Home

Competition

Entry Form

Membership Form / Contact

Winning Stories 2009

Previous Winners

Clio Gray - Founder

Birdsong 
by Morag Edward

On Sunday afternoons the fashionable couples stroll along the dappled pathways,
shaded by the archways of leafy elm trees. Each couple wheels a small gilded
cage alongside, or behind them, and in each cage kneels a small bald child.
Singing emanates from these caged pets, the fragile top notes of the little castrati
warbling the last remembered arias of the old lost operas. Tourists sit on the
park benches and enjoy the music as it drifts past them, fades and is replaced by
the sounds from the next cage wheeling along.

There aren’t as many boybirds in the city as there used to be. Only the tiniest
weakest child can become a boybird, so they are usually bought as babies from
itinerant mothers who have nicely pre-shrunk them with a diet of foetal alcohol.
These featherweight creatures are then selected by voice and rewarded with
castration. Sold on, the most gifted given the full training in isolation until truly
part of the song and the cage. It takes years to shape the spindly arms into the
most desirable curves, bent and wrapped until they grow to resemble wings,
and all the time the wasted legs tightly bound in a crouch so that they will never
straighten.
It is an art form and an investment, so despite their lowly origins, these
songbirds are extremely expensive possessions. The best families keep a
boybird in their town house, accessorised in the most fashionable manner, or
just dyed to match the decor. The boys can be shaved, painted, pierced and
tattooed, but some seasons simplicity is de rigour, and the smooth young skin is
best kept clean and naked. Colours vary. Last year black skin was in but this
year looks to be good for the red-heads on the market.

One blue-painted boybird sits in his antique prison, sun glinting off the brightly
polished ornate bars. He shifts a little in the warmth, takes a pursed sip from the
wine bowl, and begins to sing a tremulous crescendo of high notes. A swift
rattle along the gilded bars with the man’s walking cane subdues him to a softer
more melancholy warble. His owners lie back on the grass to relax in the
afternoon light, only half-listening to the beautiful music that fills the park at this
time of day.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” complains the woman with a heartfelt sigh,
“it doesn’t sound right anymore.”

“We’ve done our best, given it a good home and loved it as though it was a real
child. There’s no more that we can do. Perhaps we should try for another one,
darling?” suggests her husband. He strokes her hair comfortingly.

  The small boybirds are kept in the finest cages of woven gold and antique
bronze, warbling their refrains, with no awareness that they could have been,
might have been anything else anywhere else. They haven’t been taught the
words that they would need to think such un-bird-like thoughts. They are fed
the sweetest wines and tastiest morsels, their bones soft and their song softer.
  
The owners love these little boybirds, and it is always a sad day when the
household has to get rid of one early. There are many reasons why a bird might
no longer be able to kneel in its little cage and sing happily. Some grow too fast,
despite the wine and tightest binding, while others wane and for unknowable
reasons just won’t or can’t sing. In the end they all have to go. Castrati boybirds
grow so tall that only the church has cages for them, and they live the rest of their
bird-like lives in the distant stone vaults, praising something.

Wild birds perch on tree branches above the caged blue-painted boybird,
attracted by the old songs, many of which mimic their own calls. The wild birds
answer the blue boybird, and he joins their chorus with an aching surge of what he
doesn’t even know is loneliness. The other sparrows flock around the blue
boybird’s cage and they chorus together in the sunshine. The owners notice the
noise and wave their stick at the common little birds. The sparrows take flight; in a
blur of browns they rise above the cage and leave, soaring together free above the
trees. The blue boybird kneels in his cage and watches them fly away.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>

