Caveat emptor

Even before I introduced myself I scored her ten out of ten for truthfulness: “5’9”, dark hair and classy” exactly as advertised. Mesmerised by fingernails the exact same shade as the chillies inserted into each green olive, by lips glistening as she placed them, one by one into her mouth I contemplated challenging her claim of “celibate”, imagining her straddling me; those nails scoring scarlet across my chest.

I ordered a second bottle, to be delivered to my room.

There, conversation turned to what I assumed was consent. Until fingers turned guardian, became portcullis. When I further demurred, to scalpel.

The necessity of cosmetic

From her bedroom a flare of conversation through a just-opened door; cut-off laughter. Her reflection grimaced back at her, picturing guilt; laughter was for post-burial, after whisky had begun to flow. 

Carefully she applied paler-than-customary lipstick; a sleepless smudge of eye-shadow beneath her eyes. Brushed cheap mascara to which she was allergic: that would ensure she cried.

The flimsy black silk, insufficient for the frosty temperature would set her shivering even as she imagined the heat at the core of the crematorium furnace.

It would not do to abnegate grieving widow until the evidence had been well and truly incinerated.

Proposal

A monochrome mooring of black barges edged the bank of a silver-sheened canal, mercury disturbed only by the slow-unfurling wake from a stately swan, unveering even when it lifted and readjusted its wing, smoothly efficient as royalty exiting a carriage.

We paused to watch. I slid my arm around you, refraining from breaking the silence, recalling what you’d said about swans mating for life. Emulating its elegant efficiency I slid my hand into my pocket, fingered the smoothness of what lay within. 

The only alteration I wanted to my life was to add a splash of scarlet to the scene. 

What Elsie would’ve told them if she could

Last week Michael waited ‘til I’d bought an orange one then asked for spearmint. I’d never heard of them. Pale bluey-green colour and thick because, he said, of being made of milk. Wouldn’t even give me a lick.

I heard the chimes, watched the pretty painted van park across the road. Mummy’d said no pocket money for being naughty so I took my silver threepence out my money-box.

The smiley ice-cream man had a pirate scarf and earrings. Said it’d be a shame and I could earn threepence by coming on board and tidying the lolly sticks.

So I did. 

Godfather

He preferred her face soap-scrubbed. Hair tied back with velvet ribbons; mouth unsmiling, eyes lowered in imitation of a purged and penitent Benedictine nun.

The first time he asked, and every time thereafter, he quoted Tennyson’s hackneyed invitation. Obtained parental permission to stroll with her to where there were trees enough to render the fleeing of the poet’s ‘black bat ‘ of night unnecessary. Distant enough for cries of passion to go unheard.

She had long ceased wondering if he’d had this in mind when, twelve years ago, he held her at the baptismal font and named her Maud.

Holiday reading

Even this far north ‘Midnight sun’ a misnomer, its vermilion orb already dipped below the horizon as the haar comes in on the tide, thickening a silence broken only by the gentle huff of foam rearranging stones; the melancholy piping of invisible oyster-catchers.

Then your voice, inappropriate as a cockatoo, ‘Wanna halfa orange?’ You divide one then hand me both knife and dripping semi-sphere, turn your half inside-out and begin slurping at its pulp.

The knife is sharper than the orange flesh, but sweeter still the thought that Ann Cleeve’s Jimmy Perez is about to have another murder to solve. 

Perusing the small print

DISENCHANTED-BY-PEDIGREE DIVORCÉE, 39, SEEKS MONGREL HUNGRY FOR ADVENTURE.

‘She saying she’s a dog?’

‘Nah. Posh bitch wanting a bit of rough –‘

Grin widened as he brought his pint glass to his mouth, ‘Rough I can do –‘

‘She don’t necessarily mean use your fists –‘

‘What then? Tie ‘er up and suchlike? Whips and kinky boots?’

‘You got any kinky boots?’

‘Only what I wear for work. And they’d need cleaning –‘

‘Get her to clean them. Use her tongue –‘

‘Then stick it into me mouth? Not bloody likely!’

