JUNK and other short stories

by Duncan James

“No thanks.”

  “Where are you going then? Down to the pub, or something?”

  “Doesn’t matter where,” he replied. “I’m just going out, that’s all.”

  “I suppose you’ve had a bad day at the office again. Is that it?”

  “I don’t have good days at the office anymore.”

  “It’s never been the same since you had promotion, has it?”

  “That’s what did it,” he agreed. “I just can’t stand the new bloke I work for, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I thought he was rather nice when I met him,” she said.

  “Christmas parties are one thing,” he replied. “Working for the bloke is something different.”

  “He seemed all right to me.”

  “Not day in and day out. He gets on my nerves.”

  “He’s always been very pleasant to me, every time I’ve met him.”

  “An hour or two over a drink might be all right, but not every day for hours on end. You should try it sometime, and see how you get on.”

  That’s the plan. She grinned inwardly. But not starting tonight, thanks.

  “Why don’t I serve up?” she asked. “It’s all ready.”

  “Steak and kidney, did you say?”

  “That’s right. Made it myself. Not one of those ‘ready meals’.

  “Ready now, is it?”

  “Ten minutes, unless you’re in a great rush.”

  “Any wine left from last night?” he asked.

  “In the fridge – I’ll get it.”

  “You serve up – I’ll get it,” he insisted.

  “What happened at the office today exactly,” she called after him.

  “Nothing special. Just like any other day. Breathing down my neck all time, checking up on everything I do, never stops talking. It gets on my nerves.”

  “He is your boss,” she reminded him. “He’s supposed to do that sort of thing.”

  “Well, I’m not having it. Not anymore.”

  “Try talking to the man,” she suggested.

  “I’ve tried, but he won’t listen.”

  “Ask for a transfer, then.”

  “Where to? There isn’t anywhere.”

  “So you’re walking out on him, are you, just like that?”

  “Him – and you.” he added.

  “What have I done, specially?”

  “Nothing really. I’ve just been so depressed, you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I had noticed,” she said.

  “I just feel I’ve got to get away from everything and everyone.”

  “Why don’t you see the doctor, before you decide?”

  “I’ve decided.”

  “You can get things for depression, you know. Quite good things, nowadays, on prescription.”

  “No thanks.”

  “I could make an appointment for you now. There’s probably still someone at the surgery.”

  “No thanks.”

  “If you went tomorrow, I could ring in for you to say you were sick.”

  “I said ‘no’.”

  “You ought to give it a try.”

  “I’ve had enough. I’m going out, and I may be some time.” He made to stand up from the table.

  “Finish your dinner first, then.”

  He sat down again.

  “The last bloke who said that,” she said, – ‘I’m going out and I may be some time’ - didn’t come back, as I remember it.”

  He looked at her.

  “Died in the Arctic,” she told him.

  “I’m not going to the Arctic,” he said.

  “Wherever,” she said, “don’t take the car. I shall need it.”

  “Keep the car.”

  “Not that it would be much good to you in the Arctic,” she said.

  “I’m not going to the Arctic.”

  “You need dogs and things, there.”

  He looked at her, sadly.

  “And warm clothes,” she added. “Remember to take that wool sweater I gave you for Christmas.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “And don’t forget your passport.”

  He nodded.

  “And a hat,” she said. “You’ll need a hat. The Arctic winds are freezing.”

  “I’m not going to the bloody Arctic.”

  “Have you packed yet?”

  “I shan’t need much.”

  “You’d better take some tins of food. I’ll see what there is in cupboard. And if you are going to the Arctic, take that rotten bird food with you that’s in the shed. You can feed the penguins with it.”

  “Why in God’s name would I need to take tins of food?”

  “You won’t find Sainsburys in the Arctic, that’s why,” she said.

  “For the last time,” he was getting cross, “I am not going to the Arctic.”

  “There’s no need to shout,” she said.

  “And there aren’t penguins in the Arctic, only Polar Bears. Penguins are in the Antarctic.”

  “Mind the bears – they can be dangerous.”

  “The chap you mentioned, by the way, who didn’t come back, was in the Antarctic. Captain Lawrence Oates – 1912.”

  “Well that’s even further then. If you’re going there, the shops will be simply miles away, even with dogs. And you certainly won’t need the car.”

  “I am not taking tinned food.”

  “There isn’t a lot, but I could nip out and get some more while you’re at the doctors.”

  “I am not going to the Antarctic or to the doctors,” he shouted again.

  “Well, make up your mind. But take the bird food for the Penguins, anyway.”

  He put his head in his hands.

  “Now what’s wrong,” she asked.

  “I think I’m going mad,” he said.

  “Well, if you are going out, you’d better hurry. You know how early the last train runs on this line.”

  He looked at her.

  “I didn’t know you get to the Antarctic from Waterloo,” she said. “That Channel Tunnel’s better than I thought.”

  He was staring at her now, wide-eyed, in almost demented disbelief.

  “I think perhaps I will go to the doctor tomorrow after all,” he said.

