Keir Royale

He left with three days’ worth of sandwiches in his backpack, lovingly prepared by his mother.
“There’s ham, cheese, and some of your favourite…”
“Marmite” they said it together, their eyes meeting as the crowds pushed past them to get a good seat on the ferry.
“Thanks Mum.”

He turned to stare past her through the window, across the harbour, towards the shipyard, the place he’d enjoyed toiling ever since he left school. His eyes were the colour of stormy sea, greenish blue with a lacy edge of white breakers.

“Hurry up Nick,” his friends were waiting. It was now or never, the journey of a lifetime.
“Bye Mum.” They hugged, kissed, held hands, then he pulled back, his fingertips brushing hers before he turned to stride after his three best mates, arms swinging, backpack bumping against the wallet full of cash stuffed into the pocket of his favourite jeans.

The four lads stood on deck, their hair blowing wild in the wind, and watched as their own small world slid slowly out of view. First the harbour walls. They faded from bold blocks of pink granite to distant smudges of pale grey with a hint of a rosy tint. Then the castle, which had always floated in the bay, reminding them of their place in history, hovered above the wispy mist before slowly sinking into the horizon. And their ship sailed out into the endless ocean.

They laughed when they saw they were surrounded by nothing but the familiar, blue-green sea, the sea which had entertained them, frightened them, tossed them and caressed them ever since babyhood. They looked for dolphins; they saw who could spit the furthest over the railings from the top deck; they were on their way.

They were neither at home, safe among family, friends and familiar cliff-top fields, nor at large, buffeted by strangers and foreign vistas. They were held in a limbo of cheap beer, Black Jack and slot machines.

They’d eaten Nick’s three days worth of sandwiches before they reached France.

His mother was at home preparing lunch, her first whisky of the day nestling on the worktop next to her. She took a gulp and placed the tumbler precisely back where she’d picked it up. It was twelve-fifteen. They’d still be on the boat. Would they be feeling sick? Laughing? Arguing? Was he wishing he was at home again, sitting in the kitchen with her, telling her it’s too early to be drinking spirits but joining her for just a small one? She’d never know. She couldn’t keep hold of him, not now he was almost a man.

She heard the car rattle over the cobble stones in the yard, listened for the door to slam shut, took another quick slug of whisky and then hid the empty glass in the cupboard under the sink. She popped a Tic Tac into her mouth and got back to the potatoes just in time for George to traipse his muddy shoes across the black and white tiled floor.

“Has he gone then? Or did he chicken out at the last minute?” He was grinning as he dumped his jacket on the kitchen table, knocking over the breakfast cereal which hadn’t been put away. Coco Pops spilled onto the floor and the dog scampered through the freshly deposited mud to lick them up before she had time to think about getting the dustpan and brush out. She stared at the Coco Pops packet, still on its side, leaking cereal out onto the table.
“He’s gone,” she said.

It was on a train, deep in the Normandy countryside, bound for Germany, then Switzerland, then who knew where, that Nick felt the first whisper of unease. He was staring out of the window at miles and miles of green, of brown, of foreign crops pushing up through unfamiliar soil, of roads leading nowhere and everywhere. There were infinite rows of Poplar trees, stretching straight as masts into the wide beyond. It was beautiful; it seemed to go on forever. It was where the land nourished the soul, but it was never-ending. It unsettled him, this land that reached out as far as he could see.

Every time they reached the top of a hill, he expected to see it there, shimmering blue and cold, glittering its inviting glare of reflected sunshine. His eyes were losing their stormy glint as he strained to focus on the place where the sea meets the sky, on a horizon that wasn’t there.

She had to get out, had to be close to him. She walked along the sand, climbed up the steps worn smooth by generations of footsteps and sat on the granite wall in front of their favourite beach cafe. It was the end for her now, it was just a matter of time. She put her hand in her pocket, but remembered the hip flask was empty. She pulled her coat tight across her chest and stared at the two young mothers playing with their children and chuckling beneath her on the beach. She felt barren. It wasn’t cold, but she was chilled, so chilled she thought she’d never be warm again.

She’d done what she had to back at the house; made the lunch, served it, eaten it, even held up her end of the conversation.
“You haven’t heard from him yet then? He has actually got on the boat?”
“No. Yes.”
“Just us now then, we can do what the hell we like.”
“Yes, I suppose we can.”

Even when she’d been talking to him, dishing out extra potatoes, holding out her glass to be re-filled with a celebratory glass of chilled Sauvignon, she wasn’t there, at home with her future. She was out here, in the sea breeze, feeling her hair whipping across her face as sharp as pampas grass. She’d sit here until he came back to her; safe, different perhaps, but still her boy.

