New Welsh Short Stories

by Author: QuarkXPress

  ‘Hello, Edith.’

  A long pause.

  ‘Hello,’ Edith’s voice quavered.

  ‘I am your creator.’

  ‘Oh, Lord. Christ Almighty!’ Edith didn’t often swear. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Edith.’ He paused to think. ‘You must be at peace and forget your troubles. And do not worry about losing your memory. I will guide you.’ He wondered if this would be a comfort to her.

  ‘Thank you, Lord. Thank you!’

  ‘God bless you, my child.’

  Edith stayed sitting on the edge of her bed, listening, for the rest of that day.

  Gillian, on the other hand, was noxious. She swore angrily at people who visited the house, told them they looked ridiculous or accused them of being in league with Hitler.

  ‘You’re stupid. It’s obvious to me.’ She would lurch from her room to the top of the stairs and hang onto the banister, her long glittery shawl brushing the stair carpet, her hair awry. ‘You,’ she’d jab a finger in the direction of the shocked deliveryman or neighbour, ‘are a cunt.’ A derisive laugh. ‘Hitler was a cunt. Everyone’s a cunt. Cunts.’ And she’d slam back into her room.

  On one occasion Gillian was actually lethal. A small black cat named Tiny had sneaked into her bedroom to lie on top of the wardrobe. Gillian was getting dressed up for dinner as she often did. She’d stolen a can of Lynx from Seth’s chest of drawers and sprayed it so liberally that she emptied the can and Tiny expired where she lay, undiscovered for months.

  They found Gillian at the bottom of the stairs one summer day with a broken neck. Seth’s first thought was of a dead bird, crumpled and light, with the shimmering shawl spread about her like wings.

  ‘I wonder if she jumped,’ said Keith with a pensive expression.

  After that, there was just Edith, until Andrea scooped her up one day and bundled her into the car.

  ‘She can’t stay here,’ she said, a blustery pre-storm wind lifting strands of hair from her bun like the tendrils of an angry goddess. ‘She needs taking care of. This house could kill anyone off before their time.’

  She needed taking care of years ago, thought Seth. Where were you then? At that moment he hated his mother, like he hated repugnant strangers on the news who trod on the weak. He watched Edith being driven away, tyres flurrying grit, her face a pale blur through the steamed-up window, looking back.

  The house responded to the desertion by sagging further – window frames rotted, a stair crumbled while Keith was standing on it, paint hung from the walls in Edith’s old bedroom like dead skin, slates fell or shattered at the slightest temperature change. Seth stopped going to college altogether and moped about the house. When he was alone he imagined he could feel things: ripples, someone near – and he heard echoes, sighs, footfalls on the floor above, his mother’s laughter. Or Edith at the bottom of the garden, a grey shape detaching itself from the mist; Gillian in the chair by the hearth, becoming when he looked just a large brown cushion creased into the sharp outline of her shoulders.

  Seth and Keith succumbed to a TV coma. They got drunk after dinner on apple schnapps. It took a long time for either of them to start thinking about what they should do next.

  That Saturday, Seth sat with his cello and stared out at the lawn. He was thinking about Laura. He needed to stop thinking about her so much.

  He blinked and focused on the room around him: cans on the floor, empty glasses containing the sticky remains of drinks, ashtrays overflowing on the fat armrests of chairs, discarded pizza boxes and chocolate wrappers, crumbs. Ornaments and pictures were ghostly with thick shrouds of dust, never admired. He put down his cello and stood, bending instead to pick up one of his juggling balls. He’d a vague memory of staggering, drunk, the night before, neck craned back, trying to catch the colourful blurs that flew ceiling-ward and then plummeted, just out of reach. He massaged the ball in his palm, feeling the plastic beads slide inside the cotton bag. He swivelled on his foot and threw it at the wall above the fireplace. It hit with a dull smack and fell. A hiss began high in the chimneybreast, growing louder. Then a black cloud vomited into the fireplace, across the rug, and into the centre of the room. Eventually, the hissing stopped. The soot settled. The pinecones – which Seth had collected when he was five to decorate the hearth – were buried. He stepped backwards and perfect footprints of red carpet appeared. A resolution formed slowly in his mind. He went to the base of the stairs.

