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The Charmer
Jacqui Cooper
Jacqui Cooper
JACQUI a member of the RNA New Writer Scheme so having a story in the anthology alongside some of her favourite authors is a dream come true.
She loves to travel –not long back from Mexico –and currently lives in Yorkshire with her long suffering husband, a variable number of adult children who never quite seem to fly the nest, a cat called Evil and, yes, a pet python whose recent escape inspired her story.
She has twice been a runner-up for the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy and she loves writing short stories for magazines but of course she’s always working on The Novel. One day she might even finish it…
The Charmer
Callum McKenzie paid the delivery-man and carried the pizza box into the living room. The beer was ready and waiting in the fridge, and he set the pizza within easy reach on the coffee table. The remote control was to hand and the much anticipated football game was starting in five minutes.
Man heaven.
Cal surveyed his little kingdom and found that life was good. He kicked off his shoes and picked up the remote but didn’t turn on the TV. Instead, he scanned the room again. Something wasn’t right…some detail that wouldn’t let him relax…something he had forgotten?
A movement caught his eye, a shimmer of dark brown and cream over by the wall…
‘No!’ With the reflexes of a man who saw his perfect day off disappear before his eyes, Cal dived across the room. His grasping fingers caught the very tip of Jake’s tail but with a contemptuous flick the snake slithered free and disappeared into the hole where the pipes connected beneath the gas fire. Cal pressed his cheek to the carpet, peering upwards in time to see Jake winding himself in a cosy double knot around the gas pipes. Once settled, he looked at Cal with black, unblinking eyes.
‘Come on, snake,’ Cal coaxed. ‘You don’t want to be in there.’
Jake’s flickering tongue and unflinching gaze seemed to suggest otherwise.
At that moment the boiler fired up, a jet of flame licking the tank at the back of the chimney. Jake drew his head back swiftly, a snake strike in reverse. Though Cal didn’t want his brother’s pet hurt, he whooped in relief.
‘Hah! Too hot for you, buddy? Come on out and we won’t mention this to any one.’
Reproachfully Jake unfurled himself and slunk off. Not, unfortunately into Cal’s waiting arms but through a gap in the stone at the back of the chimneybreast.
Cal rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling and cursed. He’d lost the snake. Again. Ted was going to kill him. His parting words rang in Cal’s ears, ‘He’s an escape artist and you’re a piss artist. Don’t let him out. Just make sure his hot rock is on and defrost the odd mouse if he looks hungry.’
Problem was, as far as Cal could tell, Jake never looked hungry. What he looked was bored. And who wouldn’t be bored stuck in a glass tank all day? All Cal had done was let him out to stretch his scales, as it were. And then of course he had forgotten all about him.
Last time, they’d had to lift the floorboards. Every single one of them. A story Ted never failed to include at every family gathering.
OK, use logic. Use that analytical mind that made him so good at his job. What was a snake going to do inside the walls of a big old house? Easy. He was going to go looking for heat. Absolutely the hottest place he could find. And as Ted kept his house like an ice bucket he was going to go…next door.
Cal sat up, elbows on knees, and pondered this. That wasn’t as bad as it sounded. His brother’s new neighbour, seen briefly and from a distance, was pretty hot.
Forgetting all about the football he scrambled to his feet.
Carrie found an elastic band and tied her hair back in one of those styles women only used when there was no chance of being seen by anyone who mattered. She hefted the bucket of soapy water out of the sink. People said that you never really felt at home in a new house until you’d given it a good clean, so that’s what she was doing.
Of course, another interpretation was that she was scrubbing cupboards on a Saturday afternoon because she didn’t have a life.
Hearing the as yet unfamiliar sound of her doorbell, she put the bucket down, sloshing water over the kitchen floor. Moriarty, her cat, gave her a baleful look and stalked out of the door. Quickly, Carrie shut him in the living room. Her only friend in this new town, she didn’t want him vanishing out the front door and getting lost.
