'She Got That From You...'

'She Got That From You...'

It was not a sentimental portrait. Alasdair wanted to avoid that at all costs. He didn’t know if Janey shared his love of apples, if she was visited by the Black Dog, or if she sparkled enough to keep it away. He did not feel audacious enough to add any of his own fond introspection, to show how she may be now, six years on.  And so, on this day, he painted his daughter simply and with precision, from a crumpled old photo he occasionally used as a bookmark. Here was Janey as she had been: smiling beatifically, recent tears glistening, forgotten, on her cheeks. A sting had been acquired on a sunny day in the garden. Janey was inconsolable, not for her sore foot, but for the bee in question…

‘But he’ll DIE NOW!’ she had screamed repeatedly. Jean crouched beside her, pale and wired as she sought to solve the puzzle.

‘Who will die, darling?’ and, under her breath, ‘Christ, Alasdair, you don’t think she’s seen a car crash?’

‘Bumble,’ was Janey’s eventual, tear-sodden explanation. She pointed at her foot, a hint of pink just visible beneath the grass stains and mud. ‘Daddy said.’

Alasdair had smiled, and gathered his daughter in his arms, remembering the previous week when he had read to her from the National Geographic about the tragic Bee and his self-destructive sting.

‘Oh now, don’t worry about that. What can we sing? What about… what about… Ally Bally, Ally Bally Bee…’

As Janey’s face crumpled all over again, her mother’s grew stony, and she murmured in Alasdair’s ear as she went to fetch the ammonia.

 ‘Your Tale of Mr. Noble Bumblebee could have waited a couple of years, don’t you think?’

But Alasdair had managed, somehow, to tame his daughter. Jean returned to see her gurgling happily on his lap, allowing him to sing Ally Bally as his own father had done with him, as she unfurled long curls of green wool from his jumper. Jean crept upstairs quietly to find her old film camera, something telling her she’d better capture the moment.

‘I’m sorry, I have to take this. But I’m still very annoyed, Alasdair.’

That was back when he did watercolours, teal-hued and thoughtful, and the three of them lived in a robust tenement flat filled with Edinburgh light. A postcard deal with IKEA, which had failed spectacularly to impress his father, instead succeeded in paying for them to live comfortably, and the surprise at their sudden good fire fortune had lingered on Alasdair’s face until it gently gave way to fear. Janey had been an auburn-haired thing with bright, determined eyes. Alasdair always thought of bonfires when he thought of his daughter; a torrent of flames and beauty, always at risk of taking off or fading out.

‘Yes. She got that from you,’ Jean had said, that last day. Jean was a different kind of fire.

Alasdair’s job now was to collect things for the Architectural Salvage in Falkland. The site was a sonorous timber warehouse behind a poppy field, and it was quiet there; he could get on with it, and ignore things. Alasdair had a haphazard, all-inclusive selection process, so that conventional home ware items were complimented with broken sinks, soldiers’ jackets and empty Brasso cans from the 50s. Many of his more eccentric acquirements went un-purchased by the locals; they would peruse them with wry smiles before getting down to the serious business of bulk-buying pine chests and brass lamps. Once or twice, over the six years that Alasdair had run the place, the warehouse had entered what Doug privately called ‘wasteland mode’, when sold furniture went un-replaced, leaving behind only the eclectic clutter and huge expanses of dusty grey floor, as Alasdair flitted about, clichéd and red-eyed, oozing Glenfiddich. The last time had been six months ago, and it had all gone unmentioned for five.

Doug was a quiet Fifer, and accompanied Alasdair on long van drives across Scotland to collect pews and prayer-books from churches, or oak cabinets and tarnished crockery from elderly couples, shaking and brimming with the unlikely histories of their loot.

‘Och aye,’ Doug would say to the ferns shooting past the window. Alasdair liked this. It tinged the trips with a certain noble melancholy which validated him. Alasdair thought Doug probably had a family history of salmon fishing, stone-laying, and stoicism in the face of injustice. His crinkled eyes reminded him of the ones that had sparkled from the cover of Jean’s David Essex tape, and he was impressively strong for his age. Alasdair, in muted, cryptic terms, sought Doug’s approval for the more implicative decisions of his life. He took from the ponderous silences and intermittent drags on his pipe that Doug agreed: a roaming temperament and a penchant for spirits were not conducive to domestic city living.