  ‘Dad!’ he called.

  No reply.

  He bounded upwards, leaped over the broken step, burst into Keith’s bedroom. ‘Dad!’ He jumped on to the double bed. ‘Dad, come on, get up!’ Keith was a mummified lump beneath the duvet. Seth shook him persistently until Keith pulled the cover from his face and opened one puffy eye.

  ‘What, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Dad, you have to wake up.’

  ‘What, man? I’m awake.’

  ‘We’ve got to start doing things. Come downstairs. Let’s have breakfast.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s half past three.’

  ‘Shit. That’s late.’

  ‘Yeah. Come on, get up.’

  Seth yanked the cover away and Keith sat up.

  ‘Alright, alright.’ He swung his legs off the bed, put on his dressing gown.

  ‘We’re having porridge.’ Seth kicked slippers towards his dad’s feet.

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Not fritters?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Seth ran downstairs and Keith traipsed after him, obedient.

  After breakfast, Seth found the old vacuum cleaner that was under the stairs and thoroughly cleaned every single room. It took him five hours. The exertion was good – it felt good to have blood throb in his temples, to make a racket, to stretch, to lean, to tear cabinets free of cobweb moorings, reclaim the grey space behind, beneath. When he’d finished, sweat sticking his fringe to his forehead, he imagined that the house reeled – violated, resentful – vengeful even. The nozzle of the vacuum had been thrust unceremoniously into every secret nook. The dust of years – flakes, fibres, hairs – had been whisked away up the flexible attachment. Fragments of his family, collected in corners and on ledges, had been brutally and noisily obliterated.

  Keith was nursing a cup of tea at the kitchen table when Seth joined him.

  ‘I’m going to college tomorrow.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  ‘And I think we should redecorate the house. Maybe we should even sell it. I mean, why not? Why the fuck not? And I’m giving up weed. And everything else. And so should you.’

  His dad looked at him through his thick glasses, moved to a mild state of indignation. ‘But we can’t waste the stuff we’ve already got.’

  Seth sighed. ‘OK, fine. We blitz it this last once.’

  ‘And then you really want to give it all up?’

  Seth nodded.

  Keith looked at his red hands wrapped around the china teacup that had belonged to his grandmother. ‘I would like things to be different…’ Seth was staring at him, jaw jutting, soft lips compressed; his eyes had a flintiness that Keith recognised. ‘Alright,’ he said, fingernails striking the teacup so it rang like a bell. The house answered with a crack, a purposeful shift somewhere in its structure – as if it readied itself – crouched. ‘But this had better be a proper good sesh – like, the best we’ve ever had.’

  ‘Right. Let’s get started.’

  NO ONE’S LOOKING AT YOU

  Deborah Kay Davies

  On Friday afternoon there is a special class. This is s’posed to give you all the info you need, you know, to be a woman, Lottie tells Eve as they lean against the wall, balancing on the back legs of their chairs. Has your mother told you about periods? Lottie asks, making retching sounds. Buckle up and prepare to be sick. Eve sits electrified throughout the lesson. Blood? she thinks. Really? It’s disgusting. The boys snigger, shifting around in their seats to sh
oot sideways glances at the girls, and Eve doesn’t blame them. Class! the teacher shouts, dropping her illustrated sheets on the floor, stop being so childish! But, Eve thinks, just what’s wrong with being a child?

  On the way home from school she’s unable to speak. Lottie drags her foot, toe first in the gutter, trying to work out who’s started their period and who hasn’t. Have you, Eve? she asks, stopping so they can both contemplate her ruined shoe. ’Course, Eve says, shortly. Then she strides out, making Lottie run to keep up. What’s it like? Lottie asks. Absolute hell, Eve tells her. Now stop pestering me. She runs the rest of the way home through the park, feeling as if someone is trying to grab her by the hair.

  Eve walks into a cabbage-laden, moist cloud when she opens her front door. Banging pots and pans in the kitchen, her mother talks about self-centred girls. When Eve refuses to eat her meal she says, and don’t think there’ll be any snacks for you later, madam. Then she turns back to the oven. Eve shuts herself in her room, closes the curtains and presses herself against the radiator until her back is burning. So, soon she’ll be bleeding every month. It’s hard to take in. How can that be right? she wonders. A person only bleeds when they’ve injured themselves. It’s hard enough, say, bleeding from your arm.

