by Jacob Ross
Jason eyed her now, studying her dark eyes.
What the fuck is she playing at? She’s set me up. He felt like slapping her.
“You’re a liar,” he said, raising his voice.
The pink straw Lola was chewing slipped from her lips.
“What?”
“You heard. Lola, you’re a liar.”
She leant forwards and tried to grab hold of Jason’s hand.
“I’m not, J.” She began to cry. “Please J, don’t shout at me.”
Jason looked away and realised the waitress was looking at them. He lowered his voice.
“You said that you were on the pill.”
“No, I didn’t, J.”
“You did, I remember you saying it.”
“What I said, J, was… was there’s always the pill.”
“What the fuck does that mean, Lola? Stop fucking me around.”
“I’m not fuckin’ you around J, honest I’m not. What I meant was, I could go to the clinic, y’know, an’ get the mornin’ after pill.”
“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this shit. I thought you said you were on the pill.”
Lola shook her head. Her hands trembled as she picked up a serviette to wipe her eyes.
“So what happened, Lola? Are you trying to say that the fucking pill didn’t work?”
“No,” she said, looking down. “I told my friend, cuz I know her older sister done it.”
“Done what?”
“Gone to a clinic, you know, for the mornin’ after pill… But then…”
“But what, Lola?”
“She asked me if it was for me. Of course I said, no. Then she said somethin’ about how you had to be like, sixteen or the clinic would want your parent’s consent.”
“But what the fuck has that got to do with you? You don’t need your mum’s consent.” Jason stared into Lola’s eyes. “Do you?”
“I’m sorry J, honest I am,” she sobbed. “I’m gunna be sixteen in two weeks. I just couldn’t do it, J. I couldn’t tell my mum. I’m so sorry, J, I just thought I’d be alright, d’you know what I mean?”
He had met her in a night club. She was the only woman he saw as he descended the stairs. Lola was standing next to the bar, her head thrown back, laughing. She was wearing the shortest of shorts and a skimpy top. He had crossed the dance floor and offered to buy her a drink. She was wearing too much make up but the suppleness of her body couldn’t be hidden. He had danced with her. He remembered feeling fantastic, every nerve-ending in his body buzzing. It was a long time since he’d felt so alive.
Jason watched Lola now as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. He observed how she drained the rest of the milk in the bottom of the glass with her pink straw, slurping as she reached the bottom. He felt he was seeing Lola for the first time. Does eighteen year old skin and fifteen year old skin look that different? Does it feel that different?
He considered the womanly way in which she moved when they were together but acknowledged that even though her body moved like a woman’s she lacked a certain… sophistication. He recalled the tantrums she sometimes had, which he thought a bit odd to begin with, but had decided were kind of cute, something particular to her. She thought of herself as a bit of a princess and he had indulged her. He had even turned it into a sexual game: if I give you what you want, then what will you give me in return? She would pout, move closer and run her hand along his trouser leg until she reached his zip. He felt his cheeks burn as he thought of the times she had gone down on him whilst he was still at the wheel of the car. He’d had sex with her one night in an alleyway. Katie would only have sex with him in the bedroom, on the bed. Once, when he had tried to pull her down onto the floor, she’d been horrified.
“Jason! Not on the floor! The carpet can burn, you know.”
It was not all Katie had withheld from him. But everything he had wanted to do with Lola, she had allowed. She’d done things to him no other woman had ever done.
Woman, but Lola’s not a woman is she? My God. She’s fifteen!
Jason felt as though the table had moved away from him.
I could lose everything, my job, my home, my baby. Everything! He felt a surge in his stomach. I could even go to prison.
He was going to vomit. He needed to think. Having sex with a minor and, as if that wasn’t bad enough she was… he threw his hand up to his mouth. His chair fell backwards as he pushed his body upwards, using the table to steady his shaking legs.
In the bathroom Jason bent his head over the sink and threw cold water onto his face. The urge to vomit subsided. He stared at himself in the mirror.
“Think, Truman!” he muttered at his reflection. “Think!”
The door to the bathroom opened. Lola stood behind him crying.
