HISSAC Highlands and Islands Short Story Association

“He is at the playing fields,” she had cried. And the women in the tiny room wailed as though already in mourning. And he ran, not wanting to hear more.

The street that usually resounded to the cries of children playing was deserted. The doors and windows of the brick under asbestos dwellings closed, though he sensed frightened eyes watch his passing. His laboured breath and tread of his shoes on the hard earth were the only sounds in the silence. Then the roar of the crowd, louder now as he drew closer, gave new strength to his flagging stride, and he surged ahead, praying that he was not too late. Sweat stung his eyes. His breath burst from his lips in painful sobs. There was anguish in the sound. The deepest grief in his heart and mind. The man mumbled now as he ran. His voice rose to a thin cry.

He was a foolish boy for speaking his mind. There was pride in him for the boy just then. And fear, rage, an overwhelming feeling of inevitability swamped him.

Grief for a young life; for its joy and laughter; for its courage and integrity; for its brief moment. For its wasteful death.

As he drew closer the roar and muttering of the crowd took on form and character. Anger, approval, scorn. A baiting sneer. An unmerciful force, it lacked heart or substance.

Around the corner at the end of the street, the community grounds. The playing field. Hard red earth. Goal posts at either end. Weeds and the remnants of lawn round the perimeter. And beyond, the railway line and the green veld. A single line of blue-gum. And beyond there, the factories and the city.

Red dust rose and fell as the crowd milled about its own circle, as people jostled one another for a better position. Small groups of youths and boys toy-toying, children, big-eyed with fear, waited in the foreground, watching.

The man paused at the edge of the playing field. A voice raised in anger, accused, another shouted encouragement. Another sneered and shouted insults. Women danced and ululated. The crowd roared its approval. It shifted, pushed, always in a tight scrum, leaning upon its centre. Broke and mended itself. Red dust rose like flames in the air, searing parched throats and fraying tempers.

The man plunged into the crowd, elbowing aside people in his way. A hard object struck him between the shoulders and dashed him to the ground. Helpful hands hauled him from beneath the feet of the crowd.

“Are you well, old man?” He looked around in a daze “No, it was not one of us. It was that.” And he followed the line of the finger pointing at the sky, but could not focus on the thing describing an arc above the heads of the crowd.

Propelled by eager hands it shot into the air, bounced off a pair of shoulders, landed in the hollow centre, and a roar went up, as again, somebody flung it into the air. Down it came, up again, and again, its leaping motion punctuated with the roars from the crowd. Laughter, catcalls. Old grievances would be remembered here; old scores to settle. Retribution for wrongs real and imagined.

The man fought his way towards the inner circle. He saw familiar faces, men, and women, who only this morning he observed talking to neighbours in the street, laughing at the antics of a child. Now these faces gave him courage. At heart the crowd is an ordinary creature. Only now was it whipped up to a frenzy of madness. But he would reason with it, as was his right.

Why, it is likely that very few of the crowd knew the boy, had ever seen him, or knew his name. With new hope the man plunged deeper into the crowd. Not too far now to where the red dust rose and fell over the figures he could now glimpse leaping and strutting about the centre. He tasted the dust on his lips, the sweat of the crowd, the smell of fear in each and every one.

He was trapped in the motion of the crowd as it swayed and pushed and shoved. He elbowed his way through. An old man. They would show respect and stand aside. But the faces of the youths were hard, unyielding. Older people moved aside and murmured respectfully.

“It’s not safe, father. Go away.”

At last he broke through.

The car tyre bounced across the shoulders of the crowd, glancing off heads. People cursed, but not too loudly. They were afraid, but to leave now would be a statement of sorts and who knew where that might lead? Who would be next? In what shape would retribution come? Swift, silent, deadly, in a dark alley. The burning of a hut while its people slept.

Inside the circle they worked on the boy. The impact of hard fists on unresisting flesh and bone was loud in the confined space.

They let go of the boy and, as he fell, the old man rushed forward to break his fall, but before he reached the boy he was hurled back into the crowd and fell to the ground, winded.

The boy lay on the ground on his back, his hands and bare feet clawing the dust as he swiveled on his shoulders to face his persecutors. A stone glanced off his cheek, splitting it to the bone. The naked wound spewed blood and raw flesh. The boy’s rump sank onto the heels of his feet and he lay there, his legs doubled back under him. A tremor ran through his body. He thrust out his hands and closed his fists on the dust.

The boy lay still and there was a lull in the crowd. His eyes, staring at the sky, did not beseech but seemed to draw into their vision the faces peering down at him.

Back and forth across the circle they attacked the boy with kicks, beating him with leather belts. A swipe of a panga split open his arm. He was mercifully unconscious.

Then his feet slipped from under him and stretched out full length and the boy opened his eyes. A hush fell over the crowd. The only sound the laboured breathing of the spent youths. The slap of bare hands on rubber as they caught the tyre and hurled it aloft.

It is over, the old man thought, now let them take their ghastly necklace with them. But then the tyre fell to earth with a thud, rolled, and flipped onto its side against the boy’s shoulder.

The boy opened his eyes, struggled up on an elbow in a comical pose, lay there like a rag doll discarded by a child. He looked around and spat blood at the feet nearest him.

“No!” The old man groaned. He started forward. Hands gripped him.

An angry murmur rose in the crowd and just as suddenly ceased. Someone laughed in disbelief. The old man looked at the boy.He had twisted his body around to face the tyre. He lifted it with his free hand and dipped his head into its circle as it fell on top of him, forming at once a pillow and a pyre.

