The Sleeve Notes: Sleeptalking

Original 1974 
Album Cover

Sleeptalking is a non-fiction short story written for Hannah Griffiths’ now defunct website The Sleevenotes: Writers On Records. It was published there in the summer of 2004. The site took the form of an online anthology where writers used a memory of one particular song as the springboard for a short story of around a thousand words. 
Here is a link to the song I chose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi26OuAXC3E from Keith Hudson's 1974 album 'Pick A Dub'. Below is the piece I wrote. It's all true. And reader, I married him.


Sleeptalking
It was our first night together, and I was woken from the shallow sleep that comes with a new lover.
   “I’ve got the biggest and the smallest,” he said with a childlike smugness. His eyes were closed tight and his face was immobile in the semi-darkness of my bedroom. Light from the street outside cast a greenish glow across his mouth and I could see a glint of moisture on his slightly parted lips.
   I’d never had a sleep-talker before. I wondered if it was like those hypnosis shows on TV, so I asked, “the biggest and the smallest what?”
   The reply came without hesitation, “Record collection. My record collection is the biggest and the smallest,” he said and then rolled over, presenting his back to me. I gazed at it wondering who this man was that I seemed to be falling in love with.
   The next morning when I questioned him about what he meant exactly, his face blanched with embarrassment. He had no recollection of having exchanged words with me in the night. I told a few friends about our nocturnal conversation and we laughed at the obviousness behind the size of a man’s vinyl collection and the measure of his virility.
   The next time we met was at his flat. He had offered to throw some food together, which was his way of inviting me over for dinner without actually using those words. I arrived nervous and expectant, and the first thing I noticed was the wall of vinyl.
   “Choose a record,” he said casually, “while I open the wine.”
   ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘I’m a small town girl from Ottawa, Canada, and here I am being asked to choose music by someone from London, England’. This particular June evening was hot, stiflingly hot, and Reggae sprung to mind. But then I panicked. Suddenly all the songs I ever liked and all the albums I had loved in my life abandoned me. Reason, too, abandoned me. I felt this was the most important moment of my life. One of those rare defining moments that I would look back on later. I could smell my sweat over the garlic being fried next door.
   I wondered whether to put something on that had changed my life when I heard it for the first time — Nina Simone singing House of the Rising Sun, or Jimi doing his version of All along the Watchtower, or Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. Or should I try and second guess him? But this was only the third time I’d ever met the guy. I didn’t even know his last name, let alone his favourite songs. I was bound to choose the one album an ex-girlfriend had given him which he kept for sentimental reasons but didn’t really like.
   He came in with a glass of wine. “I won’t be a second, I’m just soaking some mushrooms.” Maybe he was feeling a similar kind of tension around our supper ingredients.
   “No problem,” I replied, adding, “You’ve got a lot of records.”
   “Yeah, I know, but not as many as I’d like. You can never have enough.” There you had it: the biggest and the smallest.
   Oh, hell.’ I was now getting angry. ‘Go with the moment,’ I told myself. ‘It’s a hot June evening, you’re falling in love, you’re having mushrooms soaked for you. Stop trying so hard, just choose something, Goddam it. Anything!’
   My hand reached for the ‘H’ section (yes, of course it was alphabetical) and pulled out the record wedged between Freddie Hubbard and Mississipi John Hurt. I slipped it out of its sleeve. The opening notes of Augustus Pablo’s melodica rang out and I knew from those first five chords that I had done the right thing.
   Jason popped his head ‘round from the kitchen, “Good move.”
   Keith Hudson wasn’t an obvious choice. I could have gone for Tubby. That would have been just as summery, sexy and confident. Or Lee Perry. That would have been a touch more playful. But no, Keith Hudson was the man for the job: subtle, strong, exactly right. Those lilting opening sounds on Pick-a-Dub defy anyone not to be in love. The elegant minimalism leads you on until you just can’t take it anymore and then the drums and the bass take over with a soulful passion. For several moments I stood suspended in the loosely contained chaos of pure musical joy.
   Jason entered the room and looked at me. “I’ve put the rice on. Won’t be long til’ we eat.” He sounded distracted. I knew he knew what I was feeling.
   “Great.” I wasn’t taking in what he was saying. Our real conversation was running parallel to our words.
   “So you like Reggae?”
   I nodded. We fell silent and listened.
   I had noticed the way people reacted to music in London. In Ottawa it was the background to other things. Here it was an activity. It defined you. It defined you so much that every time I opened my mouth and some smart ass guessed I wasn’t American, they would then come out with, “I guess you like Bryan Adams.” Luckily there were plenty of non-smart asses who would hear my accent and mumble something about Neil Young, which at least went somewhere towards making me feel OK about being from the most boring country on earth.
   Sitting on cushions on the floor we eventually got round to eating. We ran out of booze at about eleven and fuelled the rest of the night with music until the sun came up. We dozed for an hour or two until I dragged myself off to work, he to a wedding.
   As I sit and write eight years on, I now live with Jason. In idle moments I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had chosen Blondie or Frank Sinatra or Ray Charles — or any number of musicians I adore — in that moment on that hot summer night. But fate guided my hand. The fate of two people, young, letting go, just seeing what happens.

