‘Easy,’ I said, and he smiled. Just a bit, like he didn’t have the energy for much more. He had a black eye, going yellow round the edges. Hair cut close enough that I could see a couple of scars on his scalp. They all have them. Pub fights, beer bottles. It’s why they keep their hair short: to show them off. I prefer to let mine grow long, myself. It’s a sign to others that I don’t conform. My wife says it’s my mane. She loves it.
‘What is it? What do you want to say to me?’ I said.
He shrugged. Most of them will meet your eye after a bit, once trust has been built, but he wasn’t there yet. I looked at my watch.
I could have gone, I suppose. I’d given it a fair go. But I can be like a terrier when I get an idea in my head. I sat down next to him. The springs creaked a bit but he was so thin I didn’t think it would have any trouble holding us both. He shifted up a bit, but didn’t object. Elbows on his knees, head in his hands. I listened to him breathing. I could smell him – bad teeth and rollups, too much sugar in his coffee. Another twenty minutes and I could log this as a session of purposeful activity.
‘I know what this is about,’ I said. ‘I know how things work round here. They’ve told you they won’t consider you for your Cat D unless you do the Alcohol Awareness course.’
He shook his head.
‘Anger Management?’
He nodded.
‘And you want to get on and do it, but they don’t offer it here. You want to progress. You want to see that little sister of yours. And this is your way of getting a transfer. It’s worked for plenty of others. They’ve played the system, why can’t you? Except we’ve had a regime change and her upstairs won’t have it. So you’re stuck. Does that cover it?’
He wiped his eyes the way they all do, with the heels of his hands, angry with himself. I stood up and pretended I was looking out of the slit they had the cheek to call a window, even though there was nothing outside worth looking at.
‘Will you come back tomorrow?’ he said, after a bit.
Result, I thought.
‘Course I will.’
I ended up going every day. Couldn’t log it. It wasn’t writing work. Wasn’t purposeful. Couldn’t even charge for it. One of my pamphlets won an award during that time, and I brought a copy of it in for him. I thought he’d be interested, after all the time we’d spent together, but he shoved it down the toilet. Right in front of me. Same with newspapers.
In the end I came empty handed, made us a pair of brews and sat next to him for an hour. I never got another word out of him. He wasn’t interested in writing. No poems. No stories. No song lyrics, no life writing. No flash fictions for the anthology I was organising. Not even a letter. But I went anyway.
What was I thinking? God knows. Maybe I was planning to get a piece out of it for the Writers’ Association Journal. ‘Creativity and Silence: Freedom with Words.’ They like that sort of thing.
The battle between the governor and this boy she had never met went on for the best part of another month and he got as thin as a rail. It was scary looking at him. The last time I saw him they’d moved him to the infirmary but it made no difference to him. He’d just lie there, same as usual, not talking. I did him a few poems, but he wasn’t listening. You can’t make a person speak, any more than you can make them eat.
He did get his ship-out in the end though. They had to blue-light him to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. He was fading fast, and needed feeding up. This were a couple of weeks ago now. I’ve kept my ear to the ground since, but there’s been no news yet. There’s still an outside chance he’ll come good and see his sister again, or at least I like to think there is. Five thousand lads a year is still a decent margin, though, isn’t it?
LS Lowry/ Man Lying on a Wall
NEIL CAMPBELL
I WORKED IN the library at the University of Salford. The Clifford Whitworth Library. I never knew Clifford but I would have wished him well. One morning the train was late. So I walked from Oxford Road, Manchester, to Salford instead. It was a nice day. One of those days where you sit in the office and wish you were outside.