‘Och aye… The bairn’s better aff wae her mammy, right enough…’

This was the kind of thing Alasdair thought Doug would probably have said, had he spoken much. They bobbed along together thus, until the floors again turned grey with dust, and Doug announced that Alasdair should have stuck with his watercolours, and his wee daughter in Edinburgh.

The nights had begun to draw in since then, the year fading gently into winter.

Alasdair surveyed the empty warehouse over the top of his easel. The Brasso cans and helmets had come to the attention of disapproving bodies, and were wanted rid of. Alasdair had surprised himself with the violence of his own refusal.

A splodge on the canvas where it wasn’t supposed to be, and he staggered slightly as he stood back to survey the damage. Loading his brush with the pale grey of the wasteland dust, he allowed it to fly in motes and clouds around Janey’s dress. The rogue splodge would become a golden delicious, sticking to her little hands.

Still, though. It was not a sentimental portrait.

Short story extract 3: 'For now, love, let's be real...'

Chapter 3

‘For now, love, let’s be real…’

☾⋆

I watch my father’s determined stumble to the booth, where the barman is fiddling woozily with microphones and blue wires.

 ‘I think your dad’s going to sing’, slurs Katie – pissed – from behind me.

‘Mmm,’ I return, not bothering to look round.

‘Do you think he’ll do Back for Good?’ She snorts. This does not warrant a reply.

‘Or Nothing Comp—‘

She’s cut off by the blast of feedback as he takes to the stage, red-banded mic in hand.

Script note: no direction required. Allow the actor to interpret the scene howsoever he chooses.

‘Right, I’m doing one,’ Dad slurs presently, whisky in hand. A bray from the crowd; languid cackles and shouts of ‘remember to switch the mic on’ are met with laughs far beyond their worth. Dad ignores them, dead set.

‘Aye… this is a good one.’

Something about his subtle-yet-firm signal to the barman tells me he means business. For one heart-stopping moment I wonder if he actually is going to go down the Sinead O’Connor route. A disturbing, unbidden thought of his face super-imposed over hers in that iconic video... It's been seven hours and sixteen days... give or take a couple of weeks. But now, a familiarly solemn guitar intro drifts over the speakers, followed by my father’s gristly, strangely tuneful tones.

‘If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts could tell…’

‘Sounds a bit like Kenny Rogers,’ offers Tommy, somewhat prematurely.

            I stare at Dad as though hypnotised, until Tommy’s voice and the beige interiors of the pub have faded completely. I remember…

Me. Little and fluffy-haired, my head against Mum’s cardigan’d chest. This song burbled gently in the background, my eyes tired but bright as she read from a picture book. Then, years later, the same melody played as part of a cooking compilation, in the days when CDs were new and full of wonder. Dad was shrouded in the smoke and fragrances of the kitchen, singing along, as Mum flitted in and out, barefoot.

‘Enter, Number 2: A  movie queen to play the scene of bringing all the good things out in me… but for now, love, let’s be real…’

Mum always avoided the steam from the kettle. It used to frizz her hair. Sometimes, Dad would pull her to him, smoothing down the blossoming curls at her temples with his hands. Then he would lean in for a kiss, and she would giggle, and duck away from him.

‘Shall we try that again, Jean?’ he’d tease. ‘From the top? Take 2? Yes, I think so. Once more with feeling, please.’

When I was very young, the images of the song held a childlike wonder: the dark castle, the ghost from a wishing well… heroes and old-time film stars. To me, it was a straightforward fairytale, untainted by analogy or implication. With hindsight, it seems vaguely ominous that even in the throes of marital bliss, my parents were infatuated by a song that dealt with the dull pain of divorce.

‘He pissed?’ asks Robbie unhelpfully, snapping me back into the present.

I say nothing. Robbie stands beside me in silence, surveying the performance with an irritatingly unreadable expression. Presently, Dad sits forward on his stool, affecting a Southern drawl and misty-eyed expression for the final lines.

‘I don't know where we went wrong,

But the feeling’s gone,

And I just can't get it back...'

His voice wobbles on the final few words, and is lost altogether in a shower of newly-nervous applause. I look around the room. Lots of heads are swivelling as they try to locate Mum in the audience. I watch their faces as the penny collectively drops.

Rita, our MC for the evening, takes the stage as Dad stumbles down. She catches my eye briefly before speaking.