A necklace. The boy lay on his back. Closed his eyes as the petrol fumes stung, seared his raw flesh.

In the crowd there was restlessness, uncertainty, as if to say “Enough! No more.” But also a desire to be done with it. To have one’s bluff called by a mere youth was unthinkable. Grudging admiration appeared on the faces of the youths as one gave the nod and another lit a match and the tyre erupted in a halo of flames round the boy’s head.

They released the old man. He rushed to the boy and knelt at his side. Thought he saw through the flames a flicker of life. The shattered face and broken body told him there was no hope. The body arched and the mouth opened in a painful grimace as the poison seared the lungs.

The old man searched around him. Fumbled for a stone the size of a fist. His hand rose and descended on the boy’s head, again and again. At last the tension eased from the body and it was at rest. The crowd dispersed as crowds do. Its energy sapped, its spirit spent.

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

Chris McIvor

Of the people in our village who can read, none can be trusted not to pry, not to ask awkward questions, not to spread news around our community that is no one’s business but our own. The letter that Jabu sent me, however, will not leave me in peace. It is as if the urgency with which it was written burns a hole in the pocket where I have kept it. As I hand over the small coin that is usually charged for such transactions I know that I have committed a foolishness. Soon the whole village will know of our trouble, of what has passed between two brothers who have not seen each other for many years.

“Jabu is ill” is what I am told. “He wants to see you.” The piece of paper has only a few lines written upon it. In the folds of the letter there is a crisp, new banknote, the price of a ticket from here to the capital. Apart from that money and the few words he has sent us, there is nothing else to tell us what Jabu has been up to. I spit on the ground in irritation. It is not just because of the inconvenience, the disturbance that has now come into our lives. It is because memories that are buried deep have now been awoken, resentment towards him has now returned. Do we need any further proof of Jabu’s selfishness? After all those years does he expect us to come running, to sort out the mess he has fallen into?

At the edge of the village I find my father. He is preparing the land for the coming season, for the rains that have already been delayed too long. He looks tired and does not greet me when I approach. With each passing year his cracked features resemble more and more the patch of dusty ground he works upon. He shows little interest when I tell him about the letter that has just arrived. For him it is a message from a stranger, from someone who has nothing to do with this family any longer. “He has made his bed,” is all he says when I press him further. “Let him lie in it.”

That evening I join the rest of our village. We are gathered around an old shrine at the edge of the forest, the place where we pray to our ancestors for rain. When the drums start later, they send long fingers through the ground and into our feet. The beer that is brewed on such occasions also relaxes our inhibitions, our fear of the priest who has frowned his displeasure earlier when we passed. As we dance and sway, our troubles are forgotten, our conflicts and divisions are temporarily healed. Some spirit has taken over, urging us to forgiveness and appeasement, acceptance of a fate that has dealt so harshly with all of us.

It is then that my mother and sisters, choosing their moment, come to intercede with me on Jabu’s behalf. Knowledge about his letter has already spread. They say that no matter what hurt he has caused in the past, he is still family. The ghost of an angry relative, they say, can bring a curse that will afflict our descendants for many years. Closer to the dead who monitor our decisions, the elders around me nod their heads in agreement. My father relents and tells me that I must go. I swallow my condemnation, the resentment I feel towards a brother who I am sure is wasting our time. Before the sun has risen the following day I am on my way to a place that I have never been before, to that same location where Jabu once departed and from which many years later he had never returned.

**********

The bus from our village is an old one. It is held together by bits of wire and good luck, and every time it leaves we do not expect to see it again. It is called “Jumbo Jet” and that name is worth a laugh in every town it passes through. Inside it is hot. The windows are shut closed and through the open door nearest the driver a cloud of dust reminds us of the desert outside. A few hours later we reach the next village, then another one after that. I exchange nervous glances with some of my fellow passengers. This is the limit of where I have been before. Until now I have never had the need to go any further.

My thoughts run ahead to what I can expect. I clutch in my hand the letter I have received but apart from the address written on the back of the envelope it does nothing to dispel the confusion and uncertainty that I feel. I do not know what bus I will catch when I reach the city, what kind of road I will walk down and what gate I will open, what person I will find at the end of this journey. I take out a photo, the one that Jabu sent us after he left our village for further studies all that time ago. I see a young face, nervous and uncertain, gazing at a world that he is still unsure of. I have not seen this before. Maybe it is the thought of his illness that has changed my perception. Formerly it was pride and arrogance I saw, the badness in Jabu we often talked about.

As the bus continues I remember another day like this, the sun as hot as it is now. We are in the fields, turning the soil into lines and furrows. We look up and on the path from the village are Jabu and his teacher. The teacher is walking like a man who finds distasteful the smell and feel of wet earth. He has placed a nervous hand on Jabu’s shoulder. He greets us and asks us how the work is proceeding. But we know he has not come all this way to talk about such a triviality. “Jabu is intelligent,” he continues, after the pleasantries are over. “Already he has finished Grade Three, when other boys his age are still struggling with Grade One.” The boy shows promise, he continues, but he needs more schooling, more time for studies, more books to feed his appetite for learning. Sweeping his arm in a circle that seems to dismiss all of us, he adds, “Jabu needs less time working in these fields.”