When I got to work a little bit late I was told it was the day for Health and Safety training. Now, my old man worked in a warehouse his whole life. All my life I’ve sat at desks in front of a computer in warm offices surrounded by women. Anyhow I walked into the meeting and there was this little bloke there, probably about fifteen years younger than me. He said, ‘You’re late,’ and I replied, ‘I’m early, you’re still here.’ Now this meant we got off to a bad start. I was only joking at that point. I sat at the table and looked around it and there were about thirty people sitting there in apparent awe of this guy. I’d never seen any of these people before. And this guy at the front, okay, I know it was his job, but I just feel sometimes that people don’t have any perspective. He delved into his box of tricks and pulled a skeleton out. And I swear to you, this guy, well, he looked like the guy from The Office, had the little goatee beard and everything, and when he dragged out this skeleton I almost wet myself. He saw me laughing and I saw in his eyes that he didn’t believe what he was doing. I saw the same in the eyes of the people sitting around the table. So what the hell were we all doing there? All of us were just forcing ourselves to believe it because, well, what choice did we have? I could see some guys there, the porters, and they were just glad of the chance to sit down for a while. The ones with the glint in their eyes like Pete. I used to stand out the back of the library with him and he used to tell me about Sundays. He said he’d just go and watch his lad playing football for a few hours and then come back into work. And he always had these terrible non-PC jokes that I won’t tell you about here. It was like a generational thing. You had to laugh sometimes; it was the way he told them. But anyway this guy, what he did then was he unfolded a desk he’d brought with him and he put a stapler on the table next to it. And then he reached over and picked up the stapler. Then he asked us, ‘How many times in your working life do you think you would repeat this motion?’ And I said, ‘Never, I haven’t got a stapler.’ It was not a great joke and I was never a comedian. But I was hoping to get a laugh at that point. What happened was that I heard this kind of murmur of disapproval. And I was wondering what was wrong with everybody. Where was their sense of humour? Couldn’t they see what a waste of time this all was? And you know what came next: the old bend-the-knees-when-lifting-a-box routine. And beard-face asked for volunteers, and one of the porters went and did it. Which was fine, that stuff was part of his job. But not the lad from accounts. Or the women from payroll, or the people in personnel. Then the bloke showed us a film with a man sitting at a desk, all hunched over like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. And then he stopped the film and asked us to mark each other’s posture out of ten. I said I wasn’t doing that.
There was something about being sat at that desk that reminded me of being at school. When all the boring kids just sat there and did what they were told, and all the ones with any life in them were always getting into trouble. And it was the same in this Health and Safety meeting. And this guy (fifteen years younger than me) said that I had come late and had been a negative influence, and that he was going to put this in a report and that I should go back to the office. And when he said that I wondered why I’d even gone to the Health and Safety thing. You see, they put on these courses and they make everyone do it. I sit in front of a computer. Pete the porter lifts boxes. Yes, sometimes my back aches from sitting on my arse all day. As I got up to leave someone I’d never seen before muttered ‘Grow up’ and I turned and asked who it was. This old bald bloke said, ‘Look, we can take this outside if you want.’ And I said ‘Fine by me.’ And this old guy, well, he never moved.
So I started walking home. And it was still sunny. I looked down at the River Irwell as it shone in a crescent below the traffic roaring along the road. There was a heron down there, sat in a tree and looking down
at the water. It didn’t move at all and I started to think it was plastic. I kept walking down Chapel Street, past the curve of the old trade union building that was in the opening credits for A Taste of Honey. Down near Salford Central I went into the Kings Arms and had a pint. And I left there after two pints. Because I’m not a drinker I was already feeling pretty mellow and down near John Dalton Street, where there’s that nice bridge that goes over the Irwell, near that pub called the Mark Addy, and not far from the law courts, well I climbed up on that wall and lay down on it. I had the river to my right and the street to my left. Office workers walked past. I could hear ducks below me. I opened my eyes and saw the sunlight on the water and there were some rowers speeding under the bridge. I thought maybe if I just rolled over and fell into the water that could be something. That could mean something. It would seem that something had actually happened. I went the other way.
