Short Story: The Keeper

The Keeper

The smell of tobacco followed Doug up the stone stairs in a rich acrid cloud. Step, step, step, each riser hewn from some ancient granite block, now all of them worn in a gentle curve by the passage of so many footsteps across so many years. Step, step, step, Doug reviewed his list as he tramped upwards. All the electrics were off downstairs, no taps left running, keys hung up. Step, step, step, and here he was in the Watch Room. The room was panelled with white painted wood, three narrow windows, two looking out to seaward, the third to the cliffs and the sloping pastures of Kent beyond. He could see a few sheep huddled together in the drizzle. Sodden white dots on green. He banged his pipe out in the little saucer that said “I love Sheep” and left his paperwork on the table.

His comfy chair was already covered with towels on top of some plastic sheeting from the stores. He’d left the airmail envelope unopened on the little table next to the chair together with a glass of whisky. The return address said San Diego. He’d written a few words on the back of it and signed it ‘All the Best, Dad’ but he wasn’t going to look inside. He just couldn’t deal with it right now, someone else would have to.

He savoured a mouthful of whisky for a moment before taking one more towel and draping it over his thinning hair, then sat back in the chair. He paused to consider how silly he looked, like a child under sheet pretending to be a ghost. “Get a grip” he said and sent a fat-knuckled hand groping to the table. The pistol was an old one, a previous keeper’s service weapon from the war perhaps, but he’d taken it up to the Gallery earlier and fired off a test shot.

He took a deep breath and shut his eyes. The barrel felt cold and alien in his mouth and then there was a crash from the cupboard next to him.

With a sigh that would have won an award for “best long-suffering sigh” he took off the towel, carefully placed the pistol on the side table and stood up. He pulled open the cupboard door expecting to see that the shelf with the torches and spare batteries had collapsed. It had not. A “ShitOhChristJesusWhat?” combination spat from his mouth and he jumped away from the cupboard door, hands up reflexively to protect himself.

A small Japanese schoolgirl stood there. Bobbed dark hair framed her oval face. She was wearing a blue blazer, dark pleated skirt, knee-high white socks, black shoes. Water dripped from her skirt and her blazer cuffs and the ends of her hair, disappearing before it hit the stone floor.

He was as far away from her as the small circular room would allow, breathing hard through his open mouth. She was, maybe fourteen, and gazed at him steadily.

“Christ, not again.” he said.

He hurried down the stairs to the off-duty room and started scanning along the rows of bookshelves. Finding what he needed he returned. Outside a gust of wind smacked rain like a handful of gravel against the south window.

“Hello. You gave me a fright love! Do you know where you are? My name is Doug. What’s your name?”

He didn’t expect a reply, and wasn’t surprised when she just stared through him.

“Ok just let me…” He paged through the battered ring-binder.

”Right, here we are.”

He haltingly read out the incantation. He grabbed the whisky glass from the table, grimacing as his old knees cracked when he bent in front of her.  Dipping a thick finger in the whisky he smeared the required symbol on the flagstones.

After a few seconds he reached out to take her arm. His hand went through her blazer, closing on itself in mid-air.

“Bloody hell !”

He towelled dry the symbol and re-drew it, then read the words out again. This time there was a shimmer around her, a subtle shift into focus. He reached out and this time felt wet fabric.

“Come on love, it’s okay.” The girl stepped from the cupboard easily enough and stood in the middle of the room.

He gingerly reached past her to get his sou’wester then then took the towel from the chair and put it around her shoulders. He guided her upstairs into the Lamp Room and then out onto the Gallery. The sky was grey, full of dark scudding clouds, the wind about Force 6. Below them, through the railings, the sea was as busy as the sky, waves queuing up to batter the rocks at the base of the lighthouse, foam and spray exploding mid-air.

He could see her mouth moving, forming words he couldn’t hear. “It’s okay” he had to shout above the wind “You don’t need to worry.” The girl stood there, seeing him for the first time. He turned her to face into the glass of the Lamp Room. The rain glittered as it fell, falling through the grill of the heli-pad above them, caught every eight seconds in the sweep of the lamp.

“Good luck sweetheart, you’ll be fine” he said and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. It took three more rotations of the light and she was gone. He stooped to pick up the towel before it blew away then went back inside.

“Ok, that’s done.” He shrugged out of his wet gear and hung it on the heating pipes. He sat in the chair again and picked up the towel, when the clock chimed the hour. “Bloody hell.” A sudden wave of emotion caught him by surprise and he bent forward head in hands. Tears came, and an anguished moan escaped him. He sobbed for a few minutes, then sat up and took a deep breath, wiping his wet face on his jumper sleeve.

Above him in the Lamp Room the massive glass lenses made their rumbling, clockwork rotations, comforting in their permanence. His face felt swollen, eyes sore.  He pushed his hands in his pockets and looked out the window again. Visibility was down to less than a couple of miles, he could see a container ship gamely battering its way through the swell towards the Atlantic; he could make out rust-red containers and the grey/white of the bridge. There would be someone looking at him while he was looking at them. “Hello” he said “I see you.”

Then he crossed to the small table and picked up the envelope, holding it with one finger poised to tear open the flap and then put it down again.

He buried his hands in his pockets and furrowed his brow, bent forward over it as if it was some part of a 5,000 piece puzzle. They’d not spoken in eight years, not since his mum had passed. Jamie had not been at the funeral, had said he just couldn’t bear it.

“No. Absolutely no point. None” he said out loud to nobody and turned away. His stomach rumbled and he left the room, the step step step of his tread fading as he descended to the kitchen.

That night in bed he woke up. He thought it might be the system alarm, installed by the higher ups when he started crewing the station alone, but the lights still glowed green in the darkness. The ever-circling lamp above briefly lit up the bedroom window; enough to see the shape blocking it. He flicked the bedside light on and looked past Marie’s smiling face in her silver frame that had been a wedding present.

