She looked at the picture again. The boy didn’t know how the film men could change things, how they could change young men into old, and back again, legs into ivory stumps, rubbish bins into barrels, how they could paint a cliff in, or take one away.
It was her. She had been there.
The grandchildren came with the summer, sent for sun and fresh sea air. Yet they spent their days staring at screens, and flicked their thumbs up and down. They said you could find the whole world in a phone.
Still, if she asked, they would take her to the harbour. There was colour, now. Blue, red, yellow painted houses. An ice-cream van. Rainbow sun-shades.
‘Much better,’ people said.
The film people had taken the colour away – what little there was back then. They didn’t want it. Not here. They wanted drab stone, moulding wood, grimed window-panes. Cobbles. They could magic all these, as they had done with the cliff, and the signs. But it had been many years before the colour came, following the tourists, who had finally discovered the town, along with their ice-creams and crab sandwiches and boat-trips. Yes, they did that now, sleek, fast boats, out into the bay, bird-watching, dolphin-spotting, paying good money. ‘No sightings guaranteed …’ When they came back, she would hear their wonder. ‘I saw a fin!’ ‘It jumped out of the water!’ ‘They followed us for ages!’ A whale, sometimes, a small affair, and yet they made such a fuss.
What was so special about this, she asked herself? Dark curves, that could hardly be glimpsed, except through a glass. Camouflaged by the black troughs of the sea, except for those showy jumps.
Her whale moved on top of the water.
It was white, and huge.
‘I’ve seen a whale,’ she wanted to say, the words coming close to her mouth.
‘I’ve seen a whale,’ she said. ‘Here, just here, and then …’
The children, or children’s children, hurried her away.
On her good days, they would take her to the cliffs, where the farm had been.
‘I was born here, it was my home,’ she would tell them, waving towards the buildings behind her. Holiday cottages, now, ‘sought after, in sight of the sea.’ Yes, it was what she woke up to, every day. It was part of her. They had said the same about the story; the sea was part of it, too. The sea meant something, like those other things that were supposed to mean something.
This place, high up, looking both ways, was one of her favourites. The water did everything here, on different days, at different times. And it was where she had seen the whale disappear.
‘I ran, as soon as the mooring broke free. I knew which way it would go; I knew the currents. They – the film people – followed only the marked tracks, and stumbled at each outcrop. Have I told you this before?’
She followed the beast along the coast, running from cove to cove, over the cliff tops.
‘My pink hair-slide broke free and skittered down the cliff. I couldn’t see above the height of the gorse, but I knew where I was going – home. I was the one who got here first. I was the one to see the whale rounding the corner. I was the one to see it disappear, with the famous actor tied to the side.’
They always shuffled glances then, in time with their feet; their thumbs would start that fidgeting again, and they would say, ‘No, no!’ ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’ ‘Look, it says here …’
They showed her things she didn’t want to see – a picture of a white cylinder, with wires and cogs behind, a man pulling levers inside.
‘Look!’ They were fond of that word. And she lowered her eyes to whatever was on the little screen. But she saw nothing, she didn’t have to see, unless she wanted to.
They told her things she didn’t want to hear.
There was no whole whale. Just bits – a tail, a head, sections that they moved around on a barge, putting them in the water when needed. Or … there were three models, but none of them whole …
Sixty feet, eighty-five feet, one whale, three. No whales, parts of whales, a model in a tank, a picture on a studio wall. Rubber, steel.
‘An internal engine to pump the spouting water!’
‘Dye in the latex skin, so that it could “bleed”!’
‘A publicity stunt, Nain! Just imagine the press coverage such a story would get. “Hollywood star nearly drowns, swept out to sea on the back of a whale!”’
‘A myth,’ another announced. ‘Built from half-truths, a muddle of events. Look, a section broke free; the actor nearly drowned being dunked in a tank in the studio. Then they all said different things. The coastguard sailed to the rescue! The RAF was called! But none of it happened! The camera guy says this … the director says that … Gregory Peck something else entirely! But they all seem to settle on “No whale!”’
‘No,’ she said. ‘They must have forgotten. They had so much to do. They moved on quickly.’
