FICTION
Selected stories
Some of my short stories, published by The London Magazine, Notes from the Underground and The View from Here.
My print format stories are:
-‘The Little World’, in Unthology 8, edited by Ashley Stokes and Robin Jones. Norwich: Unthank Books (2016)
- ‘The Old Man and his Pen’, in La Crème de la Crème: The Best Creative Writing from Scottish Schools 1991-2001, edited by Gordon Jarvie and Cameron Wyllie. Edinburgh: Canongate Books (2001)
I hope you find something true in these stories; I loved to write them.
An Actor in the Wings
Published in The London Magazine
Charles
I could see him from beside the door. He was surrounded by men in suits, pointing at the ceiling, looking at their drinks or at what their wives were doing. I remember the sight of them perfectly, as though it was yesterday, but strangely enough, always without sound.
I put my hand on the door knob, in the same way that one of the men had put his hand on the back of his chair.
Harry came up behind me and looked into the room. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you spying?’
‘No!’
‘Looks to me like you are.’ He seemed pleased to have found a weakness in me. But I saw him decide to go away, and I walked into the room to stand at the bay windows. A man cycling past waved at me.
Later, we went into the common. We played by the railway line, trying to throw sticks over the fence. It was broken in places, but none of us dared to go close to the openings. We went to the pond and threw stones in it, before one of the mothers told us not to.
Most of them had gone by the time we came back. When we came in he appeared from the garden and began telling us a story about a train crash that had happened years earlier. Harry told him the truth and he smiled at both of us. ‘You’re a funny boy Robert,’ he said to me, ‘you never say what you think, do you? Do you really think it will be less true if you say it?’
We went to bed and I began to pray. I remembered all that had happened that day; the men with their polished shoes; their wives carrying bags, looking at where things should go best; Harry and Victor chasing each other around the pond before falling out over a five-pound note.
Finally I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and whispered, too loudly: ‘and God bless Charles.’
That is 19 years ago.
Victor
‘This is Victor, Robert. He is three.’
I looked through the railings at a brown-haired boy. ‘Will I sleep in here?’
‘No no, this is Victor’s room.’
‘Where will I sleep?’
‘On the other side of the house. Victor needs lots of peace and quiet. You understand that, don’t you? He’s very sick unfortunately.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Funny boy.’ Charles looked at his shoe, turned the tip of it a few times on the carpet, and then took a large breath. ‘Come, let’s leave him. You’ll have lots of time to play with him when he’s a bit older. What do you think; will you be a friend to him?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Good stuff.’ He turned towards the door and held out his hand for me. I looked back one last time at the boy. For the first time I noticed two big white and orange machines beside the cot, quietly humming away. One of them, I remember, had a sticker of a dragon on it.
Jacqueline
Jacqueline had red hair. I wondered for a long time why she looked as she did. In the living room’s bright lights, her face appeared very pale and I think she might have had green eyes, but I can’t remember. I have photographs of her, of course, but I won’t look at them.
The quiet stairs on a Sunday. The black and white photographs of men in uniforms and women with parasols or sitting on elephants. The piano with its silver candle holders. The bookcase with no books bought after the 1950s on it. The living room with its newspapers and low table, made from old railway sleepers. And always Jacqueline; the only one I remember always being there, whatever the weather or event.
She nodded at me when I first met her, and said hello as though it was once and forever. She had nothing to say, it seemed, but there were times when she talked to Charles for a long time, in a quiet voice, and he would look concerned then and wring his hands, start to say something, but eventually think the better of it and sigh.
I can see her now, tidying away glasses; drinking red wine with Charles on a Sunday; unsmiling, tall, stick thin.
I learned early on that she wasn’t an enemy. But also, that she would never be a friend. Something indefinable, something she’d seemingly rather die than talk about, had taken all of that away.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
Two black beetles scurried about, fleeing from the stick I had picked up and was now bothering them with. I flicked one of them back at the little hole it had appeared from and it lay black and white in the sunshine. They would forget I had scared them and would dig and feel their way across twigs and half decayed leaves, hurrying towards God only knew what. I put the stick into the hole the beetles had come from again, but no other ones came out, though a few black ants had attached themselves to it.
