‘Did you catch anything?’ she said, and the husband shook his head.
‘Probably just a cold.’
He smiled and the wife’s face crumpled. She remembered the girl in her bikini and thought about how she too had just wanted a real beach. You could hardly call it one when you couldn’t slide your toes between the grains, or make castles that washed away with the waves. The wife said she hated rambling and that she never wanted to come here in the first place, feeling she could say that now.
‘Everything here is grey,’ she said. ‘And this place was supposed to make us better.’
The wife stood and grasped a pebble between her fingers, mottled and brown. When she threw, the stone landed with a wet thud a few feet behind him.
‘You don’t think we’re better?’ asked the husband.
She turned away to look into the white of the sky and the point at which it met the bay. There was a thin, horizontal line between one world and the other.
‘What, now?’ the wife said.
She heard a stone sail past her ear. It skimmed the surface of a channel in the sand, touching the water four, five, six times before it disappeared. She stopped still and watched as another danced across the shallows. They seemed to skip on for ever.
When she turned to look at the husband, he had his eyes fixed on the line of the horizon, squinting at the light. There was a look on his face she’d never seen before. The wife watched the elegant flick of his wrist and the stones as they flew through the air.
The stones, each time, became weightless.
Cuts
STEPHEN SHARP
Once over 65 you need five hours’ kip a night. Princess Diana said in a letter, her 1981 honeymoon was an opportunity to catch up on sleep. Alastair Campbell used to drift off when Harriet Harman spoke. I changed my anti-psychotic because it was making me drowsy. The psychiatrist said the new drug would leave me more awake. It would not cause sexual dysfunction. She was correct. I got erections and woke at 2.00 a.m. The auditory hallucinations got louder. They kept repeating ‘Go on do it now’. The voices did not specify what the ‘it’ was. I could not put the radio on without waking my brother. So I read Alastair Campbell’s Diary. He punctuated the first four volumes badly, but in the fifth he seemed to have learned what he was doing. The Diary must be as long as Proust. Campbell started several sentences with E.g. Alastair had arguments with his partner Fiona about the amount of time he spent working for Tony Blair. He had a breakdown . . . Nurses are more likely to commit suicide than other women. One in five people in the UK cannot name one author. Anthony Burgess reviewed one of his own novels. The radio made a fuss about his 100th birthday. He created slang for A Clockwork Orange that would not date. It was partly based on Russian.
An online shopping supermarket substituted tampons for baby food in a delivery. Kitchen knives are used in 60% of UK homicides. Kubrick said description was the most boring thing in a novel. He would hurl tedious books against the wall. There was a red-handled sharp knife in the cutlery drawer. I didn’t like handling it. I feared I would stab my brother with it while his back was turned. Norman Mailer stabbed his wife. The alternative to succumbing was going to a mental hospital again. I didn’t want that. I was worried that I would be searched when entering the hospital and my pen confiscated as a potential weapon, with which I could kill myself. I have to write every day. Paul Theroux said you should not keep a diary but rely on memory. I don’t agree with him. Enderby wrote literature while sitting on the lavatory. Turkey expelled 40 Dutch cows. It is a country in which you cannot flush toilet paper. Ian Fleming publications endorsed denture polish and hair removal cream. Ring notebooks were not allowed in hospital. Burgess said anyone can write a first a novel, after that you cannot rely on memory and must use your imagination. Old tea bags were displayed as art at the Serpentine Gallery. I can only drink decaffeinated tea. They don’t have it in the hospital. The voices told me to do it now. I loved my brother. He was the only person I lived with. He gulped his tea loudly and took an hour to drink a mug. Every man kills the thing he loves. I did not want to kill him. But the voices seemed to emanate from him and the only way to achieve silence was to shut him up. A Japanese company hired out fake friends to pose in your photographs. I was almost 60. 59% of women think about their ex during sex. The mentally ill die prematurely by about 20 years. So I probably did not have long to go. But I could not bear another day of it. The shrink changed me back onto my old tablets. But this did not silence the voices. They told me to do it now. I instructed my brother to shut up. He denied saying anything and suggested we stagger our meal times. The schizophrenic who raped and killed women on God’s orders went blind in prison. Many mentally ill people hear God. Burgess said we had never had a Catholic PM. Tony Blair converted shortly after leaving office. My brother went to see Blair at the local town hall in 1990. Oliver Sacks didn’t know who Michael Jackson was. Sacks went without sex for 35 years. Burgess was Sexist Pig of the Year in 1980. He said the female orgasm played no part in the sexual process, that women were better equipped to be novelists and that Tolstoy the genius was inseparable from the man who abused his wife. Michael Jackson was born after me and yet he died years ago.
