The sharp dresser

I’m walking across the park and the undulating mounds of grass are being sculpted back into their glory by the council groundsmen. The smell of summer dances around the children kicking a football into the goal, the ground in front still marshy from the weekend’s delayed April showers. The trees are bursting into song with their young leaves and a female blackbird squawks at my passing. I should have followed the path; I need to keep my shoes clean but I’ve been lured away by the opportunity to hear the blades of grass swooshing with each stride forwards.

I’m wearing my favourite piece of clothing; a yellow blouse trimmed with black piping. I love it because it’s so versatile and only good things can happen when I put it on. And I need something good to happen. A job would be good. It’s not like I’m expecting a place on the Rich List although naturally, I wouldn’t pass up the chance to be there either.

Actually, it’s chillier than I expected. Maybe it’s the fear; I’m not very good at interviews. I feel as though every person I pass in the park knows where I’m going, stares at me and laughs, willing me to fail. I try to refocus. What was his name again? That’s it, Mr Price. I wonder if he’s the type of boss who looks for looks or brains? I’ll find out in a minute.

I can see the glass-cubed office building in front of me, the other side of the oak trees and I wonder how they got away with building it there; it sticks out like a snake in an avalanche . I walk into the reception, a minimalist void with a huge desk made of rock. I am politely asked to wait by the lady whose head is just about visible to me. The chairs are squishy but at least I am starting to warm up.

Mr Price arrives in the hexagonal glass lift and he’s a sharper dresser than I expected. He is standing in front of me and as I remove my briefcase from my lap to stand up and greet him, he smiles. So what’s wrong with his smile? I stop to think.

‘Miss Clements, I’m afraid you aren’t suitable for this position.’

‘But..we haven’t...’

‘I’m sorry, it would be a waste of time to go ahead with your interview. The Company places a high value on transparency but unfortunately, there are certain limitations. It would be quite inappropriate for you to be employed as my assistant.’

Unable to believe that I am being rejected yet again, I bow my head down so that he doesn’t see my flushing cheeks and the tears burning my eyes. At that moment, I notice my bare legs. How could I be so stupid as to forget my lucky skirt?

Desert Storm

I no longer feel the heat on my back; the heat that stung, tingled and dissolved into the sound of the ocean that wasn’t there. A wisp of my fringe blows in the fitful wind and I should feel the tickle as it dances across my cheek, carving spirals in the layer of sand deposited there. The grains of sand forced up my nostrils have clogged like sticky rice in a sieve and no air rushes to my head now. I am numb to the padding in my ears and there is no one to speak to me, to call me back. My skin is being eaten, melting into wells and becoming moats around the dunes. As I lay here, the trenches swallow me and the dunes become mountains that I will never climb. I am diminishing, my silent screams falling on deaf ears, being whisked into a whirlpool of regret and heat, forbidden from ever landing on top of the pile. Instead, I leave my corpse because it has become too cumbersome in this furnace; my limbs are baked, my heart charred and only my soul is light enough not to be reaped by the scythes of glass disguised as solid sand, dangling over me like icicles from the overhang of a precipice. I’m falling, falling, up into the sky and beneath me a snake traces SOS in the sand. The air is cooling, damp and I am calm, coming to rest on the finest wisp of cloud. I am no longer fighting for breath. I wonder; do I see camels crossing the desert with brightly coloured rugs slung over their backs? I wonder; what story will they tell when they find me? A sudden gust lays a blanket of dignity over my rancid carcass. They’ll never find me.

An Experiment

Today’s posting is all about catching up. It’s been an extremely hectic week what with the dog attacking my mother and our dog, subsequent visits to the doctor and vet, school holidays, Jack’s birthday, Jack’s birthday party, Andy being ill, Andy laying floors in three bedrooms and the upheaval associated with that and the usual stress and strains of everyday life. Added to that, I found my Sussex Saturday quite hard going so I’ve not really felt like writing since. But I’m back. And I’m feeling a little experimental. I’ve missed writing responses to five prompts from Sarah Salway so I’m going to try and combine all of them in one AND try to keep it to three hundred words. Here goes ....

