brothers to the various skills they would need in looking after the bungalow. Having let the authorities know about Bashiir, the boy who had gone missing, I suspected that when he was located my step-brothers would probably find themselves living on their own and, without any housework experience might well find it rather difficult to look after themselves. I hoped they would find my advice beneficial.
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Lost and Found
a short story
“Been waiting long?” I asked urgently, having struggled to the bus stop after work, my umbrella inside out, my hair flattened, rivers of rain pouring down my black vinyl jacket and black cotton slacks sticking to my legs.
“Aye, a wee while. Weather causing havoc with the timetables. Ye’re fair drookit. About time Edinburgh had fully enclosed bus stops. That no right, eh?”
The barely adequate street lighting was sufficient that dark dreich night to reveal bright eyes twinkling in a wrinkled unsmiling face half-hidden under the brim of an old-fashioned flat cap. A long tweedy overcoat seemed a throwback to fashions of yesteryear and smelled of soaked heather moors. The incongruous white canvas shoes on his feet seemed sodden and leaky. I inwardly registered him as a bohemian of some kind, a beatnik survivalist.
“Whew,” I spluttered. “It’s a while since I’ve run for a bus, especially in weather like this. In heels as well. I suppose I’d got used to my boyfriend picking me up.”
“Boyfriend out the picture then?”
“You could say. We decided we weren’t right for each other. Scrapped my ancient diesel Fiat when he got a Tesla but I’ll maybe have to get back to driving.”
“Proper break-up – boyfriend and car. Never rains but it pours, eh?”
“Oh it had been coming a long time. Very different interests. Took me a while to see his only real interest was money, you know, making loads – job in credit finance - and spending loads – new consumer goods, showing off. He was always buying things – expensive foreign holidays, computer gizmos, cars, fancy furniture and so on – but never seemed to get any real satisfaction from any of it. Always on the lookout for something new, the next big thing to impress people with.”
“And that wasn’t you?”
“No, I’ve always been more interested in getting on with people and trying to make sense of the world. I like to talk about the ideas you get from books, plays, artworks, and so on. He said I was boring. It’s as well we split up, but I have been a bit lost since. Still sorting myself out. Read anything interesting yourself lately?”
“Aye, one or two not so boring things. Liptrot’s Outrun, McDermid’s 1979. I hear Mayflies, O’Hagan’s new one is good.”
“Yes, definitely his best for a while.”
“I’ll try to get on it soon as. Trouble is I’ve only just found time for reading again.”
“What was stopping you?”
“Oh, I’ve been finishing off a book. Publisher mad for deadlines.”
“You write?”
“Aye, just back from doing a reading in Dalkeith. Don’t drive any more – too many points – old Fiesta gathering dust in the lock-up alongside boxes of my remaindered stuff. But it does leave time for reading on trains and buses. Swings and roundabouts eh? Twenty or so turned up in to hear me spouting from the new book. A few there even forked out hard cash for copies, which I blessed by signing.”
“Should I know your name?”
“Unlikely I suppose. Not exactly world famous. My publisher, Boyle – Boiled Books, says I write tracts of moral philosophy dressed up as science fiction. Very low print runs. Gerry Dougan’s the monicker.”
“Gerry Dougan?! Goodness sake, I must have read all of your books. The Tweeting Martian Budgerigar - that was a real cracker, I don’t know how you do it. I had to talk to everyone about it for months afterwards. The key question that extra-terrestrial’s story raised - whether birds have a conscience – that was a real brain teaser. But, to be honest, I didn’t think the ending really resolved the issue. Maybe that was the point?”
“Well, yes, unresolved. Always best to be honest. Mind, I put donkey’s years of research into it. Read everything from Skinner to Wittgenstein, ethologists to animal psychologists. Still couldn’t reach a final conclusion. I wanted to convince the reader about something, something to make the reader really believe in the story.”
“The main take-away – as the managers say.”
“Aye, I suppose they might. You get a lot of that jargon at work?”
“You could say - finance and investment work, mainly the marketing side.”
“Where you met the old boyfriend?”
“Yes, forever toiling over gilt and bond yields, market indexes, gold price fluctuations - enough said. I hate the pressure of it all. I need to get out. But the job has meant I’ve learned how to make sure people leave with a definite message after a meeting, exit with a definite conclusion fixed in their minds.”
“Aye, that’s it. Boyle says I need something called a ‘people person’; someone to help present theoretical stuff more emotionally so readers get a sense of conclusion from the books. Wants me to find a partner, get married. Never kept a woman long enough. Never been good with people. Too blunt. I told him straight ‘Away and Boyle yer heid’, but he insists, presented properly the books would sell like hot cakes, turn dust into diamonds. ‘Just get a modern woman to help with emotive endings’ he keeps saying. ‘Someone into social media’. He tried to explain how to set up something called a ‘presence’. He said ‘Get help, find someone to feed titbits to TikTok influencers’ – made it sound like being a keeper at the zoo – ‘until it dawns on them how insightful the books are. They’ll spread the word and Bob’s your uncle.’ Barking away like that at our last meeting Boyle came close to boiling over. As far as I can tell TikTok is all imagination and letting Chinese spies know how badly you can dance, just another kind of science fiction. If I want to feed animals I’ll go to a duck pond.”