The television sent me messages. I watched the news channels because they were live and people on live television could read my mind. The psychiatrists call this Thought Broadcasting. My thoughts were broadcast to the world and the newsreaders could pick them up. It was like telepathy only it was done scientifically. The female on the news used code words such as ‘border’ to say everything was all right. Border meant ER was bored. She didn’t seem to think I was heading for Broadmoor as a murderer. Fay Weldon said feminism had reduced the male wage so it could no longer support a family on its own. Women who fake orgasms are more likely to be unfaithful. A Christian priest said women who wear jeans should be drowned. The presenter said, ‘A man spent £40,000 on having his genitals removed.’ A Polish MEP asserted women were less intelligent. A man was arrested for having sex with a fence. Girls were missing school because they could not afford tampons. The auditory hallucinations said I could have any woman. The BBC cut LGBT lyrics from a talent show song.
When it came to dinner time. My brother got out the red knife to open his plastic packet of salmon fillets. I moved away from him. I watched the TV. The female presenter said it was fine, everything was OK. I wanted to eat my food. Campbell felt Mo Mowlam belched too much. For a soccer tournament in Russia you need certification of your BMI to get an extra-big seat for being obese. After training, a WWE wrestler ate 12 eggs and six rashers of bacon. Each time my brother swallowed I felt angry, the noise annoyed me.
If I was to go into the hospital my benefits would be suspended and this I could not afford. We would still have to pay our council tax. They might put me on injections. I would have to lower my trousers for the jab. The food would be inedible in hospital. They don’t give you five fruit and veg a day. If they said ‘Clozapine worked for you before’ then that crap would give me constipation. It can cause sudden death. But this is not guaranteed.
MPs say suicide methods should not be depicted in TV dramas. I could always throw myself in front of a train. That would be more efficient than an overdose. With an overdose you have a chance for second thoughts. But a train is final. There was a railway station with fast nonstop trains going through near the post office where I used to work. It would be better to kill myself than my brother. ‘Go on do it now,’ the voices said. My brother’s voice and the news presenter’s voice. But always almost the same message. Adam Faith spied on Fidel Castro for MI6. I hummed the ‘Summer of ’69’. ‘Those were the best days of my life’ before the voices began. It was the summer I left primary school. In Scandinavia child sex dolls for paedophiles might reduce abuse. 69 was the last time I was happy. I tried to recall who was in the Wimbledon final. Was it John Newcombe? A 60-year-old was given a map of places to avoid so he would not meet
the schizophrenic who stabbed him. Mick Jagger was originally to have starred in A Clockwork Orange. Burgess criticised A. N. Wilson for mentioning Terry Wogan (Irish DJ) in his fiction. Such references were parochial. I dreamed my brother reprimanded me for thinking Burgess a sloppy writer.