At first our father disagrees. There are other people in this village who have prospered with no years of schooling behind them. But the teacher is persistent. He is used to our stubborn ways. We are on board a bus called “PROGRESS” he says, and the foreigners who run our country will soon get off. Who will drive us on the long road ahead? It is boys like Jabu who are needed. They will be the leaders of tomorrow. “Look on his education as an investment,” he tells us. “You are putting money into a bank that will one day repay interest.”

The teacher is persuasive. Even our father is tempted. In our imaginations we see new houses and greener fields, running water and a paved road, a village the envy of the others around it. Jabu may become a doctor or a politician. He will build us a clinic and a new school. He will walk down the streets of our village and people will point him out and say to each other, “This is a good man. See what he has done to rescue us from the poverty that once afflicted our community.”

I have been looking at Jabu throughout this conversation. He is staring at the ground. He is shifting his feet from side to side and glancing at the teacher as if to say, “See. I told you so. What can you expect from people like these?” This is when I saw it for the first time. There is shame on his face, a resentment against us for who we are. It is the shame that is in the face of the teacher beside him when he walks in our village and thinks of the misfortune that has dragged him here. All of this I noticed at the time but did not say. In those days I thought to myself, “Who am I to see these things in the faces of others? With no education who am I to judge those who have reached Grade Three and beyond” By the time we had seen our mistake, the emptiness of the teacher’s words, it was too late to save ourselves from whatever poison we had already swallowed.

********

Now the spaces between villages become less and less. Red bricks and tin roofs soon stretch to the horizon, with no fields to break their monotony. It has been raining here but nothing has been washed clean. The streets we pass are a grey, dirty colour. Some of them have piles of rubbish with children scrambling around them like packs of dogs. Unlike the places we have earlier passed through the people here do not look at our tired bus lurching past them. They are too preoccupied to notice us, too intent to get to wherever it is they are going. But it is not only that, I think to myself. Not so long ago they too arrived in this place like us, lost and confused. They do not wish to remember their past, the villages they struggled so desperately to get out of. But looking at the tired, unhappy faces around us I do not think they have found what they were looking for. Given a chance would they not wish to return to wherever it was they once came from?

At the bus station I ask for directions to the address Jabu has sent me. It is too far to walk, I am told. The city is not like a village where you can cross from one side to the next in a matter of minutes. I have some money left from the price of the ticket that Jabu sent me, enough to pay another bus to take me to where I am going. The house I arrive at later is like one of those large places we passed earlier. It is surrounded by a high wall, with bits of glass on top like teeth. When I push a bell an angry dog appears, more vicious than anything we have in our village. A man follows behind him. He looks me up and down as if I have no business to be there. “Go to the back of the house,” he tells me, “if you have anything to sell.”

I tell him that I am Jabu’s brother, that I have a letter asking me to come, that I have traveled many miles to see him. While he walks back to fetch someone I stand outside the gate, looking at a garden that is the size of our biggest field, a pool of water that would sustain our entire village through a season as dry as this one. Does this wealth explain Jabu’s reluctance to contact us, I ask myself. I think of the important men he probably meets. How could he speak to them on equal terms if they know that his family were poor, backward villagers, that he was part of that past that their bus has left far behind?

The woman that walks towards me a short while later must be Jabu’s wife. Although she has never set foot in our village she is as I once imagined. She does not look like someone who is caring after a sick man. Composure and elegance at such a time is considered distasteful among us. “You must be Jabu’s brother,” she says. “We were waiting for you to come.”

She offers a smile but behind that gesture of welcome I can sense something else. No doubt with my shabby clothes, the dust of the journey fresh upon me, I am also what she expected. She is probably congratulating herself for saving Jabu from his family, for having protected him from the circumstances that once imprisoned him. I feel no resentment. Things are clear, an explanation has been given for his long silence. It was Jabu’s destiny to move ahead. Our foolishness was in thinking that he might bring the rest of us with him. The gate opens. I am invited in. The walk down the path to the house seems to take forever. It is all I can do not to leave.

But we do not enter the large house where the path ends. At the door the man in the white uniform I spoke to earlier is directed to take me to the back of the property where Jabu lives. “Your brother has been a faithful servant for many years”, the woman says, before passing me on. “We are glad that you have come to take him home.”

******

The hut where he resides is not much different to our own. Its shabbiness, however, seems all the more glaring because of the fine house and spacious gardens beside it. It has a small, single window and in the dim light that filters through I can barely trace the features of the person who left us all these years ago. But I can see the same tiredness as on the face of our father. There is bitterness too, the disappointment no doubt that comes from expectations that have not materialized.

He says nothing, his eyes fixed in an obsessive stare at the ceiling. His mouth is half open and a trickle of saliva drips down the side of his chin and on to his chest. Some flies circle around him and the air is filled with the sound of their buzzing as they settle on his face and arms. Occasionally he will move his head or wave a tired hand to scare them away but a moment later, having resumed his stare at some point above him, the flies as if waiting for a signal again return.

There is no need for anyone to tell me about the sickness that is upon him. We have this in our village too. Once that look comes upon a person we know that something has been sealed, that death is only a matter of time. As for the reasons why he has never contacted us for all these years, aren’t they obvious enough? The shame that he would see on the faces of others would be too much to bear. Though ridicule in our community is never openly displayed, he would know that people would gossip about the pride of someone who once looked down on us. They would say, “Look at the sacrifice his family made to push him ahead. And see. In the end he is no better than ourselves.”

