litro.co.uk » Issue-83

Twisted Romance

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:37:00 +0000

Such is the struggle and strife of the lover, it’s hard to disagree with Katharine Hepburn’s droll analysis of relationships: “Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.”

In this special Valentine’s Day issue of Litro, we offer tales of Twisted Romance that would make Jane Austen blush and get Chaucer all hot under the collar. Both Chrissie Gittins‘ and Kathryn Lane‘s stories tell of forbidden love; desire contained and limited by the pressures of professional duty (their narrators a social worker and a teacher respectively). Matthew Licht, a regular Litro contributor, reports on a relationship with quite an age gap in ‘Me & My “Aunt” Doris’, and in Trilby Kent‘s ‘A Fine Woman’, a loyal widower carries out his late wife’s wishes – but perhaps wishes he hadn’t…

East End Casanova Tim Wells provides quirky but tender takes on love and romance, whilst Maggie Veness adds a touch of erotic cynicism to proceedings.

Two Tongues

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:21:45 +0000

Sitting in the staff room in the morning, I am desperately trying to mark my way through a pile of Year 9 books which I dragged all the way home last night, dumped in a corner, and dragged back untouched here this morning. I hurriedly take bites of muffin and scalding swigs of coffee, as the clock shows my dwindling `free time’. The volume of the variegated babble around me rises and so does my stress level. Busy though my hands are I’ve acquired the brand new nervous habit of worrying at the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand with my thumb. The habit is new because the ring has only been on my finger since Guy proposed last night. No one’s noticed — why would they?
I pick up Brad Booth’s exercise book from the pile and flick through it in a fruitless search for the homework. The bell rings and I want to scream. But at least, thank goodness, I have my sixth form first thing, that is, the ones who have chosen to study French beyond the age of sixteen. They are almost human.
I walk from the staff room to my classroom, register my form, and then I spend some precious minutes alone in the silent empty room. I use the time to wade through more fourth-form books while the sixth formers dribble in.
We talk for a while about youth and drugs, then I bury myself in the Year 9 books again while they do a pair-work exercise. But then a latecomer enter – Ayesha Macmillan.

“Sorry Miss, I had to see Miss Hitchcock,” she pants, depositing an art portfolio half the size of her body on one of the back tables. So, I need to tell her what’s happened in the lesson so far. We are supposed to talk to the pupils in French as much as possible, which I find difficult precisely because I am bilingual. Even with this wondrous sixth form I still have to trim and monitor what I say. I can afford to relax with Ayesha though. She has an Algerian mother (and a Scottish father). In fact, bilingualism aside, I feel a connection with her because my grandparents used to live in Algeria. I know she can understand everything I’m saying as her large blue-grey eyes focus unflickeringly on mine. I finish explaining and as she goes to the students’ table, I’m watching the way her black hair sweeps over her tiny shoulders. My interest in discussions about adolescent drug-taking has decreased considerably because the sight of Ayesha has triggered the memory of a dream I had last night. Odd, how a dream flees your mind, then you see someone who was in it and back it comes. I sit down at the teacher’s desk and hold a Year 9 exercise book pensively, replaying the dream that came last night after Guy proposed.

Yesterday last night, when Guy proposed, it was Valentine’s Day. Originally I had wanted to go out for dinner. Yet another place on Kilburn High Road had recently metamorphosed from a semi-derelict building with a palimpsest of tatty posters pasted onto its boarded windows into a freshly painted restaurant. A three-foot high Om is mounted in the centre of its canopy and the words `Om Shanti’ dance across the top in Hindi-style lettering. So, I suggested to Guy that we should book a table for two there for a Valentine’s Dinner, but he said, “Don’t worry sweetheart, I’ve got it under control.”
To be honest, I had forgotten the date by yesterday evening as I trudged gratefully home, still overheated and thirsty from double year 9 and with the carrier bag of their exercise books bashing against my legs with every step.
The gate leading into the scruffy patch of garden in front of the two-storey house where Guy and I have the upper flat is permanently stuck half-open (or half-closed). I slalomed my way through it and unlocked the front door. Having noted that there was no mail for me, I climbed the stairs. I first inserted the heavy silver key into the mortise lock and sighed when I realised the door was already unlocked, telling me that Guy was already home. This was confirmed by an overpowering odour that I knew pertained to some stage in the preparation of his chicken in white wine and grape sauce. That and chilli con carne constitute his complete cookery repertoire and I now remembered his comment about having “it” under control. What that had meant was that one or other of those dishes would be on the menu for tonight.
I wondered if I moved very quietly, whether I could escape down the hallway into the bedroom, close the curtains and go to bed. But he’d heard me, and now appeared in the doorway of the lounge/kitchenette wearing an apron my mother bought me but which I never wear.
“Now you just put your feet up, Sabrine,” said Guy emphatically, steering me through the lounge door and over towards one of the armchairs by the French window which opens onto a doorstep-sized balcony.
“You relax now, it is all taken care of. Here we are, your favourite, just the way you like it.” A cold glass of G&T on the rocks appeared in my hand, the same glass he gives me every night when he has arrived back before me, and always at the weekend. Everything in the flat seems to have been categorized into `his’ and `hers’, so that it would feel wrong for me to drink coffee out of one of the mugs that he always uses.
The whole room reeked of the white wine concoction. I guessed that it wasn’t the right moment to tell him that I’d never really liked it because it reminded me of sick.
I swallowed my cold, bitter drink and gazed at the early evening news on television. I tried to focus on the solemnity of violence and murder all over the world, but every time a new item started I realised that my mind had wandered away. I kept thinking: “Right, I must concentrate now,” but before I knew it my focus was gone again.
“Wow, that disappeared quickly,” said Guy, taking my empty glass and bringing me a second drink that I had not asked for.
“All taken care of, all doing very nicely,” he said, his aproned figure perching on the brother chair to mine for a moment.
Some time later he said, “A table,” in what he fondly believes is a good French accent. I know it isn’t fair of me, and that I’m incredibly lucky to have two native languages, but Guy’s voice makes me cringe whenever he tries to speak French. I can’t help it.
He’d covered the small pine table with a dark cloth, and now he switched off the overhead light to leave us sitting in the soft glow of candles. There was already a slice of melon on each of our plates, an item from his starters repertoire. My head was tilting from the gin and I was thirstier than ever. I stood up from the table again, but as I began walking towards the kitchenette, Guy said, “What darling, what is it darling, what can I get you?” and he shoved me back into my seat by the shoulders as I registered a plea for water.