‘S’pose not. Same again? ’

‘Victoria Bitter. Ta, mate.

’

Acquiescence

In a voice soft as a lullaby, sung by a mother tip-toeing  from the pastel-painted room wherein, spread-eagled, lay her sleeping babe, tiny fingers folded and sucking blister still anointed with a gleaming drop of bluish milk, he said, ‘You will.’

I too spread-eagled, but not from choice: wrists and ankles tethered with coarse strips of chemical-impregnated sacking which irritated my already-chafed-to-rawness tender skin.

My voice just as muted. My screams had been silenced with breath-taking brutality, as evidenced from the grape-sized bruises to my throat, if not my now fear-flaccid lungs.

And because I knew I had no choice.

Takes two to tango

Garlic breath and vindaloo-derived stomach-gurgles undoubtedly a counter-indicator to a night of passion, even had I believed his claim of a magnificence of other attributes. (Such claims, from experience, I had learnt to divide by two or even three to come somewhere near the truth.)  

Yet his conversation was stimulating, his sense of humour (from whence derived his self-promotion) on a par with mine. So we had reached the door of my apartment before I finally decided ‘No’. Whereupon he proved himself much the faster at bundling fake civility out of sight. To reveal a knife more magnificent than mine.

Pause for thought

The apricot horizon – a peeping edge of silk beneath a sky the colour of a two-day bruise, evidence of a punch dealt by a man who swore he loved you – put me in mind of a petticoat, worn beneath a frayed and mud-thrawn skirt ferreted from a bin  by a long-unwashed bag lady.

Perhaps a souvenir from a past life of material luxury whose constraints – parental inquisitions – she found unbearable.

Wishful thinking? That the high can fall as far as I who, almost, had to climb to reach even here? Whatever, the edge  – The End – was where I headed now. 

Test match

Like many men who worship cricket he rhapsodised about the crack of leather on willow and spent much of that summer trying to convert me. It being necessary to attend daily, and stay until the stumps were drawn, he was sensitive enough to keep me sweet by providing hampers and champagne, by introducing me to his friends confident, in spite of their much better looks, their more sparkling conversation, I’d not stray.

And knowing, in the coolness of the evening, I knew no-one else so deliciously, efficiently capable of applying leather, raising puckered weals on this Willow as did he. 

Map reading

He was the second man to appreciate.

Most commented on the cost. Made some remark which incorporated, in intent if not actuality, words such as ‘spendthrift’ and ‘narcissist’; their revulsion stemming from being forced to contemplate – come face to face with – their ignorance, their inadequacy and the fear they had left it far too late.

He knew to translate the tiny script of circled rubrics. To trace, with tongue and fingertip, touch sparse as exhaled breath of sleeping babe, the fine-inked lines that  led inexorably to the places where pleasure was most intense.

And understood the tattooist had been first. 

‘Sweets for the journey’

Chocolate limes and sherbet lemons, as anticipatory as the travel. Chilly car, pre-dawn departure, squabbling northwards to the Scottish border.  Arrive in time to watch the midday ferry coming in.

So few years since.

Now, innocence become recklessness, I suck on hard to bring forth something less than sweet. And the white powder thus afforded something different altogether.

When ignorance is not exactly bliss

Fine-plucked eyebrows circumflexed above irises the smokey ochre of ancient beeswax, whose hardness matched the jargon they resembled.

‘Jason, it is considered vulgar to express a concern for the pecuniary, but since you ask, five-hundred for a blow-job, two grand for a fuck and no bareback.’

Be careful what you wish for

For a dwarf his sense of self was oversized, outrageous. As well he knew; worked hard at even. And, like a castrato I once had as lover – an outstanding Prince Orlofsky! – he was not lacking in the most important attributes. Nor did his skills present as ostentatious; there was no sense of shortcomings being compensated for.

Which, perhaps, explains why I so regretted my own failure of perfection when he took my hand and, not exactly sorrowfully, said, ‘Ah, Eve, time to say good-bye. I’ll not be seeing you again,’

My aim overcompensated; I shot him right between the eyes.  