‘Well. Wasn’t that a great number from Al, there? Fabulous stuff.’

‘Mum, doing her best Smooth Radio DJ impression,’ murmurs Robbie to Suzy. She giggles. I glance at Katie, who’s looking sheepish. She points at the door.

Before we can slip out unnoticed, Dad catches me at the bar.

            ‘Janey! How did you like your old dad’s song? A classic, eh?’

            I look at his round, red face; the blind eagerness in his eyes. I think of Mum’s spontaneous trip to Portugal with her girlfriends. At this moment, I want to be away from him too; as far away as possible. For the first time in my life, I want to hurt him. He looks at me, surprised at my silence.

            ‘Well, I’d better help Tommy with his number. He’s doing his Elvis, of course. See you at home?’

            ‘No, Dad. I’m staying with Katie this week.’

            Dad falters. For a moment, I think he’s going to object. Instead, he manufactures a twinkly smile.

            ‘Right then, girls! Enjoy. I’ll see you soon, Janey.’

            He bustles back into the crowd, two doubles in hand. Katie takes my arm.

            ‘Come on then.’

Back in her room, Katie tries to cheer me up with Dawsons Creek re-runs and a warm bottle of rosé, but I am monosyllabic, and after a while she leaves me to it. I gaze at the ceiling, letting the muted sounds of the telly wash over me until I fall asleep. Sometime in the wee small hours, I awake to an inky dark room. The faint rumble of traffic is punctuated by the whoosh of Katie’s soft snoring, in and out, like a gentle tide. Thirsty and disorientated, I slip out of bed.

The hallway is deep blue with shadow, lit only by a shaft of moonlight leaking in through a small, circular skylight above my head. When I was young, I was fascinated by this peephole to the trees and purple stars. I gaze up at it for a moment, before a noise behind me makes me jump.

Robbie stands at the top of the stairs, his shiny hair messier than usual, sticking up dramatically at the back.

‘Hello,’ I whisper. ‘Did you just get home?’

‘Nah, been home for ages. Mum and Suzy stayed… They were on a roll with Dolly Parton. Thought I’d leave them to it.’

‘Ah. Sorry, I just needed to get some water. Did I wake you up?’

‘No, I was up. Jerry.’ He gestures to the little grey dog with his foot.

'Why's he called Jerry?'

‘He's a Springer spaniel.'

‘Oh right… Should have got a Cocker. Then you could have called it Jarvis.'

‘Yeah. That would have been better.'

‘Yeah.’

A branch scratches against the oval window above his head, the moon flitting in and out of view behind it. 

Maybe it’s the silence of the house, or something to do with the way the light falls over Robbie’s face, but suddenly I feel relaxed and calm in his company; the gaucheness of this morning’s exchange in the kitchen mercifully evaporated.

'I used to love that window,’ I tell him. ‘Looking out of it, I mean. At night'

Robbie turns round to look properly, rubbing the back of his neck.

'Yeah, I remember that. You'd sit in the middle of the hall and everyone would trip over you.'

‘It was only you that tripped over me because you were galumphing about like a bloody boy and not looking where you were going. You were like something out of a Robinsons barley water advert,' I tell him indignantly.

‘That's normal boy stuff, though. You were—’

‘What? Abnormal?’

‘It was sort of normal until you started serenading the moon.’

‘Get lost—’

‘You did. In a strange, high-pitched squeal. Sitting there in the middle of the hall staring up at a window singing about the moon. Nutcase.’

He looks at me like I’m an alien. But his eyes are crinkled, and I feel like a nice alien. An alien that he’s actually quite fond of.

I wonder how Suzy feels when he looks at her. I doubt aliens are involved at all.

‘Come in here a minute,’ says Robbie after a pause, motioning to his bedroom door.

I pull my cardigan around myself like a fluffy shield, and watch him as he opens the door wider to let me into his bedroom. Robbie reads the look on my face and rubs his hair again.

            ‘Just for a sec. So I can talk to you.’

I do as I’m told. He closes the door gently behind me and I hesitate, unsure where to put myself. He begins to clear large piles of books and clothes from his bed while I gaze around. Rita has kept his room the way it was when he lived here; the same glow-in-the-dark plastic stars and moons on the slanted ceiling, globules of violet Blu-Tack showing through their centres. Faded grey T-shirts puddle the floorboards, his jeans on the heated radiator, so the air smells of washing powder and something else familiar and Robbie-ish. Only Suzy’s sequinned dress on the hanger indicates that things have moved on.

