Please

by Peter Wild

  In the evenings I tell Alison about my day at work. She understands the challenges I face, the targets I have to meet with a team made up of other people’s discards. I’m supposed to turn them around when everyone else has failed. Alison understands because she has wide managerial experience. She doesn’t treat my commentary as whining, she takes it seriously. She thinks about it and makes recommendations. I listen to what she says. I’ve never been the kind of man to feel annoyed by his wife’s advice, I’m grateful for it. After talking something over with Alison, there’s always a clear path out of the woods.

  Before school I see him first. Quinn emerges from behind the science block and steps out into the playground. I feel a tightness in my stomach but carry on talking to Millsy and Banks. They are asking me what I did with Sally Meadows. I’m choosing not to say. I’m pouring petrol on the fire. I stamp my feet and blow on my hands but the damp air is deep inside me. Banks is staggering around like a drunkard trying to keep the ball bouncing on his head as he wheedles and cajoles. He asks me what happened over and over again. When I don’t answer he says he knows what happened anyway, then he tells me what happened, and says, that’s what happened, isn’t it? Then he asks again why don’t I just tell them what happened.

  Millsy interrupts:

  ‘Quick, give me the ball. It’s Queen.’

  He takes the ball from Banks, places it on the wet ground and then kicks it hard across the playground. The full force hits Quinn in the side of the face, whipping his head sideways.

  ‘’Shot,’ says Banks.

  Quinn takes a moment to register what’s happened and, as he does, the side of his face blooms deep red. He turns and looks directly at us. Millsy holds up his hand and smiles:

  ‘Soz mate’. Quinn walks off. We laugh. The redness creeping up his face is there when I close my eyes, like a sunspot.

  We drink wine at night to unwind, but it doesn’t seem to work so well for me. I watch Alison sip and see the way it smoothes her out and slows her down, but inside myself I sense a quickening, a heightened awareness. I find myself thinking about the inside of my head, I become more and more conscious of the clutter in there. The same thoughts and images orbit endlessly like the abandoned husks of satellites and dropped spanners floating through space. I wish there was some way to empty my head, to let go of certain images for ever. Alison and I sprawl on the sofa and on each other and watch DVDs. We love The Sopranos. The words fly around us. I can’t follow all the dialogue but I like lying there and staring into the glow.

  Quinn attends classes less often now. He appears for afternoon registration and then he vanishes. I look at his empty seat in double geography. I find it hard to concentrate during these long afternoons. Sally Meadows looks across and smiles at me from beneath her fringe. Millsy kicks me beneath the desk. Mrs Dixon talks about glaciated u-shaped valleys, truncated spurs and corries or cwms or cirques. The second hand on the big clock seems to move back and forth. We are locked forever in the firm embrace of 2.41 p.m. The noises around me fragment and then re-combine in a pulsing soundtrack. Dixon’s voice, ticking clock, sighs and yawns, Banks clicking his pen on then off, endlessly repeated. I rock back on my chair and arch my neck backwards until I am looking through the windows at the back of the classroom. I see the world upside down. The grey clouds below, the empty playground above and beyond it the tangled branches of the woods reaching down like roots in to the sky.

  We have two, but it should have been three. We lost someone between Eddie and Amy. At the hospital the screen was just black. The nurse moved the scanner from place to place, pulling us through the dark universe inside Alison, sending out signals that weren’t returned. She tried for a long time, then apologised and told us that the baby had bowed out, had declined our invitation. Its coming and going were silent, marked only with secret symbols.

  A faint blue line on a white stick meant I am here. A black screen meant now I’m gone.

  The only movement on the screen were our own reflections, like phantom signs of life. The nurse wiped the magic jelly from Alison’s stomach with a blue paper towel and that was the end of the film. We grieved, and in time we moved on. Amy was born and stamped herself on us and on the world. But I can’t forget what I saw on the screen. I can’t forget the emptiness that I recognised there. On summer days my arms are covered in goose bumps. I feel the chill of the void inside as I cast around desperately for a pulse, for any sign of life.

  Sally Meadows tells me secrets. She buys me gifts. She tells me she loves me. I say I love her too. She’s the prettiest girl in the class. I buy her a Valentine’s card bigger than an Alsatian dog. She says that she feels short of breath when I walk into a room. She sees me frown and I turn it into a smile. A wide, gleaming, luckiest boy in the world type smile.

  I spend lunchtimes at Sally’s house. I know all the posters on her bedroom walls now. I catch the dead eyes of pop stars as I lie on top of her. They are unmoved by the spectacle. Afterwards I pull my clothes back on and leave by the back door to avoid nosy neighbours, I climb over the garden fence and walk up the dusty road by the garages. I break into a run as I near school, realising that I’m late for afternoon registration again. As I run along the corridor I crash into someone rounding the corner. Quinn looks straight at me. I should tell him to get lost. I should punch him, but instead I stand and look at him and then I run on. I leap up the stairs two at a time, but my feet move slower until they stop. I close my eyes. A moment passes. That look again. I turn around and start to walk back down, and gradually my feet speed up. I keep on running till I see him in the distance. I slow to a walk and try to catch my breath.