There was a formal investigation at work. A disciplinary panel was put together and a meeting arranged for a few weeks later. I was given a big folder full of witness statements and I was asked to write down my own version of events. I was told that I could bring in witnesses of my own. So we had this meeting and I told them that I was having problems at home, and I wrote all that down and a few weeks later I got a formal letter in my pigeonhole. I admit I was nervous. And I opened it and, well, I still had a job. In times like this you’re lucky to have a job really.
There was this writer, Sherwood Anderson, that I read about. He said that he owned a paint factory and then one day he just walked off down the railway tracks and out of town.
Lightbox
EMMA CLEARY
ELSIE WEARS HER picnic dress today, a black and white check. She stares at a crossword puzzle and sips her purple smoothie through a plastic straw. She is sitting at a small table in the grocery store cafe, in front of a huge display of pumpkins. I buy my own smoothie and take a seat. She looks up briefly from tapping at her iPhone, then it beeps and buzzes, pulling her attention back.
I tuck my rucksack under the chair and start to eat an organic cream-cheese bagel. Everything in this store is organic. I never shopped here until Elsie. I thought it was for vegan freaks. She is smiling. ‘It was another good session today,’ she says. ‘I really feel much better about everything.’ I’m glad. I used to think Elsie could never have a bad day, until that time she broke down crying. I feel pretty guilty about that now. I scratch the hair on my neck. I’m growing a beard and it itches. She likes men with beards. I swear the perfect man for Elsie looks like a cartoon lumberjack.
When we get home, Elsie takes off her coat and draws the bedroom curtains. Everyone here lives in high-rise boxes. I step out onto the balcony with a bottle of beer and lean against the barred metal railing. There is a rusty tin can at my feet filled with cigarette butts. Elsie was growing tomatoes over the summer but she has already cut everything back. Some geraniums still survive and they chatter in a planter like red mouths conspiring over the street. We live on the fifth floor, just above tree level, and now the orange leaves are deserting their branches. The trees obscure the view a little in summer. This is my favourite time of year, just before all the leaves blow away.
I take out my phone and flip through some sites as I swig my beer. Elsie has uploaded a picture of the berry smoothie poised artfully over the crossword puzzle. One of the solutions was her family name: Palmer. It has a lot of likes already, including some guy she works with. I click his profile picture, scroll through the pages I can. He likes nearly everything Elsie posts online. I think it’s cute and all but sometimes I think to myself, Elsie, keep something back for just us, you know? I notice the time and realise she’s changing for yoga class. I’m not really in the mood to go today. When I go I feel kind of self-conscious, if you want the truth, but I try to stay at the back where no-one’s watching. I’m a novice at yoga and sometimes I just give up and lie there in corpse pose with what the instructor calls a ‘soft gaze’. Elsie’s been going to yoga for years. I prefer running but Elsie likes to run alone.
I go back inside and poke around inside the fridge. There is some leftover Chinese food and I have this for dinner, while Elsie’s out. I do some work at my laptop until the light from the screen is the only light coming from inside the room. I wonder where she is and check my phone. It’s unlike her not to let me know where she is or where she’s going. I lean back in my chair and look out the glass doors over the city. People move about in their boxes of light across the street. A block away, forty storeys of concrete obscure the night sky – the shining Empire Hotel. On summer nights cameras flash as tourists take pictures of downtown. The top floor of the hotel is a revolving restaurant and above that is a giant neon E. The neon vibrates at the bedroom window when I go to sleep. It’s never completely dark here because of the sign, the always-lit corridors and stairwells. It makes me wonder what possessed Elsie to buy lace curtains. I sit in this light for a while. It feels somehow subterranean.
When Elsie finally comes home she looks tired. Her skin is flushed and she’s already changed out of her yoga gear. She must have showered at the gym. She hasn’t eaten, and she starts banging around the kitchenette, switching the radio on. I love watching her cook, the way she loses herself in the task and in the music. I flick through the stations as she dances, until I find something that matches her movements: ‘Happy Together’ is playing. We both like sixties music. I nod my head along in time. Her legs are bare, lithe; they make pretty shapes as she pads around the kitchen, singing. She eats standing at the counter. I want to tell her about my day, but she clears her plate and disappears into the bathroom. When we go to bed, neon palpitations creep in through the drapes, keeping me awake.