Archangel and the Maja

by Miranda Lewis 

It wasn’t hard to get her there. The roads were empty and dusk had settled early that night, the sun at its winter low. Here and there, rising from the flatness of the plain, windmills bit into the sky. They travelled slowly; the usual steady speed.
Enrique had set out third in line, tucked at the centre of the convoy with his precious cargo, though each time they made a stop he contrived to drop back a place. He did not know then why he did this. He was not planning the abduction. He could not have done, he did not know which route they’d take. What he did just came with instinct as, all the while, her black eyes flashed against snow-laden clouds and heady scents of thyme and pinks and olives swirled within his head.
They were under orders not to stop unnecessarily, not to go too fast, too slow, with no acceleration, no sudden deceleration, they were not to shake their passengers but wind around the potholes and the bumps, not do anything that might attract attention. As if six military lorries, demobbed and painted brown in an attempt to look civilian, each bearing wooden crates which stuck up high as sails, were anything other than an everyday occurrence on the rough tracks and byways of the Meseta. It was best to keep convoys small, they knew they were sitting ducks, and for this reason each truck carried a mixed load. Enrique, Archangel to his fellow drivers, had worked the runs for three months now. Forty round trips – always wary, ever on the look-out, twenty legs fully laden, twenty empty – and he was weary to the core. That grey winter dawn, inching from the scarred, scared streets behind the depot of San Francisco el Grande, his heart sat heavy. All he had to do was steer the rib lines of his country, but he knew, on this occasion, he should have asked for leave to miss the trip.
Enrique was responsible for Vehicle 3, Unit D. Although he’d lived most of his adult life in a hollow of the eastern region, the roads through which they’d passed had not, until this Thursday, seemed familiar. Convoys did not take obvious routes and each group had its own instructions. For Unit D, El Jefe and Pedro El Capitan in Vehicles 1 and 6 knew when, how, and where they were to travel, and Vehicles 2 to 5 followed between. It was three hundred kilometres, top speed fifteen kilometres an hour, before the steep descent towards the gothic fortress. Of course the Junta varied routes, depending on intelligence. No one carried papers any more and drivers memorised passwords in case they met their own forces, and for use at road blocks (though not all the troops who manned these knew the codes, and Enrique and his colleagues were not supposed to reveal their cargo unless they had to, for fear of dampening morale). They carried nothing to identify themselves with one side or the other. If they met nationalists they were to insist upon their own neutrality, claim their work was for the high art of humanity.
‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ El Jefe scoffed, ‘but worth a try.’ As Enrique, he was under no illusion about the risks. Shoot first, question later – that’s what happened. ‘We should carry guns.’
‘But we’re not soldiers.’ Enrique did not join in often with the drivers’ chat but he spoke up then. ‘We’re more like guardian angels.’
‘Thus spake!’ El Jefe had laughed so much tears skimmed along the creases in his cheeks and it was a while before he could continue. ‘Archangel, be sure to watch over us.’ And that was how Enrique got as his nickname. Ironic, he reflected now, given how this trip turned out.
The whole thing was coincidence. If she had been packed, if he had not passed by, nothing would have happened. But Enrique Parez had chanced to hobble to the Junta’s office just as she’d been set down in the corridor, naked, delicate and so unbearably at risk, he knew he had to offer his protection. For several hours he had lingered in the crypt, when he should have been catching up on sleep, to watch as she was safely wrapped and slipped into his truck. Then he hurried to his quarters, removed the box he kept beneath his bed and, with due solemnity, withdrew the pistol and rolled it in his blanket. No one checked. Archangel was a trusted man. His legs bore witness to this fact.
Margarita made him take the pistol. It had been her brother’s and her father’s. Of course he should have left it with her and often cursed himself that he had not. When he was flung from the viaduct and more bones in his body shattered than he knew had existed, the pistol had not helped him; when he returned to consciousness and dragged his useless legs away from crumpled corpses, he hauled it with him in his pocket. Was its moment yet to come he wondered as the drivers of Unit D congregated round their trucks.
‘What’s the worst a man can do?’ His words then came sharp and unexpected; he leaned into El Capitan as he spoke.
Pedro started, caught off guard. He coughed as if he hadn’t heard and did not make to answer. ‘All set, Archangel?’ Enrique nodded and tucked the blanket with the pistol in behind his seat.
Enrique Parez walked with sticks. His body had healed only partially; neither of his legs had mended straight, nor his left arm. He was deaf in one ear. He could have managed now without the crutches, but liked to keep them close for reassurance, as well as proof of why he had not gone back to the front. He had no taste for killing, he’d explained this to the officer, yet had requested to go back nonetheless. ‘It’s not the worst a man can do.’ This was his explanation. His plea, however, was disregarded and inexplicably, despite the need for troops, Enrique found himself transferred to the Junta del Tesoro Artístico.
It proved a tussle to get La Maja in, and all the while he pondered how he could have found the strength to pull himself from the ravine. Coaxing, prising her from the truck onto the trolley, was harder than he had anticipated; he was not as strong as he had been once and, though glad of the chain and the ropes, he went through several tricky moments, the worst being the dog-legged passage. She did not want to come. Eventually, he left the crate and dragged her to the daybed. He was as gentle as he could be, waiting patiently, feeling for the moment, before undressing her.
It was her eyes that caught him. The liquidity of them, the depths, their blackness; not many have true jet eyes. Hers gleamed in contrast with her moon-pale skin. Her complexion had always been like that, his Margarita’s. It was what he’d glimpsed as they passed first in the crowded alley. Market day. She did not notice him, a traveller with his knapsack and his mandolin, moving south on his way home. It was a Thursday. An auspicious day for Enrique, the day of the week on which he was born; the day things always happened to him. Back then, young and dream-inspired, he wrote pamphlets, manifestos; he was a painter. His head was full of Paris. He was going to change the world; he would take all he’d learned from El Maestro Pablo and move it in a new direction. But then Margarita brushed by in the street, and put into perspective everything he’d ever seen – this girl was more alive than Demoiselles, closer to perfection than Murillo’s virgins in his own Seville. Art was cold, art was dead beside this woman; she was someone he had only ever thought could walk in dreams. That morning she slid by, her forearm briefly skimming his, he pulled up sharp, turned and stared, he couldn’t help himself. She passed so close he could have reached to catch her there. But he did not. Instead, he watched her slide towards the square, weaving in and out of market folk, from shadow to light, and tried to hold her in his sight – a scene he’d recreated in his paintings many times since then.
He found her at the stall, framed by grapes and oranges, herbs, fresh-cut pinks, roses, and red and white carnations. Perched against the fountain trough, he brought out sketchbooks and began to draw. She smiled often, but dipped her head to avert her eyes. All that Thursday Enrique drew as the sun wheeled overhead and slipped behind the gables and the town’s thick medieval walls. He worked to catch the smile, her eyes, thick swirling curls of hair that fell around her face, within the heady scent of orange blossom and slips of water trickling in the fountain. It took him until their shadows stretched to sticks and traders packed their wares to pluck up courage and approach. Then he was lost. Drawn into the pools that were her eyes. He seized a bunch of rosemary and held it out. His change fell among green olives. She did not look away.
As, now, La Maja does not look away. All the while he unwraps her beside the couch where their Marita started life, peeling layer after layer, she holds his gaze. He’d like to talk, whisper thoughts, as they used to. Why ever did he imagine they would be safe up north?
‘What’s the worst?’ he mutters in the half-light, gazing on La Maja’s wide, clear brow. The air he speaks into hangs undisturbed and stale.
It had been easy. By twilight, Vehicle 3 was at the tail end of Convoy D, and El Jefe and Pedro El Capitan had not appeared to notice. The drivers were tired and edgy. Rumours had been whirling thick and fast at every checkpoint: Nationalists headed east; bombardments from the air expected. Perhaps Enrique had always known it could only ever end back here, long before he experienced the sudden jolt of recognition and understood exactly where he was. Once they’d crossed the river, each fork, each bend, each tree brought stirrings. He began to anticipate landmarks – rocks and copses, windmills – although he stuck still with the convoy, trailing the truck ahead.
He had not meant to do this wrong, but little by little, as if something were amiss, Enrique the Archangel fell back further until, for several moments, he lost sight of the truck in front. When he hustled to catch up, not quite believing what was forming in his head, he told himself repeatedly he was not going to act, that it would be grievous wrong, but at the last moment possible he relaxed his foot from the accelerator, dropped back one final time and swung the lorry to the right as the track forked into the valley where he had spent his married life.
The village was in ruins. Enrique had expected this. Troops had passed through, though it was not clear which – there were no obvious clues, no flags or graffiti propaganda, no unburied bodies, no abandoned uniform. The truck ground between charred and deserted houses, past the shattered fountain, down the hill until, as he steered into the hairpin bend which wound back to their hollow, he couldn’t help but cry out loud. Had he not known otherwise, he could believe they were still there, that she would rush, Marita in her arms, to hold him. For the house stood exactly as they had left it, shutters neatly closed as if it were asleep. Enrique curled the lorry in as close as he was able before lowering himself from the cab and limping to the well.
‘See!’ he called in what he hoped was a soothing voice. Snow was falling now and seemed to muffle up his words. ‘We’re home.’
Enrique pushed aside the wooden lid, stopped his breath against the stench that rose up from the depths, slipped a hand inside and let his fingers skim chill, damp stone until, tucked into the crevice on the inside of the well, he found their key.
It was dark in the kitchen. He struck a match. Cold ashes in the hearth, three plates set upon the table, the leaves that had blown in when they were leaving, dried now to skeletal spectres, whispered at him underfoot. He hobbled down the passage, fingers tracing whitewashed walls. The lamp was in its cubby-hole, trimmed as usual, and once lit its glow trickled through the gloom, settled shadows into pools, and Enrique’s fingers fluttered round as if they had acquired wings, touching brushes, frames, his canvases, a palette with dried-out paint. No one had been here. Nothing was disturbed. Everything seemed possible.
Yet La Maja stares at him. She gives no concession. She is not going to make this easy. He lifts the lamp and peers, runs his fingers, just as he would with Margarita, down the dark line on her stomach. Marita would be five years and twenty-nine days old he calculates. ‘What’s the worst?’ Enrique leans hard on his sticks. Silence bristles.
‘Say something!’ he cries out. ‘I thought you would be safer.’
La Maja glares, eyes the colour of jet stones in fresh water, darker even than the oiled-gloss of her hair. Her lips stay supercilious, giving nothing, they are not about to speak. These lips are an impostor’s, cold and dead. Enrique punches the canvas. His sticks slip to the floor. The blanket and his pistol fall. Bullets spill. Art is cold. Art is dead.
‘Speak, for God’s sake!’ And Enrique stretches tall. Lips may be changed, he’s a painter after all, he could bring these lips to life, he could make them speak. He did for Margarita. Crutchless, he snatches pigment – flesh tones: burnt sienna, ochre, cadmium, titanium white – oil, brushes, begins to grind and mix.
‘Is the worst to leave your wife, your baby, for the front?’ he screams to the empty house, and, palette as a shield before him, dips a brush into the live-flesh tone and stumbles forward to bring it to her lips.