The man on her doorstep was, well, he was different. On first glance he was drop dead gorgeous. His T-shirt and black jeans covered a fit, well-toned body. But his curling, collar-length hair and the dark stubble on his jaw displayed a lack of grooming that bordered on lazy. Bizarrely, his feet were bare. Hmm. Cute but potentially crazy was her verdict. Erring on the side of caution she surreptitiously wedged her foot behind the door.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked politely.
‘I hope so,’ the man smiled. It was a great smile, a sexy, hundred watt, toe curling smile designed to make any woman with a pulse drop her guard and welcome him into her life. Carrie pressed her foot more firmly against the door. ‘This is a little embarrassing,’ he continued, ‘but I think I may have lost my snake in your chimney.’
Whatever Carrie had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. In fact, it wasn’t a sentence she had ever expected anyone to say to her, period.
Crazy, then. Sadly, the best ones so often were. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said, nodding sagely, as though he had just shared with her the wisdom of the universe. Still nodding she made to close the door, even going so far as to move her foot. Big mistake. Moving faster than she would have thought possible, his hand shot out and slammed against the wood.
She yelped in shock and jumped back.
Immediately he let go of the door, both hands held up in a placatory gesture.
‘Sorry.’ He sounded horrified. ‘Reflex. People are always trying to close doors on me.’
Carrie remained frozen to the spot. ‘N-no kidding.’
‘No I mean it. I’m a police officer. Detective actually.’ He moved his hand as though to fish out ID but it brushed limply against his T-shirt.
Cal realised he was trying to present some invisible ID from an imaginary jacket. Looking down at himself he noticed his bare feet for the first time. And it was raining. Hell.
He tried again, using his professional smile this time, not his pulling smile. ‘I really am sorry. I live next door…’ Her eyebrows went up and he had to assume she had met Ted. ‘OK, I’m staying next door. And –’
‘ –Your snake’s in my chimney. I heard you. Is that some kind of euphemism?’
‘What? God no.’ Cal felt himself colour at the implication. ‘I’m snake-sitting and I’ve lost the damn snake.’
She was still wary but maybe not so much as before. Hopefully he didn’t look as barmy as he sounded. ‘Snake-sitting? Is that a real thing? Or did you just make it up?’
She was petite, sort of prissy but sexy too with that curly blonde hair piled on top of her head. The yellow rubber gloves were a nice touch.
‘My brother lives next door. He has a snake, and I’m looking after it,’ said Cal with as much dignity as he could muster.
‘A real snake?’
Why was that so hard to believe? ‘Yes, a real snake. He escaped –’ Cal had no trouble bending the truth a little ‘ –and I’m afraid he disappeared into your chimney. Your house presumably is warmer than ours.’
She chewed her lip while she thought about what he had said. Thankfully she seemed to make up her mind about him. ‘It is nice and warm. I’ve got the fire on for Moriarty –’ Her eyes widened in horror and she spun around, racing into the house.
Taking that as an invitation Cal nipped inside, closing the door, enjoying the view of her derri`ere in her tight jeans. She burst into the living room and Cal saw t
he biggest, fattest cat in the world sprawled in front of a blazing gas fire. The woman scooped up the brute and it swished its tail angrily.
‘Morry, sweetie, are you OK?’ she fussed. The cat wriggled from her arms and spat at Cal as it shot out of the room. The woman looked at Cal reproachfully. ‘It could have eaten him!’
In Cal’s opinion it would have taken an anaconda to eat that cat. ‘Nah,’ he said pragmatically. ‘He eats his prey whole. He couldn’t swallow a cat.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘How big is this snake?’
‘He’s a python,’ he said reluctantly.
‘A what? What kind of person keeps a python in their house?’
‘My brother. I know, completely irresponsible.’ But then he felt he had to defend Ted. ‘It’s not a very big python.’ Which was true. Royal Pythons weren’t big as pythons went but oddly, people weren’t always reassured by that information.