Robbie allows a final book to slide from his duvet to the floor with a loud clunk, and gestures to the uncluttered space on his bed. I perch on the corner, watching him sink into a frayed chair. A beat before he looks at me. I’m suddenly very aware that I’m not wearing much, and that my eyes are carrying the smudged remains of Rimmel's Granite and Fog.

‘Are you alright?’

            I know what he’s getting at. I look at him questioningly all the same.

            ‘Just… the karaoke thing with your dad. I wondered if you were alright with it.’

            ‘Alright with it?’

            ‘…Yeah,’ he says, embarrassed.

            ‘Would you be alright with it, Robbie?’

            ‘Probably not, no.’

He bites his thumbnail briefly, then rubs his chin with the palm of his hand. I wonder why I sound so angry when I suddenly feel safe and warm. He tries again.

‘He was pissed.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Not that that helps.’

‘No.’

‘I did Sweet Caroline once, when I was pissed. That’s my point.’

‘Sweet Caroline wasn’t the bittersweet soundtrack of your recently-failed marriage though. Was it?’

He sighs, leans back against the desk, and searches the ceiling for inspiration. He hasn’t noticed that I’m smiling.

‘Look, I’m just… He’s having a sort of… Martin-Clunes-does-divorced-dad-for-BBC-2 moment. Going through the motions to see if anything helps. Tonight was just the whisky and singing stage. It won’t last.’

            ‘It’s alright, Robbie. You’re off the hook.’

He looks at me properly, and is relieved enough to show his teeth when he smiles, taking himself by surprise.

            ‘Sorry, that was shit. I’m not really—’

            ‘No. Was good. Thanks... I’m alright.’

Seconds pass, silent. I feel buoyed up by his care for me, as though a fragile, transparent film surrounds us and his bedroom, floating away from the other rooms of the house, the street beyond, the fears of tomorrow. Robbie’s bedroom is a tiny planet, drifting in the gentle night time, with new and delicate rules of gravity. I want to stay here, to hold on tight to the yellow warmth.

Robbie stretches back against his chair. His thin black jumper rises for a second to reveal a sliver of navel. As I watch him, my thoughts are stolen by another memory.

I’m sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor in our old living room, covering my school jotters with wrapping paper. I can just hear the puffs and sighs of Mum’s iron over the radio. The song changes: Natural Woman, by Carole King.

 ‘Listen to this one,’ says Mum.

I pause in my jotter-wrapping, intrigued by the rapt, dreamy look in her eyes as she sings along quietly, fluently.

‘Looking out on the pouring rain, I used to feel uninspired…’

 I listen for a while, before going back to my jotters.

‘Yes, well,’ says Mum. ‘Give it about ten years. You’ll know what she’s on about.’

Presently, Robbie opens his eyes, gazing at the ceiling. I know how I want to thank him. Test these new rules of gravity. Cross the room, settle my body around his on the chair, draw his face to my neck, let my hair fall around him. Let him make me feel graceful. For a second, it feels almost possible. Natural.

He looks at me, worried about my silence. I smile.

‘It’s alright, Robbie. Really. Whatever it is I’m feeling, I’m going to channel it. I’m going to make it into something good.’

He frowns, puzzled.

I close the door softly as I leave.

☾⋆

 

'As Yet Untitled' Extract 2

A Liverpudlian suburb.

Old photos scattered over the table, Hilda’s eyes glowing like strange owl bulbs in the light of her laptop. A small white TV stands on a small, rickety chest of drawers in the corner of the room, blaring Wimbledon. Andy Murray is playing Djokovic as Edith sits in her chair by the window, a cup of tea in her hands, feet in burgundy velvet slippers curled up behind her. I immediately check for signs of loneliness around her watery eyes as a tiny Andy Murray runs back and forth across her glasses, but she looks perfectly content, if a little dazed. There is something vaguely worrying about my immediate assumption that my old and wizened aunt must be locked in a cage of sadness. I picture an old mind struggling to reconcile her burgundy velvet isolation with happy moments in her past. I suppose it would make me feel a bit better if the grey days I know will follow could be somehow twisted into a gorgeous plotline. My angst is slowly de-knotted, my great aunt’s senility overcome, as we engage nightly over Earl Grey and tales of her childhood.