                            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>

Caroline Anne
by John Jennett

It is coming on a fortnight since the birth, but still your son has no name. It was a breezy spring day when you collected mother and baby from the town hospital, but you eased the old Renault around the country bends as if the January snow had never lifted. When you pressed the brake to keep the car halted by the home-farm gate you thought you felt a tingle of excitement spreading up from the pedal. The wee boy stirred in the back and you caught sight of smoke flying flat from both chimneys of the farmhouse, like streamers in the wind. The car idled and you watched a wagtail draw a worm from the fallow hayfield, the diesel clattering away like an old taxi. Then you realised that your wife had not shifted from her seat and you were going to have to open and close the gate yourself.

This morning you rose as usual while the house was still. You waited outside the baby’s open door while a rain-shower rattled through, wanting to be certain you could hear the shallow thimbles of your son’s breathing. Heading for the fields you saw the early sky was pale as a blue hen’s egg, the cauliflower heads of the horizon clouds spotlighted in the west. You heard woodpeckers drilling that dead ash in the thicket and thought you might get the kale sprayed today.
Now you are back at the farmhouse for breakfast, kicking off your boots in the storm porch and the four collies are settling outside to wait for you like ships at anchor. The big kitchen is sweet with bacon and steam, the baby restless in your wife’s arms. You think she holds him like a bag she’s been asked to watch by a stranger. Your mother-in-law, Mary, is here for another month at least.
 ‘Will you take him Mum?’ your wife says.
The boy’s blank eyes pass over yours as he’s lifted, his neck as weak as the bent daffodils, kinked when that big south-easterly blew through. The last day for registering your son’s birth is tomorrow and you bang your pockets as you hunt for the words to bring up the subject of the deadline. You notice the hospital tag still hooped on the rhubarb stick of his ankle, “Baby Armstrong” scrawled in blue ballpoint. Mary is watching you.
 ‘Do Mummy and Daddy stillnot know what to call you sweetheart?’ she says it soothingly as if her grandson is hurt. She inspects Baby Armstrong until his lip starts to curl then tucks him onto her shoulder, her hands confident and strong, shuffling frying pans on the range as she holds him.
            ‘You’ll take cooked Colin,’ she says.
            ‘Toast will do.’
            ‘I’ve two eggs on for you, any sign of a lamb?’
            A window shudders and a cold gust threads the kitchen. You want to turn and see what your wife is doing but then you hear her on the stairs.
            ‘Colin?’
            ‘There’s ewes getting restless at the dyke in the top field,’ you tell Mary, rinsing out your flask. ‘I’d say there’ll be a lamb today.’
At the table you pull out the chair that gives a view over to Loudon Hill, the peak of your farm that’s crowned with a giant television mast. You’ve never missed any deadlines but you know that John Rutherford had his farm-subsidy cut when he put-in late for it. If the baby is not named there could be another woman to be dealt with, sent from town in a shiny Ford and low-cut shoes.
           
‘That’s us,’ Mary says, giving the baby an extra pat on the back then chasing spitting eggs onto a plate one-handed, ‘Daddy’s breakfast.’

Your wife is still upstairs when you pull on your boots again, the dogs stretching in anticipation. They slink behind as you gain the top field, passing the place where you normally tell them “come by”, brown eyes and blue flitting between you and the scattered sheep. Could your wife be disappointed in the boy, his thick hair already untidy, the nose that everyone says is yours?
            ‘Ca’way’t’me,’you shout and the collies bolt left. You are sending them to lift two hogs that have got through that fence you must patch. You were right about the ewes, keeping your distance from a blackface gimmer who’s slumped by the dyke, watching her strain before the new lamb slithers out of her. The wee tup is in fine fettle and tries to suck your finger as you spray a red number 1 on its flank.

You decide to wait until you are sitting at the table for dinner: a sludge of grey mince and tatties. You slurp ketchup onto your plate but no reprimand comes when the bottle backfires. The evening news is running on the small television   bracketed high on the wall, your wife and Mary watching it between mouthfuls. The forecaster mentions hail, Mary says she worries for the lambs, you think about number 1 and the spaghetti drip of its drying umbilical.
A sports quiz starts and the women look into their food. Your wife’s parting appears flat, as if the two sides are escaping each other, revealing too much of the chicken-skin of her scalp. You remember the young-farmers’ harvest dances. The way she’d lifted her chin, curled a pale hand to her cheek when you said her hair stood deep like the barley. You heard the rustle of crops when you finally touched it, as light as hay, your other hand stretched over the small of her back, the dress too thin to mask her sweat.
You let your fork strike the plate, there is laughter from the quiz and the last gulp of mince clips the words you have wanted to say all day,
             ‘We must name the boy tomorrow.’
Your wife looks up at the quiz as if you haven’t spoken. Mary’s eyes are suddenly lively and you are thinking she might help you, but she scrapes back her chair and says she’s going up to check the baby.
You watch your wife while the stairs creak, you say her name and eventually she pulls herself away from the screen and stares as if she is trying to recognise you. You wonder when you will see the quickness in her eyes again, as keen as the swallows darting through the steading. The eyes that once teased you into the threshing barn when you were supposed to be fetching dosing-records for the Department inspectors who’d called in. Eyes that held yours as she tugged you into the mountain of crushed oats by the bruiser, the men outside starting to call out before you were finished.
            ‘You do it,’ she says now, her knuckles pale around her knife.
            ‘What.’
            ‘I said you do it.’
            ‘Do what?’
‘Go and get him named.’
            You run your hand over your neck and your cheeks as if you are lathering away midges.
‘I can’t just go. We need to pick a name.’
            ‘You managed last time,’ she says.
            You look out the window. The red lights of the television mast on Loudon Hill are on now and a whorl of starlings darkens the sky. You can see the alders above the top field, already busy with rooks, their nests lodged in the bare branches like spiky footballs. You must soon take up the gun. Your wife is watching the television again.
            ‘You don’t really want me to,’ you say.
            ‘I do.’
            ‘I don’t want to.’
            ‘What do I care.’
            The old kettle on the range has risen to a boil, its brown lid clanking for attention.
            ‘I mean I don’t want to do it myself. I want to pick a name together.’ You start getting up, ‘I’ll go and get the book.’
            She keeps her eyes on the quiz when she says, ‘That book’s in the fire.’