But if not to take him home, what then? Why has he written to ask me to come? Even when he opens his eyes and turns towards me, extending a thin hand to place in my own, he offers no words to provide an explanation. It is as if he expects me to know what to do, as if he has given himself over to some decision that I have already brought with me. I think of the journey I have made and the time I have taken. Only to be confronted by this absence, by someone who is not there, who can offer nothing I can take back that would answer our questions. The sickness is too far-gone. In between bouts of sleep his ramblings are incoherent. There is nothing he will say that will allow me to close the circle of his history with an explanation that would finally satisfy us.

I pace around the room, trying to identify some clues as to who he is and what he has been doing for all the years we have not seen him. There are no pictures on the walls, no photograph of a wife, children, family or friends. In a corner of the room there is an old, shabby suitcase. I do not ask for permission to open it. With all the trouble I have gone to, I feel that I have earned the right to intrude into whatever privacy he might have had. There is a pile of clothes, neatly folded. I remember when Jabu was young how he displayed the same neatness in all he did, an attention to order that irked the rest of us. There are some old newspapers, a few books with long titles, and a bible that does not seem to have been frequently enough used to indicate someone with any great devotion.

The table beside the bed has a small drawer and I look inside. There is a picture of Jabu when he was younger, and in an old plastic cover a piece of paper that I now remove. There is Jabu’s photograph on the document, his name below it. His place of birth is listed as the village we come from. I read that he has no dependants, no wife and no children. He has listed his profession as “domestic servant” and the address he has given for place of residence is the one at which he now lives. In the space reserved for the name of a nearest, living relative, the person to be contacted in the event of an emergency, my own name has been placed. Like that of our village it seems strange to see it written here, typed out in bold letters. The stamp beneath it confers a gravity on the document that feels like a weight upon my shoulders, something I would rather not have but can not remove. I cross over to the bed. The absence is still there, his eyes focused on a point above me. I know then that the decision about what happens to Jabu is no longer his but mine, that a document that confirms his identity has given me the responsibility to decide what to do.

But despite the irritation I feel over a duty I would rather not have, I can also sense that somewhere inside me a knot is being loosened, that a point of resentment has begun to recede. It is not only us who have been victims. Jabu too was seduced by false hopes. Faced with failure like his how could he have ever come home, have confessed to us the life he was leading. Perhaps the expectations of family, community and friends can place a burden on a person’s shoulders that is heavier than the support offered during troubled times. When we looked up to Jabu with all our ambitions, hopes and plans for his future, in reality he was not above us but below us, weighed down by what we wanted him to achieve. Perhaps it is not forgiveness we should ask of him, I think to myself, but he of us.

I can not stay much longer. There are the fields to look after and the animals to be fed. The rains we passed closer to the city will have moved on to where our crops are waiting. Such things as the business of survival can not wait for the convenience of other people. Despite the resignation in Jabu’s eyes there is stubbornness too, a hope perhaps that things will change and that time will bring a different end to the story that has already been written. In such circumstances we have to do whatever we can to help the process along, to bring forward a moment that has already been decided. Jabu’s eyes are open when I place the pillow upon him. I know that his struggles, however, are not a protest against my decision but an involuntary response no more significant than that of the animals we have to slaughter when we need to be fed. It is family that has the duty to make such a choice, I say to myself. To assist someone to complete a life that was not well led, who better than a brother to take it away?

FINDING MY OWN DEEP TIME

By Vivien Spreadborough

“It’s only natural to be nervous the first time,” he says with a half smile as he ushers me into the car. I take no notice. I try to slide into the driver’s seat as gracefully as I can but the heel of my shoe catches on an uneven part of the gravel drive and I slump in heavily.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. He walks round to the passenger door and with a fluid effortless movement he is seated. I hate his casual confidence. I hate the way his hand rests upon is knee, every joint of every finger curved and relaxed. His arm glides up to pull the seat belt across his chest.

“I quite impressed myself today,” he is saying, “I usually get lost amongst the maze of streets on this side of town but I came straight here this morning.”

I resist the temptation to query whether being a driving instructor is a good choice of career for someone with such an apparently poor sense of direction. But in any case he is chattering on amiably, showing no discomfort at my lack of response. That’s what the woman at the driving school had said about him.

“He’s very popular is Mr Allsop,” she had said, “he’s very good at putting people at ease. You’ll like him I’m sure,” and she’d smiled.

“I understand you have driven before,” Mr Allsop is saying but his tone has changed slightly. This is the measured professional voice. The voice that says that nonsense about getting lost all the time was just a façade. Simply an attempt to make me feel slightly less awkward and stupid.

“It was a long time ago,” I reply quietly.

“Right, well then, we’ll just start at the beginning, shall we?” The cheery Mr Allsop falters slightly. “When you’re ready.”

He doesn’t like me.

That’s how it is with people now. They smile politely, they say good morning; you would think I was a normal human being. But it doesn’t last long. They look away, they shuffle their feet uncomfortably, and suddenly they don’t know what to do with their heands. They make their excuses and leave while they can. It’s as though they believe they might be contaminated if they hang around for too long.

My husband used to say I was imagining things. He used to say people would be fine if I would only try and relax a little, loosen up a bit. That’s what he used to say. That was before he stopped saying anything at all. I guess life is easier now, the silence is better than the helpful suggestions.

“I know how you feel,” he’d said once, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say it again.

I drive on up the Avenue. The rich September sun is piercing through the sycamores, throwing a bouncing mosaic of light across the road, dancing over the windscreen.