At first Nick didn’t realise what was making him jittery, upsetting his tummy and sending him on frequent trips to the hole in the floor loo. He could see when he looked in the mirror, even with the juddering motion of the train, that his skin was losing its familiar bronze sheen, his eyes were clouding over, losing focus. And every time he went back to his seat and stared out of the window, refusing to play Pontoon because it might make him sick, he felt worse.
“Got a touch of the jimmy riddles?”
“Delhi belly and we haven’t even left France yet. What a lightweight.”

Where would it end? When would they get there? He got off at the next station, his legs shaking and his belly heaving. He didn’t want to lose it on the train, he told them he was coming down with something and would join them in Switzerland, or maybe the place after that. The last thing he heard from his three best mates in the world was a thin echo of them yelling “Mummy’s Boy” out of the train window.

But it wasn’t his Mum he wanted. He got the next train back to St Malo, feeling his body growing calmer with every kilometre that passed. The fields were still green, the earth still a rich ruddy brown, the trees lined up stiffly into the endless distance. But the fields full of unidentifiable crops were getting smaller, the patchwork of green and brown felt more human in scale, the rocks in the distance had a granite-pink sheen.

And then he saw it, shimmering in the farthest corner of his view from the window; glittering like a mirror ball, ceaselessly changing but always the same.

The sea.

This short story appeared in Jersey Now in April 2007.

We’re all staring out to sea, far into the distance. It’s sunny, bright, the clouds careering across the summer sky, but we don’t notice the weather. We stare but we know we won’t see him, even if he’s there we won’t see him, not from here.

We scan the sea, our shaking hands shading squinting eyes, the children running wild at our feet. He’s long gone.

She’s been here the whole time, pacing on the prom, leaning over the railings almost too far out for safety. Her fine, white-blonde hair, unwashed and dishevelled, flickers in the briny gusts of sea breeze. She wears the same jeans, caked in sand and stained with the coffee that’s sustained her for two days.

Her children go to school, go home, do their homework, but they’re tired of eating Gran’s meals. They want their Mum. They want to be on the beach, far from the everyday clatter of book bags, packed lunch and show and tell. It’s too noisy there with all their friends, they can’t hear the waves pounding on the sand, they can’t watch the watchers on the beach.

To read the rest of this short story, see Ink. (It’s a pdf file - page 14)

“What do I want with a load of old bellows? If you think they’re so interesting, you can keep them.”
“Thank you Ivy. No need to throw. Do you remember what they were used for?”
“Course I remember, they’re for whatname aren’t they?”

Course I remember. I was holding some when I walked out on my first job. Snooty madam told me I was laying the fire all wrong. Do it yourself then, I yelled, threw down the bloody bellows and walked out. Just like that.

“So what did you use them for?”
“We didn’t pump up our bicycle tyres with them did we? They’re to blow on the fire. Nobody does that now, they’ve all got gas.”

She’s a strange one, says she’s not a nurse, but keeps staring at me, leaning on her elbows looking right through me as if she wants something. And she keeps on dragging old kitchen stuff out from behind a damn great screen in the corner. I can see an old carpet sweeper, the kind you push up and down. They’re too bone idle for that these days. Got to have something they can plug in.

“That’s right Ivy, what about this?”

There she goes again, fussing with her frock. What does she want to wear a white frock to work for anyway? Just asking for extra washing.

“Have you ever seen one of these before?”
“Bert got his fingers stuck in one when we were kids. Mum had to call the doctor. She didn’t half give him a walloping after, didn’t like having to cough up for the quack. She used to do the washing then wind it through that thing, it’s a whatname, you know, for drying the sheets. We didn’t have bri-nylon in those days you know.”

She’s not so bad, this nurse who says she’s not a nurse. She’s listening like she wants to learn.
“Course, Bert’s dead now. His liver. Serve him right if you ask me.”
“Hang on a minute Ivy, there’s someone at the door.”

Typical. You got nothing to say, you get all day to do it. When you’ve just got into your stride, some silly sod pokes his head round the door. Looks like a doctor, either that or a butcher. Coat looks too white for a butcher though.
“Sorry to interrupt Mandy, I’ve got a couple more recruits.”
“Come on in doctor.”

She’s called Mandy is she? Well she’s taken her elbows off the table pretty sharpish. Very keen to fuss about with extra chairs and simper at the doctor. We all know her game. Get a cushy job carrying old kitchen stuff about, marry a doctor, settle down in a nice semi in Southsea, and Bob’s your uncle. Just look at those two he’s brought in with him. That old shuffler looks like he’d fall over if he wasn’t hanging on for grim death. Eyes like a bloodhound, dripping red and droopy, and that hanky wants a good wash.