A man was hanging by the window. The blue nylon rope round his neck disappeared a few inches above his head; he wasn’t attached to anything, and yet he hung there, slowly twisting. The man was fair-haired and pale faced, his eyes were shut and his neck was swollen where the rope was biting into it. His legs disappeared into the stone recess of the window. Doug looked at him bleary eyed, then fell back and exhaled. “You’re going to have to wait mate.” He did a comedy roll of his eyes for Marie then switched the light off.

He expected to lie awake as usual, obsessing for example over a sequence of outbursts which Marie had triggered. Jamie wasn’t drinking anymore (he told you that did he?) he was holding down a steady job (we’ll see won’t we?) he had a girlfriend (more fool her). But instead his unsleeping mind took him back unbidden to the first phantom they’d found.

Ten years ago was it? Winter-time in 1978 or ‘79 maybe. It was Ray who had discovered her in the stores late one afternoon and after he had in his own words “screamed like a girl” he had gone and found Doug. Standing in the narrow passage between shelves of spare electrical bits and various tools was a woman of about thirty. She was wearing a summer dress, her bare legs disappearing into the floor up to her ankles as if the cement had set around them. The dress itself rippled in a non-existent breeze and was torn open and bloody around her midriff. Tattered material hung down wet and black from the wound. She stood there placidly, swaying slightly but giving no sign of awareness. Dimly behind her was the stone of the lighthouse wall; she was transparent.

“I was on leave in Haiti years ago” said Ray “We went to some weird place out in the boondocks to try and score some shit. Saw a black fella who was a bit like this. Zombie they said.” he waved his hand in front of the woman’s unseeing eyes. “Couldn’t do this though.” and he wafted his hand through her torso. A spray of red droplets were frozen in time a few inches in front of her.

Doug nodded. He too had seen his share of things that he wouldn’t care to speak about in mixed company.

They spent an hour, fascinated and appalled by what they had found. The figure stood as if projected on the air itself, as the both of them waved their hands through it, blew smoke at it and tried to communicate. The woman stared emptily back at them unperturbed by their increasingly confident & comedic actions. Ray bounced a ball through her and back at him.

Nothing had any effect and eventually they shut the door and went upstairs to have a stiffener from the drinks cabinet. Ray took up his usual place on what they called the comfy sofa; a slightly sagging green fabric two seater; he lounged sideways feet up, glass in hand.

“She’ll be gone in the morning.” he announced as Doug put his own feet up sitting across in the room’s other chair which creaked backwards on its springs.

Very Ray that was. Always very positive, convinced that things would turn out well if you just had the right attitude. Doug thought that being positive was just tempting fate. Low expectations meant you weren’t often disappointed.

Both men were unsurprisingly animated by events; lighthouse-keeping was all about routine and procedures, unusual events like washed up contraband, an injured albatross or a ghostly presence in a store room were topics of interest that could be spun out for days.

“Gallery checks then?” Doug said.

“I hear your gentle reminder oh Captain my Captain” said Ray and went upstairs with the binoculars to sweep the sea and write the log.

It was a Wednesday so Doug was cooking chili and then they settled down within a fug of cigarette smoke to watch University Challenge, Call My Bluff and the News. Wednesday’s post-news game was Cribbage. Then Doug who was off watch went to bed while Ray who was on lates put on the radio and read his book.

It wasn’t gone in the morning. They sat in the kitchen to discuss what to do.

“We should radio it in” Doug started.

“Sure. So Control can think we’ve lost our minds?”

Ray had spent his career on minesweepers and had a low opinion of anyone he considered to be of senior rank. In the bed Doug hovered between sleeping and waking, he missed his friend. The dead man twisted quietly in some other dimension.

“They might not.” Doug had said “We can both see her. Maybe they…”

“Maybe nothing. They have files at Trinity House full of stories like this. Lonely lighthouse keepers going quietly mad. The empty sky, the ceaseless wind? No mate. you’re a pillock if you report this.”

“Pillock ?”

“Yes. I stand by that.” said Ray straight-faced.

“Your mean words hurt me.”

Ray shrugged “I says it how I sees it.”

“What about William?” Doug asked.

“What William?”

“William. Bill ? Bill Windsor? We replaced him and Len? Or is senility beckoning to you?”

“Mad King Billy?” said Ray.

“Alright. If you must.”

“What’s he going to know?”

“He told me if anything ‘happened’ I should call him.” said Doug.

The sea is a lonely place. On land you’re never more than a few hundred miles from at least some point of human habitation. On the sea it can be ten times that. Doug had once crewed tankers. On a frozen night in the South Atlantic he had been walking back from the prow on a boat longer than a football field. The night was quiet, the sea dead calm, the wide prow thumping gently as it ploughed its way forwards. The bridge of the tanker loomed white and high above him two hundred foot away. He came to a sudden stop, his frozen breath clouding around his face, his seaboots set on the metal gangway as he noticed three hunched figures, perched on top of it. The creatures had their backs to him. They were sat close together tearing at something between them. Doug held his breath in the darkness, thinking they must be birds, surely they were birds but knowing they weren’t. There came a clang from near the bridge as someone opened a door spraying a light out onto the superstructure. Doug looked at the light, then back to the creatures just in time to see a blacker than black shape disappear into the night sky. The ship’s cat was missing the next day, but then that didn’t mean anything so he never mentioned what he thought he’d seen. But this was different, they had a body…

Ray demurred. “Billy was a drunk. He told me he could see dead men under the sea. And why are you saying ‘happened’ like that? See this is what I mean – Lighthouse men going quietly mad.”

“Have you got a better idea?” asked Doug

“Yellow Pages? Call a Medium?”

“A two pronged approach then; you call a Medium, I’ll call William.” said Doug.

