The Best British Fantasy 2013

by Steve Haynes

  By the light of the moon over a far away island, Peter Pandora went off to fetch his tools.

  CATE GARDNER

  Too Delicate for Human Form

  A trail of dead goldfish wound towards the pool where Jenny’s aunt drifted face down.

  Her aunt’s silver chain, its pendant an iron key, dangled from the prongs of a leaf rake. Jenny put the chain around her neck and wondered if the fish had tried to save her aunt or themselves. The iron key dangled between her breasts, irritating her skin. She followed the trail back into the house, she phoned for an ambulance. To the coroner, the fish were a suicide note. To Jenny, they were family.

  The world blurred. Rain lashed the funeral car’s windows turning the graveyard into a sodden watercolour painting – greys, browns and greens bleeding. As the car pulled away, Jenny imagined the palette to be a collection of mourners. Goldfish ghosts gathering in their human form. Beside Jenny, Coral pressed her nose to the window trying to swallow the rain. Her elbow knocked the window button and it rolled down allowing Coral to lean out, her red-gold hair fading to blonde in the squall. Spray hit Jenny’s hand. She scratched the patch of inflamed skin that ran from her thumb to her elbow.

  She should have left Coral in the tank at Cloyster Fishes. She shouldn’t have tried to make a friend of her own.

  Cloyster Fishes specialised in goldfish. Over the years, Aunt Lou had bought a variety – the bug-eyed Celestial Eye, the Black Moor, the Shubunkin, otherwise known as Gabe, Hassan and Marvin – but Jenny had always wanted a Veiltail despite her aunt’s warnings that the breed were too delicate for human form.

  ‘I heard about Lou’s fish,’ Adam said when she entered the shop.

  Not about her aunt, about her fish.

  ‘It wasn’t purposeful,’ Jenny said. ‘She wouldn’t have harmed them. She wouldn’t have harmed herself.’

  ‘I didn’t mean . . . Lou treated her fish like family. Better than.’ Adam’s eyes met hers and then he glanced away, busying himself with the fish food display. ‘New brand. Of course, you don’t have any fish to . . . I mean . . .’

  Jenny crossed the store to the tanks. Black Moors skulked around the bottom of the tank adjacent to the Veiltails.

  ‘I want just one,’ Jenny said.

  Adam slid aside the tank lid and gathered the net and a plastic bag. ‘Do you have a favourite?’

  ‘If I had the energy, I’d take them all.’ Jenny pointed to a fish with the longest, sweeping tail. ‘She’s so beautiful. I need a new tank too. It wouldn’t feel right using Aunt Lou’s; it belonged to them.’ She didn’t add that Gabe had shoved the tank off its stand the night before they all died. ‘Or maybe I’ll put her in a bowl.’

  As she left the store, Jenny said, ‘I’ll name you when we meet. You never can tell who a fish will be.’

  The Veiltail swam within the bath, circling its bowl and peering into its concave hollow. Jenny pulled her aunt’s chain from beneath her blouse. The wooden box of fish food rested on the bath rim. This was it. She drew a breath, opened the box and took a pinch of magic flakes. She sprinkled them into the bathwater.

  The fish gobbled the food. It took a moment for the transformation to take shape. First, the gills bulged and the body swelled until it seemed the fish would burst and then, its fins flapping so fast the fish blurred, the goldfish morphed into a girl. The girl shot up, spraying water across the bathroom. She gasped for air. Once her lungs were full, she turned to Jenny. Her mouth flapped open, unable to form words.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Jenny said.

  It probably wasn’t.

  Jenny helped the girl out the bath and into Aunt Lou’s dressing gown, conscious of her ravaged patches of skin against the girl’s newborn flesh. Flakes of Jenny’s dead skin clung to the bathrobe. If Aunt Lou were here, she’d take a metal brush to Jenny’s skin and scrape it until only raw skin remained.

  ‘Who . . .?’ The fish-girl peered into the mirror. ‘Who . . .? Who am . . .? Who am I?’

  ‘Your name is Coral.’ Stealing her aunt’s line, Jenny added, ‘You bumped your head and forgot everything that happened to you.’

  ‘Who . . . are . . . you?’

  ‘I’m your best friend, Jenny.’