The psychiatrist was on holiday. The police sirens began to wail. This meant the Americans were angry. It was the American style of siren. The British one was phased out as my illness began in the 1980s. I could hear the president’s voice as I watched him on TV. ‘Come on do it now.’ The incessant mantra louder and louder. Campbell told George W. Bush his breakdown was the best thing that happened to him. I took the knife and began to cut my arms. This was evidence of self-harm. Brain activity continues for ten minutes after the heart stops. B.F. Skinner said if he could press a button to get Nixon out of the White House then he would. The German Chancellor read the US President’s interview in Playboy. Jack Kennedy thought Hitler was one of the most significant figures in history. Nigeria’s President said he needed more time off. My brother asked why I was not saying much. He could not see the wounds. I didn’t feel like speaking. One in four young men under 24 self-harm. I went for a walk. Saira Khan had sexual fantasies about a dog which she told Loose Women about (Campbell explained in brackets who Princess Diana and the Archbishop of Canterbury were but not who Jeremy Beadle was). Tories feared Diana would become a Labour MP. Robin Cook wanted to protect the Coronation from satellite TV. The dog owners I met seemed to urge me to do something. Their voices were increasingly irritating. I wanted to euthanise them. I thought one man was suggesting I was gay. Then I saw KV on a car number plate. The initials of Keith Vaz, an MP who was supposedly straight but actually gay. Cardiff University wanted to ban the word homosexual. A cinema in the US would not allow a Disney film to be shown because it had a gay character. During an out-of-body experience a woman met Walt Disney. I was almost 60 and unmarried. I blamed other people for this. Christopher Marlowe said Christ was gay. Campbell and Peter Mandelson were accused of spreading the rumour Gordon Brown was gay. People in their big cars with two or three children when I did not have any kids. I used to think it didn’t matter because I had an immortal soul. But now I wished I had reproduced my genes. Left something behind. Susan Hill left her husband for a woman. Big diesel cars pouring out poison that killed people like me who walked. It was Gordon Brown’s fault for encouraging people to stop using petrol. The drivers didn’t deserve to live. I wanted to kick a couple of teenagers in the head. They were laughing at me. Sick laughter. Teenagers think about sex 600 times an hour. I’d show them. Kick their teeth out. Bill Clinton had size 13 feet. Caffeine reduces the level of a protein which causes dementia. Cherie wanted to stop Tony Blair drinking tea and coffee. People think schizophrenics are all murderers. They want to lock us up. I’d like to lock them up. 59% of Express readers believe in alien abductions. I think Skinner explained how it is possible to read another person’s thoughts. We think in our throats without vocalising the words. A microphone was inserted in my throat on the instructions of President Reagan. He listened to what went through my mind when I masturbated. A Guardian reader who masturbated was unable to reach a climax with his partner. Jane Austen falsified a marriage register to give the impression she had wedded. The chief offered me anal sex with the most beautiful women on the planet. ‘Go on all you have to do is ask. That is all you have to do.’ Well I asked and asked. But it never did any good. It got me locked up as a loony. Mind and Rethink wanted an end to face-down restraint of mental patients. The needle with the anti-psychotic was inserted in my buttocks. I felt calmer. Some dogs are on Valium. The people in the hospital were not that bad. The food was awful. Aunt Bessie’s are bringing out parsnip and carrot chips. Being on anti-psychotic medication makes you gain weight. A nail salon in Memphis charged overweight customers more. Smoking was banned and that drove some inmates up the wall. Campbell says Jean-Claude Juncker reeked of fags. The doctor thought I had not been taking my tablets. A scientist blamed Parkinson’s medication for his tendency to download obscene images. Netflix are to film alternative plots to give the viewers a choice of endings. A CNN presenter ate a human brain. The rooms in the hospital came with WCs. In Beijing toilet paper is stolen from public loos. Human faeces were found in a Coca Cola can at a Northern Ireland factory. It was a millionaire who slashed a Gainsborough at the National Gallery. Dick Cavett told Burgess he had to urinate before hosting his chat show. Anthony said Turkish squat toilets were better for your health. A psychotic art dealer killed his friend because he was a green alien. Burgess said the state in his novel was wrong to remove the capacity for free choice.
The Arrangement
SALLY JUBB
It started with the owl.
‘Feathers repel me,’ said Erin, twisting her mouth. ‘I prefer living things. Can we change the subject?’
At the table, Matthew hunched over his laptop, his back to her.
‘Aha, Falco Rusticolus,’ he said, softly. ‘Now we’re talking. Eat your baby for breakfast.’