They moved on to another film, another story. It became nothing to them.
The children leave with the summer. She is glad.
Soon, everything they’ve said is gone again. All the ‘looks’ bundled away, along with their forgotten names. And the whale drifts out of the harbour, great, white, whole, with the famous actor trapped in a web of twine. She runs along the cliff, her pink slide falls, and there it is again.
Soon, she sees the sea every day, just as in her childhood, in this place they’ve put her in, calling it ‘home’. Home again, sea again.
And there are new people who listen to her story, and say ‘How interesting!’ Or, ‘Good!’ no matter how many times she tells it. She cannot see the film any more – her eyes are too dim. Besides, none of the other ‘residents’ want to watch it. But the nice girls will read to her from the book, if she asks, when they have the time.
It is the ending she wants to hear. How Ahab raises his hand from the flank of the whale, beckoning his crew to carry on with the kill.
‘I saw it,’ she tells them. ‘I saw the whale disappear into the mist, with the famous actor tied to its side. He waved at me, so I said, “Goodbye.”’
‘No,’ the girl who is reading to her that day tells her, a girl who pays attention to the words on the page. ‘Ahab gets pulled into the water. It’s the Parsee who is caught on the whale. And he doesn’t wave. They changed it for the film. They changed the whole ending. It’s what they do, for dramatic effect.’
After the girl has gone, she puts the book in the bin.
And the whale turns towards the open sea, and the man raises his hand to her.
‘Goodbye.’
DAVID ROSE
GREETINGS FROM THE FAT MAN IN POSTCARDS
This could be, if Bognor had a cathedral, a tale of two cities, twin poles in the life of Wilson Thomas.
– I’m going as far as Guildford. Any good to you?
The shortest distance between two points, there being no motorway, is a meander, in this case the A285, A283 and A3100. It is on these procrastinating curves that Wilson Thomas has come to rely for his mental health, his life.
– You can put that nightie on the back seat.
There is another, identical, locked in the boot.
– Little gift for my wife. Well, I say my wife. Always take them something when I go home. Was it a holiday in Bognor, or business? Personally I live there. Not easy to own up to. I mean, what does anyone know about Bognor except George the whatsit’s dying words? Bugger Bognor. (Map of Britain. Bognor marked in red. Caption: Welcome to Bognor, Backdoor of Britain.) Its only claim to fame. Almost Joycean. Irishman goes for a job on a building site. Foreman asks him, sort of proficiency test, ‘What’s the difference between a joist and a girder?’ Quick as a flash on a frosty night he comes back, ‘One wrote Ulysses, the other wrote Faust.’ Not a literary man, then? Visit the pier? (Two explorers silhouetted in a tent. Night time. Caption: ‘Where’s my pith helmet?’) Met my wife on the pier. Donald McGill exhibition. Working visit for me. Professional card-man. I like to say that. Shades of green shades, sleazy glamour. Actually more pr
osaic. Belle Vue Cards. I rep for them. Plus a little creative work. My wife helps me with that. Amateur cartoonist.
It was love at first sight. They were both peering at the same framed card. He noticed the dimple in her cheek matching the one between her shoulders. She looked up. Eyes of postcard-sky blue. He raised his cap. Her dimples deepened. The sea glittered, like the glass beads on his mother’s throat, his earliest recollection, tickling his eyes.
‘I’ve an original McGill of my own if you’d care to see it?’
He drove her to his digs.
‘Not many on the market these days. Difficult to come by unless you have contacts. Gives you a little frisson knowing it’s the actual paper he worked on. Speaking of frissons, I’ve another McGill in here.’ He dropped his trousers. Embroidered mothers-in-law all over his shorts.
He had the McGill framed and gave it to her. The un-nuanced figures of Curate and Vamp, secure in their ink outline against the washes of colour, brought afresh the first rapture of childhood as they opened it together.
Her first present to him was a pair of musical shorts. They played ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’ at the touch of a microchip. He put them on to propose. ‘I don’t know your name yet.’ ‘Er, Thomas, Wilson.’ ‘Yes, Thomas Wilson, I will.’