‘Where are you, you shit?!’
I dropped my stick instantly and ran quickly towards the far end of the clearing. He didn’t shout again, but I heard him thrashing about in the woods behind me. He was hitting trees and bushes, stopping to be able to break things properly. I slid into the river bed, powder dry, and ran hunched down beneath fallen tree branches. I stopped and looked back, but I didn’t see him, not now, nor could I hear him. I tried to think where the river would go, and decided it must loop back on itself at some point.
Soon I got to a wide-open space where indeed the river arched itself back through low-lying fields. I cut my hand on tall reeds and then I sank into a black-deep finger of water. I went completely under and I suddenly thought I could leave it all now. I could stay here, to be nosed at by eels, never to be found but in three thousand years, oddly preserved.
But I felt too angry to stay under.
I got out of the ditch and went back the way I came. I got back to where the others were playing and I saw him instantly. He stood on a wooden walkway, low above the water, and was pointing at something far beneath. I walked up to him, past my bag and shoes, and pushed him into the water.
He came out, taking his time, apparently not thinking I could do anything else. He wasn’t crying; he wasn’t even that upset; in fact, he looked very calm, almost too quiet. He came right up to me, looked me in the eyes, until his nose touched mine. Finally, he said, just to me: ‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘No,’ I lied.
He stepped back slowly, careful not to step on my toes, glanced at the woods beside the lake, and then he walked past me.
I have no idea what he did afterwards.
Two years ago, I was best man at his wedding.
Melancholy boy
She is happy to be alone with me, but she is also nervous.
It seemed an age since I had said anything. I felt embarrassed, I realised, and noticing myself realising, I blushed, cursing myself inwardly.
‘You’re such a melancholy boy,’ she said suddenly. I didn’t know what to say, but felt encouraged when I saw she had stopped speaking.
What she’d said had brought us closer; if also impossibly apart.
Harry came down the stairs and lay his hand on her shoulder. ‘Not too late tonight darling’, he said, ‘we’ve a lot to do tomorrow.’ She smiled up at him.
It was time for me to go.
‘You’re such a melancholy boy,’ I said to myself, walking home. No-one had ever told me anything so beautiful or so true.
That, at least, was something.
Tom
‘What do you study?’
‘English Literature. You?’
‘History.’ He looked at the book I held open. I thought how funny it was that he’d come up to me, standing in a row of books, before Thackeray, on the third floor of the library, most people being away for the holidays, downstairs or in the park. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Waiting for a friend,’ I lied.
‘Come out for a smoke?’
‘Alright.’
‘Tom,’ he said.
‘Robert.’
We went out into the day, a high blue sky and a wind that didn’t come close, staying along the square’s open windows. He had Marlboro Reds, which he said he’d bought in Sweden. I slept on his friend’s couch that night.
I still know him today. I think he lives with his wife in Fulham.
Splitting the universe
The pubs down the road were getting quieter. I switched off my laptop, went down the stairs, came back up again and phoned Ellie. She’d cooked vegetables and carved out avocados that now stood under a napkin.
‘I don’t know what to do with the wine.’
‘Oh don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.’
‘I thought about you today.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Should I hate you, I was thinking?’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, I don’t think you’re honest. You’re not, are you?’
‘In what way?’
‘Are you really at work? I bet you went for drinks with your friends.’
‘Oh no. I’m finished.’
‘Robert…’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you feel love for me?’
She waited, as if my answer could split the universe. ‘Ellie, you know I do.’
There was a pause, but then she said: ‘I can’t open the wine.’
‘Yes of course. I’ll get a corkscrew, don’t worry.’
‘Yeah well, I don’t drink much anyway. It’s for you.’
Later, we ate by the light of two candles, little shocks disturbing our drinks from the trains. The avocados were brown around the edges but Ellie had made mustard to go with them.
We went to bed after Newsnight.