I trudge upstairs into the bedroom to find Hilda spread out generously on her single bed, her Kindle high above her head and bits of paper with scribblings about Jess Rankin piled high on the bedside table. It’s a very Hilda-at-night-time scene, one that would continue in the same vein until at least four in the morning if I wasn’t bunking by her side. It’s quite comforting, really, to think that she’d rather be in her own room too. This has something to do with my phobia of sleeping at friends’ houses in Primary School, in the days when my eyes would fill with tears when 9pm came and someone else’s mother helped me brush my teeth, and something about the sight of my little friends’ pink or silk pyjamas would seem horribly alien and terrifying. In those moments, I felt that nothing could be lonelier than wishing to go home while my friends plotted midnight feasts of chocolate that fizzed in their mouths and Rainbow Drops that stuck in their teeth and kept their eyes open past eleven. I never felt more different as I lay in the darkness, my face hot and heartbeat heavy as I struggled not to cry.

At least Hilda won’t pester me for ghost stories or give me vinegar crisps that burn my lips too late at night.

‘Hello, just ignore me,’ I say, crumpling down onto the creaky single bed. The sheets are a strange, starchy, almost thatched material, with a 70s wallpaper pattern. Brown and orange.

‘Mmm… Just finishing my P.D. James.’

The same P.D. James she started yesterday morning, I think. Hilda reads 100 pages an hour, taking everything in. Her assertiveness in everything she does allows for this level of concentration when reading. It wouldn’t be worth her while if it was any different. I think of happy afternoons spent in the Borders café, endless streams of Paninis and hot chocolate and wedges of rocky road as she devoured chapter after chapter of whatever chunky, thick book she’d bought herself. I could have anything I wanted, and would always choose a poster-paint Jacqueline Wilson paperback, which she’d swap for the hardback as she approached the counter, ignoring my father’s protests as they tumbled from my mouth and assuring me the hardback version was ‘much nicer’. As I skirted my fingers over the laminate illustrations of the cover, feeling their contrast with the matte background, I privately agreed.

'Hatty'

 This is a short story I wrote for a writing class a few years ago. At the start of this academic year I was feeling a bit lazy, a bit project-less, so I spent one mad evening converting the story into a short play, with three characters: The Narrator, Hatty, and James. The piece was selected for performance at the STaG (Student Theatre at Glasgow) theatre festival, held for three consecutive nights at Stereo, Glasgow. My friend Kate and I collaborated to direct the play, holding auditions and developing the script to make the story work as a piece of theatre. The photo above is mid-rehearsal, with our brilliant actors Angus, Sarah, and Richard - who played James, Hatty and the Narrator.


                                                                        Hatty

‘You give me just a taste so that I want more
Now my hands are bleeding and my knees are raw
Now you've got me crawling, crawling on the floor
And I've never met a girl like you before…’

Edwyn Collins – ‘Girl Like You’

* * * * *

NARRATOR: Our own little butterfly. I’ll tell you her story, though I skip many night-times, many moons and stars and men. She wrote her own version, you see, but it was shaded with pastel colours – too many dusty pinks and russets where it should have been all black. For everything must be beautiful on paper. One blank sheet and she can shade it any way she likes. So I will tell you the tale of the one evening the mask slipped. She fell in love – but the broken cannot see love – and broken she was… as were the rules. She relished the chill that ran through her bones as she stepped from her flat, a crumbled Glasgow tenement on Melrose street, nestled somewhere behind Queens Crescent. Her senses were sharp and vicious with the cold as she turned to regard the building in its decayed splendour. A single light burned dull crimson in the highest windows, dark curtains parted just enough to reveal the strange and beautiful interiors within. Twisted mannequins adorned with silver and, a dusty black spinning wheel casting spidery shadows on the walls, chased by Oscar the tabby cat, impervious to their stillness.

A fleeting glance to her right set her nerves ablaze, and her fingernails drew blood against her wrists, the imprint of the streetlights forcing her from her reverie. The lights and cries of Friday night in the city repulsed her in their simplistic vulgarity, for she dealt only in secrets, and the quiet wonder of things untold. Yet, in the twist of her revulsion, tonight’s task seemed easier. She could hear the faint screechings of her distant commanders, somewhere in the back of her mind; the threatening plea for action stirring her into the night.