You don’t head to the lambing fields after dinner. You rattle up Loudon Hill in the patchwork Landrover, letting the four collies sprint ahead like lowslung greyhounds in the gloaming. You drive as far as you can then start scrambling up the steep slope towards the root of the television mast. You’ve had the heifers on here this winter and they’ve broken up the ground, it’s hard to get any grip and you can hear the dogs splashing through the mud like it’s a river.
You reach the top, the dogs bark, and you hiss,
‘Get down!’ their tongues like dripping spoons. It’s not the first time you’ve stood close to the cloud-ripping dagger of the mast, gazed up the conductor of red lights. You feel safe inside the perimeter of iron shrouds that lash the mast down, the wind always humming through the lattice steel. The quiz-show must be transmitting from here and you think about yelling up, seeing if you might get through to your wife on the television signal.
The late-evening sky is rough-sawn and purple but you throw back your head and see that the high-grey is studded with bent-crosses of gliding gulls. Is she angry because it’s a boy or because of the surprise pregnancy, a dozen years after the first? You agreed not to ask this baby’s sex before it was born. I would be past thirteen now if I’d ever taken a breath outside your wife’s womb. She did not want to see me. You thought I was as blue as a skinned rabbit when I came out but you held me anyway, limp as a dead lamb.
They asked for a name, you had no idea why, telling them Caroline Anne, thinking that’s what was chosen. You came up here to the mast before collecting your wife that time, empty-handed, from hospital, fingering the splinters you’d left in your hands from smashing the cot .You are thinking about me now, buried with the single teddy you spared when you burned my clothes and my toys. After a gale you always come and pick knots out of the tangled windchimes by my headstone.
Tonight you get a glimpse of the sea from the television mast, the loom of the island lighthouse you were all ferried out to in primary. The cropped grass of the cliffs bristled your bare legs and you were promised bright puffins if you were patient. You were first to throw your hand in the air for a turn at the winding stair of the lighthouse instead.
You can still smell the polish in the sunny circle of the lamp room, greenhouse humid, the glass and brass like being inside a clock. You remember the clean cut of the sea air when you asked to step outside onto the balcony, the pipe-smoking keeper whose hand made a knot of your shirt to keep you from the edge. He pointed down to where the giant foghorns lay bolted to the rocks below and asked did you not think they looked like a pair of crocodiles with their jaws flared open.
You are trying to remember the keeper’s name now, as you stare like the unblinking red lights of the mast towards the pulse of the lighthouse; four flashes every twenty seconds. One of the dogs, Nell, snuffles the palm of your hand. You let her lick, the warm ham of her tongue clicking, while you assess the high fence that squares the bottom of the mast. What would it take to get to the ladder that runs up the core, how long to climb up? Something inside you is a choked ditch, swelled up by the winter rains and now stagnating. Like the scummy water you are waiting for the kick of a spade, a stab to free the dark mushroom clot of leaves, fleece and thorns.
‘That’ll doNell!’ you say sharply and the bitch retreats from your hand, lying flat without being bidden. On the neighbouring farm you can see fresh furrows running true, combing the curve of the land in the dusk. You must weld the Massey-Ferguson’s axle if your oat-field is to be harrowed by Easter.

You freewheel the mile back down towards the farmhouse, engine and headlights off, the collies jostled in with you, bracing themselves to stay upright in the cab that’s like an aeroplane in turbulence. The name of the lighthouse keeper comes as you let the clutch catch on the last of the slope and the diesel shudders to life. It was Duncan, Duncan Ogilvie. The track begins to smooth. You’ll name my brother Duncan.
You pass the farmhouse and see the curtains standing open, the light from the television ghosting around and you get the taste of thick soup in your throat, the smell of the house when it’s been vacuumed. You must whitewash the walls this summer, best to leave your wife be. You pull into the shed and kill the engine; the collies cock their ears. The farm won’t look after itself, you say out loud and Nell tries to lick your face.
‘That’ll do,’ you say, without enough menace in your voice to stop her. ‘That’ll do.’