“You need to change up a gear,” Mr Allsop says, and I can tell from his voice that he has had to repeat himself.

“I’m sorry, it’s been such a long time, it’s hard to concentrate.”

“Don’t keep apologising,” I can hear my husband’s voice in my head. Don’t keep apologising.

When the lesson is finished he drops me off at the house. “Same time again next week?” he asks and I nod.

I reach into the front right hand pocket of my handbag to get the front door key. My fingers find the familiar worn leather key fob without difficulty. I reach up to the lock and the door swings open as I turn the key. Inside I hang up my jacket on the hook nearest the door. I hang the key on the small hook next to it. I’m much more methodical than I used to be. I like everything to be ordered and predictable. Everything must have its place.

I put the kettle on and while it’s boiling I water the pot plants. When I come back to the kitchen a cloud of steam is being buffeted against the gold glass of the windowpane. Droplets of water are running down the glass. Straight down, straight down and then left a bit, why do they do that?

I reach for a mug from the mug tree and spoon in coffee granules that bounce off the bottom of the cup. I pour in the boiling water and then a dash of milk. I take the cup through to the lounge and sit on the sofa. It’s a good sofa, supportive but not too firm. I look around as I blow gently over the hot coffee. I know every detail of this room intimately. Every ornament is exactly in its place. Sunshine sparkles off the cut glass vase. The Staffordshire figures gaze down from the mantelpiece, I never really liked them but they were my Grandmother’s and I could never bring myself to get rid of them. Everything is familiar, that’s the important thing. That’s how I like it. I don’t have think about anything when I’m at home. This is my safe place, my timeless cocoon.

“What do you see?” asks Mr Allsop.

“Uh, people,” I reply vaguely. He’s unimpressed.

“The grey Citroen two cars further on, its right brake light isn’t working,” it slows for a traffic light and I take his point.

“The toddler in the red coat,” he continues, “she’s pulling at her Mum’s coat, she wants to cross the road to the newsagents and get some sweets. Snapshots in time like so many ‘what happened next’ competitions. What are the possibilities? Take note of the risks and then move on to the next snapshot. Stay alert, don’t let your mind wander, don’t get involved.”

He likes to talk and his voice flows on like water over shingle.

“Take a left turn at the next junction,” he continues, “change down a gear now so you’ll be ready. Use your mirror; indicate in plenty of time. The art of driving is in the detail. Each movement needs to be measured and precise. To be a good driver your concentration must be absolute.”

“Yes, I can see that, detail is everything isn’t it?” I speak before thinking, forgetting how taken aback Mr Allsop will be to hear something more than a monosyllabic reply. I keep looking straight ahead.

“We’ll turn right at the roundabout. It’s about time we were heading back home.”

“Okay.”

I hear the sound of footsteps on gravel. I feel the sensation of leather against skin. I lift the key to the lock. The door swings open.

“Why don’t you take those sleeping tables the Doctor prescribed?” my husband asked me one day, but I didn’t answer him. That night he came to join me when I was sitting downstairs in the lounge. He made a pot of tea. He gave me the tea and sat down next to me on the sofa. He didn’t say anything. We just sat and drank our tea and eventually he stroked my hair before he went back to bed.

Sometimes I watch the television if I can’t sleep. Scandinavian films with subtitles, you know the sort of thing. One night I watched a documentary about astronomy. It’s not something I would have watched normally but it was quite interesting. The presented kept talking about deep time and I couldn’t work out what he meant at first. Then as he went on I began to understand that deep time was the time beyond that which can be usefully or accurately measured. Before the dawn of the universe was a time when the whole concept of time itself was meaningless. Time can be measured only when things change. We chart the course of stars falling, of planets revolving. And with the passing of time comes the acceptance that nothing remains the same. Mountains rise up and then crumble, the rivers chance their courses and whole planets collide and die. We live in a time that must accept the fact that the most glorious beauty will fade. Amidst the essence of life is the inevitability of decay. “You only dance on this earth for a short time,” wasn’t that a line in a song? The dancing feet slow until they dance no more. How many harvest moons in a lifetime, how many walks through glades of bluebells? Count them if you can bear to.

Far back beyond the trivial triumphs that we lay claim to was deep time. There was a time when nothing changed, a time without history. A place with no concept of decay and no use for invention. There was a time when beauty was no subjected to the humiliation of decay. I like that idea. What use is pleasure that turns to pain? What use is an achievement that turns and snaps at you like an old disgruntled dog?

“Why are you taking driving lessons?” asks Mr Allsop. He takes me by surprise. Why does he care?

“Why do you ask?” I reply. “Why does anyone learn to drive?”

“People usually have a reason, that’s all. They want to prove they’re grown up, they need to get a job; that sort of thing. You don’t seem to fit in to any of the usual categories.” He pauses before he continues, “If something happened that made you lose your confidence it might be helpful if you told me about it.”

I change lanes and concentrate on the roundabout ahead.

Echoes of my husband’s voice pound in my head; an angry silent cacophony repeats itself. I’d never heard him so angry. “For God’s sake, woman, why the fuck are you taking driving lessons? You don’t need to start driving again. What are your trying to prove?” He’d just gone on and on and of course he was right. It was senseless.