“What is it, J? What’s the matta?”
Jason turned round to face her. She was a mess. She’ll be sixteen in two weeks’ time. Two weeks. Surely I could ride it out.
“Does anyone know about the baby?” he asked.
Lola shook her head.
“Well, you mustn’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Why not?”
He took hold of her hands. “Do you love me?”
“Course I do, J, you know that.”
“I don’t think you really do love me, Lola.”
“I do, J, honest I do. I’d do anythin’ for you.”
He stared into her eyes.
“Anything?”
“Yeah, J, anything.” She was resting her hand on her stomach. “Don’t leave us, J. Please don’t say you don’t want me no more.”
“But you know that we’ve got a problem, don’t you?”
“What problem, J, what you talkin’ about?”
“The baby, Lola.”
“The baby?” she said, stepping backwards. “But how’s that a problem? I’d be a good mum, J, I promise. I could go back to school after the baby’s born. I can do this, J, I know I can. Other girls in my school have done it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lola, you are only fifteen for fuck’s sake.”
“I’ll be sixteen soon.”
The urge to slap her returned. He stepped forward and caught hold of her hands.
“What about me, Lola? What about us? Listen. You know I still want to be with you. Trust me, Lola. You do trust me, don’t you?”
Lola nodded.
He pulled Lola towards him as he stepped backwards into the toilet. He stopped when he felt the toilet bowl touch the back of his legs.
“If you love me, Lola, you’ll do what I ask.”
He started to close the door with his right hand and with his left hand he pushed Lola up against the door. Then he locked it.
“It’s for the best; you know that, don’t you?” He stroked back the curls that had fallen onto her face. “You have to do it Lola, so we can still be together.”
Lola opened her mouth to speak.
“Shush.” He rested a finger on her lips. “Who knows best?”
“You do,” she said, lowering her head.
“Will you do what I ask, Lola, will you?” His hand glided upwards along the inside of her thigh. “Do you love me enough to do it?”
“Yes, J,” she said, as the tears collected at the tips of her eyelashes. “Whatever you say, J, I’ll do it.”
“Good girl,” he whispered.
Ten minutes later Jason pulled up his zip. He stared at Lola and grinned.
“Now fix yourself up and smile; don’t start that pouting game with me.” He looked at his watch. “If we go to the apartment now, I could be back at home for eight.”
Jason opened the toilet door and walked to the sink where he washed his hands and face. He looked at himself in the mirror. His reflection winked back at him.
Ask Truman. He ran his fingers through his silver highlights. He’s your man.
He left the bathroom with Lola trailing behind him. He pulled out his wallet and threw £20 on the table.
A nice tip for the f
alse blonde.
He walked slowly across the room, deliberately looking into the eyes of the people at the tables.
“Oh, thank you,” said a voice from behind him.
So she’s found the tip.
When Jason reached the door and turned, his eyes met the steady gaze of an older woman in an apron. Her face was serious, her lips taut. She had a heavy-handed dose of blusher on her cheeks. He was about to call out, No problem, but the woman cut him off before he could speak. The café had fallen silent and the other patrons had their eyes fixed on him. The woman’s harsh tone bounced over their heads.
“Are you alright, love?” Then pointing at Truman she said, “Has your dad here been giving you a hard time?”
LYNNE E. BLACKWOOD
CLICKETY-CLICK
The carriage clock continues its muffled clickety-click as it has done for generations. It was The Mother’s pride and joy. The carcass of the brass mechanism is an ugly towering beast of veined marble and gilt. It has sat on the mantelpiece for as long as Marge can remember. No one knows why it made that noise. It just did, even though carriage clocks were supposed to be silent. It murmured like the sick heart of a ghost – the brass balls turning in uneven rhythms to a silent sarabande.
“Balls…” Uttering the word sent The Mother into an indignant rage. “You are a dreadful, vulgar child. I forbid you to say that. Spheres, brass spheres, that’s what they are.”
As a grown woman, she still confuses spheres with fears and cringes at the admonishing whiplash of The Mother’s voice. “Discipline, discipline, that’s what you need.”