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>

Northern Lights
by Julie Hayman

All the children in Norway ski. I told him. They ski before they walk, and snow is like seaside sand to them. He wouldn’t listen. He’d smile his big, white, Yankee smile, bundle Herga up in layers of clothing she didn’t need. Let her breathe, I said, let the air get to her. No, he said, she’ll get frostbite, she’s not yet two. In Norway, I said getting angry, in Norway children aren’t smothered and cosseted like in your pampered country. Here they learn to respect the elements, to work with them, adapt to them. She won’t grow strong if you keep her too close, I said. Listen to the folktales about ice men and snow palaces and seal people and the need for bravery and cunning in this harsh, beautiful landscape, and you’ll see. Ja, ja, mama, he said, not even listening. Not even listening, but calling me mama.
            Mama; not his mama. Not mama to a warm, womanish man who dresses his daughter like a doll. When my Sigrid was small, she was always in the snow. I made her sleep out in it sometimes on a reindeer pelt under a canvas tent that I put up for her, that I weighed down with blocks of snow and ice to keep it standing, that I insisted she endure. That’s the way to survive in this land. Survive and thrive. But when Sigrid cried from the cold and her fingers and toes swelled and her nose was blue and her eyes slushy, then I was not strong. I let her come in, took her into my bed and wrapped her fat in eiderdown, let her sleep warm. I should have been stronger, should have taught her how to respect ice. Now my Sigrid sleeps always under snow, her face smashed, her limbs mangled by his hot-weather automobile. Not designed for ice, you see. But Herga survived; the snow likes Herga, the land likes Herga.
            He was glad enough of me with Sigrid gone, glad enough to listen to my talk then. Glad enough to have a mama to mix the baby’s milk and mop her stains while he sobbed and choked in the corner of the kitchen for days on end as if no-one in the world had ever died before. As if he didn’t know about snow, didn’t know what it could do. As if he thought life could just go on forever as he wanted. It’s the way of things, Bob, I said, using his foreign name. Things die. Especially soft things, I added under my breath. He nodded and sobbed, melting away like a river in spring thaw.
            I spoke gently at first, wiping his watery face with the corner of my apron while I stirred the fish-head soup on the stove with my other hand. He sat on the stool and rocked; sniffed and snotted and rocked like a baby, his face as red as the fire. It’s just the way of things, I told him, and gave him aquavit to drink to float him to sleep, oatcakes to eat to keep him alive.
            Long days went by, and still he wept. It’s the way of things, Bob, I said, less gently, Things die and we must adapt. You‘re lucky to still have Herga. Herga won’t come to harm here in Norway, she’s special. Sigrid is gone, but you still have Herga.
            He looked at me as if I were the advocate for death, his eyes overflowing. Unmanly. He made me ashamed. It’s the way of things, I told him sharply, Now eat your broth. I will help you take care of Herga. She’s special. Nothing will harm Herga. Nothing will harm her here in Norway.
            In time, he stopped crying and went back to his work. Foreign correspondent. Writing, writing all the time, articles for newpapers, for magazines, for journals. He was paid more than anyone else I ever knew and he sat on his money like a dragon on a hoard. I didn’t mind. What need did I have of money? I had Herga, and I had enough coins to buy herrings and pickles and salt and sourdough from the market; let him keep his money, let him write his words and keep his money.
            He wrote in the kitchen, the only room warm enough for him. He had his space by the fire, the space usually reserved for invalids. His writing left him little time for interfering between me and Herga but, occasionally, he would get tired of typing and look up and notice things, and that’s when it would all go wrong. Put more clothes on Herga, he would say, she’ll catch her death of cold, or, Take that dirty bread out of her hand, it’ll give her stomach ache, or, once when I was making pies, Stop her playing with those bloody fish-guts, it’s revolting, she’ll catch God knows what. If I was tired, I would do as he said, but if I was more myself I would say, Don’t you have more writing to do, Bob, Don’t you have more words to write? And he would look at me with my grey plaits and my frown and he would think of Sigrid and his face would close down. Then he would turn back to his typewriter and throw himself into another torrent of words.
            Bob was easy for me to handle. I thought he was easy to handle, with his writing and his useless, money-making articles. He had ambitions, he told me, ambitions to write a book. A history book, about Norway. I think it was a history. He wanted me to tell him what I knew. I told him I knew nothing. He smiled his false white smile, asked me to tell him the history of my family. I shook my head. Why not? he asked, Why not, mama? No use writing history, I said. It’s all here - tapping my head, and here – touching my breast, and here – pointing at Herga. No use writing it, no use at all.
            But Bob could be persistent when he wanted to be, and he drip-drip-dripped his request on my head. So I gave in and told him about my mama and grandmama who had lived farther north, near Kvaløya, where one had to be sharp about blizzards and trolls. I told him they taught me how to appease weather-sprites by spilling oats on the doorstep, how to dispel bad luck with rhymes and salt. I told him my mama could smell a storm coming a day before it reached us, and that the northern lights spoke to her. Secrets. They told her who her husband would be, I said. Told her Rune on the whaling ship, and Rune it was. Told her other things, too, I said. Told her not to smother her children, I added cunningly.
            Bob wrote down all I told him, reading it back to himself silently. Fascinating, he said, Folklore, yes, fairy tales: stories made up to explain things people didn’t understand, to pretend mastery over their environment. He looked up at me with his lavender-water eyes, and a crevasse of misunderstanding stretched between us from north to south.
            Herga I kept safe. While Bob wrote, Herga was out in the snow playing herself pink. I brought her in when I saw him pack up his typewriter or when the cold began to nip her cheeks yellow. Each day I’d leave her out a little longer, to get used to the snow, make friends with it. Sometimes she’d bang on the kitchen door with her little fat fist, Mama, mama, let me in, I’m cold. Bob never noticed so long as he was writing. One minute, little one, I’d whisper through the latch, one minute Herga. Let her grow cold, I’d think. Let her grow hard. Let her grow cunning. This time I would be strong.
            We lived together like this for almost a year, Herga getting hardy and tough. She’s not big enough, Bob complained, She’s lacking nutrients. She’s lacking nothing, I told him, She’s small and sturdy like an alpine plant, that’s the way to be in this land, that is how to survive in snow. I told him this, but Bob wasn’t happy. He took Herga on the train all the way down to Trondheim to an expensive doctor who weighed her like a prime catch and measured her and gave her vitamins and injections and told Bob she was eating the wrong foods, she had the wrong diet. Bob came home from Trondheim with Herga and sat huddled over the fire all night, rubbing his red hands, not writing, watching me as closely as if he were a goatherd and I a hungry wolf come to snatch his kid away.
            The next day, Bob said that when he was in Trondheim he’d spoken to the doctor about me. The doctor came from a local family – perhaps I knew of them? – and he wanted to come to visit, to see if he could be of help. Can he catch fish? I asked. Can he dig livestock out of snowdrifts and drag them home to be cut into joints for the winter? Can he weatherproof a roof? He’s a doctor, mama, Bob said pleadingly. Then I have no use for him, I replied. And Herga has no use for him.
            Not long after, Bob told me he was leaving Norway. Going back to where it was hot and dusty and the towns had Spanish names of angels and devils. I didn’t mind, didn’t care. He could do as he pleased. What do you think? he asked. What do you think about that, mama? I shrugged. Good decision probably, I said, You’ll have new writing to do, I expect, lots of hot words. Good riddance, I thought, Snow doesn’t like you. Norway can do without your writing, without the white of your smile.
            Bob looked relieved. He let out a small hush of air through his mouth as if he had been holding it long in his chest, as if it had been trapped and feared it might never escape. You must come and visit us, he said. What? I asked. You must come and visit us. Us? Me and Herga. In America. You must come and visit, mama. It was then that ice replaced my blood, and winter came to stay. I saw that his cool cunning was too smart for mine. He had money. He had money to go all the way down to Trondheim and halfway round the world if he wished, for as long as he wanted. With Herga. Forever. You must visit us, he said, you must come for a visit. Visit that hot place, I replied. No. I am a creature of ice and snow. And I was.
            He completed his plans quickly. Made his phone calls, booked his tickets, packed his bags. I sat on the wooden stool in the hot kitchen, sweating ice. Watching Herga play with an ice-cube on the floor, her full-moon face, her sleek, slippery skin, her funny little feet so like flippers. It was then that I saw the truth of mama’s stories. The northern lights spoke to me, and I heard them. They told me what I must do to keep Herga safe.
            I dressed Herga up warm in her red quilted coat, just as Bob liked. Put the woollen mittens on her chubby fingers, pushed her hair under the blue bobble hat, tied her scarf round the outside of her coat to keep the hood up. Herga laughed and swung her legs to and fro on the stool while I put her finnesko on. We sang an alphabet song together, Herga singing it right, me getting the letters jumbled and the tune wrong. Then I took her out in the snow, strapped to my back like a pile of sticks. She didn’t weigh much. Herga and I skied over the landscape of Norway which is like no other landscape in the world. A harsh place. A beautiful place. A place where history is not written in books.
            We skied, Herga and I, and the weight of her on my back settled like snow. Her baby chatter, her plump fingers losing their gloves and reaching under my collar for the warmth of my neck. There, in the cold, in the snow, with the hush of centuries all around us. Herga was never a hot weather child, she would never get her tongue tied by Spanish. You belong to Norway, Herga, I said. You belong to me. And to Sigrid.
            Herga giggled, rested her cheek on the back of my neck, sighed. All the little baby sounds. A trail of dribble dropped from her lower lip onto my spine and froze as it flowed down my back, a miniature glacier. I skied as I had not done for many a year, like a young woman, like a woman whose joints are oiled.
            We reached the coast where the seals come in their season. The air was biting where the wind blew in. I took Herga gently down off my back, took off my skis to stumble over the shingle to where the waves suck and pluck at the shore. Cold as it was, I waded into the water to give her a good send-off, a good start. Herga was reluctant to leave, and that is always a good sign. Bye-bye baby Herga, I said, helping her to her first dive in the waves. She went to live with the seal people, for one must always adapt. And it is said that those with relatives among the seal people never go hungry for fish.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>

Mystic Graham
by Eileen Gilmour

Sam always did his best thinking on the top of Goose Hill. He lay on his back on his favourite UFO spotting rock and cuddled Graham against his chest. It was a miracle really that a three-legged dog could ever make it up Goose Hill, but as well as being mystic Graham had a determined streak.
Screwing up his eyes, Sam allowed his mind to drift. The best thing about thinking was that you didn’t stutter in your head. He just hoped that when the aliens came they communicated by mind-reading. It was possible they might come today - a dirty paint water day when no-one would notice.
Today was special. Sam had dressed carefully. He’d dug out a Homer Simpson T-shirt, baggy shorts and a matching pair of grey socks and scrubbed them in bleach in the kitchen sink. He’d made enquiries about an iron but Dad just shrugged and carried on saving the world on his computer. The ironing had stopped on the day Mum disappeared. Stuff had been pretty crumpled since then. Except for this summer of course.
Sam’s eyes burned. He held on tight to Graham. Today was a day for very serious thinking...