Swaddled

He was a teller of tales, a fabricator of fables, a sewer of stories, ever needing to build ramparts to protect me from the outer world.

He was my teacher, of all I ever needed to know; my preacher when I questioned how to live, my chastiser when I contravened his rules. He tended me when I fell ill, argued against what he termed the unreason of my objections. Taught me to be loved and to love in return.
Brought me to bloom, to bloat, to bear his child. And made me promise to tell no-one he was my father.

From the Humber

I did not plan to spoil your homecoming but word came yesterday the Caroline had been early-sighted off Spurn Point. Within the hour I shall make my way to the high point of your land. From fields still corduroy-ploughed, sheltered by hawthorn  salt-scoured from winter black to jute, I shall watch for you, before returning home to await you.

For a man returned from a thirteen-month voyage should not be publicly greeted by an eight-months-gone wife. I know your flensing knife will peel me as the flux is peeled from wire,   releasing copper-stinking blood and exposing the bastard babe beneath. 

Realism

When we were together  her post-coital drawings were executed large, in charcoal; on whatever paper was already on the easel. Fast because she’d then return to bed, splaying grimy fingerprints across my chest.

Now she uses pastels, paper-wrapped to keep her fingers clean. Renders you in earth colours: burnt sienna, raw umber, sanguine. I doubt you’d let her lay so much as a lone finger on those expensive  linen sheets.

Worry no more.  Having dealt with you, having newly-patterned your  sheets, I’ll shred those tender drawings to better replicate the scene before me.

Then I’ll go in search of her.

'If music be the food of love -'

He claimed not to know his crochets from his quavers. When I commented on the elegant length of his fingers, said he never played; had no instrument on which to do so.

I believed him until the night I, having escaped from Peregrine’s roadster, camisole unbuttoned but virginity intact, passed by the Lodge and heard him playing.

On a whim I knocked at the stout door. Music ceased, bolts were drawn. He was not pleased to see me.  ‘Milady –‘

I thought appeasing  would be easy. But in praising length had failed to appreciate their strength. Or his sexual bent.

Horizontal thoughts

 Tip of tongue started at the hollow in my  throat, her warm, topaz-gold tiger’s eyes glinting a promise of more to come. In my head, while rational thought was still possible, I addressed the sanctimonious prick that was my brother, assured him yet again that paid-for variation way out beat the thrice-weekly ennui of the marital bed he, ever-adamant, tried to convince me was superior.

He didn’t know how much his wife liked money. And I doubt he let her do to him what she – tongue marinaded in honey with just a soupçon of paprika – so deliciously did to me.

A domestic scene of devastation

I remembered several such from childhood; me as fascinated by the magic litany of words: vanilla essence, cochineal, angelica and  silver dragées, as by the ingredients, the butter-creaming, egg-beating bun-making process itself. (That beetle derivation of the crimson a much later discovery.) My mother, gingham pinafored, embarked on a joint mission of entertainment and education for her daughters, relaxed about the temporary chaos. Wooden spoon, yellow mixing bowl, fluted paper cases and dark-burnt bun-tins.

Fast-forward forty years. Same kitchen. Similar colours. Just a different derivation: blood and shit and vomit. And normality not the only thing  suspended.

Unpredicted serials

The tabs above this post are links to pages where I store serials written in response to weekly prompts posted on the Prediction Fiction blog which I currently host .

The first - 'The Blacksmith's Wife' - ran to forty episodes and became an illustrated book.
I brought it to an end partly for fear of boring readers but also because I recognised that in several ways it is easier to generate the continuation of a tale than think up a new one each week, and thought I should try harder.

However, characters frequently refuse to die. 'From Rhodes' continued the 17th century 'The Blacksmith's Wife' while 'A change in focus' picked up and ran with characters who first appeared in a short story (John Pettinger so vividly that he also forced himself into a novel).

I did try to write a singleton. 'Threshold' was intended as a one-off. But, its narrator still nameless, it today lurched to its 139th episode. And I can't see an ending for it yet.