“Water? — OK!” he said with emphatic enthusiasm, his tone conveying that the request was wholly unreasonable, but that because doing everything possible to please me was of such paramount importance, he would never even contemplate taking offence. So from then on I had a lightly fizzing glass of mineral water beside the glass of white wine that he kept topping up, and what with the wine in the sauce of the puke chicken dish the water did little to nothing to sober me up. Soon I was giggling at Guy’s anecdotes about how much his workplace reminded him of `The Office’.
Dessert was better. It didn’t come from Guy’s repertoire but was my favourite ice cream — vanilla with threads of caramel and little cookies. As I ate slow, indulgent spoonfuls I was dimly aware of Guy sitting restlessly opposite me behind an empty ice cream dish. I was so surprised that he didn’t offer me a second helping that I did not manage to forestall him before he had whisked my bowl away. All I got was yet more wine in my glass. And then Guy was saying:
“Sabrine, there’s something I need to say to you. But let’s — do it over here — .” He steered me back to the hers armchair by the window, and suddenly he was gone.

I looked up at the unquiet ceiling, vaguely thinking, “This is it. He wants to break up.”
I wondered giddily if I would have to fight to reclaim my contributions to the mortgage repayments the way my friend Jayne did. I had just started to think about moving in with Jayne when I realised Guy was kneeling in front of me holding a small velour box.
“… so I wonder if you would do me the great honour of becoming my wife,” he said, opening the box and slipping a ring with a solitary diamond over my finger. “Oh! A perfect fit,” he enthused. “How about that! I guessed! And it’s perfect!” And he’d got on top of me on the chair and he was kissing me. I drunkenly enjoyed the washing warmth of his tongue and then the view of the carpets and skirting boards sliding past as he carried me to the bedroom. I never said yes. I never even said yes and he didn’t notice.
The bedroom was orange and deeply shadowed in the glow of the lava lamp. Guy put on a CD of slushy songs and started unbuttoning my blouse. I was so drunk and relaxed that even Guy’s inept lovemaking felt good. I lay back on the pillows. Year 9 was forgotten, tomorrow’s lesson plans were forgotten, the diamond would have been forgotten had it not been for the unfamiliar, scratchy pressure I could feel between my hand and the mattress.
Afterwards Guy sighed, nuzzled at my ear and said, “I love you.” As he rolled over and started to snore, I thought, “Does he realise I didn’t reply?”

I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and a terrible thirst. For a long time I couldn’t summon the will to get up, instead I scrunched my body into one uncomfortable position after another while the rhythm of Guy’s snores beside me never altered.
Finally I got up and took Paracetamol and fell again into an uneasy sleep. Then the alarm clock was buzzing. I located and pushed the snooze button but I lay there wide awake and realised to my amazement that I felt well.
Calm blue light filtered through the bedroom curtains and I was aware that I felt good because I had just had a wonderful dream, but already I couldn’t remember anything about it.
And now, some hours later in my classroom, as I look at Ayesha McMillan’s slender back, the dream returns suddenly into my mind. A flush jumps into my cheeks and neck and I am on my feet, pacing uncertainly across the room.

To begin with the dream had resembled the reality that had preceded it. I was lying on my back, listening to Guy’s snores. But then Ayesha was there too, long black hair swishing across bare breasts. She was kneeling beside me saying: “I know how I can help you.” And then she was in bed with me and making love to me in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long time, certainly not since I’d been together with Guy.
Now I understand why I was in such a good mood when I woke up. Moving to the teacher’s table so that I can see her from the front, I stare wonderingly at this girl from my dream and notice with fresh awareness the curve of her full, dark mouth and the creaminess of her skin. A silver squiggle around her neck is her name in Arabic and she’s wearing a tight pink T-shirt with a picture of a love-heart sweet and the words ‘Bite me’ across her breasts. The thought is so enticing that I’m getting aroused right here and right now.
Feeling the intensity of my gaze, Ayesha looks up at me and reveals her neat white teeth in a smile. There’s a puzzled yet conspiratorial expression in the slate-blue eyes, almost as if she can see every thought I’ve just had about her, as if she had been invited to a special private screening inside my head.
Still looking pleasantly surprised and amused, she tells me she believes they’ve said all they can on the subject I gave them to discuss.

The next lesson is free for me, a treasured opportunity to get something useful done, but my mind keeps skating away from work and I keep jumping up from my desk and wandering around the room. On one of these journeys I realise that Ayesha has left her portfolio on the back table and I flick through the sensitively detailed pencil drawings and lurid pastel sketches. As the bell rings and the fourth form start clamouring in I shove the pictures back into the folder and set it on the floor by my desk.
It’s during that next period that Ayesha comes to get the portfolio. My back is to the door and I almost don’t see her but start when I hear the squeaky gruff voice of Brad Booth say mockingly, ‘Bite me!’ I turn just in time to see the elvin figure disappearing through the door. Then she turns, and those eyes make direct contact with mine. I feel that her brief presence has provided a cool oasis in the midst of Year 9.
The day grinds on and at last it’s half past three and the school empties rapidly of children. I sit at the desk in my classroom feeling tired and dull, thumbing my engagement ring, trying to revive myself with coffee. Still though I’m riding a little on the buzz from that dream and the fresh feeling that the thoughts of Ayesha bring me.
I hear a tapping at the door. I wonder who it could be as the cleaners usually just barge in with their industrial strength suction equipment. My visitor is Ayesha – sans portfolio.