****

It was Mrs Jellicoe next door who’d first noticed Graham’s special powers. She read tea leaves on a part-time basis and bred clouds of fluffy Bichon Frise puppies. Sam had wanted one more than anything but Dad just said, “I can’t be doing with all that poncy pedigree business. I’ll get you a proper lad’s dog.”
And he did. He gave a fiver to a man in the pub who’d got a greyhound for sale that wasn’t winning races any more. They soon found out why.
Sam was a bit disappointed about the missing back leg at first but then Graham rested his bristly chin on his knee and gazed up at him with one of his wonky crossed eyes; one ear pricked and the other sticking out at right angles.  Sam had just failed his maths project on symmetry so he felt an immediate bond.
“That dog sees things,” said Mrs Jellicoe, leaning over the fence with a cotton wool pup under each arm and a smear of chocolate round her mouth. “See how close together his eyes are? That’s the sign of a mystic, mark my words.”
Mrs Jellicoe’s suspicions were confirmed when Princess Margaret died. Graham, who  usually fell into a deep snoring sleep across the bottom of Sam’s bed, sat by the back door and howled through the night. The next morning it was the main story on the telly news. Princess Margaret had died peacefully in her sleep. Tony Blair sounded all choked up when he said she’d be remembered with a lot of affection.
“What did I tell you?” Mrs Jellicoe stood in the kitchen doorway with a casserole dish and a gap-toothed smile. “That dog’s in tune with momentous events.”
Sam’s dad snorted into his Coco Pops. “More like bellyache after that vat of semolina you brought round. You coming in or what?”
“You’re such a charmer, Kev. I don’t know why I bother.” Mrs Jellicoe winked at Sam as she shuffled over to the table, pushed a pile of newspapers and junk mail out of the way and plonked down the casserole. “Beef and garlic this week boys. This’ll put hairs on your chest.”
Sam hoped she was right. That’d show the tough kids who pushed him in the playground.
Mrs Jellicoe bent down to tickle Graham who was catching up on his sleep under the table. “Don’t you worry, Graham, my boy, your Auntie Trace can see things as well.”
“Perhaps Auntie Trace would like to see the door on her way out then.”
Sam nibbled his charcoal toast and flinched. He couldn’t bear it when his dad was rude to Mrs Jellicoe. She couldn’t help being fat and psychic.
Graham’s tail thudded as he slurped his tongue over Mrs Jellicoe’s apple face.
“Flippin’ dragon breath – you want to brush his teeth young Sammy. Come round to mine now and I’ll give you a special toothbrush and check your tea leaves.”
Sam jumped to his feet and raised his eyebrows at his dad.
“Bloody Mystic Meg. Go on if you must.”
Sam whistled Graham and they scampered off after Mrs Jellicoe. It was the other half of their semi but it was like a different world in her house. It smelt of polish and hot cakes and the kitchen tiles were all sparkly. You could write your name in the chip grease in Sam’s kitchen and he often did.
“Come on in and park your bottie.” Mrs Jellicoe bustled round clattering cups and arranging homemade crumbly biscuits on a china plate while a flurry of yapping pups chewed at her slippers.  “Now drink your tea and we’ll see what your future’s got in store.” She pulled up a stool next to Sam at the breakfast bar and stroked Graham’s bony head. Graham closed his eyes and let out a long shuddering sigh. Sam knew how he felt. There was something about Mrs Jellicoe that made you feel better.
“Thank you.” Sam formed his words carefully as he passed his empty cup. He didn’t normally speak much – hadn’t since his mum disappeared three years ago.
 He still remembered her pale and sleepy in the big bed in the dining room. She told him she’d been to the hospital to have something taken out but it was okay because she could manage without it. He’d just started school then and one dismal Monday he came home to find the bed had gone. His mum had gone as well and no-one ever mentioned her after that. It was hard to talk to his dad. He didn’t do hugs or tear-wiping. He was more of a plug it in sort of dad.
“My goodness Sammy, your future’s looking dead exciting!” Mrs Jellicoe peered into his cup. “I can see that you might be moving house soon – not very far away but it’ll be great.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “G-g-graham?”
“Oh don’t you worry, Graham will be going as well. In fact there’ll be loads of dogs and a fab new auntie to look after you.” Mrs Jellicoe squeezed his hand. “Do you think you’d like that, Sammy?”
Sam could hear his heart pounding. Mumbo jumbo his dad called it, but he knew Mrs Jellicoe wouldn’t lie to him.
There was silence for a moment and then Graham scrambled up on the squashy sofa in the corner, rolled over on his back and started to snore.
“You see, Graham knows. He’s chosen his bed for when he moves in.”