Oxford
We went to the hotel on Friday night, the train arriving after ten at Oxford. The lights of a tractor ran over the walls as we walked up the drive, the wind coming over the fields and through the trees above us.
We stayed in bed until midday the next day. Ellie stopped herself several times from talking about her classes, and I tried not to mention my unanswered emails. We ate lunch by a large window downstairs, joking about how much we’d listened to Dido already.
We read upstairs in the afternoon. I put my head on her knees, holding up Either Side of Winter. Ellie ran her hand through my hair, talking about the amount of times she’d finished before everyone else, and still had had to wait.
I kissed her.
On Sunday, we went to the river. There was enough sun and we lay where we could put our feet in the water. Ellie lay on her back, her eyes closed. I went close to her, reached to hold her hand, but then stopped and checked my mobile instead. A small grey fly scurried down my arm, flew up when it reached the first hairs of my hand, and landed on her shirt.
In the evening, I tried to talk to her, but finally went into the bathroom. I ran both taps, took off my shoes and sat on the edge of the bath. I could hear her laugh as she spoke on the phone to her mum.
True
‘I burnt my legs. See?’
‘Oh yeah? I got burnt on my shoulders and in my neck.’
‘Let me see?’ She ran her hands softly over my back. She tried to pull down my shirt at the back; stopped and unbuttoned the top button; and began feeling for sunburn. She went to get some water and then she wet her fingertips, tracing the outlines of my shoulder blades. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she said when she’d had enough, ‘it will go away.’
I turned around and looked at her standing by the bookshelves. She was looking intently at a piece of paper, holding one of the flat grey stones of her necklace very still. She stood just out of the sunlight, which slanted behind her onto a row of blue Tolstoys.
I’d seen her search for me on trains, in hallways, at parties, in cafes, bookshops, restaurants, cinemas and galleries. I’d heard her call me in countless places; her voice not always nice to hear. I had a thousand text messages from her, scribbled notes, birthday cards, signed books and even a long letter which she had page numbered, circling the numbers with large loops, but one that we didn’t talk about anymore.
She stood there, reading something I didn’t recognise, completely still.
Now or never it must be said, I thought.
Minutes earlier, this might even have been true.
Patiently perhaps
He couldn’t see me. I saw him look past and below me, his face and shirt lit up from the hallway. He looked slightly annoyed, as though I was too far from him; like now he’d have to shout, something he detested.
‘Why did you go up Robert?’
I felt the odd sensation of making sure of your expression though no one can see you; an actor in the wings. My feet felt awkward and heavy and I tried to make it better by standing on one leg. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Why don’t you come down? We can take Max out; you know he loves it when you’re back.’
I shouldn’t have told him anything, I thought. Or made up some story.
‘Anyway, you should talk things over. What do you think she’s going to do? Bite you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous…’ I whispered.
‘You’re such a funny boy Robert. Why don’t you just say what you think?’
‘It’s not working. What’s there to talk about?’
‘You can’t just…oh Robert, would you please come down? I can’t just stand here. I can’t even see you!’
‘I’ll be a minute.’ I had no intention of going to face him again.
‘You should talk about it. At least with me. You’re not afraid of me, are you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Good, so come down.’ He stepped away from the stairs and went into the living room.
Nothing good could come of talking of course. Nothing ever had. But I went to see Charles in the end, and let him try once more.
It would probably be God next, patiently perhaps.
Home for the Weekend
Published in Notes from the Underground
-“You will be there later on?”
-“I should think so, darling. I’m driving you.”
-“Ok.” She looked at us. “I want to look good for you today.” She said it very properly.
She was quiet at the hairdresser. She said no to the offer of a magazine and did not want to drink. She did not smile at the assistant who came to her again and again, but simply said: “No thank you, not just now.” I hid my smile as I saw how much she looked like her mother then, a seven-year-old with all the mannerisms of a yummy mummy.
I drank my tea. I was a little surprised Ophelia didn’t look at me all the while we were there. She sat very quietly and seemed to be holding onto something.
We went back to the car.
-“Darling, what would you like to eat? Shall we pick up something on the way?”
-“It doesn’t matter.”