Elsie leaves earlier than usual for work in the morning. She’s already gone when I wake up, late. I go online and check her profile to see if that guy has been bothering her. It’s not that I don’t trust her, but she’s naive, she doesn’t realise what men really want when they talk to her. I should probably work today but I feel cooped up and Elsie will be out for hours. I shower and throw on some clothes to take a long walk, closing the door with its brass five-oh-one behind me. The autumnal air is bracing, and it feels good to be outside. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I guess I’m worried about Elsie, about us. Maybe I’m imagining it, but it feels harder to get close to her these days.
Back at the apartment, I make myself a sandwich and a pot of coffee. It’s a great sandwich – it really is a good grocery store. I’d never even heard of an heirloom tomato before Elsie. I go online again and Elsie has written a blog post. It’s all about an art project she’s doing at college. She’s really talented. There are pictures of her laughing and covered in paint. In one photograph, she’s raising the paint-streaked palm of her hand to the camera, and in the other hand she holds a paintbrush dipped in red. There are playing cards tucked into her blouse, and she’s captioned it with a Lewis Carroll quote. I press my hand against the screen briefly, feeling kind of dumb, but she looks so pretty. The pictures aren’t from today and I wonder when this was. Maybe I should ask about her project, or leave a comment. I feel nauseated and I lie down on the sofa. I sleep.
When I wake up, Elsie is home. It’s twilight and she moves around the apartment in the semi-darkness. She comes toward me up the hall from the bathroom in her underwear. I’m not sure of the exact colour but in the low light it looks silvery against her pale skin. I think it’s new, not just the plain cotton underwear she often wears but the kind of underwear you would call lingerie. She grabs her white robe from the back of the bedroom door and slips it over her shoulders. She glances at herself in the full-length mirror, pulls the pins from her hair, then drops into a sitting position onto the bed. She shakes something in her hand. After a moment I realise it’s a pot of nail polish, and she starts painting her toes. Is she going somewhere? While she sits still, waiting for her nails to dry, I feel as if I am holding my breath. A brooding sky streaks the window
with rain and the neon hotel sign buzzes into life. She gathers herself, shrugs off the robe and moves to the closet.
She bends to turn on the bedside lamp and a glow emanates from that side of the bed. I move closer to the window. She pulls out a little black dress. I watch her struggle with the zip, wishing I could offer to do it for her. She leaves the room for a while. When she comes back, she slips her feet into a pair of high heels, then flicks out the light.
I don’t sleep again that night. Instead, I look out the window at the city, at the apartment blocks that stretch between me and the mountains, the floodlights at the top of Grouse Mountain winking like a giant silver oyster. It’s not ski season yet but they still light up the snowless slopes. I’d like to be up there in the mountain air with Elsie. Better yet, we could go up to Whistler and hide out in a cabin, in the woods or next to the lake. The digital clock on the nightstand illuminates the minutes to midnight. Across the street, people cast kinetic silhouettes inside their individual lightboxes, like puppets in a tin theatre. People watching TV with the lights out create a flickering blue variegation in the pattern of largely yellow squares. I pull out my phone to look at the bright screen. She’s uploaded a picture of herself, and I realise the dress wasn’t black but a deep purple: ‘Forest green and plum are my faves for fall!’ the caption cries idiotically. She smiles in the picture and holds a glass of red wine. Her lips are stained and reveal a crooked tooth.
She’s going somewhere twice a week I don’t know about. There are no other signs and she follows the schedule pinned to the refrigerator in nearly every way. Yoga three times a week. Grocery shopping every few days after work. Therapy on Tuesday and Thursday. Art class, library, the coffee shop, all the places she’s supposed to go. Just two missing windows I can’t account for. I know she can’t be having more therapy. She’s been doing so much better lately, since I stopped those letters.
Best British Short Stories 2015 Page 8