Why am I driving again? Sometimes I think I might find an answer, even if it isn’t an answer I can put into words. The truth is I don’t really know. It’s all part of the madness I guess. That’s the trouble with madness, you don’t really know what’s happening. You lose track of what is reasonable; you forget the social norms that other people take for granted. Mine isn’t even the acceptable face of madness. Mine is not the shuffling, muttering voice fro the gutter, the sort of experience that is a million miles away from most people’s expectations. That’s not a real threat, it won’t happen to you. The trouble with me is that my madness is hidden beneath a veneer of normality. I don’t wear stupid hats or hoover the lawn. I haven’t shaved my hair off and I don’t write verbose incomprehensible letters to the Prime Minister. My madness is altogether more disturbing, much closer to home. I pay my bills on time. I buy my knickers from Marks and Spencer. I’m just like you really.

I hear the sound of footsteps on gravel. I feel the sensation of leather against skin. I lift the key to the lock. The door swings open. Repetition, routine, actions without reactions, that’s the key, I’m sure of it. The details are so important. Absorbing the minutiae. Each particular details I can deal with, as long as they are detached and bear no relationship to each other. I can survive then, I might be able to drive. I might even be able to find my own deep time.

“I understand you’ve started driving again. You’re taking lessons/” It’s the doctor speaking. She looks across the swathe of papers on her cluttered desk. “Your husband rang me,” she says by way of explanation although the question had not been asked. I find people tell me all sorts of things now that I’ve stopped asking questions.

“How’s it going?” She peers expectantly through wispy hair. What does she think I will say?

“I mean the driving lessons, that must be quite a challenge,” the doctor continues. She begins manoeuvring her pen through her fingers. She doesn’t usually do that until later in the session.

“Are you still having the dreams?” The pen rolls over her middle finger and her ring finger controls it.

“I think it would help if you could talk about it.” Her little finger cradles the pen and brings it safely into the palm of her hand. “I appreciate how difficult it was for you at first but the accident was quite some time ago now. You need to think about taking the next step.” The pen starts another rotation, the thumb supporting it under the forefinger.

She often asks about the dreams, I suppose that’s a psychiatrist sort of thing, isn’t it? What could I tell her about my dreams? After hours of wakefulness and a fitful doze the dram comes to me. Always the same dream but sometimes it starts in a different place. It’s a dream about normal things and abnormal things. It’s a dream about easy carelessness, the trivialities of a morning that are usually forgotten without ever really being remembered. It’s a dream about events that changed my life.

I’m on my way to work. Loud, poppy music is playing on the car stereo, my fingers tapping instinctively on the steering wheel. I see the boys, see them and yet don’t see them if you know what I mean. They’re jostling each other, laughing and pushing each other around. Their unbuttoned coats are hanging off their shoulders. It seems pointless to wear them at all. They drag their bags along behind them and then swing them up and thwack them against the boy in front. Without giving them a moments thought I lean forward and try to chance the tape in the cassette player. It gets jammed and I try to free it. Yards of soft brown tape in a heap on my lap. Shit. I throw the useless tape onto the passenger seat.

There it is. Impact. Disbelief followed by belief. Impact. The force of it hits me as powerfully as if the metal had ground against my own bones. Metal against teeth, metal against bone. I am frozen to my seat, I feel the pressure of the seat pushing into me, my hands still grasped around the steering wheel, the engine still purrs. Impact. A roller coaster scream breaks the silence, rocks my eardrums.

There it is, blood on the road. Whose blood is it? Someone who was loved. The blood seeps out slowly. What does the shape remind you of, the psychiatrist would ask. A new beginning, I would say. That night I dreamed my dream for the first time. In a deep drug-induced place where no one should go the dream first came to me.

“Perhaps we should leave it for this week.” The pen rolls over her middle finger.

“Okay.”

I hear the sound of footsteps on gravel. I feel the sensation of leather against skin. I lift the key to the lock. The door swings open.

INTERIM

By BETTY WEINER

‘Grace? Come to the door, will you? Grace?’

What’s she want the stupid fat cow – norrup yet – I’m norrup yet nor’s the bairn – she’s gonna wake him I’ll hill `er –

‘Grace - ?’

-nose in the letter box – piss off I’m not gerring up so get back in yer car – find someone to shag – I’ll tell Tina – give her a laugh ‘who’d shag a social worker?’ ha ha – oh Geordie-man stop yer whinging I’ve been woke up an’all –

‘Shurrup Geordie man yer bottle’s not done – there’s no milk so shove over will yer – oh you stink Geordie – well just stay in it then.’

‘Tina! Hey, Tina! Didn’t know you was coming out.’

‘Been to the Store for me mam.’

‘Come back with me and the shit machine -’

‘He’s trying to get out, Sit down, Geordie-man! Watch out, Grace, look – he’s trying to get out -’

‘- SIT DOWN yeer little shitter or I’ll belt yer. Come back with us to the Store, Tina. They should give us extra for nappies.’

‘Yeah – and for the curse. They should give us extra for that an’all.’

‘At the Nash, like?’

‘Sit down, Geordie-man. Oh yeah, wait two hours and then say “Can I have a coupon for tampons?”’

‘What’d the lads ask for?’

‘They don’t use tampons do they – put them up their arses – see what it’s like!’

‘Yeah, won’t fit on their dicks!’

‘Watch out, Grace!’

‘Shouldn’t have a pram as big as that! Fancy bitch.’

‘She’s turning round -’

‘I’ll give her a nose-bleed if she looks again. SIT DOWN GEORDIE.’

‘He’s gonna fall out, Grace.’

‘Serve him right it would, he should sit still.’

‘You should use them straps, Grace.’

‘Shurrup will yer, Geordie.’