-“Are you sure? Jane might like something.”
-“Hm.”
-“You have a very smart haircut. It suits you.” She sighed and held her hands in her lap.
She looked out of the car window driving home, the shadows of the barren trees lining the road passing over her forehead and cheek. I sometimes caught a glimpse of my mother in her features from that angle, but the impression was difficult to hold.
Jane fussed over her when we got home. Never had she seen such a pretty young girl before. She asked if she could comb her hair later, after washing it. Ophelia nodded.
We went out to the river in the afternoon. It had frozen over during the week and was solid straight across. We wore our boots that did not make a sound on the ice or in the sharp ditches of the field on the other side. The air was fresh and still and you could feel it in your lungs. An RAF jet cut through the air above us, passing it looked dangerously low above the copses near the narrow road up ahead. The sound of its engines deepened as the jet turned above the red phone box by the village hall.
I had a missed call when we got home.
-“Can you ask Jane to help you with your boots? I have to make a quick phone call.” Her face was red from the cold.
I found her in the bedroom upstairs, sitting on the edge of the bed. Jane had washed her hair and Ophelia looked warm and comfortable in her thick white dressing gown. They were sitting near the bedside lamp, the light clear on their hands and faces.
Jane smiled at me and said: “You certainly took your time. We’ve done lots of things already.”
-“Sweetie”, I said to Ophelia, “your mother told me you had a bad dream.” She didn’t look at me. “It’s ok…you know. It’s not for real.”
Ophelia looked at both of us in turn. I had kept my boots and coat on and felt strange standing in the bedroom in them.
-“Papa, don’t hide things from me”, she said quietly. She had stopped moving her hands and held them together.
-“You should laugh at dreams, or ignore them. They can’t hurt you, not really.”
-“I know. I just don’t want you to hide things from me. It’s not nice.”
-“Was it truly bad?”
She looked at me with a face I hadn’t seen before.
-“Do you want to stay a night longer? Mama said you could.”
She nodded.
She was tired later, by the fire downstairs. She told Jane a long story about Edmund, a friend from her school. He had been ice skating on the lake and had fallen many times, grazing his knees and hands. She was more and more animated in telling the story.
She finally dropped her guard completely when she was startled by the sound of the dog coming in. She cried then, all reserve gone, and kept telling us the same stories that Jane and I were still telling each other, over whisky, in the later darkness of the night.
Moving in the Sun
Published in The View from Here
You watch him wave his arms about. You feel you have always loved the sight of him waving his arms about, seeing him bring his hand down in sharp movements to punctuate his word flow. You wait to see him decide the day’s story, clearing away the debris left by others’ sloppier thinking. He places his tie to the left, then to the right, uhming and aahing his way through the lengthier parts as he checks his messages, fiddles with his cufflinks and runs his hand through his hair. Then he decides the course of action, puts his tie straight and thanks Christabel and you.
Later, you watch him destroy The Other One with a few well-placed barbs. You smile and nod your way through his performance. It comes as a surprise to remember Christabel and you wrote this last night over coffee and éclairs. You write her a text but Discard as you switch to Sky News to check the pundits.
Yesterday he opened by asking for your advice on Valentine’s day. You met his wife once at Christmas but remember only her extraordinary lack of warmth. Exactly the opposite from how she had seemed to you in her photographs. But you humoured him by giving a few playful suggestions. A signed official photograph. An annual visitor’s pass.
You remember, despite Christabel’s palpable impatience, that it was hellish in your previous job. You were good only to make the coffee as your ex-boss practiced his golf swing and listened to the Oxford gang hold forth on dividing lines. Down to hell and up to heaven in an hour. You were never more excited than when he took you on to serve a more noble cause.
Christabel comes alive, finally, as he drops the Valentine day’s discussion. You move on to discuss the morning briefing notes. You survey the scene as Christabel analyses the previous day’s events from her unique point of view: he with his back to the bulletproof windows, she calmly smoothing out the folds in her grey skirt as he fires back with questions, your shoes shining brightly in the office lights, three BlackBerries flashing in near synchronicity on his desk.