  She starts to think of all the women and girls she knows. At any time, any number of them might be bleeding into their pants. It’s so gross she can’t stand it. Suddenly she has another thought. Dashing to the bathroom she looks at herself in the mirror. She imagines her mother oozing blood from between her legs. Then she throws up in the toilet.

  *

  The first double lesson on a Monday morning is Maths. Some fiend in human form must have made up this timetable, Eve says. They are hiding in the sweaty little room that holds the vault and rubber mats. I laugh all the way to school on Mondays, she adds, ripping open her Snickers bar. Squashed in a corner between the wall and a bin of weights, she shares her chocolate with Lottie. Anyway, the point I was making, she says, calmly sucking, is that adults are so deadly boring. They just are. Eve can’t be bothered to discuss grown-ups, but feels she must say how mothers are the absolute, deadly limit. Mine’s not that bad, Lottie says. Well, mine is, Eve states. After a short silence when they try to decide which part of a Snickers is the best, Eve pushes her last bit into Lottie’s mouth and says she has the answer. It was in her dream. What? says Lottie, about Snickers? No, you plug, Eve says, throwing the wrapping at her. About mothers, of course. Okay, says Lottie, tell thy dream, most wise one.

  Eve describes a wide green valley and, rearing up halfway across it, a smooth wall the height of two houses that thousands of mothers are trying to climb over. The poor things, Lottie says. Shut up, Eve tells her. Crowds of mothers are fighting to get near the wall. Some are disappearing over the top all along its length. Frantic women fall back and trample those below, while starving vultures scream and peck at them. Did you see my mum there? Lottie asks. Everybody’s mum was there, Eve tells her. No mother’s mother, though, she adds. Grandmothers are different. Lottie nods at this. Besides, Eve explains, they might not be able to climb the huge wall. In a dream they could, Lottie says.

  Eve goes on to tell how, in the dream, she climbed to the top of the wall and peered below, and only she knows that over there is a huge desert, full of white bones; hundreds of miles of bones, stretching from the feet of the enormous walls out to the hills. The scouring wind rushing up and over the wall scraped a vile dust over Eve’s face, coating her lips as she looked. And all around her mothers were falling headlong, skirts over their heads, never to be seen again. Didn’t you try to warn them? Lottie asks. Totally no point, Eve says, and gets up, brushing herself down. You know what mothers are like.

  *

  Now Eve is thirteen she thinks things will surely be different. The day after her birthday she wakes up in her usual position and the usual curtains are hanging at her usual windows. Everything is nauseatingly the same-old same-old. She is so disappointed that the idea of getting out of bed seems too much. Finally, she throws back the covers, lifts her nightdress up to her chin, and stretches out in the bed.

  It’s as if the room is filled with dazzling fireworks. It seems she was right after all. Overnight, she has completely changed. In just eleven hours her breasts are different; the hard lump in the centre of each one has softened, expanded, filling out each pillowy globe. And God has answered her prayers; she has small, pinky-tipped nipples, not those elongated brown jobs her mother is saddled with. She stands at the long mirror and takes off her boring nightdress. Her waist has contracted, and the shape of her hips is stunning. Her legs are longer. There’s her head, just the same, but the body below is new. Would you take a look at yourself? she asks, gazing into the eyes of her reflection.

  Eve’s heart is whacking against her ribs. She feels as if she will burst, or float or explode. It’s all so great. Grinning, she drifts downstairs. Her mother is at the kitchen table, a turban on her head, reading a recipe book. Her brother hoovers his cereal. Neither reacts as she comes in. Eve waits to see what will happen. Eat, her mother says as she reads, stretching her lips to her coffee cup. Eve climbs onto a chair and stands, completely nude, with her hands on her hips. Mother? See? she says. Look at me. Her mother glances up briefly, squinting, and then turns back to the book propped up on a bowl. Eve stamps her foot and shouts, what is the matter with you, woman? Are you blind or something? Then she jumps lightly down, leaving her mother to her recipes.

