The Best British Short Stories 2013

by Nicholas Royle

  But Yasmin wouldn’t let it go, and eventually Mrs Timothy had been forced to call her husband. She hadn’t spoken to him in a month. Damn him, she thought, and she felt lightheaded and girlish as she waited for him to pick up, and she was angry with herself for that, and angry with him too.

  She didn’t bother with a hello. ‘Yasmin thinks you’re dead, can you talk to Yasmin and prove you’re not dead?’ She handed over the phone to Yasmin before he could give a reply. Yasmin listened. Her eyes went big. She said, ‘Okay.’ She handed the phone back to her mother. Mrs Timothy put it straight to her ear, but her husband had already hung up. ‘What did he say?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s coming back soon,’ said Yasmin, and smiled, and went to watch something wholesome on the television.

  This is all your fault, Mrs Timothy thought, and gripped the phone tight and hard and pretended Mr Timothy could feel it, pretended she could make him hurt. She wouldn’t even know what death was without your stupid giants, if you hadn’t walked out on us, if you hadn’t been someone different to the man you promised to be. And now he was causing more problems, making promises to Yasmin he wouldn’t be able to keep.

  She phoned him again, straight away. He didn’t answer.

  When the little girl grew up and became Mrs Timothy, she understood that most of the fairy tales we know today as pantomimes and Disney cartoons were much more violent and disturbing in the original. She read some of the Brothers Grimm, just to see. They were darker, it was true. But they were nothing like the gruesome stories she’d heard from Uncle Jack.

  Because he’d told her of Sleeping Beauty, and how when the princess had fallen asleep for a hundred years even the maggots had thought she was dead. And some of those maggots had got sealed fast behind her eyelids, and they were hungry, so they had to feed upon the soft jellies of her eyes, and then when the eyes were gone, they burrowed their way deep into her brain. And when the prince woke her with a magic kiss the princess gazed at him with empty sockets, and her brain had turned to Swiss cheese, and she no longer knew how to speak, or how to think, or how to love. And in the summer months when the weather was hot her brain would start melting and bits of it would dribble out fat and greasy from her ears.

  He’d told her of Cinderella, but that she’d had twelve wicked stepsisters, not just two, and that each night they would take turns to beat Cinderella with wire and flay off her skin. And when the prince married her, Cinderella got her revenge. And for a wedding gift she begged for the right to punish her stepsisters by whatever methods she chose. She sought counsel from all the wise men of the land, they would help her devise new tortures never before experienced by man, they would invent machines capable of prolonging each and every agony. And the stepsisters fled; and the soldiers were sent after them; and one by one they’d be caught, and tortured, and killed, and their broken corpses would be hung side by side on the castle battlements for everyone to see. But only eleven stepsisters were ever caught. One got away. And each night Cinderella would lie in bed with her Prince Charming, and she wouldn’t sleep for fear that her last sister was coming to get her, that for all the guards she had posted on the door she would find a way in.

  He’d told her of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was unspeakable.

  One day, as an adult, Mrs Timothy dared to ask her parents about Uncle Jack. They had no idea who she was talking about. Her father was an only child, her mother had only sisters. Her parents didn’t seem very concerned, though. This Uncle Jack, he’d probably been a family friend.

  There was a scream that woke Mrs Timothy up – ‘Yasmin?’ she called – and only then did she realise there was a heavy storm; thunder roared above the house, lightning flashed, and rain battered hard against the windows as if it were trying to break in.

  ‘Yasmin?’ She reached her daughter’s room, and the room was dark, and she tried at the light switch but it was no use. ‘Sweetheart, it’s just a power cut, it’s all right, don’t be scared.’

  And as her eyes adjusted she could make out Yasmin, sitting up in bed, quite composed, pert even. ‘I’m not scared,’ she said.

  ‘Did the thunder wake you? Did you see the lightning? It’s all right, nothing can get at us in here.’