  He walks casually across the playground and down the playing fields. At the bottom I see him pull back the fencing and disappear into the woods beyond. I run down and climb through the fence, I stand still until I hear his footsteps over to the right. I pick my way carefully through the undergrowth, the wind moves through the trees and covers the sound of my pursuit. I follow him along pathways I’ve never seen before and then he stops. He is standing in a clearing and I watch from the tangled branches. His perfect frame is perfectly still. He starts to hum and I hear the voice so rarely heard–deep and clear. That voice calls me and I shake in response. My head feels clear and light and my body moves forward, but as I take a step there is a rustling in the bushes to my right. A man emerges. He wears a suit but no tie. His hair is grey at the temples. Quinn smiles at him–the only time I see him smile. They walk off to the far edge of the clearing and disappear into the leaves. I stand alone.

  Sometimes the only way to get to sleep at night is to climb in with one of the kids. I know it should be the other way round. The enormous heat they generate passes through my skin and softens all my edges. They never wake up, they just shuffle over in their sleep and murmur. I could weep at their generousity. I close my eyes, I listen to their fast, shallow breaths and when I open my eyes I’m always standing at the edge of the clearing. I’m still a boy and so is Quinn. Bernard. His first name was Bernard. I’m watching from behind a tree, there is a rustling in the bushes nearby, but before the man emerges Quinn turns and looks directly at me. That same look. Level, steady and with some unspoken challenge. I walk out of the shadow and follow him.

  I Want the One I Can’t Have

  Matt Beaumont

  The song I wanted was ‘You’re The One For Me, Fatty’, but it’s a Morrissey number and I wasn’t allowed. ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’ it had to be, then, obviously. Morrissey really appreciated envy–‘We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful’, another solo title and probably his best. I suspect he realised that envy is the uranium 235 that fuels the nuclear reactor of human relations. Or something.

  It’s an enduring regret that I never got round to seeing The Smiths. Honestly, I kept meaning to, but suddenly and terminally they went and broke up. Unlike Duran Duran. Will they ever have the good grace to fuck off?

  ‘Who was that on the phone?’

 
‘This guy with a short story commission.’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Yeah…yeah, I think so. It’s for a collection called Ordinary World: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Duran Duran…What’s so funny? It’s a good idea.’

  ‘Duran Duran, though?’

  ‘Cultural icons standing at the epicentre of a fascinating and unjustly maligned decade.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Like them or loathe them, they were an important band.’

  ‘They made glossy, disposable pop songs and had silly hair. That’s “important”, is it? What’s next? Snooker Loopy: Stories Inspired by Chas & Dave?’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You just don’t like Duran Duran.’

  ‘They were all right. I bounced around to ‘Girls On Film’, had a snog to ‘Save A Prayer’, but, you know, you move on, don’t you? Anyway, you’re the one that hates Duran Duran. Why would a music snob like you have anything to do with it? Won’t you feel tainted, soiled, cheap?’

  ‘I told you, it’s not about liking them. It’s about acknowledging their place in the cultural panop—Do you have any idea how stupid you look when you raise your eyebrow?’

  ‘I just can’t believe you’re taking this seriously. I’d think carefully before you agree to do it.’

  ‘I will. I’ve got plenty of other stuff to be getting on with at the moment. I’ll most likely say no.’

  Word document (unsaved):

  Wild Boys

  Story notes:

  Post-apocalyptic landscape

  Spencer, 15

  Reluctant leader of group of undernourished feral youths

  A Frankenstein’s monster of a car created from scrapyard automotive corpses

  Pimp overlord–looks like Keith Allen in Kiss wardrobe

  Piles of burning tyres, smoke charring blood-orange sky

  Pile of bollocks

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing much. Surfing a few porn sites.’

  ‘No you’re not. What’s that window you just closed?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re writing that story, aren’t you?’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘Don’t give me that. The Duran Duran one. You said yes, didn’t you?’

  ‘It’s a good idea. I’m between books anyway. And I’ll be in some good company. A lot of pretty decent writers are contributing.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Not sure. The guy didn’t actually say. But, you know, I got the vibe it’ll be Granta names. It’s not going to be trash.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You shouldn’t have said yes. You will regret it…Duran Duran.’

  Word document (trashed):

  Hungry Like the Wolf

  Spencer emerged from the subway as the last of a vanilla-fudge-sundae Sunday melted submissively into a glowering dusk. The rawhide tails of his trenchcoat trailed a perturbing musk of liquor, testosterone and barely leashed power. His measured stride across the open concourse as he sought Her was one weary cliché after another and why the fuck am I even typing because if I commit another word of this drivel to my hard drive I will

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘How’s what going?’

  ‘Your Duran Duran tribute.’

  ‘It’s not a tribute. It’s merely a story that takes one of their song titles as a starting point.’

  ‘Whatever. How’s it going?’

  ‘It’s…going…Jesus, it’s difficult. Have you ever listened to them?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘No, I mean actually listened.’

  ‘I know the chorus to ‘Rio’. It’s about a girl, I think…Or a river.’