He wasn’t the worst looking man in the room. Second worst, maybe; the other one had already collapsed in the corner, snoring. The glitter ball rotating from the ceiling in the Working Men’s Club was throwing out blobs of silver, purple and gold but its axis reflected a beam of white light vertically down onto the top of the man’s head beneath. He too was gyrating, arms like windmill sails, revealing sweat patches under his arms, framed by the sleevelessness of his tank top. A procession of young girls sidled away, giggling behind their hands. The object of Sheila’s musings was temporarily alone in his space; a lull in the music as one track faded and a new one began and his reliance on a floor-filler to follow was looking likely to be met. It was ‘Stairway to Heaven’; too old for most in the room but the DJ always played at the end of the evening. No one would meet the man’s gaze, the bare floor surrounding him grew like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond. Only one person didn’t retreat. Sheila walked over to him. The outer circle of onlookers tightened. He had no escape.

‘Don’t worry, darling. Just hold on tight and you’re in for the ride of your life.’

He said nothing.

‘D’you know, when I was sixteen, I wanted the dream house, the tall dark, handsome man and two kids. Things never quite turn out how you think though do they?’

Still he said nothing. He was speechless as she took his hands and rested them on her hips after she’d wriggled up and sat atop her walking frame.

‘You’re never too old to be a rock chick.’

The caretaker was beginning to stack the chairs but the audience wasn’t going anywhere.

The story behind the scar

Once again, Monty has decided to write in response to Sarah's prompt. As I think he's feeling a little delicate still (and perhaps because I'm feeling a little bit guilty for some reason) it only seems right not to steal his limelight so I won't be writing my own today.

Everything looks different

Everything looks different. It’s a different day, I’m sure. Yesterday, I had spaghetti bolognaise and today, a lamb curry with apricots and a peshwari naan. So it is definitely a different day. I think it was sunny yesterday evening too. Tonight we can see the sun and the moon together, in the same sky, a bit like when my teenagers and toddlers actually make it to the same dinner table.

The dog’s in a better frame of mind than yesterday, less jumpy. He’s sniffing things less; definitely less nervous than he yesterday when he jumped at the slightest sound. And I had thought he was deaf; another one of my misjudgements. I wonder if he’s forgiven me for the other day yet? He won’t look me in the eye and I’m not sure if that’s out of respect for my status in his pack or out of contempt for me. His face is looking a little less swollen but his eyes are weary and the flesh on his injured cheek hangs lower than the other one. The dried blood is still visible under the stubble on his forehead and from certain angles he looks hard; from others, beaten up.

Still, he seems happy enough and we’re taking the same route as last night. I don’t make a point of walking him at a particular time each day but it’s often after dinner which in itself, is not always at regular times depending on various children’s activities. So I am surprised to pass the same man amongst the trickle of commuters presumably arriving back on the train from London. It was a man who looks uncomfortable in his position as city gent, who would be happier in more rural surroundings. He is bearded, wearing a green jacket and carrying a rucksack. I wonder what’s in it? Yesterday, he smiled because I moved onto the grass verge to allow him more space on the pavement. Today, I don’t notice because I am already wondering how I came to be in the same spot at the same time so accidentally. Maybe he didn’t smile. Maybe he had a bad day. Did I imagine he looked cross? I keep walking, past the school and I hear a young child crying. I saw it yesterday; a man in his thirties, herding two youngsters out of the front door of a house opposite, the smallest child crying, clutching a white cloth. I’d thought that they must have had tea at their Grandma’s and are sad to be leaving her. But two days running? And where’s the mother? And if it’s not Grandma’s, why is it so awful to be going home?

I preferred yesterday. I’m tired of today, tired of walking and seeing the same people who keep changing their stories. Tomorrow’s another day and I’ll take a different route.

Broken Dreams

Well, I think that Sarah’s prompts for the last two days have been spookily prophetic. What a couple of days we’ve had. There is not one iota of fiction in my tale that follows.

We’ve had our lovely dog, Monty, since he was eight years old. We’ve no idea of his history except that in his last home he was tied up outside all day in all weathers. He was only with them for four years so before that, who knows? He’s never said and it’s been a matter for speculation over the years.

We recently registered our interest in taking in another rescue dog from the same organisation although apparently there has been some split between its organisers and one half takes in dogs from Ireland and the other doesn’t. Our contact belongs to the half who do.

Having worked out that Monty is fine with female dogs, we thought it would be nice for him to have doggy company. It wasn’t long before we had a phone call to say that an appropriate bitch had just arrived from Ireland and that we could go and meet her at the kennels. It was a long, long journey through torrential showers, thunder lightning. Our youngest child felt sick all the way there and my husband, all the way back. An omen, perhaps?