‘How big?’
How big? Had she any idea how hard it was to measure a snake? Distracted by the interesting things her hands-on-hips reproach was doing to her chest, he spread his arms. ‘About so big.’ She continued with the sceptical look so he widened his arms. And again. In the end he dropped his hands and admitted, ‘OK he’s fairly big. But not big enough to eat a cat.’
Another narrow eyed look. ‘Are you sure you’re a police officer?’
Carrie was fighting a grin. His vagueness about the size of this alleged snake had just confirmed her suspicions: there was no snake. This was a bizarre and admittedly unique flirting technique used by her neighbour’s crazy but cute bother.
She had met her neighbour. The suggestion that the respectable surgeon would keep a snake as a pet was ludicrous, but she decided to play along.
‘So where is he then, this snake?’
He glanced at the gas fire. ‘I saw him disappear into the chimney.’
‘What if we look and there is no snake?’
That idea seemed to make him uneasy. ‘Then we’ll have to search the whole house. I suppose he might follow the chimney. What’s directly above us?’
‘My bedroom.’
He brightened. ‘Best to be thorough.’
She pursed her lips. ‘I’m not taking you up to my bedroom.’
‘Of course not.’ He sighed. ‘I just hope your poor cat isn’t up there –’
‘You said he wouldn’t eat a cat!’
‘He might be frightened. If he’s not used to snakes.’
Was he just making this up as he went along? How many cats were used to snakes? ‘We’ll just stick to downstairs,’ she said firmly.
‘If that’s what you want.’
Impasse. ‘Right. Well. Would you like some coffee while you look for your snake?’
He smiled that sexy, full-on smile again and her tummy flipped. ‘I’d love some.’
Carrie went through to the kitchen. The soapy water was cold by now but she didn’t care –cleaning was nowhere near as attractive as her visitor.
When she returned with the coffee, he was lying flat out on the floor, peering up into the workings of the fire. She was tempted to sit on the sofa and admire the view but decided to play along.
‘Found anything?’
‘Have a look for yourself.’
She put the coffee on the table and lay beside him on the carpet. Too late she remembered her low-cut top so gave him an eyeful. Rolling her eyes at her own stupidity she shuffled forward.
‘What am I looking for –’
Peering into the back of the fire, she froze, unable to believe her eyes. Then slowly turned to her companion.
‘Bloody hell. There’s a snake in my chimney. What do we do?’
Cal took her hand and helped her up. He led her to the sofa, placed her coffee cup in her hand and sat down companionably beside her.
‘We wait,’ he said happily. ‘And if need be, we turn up the heat.’
Making the Grade
Cathie Hartigan
Cathie Hartigan
CATHIE teaches the piano and creative writing. Although her professional training was in music, a decade ago she swapped one keyboard for another in order to take her life-long love of writing more seriously. Since then, she has won several prizes for her short stories and was a finalist in the annual Woman and Home short story competition three times.
Cathie lectured in creative writing for nine years at Exeter College before leaving to found CreativeWritingMatters, which offers a range of writing services and administers The Exeter Novel Prize. She co-wrote The Creative Writing Student’s Handbook. Becoming a published novelist remains Cathie’s primary ambition.
When not writing, Cathie sings in a small vocal ensemble. The beautiful Devon coastline also provides plenty of distraction but on a rainy day if there’s an opera or theatre screening at the cinema, she’ll be there.
Making The Grade
Only little kids and grannies were called Grace, he thought, as he looked at the official letter he’d received. In the waiting room, Todd pulled his copy of Grade One Piano Pieces to his chest and shut his eyes. There wasn’t much chat; the only noise was coming from the traffic pulling up at the lights outside.
‘We could play to each other over Skype, Dad,’ Em had said. ‘It will give you something to do. You won’t miss me so much.’
Like hell. Six months they’d be gone. Australia. And that’s after the court said he could have fair access. How do you square that? He should never have agreed.