  Yasmin didn’t say anything. Mrs Timothy felt strangely embarrassed, as if she should leave. Instead she sat down on the end of her bed. ‘I’ll put you back to sleep,’ she said. ‘I’ll read you a story, would you like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Yasmin.

  ‘I’ll read you one of your favourite stories.’ She took from the shelf the tale of the very hungry caterpillar, sat back down again. Reaching for the bedside lamp she checked herself, remembered that the electricity was out. It didn’t matter. She’d read the book so many times she probably knew it all by heart, and besides, there was moonlight. She opened the book, strained to make out the text. Her voice was not only monotonous, it was halting, even Mrs Timothy could hear how boring she was. Reading by moonlight was harder than she’d ever thought, she wondered how he had ever – and then she stopped herself.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about the caterpillar,’ said Yasmin.

  ‘No. Fair enough.’

  ‘I want a different sort of story.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Let me tell you a story.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. You tell me a story, sweetheart.’

  Yasmin’s story wasn’t very good, but her voice was clearer than her mother’s, and so much more confident, and she didn’t hesitate over any of the words. And Mrs Timothy wanted her to stop, but she didn’t think she could, she froze, and she knew that she had to keep quiet, if she made even the slightest sound Yasmin would start all over – and no, that was nonsense, of course she could make it stop, she only had to tell her to stop, this was a four-year-old girl, stop, stop, stop.

  Yasmin stopped.

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Mrs Timothy asked, trying to sound calm, trying to sound as if everything was normal.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t just make it up. You couldn’t.’ Yasmin just stared at her, her mother could almost feel her eyes boring into her. ‘Who’s been telling you this stuff? Who have you been talking to? Was it your father?’ And she thought that, yes, maybe her little daughter was making phone calls to her husband, all behind her back, they were ganging up on her, laughing about her, Yasmin was taking sides. It was awful. It was awful. But still so much better than – ‘I asked you a question, Yasmin! Was it your father?’ And she was shaking her, perhaps a little too roughly.

  And it was at that moment the electricity chose to come back on. And Mrs Timothy blinked in the sudden light, and saw herself grabbing on to her daughter, and she let go, ashamed. And she saw her darling little daughter’s face, and it was glaring at her.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Timothy. ‘Well.’ She got up to her feet. ‘Do you think you can sleep now?’

  Yasmin nodded.

  ‘Night night, my darling.’ And – ‘You have lovely dreams.’

  Still Yasmin wouldn’t say anything, but she did nestle deeper beneath the sheets.

  ‘Night night,’ Mrs Timothy said again. And made to leave the room. ‘Mummy?’ she heard, and turned around.

  ‘Mummy,’ Yasmin said, ‘I’m sorry about the story.’

  ‘That’s all right. Never mind.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what it’s let in.’

  Mrs Timothy didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘Please,’ said Yasmin, ‘would you turn off the light for me?’

  Her mother hesitated. Then did as she was told.

  The hallway back to her bedroom seemed longer than usual, and Mrs Timothy felt cold. A flash of lightning blazed through the house for a moment, it startled her.

  She reached her room, closed the door behind her.

  She got into bed.r />
  The bed was very cold, and there was a sort of dampness to the cold. It was as if the rainstorm had got in, danced lightly about her bedspread, and got out before she’d returned.

  It seemed such a big bed, stupidly big, so empty without her husband, and for the first time since he’d left she wished he was there to help fill it.

  She wasn’t frightened by Yasmin’s story. But nevertheless she decided she’d turn the light on, just for a little while. Her fingers tugged at the cord above her head. Nothing, still darkness. The power must have gone off again.

  No, she wasn’t frightened, that would be absurd. Indeed, she could barely remember what the story was even about now, it was already fading away like a dream – and she tried to grasp on to the memory of it, and then she made herself let it go, no, let go.

  It wasn’t the story that was frightening. It was what the story might have let in. The words popped into her head like a cold truth, and she didn’t even know what that could mean – let what in? Still, it made her shiver.