“Miss?” she says. The beautiful apparition in my dream had that voice, but it sounded a lot more certain and confident than Ayesha does right now. “Miss, I was wondering – ” Suddenly her face has turned from cream to burgundy as if red wine had been spilled beneath her skin. As pained by this as she is, I look away. But somehow she’s managing to keep talking.
“Miss, I wondered if perhaps you would like to have a drink with me sometime? In fact there’s a bar… we could go to… ” She’s put a little glossy flyer on my desk which proclaims: “Flossie’s Bar! Women Only!”
My thumb rubs at Guy’s obtrusive diamond. “Sure,” I say. “That’d be great.” And I want to hold her and stroke her luxuriant hair.
“Would you be free tonight, Miss?” she says, looking straight at me again. Some of the maroon glow remains near her hairline.
“Sure,” I say again, amazed I can talk normally as the adrenaline floods my abdomen. “Unfortunately I have a lot to do here. But I could meet you at Covent Garden in a couple of hours.”
Her teeth appear in a smile. Ayesha, says the Arabic necklace. Bite me, says the pink T-shirt.
“See you then.” Her voice now has more of the confident depth my dream woman managed.

After she leaves I am not sure I will spend the next two hours at all productively. I keep looking up from the desk and grinning manically. I pick frantically at the diamond with my thumb. And then, as my finger aches a little in protest, I twist and pull the ring off.
Yesterday was Valentine’s day and my boyfriend proposed, though I haven’t told anyone yet. Tonight, I have a date with one of my students. I will tell someone about that at some point.


Kathryn Lane’s stories have been published in collections and magazines including Venus and Vixen and Mind Caviar. Her novel Unknown Love was published by BiPress.

A Fine Woman

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:18:43 +0000

So here they were. Sidney clasped the remaining ounces of what had once been his darling, his Freya, and let the brass knocker fall against the door.

Seven years ago, he had stood at Provideniya and scattered his wife’s ashes into the Bering Strait. It had been the first stop on a tour that had taken in the Grand Canyon, a rooftop bar in Tijuana, and the Miraflores lock overlooking the Panama Canal. Portions of her had been released to the heavens from atop Chichen Itza and cast out to flutter among the moai at Easter Island. He had sprinkled her into the spangled waters that slapped against their boat somewhere between St. Helena and Tristan da Cunha. He had watched her swirl about his ankles above Lake Victoria; he had released her into Nile; he had made his pilgrimage up the Appian Way before casting her upon the Senate steps to mingle with Caesarian blood. Now she floated among the hyacinths below the water palace at Jaipur, settled into the crevices of the Great Wall, haunted the frozen magma peaks at Hanging Rock. He had done his best to secure her presentation to the King of Tonga. When this had failed – and it had been, he told himself, the only disappointment in the entire journey – he had entrusted part of her to the care of a Methodist clergyman in Nukualofa.
There was no response to his knock, and Sidney took a moment to consider the house before him. It was an inelegant hybrid of styles: Scottish baronial updated with touches of Nouveau and Deco, postwar reconstruction to the façade, a neglected walled garden trimmed with chicken wire. From an adjoining field, several sheep gazed at him with marble eyes. It had taken him almost three hours driving over muddy carriageways and rutted country lanes to arrive at this place.
As he reached for the brass knocker again, the door opened and Sidney found himself face to face with a diminutive figure in a wrinkled linen suit. A gentleman with a face like a peach stone gripped the doorframe with slender, manicured fingers.
“Mr. Millbank,” said the man at last, in a voice that was almost girlish. His gaze lighted on the urn nestled in the crook of Sidney’s arm.
“Oh, jolly good. I’ve come to the right place, then?”
“Come in, come in.” Something about the gentleman’s eyes reminded Sidney of the smiling jade Buddha he had photographed in Shanhaiguan. “Minto’s the name. George Minto.”
“Sidney Millbank.” He indicated the urn. “And Freya.”
“Of course. Please…”

He was led into a chilly hallway sparsely populated by furniture covered in dust sheets. At one end, a neglected inglenook fireplace hunkered over cold embers. Three doors leading off the entrance hall remained closed. Sidney’s host approached the wide, carpeted staircase and extended an arm upwards. “We don’t use these rooms any longer – it’s become far too expensive to heat them all. You’ll find it much more comfortable upstairs. The sitting room is straight ahead. I’ll bring some tea, and then we can talk.”
From the top of the stairs, Sidney noted five rooms leading off the central landing, angling off like the points on a star. He followed a threadbare runner through the open door to find himself in a cozy room that resembled a converted library. A fire blazed in the grate, and Sidney settled himself into an overstuffed chair surrounded by piles of books. The urn he set by his feet.
Minto soon reappeared, bearing a tray of tea and scones. “I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said, in the same sing-song lilt, “but they’re not home-made. My wife has been away, you see. She’s only due back in the morning.”
“No need to apologise.” Sidney accepted the chintz tea cup and contemplated its milky depths.
“You had no trouble finding us, I take it?”
“No, the instructions were very clear.” Sidney fumbled in his pocket for the piece of paper. “I left most of the documentation at home while I was away. Seemed silly to risk losing it. The last piece of the puzzle, and all that.”
“So you’ve scattered the ashes everywhere else?”
“Over six continents, yes. Just as she’d asked. Seven years, on and off.” Seven years to distribute no more than three or four pounds of his darling’s mortal remains. The two men fell into an awkward silence punctuated by the ticking of a gilt clock on the mantelpiece. “You knew about it, then?”
“She asked me to expect you, yes. A fine woman.”