“I don’t want to call anybody. Why can’t we deal with it. Like that time with your head !” Doug had tripped down the stairs once and gashed his forehead. Ray had stitched it up rather than trouble the coastguard with an unscheduled callout.

“This is different.” said Doug

They made the calls. Ray explained the situation to a lady advertising “Psychic Mediumship. Contact with departed loved ones” and she was sympathetic. She spoke about energies. She said that certain souls that had become untethered from their earthly bodies might seek out a beacon. Something that was broadcasting energies that could be detected from worlds away. They would be attracted to it like moths to a flame. She explained that such souls might be trying to remain in the physical world.

“This lady has shot herself, it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want to remain in the physical world.” said Ray.

The psychic, Carol, waited for Ray’s nervous humour to peter out.

“So what do we have to do?” he asked

“Here’s my address, send me five pounds and I’ll send you some instructions.” said Carol

Doug’s call to William was less pragmatic.

The phone rang and rang and he wondered if the old man had moved away or passed on. Then it was picked up.

“Hello Doug.” an old man’s voice.

“William? Hello. It’s…how did you know it was me?”

“What? No the ring is different for everyone. I can tell.”

“Different…? How do you…? Ok. Never mind. Hello William, it’s Doug from the station. Sorry to trouble you. Are you well?”

“I’m busy Doug. Speak up.”

Doug, a man then just turning 50, wondered how busy a retired man in his seventies could be.

“It’s a bit tricky actually William. You know you said I should call if anything happened..? Well…

“No.”

“…me & Ray…what?”

“I don’t remember” said Bill

“Ok, well you said to call if…”

“Did I?”

“Yes”

“Alright – go on.” in the background there was female laughter and the unmistakable sound of snooker balls clacking.

“..me & Ray have a situation; there’s a lady. A dead lady…we didn’t kill her!” Doug raised his eyes to the heavens, “she just… appeared.”

“Ah – another one.”

“Another?”

“Yeah. They’re like buses. None for ages then lots at once. They turn up when there’s trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Think so. Something calls to them. Len’s wife ran off with that accountant and he was fecking furious. We saw a bunch then. Then no more for years until my eldest had that car accident. It’s trouble or stress or misery, I dunno. Anyway…listen.”

Doug had listened carefully. William had some advice to give. For several minutes there was talk of portals and ley lines and cosmic pathways of the dead. Old books and manuscripts. Knowledge passed down from one keeper to the next.

“How did all this start William?”

“Don’t know – it just is.”

“Where do they go – do they go back to life or death?

“Don’t know that for sure either. But I saw one of them though, when I was on leave in Margate.”

“Margate…?”

“Yes – at the amusements. Young man he was; Me & Len had guided him on a few years previous. I’d just bought fish n chips and was chatting up this nice-looking girl…Sandra was it?”

Doug waited.

“Sally. No! Sheila!”

“Okay…”

“Anyway, we was having chips and had just come in cos it was cold and there by the penny-drop machines was this one. Looked right as rain. Last I saw him he’d been missing the back of his head.”

“Are you sure it was the same person?”

“Definitely. ginger haired, very tall. Same one. He had a girl on his arm and he was winning on the machine. He seemed pretty happy to me.”

“What do I need to do William?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Do have a manual or something?”

“Send me a fiver and I’ll send you some instructions”

“A fiver?”

“For postage. I’m not made of money.”

Fivers were put in the post and in next week’s mail drop two packages arrived. One was wrapped in an old comic (The Dandy, 1972) and contained a thin sheaf of papers. On the front was written “To Send Them Back” in black marker. 

The one from Carol was typed and in a brown cardboard folder.

Ray and Doug pored over them. The two accounts were largely the same. A first step involved marking an ideogram (or fiddly pattern said Bill) and reading an incantation (magic spell Bill called it). This brought the spirit into a tangible form. This was called substantiation (Bill did not have a name for that). The second step was to move the newly-substantiated spirit on via a portal. Carol was a little vague here, suggesting that they look for a natural gateway, perhaps one that caught the sun at first or last light whereas Will was a lot more specific – “take your ghost up & make the bugger stare at the light.”

At 6am he woke as usual, checked the alarms – no change, checked the hanging man, no change and then went into the little bathroom for his normal ablutions. There was a naked middle-aged lady in the bathtub. Her brown hair was slicked back, blood dripped from her wrists, painting two rich red stains that ethereally joined as one to trickle down the plughole.

“Oh that’s just bloody great.” he said. After a wash and a shave he shut the door on her. It was a calm day so he stood outside on the rocks to have a pee and a fag. He rinsed his hands in a rockpool and shook them off looking out towards the sun appearing wraith-like through wisps of cloud in a blue spring sky. He drank it all in, trying to fix the feeling in his mind, the smell of the salt air, the distant bleating of the sheep on the hills behind him, the sound of waves as they spent themselves on the shore. Then he went back inside and dealt with the two latest arrivals.

He recognised the distraction for what it was. Grateful for the fact that the underlying sick feeling in his stomach was temporarily gone. Grateful for having something to think about apart from the fact that there was nothing in between him and his death. No big life events to look forward to, no one who would miss him. Scrooge-like he imagined his funeral attended by aquaintances and strangers. And there was nothing wrong with that. He’d made his bed and he was very much having to lie in it. When he’d been a lad at Sunday School they’d given him a little book with history of Stoics in it. Post-war it had struck a chord with the young Douglas Rimmer and he’d carried its no fuss, no drama, message with him throughout his life.

At first he and Ray had spent a lot of time discussing the implications of this new part of their role. Various avenues were explored. They tried phoning William again (no answer, ever) phoning Carol again (answered but no real help) and looking in the public library – but it all came to nothing. Neither of them mentioned asking friends, loved ones, priests etc. Neither Ray nor Doug had any close friends or confidantes. Their lives had been itinerant up to this point of joining the service. Ray in the Navy, Doug in the merchant marine. Decades of isolation in steel boxes traversing the ocean. Both of them had wives and children whom they rarely saw growing up and saw less of now that they were adults. They were reliant on each other, a friendship forged by circumstance in the crucible of the lighthouse.