Avoiding the sequins and screams of the main roads, she detoured slightly in her chosen route, finding herself in the furtive, inky grandeur of Blythswood Square. Branches swayed against a purple sky, as in the distance, she heard the click of heels, a cackle, the dull thud of a car door. As she walked on, the shadows of the square curled themselves around her body, beckoned from the clandestine places of the night, where whispers and pleas shivered gently and were lost. She had been here before, in another time, when deals were harsher, and her vengeance honey-sweet. Pausing, she heard the screams again - their orders - louder and more urgent, and knew she had lingered too long. Her nails embedded in her palms, she slid onto Sauchiehall Street, and into the stark warmth of the people who had yet to fall between the cracks.

This night, her choice was immediate, and easy. He was tall, with dark scruffy hair and that ruffled, ‘just-out-of-bed’ look that has fuelled heartache and self-compromise among women for centuries. He carried his lean body with effortless grace, and his shirt clung to him the way it should. His clothes spoke of inherent good taste, yet were not chosen to do so. A smile lingered on his lips long after he had finished laughing, and his eyes were the colour of her bathwater, framed with long, sooty lashes. She watched as he stood at the ironically ‘kitsch’ juke-box, eventually settling on a song with a jangling, twisting introduction, prompting a drunken nostalgic cheer from his friends.

‘Never met a girl like you before…’

He danced, turning slowly, with his pint glass aloft. The pink blossom of excitement spread from her neck to her cheeks as she thought how rewarded she would be, when she had changed him forever, made him vulnerable, her own. She stood in the dark space separating the toilets from the bar, biting her lips hard to bring the blood to the surface, a technique inducing an effect far superior to that of any lipstick against her flawless white skin. The synthetic tang of bad cocaine was beginning to fade from the back of her tongue, the bridge of her nose. The capillaries lining her nostrils were largely severed and torn, a nod to the varying levels of rot and decay masked by her porcelain outer shell.

A glint of silver in the dark corner as she drew her hair pin from inside her 40s coat. Her dark, gently fragranced hair swept into an elegant bun, loose curls licking her neck, the black of her pupils pulsing in time to the music. She would be happy to stay here, in the shadows, a dark wallflower thriving quietly from the lives and laughter of others. But - as she had decided long ago - that lifestyle is better suited to the ugly, lonely and deranged. She must flit in and out of the gaudy charade, adding her own faded shades of watercolour beauty to the lives of the men who needed her, to whom she belonged for one night, before her disappearance annihilated them. This was her duty, and she undertook it with the solemnity of the gods. Her gods.

 She could pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with her; about twelve minutes later. James. She had followed him outside, hovered near him on the pavement, wasting matches until he approached with a light. An unimaginative routine, with an unfailing success rate. She had let her hair fall to her shoulders and her eyes fill with tears when he had asked her where she was from. He’d just stared. His smell intoxicated her; her pupils fighting off the fine mahogany outlines struggling to encase them, thin as gossamer. She wanted to take him there and then, some back alley somewhere, desolate and depraved. However, she must uphold the pretence. Shy, intellectual art student. Hatty, she told him. Hatty was her name.

The implicated intelligence, the vulnerability of the persona always made them shiver. He asked her where she had come from, and if she liked Glasgow. France, she said, and yes. She had started out working at the Citizens Theatre, enthralled by the dark places beyond the stage, where murder and rape and manipulation had etched their marks in the wooden beams and dusty costume halls. She would linger when the grand circles emptied and the lights burned out, watching the dull glimmer of the chandelier as it hung in its ghostly opulence.

 She played her part well, whispering to him of her paintings - paintings that did exist - on the outskirts of her memory. She spoke of twisted, gnarled visions, but all he heard was the velvet of her voice. She was too thin, yet he was surprised to find himself getting hard the more he thought on it. The visibility of her ribs, the fragility of her wrists. Even the dark circles under her eyes contributed to her collective beauty, which was frightening, like a third presence. He told her so, and then he dared to kiss her. Deep red spots throbbed behind his eyelids when she let him. She took him home.

* * * * *

She wore a dusty pink linen nightgown, and smelled powdery, like roses. They lay among musty sheets, and Oscar the cat nuzzled his neck. She slept quietly in his arms, and he kissed her head. She was wide awake, and could see him. She had to make sure he’d forgotten the sex. The mirrors and the teeth and the fire. She did as was expected, and he left as the birds sang.