– She did a little sketch of me. Caricature. At least, I hope it’s a caricature. I had it copied, printed up. Send them to her on my longer tours of duty, captioned ‘Greetings from the Fat Man in Postcards’. Funny, women go for the fuller figure. Thin men don’t realise. Look at HG Wells. Never short of female admirers. Used to call him Treacle Wells. One of his women was asked why she found him so attractive. Said, Because his skin smelt of honey. Extraordinary. ‘Stands the Clock at Ten to Three?’ I told my wife about that once. She said, Sounds fun, let’s try. Anointed me with a pot of Gales. Every so often, one of us will say, Let’s have an HG Wells night. Only we moved on to Lemon Curd. Did a Midlands tour a few months ago, sent her a jar, with a boxed chipolata and a note, ‘The shape of things to come.’ Duncton. Making good time. Another trip, I phoned her anonymously, did the old heavy breathing. She just said, cool as you like, ‘If you want the asthma clinic you’ve got the wrong number,’ and hung up. You’d like my wife. Ever been to America?
This will peter out beyond Petworth.
– Petworth Park. Sounds like a municipal tryst for lovers. As I was saying, we do all right, we larger men. Takes women unawares. I grant you a novel called The Fat Man wouldn’t have the same ring, but that’s only prejudice. I usually stop about here, have a breather, stretch my legs.
At exactly here. Mid-point of his journey, zenith of his weekly trajectory. Marked on the Ordnance Survey as Ball’s Cross. Here he is poised between two worlds. He will drive into a lane, walk up and down, lean on a gate. His tongue searches his teeth, seeks out the small molar cavity. Into its rough protective burr his soul nestles. He will be here for several minutes while the magnetic field reverses.
He will drive up the narrow road, turn left, then on to join the A283.
– The quilted fields of England. I love this countryside. Even the names resonate. Chiddingfold. Could be Old English for ‘cemetery’, conjures up the cosiness of village graveyards. All safely gathered in. Hambledon, Bramley. English as autumn mists. Pictures of this sort of landscape – maybe a shire horse in the middle distance, church spire far distance – still work their magic, guarantee the sales. Anything rural or ecclesiastical or both. Even quite modern buildings can do it. Know Guildford Cathedral? Only finished in 1961. Still a popular card. That’s how I met my wife. She was sketching it. Naturally I took a professional interest. Suggested she did a watercolour, maybe soften the cathedral, age it a little, submit it to my art director for a greetings card. She did, he went for the idea, I went for her.
It was love at first sight. He had leaned over her shoulder, watched the pastel smudge the deep-grained paper. Her long hair matched the quaking grass, ruffled by the same breeze. Her chin set in concentration, a soft furrow echoing a distant field. He retreated until she was packing up, handed her his card.
They drove into town, had coffee and scones with a view of the Guildhall, then drove through darkening Surrey lanes.
This was the pattern of their Sundays for a month.
On the Sunday of Michaelmas, after their coffee, he parked in sight of the cathedral, wound down the window. ‘You’d make a perfect Mrs Wilson Thomas. You might even enjoy it.’ ‘Will I, Wilson Thomas? Yes.’
– She became very interested in colour-washed pen and ink. We both love the work of Thomas Rowlandson, his chromatic delicacy against the robust penwork, the feathery foliage. I got her to do a series of views in that style, tried to get the firm to accept them as a set of upmarket postcards. Came to nothing. I had a few printed up, send them to her when I’m on the road, with a little poem on the back, something out of Clare or Herrick or William Blake. Blake is her idol. The watercolours, the woodcuts – she loves them. Did you know he lived near Bognor? Felpham, few miles along the coast. She wanted to visit it, soak up the atmosphere. Tricky. Had to head her off on that. Suggested a little project of my own – trace the locales of Wilson Steer’s works. Personal interest – he was a distant relative on my grandmother’s side. I’m named after him, in fact. So whenever I have a few days’ leave, we’ve been trundling round the country, Suffolk, Yorkshire, Stroud Valley, tracking down the footprints of his easel, so to speak. She copies the paintings, I photograph the scene. ‘Then and now’ sort of thing. Surprising how much of the country is still unspoiled. Turn down a lane, find a stile, follow a path between furrowed fields. Smell of wet earth. Leafmould in the hedgerows. Like generations of wisdom, sifting into the soil. She’ll put her arm through mine, say, Breathe it in. I know just what she means. You’d like my wife. See that programme on cancer on the box?