What I can see is the benefit of a weekly exercise wherein there is a necessity to incorporate three random words into an entertaining tale which extends to no more than 100 words. I've been practising on and off, under different hosts, since 2011 and kno
w how much my writing has benefited.

Writer's Workshop Festival of Writing

Returned last night from a full-on weekend of workshops, listening to agents and having a couple of professionals comment on my work. Plus, of course, an opportunity to meet with old and several-times-met friends as well as meet those known only through their avatars on the Word Cloud   - as good as a detective story in itself matching real life face to cartoon avatar and on-line name - and exchange thoughts, directions and enthusiasm, however  brief, with a handful of the several hundred other delegates, while queuing, walking between rooms or eating breakfast.

'Full on' often exhausting at the time, especially for those of us who relish solitude, but having returned home and had a little time to ponder, I found myself awake at half one this morning, planning anew how to give the two novels I'd received critique on a new and better direction, using some of the lessons I'd learnt in workshops  - on structure, sentences and pace - and the specific suggestions of Andrew Wille and Hal Duncan - and then maybe even think of approaching an agent.

Go to!

Found poetry - river 15

Inspired by Adam Byatt's 'blackout poetry' (and also Tom Phillips 'Humument' my daughter and I set up a challenge using identical books. This - page 15 - is my first attempt.


For clarity, text reads:

Night heat delivery
sipped cream harmony.

dressed, their eyes question night devices,
advances
evaluating source and making human new.

I suspect I need to incorporate existing punctuation, and certainly need to make sure not to obliterate words I intended to use.

And my far better-practised daughter's version is here

Yesterday's 'August awake'; my most-liked one yet.

The cicatrice lace of cantaloupe skin

has me wanting to roll it with ink,

to roll it and print patterned paper 
to cover a notebook.

Awake August

Absolutely delighted to find, on Monday, a just-begun series of daily observations. I've always found it a truly beneficial exercise, which in the past has given me a store of metaphors. The additional rule I've given myself this time is not to post anything about the weather. Mine are in my Small Stones blog. It's not to late to join, and there are some lovely, though-provoking observations to read also. Awake August - 2016 - post your small stones here

Off the rails

A measure, perhaps, of my dislocation that for an instance, an aberration of McEwan, I saw you upended. Buried, head first and up to your waist. But in my mind – and there was no saying as to the health and strength of that! – you’d not arrived there violently, but had ...

... no you could not have done, not achieved the age denoted by the sag and wrinkle of your buttocks, without suffering in one way or another.

But at least, I reassured myself, our love had endured, hadn’t it? No loss of trust –

– only to be immediately proved a liar for, beyond you, in this bizarre mental journey through my past, and just as unkindly displayed, was ... I can’t, even now, say his name, not with you so close.

So was I to end my journey here? Between the two of you? If so, which way should I face? Ah, but ... it wouldn’t be my face, would it? Which made it easy.
Because he always took me from behind.

[Canvas prompt: a photograph by Josh Box from House of Writers]

Morning has broken

When I was sure it was over  – I’d waited until a paler square of light drifted into shape on the wall opposite the bed, and the candle-flame had faded to ghost – I fetched a jug of water from the kitchen. Tepid for my sake. You no longer likely to flinch from cold, hard though it was to convince myself.

I’d known to place a folded towel beneath you to soak the ochre stains of shit and piss and leave the cotton sheet unmarked.  Unlike the frayed-edge strips wound herringbone around your ribs on which was mapped a rusting archipelago – a continent – afloat amidst the still-scarlet matted waves of your chest.

Cutting, peeling bandages away, I flinched on your behalf. Made amends by the tenderness with which I washed your skin to pale. Pale as the parchment on which you’d writ the words to summon me.  Words writ in ink black as the cloak I wrapped me in. Before I went to tell your wife.