“A nasty piece of work.” So spat his mother, many years ago, when asked by his father why Sidney and Freya should not be married. “See the way she eyes up other men, how she looks down her pretty nose at us.” Could it be that his father had also fallen under her spell? “He’s bewitched. Mark my words, the boy will come to grief. But then, he’s your son: a fool, and a weakling. Always was, and always will be.”
Poor Sidney. Hapless, jug-eared Sidney; Freya’s pitied, pitiable petit-chou. What had he seen in her? What, beyond her Nordic fine looks and statuesque bearing? That ivory skin, which had always been cool to the touch; the supercilious curl of her lip, which never failed to reduce his legs to jelly. Perhaps bewitched had been the right word, after all.
He sipped at his tea. “I wasn’t there when she died, you see. We’d been estranged for six months. The first I heard of the overdose was when a solicitor arrived on my doorstep with her last will and testament and this urn.” He nudged it with his toe. “She didn’t have any family, poor creature.”
It had been a tempestuous courtship and, if he was honest, a disastrous marriage. His mother had called Sidney a masochist for taking Freya back after each failed affair. In the end, he had been the one to suggest that they spend some time apart, in the hope that his absence might make her heart grow fonder, that she would realize how much she was loved, in spite of her casual brutality, her childish spite and propensity for playing cruel jokes. The suggestion had been met with a wounded look that quickly transformed into something else – something which had frightened him, which he now knew was a premonition that if he banished her, he would lose her forever.
“How did you afford it?” asked Minto.
“I convinced my mother that we could avoid the inheritance tax if she signed over my due sooner rather than later.” Sidney met his host’s birdlike gaze. “Freya never traveled any further than Jersey, as far as I know. It seemed the least I could do, to make amends.”
Contrite, he had divided her up into seventeen parts – discrete clusters of peppery ash sorted into plastic sandwich-bags – and taken her on the tour of a lifetime. How many hours had he gained and lost along the way, in the limbo of airport lounges where he had watched so many lives taking off in a hundred different directions?
“You must be curious to know why she brought you here.” Minto shifted in his seat. “Your wife asked me to offer you something in return for your dedication.”
He rose and made his way across the room to an ornate writing table. Removing what looked like a large sewing needle from a compartment of the desk, he shot Sidney a triumphant grin.
“They are rudimentary instruments,” he said, offering his guest the needle and a spool of thick cotton thread. “But they should suit our purposes precisely.” Minto indicated the urn, and like an obedient schoolboy, Sidney passed it to him. “The first tattoos were probably accidents,” continued Minto. “Someone might have had a wound and rubbed it with soot or ashes to help it heal.” He offered Sidney more tea.
“Thank you,” said Sidney, offering his cup. His gaze remained trained on the oversized sewing needle.
“The Samoans use an instrument known as a hahau to pierce the skin,” said Minto. “I suppose you would call it a process of scarification rather than a tattoo in the true sense. Your wife was not precise in her specification, but I think we can safely assume that what she had in mind ran along these lines…”
“What lines?” asked Sidney.
Minto was unscrewing the top of the urn. “Inks can be improvised from various sources,” he explained. “Coal, or even shoe polish can be quite effective. But ash is my favourite.”
He tipped the last of Freya’s ashes onto a plate which he had brought out with the tea and scones. Sidney watched, dumbstruck, as the man withdrew a glass vial from his inside pocket. Tipping a watery solution from the vial onto the pile of ash, Minto stirred the sticky mixture until it resembled liquid tar.
“Your wife thought that it would be a fitting emblem of her love to be joined with you in perpetuity,” he said. “Physically, I mean.”

Sidney noticed that the dome of Minto’s head had been plastered over with fine wisps of black hair. It reminded him of the balding pates of the dolls his sister had played with as a little girl, and of a mummy he had once seen at the British Museum.
His host was soaking the thread in the dark liquid, prodding at it gently with the tips of his fingers before delicately winding it around the needle. “It’s important to keep the needle saturated in ink,” he said. “So that every time the skin is pierced, the maximum quantity of dye enters the top layers.”
“She asked you to tattoo me?” Despite himself, Sidney laughed – a tremor of incredulity.
Minto paused to stare up at Sidney with a wide, empty stare. “She stipulated that it should be her final destination,” he said simply. “A simple motif: only her initials. She thought it would be a comfort to you.”
“A comfort?” Could it be: had she at last taken pity on her doting lover? Beside himself, Sidney began rolling up his sleeve. “Anywhere?”
“Anywhere you like. Better where there’s muscle, and not too much bone.”
The first few pricks were the most painful. After that, Sidney registered only a dull numbness through his upper arm. It spread to his fingertips, this pins and needles feeling, and he asked Minto if that was to be expected.
“Not unusual,” came the murmured reply, as his host peered down an eyepiece to examine his progress before taking up the needle and resuming his work.

Hours must have passed, as by the time his companion leaned back in his chair to admire his creation the fire had burnt out and the first light of a new day was beginning to creep between the chinks in the curtains.
“You must be tired,” said a voice in Sidney’s ear, as he settled back into his chair and allowed his eyes to drift shut. “You should sleep now.”

He was woken by the sound of a door opening, just in time to see his wife entering the room: tall, serene, and beautiful as ever. Sidney rubbed his eyes in time to see her kiss the elderly gentleman, her lips lightly brushing his sallow cheek, before casting her husband a contemptuous look.
“He’s still awake,” she said.
“The dosage will take effect soon.”
“Freya – ” cried Sidney. He struggled to raise himself from the chair. “The ashes – ”
“We found them in a hospital incinerator. Oh, seven years ago, I should think.” She followed Minto with a tender look as he gathered the tray – the empty teapot, the tepid cups, the plate smeared with ink, the needle and thread – and sidled out of the room. Drawing the door behind her, she blew her husband a parting kiss. “It must have been the trip of a lifetime, darling. And now I have to love you and leave you…”


Trilby Kent is 26 years-old and a graduate of Oxford University and the LSE. She has written for the Canadian national press as well as for publications in Belgium, England and the US. Her short stories have appeared in Mslexia and The African American Review. Her first children’s novel will be published in 2009 by McClelland&Stewart. She teaches creative writing and is a founding member of books blog VulpesLibris.