“I’m on TikTok.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m a bit of a dinosaur. No offence. Nothing personal er...”
“Call me Jessica. Look, I think I’m a sort of ‘people person’. I can do emotions. I do communication. I reach out. I get people to see the point, to reach conclusions.”
“Here, are you suggesting something Jessica?”
The bus still hadn’t arrived but the rain had eased and the sky was clearing. The clouds must have passed over because I could see a little crescent moon blinking in the dark sky. The stars were coming out and the moonlight was glinting in pothole puddles like Christmas tinsel. On the other side of the road warm yellow backlighting brought the capital letters of the No Holds Bar into prominent view.
“Listen Gerry,” I said, “there’s a pub over the road. Why don’t we let ourselves dry off for a few minutes and have a little chat?”
“Aye ok, I could do with a pint. Spraffing on about books is thirsty work.”
“Here’s an idea Gerry,” I proposed as we skipped across the shiny wet tarmac, “I could drive while you sit in the back reading.”
“Or writing.”
“Yes, or writing.
“I could do quick edits, create more punchy conclusions, things the reader will take on board and remember.”
“Well, it’s a thought right enough, if it would help readers assimilate ideas that are sometimes quite complicated.”
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“That’s surely Bogart, not Bergman?”
“Does it really matter if I’m a woman Gerry? Anyway, gender is much more fluid nowadays. In fact sex change science fiction is all the rage – from sexual dichotomy to sexual continuum, nobody knows what’s real and what’s fiction any more. Big moral issues to resolve in there. Needs someone like you to give it a context that gets through to people, makes it intelligible and provides guidance. In fact I can see the theme for your next book emerging already. I’m sure you can write a science fiction plot to contain all that philosophical discussion. Then I’ll help you touch up the conclusions, clarify the take-away, make sure it’s something that imprints itself on readers minds. And I’ll market your inimitable insights through social media, no problem. It’ll be unforgettable - a certain best seller.”
“Well, ok, sounds like it’s maybe worth a try.”
“I really think we’ve found something, eh?”
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A Flight of Fancy
a short story by Brian Bourner
“Chorying gear from Wilson’s shed ? It’s not your brightest idea Askew.” I kept trying to tell him but his money worries were so bad he was talking of topping himself. Wilson’s stack of nicked gear was the only thing preventing it, what Askew saw as his only hope. He said he could break in and sell some of the iPhones to pay off the loansharks who were hunting him down.
I’d only known Iain a short time, long enough to know he always went by his surname, Askew. I’d recently been posted to Edinburgh to assist with work on a transport bypass, an intersection having problems with hitchhikers. I found the cost of living prohibitive. The accommodation allowance I’d been allocated was not very big so I’d ended up living in Muirhouse. That was where we met. He was my neighbour and we’d become friends. He didn’t mind that my hunchback made me look a little deformed, or that I was pale enough to seem almost translucent. It impressed him as an extreme scheme tan. I’d met Maggie, the girl he lived with, and their small daughters. They were the epitome of the ‘just barely managing’ family.
“He’s got that shed wired with a security system,” I reminded him. “If that alarm goes off…” but Askew had the bit between his teeth and desperation was making him determined.
“Makes it easier,” he interrupted, insisting “Any numptie with bulging biceps and boltcutters can get past shed locks and chains. Even a specimen like you could hide boltcutters under that old coat you’re always wearing. But chopping up padlocks? Leaves behind clear evidence of a break-in. Now with an electronic security system all you need is the passcode. Then you just open the door, walk in, take what you want, close the door again and nobody’s any the wiser, especially not Mad-Dog Wilson.”
“At least until he’s checking his stock again before moving it on to his fence. And how do you get the code anyway?”
“I’ve already got it. Wilson doesn’t generally let the guys that nick the stuff for him anywhere near his shed. But I knocked a phone last week and when I delivered it he already had a laptop and an X-Box to put away so he let me give him a hand. He might be built like a brick shit-house but he’s still only got two hands. I just watched over his shoulder. See, I’m only taking back stuff he forced me to nick anyway.”
“How ‘forced’ Askew?”
“Ok, I admit I agreed the first time because I thought he’d share the ill-gotten gains. But he didn’t. Nuthin. Nae pochle. Empty sky rocket.”
“So why go on thieving for this twenty-first century Fagan if you’re getting absolutely nothing out of it?”
“Threatened to mark Maggie and the bairns if I didn’t keep at it. He means it. He’s a bad bastard, total claw hammer, more Voldemort than Malfoy, well out of order. He was running with the Young Pilton team before he could walk. He’s been in tight with a lot of heavies ever since, most in Saughton or the Bar-L now but some still on the street. Once he’s got you on the hook getting out isn’t so easy Tam, believe me. Ye ken how it is.”
I took a minute to meditate on the situation. Askew was only stealing because of intimidation, because of Wilson’s evil threats. But even if Wilson didn’t actually catch him breaking in to his shed it still wouldn’t take him long to discover stuff was missing. He’d put two and two together. Then Askew would probably wish he’s just topped himself.