  “Very sensible,” she replied. “I’ll ring them now.”

  ***

  While he was there next morning, she rang his boss.

  “That was close,” she said. “He nearly walked out on me last night.”

  “How did you stop him?”

  “I’ll tell you later, my darling. But he’s at the doctor’s now, so I can get away if I’m quick about it.”

  “Good girl,” said the man’s boss. “We’ll meet where we arranged.”

  “See you in about an hour, then,” she replied.

  “Oh, and by the way,” she added. “Your wife will have a job on her hands when they do eventually move in together.”

  “Why’s that then?”

  “Since he’s been to the doctors’, I’ve just had time to cut the left leg off all his trousers, and the right arm off his shirts.”

  ***

  There was a note waiting for him when he got back from the doctors’. “I’ve gone to the Arctic,” it said. “Your dinner is in the oven.”

  When he looked, it was the box of maggots from the shed. “Shan’t need these,” said the label. “Penguins are further south.”

  ***

  7 - THE TOY BOX

  Christian Luke remembered it well. Would he ever forget? Could he ever forget?

  Never.

  That fateful, frightful, terrifying moment, all those years ago, was forever etched on his brain. Now in his mid-forties, he could remember that day as if it was yesterday.

  And he was only – what – one year old? Perhaps two. Who cares? Whenever it was, it could have been yesterday. He would remember what happened that day until the day he
died.

  The way things were going, that could be later today.

  ***

  As a child, he had never been able to understand what had happened, and never been able to work out what it meant or what to do about it, but he had relived that fateful event over and over again. He couldn’t share his secret with anyone, and even now, he never quite knew who he could trust and who he couldn’t.

  As he got older, he began to understand that he could use his discovery to do things he had never imagined possible. Things that, so far as he knew, nobody else could do or believe possible, even if he told them. There were people, though, who had the same extraordinary powers. They had approached him, and had shared their secrets with him. It was a huge relief to him, but of little use. So far as the vast majority of ordinary people were concerned, this was a secret which had to remain a secret.

  ***

  Whatever an ordinary day looks like to a one- or two-year-old, this had been one of them. Nothing about it had been any different from any other, so far as he could remember. The usual routine, the usual occasional tantrum about something-or-other, the usual trip to the shops, to be dumped after lunch, as always, in the play room to get on with life on his own for a bit while his mother bustled around, dusting, doing the washing, getting dinner ready for when dad got home. All quite normal.

  Until he couldn’t find the large plastic fire-engine he wanted.

  Then it stopped being ordinary.

  The big red one – you know. That the fire-engine. With the ladder, and if you pushed it hard enough and let it go, it would drive itself across the room with the siren going. You know the one. He had it yesterday, but now it wasn’t with the other toys which he’d left around. You couldn’t miss it. It was big and red, with a ladder.

  Someone must have put it away. ‘She who tidies up’, no doubt. Before he shouted, he decided to have one last look around. Not behind the curtains, or under the sofa. He sometimes used the space under the bookcase as a garage but it wasn’t there either.

  He looked towards the wooden toy box in the corner, and there it was. That’s where she’d put it.

  He crawled towards it, but never got there. He froze a few feet away.

  The fire engine was in there all right. He could see it as plain as day, on its side at one end. On top of all his other toys. He could see them all.

  But he shouldn’t have been able to. Even at his age, he realised that.

  It was a solid wooden box, and the lid was shut.

  Now he yelled.

  ***

  He kept shouting until Mum turned up, and she was in a right state already. Rolling pastry, she had been, and still had floury hands when she whipped him off his feet in a fury. ‘He was too old now to wet himself like that. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t ask her. What had he been thinking about?’

  He couldn’t tell her.

  If he had, she would never have believed him anyway, so he let her get on with the finger-wagging and rough handling while he was changed and the carpet mopped up. He was well shaken by the time she had finished, and got the usual parting shot about ‘just you wait until your father gets home’, so he knew he was in for another dose when dad returned from work.

  Eventually he was dumped back onto the still damp carpet and left to get on life again, while she got on with the pastry. He was still very frightened about what had happened. Not the ticking off, severe though that had been. He’d had those before, and no doubt would have others, not least from his dad when he got home later and was told.

  No. He was really frightened about what he had seen, because he knew it was impossible. Not the fire-engine, but the way he had seen it. He could not understand or explain what had happened, and it had really scared him He was almost trembling with fear, and sat for ages where he had been dumped. He dared not look at the wooden box in the corner again, although he knew he would have to at some time. So he sat, petrified, staring ahead of him.

  Eventually, his mother appeared again.

  “Why are you just sitting there?” she asked. “Why aren’t you playing?”

  He looked at her, terrified. His fear must have shown on his tear-stained face.

  She picked him up and kissed him.

  “Come on, Christian! I’m sorry I shouted, but you really were very naughty. Now! Let’s get your favourite fire-engine. It’s in the box. I put it there last night.”

  Christian knew very well where it was.