  Coral’s hand flapped to her forehead. Sweat dripped. Don’t be sick. They’d known a Fantail (Eduardo) who only lasted a few hours. Perhaps she should have tried to live without someone – Aunt Lou had said people did it all the time. Maybe it was easier to live when there was no one to lose.

  Or harder.

  ‘I’m Coral.’ Coral nodded at the mirror and her reflection agreed with her. ‘I’m Coral.’

  Jenny lay next to Coral, fighting sleep. She wasn’t certain how long Coral’s first transformation would last. Each fish was different. Countless times, Jenny had sat and watched the revelries afraid to go to bed. When Aunt Lou was drunk she’d forget Hassan, Gabe and Marvin were fish and that they could lose them at any moment. She grasped Coral’s hand and held it to her chest.

  Her dress for the funeral hung from the bedroom door like a shroud. As Coral’s hand slithered away, Jenny choked back a sob.

  Transformed back into a fish, Coral squirmed across the pillow, gasping for water. Jenny scooped her up and dropped her into the fishbowl. She’d bring her back in the morning. Coral pressed her fish eyes to the bowl, staring out at Jenny.

  ‘Do you remember being human?’

  She hoped not.

  ‘Who am I?’ Coral asked, water dripping from her hair.

  ‘You’re Coral. You bumped your head and forgot . . . me. It’s Aunt Lou’s funeral today, but you don’t have to wear black.’

  Aunt Lou would appreciate that a fish attended her funeral. Jenny fussed with the neck of her blouse. It irritated her psoriasis, but she shouldn’t scratch. Scratching only made it worse. If Coral would move away from the bathroom cabinet and its mirror, Jenny would open the door and slather cocoa butter onto her neck to calm the itch. Her aunt disapproved of creams, said it made her skin reliant.

  Coral pressed her fingertips to the mirror. ‘I forgot everything.’ Then she turned and ran from the bathroom, trilling, ‘I forgot everything. I forgot everything. I’m Coral. I’m Coral. I’m Coral.’

  Jenny’s neck burned red. ‘I’ll always be Jenny.’

  Something shattered in the bedroom. Coral stood amid the ruins of the fishbowl. Water dripped from the bedside table, pooling on the floorboards. Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

  ‘Stay here,’ Jenny said. ‘And mind the glass.’

  When she opened the door, a dour group greeted Jenny. The undertaker tipped his hat. Aunt Lou’s home. Along with Gabe, Hassan, Marvin, and an assortment of fish she’d never met but who had formed a trail from pool to kitchen. The undertaker had allowed her to place a fishbowl, sans water, in the coffin. Home.

  ‘I just . . . Can you give me a moment, I need to . . . We’re not quite ready.’

  Was anyone ever ready for death?

  ‘Of course,’ the undertaker said, stepping back.

  Coral stood in the wardrobe doorway, running her hand through Jenny’s clothes. She chose a red summer dress that Jenny had never worn. It came to just above Coral’s knees. Watching the girl dress, Jenny knew that Aunt Lou would have loved Coral, as would have Gabe. Coral twirled, causing the skirt to fan out like a tail. Did Coral remember her fish tail? Did it bother her like a phantom limb?

  ‘We’re going to a funeral, Coral. You’re very sad.’

  ‘Am I?’ Coral said. ‘Should I cry?’

  Jenny balanced at the edge of the bed. At her feet, glass shards glistened. Her toes scraped at the floor just above them. If she stabbed her foot, she wouldn’t have to stand at the graveside and see her aunt lowered into the ground. A sob caught in her throat. Best if she thought of the coffin as an empty box. If only they sold magic flakes to change the dead into the
living.

  Downstairs, in the hallway, someone coughed. Jenny gathered her courage and Coral’s hand. Stay human.

  ‘We should go.’

  ‘I’m very sad,’ Coral said.

  Please, don’t turn into a fish. If Coral changed mid funeral, she’d have nothing more than a rain puddle in which to swim. Then there was the matter of how Jenny would explain the transformation to the priest and the undertaker. As if she were an anchor to human life, she didn’t let go of Coral’s hand until the funeral mass and burial were done.