The Right Notes

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:15:31 +0000

Rain is driving against the windows of the bar, but tonight I couldn`t care less. I`ve shrugged off my wet coat and I`m sipping a glass of ruby red, listening to dry wood popping in the fire. Jen`ll be joining me soon.
I wait in secret anticipation of the dark eyed mysterious pianist who`s been playing his way deeper into my heart every Friday, from ten.
In my fantasy world there are no lonely nights, frozen dinners, romance novels or empty letterboxes come Valentine`s. Under this dim lighting my skin appears buff and unblemished, my hair naturally blonde. I slip into my fantasy like a warm bath.
He appears right on time, moving like a sleek animal, sliding into position on the stool, skin the colour of burnt caramel and hair shiny as jet. He prepares himself, fingers brushing tenderly across the keys like a lover, and my belly squeezes and burns. I hold my breath, praying Jen won`t arrive just yet.
His first melody, ‘Solitare’, speaks to me. I hear his secret heartache whispering from between the notes like shadows, and soak him in, barely maintaining my composure.
I imagine him placing his delicate hands on something more substantial -like me. I picture his tensioned muscles, his damp chest hair tangled around my fingers. He is enslaved by lust – the agent of love! (Did I read that somewhere?)

Jen arrives. She`s drenched but soon makes herself comfortable with her back to the piano. We chat while I discretely look past her toward the dreamy maestro.
He catches me and I look away, although I`m soon back studying him as he sips his iced water. I note his masculine five o`clock shadow and become spellbound when he traces the moisture on the side of the glass with his finger. Our eyes meet again, and after a delicious moment of intimate connection I turn away, breathless. Jen`s fighting for my attention, and I make excuses.
Before long he takes his first break. Needing the ‘ladies’, I leave Jen minding our table and weave my way through the human traffic along a familiar dark catacomb.
He sees me first, and I`m immobilized. I hear violins – imagine him gently taking my hand, kissing my forehead. THE ROMANCE IS UNBEARABLE.
He springs toward me so fast I almost lose my balance. Pinning me against the wall, he clutches a buttock with one hand, gropes a boob with the other, and drives his tongue between my lips. A pungent garlic smell assaults my nostrils as his unshaven chin grates and chafes my face. With one powerful shove I break free, swearing, and he reels back wearing an expression of complete astonishment – shocked that I`ve rejected his advances.
Devastated, I buy a drink, hurry back to Jen and reposition my chair. I`m too embarrassed to admit my heart`s just been broken by a total stranger, but Jen gets my undivided attention until we leave.
I`m currently reading a good book called Scrumptious Cooking For One.


Maggie Veness lives on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Currently at work on a short story collection, her prize-winning fiction is published or forthcoming in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Holding Pattern

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:13:06 +0000

Each day I make a sojourn. The library, the post office, the corner shop supermarket. People think they know me. There goes that old lady with the hat pulled over her glasses. The stooped one, the grim one, the frail one. They see me fumble with my change on the silver slipway at the post office counter.
“A small book of stamps, please. I usually have a large one but I want a small one today,” I say.
The assistant gives me a small book. The stamps have pictures. A union jack, fireworks, a sunflower.
“I don’t usually have these,” I say, curmudgeonly.
“They’re first class. It’s a book of six first class,” he says gently and with patience.
“I haven’t had these before.” I count out the money and let it rattle onto the metal tray. Turning away I mumble, “It’s a terrible terrible life.” This usually throws them off the scent.

Back home, front door locked, I hang up my coat, put my glasses back in their case, and slip into my bootleg jeans. They’re more aerodynamic than a flapping woollen coat. Some days I pack sandwiches, some days I simply drink in the rare air, the striations on hillsides, the sudden edge of wind-blown water on a glistening lake. Either way I always hitch on my daysack with its sunblock supply, bottle of still water and a packet of post-it notes.
Flying used to be just part of the job. Had to be done. Now I take the utmost pleasure. The rush of air, divine topography, the jewel lights of a car tracing the bends of a lane at midnight. It’s a privilege. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool.
Take yesterday. I took off from Walthamstowe. By ten I was over the meanders of Cuckmere Haven. They’re even better in reality than the Paul Nash watercolour, which I love. The elegant curves snake the valley to the slate grey sea. There’s harmony there, a transcendence – even I can see that.
But it’s not all high-speed travel and captivating views. I have a caseload, as we all do. On Fridays I go to see Amber. She lives in a row of plain white council houses in a village surrounded by pines. I’m not permitted to give the exact location. Her seven brothers and sisters sleep in bunk beds in the two bedrooms. Her parents sleep on the sofa downstairs. Amber is four and she doesn’t speak. She can speak. Her parents feed and clothe her well enough. But they don’t talk to her. So Friday is our day. While her brothers and sisters are at school she plays in her room. I’m her friend. We build castles from red and blue plastic blocks. She is Queen, I am King. She cooks egg and chips and wears a tiara.
“The yolk is very yellow,” I say.
“Yewow,” she says.
“Your tiara is sparkling in the sunlight,” I say.
“Parkle,” she says.
She smiles a lot. We make sounds for her panda and polar bear.
My biggest challenge to date is Will. He’s sixty-two and thinks he’s done with living. Bad things happen. You have to learn to live with them. I put on make-up for him. Anything to get a response. He leaves the back door open on a Wednesday. I walk straight in. It’s Wednesday today.
All I can tell you about the route is that I cross the M25. When it’s a mass of crawling cars I’m thankful I don’t drive. It’s clear today; which can’t be said for the airways. I avoid three Boeings in a holding pattern over Stansted.
Will’s waiting for me at the window. There’s a pink clematis in flower on the wall bedside him. He waves.
“Good trip?” he asks. This is progress. He doesn’t usually ask. He puts the kettle on.
“I’ve decided what to do.” He sounds triumphant.
“What’s that?”
We sit in the bright living room surrounded by substantial furniture and photographs of three generations of his family.
“She doesn’t know me now. She’s not the same person. Like you’ve been saying, I’ve still got a life left to live. I’ve booked a holiday in New Zealand. It’s where we were going to go when we retired. To be with Paul.” He points at the photograph nearest to him. A man and woman are holding twins. “I’ll go anyway. For both of us.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I say, raising my teacup.
He shows me maps, his itinerary, and his new passport.
“I’ll write to her. They’ll read her my letters at the home. She might not understand but …”
“She’ll know you’re thinking of her.”
My heart is lighter in the homeward skies.