  *

  Eve is in the woods, perched in her favourite beech tree’s highest nook, but something doesn’t feel right. Maybe she will lose her balance and fall. No, she thinks, this can’t be true; there is no wind, and the trunk is solid where she touches it. It’s my head, she decides. My head is weird, and she shakes her hair out to clear it. Nothing works. So she sits and tunes in to the feeling. Beech leaves tremble, and a blackbird calls. Then she shivers. It feels as if heavy insects are lumbering over her scalp. She lets go of the trunk and starts to rub her head with both hands, even though her scalp is its usual smooth self.

  Now she feels a damp tongue of heat licking upwards from her chest to her face. Deep inside her body a fist is dragging everything down. Eve clutches the trunk of the tree. This must be what it feels like to faint, she thinks. The insects on her scalp skitter and her eyelids droop. Then a leaf-sweet breeze runs a refreshing hand over her neck and cheeks. It seems to blow the insects out of her hair, and Eve is able to climb down.

  The ground at the bottom of the tree feels spongy, so Eve lies flat and places trembling hands on her hipbones. Something is grinding slowly, and it hurts. What’s happening to me? she thinks. Her new breasts are burning, and saliva gushes into her mouth. Without any effort she is sick, neatly, onto the nut-brown beech mast.

  Somehow she gets home, running along secret little paths overhung with ferns and ragged robin. Mother, look! she calls, falling through the front door. Her mother is holding a cup. She half-turns from the lounge window. They both watch as a thin thread of blood runs down Eve’s bare leg. What shall I do now, mother? she asks. Her mother takes a slow sip. Work it out for yourself, she says, and turns back to the window.

  *

  Even though it’s late, and they should be going home, Eve and Lottie hang around in the park. They sit on the swings and watch scrappy little bats flitter about under the fluffy canopy of the trees. Don’t they look cheerful? Eve says. I love bats. Lottie makes shuddering noises. In the dusk, Eve smiles as Lottie talks about all the things she hates. Periods tho’, she says. They are the worst; to-tall-y re-volt-ing. Chuckupsville, Eve agrees. Lottie jumps off her swing and shows Eve the small zip-up purse her mother has given her. Inside are pads and wipes.

  Eve starts to jerk her swing higher. I would love a cute periody purse like that, she gasps, her silver hair rising and lowering like a column of smoke. Bloody periods! she shouts into the empty park, and the sound ricochets off the rubbish bins and through the lacy ironwork of the bandstand. Eve�
��s hands grasp the cold chains of her swing as she allows her head to drop, legs in the air. Her eyes are searching the mole-grey sky for the first evening star, while she thinks about how she has to hide all her used pads in her cupboard. How she loathes the way they smell and stiffen.

  Come on, she shouts to Lottie, grabbing her hand so they can keep together, we gotta go! Running through the dark tunnel of chestnut trees, heavy blossoms rain down, sticking to their hair. Like a windblown stream of scattered leaves, the bats accompany them. When they come out the other side, the park’s night breath stops both girls for a moment. Look, says Eve, pointing. The sky is like a vast blanket of mauve felt, and as they watch, huge stars ignite, filling the park with an icy light, glinting on every surface. Eve drags Lottie along, out through the gates, across the road, through the evening streets, until finally they reach home.

  In the house, after she’s found her mother’s bag, Eve peeps into the bathroom and studies her mother’s rounded, semi-submerged legs spread apart in the milky bath water. Safe in her room she examines the conker-shiny leather bag with its white stitching and pointed corners. She has to use both hands to click open the tight clasp. Then Eve empties her musky heap of stuck-together, soiled pads into its depths, snaps the clasp shut, and quickly puts it back where she found it. Work this out for yourself, mother, she thinks.

  *

  Eve and Lottie are shopping. What I really want, Lottie explains, is a freakishly stunning costume. So they go to the swimwear section of a huge store. Eve is silently amazed at the hundreds of different swimming costumes. She thinks about her ancient Speedo with its worn, transparent patch that shows the ghostly cheeks of her bottom. Until now she’d never thought about how it looked on her. God, I must look like an absolute saddo in that old get-up, she thinks, fingering a gleaming purple thing with tassels and shells. Try some on, Lottie says, her arms full of slithery scraps of fabric. It’ll be a hoot. But Eve doesn’t answer. Come in with me anyway, Lottie calls.