Wilson is much possessed by death, and sees the skull beneath the skin. For if one of them should die? Or leave? Easier to face the knock upon the door.
Wilson is not, has never been, a political man, but he has watched, appalled, the bi-polarity of the world crumble. He is unnerved. The world now reminds him of a pre-Columbus globe in reverse. He sometimes feels the axis tilt, feels the slide and scramble. Each stop at Ball’s Cross becomes a little longer.
Wilson has read somewhere of a scientist who requested his ashes be made into a firework, who ended his earthly intactness in the starshower of a score of rockets.
He thinks of him now, thinks of himself, sees his wives and assembled guests, with their sausages on sticks, gazing at the flare and burst, thinks of his soul ricocheting off the stars.
NJ STALLARD
THE WHITE CAT
Linda had spent most of June trying to kill the white cat. For her first attempt, she used a simple method: three tablespoons of rat poison in a saucer of milk. She left the saucer next to the sliding doors of the villa. A few days later, she found two dead birds in the garden and one in the swimming pool, the grey feathers mangled in the gutter. Linda collected the birds in a shoebox and buried them beneath the bougainvillaea.
After that, she bought a BB gun from the hunting store in the mall. But when she tried to practise she couldn’t pull the trigger. She said it brought back memories of her grandpa’s suicide.
‘Would you believe me if I told you I’m an animal person?’ Linda said, leaning against the kitchen island where I was eating my cereal. She wore denim cut-offs, a faded pink T-shirt and a plastic golf visor. Her skin was aged from too much sun and the split ends of her blonde ponytail fluttered in the breeze of the AC.
‘You are?’
‘Of course I am, honey. I’ve had plenty of pets. I ride horses. I would never kill an animal except in self-defence.’
Linda didn’t want to kill the white cat, she explained. The cat had terrorised her. It left decapitated lizards on the doorstep. It stared at her while she swam. Plus it was ugly. A tiny head and a long thin body covered in pink sores and clumps of
white fur. A missing eye.
‘Have you ever seen a cat with one eye? It’s gross. The skin on the socket is all pink and clenched, like an asshole,’ she said, and puckered her lips and laughed.
I assumed Linda was exaggerating about the white cat. Since I’d moved into the villa, she’d sent constant emails about the black bugs taking over the kitchen, advising me to scrub down the kitchen counters with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel, even though I’d never seen a black bug. I’d never seen a white cat either.
Cute Room and Pool View, the ad had said. The villa was a bargain for the price. Located in a compound next to the beach, the villa had a perfect swimming pool, shaped like a kidney and surrounded by trailing plants and palm trees. The blue and green tiles scrambled together and turned gold in the midday sun, like a Byzantine mosaic. Linda lived inside the villa and had decided to rent out the pool house in the garden.
‘There’s something super cute about this place,’ Linda had said when she’d opened the pool house’s door. ‘I’d live in it myself if it wasn’t for the villa.’
The interior was basic. A metal bed frame stood on top of the grey lino flooring. There was an old desk with a broken drawer and a shower drilled into the wall above a drain. Access to the villa’s kitchen and the swimming pool were included in the price. I moved in the next day.
Linda said she worked for an insurance company but during my first week in the villa she never left the house. She rose at 6am every morning and watered the garden in her denim cut-offs. When she heard me enter the kitchen for breakfast, she would follow me and launch into one of her monologues.
The only positive thing she ever had to say was about her childhood in Hawaii. She’d named the house ‘Villa Aloha’ in honour of her homeland. Fridge magnets of seashells and surfers clung to the kitchen’s magnetic surfaces. In the living room, the only sign of life among the white carpet and white leather sofas was a doll of a hula girl with frizzy hair, a rainbow-coloured lei and sun-faded skin, which sat on top of the drinks cabinet. During her tour of the villa, Linda clicked a switch on the doll and we stood there and watched the disturbing whirl of its hips.
Best British Short Stories 2020 Page 15