I looked into Askew’s desperate eyes.
“Listen,” I said quietly. “Let me do the job. I’ll break in tonight, grab some phones, knock them out to punters round the boozers tomorrow. Then I’ll bring you the readies.”
“Great if you’d do that Tam. Mind, he’d still hear about it quick enough. Punters in any of the howffs round here wouldn’t be slow to tell him it was you. Besides, with your wee thin body and hump back you might struggle to do the job, and why would you really want to anyway?”
“ Cause you’re my china Askew. Just give me the code and leave everything to me. And maybe get yourself a good alibi for tonight in case Wilson comes knocking on your door later.”
So I did the job that night, in and out quick, sold the gear the following day. Tired after trekking round boozers and gassing with ne’er-do-weils I was sitting on my own on a park bench come the evening and contemplating a good day’s work. That was when I looked up and saw Wilson’s size twelves tramping purposefully across the grass, his beady eyes fixed on me. Something glinted in his hand. Stress shot up through my spine to my brain. Fight or flight. The amygdala had me on my feet and already moving backwards, but the hippocampus was still in there pitching, arguing that sensible debate could still win the day, though maybe involving a fight with hopefully not too much blood spilled.
Then Wilson was right in my face.
“Your tea’s oot Tam. Gadgies in the German cruiser grassed ye up, yer a bastard tea leaf.”
Just like Askew, I thought. Pot kettle.
“And that Askew was in on it, wasn’t he? Think I’m glaekit? No way you just hacked the shed’s security code. He’ll get what’s coming. What’s for him will certainly no’ go by him - or his bairns, or their ma neither.”
Wilson gripped the handle of the blade, his knuckles white and his arm starting to swing. I could see the rational argument approach wasn’t going to work as well as the hippocampus might have hoped, and that I’d also made a few logical errors when it came to notions of shifting blame and responsibility. I leapt backwards, throwing off my coat just as the blade whizzed past my face. Wilson’s eyes bulged seeing me suddenly naked, my thin pale white body.
“Right, you’re potted heid pal.”
His fist started swinging again. But I instantly spread the wings that make up the hump in my back and hovered above him. The blade flashed through empty space again while I remembered it’s a wonderful life.
“What the fuck?” inquired my tormentor as he peered up at my feet, his mouth hanging open. “You a fuckin ghost or something?”
“Well yes, the flying is a bit unusual,” I agreed. Fluttering above him I tried to explain. “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio…”
“The fuck’s Horatio?”
“….supernatural things… sprites, fairies, harpies angels – all three triads of them - and fifth dimension beings… parallel universes…..wings really aren’t that unusual……”
But I could see I’d lost him. I wasn’t getting through. I decided against discussing the laws of quantum mechanics, time shifts and existing simultaneously in several places. So as he stared up, vacant and wordless, I reluctantly said “Ok, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way Wilson.” Physical strength is another one of those attributes those appraising us find it hard to believe we possess; at least not until they’re being hauled through the sky like that boy hanging on to the snowman, but screaming instead of laughing. I kicked the knife out of his hand, gripped his arm, and jerked him off the ground.
I deposited Wilson in the Upper Amazon jungle. If the indigenous tribes let him live I imagine, given his skill with cutting tools, they’ll probably chuck him out soon he can try throwing in his lot with other destructive types intent on destroying this planet’s greenery. Just as well this isn’t the only planet in the universe.
When I eventually saw Askew again I passed him the money and stressed he’d better steer clear of illegal activity in future. He remarked that luckily he hadn’t seen Wilson for a while. I said I’d heard the Bogeyman got him. “Ya dancer” he murmured and a relieved smile crossed his face. I think he interpreted my comment as an allusion to arrest and imprisonment. He said he regretted his past criminal activity. “Well that’s it for me and chorying Tam. Never again.”
“By the way,” I said. “I think it would be a good idea if you made an anonymous phone call and let the police know about the stuff still in the shed. They can arrange to return items to their rightful owners.”
Askew scowled at this suggestion. “Aye, well maybe I will,” he muttered in tone that sounded a little less than fully committed. But sometimes you just have to have faith.
“And I’m sorry,” I said, “but you won’t see me around for a while either. My firm want me on this other job that’s come up. It’s quite far away, in fact it’s worlds away from this place.”
“Ach that’s a shame Tam. Ye’ve been a pal. But maybe it’ll no be so far away that ye find yersel doon amang the Sassenachs.”
“No, I said, I don’t think I’ll be heading south. Onwards and upwards, eh?”
“Gie a knock my door when you get back Tam.”
“Sure Iain, I mean Askew.”
Iain Askew, I mean, I ask you.
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Cookery Lesson
Wash hands, check
Flour, check
Eggs, check
Butter, check
Sugar, check
Bicarb, check
Lemon, check
Mix bowl, check
Whisk, check
Oven tin, check
Greaseproof, check
All present and correct
And all the money gone
If I knew you were comin’
I’d’ve baked a cake,
You said I couldn’t
Now watch me make
Easy peasy,
Lemon squeezy,
No problemo
Walk in the park
Cakewalk
Piece of…
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