  She pulled up the sheets to her throat. She felt the wetness on her chin, it was damp. Disgusted, she threw the sheets off again. They formed a huddle on the floor by the side of the bed.

  She looked around the room. She knew the room so well. She’d slept in the room for nearly four years, ever since they’d moved here, ever since she was pregnant with Yasmin. There was nothing to fear from this room. This room was her sanctuary. She had slept in this room over a thousand times, she had never been hurt here, had she? She’d never once been haunted by ghosts, or attacked by monsters, or bitten by vampires, or killed. She wished she hadn’t thought of that word, ‘killed’.

  The shadows were bleeding out from the corners towards her. She knew why that was. The storm was doing strange things to the light, it was causing it to distort somehow, to break it into weird shapes. If she didn’t like it, she could always get up and close the curtains. Get up then, close the curtains. Get up.

  She didn’t want to get up.

  She was frightened of what the story might have let in. What had Yasmin done? She wanted to run to her bedroom, wake her, demand that she take her story back. Unsay it, make it all go away. She should get up and find her.

  Oh, but she didn’t want to get up, did she? Why didn’t she want to get up? Think.

  Because there was something under her bed. There was something under her bed. She knew it. She could sense it. If she listened closely, she could hear it whispering to her. Yes, and the moment she put her foot over the side, it would grab her, pull her under and into the darkness. Look at that body on the floor, it whispered. That could be you. – There isn’t a body on the floor, that’s just the sheets I kicked off, I did that myself. – No, it’s a body on the floor.

  From downstairs she heard a knock against the door.

  It was just the wind, of course – but there it was again, and this time there was a rhythm to it, a tattoo of three beats, thump-thump-thump. And again.

  It must be her husband. And she’d wanted him there only a few minutes before, but now he seemed a very real and present danger, and she wanted him gone, she wanted him off her property – he couldn’t just turn up whenever he felt like, he’d made his choice, he’d made his bloody choice, and she’d go and see him and tell him just that – and she nearly got out of bed, this was something real, and she was just putting her foot down to the carpet when she felt it brush against her, it was too smooth and too oily, and she realised that the darkness had a texture to it now, the shadows were alive, the shadows wanted her.

  She pulled her foot back to safety. The door kept knocking. You knock away, she thought, I’m staying where I am.

  She closed her eyes. She tried not to think of all the darkness in her head when she did that, that the darkness she had within her might be the same darkness waiting for her without.

  Thump-thump-thump – and then stop.

  And nothing. No more of that.

  And she kept her eyes closed, and stilled her breath, and listened for the slightest sound.

  She heard nothing, but she felt it, a new weight on the end of her bed.

  Her eyes snapped open, and there was nothing there – it was all right, of course there was nothing there – and she gasped with relief and thought she might even cry – and the door, her bedroom door, had she closed it? – the door was open.

  She hadn’t closed it. That was it. She could go and close it if she wanted to. She would, just get up and close the door. Get up. Get up.

  What had Yasmin’s story let in?

  And at the doorway she saw the darkness harden, and grow denser, and turn into the shape of a person, and she thought her heart would pop – and she thought, this is how my little daughter will find me in the morning, slumped dead against the pillows, my eyes open so wide in fear, oh, Yasmin.

  Yasmin?

  ‘Is that you, Yasmin?’ she made herself ask.

  And the figure said, quietly, ‘Yes.’

  She wanted nothing to frighten her, not now, not ever. ‘Were you afraid of the thunder? It’s all right, darling. You sleep with me. I’ll protect you. This bed’s big enough for both of us.’ It was too big, that was a certainty – and now she’d have someone to hold again, and she’d be brave, and all the ghosts and monsters could come and she’d see them all off.

  The figure came in, the figure wasn’t bothered by the shadows, or the darkness under the bed, or the sheet body on the floor – and the figure climbed in beside her, and Mrs Timothy had one last terror, that maybe this wasn’t Yasmin after all – but it was, it was, and she could now see her clearly, this was her own little angel.