You are still thinking of something Palmerston may or may not have said when you hear Christabel cough nervously. You look at him from far away but he seems no different than usual. You become aware of something new, however, and you zone in more precisely on what he is saying. Impending budget cuts. Streamlining operations. Less printing paper, less coffee even, haha! But also, unfortunately, a need to review advisor numbers. Nothing decided, no no, but boxes have to be ticked. No need to rush for book publishing deals just yet, he laughs. And with that he’s out the door.
You see Christabel turn to her mobile immediately. She is checking positions at the Foreign Office, her friend Suzie says they may let in some top talent. You laugh at her lack of faith. She looks at you for a moment, smiles and says well you’ll be fine I suppose, you can always give him advice on his love life. She doesn’t get it. She checks her hair in his trophy cup, kisses you and flings you the Mail.
You have been seeing Christabel for two months. You were in the job before her and helped interview her for the position. In many ways she is a typical adviser: student politics, debating team prizes, strong views on any subject that you care to think of, little to no lasting interests beyond the comment pages. You saw that he was a bit cool towards her even as he reminisced about his own university days and asked her for names and dates. She looked deadly serious at both of you, answering every question directly, not attempting humour.
It was no surprise, in a way, that you started seeing her. You live together through the same events, setbacks and triumphs from 7am to whatever time. You have more texts from her than from all your other contacts combined. You talk about his performance, the duplicity and lack of success of his opponents, the unfairness of the system when he doesn’t win, journalists who can’t quite get it right when they try and the demons who wilfully distort the story out of spite. You started going to her place to finish briefing notes in the evenings and ended up with your shampoo in her shower.
You phone on your way down in the lift and leave her a voice message. She texts back as you walk to the cafe and says she is meeting Suzie. Doesn’t she want to come meet you for lunch instead? You start writing something else but it doesn’t come off well and you Discard.
You watch him on BBC News 24, out in the Midlands, and text him to say his hair is out of place. By the time he’s on Sky News, talking in front of the same factory but from a different angle, he looks fine.
In the evening, you buy éclairs on the way to her flat. She is in jeans and a red sweater that you’ve never seen before. Suzie is asking around for her, she could do the same for you. What would you like to do after leaving him? You’re amused by this – she doesn’t get it – and tell her, sitting down with a beer on her deep couch, that all’s well that ends well. It’s just inconceivable he should let you – both of you – go. She starts to debate this, even becoming unkind, as she sits legs akimbo on a wooden kitchen chair.
You eat fried chicken and sit down to watch Newsnight.
You get dressed quickly in the morning. She puts on a new black skirt and tights that make her look ten years older. You have a dry cleaned suit hanging on the back of the door. You read The Times together on the way to the office.
He greets you with his usual bonhomie. Everything is just right about his appearance: tie straight and neatly knotted, crisp white shirt that looks like it cost your month’s salary, large, relaxed hands with his gold signet ring. He notes something in an old-fashioned desk diary that takes up most of one corner of his desk.
Your briefing notes lead to the usual warm discussion, with Christabel refusing to drop several key phrases that you see him score out anyway. You love the atmosphere in this room. You smile at the man bringing in the coffee. It often feels like you’re being filmed. You’re living history in the present, a key member behind his meteoric rise and fame. He wraps up the discussion as briskly as he always does, stopping his careful questioning suddenly and outlining the day’s actions in a few clear sentences. Thank you very much.
You set off for different parts of the building, but you hold your BlackBerry close.
You get his text at ten: Christabel had to go, unfortunately. Things moved much quicker than he anticipated. You have been promoted to senior adviser. For a while it will just be you and him, until this current fixation on costs subsides, at any rate.
You go to his office as in a dream and see her lipstick on a polystyrene cup left on his desk. You feel slightly dizzy. His side of the desk looks untouched but it is not hard to imagine him sitting there, explaining how very sorry he is. You send a text nervously and see her BlackBerry flash on his desk.
Do you have her private number? You think not as you see his handwriting in his diary, lit by the sun, spelling out your name.