“Just sit them here doctor.”
“This is Frank, and Margaret.”

Another hopeless article. Mandy’s not going to have time for me and Bert and the mangle with these two to watch out for, is she?

“We’re having a chat about times past, aren’t we Ivy? Now, shall we tell each other our names? I’m Mandy, this is Ivy, and you’re Margaret?”

She doesn’t answer, so I do it for her. “It’ll be Christmas before that one says anything, probably doesn’t even know her own name, crackers she is.”
I reckon the bellows might knock some sense into her, so I grab them, lean across the table and thump them down in front of her.

“Ivy, please, you’re frightening Margaret. Frank, would you like to have a look at these?”

And the silly girl hands them to him. Course he hasn’t got the sense he was born with, sucks on the narrow end and gives the business end a couple of squeezes before she can get them back off him. I can see her fingers twitching. She probably wants to give him a good clout. I know I do.

“Shall we break for a cup of tea? I’ll ask for some to be brought in, shall I?” And she’s up and out of the door in a flash. She’s had enough of these other two and I don’t blame her. The silly beggars have ruined our nice little talk, just the two of us, Mandy all ears at my bit of chat about times past. And where’s the kid? She said she’d go and pay the bill, but she hasn’t come back. And there’s still no food. It’s a bloody silly restaurant if it can only manage a cup of tea. I’ll have to tell her not to bring me here again.

“Where’s Caroline?” I stand up and the chair tips over on the floor behind me. “She’s left me behind.”

I push past the stupid chair and bump into Margaret. She’s shifting from one foot to the other, staring at the floor as if she can see half a crown but can’t figure out how to pick it up.

“Move yourself, you daft beggar.” I give the bent up old fidget a bit of a shove, and the papery body just folds up and floats down to the carpet like a piece of confetti.

“Get up you silly…. “ but I can’t reach the right word. I know what I want to say, but it won’t get as far as my tongue. It’s stuck somewhere between my head and my mouth, “… just move yourself will you?”

I push through piles of chairs and bellows and mangles to get past the woman lying on the floor, and her hands flutter up in front of her silly face. So I give her a sharp kick in the leg. The curled up old scraping doesn’t even yell, just lies there, staring at her hands as if she’d smacked herself in the leg without realising it.

Caroline used to be like that. You’d hit her, and she’d stare with those stubborn blue eyes that screamed silently at you. So you’d hit her again, harder, and she wouldn’t even wince. That girl wasn’t normal. I always said to Jim, that girl’s not normal. He just said to leave her alone. That was his answer to everything, leave it alone, sounded like flaming Bo Beep.

I look down at my feet. There’s something in my way. The rocking woman who muscled in on my little chat with Mandy, who’s refusing to yell, just like Caroline. I watch as a foot makes contact with the woman’s head. My foot. I’m kicking her, again, and again.

At least she’s yelling now, long and loud. Maybe she is normal after all, or maybe Jim was right and I should just leave her alone, not force her to eat the same dinner night after night until she finishes every damn mouthful. There’s just been a war on for god’s sake.

I feel a gentle rubbing at my arm. It’s the old geezer with bloodhound eyes, wiping me with his filthy hanky. I dig him sharp in the ribs with my elbow, and he falls hard against the table just as the door opens and the room fills with white coats.
“Stop that, right now.”

That’s right, stop it. Stop rubbing at me with your grubby hanky you old misery. One of them grabs me, but ignores him, the one who attacked me with the filthy hanky, leaves her, the one lying on the floor thrashing like a mad woman.

“Ivy, no.” Mandy’s here now too, her face shoved right up close. It looks wet, like she’s been out in the rain looking for the teapot.
“Get off me, where’s the kid? I want my tea, and make sure you put in one for the pot while you’re at it.” I try to shake them off, but there are too many of them.

“Come with me Ivy, it’s time for a rest.” It’s that doctor, the one who spoiled my chat with Mandy. “Just hold your arm out for a moment. It won’t hurt.” And he sticks me with a needle.

“Of course it bloody hurts. It’s her you want to stick a needle in. She’s a bloody thief, a tea leaf, she took my tea.”

“We’ll get you some tea in your room, you can have a nice sit down.”

I am feeling a bit sleepy. Funny though, it’s bright sunshine outside and I never sleep in the daytime. Must be coming down with something, a cold maybe. That must be what he stuck that thing in for, a flu jab. The kid will be pleased, she’s always on at me to get a flu jab. I’ll tell her when she gets back from paying the bill, no need to worry about the flu jab, I’ve had it now.

This story appeared in Secret Attic