Discipline was as regular as the clickety-click of the circling brass: the heavily-perfumed hand on a child’s cheek filling the mouth with copper-tasting blood. Dusky bruises on the skin while the gleaming clock on the mantelpiece measured out The Mother’s moods.
Marge turns in her seat to face the empty armchair opposite. No breath disturbs the air, no pulse of flaccid flesh, but she continues to feel The Mother’s presence. The Mother is a shadow against the stained and faded chintz of the armchair. Marge sits further back into her seat, fingers twitching. The dense smell of rotting foliage rises with dancing blackflies from a neglected houseplant hidden somewhere in the darkened room.
“A penny for them, Marge,” Violet says.
Her aunt is perched on the sofa – a tiny bird unbalanced on a wire. A battered black hat sits askew on her head. Strands of spun gossamer escape the hat in misty wisps. The Mother’s younger sister, the runt of the family, is always dishevelled, as if she’s run out of time to dress. Small and – like herself – submissive towards The Mother, Marge has never called Violet “aunt”, because as a child she had sensed their shared suffering.
“You’d have to give me ten pounds for my thoughts, Violet,” Marge says.
Lightness, she thinks, we need lightness in this room.
“Oh, I can’t afford that on my pension,” the aunt laughs nervously. “She is still here, isn’t she?”
The quiet hangs between them, broken only by the clickety-click on the mantelpiece.
There is a tiny glint from where Violet sits, as she slides the silver spoon around the porcelain cup of tea. A faint whiff of camphor wafts from the shapeless black outfit on Violet’s bony frame. A childhood memory returns to Marge: a decomposing blackbird with scattered feathers lying on the ground.
Violet always looked so frail, while The Mother’s rolls of fat and goitred throat betrayed her eating excesses up to the moment of her death.
Marge stares again at the stained chintz armrest. She is uneasy. There, where The Mother’s paralysed hand had lain, where sweaty palms had soaked the fabric over the days, months and years, is a semi-invisible imprint. She makes out what could be the blurred outline of fingers and again, pushes her body farther back into her seat.
Move away, escape, slip between furniture, hide in corners was the quickened sarabande she had danced from the time she was a child. No more hiding now.
The Mother had gone quickly, unexpectedly.
Old fears creep back and Marge’s fingers grip the armrest. The touch of the fabric is reassuring and she gently scratches it with her nails, feeling the chintz’s roughness against fingertips.
Clickety-click fills the darkened room.
The furniture will be thrown out, she thinks. She looks down at the carpet where, in front of the armchair, The Mother’s slippered feet had lain. No stain, but the pile is worn.
“She certainly stamped her feet a lot, didn’t she?” Violet’s tiny voice drifts with the smell of tea and camphor across to Marge.
“Yes, she did, Violet. And the kicks, trying to trip us up all the time. Do you remember? A full tray or cup of hot tea and she’d do her best to make us fall. She couldn’t get up, but knew how to swing those fat legs right up to the day she died.”
The two women fall quiet.
“She’s still here, you know,” Violet whispers. “I can feel her.”
“Me too, Violet, but she can’t harm us anymore,” Marge says, but doubts her words.
“She always was a wicked one. The way she treated you was terrible.” Violet shifts on her perch and attempts a smile with faded lips.
“Yes,” Marge says.
It is all she can say. The Mother’s death has cleansed the hurt and ended the wait – the years of counting the hours and days till she could be free from her.
Marge now floats in a calm emptiness and welcomes the relief.
She looks intently at the clock. Clickety-click.
“Not long, now, Violet. It will soon be finished. Then we can go.” The brass spheres, dulled by dust and grime, continue their slow sarabande. “She will never be able to make you afraid again.”
“You won’t leave me again, here with… her, Marge, will you?”
“I won’t abandon you, I promise,” she says, sending Violet a reassuring smile. Violet’s fear is palpable across the camphor and tea-scented air.
It is night behind the drawn drapes. A sliver of lamplight enters from the street. Clickety-click. There is a porcelain clink as another lump of sugar dissolves in the hot whirl of tea and milk.