There’s a day’s grace where I pull weeds and defrag my computer; then, ping, my next case arrives on screen. Felix. Fifteen. Urgency level – 7. There’s never much information. The thing is to get there and find out. I grab my daysack and write ‘Felix’ on the topmost lime green post-it note. He’s not far away. I can be with him in fifteen minutes.
When I arrive he’s slumped on a park bench surrounded by squashed cans and fag ends. His hands are thrust deep in his pockets and he’s squinting at the sun.
“Mind if I ….?” I say, pointing at the empty half of the bench. Felix shakes his head and leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. I don’t say anything for a while. A jogger runs by. A woman drags a golden retriever away from sniffing the end of the bench.
“Do I know you?” Felix asks. “You look familiar, but I can’t … ”
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen you before,” I reply.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not at school?”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Been suspended.” He turns round to see my reaction. His face is incredulous.
“What happened?”
“I threw a chair at my science teacher.”
“Ahh.”
“I actually like my science teacher. He makes an effort. Has a laugh.”
“Do you know why you did it?”
“Something snapped. I hadn’t done my homework. He was disappointed. It just all welled up inside me.”
Again I wait. A woman with a buggy stops in front of us and replaces the blanket which has slipped from her baby. She smiles at us both.
“I’ve made my girlfriend pregnant.” His statement hangs in the air like a melting icicle waiting to drop.
“How old is she?”
“Fourteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m sorry this has happened to you. You’re very young.”
“I don’t expect sympathy. I’m not thick,” he says sharply.
“I can see that.”
The wind flips up the leaves of a copper beech beside us.
“Her parents are going ballistic. They won’t let me see her.” He kicked the nearest can to his right foot into the flower bed opposite.
“It must be a shock for them. What were your plans?”
“Me?”
“Both of you. Together, or separately.”
“A levels. University… college … whatever.”
“You can still do that. Whether you have a child or not.”
The sun goes behind a fast moving cloud. Felix looks at me again, his eyes searching mine.
“I do wonder what she might look like. Or he,” he says, wistfully.

We never spend more than six months on a case. Some people we see a couple of times and that’s enough. We need to appreciate how someone feels, but keep a careful distance. This isn’t always easy. We’re allowed to fall in love just once. Then we carry it with us and use it as a tool – to recognize in others. It doesn’t have to be a man or a woman. It can be a child, or a whole family. I’m in love with Amber. She’s at the beginning. Everything fascinates her. I give her the language she needs to describe her world. Then she can knit the words together and thread them through her life.
This week we saw a red squirrel from her bedroom window. We scampered round the room pointing at each other and shouting, ‘Tail up! Tail up! Tail up!’. Soon she’ll speak a sentence.

Wednesday comes around again. I have one last visit to Will. I decide to bake a cake for him. I grump around the corner shop supermarket looking for raisins and sultanas.
“Where’s your candied peel?” I blurt at the young shop assistant.
“What’s that?” he says.
“Candied peel? You’ve never heard of candied peel?”
“No. Sounds like a good name for a rock band though.”
“It’s preserved fruit skin. For putting in cakes.”
He looks towards the ceiling then says, “Try the hypermarket. They might have it.”
“You won’t catch me in there,” I say.
I scuttle home, my string bag weighted with flour and butter and sugar. I find a sieve in my kitchen cupboard, and an old roll of greaseproof paper. I relish the assembling of the ingredients, the weighing and stirring, and the spooning of the clarty mess into a deep round tin. The oven warms the cinnamon and nutmeg so I can smell it all over the house, even with the bathroom door closed. When it cools I pack it carefully into a cake tin and slip it in my daysack. I feel an unfamiliar flutter when I think of seeing Will.
He isn’t at the window today. The pink clematis has doubled its flowers. He’s standing in the kitchen looking dapper in a blue and white striped shirt. I present him with the tin.
“How thoughtful,” he says, beaming. I take pleasure in his pleasure.
“I hope you enjoy it.”
“Shall we have some now?”
I notice his hands as he prises the lid from the tin and lifts the cake onto his breadboard. They’re gentle hands; hands which have stroked babies, planed wood, smoothed a woman’s cheek. I want to touch his hands. I want his fingers to lodge between mine, the tips resting on my knuckles.
We take tea and plates of cake to the living room. He eats a mouthful and lets out an appreciative murmur. “This tastes really good.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I know I must ask him how his plans are going, how his wife is, but I can’t. I don’t want him to go. I can’t bear the thought of him leaving. For a while he talks without me prompting.
“I have my tickets and insurance. I’ve bought three books to read on the flight. Paul’s going to meet me at the airport and he’s taken two weeks off work so we can take some trips together.” He darts a look at me.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“What is it?”
“Please. Carry on telling me about your trip.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” I smile to reassure him. He goes into detail about Paul’s home. He’s been sent photographs over the internet. I try to concentrate on his words but his voice cuts a river through my breastbone and flows directly to my heart.
“This time next week I’ll be there.”
Tears begin to well in my eyes. I stand up. The plate of cake tips off my lap; sultanas and clumps of cake scatter over the stone-coloured carpet.
“What’s wrong?” asks Will, looking concerned.
“I’m sorry. I have to leave. I wish you very well for your trip.” My voice is cracking. “And in everything you do.”
I run out of the back door and rise to the altostratus. I cry my tears and wait for my heart to ease. My eyes follow the cloud shadows across a fertile emerald valley below.
At home I curl into the sofa and wrap myself in a blanket. The sound of tides of rain against the window soothes me. A ping from my computer wakes me from a dreamless sleep. There’s another instruction on the screen. So my credibility is still intact. This has been a narrow escape. I was on the brink of falling headlong in love with a man. I tasted what it might mean – it’s delicious mesh of sensations. I shall carry Will in my heart as an emblem, a gateway. Now I know of that possibility I can choose it, or not. Or will it choose me?
I go to the library. I must know more about love. I find books called Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Wuthering Heights. The words on the page filter my mind, leaving vivid pictures behind. Heathcliff is Will. He leans against a craggy outcrop, the wind making waves in the rough grass, his hair dancing in front of his eyes.