His stomach groaned and the noise of it startled him. He glanced up. They were all looking: all the mothers of various ages, shapes and sizes, and all their respective children clutching their music and their instruments. They would go home together afterwards, because they lived on the same continent.
‘Don’t worry so much,’ Em had said during their last conversation. ‘It’s easy.’
‘So you say. I’m not as nimble-fingered as you.’
‘You’ll be fine. Honest. Love you.’
‘Love you too, Squeaks. Speak Saturday, yeah? Let you know how I got on.’ The screen had gulped back to the desktop photo of him and Em at the Tower of London on her tenth birthday. He’d cropped off Roz.
It had taken a lot of persuading to get someone to cover for his class: Friday afternoons were never fun. In the end he needn’t have worried, he was last on the list and the examiner was over-running.
He looked at the letter again. Her name was Grace Channing-Doyle. She’d be the same age as his mum probably.
Gradually the waiting room emptied. He wiggled his fingers. They looked the same as always but felt as fat as bananas. Why hadn’t he got himself a proper teacher? OK, he’d had a couple of lessons when he was a kid, worked his way through Em’s old books and got the CD of the pieces, but an exam? It had been a joke, then a bet.
You’re a stupid idiot, Todd Saunders, he thought. The trouble was he wanted to pass. Badly. Em’s disappointed face kept popping up in his mind’s eye but almost more than that, while Grade One was hardly rock ’n’ roll, he’d worked hard and looked forward to the practice every day.
A bus went by the window and he wondered why on earth they held music exams in such a noisy place. Then he hoped for a whole fleet of buses to go by when it was his turn.
‘Mr Saunders?’
If Grace Jones had been sitting there, she couldn’t have been less like his mum, certainly not with all that amazing red hair that frothed to her shoulders. She only said hello, but he felt a great thumping in his chest, sweat on the back of his neck and he replied with a croak. It was nerves, that’s all. Just nerves. He’d faced more lethal situations in his time but never in such attractive company.
‘Don’t look so worried, Mr Saunders, I won’t bite you.’
She had a tune in her voice. He gave another croak, then coughed, wondering when breathing would be possible again. Beneath the little table, she crossed and uncrossed her legs. A low slung ray of sunlight flashed by her feet. There were gold bows on her shoes. She smiled.
Neat teeth. Neat all over.
‘Please,’ she said, indicating the piano stool. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
He managed to sit down and, fumbling, opened the music and put it on the piano. She lurked in his peripheral vision. On the page, the notes jiggled about and looked unfamiliar. Did he need glasses? When did your vision start to go? Thirty-eight seemed a bit young.
‘Would you like to warm up with some scales, Mr Saunders?’
‘Todd,’ he said. ‘It’s Todd.’ Get a grip, man. She doesn’t need to know that.
‘Well, Todd,’ she said, not quite disguising her amused surprise. ‘Would you like to warm up with the right hand and the C major scale?’
His fingers were someone else’s, surely? Forcing them to the starting line, he began to play. The surface of the keys was cool and the only thing reminiscent of his clanky old upright piano at home.
Six notes in, he realised he was playing with his left hand. He stopped at once and turned round.
‘You said right…’
She was looking straight at him. In the silence that followed the moment swelled, plumping itself into the corners of the room, until it was deflated by the sudden zip of a two-stroke engine passing outside.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, smiling. ‘I expect you’re left-handed.’
‘Yes…but I’m not deaf.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Todd.’
She weighted his name a little and he didn’t want to turn away. ‘I expect that happens a lot, does it? The wrong hand.’ He waved his own, then felt stupid. She was being polite and professional, that’s all.
‘Indeed it does,’ she said, nodding. ‘Would you like to try again?’
He blundered through the rest of the scales. The piano sounded so different. Were the keys narrower? There was the slip off a black note that sounded calamitous and then, a complete blank about what a chromatic scale was.
‘Take your time, Todd,’ she said.
Truly, Madly, Deeply Page 31