  Mrs Timothy hugged her. She smelled nice and sweet. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she told her.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ her daughter replied. She whispered it in her mother’s ear.

  ‘Good.’

  Such a sweet smell, she recognised that smell. And Yasmin was slightly damp too, as if the rain had got to her. And Yasmin was right by her ear. ‘Shall I finish my story?’

  And Mrs Timothy pulled away from her, just for a moment, and she saw that Yasmin’s eyes were too wide, and her mouth was too big for her face, and then Yasmin pulled her back, she held on to her mother’s head tight so it couldn’t move.

  She told her story. She made her understand that there were so many ghosts, you could never tell who was a ghost and who wasn’t. So very many – and some of them want to tear you apart, some of them want to drag you down to Hell – and some, if you’re lucky, just want to tell you stories.

  The smell wasn’t of cigarettes and beer, it was of soft decay. And her touch was moist.

  She told her mother her story, and her mother was good, and kept quiet during the whole thing. So she ruffled her hair before she got out of bed. And Mrs Timothy’s mind still had some room to think, to wonder at how much bigger Yasmin had become, why, she looked quite the grown-up.

  Yasmin stood there, and they were both standing there, she was holding hands with a man without a face who had just leaked out of the shadows, perhaps he’d always been there, perhaps he had been waiting all this time.

  They were holding hands, they looked down at the frightened little girl in the bed like they were mummy and daddy.

  It was the daddy who said, ‘Sleep well, my pretty princess,’ and the mummy who said, ‘There’ll be more stories tomorrow.’ And they shrank away into the darkness of the hallway, and closed the door, and locked it.

  Canute

  Nikesh Shukla

  There are things he can’t control. This comforts him. He cannot command the algorithms of nature, nor the push and pull of the tides. He knows this. He knows how deep he can go before his ears begin to throb. He knows how many lungfuls of air he can hold. But what of nature, what of the tides?

  There are meetings to attend, events to accept, decline or tentative, emails to resp
ond to, on the go, and at a desk. There are acceptable policies for workplace conduct. There are parameters and measurements and streams of code. He commands them all.

  He swims to the surface and treads water. He can see his boat, 12 feet away, bobbing with whatever the waves give it. He can hear the glistening film of sun on the water. If you keep all your movements under water and stay as still as you can, you can hear the glisten and sparkle of sun rays amongst the sheer sashay of waves. He spits into his mask to clean the salt water out. He places the frame over his eyes and nose and lets go. The mask holds. He wrenches the elastic band over the back of his head and adjusts for comfort. Everything is in its right place. He closes his eyes and stops the swirl of his feet. He drops under the surface.

  Poor visibility, he thinks. He can see three feet in front of him. It rained yesterday and the underwater churn has kicked up the sea bed. He must let the spearfishing forum he posts on know this. The water has engulfed him but still he can feel the itch of the speargun over his shoulder. He can’t see anything to aim it at but the gun is not satisfied.

  He can’t see the bottom. He loves it when he can’t see the bottom. He’s afraid of heights. Water he understands. The first time he went skiing, with his wife Sarah, a seasoned slope fiend, he practised for an hour on the bunny slopes with the children’s instructor shouting out advice from a nearby lesson. He felt like he was ready to tackle the view from the top. The visibility was poor and he couldn’t see more than six feet in front of him. His heart beating, his skin burning with fright, he snow-ploughed awkwardly down the slope, scared to miss an edge in the beyond of the fog and careen to his death. He didn’t enjoy himself. The next day, the air was clear and the blue sky made the white powder more ivory than he could imagine. Seeing all the way to the bottom, he found a new fear – the fear of what was to come. He didn’t know what was worse – the height he could see or the height he couldn’t.

  Here in the water, he kicks his legs fiercely, in control of his movements, he snaps his arms back like he’s tearing up a board report. He has always been a strong swimmer. He has never been afraid of water. In stasis, he is most comfortable.