  ‘I downloaded their greatest hits. ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’…Wow…’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘No. I never really paid attention to it before. I played it five times straight through and…I think it’s about a rapist. It’s like this weird celebration of stalking a woman across a city and then…possibly…raping her.’

  ‘So is that your title?’

  ‘No, way too sick. I think I’ll try ‘Union Of The Snake’.’

  ‘What’s that about?’

  ‘It’s completely indecipherable. It’s exactly the sort of blank canvas I can work on because it doesn’t fill my head with any images whatsoever.’

  ‘Two snakes having sex? Or forming a trade union?’

  ‘You’ve ruined it now. It’ll have to be ‘The Reflex’, then.’

  ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘An only child? Called Reflex…? Haven’t a clue. Strange. I read Finnegans Wake at uni and it made more sense.’

  ‘Maybe the lads were more profound than any of us gave them credit for.’

  Word document (trashed):

  The Reflex

  Spencer sat on the window ledge and waited. Waiting had been his life. Waiting for he knew not what, but waiting all the same. For an idea? Some tiny glint of inspiration to rise up from the depressive quagmire of a commission accepted in haste and repented at agonising, endless bloody leisure? And as he waited he thanked the Lord Jesus Christ for the soothing bong that announced an incoming email and a brief respite from this hell

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Email from Beaumont.’

  ‘He’s usually pretty harmless. What’s he done to upset you?’

  ‘He’s writing a story for Paint a Vulgar Picture.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Stories inspired by The Smiths. Now there’s an iconic group standing at the cultural epicentre.’

  ‘Cunts.’

  ‘I thought you liked The Smiths.’

  ‘Not The Smiths. Beaumont, the rest of them. Cunts. He knocks off throwaway, so-called ‘comedies’. Why’s he been asked? Don’t just shrug. Why?’

  ‘Maybe they think he’ll lighten the mood. The Smiths are liable to inspire a lot of gloomy introspection.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re just falling for that lazy, knee-jerk Morrissey the Miserablist rubbish. The man was the wittiest writer pop has ever seen.’

  ‘A bit like Simon le Bon…Ah, touched a nerve there. Coffee…? I’ll take that as a no.’

  Word document (trashed):

  Skin Trade

  Spencer pushed the flimsy bark canoe over the shale, then watched it slump in the water, weighed down as it was with the dozens of beaver pelts acquired over eight weeks of patient trapping. He wondered how much they would fetch from the French dealers that waited downstream. And he wondered why he was being jemmied into a tale of colonial fur traders when the author’s head was swilling with three minutes of glam-funk tripe about a prostitute because, after all, who wouldn’t rather be in a sub-Jackie Collins story about a hooker than freezing his knackers off on the upper reaches of the St Lawrence?

  ‘How’s it going, then…? That badly…? Why don’t you call Beaumont and ask him to do a swap? He won’t mind, will he? If he’s as flippant and shallow as you say he is, he’s probably got a secret crush on le Bon. Or at least on his missus. You can never tell with him…I take it from that look you already asked…I hate to say it…No, I won’t say it…OK, I’ll say it. I told you you’d regret it…Jesus! You could have had my eye out with that.’

  Word document (trashed):

  Planet Earth

  Spencer sat in the toothpaste-tube confines of his orbiting re-entry

  capsule and wrote the opening lines of his last will and

  No, fuck it.

  He wrote his shopping list.

  Marmite

  Jaffa Cakes

  Organic mince

  Lenor

  Tea bags

  Stock cubes

  Oh, the phone. Remember check fridge before resuming list

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hi…I haven’t caught you at a bad time, have I? You sound a little…fraught.’

  ‘No, I’m good. What is it?’

&
nbsp; ‘I just wanted to know how the story was coming on. I don’t want to be a pain, but the deadline was a couple of weeks ago. My production people are getting a little agitated. I emailed you, but perhaps you didn’t get it.’

  ‘It’s…It’s…It’s going all right. Coming along…nicely.’

  ‘Good, fantastic. So when can I expect something?’

  ‘Soon. Yes, quite soon.’

  ‘In the next few days?’

  ‘Yeah, a few days.’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to press you to be specific. You know, deadlines.’

  ‘Look, to be absolutely honest, I’m struggling.’

  ‘Oh. Would it help to talk it through?’

  ‘I know the title thing is just supposed to be a jumping-off point, but I can’t get the songs out of my head.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And they’re not helpful.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘In fact, they’re shite. The worst kind of shite. Shite that dresses itself up in tight leather pants and a gold lamé jacket so you don’t know it’s shite until you tread in it and it’s too late.’

  ‘I wish you’d said how you felt about them when we first spoke about the project.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about the Smiths collection when we first spoke, did you? I could do a story for that.’

  ‘I’ve got my full quota of contributors for that one, I’m afraid. If anything, it’s slightly oversubscribed.’

  ‘Of course it is. It’s The bloody Smiths. Tell me, how did you decide?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Who got The Smiths and who got Duran Duran.’

  ‘I don’t know…It was pretty much a lottery.’

  ‘A lottery?’

  ‘I didn’t have an agenda, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. You just stuck a pin in a list of names, yeah?’