 They came that night, in their hordes. A flaw in the routine, they said. A fatal flaw. She had forgotten something, and they changed her face as punishment, until it resembled the paintings on the outskirts of her imagination. Her body crumpled, and Oscar died of fright. As the faded green of her bathwater turned dim with blood, dark pictures slid through her mind, of a city whose streets had masked and bathed her in their lonely beauty. A tower, a spire, or television wires against a steely bright sky. The displaced elegance of a forgotten park while the safe ones slept. These visions had been hers, and had held her though her pain. These, they could not steal.

'As Yet Untitled' Extract 1 ('Toothpaste and Mandarins...')

In the morning I wake early. Katie is still dead to the world, her dark curls stark against the pillow. I wait for the day’s first wave of anxiety to flood me, anticipating the toxic adrenaline rush that will force me out of bed. It doesn’t come. Instead, Katie’s bright bedroom offers up a delicious platter of displaced optimism. The pipe running down the wall outside her window releases plumes of thick white steam into the morning air. I wriggle about on the futon, sinking deep into the quilt. Soft radio voices seep under the door of Rita’s bedroom across the hallway. Jerry is snoring lightly, curled up in a ball by Katie’s side.

At length, I detangle myself from my cosy nest, glancing around for something to put on. Finding only office-related clothing immediately available, I unravel a cotton blanket from the foot of Katie’s bed. It is outrageously pink, with the word ‘Babe’ written repeatedly on its hem in metallic Comic Sans. She sleeps on as I wrap it around myself and pad downstairs.

Rita’s kitchen, with its sunlit mahogany and sky blue fittings, is reminiscent of the bright domestic spaces full of plaint-splodged children in CBeebies adverts. It’s all ridiculously Perfect Homes until I realise there’s no ordinary milk in the fridge - only Soya. I vaguely remember Rita insisting on buying this, despite Katie’s protests that when you put it into tea or coffee it looks like little sea monkeys swimming about in the mug. I pour a glug into my Nescafé without looking, and settle myself at the table.

‘Oh, hello.’

I jump, slopping coffee onto the crushed linen cushion of my chair.

I haven’t seen Katie’s brother Robbie since he left for Law School five years ago. I remember him as a thin, intense adolescent with dark, sticky-up hair. Standing before me now, I can see how much he has changed. He’s taller – much taller. All glinting green eyes and forearms. He smiles briefly before making a beeline for the fridge.

Enter Number 2: Robbie. Protagonist’s best friend’s dishy older brother. (Sitcom staple)

I am suddenly excruciatingly aware of Katie’s ‘Babe’ blanket.

Robbie smiles.

‘Janey, isn’t it.’

‘Yes! Hello! Sorry. Hang on, I’ll make myself scarce.’

‘Oh, it’s no bother,’ says Robbie calmly.

He runs a hand through his hair as he acquaints himself with the fridge’s offering of raw vegetables, canned fruit, Soy Milk and Babybels. I’m on the verge of shunning the blanket altogether when I remember Katie’s negligee beneath.

I could ask him about his law degree. I could be an adult about it, and tell him how well he looks. Instead, I nod towards the Babybels.

‘Didn’t know you were supposed to put them in the fridge.’

Robbie turns at leisure to survey me, eyebrows raised as he tears the red wax shell away with his pointy teeth. For a moment I am reminded of some gory canine killing in a David Attenborough programme. I do my best not to pursue the thought.

‘Well… yeah. It’s cheese,’ he says.

‘Right, yeah…’

I gaze down at the tepid brown liquid in my mug, my mind still conjuring unbidden images of Robbie chomping through a baby gazelle’s hind legs.

‘Toast?’ he asks, now eating from a tin of neon orange mandarin segments with a fork, so that the juice falls back into the tin and splashes his T-shirt, his shoes, the floor.  

‘No… no thanks.’

He nods.

I watch him for a second, absent-mindedly wondering what his mouth tastes like. Toothpaste and mandarins. 

‘How long are you home for, then?’ I venture, shrilly.

‘Reading week. So… a week. Got here at about four this morning and let ourselves in. I messed up with the train tickets. Don’t think Mum knows we’re here yet. Suzy’s asleep.’