  As his mother went over to it, he looked at the toy box, and it was just as it always had been. Wooden, with a lid. No window on the front or anything. It was quite a relief, but he was still very frightened by what had happened.

  He played for a bit with his red toy, but with no real enthusiasm. He kept glancing surreptitiously at the toy box. It hadn’t changed. Quite normal, in a solid, wooden sort of way. Which made everything even more difficult to explain. Perhaps it was the fire-engine and not the toy box. Perhaps he had a magic fire-engine. Something was very scary about one of them.

  But the toy box stayed wooden for days, and the fire-engine and its siren kept going like it always had. Christian began to relax a bit as he played.

  Until his friend Tim came over.

  Tim’s mother and Christian’s were good friends, and sat in the kitchen over tea while the boys were given some orange squash and a chocolate biscuit each in the play room. There were plenty of toys out to amuse them, but that day Tim wanted the green plastic steam train with its two trucks. They were his favourite among Christian’s toys. For some reason, the trucks were out but they could not find the engine.

  Christian glanced at the toy box, and there it was. He could see it as plain as day although the lid was shut again.

  A wave of fear swept over him, as it had the first time this had happened. He could not understand what was going on, but was too frightened to say anything. He looked around him, but Tim had noticed nothing. When Christian looked back, he could no longer see through the side of the wooden box. He made his way over to it, slowly lifted the heavy lid, and took out the engine for his friend.

  ***

  From then on, the toy box always managed to strike fear into Christian, although he’d not been able to see through it again since. It stayed as it always had been. Solid and wooden. But you never could tell. He never quite trusted the wooden box again. But, eventually the memory slowly began to fade.

  Until the day, not all that long afterwards, when they went to Tim’s house for tea. Christian liked going there. Tim had things he enjoyed, especially in the garden. Swings and a sandpit and a peddle car in yellow plastic. But it was raining, so they had to amuse themselves indoors. Not that Christian minded that. There were toys there to play with which he hadn’t got but wished he had. Things like the model zoo with the wooden animals that each had their own cage. Tim’s play-room was always very untidy, and although they could find most of the animals, the zoo itself seemed to have disappeared.

  Tim thought it might still be in the toy cupboard, and when Christian looked – sure enough, there it was. Inside, under a jumble of other things. He could see it clearly - through the closed door.

  He sat, petrified, but said nothing. Tim eventually found it, after much rummaging, when Christian could have gone straight to it, had he been brave enough.

  Once again, he was overcome with a sense of fear. What he had seen scared him as it had when he saw into his own toy box. But this wasn’t his – this was Tim’s cupboard, and Tim’s zoo. From then on, Christian realised that it wasn’t anything to do with a magic fire-engine or a magic toy box.

  It was him, Christian Luke, who was magic, although not all the time. Not every day.

  Three times now that it had happened, and although Christian wasn’t nearly old enough to work out what was happening or why it had happened, he was old
enough to know that it wasn’t usual. It wasn’t the sort of thing most people could do. People like Tim, for instance, couldn’t do it. Neither could his Mum or Dad as far as he could tell. They even lost things of their own which they couldn’t find. Usually, when he couldn’t find anything, he was told to look for it. ‘In’ the cupboard, not through it. ‘Under’ the bed, not through it. ‘Behind’ the curtains, not through them. And so on. And when they helped him look, they moved things about, and opened doors and that sort of thing. They never went straight to it like he had.

  Three times now, he had.

  ***

  Then, he discovered something else very odd. Quite by accident, and without in any way trying.

  He had just started nursery school a year or so later. He soon worked out that the three mornings a week weren’t so much for his benefit, but so that his mum had a bit of time to herself. Shopping without the pram, coffee with Tim’s mum without the kids being under their feet all the time. His friend Tim went to the same nursery school at the same time, which was good. He and Tim could play without their mums constantly nagging and shouting and telling them ‘not to do that’. They had a teacher who did it instead, but not as much, and without the threat of telling dad when he got home. There were girls there as well, that screamed and cried at the slightest thing. They had their own ‘girly’ toys, like dolls and dolls’ houses, but still they insisted on playing with boys’ things, too. They wouldn’t let go, either, unless you pulled their hair or something, and then there was a fuss and a lot of noise.

  He and Tim enjoyed drawing and painting. You could make a mess and it didn’t matter because it washed off and didn’t ruin the carpet like it did at home. There was a box of felt-tipped pens they liked using, and one day, it had disappeared. They couldn’t find it anywhere. Nobody else had it. They hunted high a low for it.

  Eventually, Christian saw it in the dolls’ house. Without thinking, he reached in and took it. Tim had started drawing something by the time Christian realised what he had done. For a start, he shouldn’t have been able to see the box anyway, as the front of the dolls’ house, which opened, was shut. But he had not only seen through the front, like he had seen into the toy box and Tim’s cupboard, but had simply reached in and taken out the box of pencils, without opening it. He had put his hand straight through, grabbed the box, and taken it out again.