Chrissie Gittins’ stories have appeared in The Guardian, Cadenza, Signals 3 (London Magazine Editions) and Horizon Review; they have won prizes and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her short story collection Family Connections was published by Salt in 2007. Her second collection of poetry I’ll Dress One Night As You is forthcoming.

Steamy Windows

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:09:05 +0000

I’ve been sporting my bins a while now. A matter of months and they’ve not steamed up once. This concerns me. I thought that I lived a Carry On life, one with a fair dash of sauce, but not once has a peek of cleavage or a peep of arse caused any condensation at all. I feel cheated; by opticians, by circumstance, by life.

In my boyhood it seemed that Charles Hawtrey’s fogged like the inside of a Turkish Bath every time a winsome young thing bent over. I remark upon this to a bespectacled friend. One who has worn them for years rather than my paltry months. He says that walking into a warm pub from cold weather has done it for him. For several weeks of a ‘tatoes Spring I walk into a variety of pubs, East End, West End, even across the river. Lunchtime, evening, night… nothing happens. I hunch face down over my usual lager top. I try brandy, whiskey and work my way across the top shelf. Nish.

My girlfriend notes my frustration, as she is wont to do. She holds my hand and tells me reassuringly that it’ll happen for me. It doesn’t. Perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong places?

I phone her from work and tell her I’m going to the Olde Axe. That’s the best strip pub that East London has to offer, best in my parlance being the one where your shoes stick to the carpet, the girls have stretch marks, bruises and it’s tears before bedtime.

A couple of hours later; nothing… lager top, arses, salt and vinegar crisps, tits, bad jokes, pussies, a pickled egg and a girl who makes her arsehole wink just inches from my face, which, to be honest, I could have done without. Nothing.

When I get home she clocks my boat and can tell I’m not best pleased. All the same she asks hopefully how it went. I dejectedly shake my head. She tells me that she’s sure the former Soviet Bloc girls tried their very best for me.

She takes both my hands, leans into my face and haaaaahs a gentle breath into my face. There! The glasses mist a fine dew of her whisper. She lifts her index finger and writes her initials onto the lenses. Her first upon the left, the next onto the right in what, to her, must be mirror writing.

“What can you see?” she asks.

Oh yes, I love you and you love me.


Tim Wells is the editor of poetry fanzine Rising, lives in North-East London and is doing very well. His Boys’ Night Out in the Afternoon was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He joins Phill Jupitus and others for an evening of words, music and words about music on 9th March at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

London in Peace

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:05:50 +0000

The sunshine slaps my shadow across Hanbury Street.
There’s a skip to my step as the latest old song
Grabs me by the ears and snogs me hard
And London is in loooooove.
The slivers strewn and the sick spewn
Are testament to every rampant lust
That bowl around Hawksmoor’s towering prick.
We can touch the sky for but a moment
Before we smack back to the earth of this succulent city.
On the 25, the dippers fleece the crush,
At Shadwell, a knife finds a home.
The art students make neither art nor study.
The phungas do as much nothing as they can.
Today I will say hello in any one of five languages.
I will be cursed in English. I will be blessed by G-d.
The girls who sits with me in the office
Took the hijab after the last bomb.
She knows now that any moment might be final.
The rumble didn’t reach the Vibe Bar.
Who knows when the records will scratch
For the last drink, the last dance,
The last kiss, the last night,
Th

Tim Wells is the editor of poetry fanzine Rising, lives in North-East London and is doing very well. His Boys’ Night Out in the Afternoon was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He joins Phill Jupitus and others for an evening of words, music and words about music on 9th March at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

