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- I so missed it last year. One of the friendliest writing groups you could wish to meet.

Temptation

Sun through the cracks between the barn’s roof timbers created stripes alive with husk-freed motes, dancing witless as dervishes and spot-lighting his discarded trousers, their corduroy putting me in mind not only of Oliver Mellors but also a September-ploughed field. 

Similarly post-harvest, the blond stubble of his beard had brought my skin to cherry-ripe.

His voice, husky as a post-gig Springsteen, had murmured hot encouragement, his fingers skilfully tickled my fancy, but ultimately everything he offered failed to match the pull of  new scarlet, liquid scatter-patterning the polished silver curve of a sickle.

Stand-out books of 2018

Dirt Road - James Kelman,          

This another of those books - told from a single point of view - that requires a change of mindset, of mental pace, to read but it was so very worthwhile for the thought-provoking depths of it. Murdo's struggling to cope with grief and the adolescent bursting for independence, in America rather than Scotland (so all the more dislocating) - plus the insight into experiencing the joys of playing music were impressively told and made for a very satisfying read.

The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride

This is more than reading a story. It is the absorption into another's head, another's life and experiences and so intense, and so throat-aching, it could only be absorbed in relatively short doses - I needed to stop for a breather. The writing - "stream of existence rather than consciousness" - is what sets it above and beyond much writing of relationships, and sets a new standard for would-be writers about sex and being with another, about honesty and what happens when one lies.

The Handless Maiden – Vicki Feaver

This contains 'Judith' which blew my breath away and introduced me to the gut-wrenching, mind-blowing use of words, creation of new imagery to be enjoyed and enjoyed again and again in Vicki Feaver's poetry,.

A Natural – Ross Raisin

Amazing for more than holding my interest throughout, despite my considerable scorn for all that is football. This was a weightily emotion-packed novel, full of well-drawn characters. The sense of doom inescapable, my involvement total. And yet so much, so many of the turning points were feather-light.,

Unexploded – Alison MacLeod

Sense of place and time wonderfully evoked. The treatment of aliens and prisoners, the suspicions of Brighton's residents, the inexperienced lack of thought and brutality of those in authority make this a rich experience. The tension, so gradual and so pessimistic, and the collision of several dreadful possibilities perfectly executed. And above all the relationships, the push-pull of marriage, the betrayals small and large, the compromises, painfully true to life. 

The Rules of Backyard Cricket – Jock Serong

The pace of this, the delivery and impact of the telling mimics that of a bowled cricket ball and, to continue the obvious parallel, hits the wicket every time. Or the bat, sweet enough to soar, along with the reader's admiration and heart-broken attention every time. Heartbreaking it is, and you don't need to know anything about cricket to fully appreciate the skill with which this tale is told.

 London Rules/ Smoke and Whispers –  Mick Herron

I really cannot praise London Rules highly enough. Like all of Mick Herron's Slough House series the protagonists are an endless source of entertainment, the pace is lunatic and the observations so incredibly sharp they tingle one's brain.

I came away from Smoke and Mirrors thonking what a clever brain Sarah Tucker has. As does her creator. And what a wonderful, exhilarating book this was.

Cairo -  Chris Womersley

Read on a plane in one single sitting, absorbed and admiring of the way the tale was built to hold so much tension and the insight into the mind and emotions of Tom Button. Manipulation par excellence

Bone Deep – Sandra Ireland

 Very slightly less amazing than 'Beneath the Skin', but nevertheless un-put-downable and read in virtually one sitting. The writing so lucid, the tales told with clarity, the tension slow-paced but no less taut and the brooding sense of place over-arching.

If I Should Die – Matthew Frank

I'm very grateful to the assistant in Glasgow's Argyle Street Waterstones who recommended Matthew Frank to me then gently insisted I begin with this rather than 'Between Crosses', which he had on the shelf. More than lived up to its promise, for characters - physically flawed, war-damaged trainee detective, anti-bullshit female Caribbean DS, plus more - plot, setting and 100% enjoyment. An extremely satisfying read.

Blue Night –  Simone Buchholz

This was superb - a female character with an initially off-putting, chick-lit type name, who was one of the most believable and appealing protagonists I've read in a long time: ballsy but suffers doubts, and has a strong moral streak. But above all it was the quality of the writing - and the translation - which shot it up to a five star rating almost from the first page. Pity it is the tenth in the series but only the first to have been translated into English

49 of the 175 books read this year were five-star, of which 18 were binge re-reads of previously much-enjoyed books - Peter Temple and Andrew Greig to name but two. Six of the above were new discoveries - long may that keep happening!

Poems of the decade 1992-2001

I have no recollection of buying or otherwise obtaining this book - it has been on the shelf for a decade or more and, from the pristineness of its pages, never opened. Taking it into the toilet, reading a poem or more on each visit - and several re-read several times - has given me a great deal of pleasure.

127 poems, written in the 1990s. Only two did I find unreadable. A dozen I noted as especially impactful, for reasons of thought-provoking, memory-reviving or the simple enjoyment of the choosing and putting together  words and how they told the intentions of the poet. One such was Vicki Feaver's 'Judith', on the strength of which I bought two more of her books. And intend to look out for more of other poets.

Those I pink-stickered include Thom Gunn, Stuart Henson, Mimi Khalvati, Roddy Lumsden, Les Murray, Stephanie Norgate, Evangeline Paterson, Robin Robertson,  Vernon Scannell and Jean Sprackand.

Delivery of a secret fantasy

‘It’s a smallish nuisance, yes.’

In her world that meant catastrophic. Instant dismissal for the culprit. For some crime as heinous as the wrong choice of cup for her afternoon tea.

But she wasn’t in her world. And those five words, hinting at an unspeakable problem, confirming an unavoidable and regrettably indefinable absence, the last she’d say.

Smut-dusted fingers seized her phone. Scarlet mouth, in a face the more barbaric for its creases being grimed with black smiled wetly.

‘Sweetling, you should’ve known the best place to come for more than fifty shades of grey would be a charcoal-burner’s hut.’ 

Heightened awareness

As with a daylight visit to a nightclub, when the morning-after, melancholic echo of late-night jazz brings only sour emptiness and headache, the reality of spunk-starched sheets and stickiness, stale breath and stubble rash, rarely failed to deduct pleasure from the memory of the night.

Not until my eyes alighted on the tawdry apparatus for the drugs we’d taken, until I heard the crackle of the plastic as I turned, saw your tethered wrists, your staring, sightless eyes, did I understand why the ecstasy of last night’s orgasm was so vividly recalled.

Going out tonight?

I checked my watch. Asked my brother, ‘She ready yet?’

‘Nah. Bet you a pound to a penny she’s on the phone to her sister. Waffles on for hours, saying sweet FA.’

Impatient – we were already twenty minutes late – I went upstairs, with the intention of knocking on the bedroom door; geeing her up. Came down without doing so.

‘Told you so –‘

I looked at him. Obdurate old sod but heart in the right place. As was hers. After I told him what I’d overheard – no sisterly conversation necessitates those sort of responses! – he knew exactly where to strike.

Duplicity

Summer mornings, spine unwilling to support me, knuckles galled but brain bright as ever I dictate my novels from the chaise longue beside the French windows. (Wintertime I transfer to its twin, beside the fireplace.)

‘A cat!’ you cry, occasioning a hiatus in my concentration. Together we watched it stalk and fail to catch its quarry. My next sentence lacks precision.

‘Scrub that,’ (an ugly phrase I learned from you). I watch as you apparently obey, unaware you expect me to die before your perfidy becomes known.

Before this latest book is published. My words. Your name upon the cover.

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.