‘I’ll fasten him in for you if you keep him still.’

‘Shurrup man or I’ll show you me hand.’

‘WATCH OUT GRACE!’

‘Fucking driver, see that? Wasn’t even looking – see that, Tina?’

‘He nearly fell out of his buggy then.’

‘That was your fault Geordie. There – now you got something to cry about. Sit still or I’ll kill yer Geordie – I will I’ll kill yer -’

‘See that, Grace?’

‘What?’

‘In the window. Baby Fayre. Denim jacket – just suit your Geordie. “Eighteen months.”’

‘Fourteen he is, fourteen months. Big boy aren’t yer Geordie! C’mon – let’s have a look. Shurrup man – here put this in yer gob and dhurrup.’

‘Will you have him tonight, Mam, will you?’

I’m going out with Luke.’

the old fart – Spooky Luke – always creepin’ up behind yer –

‘I only gerra night off same as Luke once in a blue moon and don’t you take Geordie to the pub or you’ll have the social worker after you. She’s been here looking for you -’

‘What for?’

‘Says she’s worried about Geordie and she’s spoken to Frank to see if he can help with the bairn -’

‘I’ll kill her. None of his fucking business!’

‘He’s Geordie’s dad, isn’t he.’

What’s she talking to Frank for – Geordie’s my bairn nothing to do with Frank – not Frank’s business – I’ll giver summat to worry about next time she comes nosing at my door –

‘They’ll take him off you, Grace, they can, you know.’

‘I’ll kill them if they come near my Geordie. What’s the Fat Cow talking to Frank for?’

‘Said she told you she was gonna talk to Frank. I told her – I’ve still got four at home and I work nights. I can’t do any more for our Grace, she’s better off than I was at her age anyway, I said -’

And you just never stop yer whinging do yer mam – and that wife’s a cheeky bugger – talking to everybody about us – he’s my bairn –

‘Yer my bairn, aren’t yer Geordie? Give us a kiss then, give yer mam a kiss, a proper one, eh, Geordie-man? Put your arms around us. See that? Put his arms around us. See that, mam? Did yer? Like his jacket, mam?’

‘How much?’

‘Four pound seventy – I’ll gerrit back off Frank. It’s his bairn as well.’

‘I saw Frank with Deirdre. She’s got red hair this week.’

‘Bitch.’

I’ll scratch her eyes out if she’s at the Blaydon tonight – she’ll be there with Frank – they’d better not come near me and Tina – I’ll tear her red hair out for her see what that does for Frank.

‘Me and Tina are going to the Blaydon tonight -’

‘You can’t leave him -’

‘You left me -’

‘Not when you were a baby -’

‘You did.’

‘You weren’t a baby an’ I left you with your brother -’

‘Him and his friends – perverts.’

‘He was gone thirteen -’

‘ – perverts they were, even then.’

‘Ask Susan when she gets in. Ask Susan to mind Geordie for you.’

Susan that snobby bitch – comes in from work says she’s been on her feet all day selling bread and stotties and she’s got to mind mam’s kids and she’s not minding mine as well for nowt and I can leave Geordie at mam’s for three quid – greedy bitch – younger than me thinks she’s a fucking queen.

What’s the Fat Cow doing at the Nursery? She puts her nose in everywhere – haven’t seen her here before – I’ve told Tina about the office window – Mrs Oliver can see all the buggies from her window there – I told Tina that’s good Tina said keep an eye on them – her mum’s buggy got nicked at school – what? What? –

‘Come in the office - ? Alright – I’m coming.’

‘Sit down, Grace. We’ve been talking about Geordie -’

- talking about Geordie them two? – Mrs Oliver and the Social – they’ve no right to talk to my bairn – what? – last night an’ this morning – what’re they on about now? = what they starin’ at – want to talk about – what? I wish I hadn’t come to get Geordie I could have asked Tina to fetch him they know her she’s been before with me – he could’ve come back with Tina – she knows his buggy –

‘What? What bruise? I haven’t got one.’

- I’ve had some oh yeah but not now – no one knocks me about now I’d bloody kill them -

‘Not you, Grace. We’re not talking about you. It’s Geordie – about the bruise on his forehead -’

‘Could you tell us how he got that. Could you, Grace? It’s a big bruise, isn’t it?’

What’s she on about – kids get bruises all the time – stupid cow doesn’t know anything –

‘Sit down and think about it. I’m sure you’ll remember.’

‘He fell off the settee – no that wasn’t today – today, yeah, he fell off a chair in the kitchen. Before he came here.’

‘He fell off a chair in the kitchen?’

She deaf or what – didn’t I just say – what they waiting for now?

‘I just told yer – came off a chair. His own fault – I told him to sit still I told him he’d fall off the chair – he didn’t hurt himself anyway, he’s alright, he was alright when I brought him here this morning anyway. Somebody’s dropped him on his head here, haven’t they? I want to see him – I’ll gerrim now, I’m going home -’

‘Where were you, Grace? When he was on the kitchen chair?’

I had to get the little bastard his breakfast, didn’t I –

‘I’m not bringing him here without his breakfast am I? He always has his breakfast – I had to get the bread, it as on the settee from last night – I wasn’t long, I told him to keep still an’ he fell on the floor, screamed his head off in the kitchen – serve him right – kids always fall, he’ll do what he’s told next time. It’ll learn him.’

‘You haven’t got a high chair?’

‘He has his breakfast on the settee with me -’

‘- but you didn’t feed him on the settee this morning?’