****

On the day before the Queen Mother died, Mrs Jellicoe married Sam’s dad in a quiet ceremony at Hereford register office. The wedding night was less quiet. Graham sat by the back door and howled at the moon. Sam sat with him and wondered who was going to disappear this time.
“We’ve lost a symbol of Britain’s decency and courage,” announced Tony Blair next morning, sounding even more upset than when Princess Margaret died.
It was funny sitting round Mrs Jellicoe’s table and seeing her and his dad in matching white towelling dressing-gowns. Almost like a proper family.
“Now come on Kev, you have to admit that dog’s psychic.” Mrs Jellicoe took a huge bite of croissant and strawberry jam oozed down her chin.
“What planet are you on, you daft bat.”
Mrs Jellicoe laughed, spitting crumbs all over the table, and hit him with the tea cosy. “I knew I should have waited for Johnny Depp. A fine honeymoon this is turning out to be.”
They were interrupted by the post thudding onto the mat and the usual display of histrionics from Mrs Jellicoe’s Candyfloss as she shot off into the hall to try and maim the postman.
Dad jabbed a finger. “I don’t know about psychic – your precious Fluffybum’s a bloody psycho!”
Sam watched and wondered. Did they really like each other? Certainly his dad smiled and shaved more these days but he didn’t call her darling or hold her hand. Their old house next door was up for sale (Chip Fat Villa as Mrs Jellicoe called it) and they’d moved most of their stuff in but Sam still couldn’t quite believe it was forever.
“Let’s do something fab this afternoon,” said Mrs Jellicoe. “Let’s load up the dogs and drive to the beach for a picnic.”
Sam wriggled in his chair. This was more like it. This was the sort of thing families did.
“Get a grip woman,” Dad drained his Bucks Fizz. “It’s flippin’ freezin’ and we’re not exactly on the coast.”
But Mrs Jellicoe wasn’t listening. She was already boiling the eggs for the sandwiches.
Sam was in charge of the dogs. He packed towels and biscuits and water, then did his special whistle and Graham and Candyfloss and her pups raced after him to Mrs Jellicoe’s big red estate car parked on the front drive. The Jellicoe dogs knew all about outings and they piled into the back like an explosion in a cotton wool factory, but this was a new experience for Graham. Sam turned to help him in but Graham lowered his head and backed awkwardly away.
“G-g-graham?” Sam held out his hand. A low warning growl rumbled through Graham’s skeletal body and he curled back his lip, showing pointed yellow teeth.
“Don’t touch him.” Mrs Jellicoe stood on the step with the bulging cool bag. “He’s seeing something.”
Graham was doing serious wolf impressions now. His hair was standing on end as though it had been gelled.
Sam felt his legs turn wobbly – this was a new Graham and he didn’t know what to do. He wouldn’t bite surely?
“It’s not you he’s growling at Sammy love – it’s the car. Just stand still a mo.” Mrs Jellicoe tip-toed down the drive making cooing noises. Graham swung round as though he was going to jump at her, then seemed to think better of it and slunk off into the house with his tail clamped firmly between his leg and his stump.
“Well I never!” Mrs Jellicoe threw her arms round Sam. “You all right, lovey?”
He nodded but was glad of a hug. He just hoped the tough kids across the road weren’t watching.
Sam’s dad swaggered out wearing his new leather jacket and a jaunty scarlet baseball cap. “What the hell’s going on now?”
“Change of plan Kev. We’ll have to go in your minging old rust bucket. Graham’s had a premonition about my car.”
“Graham’s had a what?”
“One of his premonitions – we can’t just ignore it. Not after Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother. How would you feel if we all ended up dead in a ditch?”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Bloody fed up.”
Sam was surprised that his dad didn’t shout. He was even more surprised when he noticed him squeeze Mrs Jellicoe’s arm.

****

The trip to the sea-side was the first of many fab outings, as Mrs Jellicoe called them. Sam’s favourite picnic spot was up Goose Hill where they all played tracking games and hide and seek in the under-growth. One afternoon his dad and Mrs Jellicoe stayed hidden in the bushes for ages but Sam didn’t worry – he felt safe with Graham to look after him.
They always went in Dad’s car. Mrs Jellicoe stopped using her red estate after Graham’s  premonition. She said she’d seen a similar warning in the tea leaves herself so they’d just have to sell it. Dad said she was bloody bonkers but he still didn’t shout.
Sam noticed a big change in his dad. Mrs Jellicoe seemed to have cast a spell over him. He was still rude of course but in a jokey way and he stopped playing killing games on his computer and dropping cigarette ends in his coffee. The only bad thing was he stank of soap and after-shave.
 “Is everybody happy?” asked Mrs Jellicoe one drowsy afternoon at the end of August. They were sitting on the riverbank eating chicken salad and drinking ice-cold lemonade.
“Dead happy thanks, Aunt Trace.”  Sam bit into a plump juicy tomato and closed his eyes. He could almost feel his taste buds exploding into life after all those years of being coated in yellow fur.
“I’m very happy love.”
Sam squinted through his lashes and saw his dad smiling at Mrs Jellicoe in a way he’d never seen before. He reached out to stroke Graham, who was snoozing in the sun beside him and felt his hand being thoroughly licked.
I might remember this moment forever, thought Sam.

****

That night Graham howled by the back door until he was hoarse. Sam shivered and held him close. He could feel Graham’s bones vibrating through his own body. It went on until dawn when Mrs Jellicoe crept down the stairs and made tea and toast.
“Who?” asked Sam.
“I don’t really know love but Prince Philip’s been looking a bit peaky lately.”
Graham paced up and down the kitchen on his three legs, refusing to settle. Sam was so weary he wanted to cry.
“Tell you what,” said Mrs Jellicoe. “You go back to bed for a bit and I’ll give Graham an early morning walkie. Don’t you worry; he’ll be fine with me.”

****

It wasn’t the river bank moment that Sam would always remember. It was the sound of the doorbell and his dad screaming.
Throwing himself out of bed and down the stairs, the words punched all the breath from his body.
“Terrible accident.”
“Killed outright.”
“And the dog.”

****

The light was beginning to fade over Goose Hill. Sam finally came to the end of his thinking and wiped his wet face with Graham’s old blanket. His nose and throat were suddenly full of Graham and he held his breath until he thought he might faint.
 He’d felt the blood pounding in his ears all through Mrs Jellicoe’s funeral the day before. A celebration of her life they’d called it and there’d been a lot to celebrate. Tony Blair hadn’t said anything though.
He stroked the carved wooden box. It was hard to believe that so much dog could fit in such a small space. He was symmetrical now all right.
 If only Graham and Mrs Jellicoe had been a bit more mystic, they’d have known it wasn’t the red estate car they had to fear but the postman in his van with the faulty brakes.
Perhaps little yapping Candyfloss had been the psychic one after all.
Sam made a decision. He pressed the box against his lips. Then he scattered Graham’s ashes over the UFO landing strip.
It was hard to know what else to believe in now.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>

Slowly Lowly’s Budgies
by Hanna Mihail Nihilia

Even the stupid faces of people at the back were straining to hear Marilyn. The courtroom was almost too silent to breathe.
“Please--could you please repeat that?” the defender asked. His skin was greasy, and his eyeballs looked distinctively yellow.
Marilyn pronounced the words carefully. “My brother thought humans are re-born as birds, and he claimed that this way, he was able to find the souls of everyone he killed.”
“In other words--”
“In other words the twenty-seven budgies were called Agnes, Thomas, Jill, Martin, Megan, Venice--“
“Thank you.” Odd man, this defender. Marilyn thought she could even smell his eyeballs. Every time he scratched his hair, a flock of dandruff seemed to take flight.
It took Marilyn a while to realise the eyeballs were so upsetting because they were so accusative. She stared back at the yellowness.
“Is this the first time you are giving this evidence?”
“What evidence?”
“That your brother believed his victims to be reborn as his budgies.”
The eyeballs refused to signal her the right answer. “He treated them well,” she ended up saying. “He fed them and loved them, held each one against his skin.”
“Did he or did he not hate his victims?”
“He didn’t hate anyone. Madison thought he saved them.”
Another moment of silence passed.
“From what?” the defender asked then.
“From stupidity,” Marilyn replied. “And impurity. In one case, her ugly husband.”
Marilyn’s dress smelt blue. Funny, that. It was blue. Marilyn considered this. Blue smelt like clean baby hair or verminless fur. Of course, baby hair was never clean and even the purest of feathers was crawling with vermin.
“What is your opinion on your brother’s mental health?”
“My Lord,” the prosecutor interrupted. “The witness is not a medical expert.” She looked like a celebrity wife in her suit and huge, plastic glasses.
“My Lord,” said the defender. “I am not asking for a professional statement. I am asking for her impression as the only person who has ever been close to Mr Monks.”
 “Please continue,” the Judge said.
There was so much dry, dandruffey dust in the air that it was difficult to breathe. Marilyn was sweating like a dirty farm animal. She could feel the wet batches under her breasts.
“What is your opinion on your brother’s mental health?” the defender asked again.
Marilyn thought of the grin of her brother. As a child, it had featured too overly large front teeth and red lips that were always glistening with moisture. Later on, there had been wrinkles around his eyes and a lot of tension on his forehead.
“I think my brother was a very sick person. He always was.”