All of a sudden I wonder what I’m doing here in CBeebies land and not at home with my ailing father. Before I have a chance to bundle myself up and out of the kitchen, an elegant pair of hands snake their way up Robbie’s midriff from behind. I try to see the body to which they are attached, but it is hidden completely by Robbie’s athletic frame.

‘Mmmmm. What have you got for me, then?’

Robbie takes the hands in his and gently plies them away from him, pulling their owner centre-stage.

Enter Number 3: Suzy. Robbie’s girlfriend. Shiny black hair.

Costume outline: a pair of men’s boxer shorts (Robbie’s), a small white T-Shirt, and not much else.

Further details: wouldn’t be seen dead in a ‘Babe’ blanket.

Robbie kisses her forehead.

‘Suzy, this is Janey, Katie’s friend.’

Suzy smiles her hello and levers herself up onto the kitchen counter. I notice the manicured toes at the end of her long, toned legs. She presses a foot against Robbie’s hip.

‘Sleep well, Rob?’

Robbie grins impishly at her through a mouthful of toast. I’m still planning my escape when Katie appears in the kitchen in her office clothes and court shoes.

 ‘Hello, Brother,’ she says, punching Robbie on the shoulder and heading straight for his plate of mismatched foodstuffs. Appearing not to notice Suzy, Katie proceeds to drink the juice straight from the bottom of the tin of mandarins.

Script Note: Establish likeable familial relationships.

 ‘Yes, hello, Sister. You’re looking very young-woman-at-the-office this morning. If you take your lustful eyes off my breakfast for a minute, I’d like you to meet someone.’

Suzy emerges from behind him and steps forward to embrace Katie.

‘I love your hair’ she breathes, ‘Robbie showed it to me.’

Katie touches her curls defensively.

 ‘He showed you my hair?’

Robbie rolls his eyes.

            ‘Photos, Katie. She’s seen photos. You like it, don’t you Suzy?’

‘I love tousled hair.’

Katie eyes Suzy’s sleek black locks suspiciously.

I smirk to myself, picturing Karen’s face if she were here to witness this little gathering. It’s a pilot episode waiting to happen, if only Suzy would rise to the Superbitch credentials that her role inherently demands. I watch her face, waiting for the flicker of venom that would banish her irreversibly to the Land of the Odious Ice Queens - but her open smile doesn’t falter as she continues her enthusiastic admiration of Katie’s curls.

Script Note: Beware a dip in pace. Enter Number 5.

            Rita swoops into the room and wraps Robbie and Suzy in her arms. We all say our happy birthdays. Soon, it is my turn to be cocooned in the fragrant silk of Rita’s fringed kimono.

            ‘Well! A house filled with gilded youth! And how are you feeling this morning, Janey?’

            ‘Oh! Are you unwell?’ enquires Suzy earnestly.

            ‘Oh, no, I’m fine. It’s just that… Well, I recently became the product of a broken home.’

            Script Note: Protagonist’s humour is out of sync with majority of assembled company.

Katie snorts into the tinned mandarins. Rita clears her throat, before padding briskly over to the kettle.

‘Now, it’s not as bad as all that. Nothing a bit of karaoke won’t fix. You’ll be there tonight, I expect? And tell your dad. It’ll take his mind off things.’

            ‘I’m not sure. Quiet night in with Tommy, I’d imagine. Thanks, though, Rita. I’ll let him know.’

'Clever cat' writing excerpt

He was sitting at a large wooden table, round and earthy looking, like something out of River Cottage. A tasteful room, rosy and cluttered, with its ingredients carefully sourced and never from catalogues. It was 4am when she fell through the door, horribly drunk and mildly stoned on top of it, and feeling like the fucking world was about to collapse into darkness, her young heart experiencing the first tugs of adolescent turmoil. Black, gritty wells on her cheeks - 30% tears, 70% Maybelline – but the sobs had stopped and she’d reached the quiet, subtle and dangerous phase of drunken despair. The point when the tears dry only as the mind starts to whirr, engorged and stupid with the drink, flitting between various plots of self-destruction. She didn’t see him as she tripped heavily over the cat’s water bowl, cursing herself and Percy the tabby for his utter lack of consideration and tact...

He was undoubtedly the most attractive 50 year old on the planet, with beautiful green eyes the colour of moss, almond-shaped and slightly angled, giving him the strangely arousing appearance of a clever cat.

                                                                                                   

How do I look..?