‘I’m not having him on the settee when he’s all shitty and snotty!’

‘Something else happened last night, Grace.’

What’re they on about now? I wanna get Geordie and go home – get the buggy – I’ve had enough of this lot.

‘Hang on, Grace. Last night, on your way home?’

None of your business what I did last night, nothing to do with the Social.

‘I had a baby sitter. Susan minded him at me mam’s.’

‘Something happened afterwards – on your way home with Geordie. Frank’s been in, Grace.’

‘Where? Where’s Frank been – I’ll kill him – none of his business, me and Geordie – him and that fucking Deirdre, I saw them last night – Geordie’s my bairn. Frank’s chucked me for that bitch so they can both mind their own business -’

‘Grace, stop screaming,’

‘I’ll kill him I will – what was he doing here? What’d he come here for -’

‘Calm down, Grace. He told us something happened last night – on your way home from your mum’s house. He said you go angry - ?’

‘I’ll kill the bastard coming here talking about me -’

‘What happened? Grace, listen to me, stop shouting – what happened?’

‘He sees me and Geordie going home and he comes up and says, ‘Give him to me, I’ll carry him for you.’ ‘No you won’t, bugger off,’ I tell him – him and that Deirdre, that cow he’s got with him now, so he shoves us against the wall and tries to take Geordie off us -’

‘You were carrying Geordie home from your mother’s? Didn’t you have your buggy?’

Wouldn’t be carrying him if I’d got the buggy would I.

‘I carried him to mam’s.’

‘Frank said he tried to carry Geordie for you. He wanted to help.’

‘He’s my bairn I’ll carry him.’

‘Why didn’t you take the buggy to your mam’s?’

He wasn’t in the buggy because I carried him to mam’s – there’s a settee there for him to sleep on – he wasn’t in the buggy because I don’t leave the buggy there for mam’s brats to play in and smash up while I’m out.

‘I don’t leave the buggy at mam’s.’

‘Frank said Geordie finished up on the ground and you were drunk.’

‘He should talk – him and that red-haired bitch -’

‘He said you dropped Geordie.’

‘He tried to take Geordie off us, I just told yer. He said ‘You’ve had to many, Grace, you’re gonna drop him, you’re drunk, you are.’ I said, ‘Not as fucking drunk as you are.’ Then he tried to pull Geordie off us -’

‘He said he watched you come down the street – you could hardly stand up. He though you were going to drop Geordie. He wanted to help and you pushed him away and then you lost your rag -’

‘I’ll kill him -’

‘And then you threw Geordie across the street – threw Geordie at him. Frank caught him just before his head hit the road.’

‘Lying bastard – I’ll kill him. I’m going now, going to get Geordie an’ go home – let me get past, will yer – I want to get Geordie, I want to go home, I’m getting my bairn now – where is he?’

What’re they saying now, the fat cow and Mrs Oliver – not let him go home? – he’s going home, he’s my bairn – ‘he needs to be safe’ – yeah and I’m taking him home – what’s that? –

‘What?’

‘You need help for a bit, Grace. We’re getting some help for you – for you and Geordie – it’ll be alright, you’ll still see him -’

‘You can’t have my Geordie – you can’t, he’s coming with me, we’re going home, gerraway from us – oh!’

Oh Jesus-man there’s a fucking Pig here as well.

I’ll see Geordie this afternoon I can seem him afternoons at Janet Monroe’s she’s alright I like here but he’s my bairn – I’ll gerrim back – they’ve no right he’s mine. Janet says play with him – what’s that for? I’m his MAM aren’t I? - her kid comes in after school an’ plays with Geordie – makes him laugh – gives me a cuppa tea – it’s a nice house I’ve told Tina she’s coming with us on Friday Jaent says it’s OK. Mam won’t come to the Court with us says she’s had a bleeding lifetime of Courts – whinger she is. Tina might come with us – I’ll ask her she’s 17 same as me only I’m nearly 18. I miss Geordie – it’s fucking lonely without Geordie.

I don’t know what they’re talking about – what the cow’s saying – it’s all lies anyway an’ they wouldn’t let Tina in only the social worker – she keeps going on about helping us – what? Taking Geordie off us -?

‘All stand.’

- help us to gerrim back? – he’s mine –

‘We’ll talk about it in here, shall we, Grace?’

‘She can’t have him! He’s mine! Geordie’s my bairn -’

‘It’s a Court Order now, Grace. An Interim Order – that means for the time being. He’ll go back to Janet’s -’

‘He fucking won’t – he’s coming home to mine – I want him back – you can’t have my Geordie – I’ll kill yer – I’ll kill er, cow – I will, yer – gerroff Pig – leave go of me -’

‘You could charge her with assault, you know, Mrs Brown.’

‘It’s OK. I’m alright, really. Thanks. Come on Grace, come with me. Here’s a tissue.’

‘I want that Mrs Brown. What? Grace – just tell her Grace – she knows. What? I’m not waiting – tell here I’m gonna kill myself -’

‘I’m here Grace. I’ll be right over – you at home?’

‘I’m going to the Fish Quay – fucking drown myself -’

‘Grace – listen. Wait for me. I’m coming right over. Put the phone down and wait. I’ll be at yours in five minutes – d’you hear me, Grace? I’m coming now – I want to see you. I’ll be right over.’

I wish Tina’d stayed with us – sod her mam. Sod the doctor and his pills – sod the lot of `em – oh Geordie man, my Geordie - -