They’d found bodies before, the prevailing winds and tides moved objects in the channel as if in a funnel, and it was rare but not unusual to see something pale and bloated caught in the rocks. In unspoken agreement they dealt with such things. They logged it, rescued the parts into plastic sacks provided for the purpose and then called the coastguard for pickup. They took a quiet pride in understatement.

By 9am he had moved the two phantoms to wherever they went next and was half way down the stairs when he had stop with his back to the cold stone wall to catch his breath. The monster of pain in his chest had awoken. He looked out the narrow window as he waited it for it to subside. Dark clouds were starting to build across the grey-green swells. Had Ray really been his only friend? He felt okay about it. He had Marie onshore and Ray offshore and that had been fine.

All good things come to an end. Marie, six years ago from heart disease. Ray, two years ago from redundancy. Now he just had the work and had let it fill the gaps where there used to be Marie and Ray. And he still loved it. But inexorably progress marched onwards. From three people needed to man the station, to crews of two, to semi-automation and a crew of one and soon enough now, full automation and no one at all. Meanwhile and just as inexorably his body started to let him down.

He went up to the kitchen and boiled the kettle, let it cool slightly then poured it over the teabag in the mug. He checked his watch and timed three minutes then removed the teabag. He added some milk from the little jug and then sat himself at the small table taking a biscuit from the tin shaped like a pig. Ray had got it from his wife one Christmas and “donated” it to the station when he’d left. He and June had retired down to Eastbourne. Doug wondered what he did down there. Christmas cards talked of allotments and grand-children. Was that it? It sounded ordinary.

The pig used make an oink oink sound when you pulled back its head to get to the biscuits but thankfully the batteries had run down. Dunking his digestive he watched the waves crashing onto the rocks across the bay. A chunk of his biscuit fell into the mug and splashed tea across the table and he cursed softly. He got up to get a cloth and stopped stock still.

The dark skinned, teenaged boy standing in the passageway out to the stairs didn't flinch. He reminded Doug of the kids in Lagos who used to hang around the docks running errands to earn a few coppers. With pin-sized pupils he stood there sweating through his t-shirt. Doug could see the track marks on his arms from across the room. At least this kid probably had an excuse; Jamie had bugger all to drive him to get into what he got into. Marie was the one to give him excuses.

He shook his head to drive those thoughts away. Marie was a cascade of blonde hair, a cheeky smile; Petite, her eyes gazing up at him when he held her in his arms. He tried not to let her be replaced with the drawn, pain-filled woman in the hospital bed; sunken mouth half open, the life leaking out of her. They’d been to Italy on their honeymoon; the hotel was so bad that they couldn’t stop laughing about it. He could see her in the sun that streamed through the dirty bedroom window, cotton dress floating round her. He remembered feeling overwhelmed, so full of love for her that he was breathless. Thirty years on he got breathless climbing the stairs and eventually he had gone to the doctors and they had done some tests and told him why.

Anyway, he shook his head to drive those thoughts away…He stood looking at the boy for a minute taking a few sips from his tea and reflecting that even now he rarely got to drink a whole one.

Whenever he’d been home on leave they used to read Winnie the Pooh to Jamie; the boy looking too small in his big bed. Years later after Jamie had gone away he used to go up to his empty room and read it anyway; hoping that somehow he’d hear and know that his dad loved him very much.

After Marie’s funeral in the empty house he’d tramped desolately from room to room and ended up in Jamie’s old bedroom. Posters for bands Doug had never heard of adorned the walls still. On a shelf next to a plastic matador was The House at Pooh Corner. He had picked it up and read a chapter out loud. Hoping for what? His words fell dead in the room, there was nothing there.

As if completing a chore he went through the ritual and lead the lad up to the light. That done he checked the station again. The Lamp Room door leading up to the helipad, closed but not barred. A note pinned to it saying they should radio for medical support but that it was not an emergency. On his comfy chair, he took one last look around and breathed in deeply; hoping, holding the image of this place, he thought of Marie and of Ray and of Jamie; happy thoughts.

The shot echoed round the stone walls of the circular room and then there was only the wind and waves.

In his dream Doug was on the bridge of a container ship. To his right were the Helmsman and the Officer of the Watch. He had binoculars fixed to his eyes and through the mist and rain he could see the lighthouse, his lighthouse. He could make out his own self, a pale, rather sad face was in the window. It held up a small square of paper to show him.

 

Sasmita Dara, opened the door of her small home-office that her dad had let her set up in the upper floor of her family’s combined house and workshop in Mumbai. A place clean and ordered compared to the ever present dust and noise from the press machines spitting out whatever parts her dad had contracted to supply this week. She jumped as she spotted a body lying on the floor next to her desk. The monitor screens lit it in a deathly pale hue. A man in a white shirt with gold epaulettes, a head wound gaped and dripped black blood into nowhere. She read the words and made the sign then got her dad to help her walk it down to the furnace room. Positioning it in front of the door her dad levered it open to bathe the man in its orange glow.

Doug came to in his chair, the room was in darkness. He felt cosseted in a warm cloud, relaxed and at peace, as if he had just been lifted from a warm bath and wrapped in a fluffy towel. A smile played across his face, unlike any expression that had made its home there in some years. He reached for the envelope.

The letter wasn’t from Jamie, it was from a lady whose name was Natalie who said she was Jamie’s partner. She said they had a little boy and would he please like to come and visit.

Short Story: Blockbusters

Blockbusters

The Wheelwrights Arms public house stood on the seafront. It silently begged for a fresh coat of paint as the salt-laden wind ate away at its mock Tudor exterior. Inside, under dark-wood beams in the largely empty bar Graham got them both pints and they repaired to a table in the corner.