“Do you think she remembers, like us?”
“I hope so, Violet.” Marge continues, gazing at the carriage clock.
“What she did to you was…”
“I know. Unspeakable. So let’s not talk about it. It won’t be long, now. Be patient, and remember what she did to you as well.”
Clickety-click.
The women wait, Marge held safely within the cushion feathers, fingers scratching the chintz fabric, Violet still teetering on the sofa’s edge, picking at invisible threads sprouting from her black clothes.
Clickety, clickety. Then silence.
The spheres cease their slow sarabande. Marge smiles. The darkness has swallowed the faint shadow on the armchair.
“She’s gone, Violet. We can leave.”
Violet’s pale features light up. “Now?” The word tumbles out as she rises, holding out her hands to the younger woman.
“No goodbyes will be said, Violet. It is time to leave for better things.” Marge cocks her head and listens. “I can hear them coming. We should go now.”
The two women take a last glance at the front room. The sound of muffled voices coming from the hallway grows nearer. They lock hands, hover and listen.
“Blimey, James, find that bloody light switch, will you?”
“Alright, I’ve got it. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark, Steve? A big man like you!”
“Not anywhere else, mate, but this house… people talk, you know. Things happened here. You’re a young’un, you won’t remember.”
“Bloody hell, look at all this! Couldn’t the old biddy get a cleaner in from time to time, with all the money she had?”
“Mean witch, that’s what she was. I lived down the road, you know. I knew the girl, the old witch’s daughter and the aunt. They all lived here together. Then the girl died. An acc
ident, they said. She fell over in the front room and hit her head on the fireplace. Pretty girl too, only thirty or so. Aunt died about fifteen years later and the old biddy lived alone after that. We all thought she killed them. My word – who’s been – looks like somebody’s been having a cuppa in here.”
A porcelain cup containing mouldy tea-dregs lies on the table beside an empty sugar bowl. Blackfly dance a slow sarabande above a stained chintz armchair. An odour of camphor lingers as the blood-red marble carriage clock on the mantelpiece ceases to tick. Clickety-click, click… click…
PETE KALU
GETTING HOME: A BLACK URBAN MYTH
(THE PROOFREADER’S SIGH)
Strange things happen after midnight. Three weeks ago, a Friday, I was coming back from London. Earlier trains had been cancelled and I was in this crowded last train. We were all crammed in, my mouth was dry as feathers, my stomach twisted with hunger. I got out at Manchester Piccadilly, uncreased myself, and headed to the city centre bus stop on Oldham Rd1 to get back to Oldham where I live.
OK, nobody rushes to get back to Oldham. There are no flowing cornfields, no marble terrazza2 leading to sublime waterfalls in which bronze demigods frolic, no sumptuous hot sand beaches up which fishermen haul their boats, land and fry their catch to the praise songs of waiting villagers. Nevertheless, it is home; there is a lockable door there for me and, behind that, a decent mattress.
I must have dozed on the train like a horse3, sleeping on my feet. The train must have been further delayed en route because it was later than I’d thought – the battery on my phone had no-barred me somewhere between Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe4 so I couldn’t check the time.
Waves of cleaners were slipping in and out of office blocks. McDonalds5 had placed a security guard on their door. I get knocked into “no offence like” by some burly bloke. A girl – a buttery mix of cigarette, alcohol and Chanel No. 5 – ran up and kissed me, no doubt for a dare and I didn’t fight it. Someone was dry-heaving by the Spar All Night Kiosk.6 It was that kind of late.
The air was some strange miasma7 – a balmy cocktail of pepperoni pizza fumes and the convecting heat of a long, hot day was infusing the night with good vibes. Mancunians are not used to this – heat – and they’re all a bit thrown. I drag my weary ass through it all, clutching my flight bag of poetry publisher’s proofs. As I walk, I reel off a couple of Inshallaahs, God Willings8 and pluck the entrails of a sacrificial chicken in my sleep-addled mind, before stepping up to the podium, face oiled, every one of my twisted dreads in immaculate place as I ask, please, no more applause, I am not worthy, my poems are not worthy…9