  Sitting in the back of the car, with Coral leaning out the window gobbling raindrops, Jenny had never felt so alone. The undertaker watched them through the rear-view mirror. Jenny pulled Coral away from the window and wound it shut. Stay with me. At the house, Aunt Lou’s house, Adam Cloyster waited at the door. He carried a bag containing a goldfish. Jenny shivered.

  ‘Everyone needs a friend,’ Adam said, then blinked as Coral emerged from the car.

  ‘Oh, it has nowhere to live. How sad. I smashed the goldfish bowl because it bothered me,’ Coral said.

  ‘Did you put the fish in your aunt’s aquarium?’

  Jenny jabbed the key into the door. ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘Oh, there wasn’t any fish,’ Coral said.

  ‘The fish is in the bathtub,’ Jenny said, opening the door.

  ‘Oh, but I was in the bath.’

  Coral stooped and pressed her face to the bag to see inside. Her skin shimmered, scales rippling against skin and hinting at impending transformation. Jenny pulled her up the stairs.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Jenny said, hoping politeness would stop Adam following them.

  Behind them, the stairs creaked. His steps slower than theirs, cautious. Coral flopped to the bathroom floor, her fishself buried within the dress. Jenny gathered it and dropped it into the bath. The landing floorboards groaned. The Coral fish swam from the neckline. Jenny gathered the dress and dropped the sodden fabric into the laundry basket just as Adam entered the bathroom.

  ‘Where’s your friend?’ he asked.

  ‘Why in the plastic bag you’re carrying,’ Jenny said.

  ‘I meant your human friend.’

  ‘She’s lying down. Tough day.’

  Adam sat on the edge of the bath and placed the plastic bag inside the bathwater. He didn’t open it. ‘I would have come to the funeral but I figured, considering the circumstances of Lou’s death, it might seem odd and perhaps callous that I brought a fish instead of flowers.’

  The box containing the fish food, which perched on the corner of the bath, wobbled behind him. The key protruded from the lock.

  ‘It’s a lovely thought. Would you like a drink?’

  As they left the bathroom, something heavy splashed into the bath. The box. Jenny bit her lip and blinked against tears. Let it have fallen closed. Let it be watertight. The box contained her only supply of the magical fish food and Aunt Lou had left no instructions as to where she could purchase more. As they headed downstairs, Adam pressed his hand to her lower back. She supposed he thought her tears for her aunt and not for the girl who this moment thrashed into life for the final time.

  ‘My aunt didn’t happen to buy her fish food from you?’ Jenny asked.

  Water splashed, sounded more tidal wave, in the bathroom.

  ‘No, but I’m sure our brand is as good. What’s that’ – Adam turned – ‘noise?’

  Coral would need reminding who she was, who she would never be again. Perhaps if she’d gobbled the entire contents of the box she would last a lifetime.

  Adam reached the bathroom before Jenny. As he dragged Coral out of the bath, her foot caught around the plug, releasing the water. Playing double the hero, Adam scooped the plastic bag containing his gift fish out of the water, while Jenny wrapped a towelling gown around Coral.

  ‘Your fish must have gone down the plughole. I’m sorry,’ Adam said, as if this was his fault. ‘Are you okay?’

  The plughole was too small for a fish to swim down, but she hoped he didn’t notice or question that. Jenny rubbed Coral’s skin within the towelling robe. Psoriasis flaked from Jenny’s skin and clung to the scum that circled the bath. Her hands shook. The flakes resembled the fish food. She scratched her skin, fingernails digging into scabs. No, Aunt Lou wouldn’t . . .

  But, of course, Aunt Lou would. If her psoriasis was the food, then every time Aunt Lou took a medicinal brush to her skin and left her inflamed, she was gathering food for her fish.

  ‘Leave the bathroom,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Me?’ Coral whispered.

  ‘No, not you. Please, Adam. I’ll only be a moment.’

  ‘I should leave.’

  He should and yet, she said, ‘I’ll only be a moment. Please stay.’

  Adam left the fish in the sink. Jenny placed the plug in the hole and ran the tap. She opened the plastic bag and allowed the fish to swim out, not worrying that it hadn’t acclimatised. Coral held her hands to her face, examining her knuckles and her thumb, marvelling at them. She does remember. Jenny scratched her arm until several flakes dropped into the water. The fish, another Veiltail, gobbled them. Its features stretched and bulged and flapped until a man fell from the sink, cracking his elbow against the bathtub.