“How was your holiday then?” Martin asked

“Oh mate it was great. I loved it!”

Martin settled back to let Graham’s tales of his adventures in South East Asia wash over him. They’d met at college and ten years later Graham still had no proper job but had a way with words that he could only admire.

Eventually Graham stopped talking and took a sip from his pint. “Anyway, how’ve you been?” then, laughing “Still divorced you poor sod?”

“Ah…y’know….” Martin began.

“I do indeed – women eh?” Graham was not married but he knew a lot about relationships.

“I really don’t know if I’m honest. It’s been nearly a year but last week I found myself on my hands and knees on the carpet sobbing so…”

“Mate… You need to get over all this. Get up and get out! Stop being one of those sad loners stuck to their PlayStations and be a bit more fun maybe? I mean I love a catch up with you but…woah!”

Martin rolled his eyes in apology. “You’re right, sorry. And I do appreciate you making the effort. Actually I auditioned for that brass …”

“Look” Graham raised a hand to silence him “I know it’s hard so I may have something to take the edge off for you.” He passed him a small white plastic container.

“Paracetamol.” Martin read.

“No, dummy. They’re Paracetamol only for the purposes of getting them through customs in my washbag.”

Martin nodded, silently berating himself for this schoolboy error.

“I got them in Saigon. You can buy pills for anything there. These are anti-depressants.”

“Anti-depressants?” he opened the tube, lots of small white pills with smiley faces on them looked back.

“Well they called them happy pills – same thing. Maybe they’re E’s. Anyway I took one and had THE BEST night! And now they are my holiday gift to you.”

Martin was still unsure.

“Oh do NOT give me that face. Fucks sake, take one, see if it helps a bit…”

Last time Graham had given him some pills he’d missed most of a college party because people had turned into terrifying lizards and he’d had to hide.

“Go on!” Graham cajoled him “it’ll cheer you right up.”

Graham was right. It wasn’t fair for him to be such a misery so he took one. Graham continued with a story about a boat trip where he was allowed to use hand grenades to fish with. “Boom! Vietnam mate, anything goes!”

Martin went to the bar, maybe he was feeling a bit of a buzz? Hard to tell. He paid for another couple of pints and left them on the bar while he popped to the toilets. They were at the back next to a small unlit stage where faded posters suggested the great and the good had once played here. Not any more.

He was in a stall in mid-pee when he heard two men come in. “Did they send him down then?” “Yeah. To be hanged” “Poor bugger.” He waited for them to leave (they did this without any hand-washing) before he flushed & came out. “Nowt stranger than folk” as his grandad used to say.

Back in the bar he was surprised to see that the place was now half-full with punters chatting and drinking. He grabbed his pints off the bar then weaved his way back through the crowd towards Graham.

“Those pills working then?  Graham grinned “I saw you staggering your way back here.”

“Huh? Maybe a bit. Got busy though didn’t it?” Martin gestured at the motley assembly of folk now in the pub.

Graham gave him a blank look. “Eh? Mate, you’ve lost it. Anyway, where was I ?” He continued with his story of Saigon nightlife for another twenty minutes.

“Right I have to make a move. You gonna stay and finish that?” he nodded to Martin’s half-finished drink as he shrugged into his coat to head for the door. “Laters.” Martin, sketched a wave and then hunched back over his drink.

“Excuse me. Can I sit here?” It was a girl. Blonde hair, cut short. “Been on my feet all day”. She grinned and sat anyway. “Seems unfair you having that nice table all to yourself”

He was immediately uncomfortable and started to get up.

“Oh no! Stay! Sorry I’ve had a couple of drinks, I’m not normally that rude. I’m good company, honest!” she mugged a very pretty winning smile.

“Okay, I’m not much fun so I may be disappointing” he said and sat back down again.

“People used to tell me I was no fun” she leant across the table towards him. “But now I work in Blockbuster Video. The future of home entertainment!” she did jazz hands to show how fun that might be. “So y’know, anything can happen.”

Despite his nerves he could not let that go. He looked her in the eye and did his mock American accent. “Have you been drinking ma’am? I think you’ll find Blockbuster Video is no more.”

“Ha! You’re pretty funny! Whaddya do funny man?”

“Graphic Design”

“Well” she hiccupped “I have no real idea what that is but I shall call you Graphics! I’m Julia.”

“My name’s Martin. I work mainly on Internet sites.” It sounded as lame in his head as it did out loud.

“Inter sites? Like Inter-rail?” at this point she leant back to the group standing behind her and smacked a man on the back. “Geoff! Come on. It’s been all day.”

Geoff, retro-suited and booted, considered this then dug in his waistcoat pocket and gave her a packet of cigarettes. She lit one with relish while Martin goggled at her. “Calm down Graphics, I’ve cut right back on these babies. Geoff’s helping.” Geoff winked at them and turned back to his conversation with an older lady who had a pekinese in her arms.

”But you can’t smoke in here. No one can smoke indoors anymore. It’s been against the law for years.”

“Oh Graphics, I’m not fooled.” She pointed in succession at four other people puffing away and at the cloud of smoke up at the ceiling. “but I love you for trying. Anyway, what’s your story? Nice chap like you etc”. Again that happy smile.

So he told her. He told her of his utter misery. His divorce, having to leave his home and live in a crappy flat, the constant sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. At one point she took his hand across the table.

“You, my friend, have been in the wars haven’t you?”

He gripped her hand but broke eye contact, trying to get himself together.

She pretended not to notice. “Any bright side? Help me out here.”

Deep breath. “I play the trumpet, I went for an audition the other evening, so y’know, maybe that’d be fun. ”

“Trumpet! Well that’s your ticket out of here kid! Smoke?” she offered one.