We had a choice between Sasha, a very nervous dog who had been under-nourished and ill-treated and Cassie who was happy, lively, confident and very friendly. Sasha obviously needed time to adjust to her new situation and a quiet home which ours certainly isn’t so it seemed sensible to choose Cassie. Aside from the weather, the journey home with her went well. We stopped off at the local pet store to buy a new collar, food dish and dog treats for her.

The introduction went well. Monty had a little snap at her out on a walk following which she seemed to avoid looking at him, meaning that he was still top dog. We knew that this might change at some point because the females are usually dominant. When they were taken out into the garden late at night, Cassie leapt on Monty for trying to get through the door back into the house before her; this was a sign that the tables were turning. The night passed peacefully with both dogs sharing the downstairs space without incident.

In the morning, I fed the dogs and took them out individually for walks. This was to be a busy week with my husband taking time off work to lay flooring upstairs and our youngest son’s birthday on Thursday; we had to go into town to buy his present. We were in Argos when my mobile rang and my husband joked ‘I wonder who the dog’s eaten?’. It was our second eldest son in a panic. My mother, who had been babysitting, had given a crust of bread to each dog. Monty had finished first and looked over to see if Cassie had finished hers. She went for him, clamping her jaws around Monty’s face. My mother tried to separate them, was bitten on both legs by Cassie and was knocked to the floor. She shouted for the two youngest children to fetch their older brother but they were too terrified to move. Eventually, he heard the noise and came running. He tried to pull Cassie off Monty but couldn’t do so without risking further injury to Monty’s face as she was gripping tight. In the end he had to hit Cassie to stun her into letting go. This worked and he threw her out into the garden. Unfortunately, this was the first time that she had been let out there off-lead and she took the opportunity to disappear through the hole the foxes have been making bigger. I went out into the street to see her running after the postman with her tail wagging. I called her and luckily, she came back to me. I hauled her into the house and shut her in the study.

I managed to persuade my mother who was obviously quite shaken, to let me take her to the Minor Injuries Unit. Her skin was too thin to stitch but they dressed the wounds and gave her antibiotics. She has to go back again today. I’m not sure I would have been as calm as she was by the end of yesterday.

I took Monty to the vet and they shaved part of his swollen head, gave him antibiotics and painkillers. He has to go back on Friday.

A lady from the organisation we got her from came to collect Cassie at 4.30pm. We bought fish and chips for dinner and I spent the evening sitting with Monty who looked very sorry for himself indeed. He will be writing his own account of this traumatic experience once he’s up to it.

As for getting another dog, we won’t be. At least, we won’t have two dogs at the same time if you get my meaning.

Bottled Up

She’s late. About thirty years late but she’s here now. Almost. The metal handle is cold under her palm and as she pulls it down, the perspiration causing her hand to slip; she wonders if she should just go with the instincts of her body, let go and run. But it’s too late. Much too late and she hears the soft and deep Irish accented voice of a man travelling through the void which has appeared and is yawning wider and wider between them through the open door. Her legs are numb and she wonders how they will carry her down that aisle of light from inside the room which floods the corridor through the doorway. But they do. Strange powers this man has, indeed. And so soon.

‘Maria? Pleased to meet you. Sit down there, won’t you?’

Her eyes adjust to the light and her mouth organises rehearsed responses to the formalities of introduction. He summarizes her case history and she listens from above. He seems kind, wears a brown jacket and has sandy hair. He leans sympathetically towards her and gazes directly into her eyes, searching. Because of who he is, she wonders if he knows that she is watching from up there, that her answers aren’t real, that she is somewhere else. She drifts off again.

He shows her a room. It’s the one she’s been avoiding. He takes her hand in his and it is just the right temperature – tepid – and it is square and firm. She can feel by its smoothness that he is hardly older than her but that he is strong. He is there. And that’s the last time she thinks about him because she is looking at the shelves around the room.

There are tears, bottled and labelled, going right back to when she was a little girl. The first time she fell off her tricycle. The first day at school. When she couldn’t learn her French verbs. When she lost her first boyfriend. When she lost her father. Her husband. Her cat. They were all there. They looked neat, all facing the same way, ordered. About half the way along, the bottles were empty and clean, sparkling and waiting to be filled with laughter.

There is another shelf underneath, in the shadow of the one above. It, too, is home to a line of bottles. She has to squint with her eyes to read the smudged labels. They look as though they have been fingered, opened too regularly. The insides of the glass in each one are stained and dark. Instinctively, she knows she has been there before, that there is no need to look inside them now. She sees that this shelf is full.

‘Maria?’

‘Yes?’ and she returns his gaze and smiles.