  Coral screamed.

  Jenny pressed her hand to her arm, to her skin, to evidence that her aunt had betrayed her. The doorknob dug into her lower back. It rattled. Adam.

  ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Jenny said.

  The fish-man’s scream added to the chorus. He rocked back, clutching his elbow, and she could think of no name to offer him, no comfort. Coral sucked in air, calmed her scream.

  ‘I’m not. I’m not. I’m not,’ Coral said.

  You are, you are, you are. Jenny wrapped her arms about herself. As the door pushed open, she fell forward.

  ‘What’s. . .?’ When Adam noted the naked man, his mouth flapped open.

  ‘Who am I?’ the man-fish asked.

  ‘Indeed,’ Jenny stood between them. ‘Adam, this is my cousin. . . David.’

  ‘No. No, he’s not. He’s the fish,’ Coral said.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Adam asked.

  Jenny wiped away a tear. ‘I just found out my aunt wasn’t who I thought she was and I’m left wondering if I’m who I thought I was. What if I’m like them? What if I’m. . .barely breathing?’

  Jenny turned for the door and raced down the stairs, slipping on the final step. Who would scoop her up if she turned into a fish? Who would place her in the bathtub or an aquarium or, god forbid, a fishbowl? She skidded across the kitchen tiles, following the path the dead goldfish had marked out a week before. Her skin screamed as she dropped into the chlorinated pool.

  Let me remember who I was.

  She sank to the bottom, arms and legs flapping but gaining no purchase. A week’s worth of autumn leaves clung to her skin and affixed to the tiled floor. A final leaf pressed against her lips and mouth. She sucked the leaf in, choking against it and the wall of water that filled her lungs.

  Remember . . . Remember . . . Re . . .

  SAM STONE

  Imogen

  Imogen had been blatant that night. She wanted Michael to know how she felt, wanted to share her love, her sex, her emotions, before they bubbled out unchecked for everyone to see. Day after day she was holding it together but the nights were the worst. She wanted him even though she knew it was a sin and no number of Hail Marys was ever going to change that.

  Imogen sat in the dark waiting for Michael to return. It was late. He was often home by two, but that night he still hadn’t arrived by four. She was worried. She rubbed her eyes, reached for the cold cup of coffee beside her chair and glanced down at the bare flesh that showed through the slit in her nightdress. Her hand slid over her
thigh and her fingers slipped under the fabric until they stroked the bare skin there. She imagined it was his hand, skin slightly roughened from his job as a carpenter that touched the intimate and soft area between her legs.

  At some point in the night she had dozed in the chair. It helped to ease the long hours, and it meant she didn’t see the painful bleakness of dawn struggling through the wintery clouds. Sleeping on the job, so they say, was a dangerous game she sometimes played. What would he think if he came home and found her in his chair, with so little clothing on? Nothing probably. That was the thing: he wouldn’t even notice. All he saw when he looked at her was his little sister. But then, how could she possibly expect him to think of her in any other way?

  Imogen stood and stretched, the thin shoulder strap of her nightdress fell and the fabric slipped down, revealing one of her pert small breasts. She looked down at it. If only Michael would come home now. She was so ready to show him how she felt. Her hand slipped over the fabric, briefly cupped her breast and then she pulled up the strap, covering herself.

  Headlights illuminated the room as a car pulled into the drive and Imogen’s heart jumped in her chest. Her resolve diminished instantly and she ran for the stairs taking them two at a time. At the top she glanced back down before turning and heading straight to her room at the front of the house. She didn’t look out as the engine switched off, but instead slipped into her bed and lay there, heart pounding.

  She heard the front door open: although as always, Michael was trying to be quiet. A dull scraping noise told her that the chain was now in place. She lay in the bed, her legs apart, hoping he would come in, but knowing he wouldn’t. For a while longer she could make out the muted sounds of Michael moving around the house.

  Work clothing in the washing machine, she thought. Glass of juice from the fridge.

  Imogen knew her brother’s routine so well she barely heard the noises but recognised them anyway. Michael was very fastidious about hygiene. He would be in the bathroom shortly brushing his teeth. There! Water ran into the sink. The shower switched on.