A sense of unreality washed over him.

“Julia” He really liked looking at her eyes.

“Martin.”

“Do you think you’re real?”

“Yes” she said

“And your friend Geoff, the natty 1940’s dresser?”

“Yes” she said

“And that chap over there. In the black coat and top hat.”

“Roger? Yes. Nice man. Works in the police.”

“He’s wearing a top hat.”

“He always wears it. I like it.”

“And you don’t wonder if he’s real.”

“I don’t do a lot of wondering Martin. I’m too busy with squeezing all the joy out of living.”

“Are you sure you’re living?”

“Are you sure YOU are?”

“Excuse me just a sec.” He returned to the bar and leant casually on the polished wood. Two barman looked at him expectantly.

“Is it normally like this on a Thursday?”

They both answered.

 “Dead as anything                 it’s all big tellies and beer at home these days”.

“Office crowds mate,                                      gets crazy this close to Xmas”.

He nodded noncommittally and turned away wide-eyed just in time to see everyone fade to nothing. They were all gone; as if the Augmented part of an Augmented Reality app had clicked off and he was left with…well…Reality. The remaining barman was polishing a glass and looking at him quizzically. He leant back a bit too heavily on the bar.

“You alright mate? I saw you chatting away to yourself over there.”

“Oh right – yeah, phone call.” He had a decision to make and he made it ”Can I get another pint of best please?” He popped another pill and washed it down as he walked back. He sat and looked out the window. It took fifteen minutes and the pub was suddenly busy again, but Julia and her friends weren’t there anymore.

In the back of the Uber he stared out at the increasingly dishevelled streets as it made its way back to his flat. The battered entrance door yielded to his wavering key after a brief struggle.

He fired up his console to play a game before he went to bed. As he got immersed in dodging through a ruined French town towards an enemy Panzer a part of his fuzzy mind considered that he had clearly spent the evening with a bunch of ghosts. The thought oddly didn’t bother him. A brief review of his life showed a single failed marriage and a single friend; another layer on that reality was welcome.

And so to bed. The mournful cries of seagulls outside roused him around 5am giving the day an air of misery from the off. From then he was stuck in the zombie state of half-sleep until his alarm went off and he blearily went through the motions of getting up and dressed.

Making tea he checked his phone and saw that at some point he had missed a call. On the voicemail, In a satisfyingly stumbling way Keith from The er.. Quality Brass Quintet thanked him for er… taking the time to audition but regretted that his er… style wasn’t quite right for the group.

He gazed out the kitchen window at the communal bins below in the car park where a few tatty gulls were scavenging someone’s leftover McDonald’s. He’d allowed himself to be hopeful that was his mistake. He’d phoned up, he’d gone in, he’d made eye contact (not too much) and smiled. He’d used the small talk which he’d prepared in advance. But then Keith had said “Really? Good luck!” when he’d said he’d prepared a Miles Davis piece. Suddenly nervous he stumbled like a schoolboy over some of the faster sections like he’d never blown a trumpet before. At the end there was silence in the practice room; he was aware of the smell of furniture polish and his own sweat.

“Thanks!” said Keith “That was…” imperceptible pause “…super! We’ll let you know”.

So that was that. He’d put himself “out there” like Graham had suggested and this was his reward.

He was in between Graphic Design contracts at present and with no work to do he lost himself in a game. With the VR headset on he parachuted into exotic landscapes and teamed up with other, presumably equally sad, loners (thanks Graham) in attacking strategic bases and accumulating treasure.

Later he took off the headset and wondered if he was hungry or if it was just the sick sadness again. Deciding it was genuine hunger he went out to get food and instead of his usual dash round the mini-mart he walked to the café. He would consider the slightly overbearing owner a ghost; just an overlaid figure in this reality.

He sat at a table by the window, the sun streaming warm over him and tucked into his full English. He felt so alone, untethered. With his tea he took another pill. Why not…?

This time there was no gentle transition. He felt a tightness in his chest and the world got dimmer for a second, then came back the same but different. His plate and mug were gone. He looked carefully around. There were a couple of labourers in cloth caps and rough jackets, hands clasped round mugs as if warming their hands, a man in a double-breasted business suit sat at the same table but was lost in a newspaper. An office girl, hair in a tight bun, was pouting into a hand mirror touching up her lipstick, the business suit glanced at her then back down. And there was Julia, sitting in the corner munching a sandwich.

He waved at her and she bobbed across to come and sit with him.

“Hey Graphics! It’s been a full twelve hours you stalker! How are you Martin?”

“Fine. All good at “Blockbusters” today?”

She looked at him levelly. “Yes… What? I come here all the time.”

 Julia pointed across the street. He was unsurprised to see that there was a familiar blue and gold sign where there would normally be an estate agents.

He turned back and smiled despite himself.

“I failed that audition”

“Aw. I’m sorry Martin. Oh, but here’s the good news. Saturday night is…” she did a drum roll “…open mike night down at the Wheelwrights! Wanna come? Wanna bring your trumpet?”

No way. No. No. No. “Okay.”

The rest of the day was an agony of terror and excitement. On the bus to the seafront he took three of the pills. Then as an afterthought another half dozen, not wanting them to wear off too soon.

The Wheelwrights was busy but Julia was already at a table. On the little stage lit by coloured spotlights a man was playing the spoons with great enthusiasm.

“Hi!” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. I put your name down. You’re on after Terry. Go Go!”

Terry finished with a flourish to scattered applause and Martin found himself standing in his place. He could see Julia at the table grinning at him. Geoff in a tweed jacket, gave him a thumbs up.

He started off with ‘Stella by Starlight’ faking Miles Davis then, as a few people clapped along he upped the tempo to finish with a section of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.

Out of breath he collapsed to the floor, phenomenal pain in his chest, the world fading to black. In the otherwise empty Wheelwrights Arms the barman was calling for an ambulance.