The prosecutor was less of a joy ride. She called Madison the Classroom Murderer like the people in the press. The people in the classroom used to call him Dogbreath and Fart Tornado.
“Were you, or were you not aware that there was meat in your freezer--unskinned bits with human hair on them?”
Marilyn could smell the prosecutor’s industrial perfume across the room.
“No,” she replied. “Madison said he had gone hunting with pals.”
“There was a whole head in there!”
Really? She had to push her memory. Yes, a blonde head. Probably Marie. The one who once drew a nude picture of Marilyn and showed it to all the boys in the class. She claimed her saggy stomach was covered in hair. It was true. Her stomach was hairy. Hairy like Marie’s frosty skin.
“I tried to go to the police once.”
“Please, carry on.”
She unclasped her palms and wiped sweat on her classless dress.  Back at school, they used to call her Slowly Lowly. She wasn’t slow at all though. She was even quick enough to notice the defender drop his pen at the mention of the police and the glare in his yellow eyeballs as he retrieved it.
“I walked to the police station one morning,” Marilyn explained. “My brother ran after me and took me by the hand as I was waiting to be heard. It wasn’t like the police was going to believe me anyway. He told them I was a bit sick. We went home and he said I need a bath to become pure again. He said I am becoming as dirty as the rest of them fuckers. I said I am not dirty. The bath was too hot. It burnt my throat so that I couldn’t eat for days.”
Someone coughed. Marilyn could feel the viruses prancing around in the hot air, carelessly and maliciously like little children. She pressed her palms against her thighs so that her feet wouldn’t want to run out.
“Were you, or were you not, fully aware of the fact that your brother spent his days following your former schoolmates and even grew nails specifically for the purpose of being able to slit their throats open with bare hands?”
She always told the doctors her skin was itchy and sometimes she scratched herself too hard in her sleep.
No matter how perfect the prosecutor wanted her skin to appear, a closer look revealed thick grease that was trying to push through a heavy layer of powder. Marilyn could even feel the wet heat radiating from the woman’s armpits.
“You even saw the bodies,” she pressed. “It was not like he kept you locked up. You could have gone to the police.”
“I tried to.”
“Once, or more times?”
“It took a while to recover from that first one.”
There had been times when her brother was happy. They were always Sunday mornings. He walked around the house and sang songs. Sometimes the smile reached his eyes. They read the paper together and she cooked meat soup, even though it was difficult to stand the smell of it.
“Once, or more times?”
Her feet wanted to run out. “Once.”
“No further questions.”

The coffee was bad and the room thick with a smell of bleach and chocolate cakes. After realising Marilyn wouldn’t touch her muffin, the defender ate them both.
“You should have told me you tried to go to the police. I asked if you ever had, remember?”
“Yes.”
“You said you never did.”
“I didn’t remember it then.”
“How can you forget?”
Marilyn stared at the crumb on his fat lip. “I just didn’t remember it at the time.”
“I already asked you if you went to see the police and you said you never got a chance. And why didn’t you tell me that your brother believed his budgies were souls of his victims? It’s difficult to defend you when you’re holding back information. Do you realise it’s a criminal offence?” His breath was heavy. Fat people always had a heavy breath. Marilyn certainly did.
“They are my budgies now.”
“Yes, yes.”  The breadcrumb fell somewhere.
“I didn't think they mattered. You lot only care about the flesh and blood part of the person. Madison said he would make me eat my arm if I spoke to anybody.”
His fingers hovered over her arm, like cold, wet sausages just pulled out of package. “Your brother is gone now. Nobody will harm you anymore.”
“What does it matter what he believed?”
“It matters in terms of his psychological profile. It matters to you.”
“To me?”
“You didn’t believe what he was telling you, did you?”
“Of course not.”
She thought of the time when the kids had locked them up in a windowless toilet. One of them had said they’d gas them. Her feet wanted to run out but it was dark and the lock didn’t budge. She had asked Madison if he could kill her right there in the darkness so that she wouldn't have to smell the gas.
“I never believed a word he said.”
The defender stared at her for a long time. Marilyn just sat and tried to hold her breath as much as possible. The combined smell of chocolate and bleach was really something one should never experience.
“I think we need to re-think this,” he said eventually.

Marilyn became a vegetarian after her brother died. Truth be told, she had never really liked meat. Soup tasted better, bitterer, without it.
Other than that, there weren’t too many changes. After the trial they wanted her to move out of her house. The new place had bars in windows and a wall around it but the bed sheets were cleaned regularly and she got to spend a lot of time alone. From the inside, it looked like a proper home. At first someone said she couldn’t bring her budgies with her, but the defender was persistent. Marilyn said she’d pay anything. Eventually they let her bring them.
“It’s normal to move houses every now and then,” she explained the birds. “I promise I won’t let anyone touch you.”
She was also declared not guilty of the murder of her brother. It was funny, because she could still remember how intriguing it was when someone’s face turned blue. You wouldn’t expect that colour, just like you wouldn’t expect the green tinge on someone’s face right before they vomited. Her defender was very happy, chubbier and greasier than ever. She was, after all, a victim.
Marilyn didn’t care that much about any of it. All that mattered was that she could take her budgies with her, all twenty-seven of them.
They seemed to like their new home. Only two days in, and something extraordinary happened: one of them laid five eggs in a small box Marilyn had made. It was the first time any of them had offspring. Marilyn was so excited she couldn’t eat or sleep properly for weeks.
“I knew you would,” she kept saying over and over again. “I knew you would, I knew you would.”
One night, the first egg hatched. It was so overwhelming Marilyn actually fainted. They forced her to start eating and sleeping again so she ate beside the cage, right there with a bowl of soup, wearing slippers and holding a camera.
The youngling was called Madison. She picked it up. His fragile frame, vaguely warm, was the most endearing thing she had ever seen. She took a picture of him.
“Your feathers will turn blue when you grow up,” she said, and her voice was breaking. It was the first time since second grade that she cried.
“You will be just like I imagined, Madison.”
She held the bird so close to her skin that he became wet with her sweat. Madison tried to struggle but she held him tighter and ate soup with the other hand because it wouldn’t do to pass out again.
The soup was bitter, the tears unpleasantly salty.
As for the other four, budgie eggs often hatched with long intervals so Marilyn spent the rest of the night staring at the white bulbs and stroking Madison. Nothing happened.
Eventually she couldn’t resist snatching the box from the cage and emptying it on the floor. Feathers and droppings scattered all over the place. She stomped on the eggs. They felt a bit like boiled eggs under her slippers, apart from the biggest one--it rather felt like stepping on a small mouse. Dirty and squealing like the rest of them fuckers.
Unlike her brother, she didn’t care much what happened to strangers.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

<top>