[Originally posted to House of Writers, for Canvas prompt 150]

Some folk know how I like to spend my time

Books of 2015

Forty-eight  of the 192 books I read in 2015 merited five stars; a further fifty-five, four stars – evidence of a very good year’s reading. Of those five stars, thirteen were re-reads (including early Poldark and Denise Mina’s Alex Morrow) and only fourteen in the crime/thriller genre; three each by Tana French and John Lawton plus a further two by Mark O'Sullivan.

The year seemed dominated by new-to-me writers, and although 'never-heard of' does not apply to James Baldwin or L P Hartley, I'd not known Jennifer Johnson nor read J L Carr's  'A Month in the Country', or David Constantine, Glen Doig, Jenny Fagan, Elizabeth Harrower, Gene Kerrigan or David Malouf

Top six Crime/thriller books (roughly in order)

Scott, Manda  No Good Deed

Genuinely, ever-windingly tense, near-unputdownable and astonishingly vivid in the power of its characterisation. 'Remarkable thriller' indeed. 

.

Staincliffe, Cath Letters to my Daughter’s killer

Stunning', as Ann Cleeves is quoted as saying on the front cover, is the only word for this. It begins with an intensity that is exhausting then the depiction of the corrosive effects of hatred, alongside the daily drag of bed-wet sheets and a bitchy workmate is powerful and convincing.

French, Tana  The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)

For the compulsion of its story, the voice of the narrator, this deserves thrice times five stars: I could not put it down. Five stars too for the writing, the characterisation, the dialogue and the scene-setting

. 

O'Sullivan, Mark Crocodile Tears

A rivetingly original character in DI Leo Woods, fully supported by his fellow detectives. A convoluted plot, solved by much discussion and many cul-de-sacs, many marvellous metaphors and lovely, individual writing.

Lawton, John Lily of the Field

Addictive as crack' it says on the cover, and though I've never tried crack, John Lawton's writing certainly has me addicted, and high as a kite with each reading.
                                               

Bingham, Harry The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths (Fiona Griffiths, #3)

Fiona Griffiths has to be one of the most fascinating individuals in today's crime writing, her illness making more plausible her more irrational decisions and behaviour. The depth, breadth and application of research is lightly applied, the whole of it a thoroughly entertaining and absorbing tale.

Top seven non-crime books (in no especial order)

Duncan, Glen  Love Remains

This, as an exploration into the inner selves and relationship of two people - Nicholas and Chloe - is astonishing in its ability to entrap the reader into shocked, throat-aching suspense, and to force them to ask questions of their own understanding of what love is, exactly.

Fleming, Will Le Central Reservation

I cannot imagine this novel landing on any publisher's desk and being greeted with anything but delighted applause, so fresh, unique and appealing it seems, And I am far from someone who would go in search of a ghost story. Equally, I admit to ignorance of the dreadful effect of the slaughter of cattle on farmers, which brought as much of a lump to my throat as did the tribulations of Holly

Hartley, L.P. The Go-Between

Expectations were high, and this, in its gripping, insightful readability, surpassed them.No idea why I didn't read it decades ago.

Johnston, Jennifer How Many Miles to Babylon?

A vivid, poignant and very well-observed tale of a male friendship operating under differences of class and rank. For once, the authors' endorsements on the cover "fresh and moving", "brilliant masterpiece" and "truly heartbreaking" do not exaggerate. 

                                              

McIlvanney, William  Docherty

It's a very long time since a book brought me to tears, but this did twice over. As stark a portrait, beautifully told, of a working man's life and philosophy as you'll ever expect to find.

Ralph, Anna  Before I Knew Him

Skilfully evokes the misunderstandings of adolescent relationships, the fear and the desire to be understood. Easy to read, not because the writing is simplistic but because it says what is necessary.

Winton, Tim Eyrie

Possibly even better than 'Dirt Road' which is my most regularly re-read of Tim Winton's novels. Desperate, full of disparate incidents, not all of which are explained or explainable. The beginning chapters, heavy with sharply-described observations. Then the dialogue kicked in, like reading tangled barbed wire. And all characters achingly, painfully human in their indecision and inability as they attempt to make sense of their lives. A book I finished with my heart beating double time and my throat aching