Out of breath he stood grinning stupidly as the room erupted in applause. Julia ran up and threw her arms around him. Over her shoulder he could only see one barman now. He was lighting a cigarette.

Short Story: Laser Quest

Laser Quest

“So tell me again?” the big man bent over to sit himself down on the lower bunk; fixing his eyes on Colm he scratched his shaved, tattooed head.

“What? I told you at dinner.” Colm perched nervously on the only chair and scraped it back against the wall to be a little bit further away.

“So you are in here” the big man gestured round the walls of the holding cell “because you were trying to impress a girl.”

“Yes”

“With a laser pen”

“Yes”

“No. Take me through it again. No one does that.”

“I did it.”

“No one normal does that son.”

Colm rubbed his eyes with his thin fingers then looked up. The nervous energy engendered by the events of the last several hours had worn off. He nodded agreement.

A smile broke out across the big man’s slab of a face. “Good man! Take your time we’ve got all night.” He paused and a dark look appeared, a thick finger waved in front of Colm’s eyes. “Don’t miss anything out mind!”

Colm took a breath and shut his eyes; closing off the grey little room with its girly pics blu-tac’d to the wall and its stainless-steel toilet bolted to the floor.

He wasn’t sure where to begin and opened his eyes to say so.

The big man’s eyes were wide, permanently startled. “Work away now” and Colm forced his thoughts to Caroline.

It was in the lunch queue at college. She appeared next to him and said “Sorry can I just…?” and reached past him to the chiller cabinet. He was enveloped by a cloud of apple blossom and rose, the scent transporting him to hours spent lazing in an orchard on a sun-soaked Scout camp. Blonde hair to her shoulders, a green army surplus jacket with three different versions of the same Anarchist badge pinned to the collar and a scrawled ‘A’ in a circle on the back. A tiny red crystal stud interrupted the freckles across her nose. She looked up at him as she pulled away.

“Thanks!” Blue eyes. Sculpted eyebrows.

“Sure! I’m Colm! No problem! Anytime! ” he continued to blurt out random words as she walked away. Faded jeans, scuffed Superdry trainers.

At the counter he watched her buy a cheese and pickle sandwich on brown bread and a Tunnock’s teacake and a can of coke. Full-fat, not diet.

That Saturday he was at a party at Terry’s. Colm stood with Declan, leaning against the brick wall at the back of Terry’s mum’s house. It was still warm from the sun that’d been on it all day and they drank cans of Harp and discussed the issue.

“So you like her then?” Declan nodded towards Caroline who was currently standing upwind of the barbecue chatting with a group of girls.

Colm did like her. Colm was obsessed with her. Colm had thought of nothing but Caroline for the one week, three days and seven hours since their fateful meeting in the canteen; the way she carried her book bag over one shoulder, the way she half-covered her mouth when she laughed, the way her hair swished as she walked past, entirely indifferent to his casual nods of greeting.

He hesitated, “Nah, well, yeah, she’s okay.”

“Sure you’ve got the same dopey look like you had back in Primary over Rosanna Fee. Why don’t you just go and talk to her?”

“Because…look!”, he carefully waved his can in her direction. She wore the same rough green anarchist’s jacket over a faded Ramones t-shirt and stud belt. Denim skirt, bare legs, black ankle boots. The sun backlit the curls in her blonde hair. “Why would she talk to me?”

“Shut up, it’ll be fine, just say hello”

“…and then what?”

“See where it goes from there.”

“That is such a shit plan”

“Might work…”

“For you maybe, not for me.” Declan was never without a girl; tubby, lazy as the day was long, and yet he could talk the birds from the trees. He remained blissfully unaware of this talent.

Colm tilted his head back and drained his lager, enjoying the heat, the smell of smoky food, the babble of voices around him. He had only spoken to Declan so far, because in truth Declan was his only friend, but it felt nice to be with people.

“Colm!” he suddenly noticed Declan was no longer by his side but was now standing next to Caroline and her friends, grinning and waving at him. Colm focussed on acting completely normal and left the safety of the patio to join them.

“Ladies, this is my friend Colm. Colm this is Caroline (Declan dropped Colm what he considered to be a sly wink), Janine, Roisin and Laura.

“Caroline (a wink you could see from space) was just telling us how much she likes cats.” Colm said hello as if acknowledging girls was something he was very very used to, making limited eye to eye contact and zero eye to breast contact. Caroline nodded dispassionately at him, as if Declan had brought along a curious-looking houseplant. She then continued to tell them about her cat Mr Fluffy.

Before she could say much she was interrupted by a loud “Alright my lovelies?” and into the circle bounded Luke to universal female acclaim as he hugged his way around the group (nodding at Declan and Colm).

“How’s it going with youse all?” he said “I just got the Audi back from the garage. So I took it for a burn just to test it out, so that’s why I’m a bit late.”

To Colm’s satisfaction no one bit on Luke’s “I’ve got a car” gambit. Colm himself had a pushbike which he’d surreptitiously left in an alley a few doors down.

“Caroline was telling us about her cat just” said one of the girls. Colm winced and had a small bet with himself.

“Caroline’s pussy eh?” said Luke and Colm counted his imaginary winnings.

“Oh Luke – you’re a bad man!” they giggled. Not for the first time Colm wondered how crassness and popularity were somehow joined at the hip.

Fired by this righteous thought he blurted out “I had a cat once. He was called Bob.” and the eyes of the group turned to him expectantly.

“Did you Colm?” Caroline smiled and his stomach did a little happy flip.

“Yes.” His brain stubbornly refused to give him any further conversational help. “When I was a kid. He was very…” (don’t say cuddly, don’t say cuddly) “…cuddly.”

There was a short pause as the group digested this.

“Wow” said Luke flatly “Great story young man.” and Colm, in the year below Luke and a vast six months younger was crushed.