‘What?’
She turned back to the stove, her faded mane twisted into a thick knot at the nape of her neck, her denim skirt skimming her knees. Her legs were long, still honey freckled from the summer.
‘The Gyr,’ he said.
At one time she might have said, you’re my Gyr, pressed herself against him, and he would have chased her up the stairs, flapping those great Gyr wings.
‘You’re beginning to sound like some weird catalogue,’ she said.
He’d gone quiet, lips parted.
She trickled saffron between her fingertips, trance-like, watching the strands bleed into the stock. Silence. Just the rhythm of the wooden spoon scraping the base of the pot. The liquid began to turn yellow.
When they first met, he’d made noises about cooking (he’d called it cuisine, which she’d adored), but over the years he’d let her take over.
‘I can’t believe what you said a minute ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning round. ‘I wasn’t thinking—’
‘Not that,’ she said. ‘About Fleur.’
It had been dark since three. On the patio, glistening trails marked the comings and goings of slugs. Further down the garden, pockets of seed heads were being scattered by hedgehogs.
They’d met on an art history course. For Erin, a New Yorker, there’d been something fetching about the ripped cuff of his tweed jacket, the hand-rolled cigarettes, and that faraway look was a challenge. Childless at thirty-eight, she could hardly believe her luck when he’d proposed.
‘Even as a joke’ she said, adding tofu.
Neither of them had touched meat for several years, and they’d recently agreed, again at her suggestion, to omit animal products.
‘You obviously don’t really love her,’ she said.
He looked up. Were her eyes somehow smaller these days? He turned back to the screen.
‘To be honest I don’t know if I can trust you with her,’ she said.
‘You’re obsessed with that fucking cat.’
She’d always admired the fact he rarely swore; for her, it demonstrated a degree of reticence, of self control. She stared at the back of his head, the spoon dribbling juice onto the white tiled floor.
‘It was a joke.’ He’d lowered his voice again.
‘But you actually went as far as getting the price.’
They’d bought the cat – a thin pedigree with distinctive markings – a year after the stillbirth.
‘Perhaps I love her more than you,’ he said, turning. ‘Perhaps I hate the idea that I’ll never be able to look at her again.’
He noticed a tiny cluster of purple veins down the back of her left calf.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I was merely surprised that badgers, much bigger animals, were cheaper to do. You once suggested having her turned into a muff.’
‘We both
knew that was a joke.’
‘Sorry, Erin,’ he said. ‘It was a jape.’
She looked at him blankly.
‘A jest?’ he said.
He returned to the screen, trying to remember where he’d put the dope. In the dash? Or behind the work-bench?
‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, casually, after a minute. ‘I notice your swans are back at the lake.’
It was dusk as they’d driven back from the antiques fair the week before. He’d suddenly swerved onto the hard shoulder, braked, banging her knee hard with the gearstick.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Erin. ‘It was a dead pigeon.’
‘Wasn’t.’
He’d already unhooked his seatbelt.
‘Please – this is dangerous,’ she said.
The car door slammed shut.
She nursed her knee, watching him through the rear-view mirror pace down the hard shoulder. A stream of trucks buffeted the van from side to side. He eventually returned, holding the bird slightly away from his body, like some sort of offering. It was larger than she’d expected.
‘I hope it hasn’t got fleas,’ she said.
He placed it gently on the seat between them, inside his coat. They drove the rest of the way in silence.
It lay on a tea-towel on the dining-room table, a pinkish trace of blood on its downy chest.
‘Have you ever seen white this pure?’ he said.
Bird beside him, he was already on the laptop.
‘Do we have cling-film? he said. ‘Apparently it needs wrapping carefully—’
She scrabbled half-heartedly through kitchen drawers.
‘I don’t like it on that table,’ she said. ‘It could disturb the cat.’
He was scribbling notes . . . make sure no fluids leak from item . . .
‘No cling-film, sorry,’ she said.
Best British Short Stories 2019 Page 4