Me & My “Aunt” Doris

webmaster — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:46:05 +0000

She wasn’t really my aunt. Maybe her name wasn’t really Doris, I don’t know. She was one of my mother’s friends, and my mother had lots of friends. They’d come over, drink, blab. Usually the party went on all night. Aunt Doris used to come into my room to make sure I was still alive. Sometimes she flopped on my cot and told me a story. She smelled of booze, perfume and something else, something I liked. Aunt Doris’ stories were on the short and dirty side, but they were the only ones I got.
Since home life was the way it was, I stayed in school, hit the library when school let out. School plus library equals college scholarships. You better believe I went to college.
College was OK.
A week before graduation, I got a phone call from Aunt Doris. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. She said she was coming up for a visit. Nobody else ever came to visit me at College. I braced for first-degree embarrassment.
Aunt Doris showed up at the wheel of a cherry-red custom convertible. She had a white scarf around her hairdo, big sunglasses. She looked like a movie star from Hollywood, which is exactly where she drove from. She parked liked she never really learned to drive. Maybe she’d been drinking. When she stepped out of the car, she went from Hollywood movie star to dorm room smoker babe. Aunt Doris was 50 pounds lighter than the last time I saw her, but none of the weight loss was from hips, keister or bosom. The pounds took 10 years with them. Suddenly I was extremely glad my Aunt Doris had come to see me.
She hugged me a lot closer, a lot longer, kissed me on the mouth a little deeper than a real aunt would have. That was OK too. Slight booze breath, but no cheap perfume when she raised her arms to wrap them around my neck. The smell I liked was still there.
“Wow,” she said slowly, moving her lips like this was her big glamorous close-up in a silent movie. “Look at you. My little boy’s a handsome man.”
College guys, football players and engineering nerds alike, popped from the library, classroom buildings, Student Union and dorms to get a look at the sexy lady with the flashy car. Bronwyn Evans, my college steady date, caught me kissing my Aunt Doris. She walked away as though she hadn’t seen. I was going to have plenty of explaining to do. Or maybe none at all.
Aunt Doris wanted to take me to lunch. At a real restaurant, she said, not a teenage hamburger grease-pit. After that, she wanted me to take her for a ride in the wooded hills around College Town.
The only real restaurant in town didn’t have a big champagne selection, but we drank up what they had.
Marriage, Aunt Doris told me over Baked Alaska, was a bum deal. To be avoided at all costs. Enjoy youth and freedom while you’ve still got them. Keep on enjoying them even when they’re gone, that’s the secret. Aunt Doris was briefly married to a Hollywood millionaire. She thought both things, Hollywood and millionaire, would make her happy. She said she thought her dreams had suddenly come true. Two years later, she got a Mexican divorce and half the rich man’s loot. Maybe happiness was only a dream.
Out in the parking lot, both of us woozy from low-grade champagne and pre-lunch martinis, Aunt Doris handed me the keys to her convertible. “You drive. Get used to driving dreamboats for a change.”
Last time I hit the hills was with Bronwyn Evans. First time for both of us, not terribly successful. But we kept trying, over and over again, in other locations, strictly indoors, with the windows shut tight, curtains drawn.
I thought Aunt Doris wanted fresh air and rustic scenery, after Los Angeles. Plenty of both, among the pines, but she had other plans. The trunk was full of brand new plaid blankets, a pack of rubbers, a bottle of good whiskey and a heavy navy blue cashmere sweater. She tossed me the sweater.
“Here, I thought this would go with your green eyes.”
Aunt Doris showed me a new view of the world, possible solutions to the mystery of man meets woman.
Bronwyn made me put on a rubber before I even kissed her, practically.
Aunt Doris wasn’t terrified by the nightmarish possibility of being impregnated. Male and female fluids didn’t disgust her. She was just being sensible, I thought, but the rubbers from Hollywood made me sad anyhow.
Night fell and I was glad she bought me the fancy sweater. Aunt Doris didn’t mind the cold. She kept her clothes off while we gathered wood. I started a fire with Wall Street Journals from the back seat of the car and her gold lighter from Paris. Her skin glowed yellow rose in the light and flicker.
She asked what I was thinking. I said I learned more from the last 3 hours than 4 years of college. Aunt Doris never finished high school. She never told me why she left home at 16, but I gathered it wasn’t a pleasant or pretty picture. Suddenly she wanted to talk about the past.
Aunt Doris and my mother hooked up in the Big City back East. They had the same job. I asked what the job was. She laughed. Eventually, she said, “Waitress.” I couldn’t picture my mom as a waitress, not in a hundred years. She would have poured hot soup all over the head of the first guy who got fresh. She’d have told bad tippers to fuck off. She’d have taught the manager how to run a restaurant and the cook how to cook, even though she didn’t know how to run a restaurant or cook. My mother didn’t teach me how to read. She knew how, but she only read movie magazines. She tried to teach me to dance, once.
While Aunt Doris was in the middle of telling me how she and my mother got their first apartment together with no deposit or key fee, I asked if she wanted to dance. Dancing without music works fine. Aunt Doris was a good dancer. She used to shake it like crazy at my mother’s parties. But that night we just held on. She stopped talking about old times with my mother and I was glad. There was plenty I didn’t want to know. Like who my father was. Long list of names to choose from. I had a feeling that’s where her story was headed.
The fire burned to embers. It was full-on spring but still seriously cold on Black Goat Hill. Aunt Doris and I got under her blankets, but first I made her put on the sweater she gave me.
“Don’t be silly. You’re so skinny. I can feel you freezing away. All I got to do is hug you tight and drink more whiskey. I’ll be fine.”
“Not for the cold,” I said. “I want the sweater to smell of you.”
“Stink of me, you mean. I’m a drunk old lady and there isn’t a shower for miles, I’ll bet.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She sat up and put my new sweater on. Navy blue, dark as the moonlit night. Her skin was pale, soft, warm and near, unlike the stars.
Aunt Doris looked slightly haggard in the morning. Not hung-over. I knew what hangovers look like. Aunt Doris asked me to drive her to the nearest airport, about two hours away from College Town. There was a 7:30 flight for Los Angeles. She said she had to be on it. She had appointments in Tinseltown. Important appointments she couldn’t afford to miss.
We stopped for lunch at a diner.
“Those rubbers,” Aunt Doris told me, in her normal voice, like she didn’t care if anyone heard an older woman talking to a college kid about rubbers and recent sex, “were for you, not me. I just wanted to protect you, baby, from what I got. Too silly, but I want to keep you safe. What I got’s not even catching, but I didn’t like the idea. Now, I’m sorry. I wanted us to feel each other. I’d love making babies with you, Joe. I’d love nothing better. Honest.”
“Aunt Doris, last night was really great, I mean it, but I don’t know if I’m ready to…”
She cut me off. Of course I wasn’t ready. Of course the idea of having children and being a man scared the living shit out of me.
“Just wanted you to know I wasn’t afraid,” she said, “of touching you. Of having you inside me. That’s what I wanted. I was thinking of you, that’s all. And it was so silly. Silly me, that is. Silly.”
The convertible was for me, she said. A graduation present.
People still flew around in silver Constellations in those days. Everything in America looked big, beautiful, full of hope and dreams. I parked my incredible new car as close to the runway as the law allowed, watched the gleaming airplane taxi, race its engines and take off towards the sunset. I waved at the porthole I thought might be filled by Aunt Doris’s face. I stayed on the runway till dark.
Stars shone from their usual places. Constellations don’t really exist. Constellation stars are millions of light-years apart and can’t see each other. My Aunt Doris is one of them.
She had cancer. Sickness grabbed her between the legs on the inside and spread with hellish speed. That’s what she told me the next time she called. I couldn’t figure out how she got my number. I was working in Alaska, a military airport construction project that was supposed to be top secret. She said no when I said I was going to get on the next plane, or drive down in the car she gave me, even if it took all day and all night and most of the next day. She said she didn’t want me to see her looking the way she did. She said she was down to 85 pounds. She just wanted to say goodbye, that’s all.
A week after the phone call, she died. There wouldn’t have been enough time for us to have a baby together. She probably knew that. She thought a thin stretch of rubber could come between a human being and death. She didn’t want what was killing her to touch me.
When it’s cold and clear and dark enough to see the stars really shine, I put on the sweater she gave me, sit on the ground and look up. I feel warm though it’s night all over.

Matthew Licht is an underground filmmaker and the author of The Crazy House Gag and the detective trilogy World Without Cops. His book of short stories The Moose Show (Salt) was nominated for the Frank O’Connor Prize 2007. Justine, Joe and The Zen Garbageman is due to be published this year. He lives in Italy.