“Do you still have him Colm?” asked Caroline unexpectedly throwing him a lifeline.

“No, he died, he got hit by a car.” He smiled bravely.

“Oh that’s awful. I don’t know what I’d do if Mr Fluffy died.”

Luke gave Caroline a quick shoulder squeeze as if he understood her pain. Colm gave Declan a look that said he would have cheerfully killed Luke if an opportunity arose and if Luke wasn’t bigger and stronger and older and better looking and had a car. Declan rolled his eyes in commiseration.

In the cell a hand came down on Colm’s shoulder bringing him back to more immediate concerns. The big man loomed over him. The big man’s name was Liam or maybe Ian or maybe neither of those. Colm felt they were too far along with each other for him to ask for a reminder now.

“I didn’t mean I wanted your fricking life story, cut to the chase”

“You said don’t miss anything out.”

The big man cuffed him lightly “Don’t cheek me boy”.

Colm got back onto the chair. “Sorry.”

“So the girls had another better party to go to, and Luke said he could give them a lift and so they left and then it was just me and Declan chatting again. And Declan says – you know how much she likes that cat? And I says Yeah. So he says what if you rescued it? And I say But it doesn’t need rescuing? And Declan says it might.”

The big man humphed his approval, he had some experience in this line of work.

“How’s he gonna go missing? How am I gonna rescue him?” said Colm

Declan, reached into his pocket. On his key-ring was an oversized black metal cylinder. “This is a Laser Sighting Device. They use these in the Army.” he said “For sniping and that”.

“It’s a laser pointer.”

“It is not. It is a Laser Sighting Device” Declan said, reproachfully.

“You’re mad in the head” said Colm “How am I going to shoot her cat?”

“Not shoot it ya eejit! Have you not seen cats and lasers?”

“Is that a film?” Colm bantered

“Feck me I will swing at you in a minute!” said Declan.

Another pat from the big man – “Fast forward son.”

Colm stood up and paced around the cell as he explained further.

“So I was to go to her house that night and reach in through the cat flap and shine the laser. Mr Fluffy would see it and come outside. We even stole some tuna from Terry’s mum’s cupboard to sweeten the deal. Then I’d hide the cat at mine and pretend I found it the next day.”

“Did it work?”

Colm looked down at the big man on the bunk and cocked an eyebrow at his surroundings.

“So it did not work?” The big man stood up, uncomfortable with Colm doing the looming. He leant back against the cell door, arms folded. From behind it the hubbub from the nightly intake had quietened to an occasional echoing bang and shouted obscenity.

“I biked over to Caroline’s and snuck round the back. The plan goes fine except when I shine the laser inside and do the ‘here kitty’ bit through the cat flap there’s no sign of Mr Fluffy. I get the can of tuna out but fecking Declan didn’t think to give me a tin opener. I try waving the can through the flap in case Mr Fluffy recognises it y’know but no joy.

“So I sit myself down outside the back door to have a think and I’m just shining the little red dot around the garden for a laugh.

“Then I hear a miaow and out from the hedge pounces this big ball of fur! So I carefully reel him in like and bring the little dot closer and closer to me, keeping it wiggling like its alive see?

“Like you’re Hemingway wrestling a three hundred pound tuna.” said the big man dryly.

“Yeah… Well, then I grab Mr Fluffy and start to hustle off round to the front of the house again.”

“But….?”

“But he squirms out of my arms and shoots up a fir tree.”

“Cats, cash & women. You’ve got to hold onto them tight!”

“Well my own cat wasn’t like that, he was…”

“…cuddly, yeah, you said earlier”

“You’re making fun of me now.”

The big man widened his eyes and showed his palms. “Pal, I was making fun of you then, let alone now. You climbed after him?”

“I did. But I fell out of the tree because it was slippy.”

“Slippy”

“Yes. Slippy. But I didn’t give up. Even though I nearly broke my arm and totally scratched the feck out of my face.”

The big man dutifully inspected the faintest of red lines on Colm’s cheek.

“That could scar son.”

“Once I’d got my wind back and the twigs and dirt off me I shone the laser again, trying to get him down. I was standing in their garden shining it when a police helicopter flew over.”

“It wouldn’t have been there for you son.”

“I know that now. But then I was quite drunk”

“Shitting your wee self more like!”

Colm agreed that this might have also been a factor.

Briefly lit by a police spotlight Colm ran down the path and into the street. He stopped short in front of Caroline who was heading unsteadily for her gate.

“What?” she said “Colm? What are you doing here?”

“Whaddya tell her?” The big man came up close, Colm could smell sweat and tobacco.

“I told her I was trying to bring down a police helicopter with a laser.”

“Ha! Why?”

“I said I was a political anarchist and it was an initiation ceremony to join my local platoon.”

“Platoon?”

“Is it not called a platoon?”

“It’s a brigade ya fuckwit.”

“A Brigade of Anarchists? Ok, thanks.”

“Not a…ok never mind. But she believed you?”

“Oh yes, she’d had a few herself and wanted to see me try it”

“And did the police believe you? “

“I was shining my laser at the helicopter when a patrol drove up.”

“And so they put you in here to wait for a hearing?”

“Yes”

“And why did you not tell them the truth? That you’re just a kid with a laser pointer trying to impress a girl.”

“About Mr Fluffy? About fancying Caroline? Not a fecking chance – I’m an idiot but not that big of an idiot. Plus…”

“Plus what…?” the big man turned from examining a particularly lurid centrefold pinned up by the door.

“Turns out it wasn’t her cat up the tree. Mr Fluffy came out the front door as they were taking me away.”

The big man’s guffaws were loud enough that the duty officer came down & opened up the door to investigate.

“Tell him… tell him” the big man gasped.

Colm fixed the new arrival with a serious stare. “Well. I first saw her in the lunch queue at college…”