Short Story: Dry Cleaning

I looked at the leopard print frames of her glasses and wondered if she had them specially made to match her outfits. I imagined her plush bedroom lined with cat print fabrics and scatter cushions. She stared back at me through the lenses of those glasses. Her eyes were not the mournful, intelligent eyes of a large cat but those of a small rodent. She was a rat in cat’s clothes I had thought at the time, slightly unkindly, I now realise.

   “Thanks,” I said and took my dry cleaning, my husband’s shirts folded between sheets of crisp white tissue paper.
   “Have a nice day,” she replied and I turned away.
   Her rat eyes and her cat frames made me uncomfortable and a little sad.
   I took my husband’s clean shirts home and sat and thought about the cat lady all day. I wondered how many cats had spots. The only big cats I could think of were leopards, lions, pumas and tigers. But lions, pumas and tigers don’t have spots. There were probably dozens of other large cats with spots. Ones I had never heard of. 
   That night a word came to me in my dreams: ocelot. It came at me from somewhere deep inside. Probably from elementary school or from a National Geographic special. 
The next night it was jaguar. Of course. How could I forget that one? And cheetah came the following night. Another totally obvious one. Then serval slunk into my unconscious mind. I have no idea from where. The final one to come was lynx. 
   I was dreaming of cats. 
   A week passed and it was time to exchange my husband’s dirty shirts for clean ones. 
   The lady was there in her animal print outfit as usual. I handed her my husband’s pile of shirts and she took them brusquely and handed me his crisp clean ones wrapped in cellophane, along with the pink slip I would need to collect the next batch. 
   “Thanks,” I said. 
   “No problem,” she replied.
   It looked like she’d been crying. 
   I wanted to ask her what was wrong but I didn’t know her well enough.
   I left and said I’d be back the next Monday. 
   Her eyes were more like pig’s eyes that day, rimmed in red.
   I sat and wondered about her. I didn’t want to tell my husband how much time I was spending thinking about her, but when he mentioned that maybe we should stop using the dry cleaners, my heart stopped. 
   “It’s bad for the planet,” he kept saying, “and now with you out of work, it’s adding up.” 
   I had to agree.  
   So I started washing and ironing his shirts. And I gave away all the clothes I owned that needed dry cleaning. We started living simply. Cutting back. Being frugal. To my husband it was like a game. How much money we didn’t spend became his favourite topic of conversation.
   And the cat lady? I passed the dry cleaning shop most days on my way to the bulk food store and the recycling bank. I always looked in to try and see her but she kept the glass so shiny all I got were reflections of myself. 
One day as I passed, she had the door wedged open and I got a full view inside. Someone else was behind the counter. A woman in her twenties, about my age, with dyed neon pink hair and a U of M t-shirt. She was chewing gum. 
   I went home and told my husband I was worried about the cat lady. 
   “You’re obsessed,” he said.
   “And what if I am?” I replied.
   “You need a job,” he said.
   And that’s when I knew exactly what I needed to do. I got the sewing machine out and bought some fabric. I went for a 1950s style dress and a cardigan I found on eBay. The shoes were trickier, but a vintage store downtown had the perfect pair with a matching handbag. 
   The next day, I went in and asked for the cat lady. 
   “She’s sick,” said the woman. She was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Of course I don’t look busy, I did it right the first time’. 
   “Oh, sorry to hear that,” I said wondering what the cat lady would make of the woman’s t-shirt. “Do you know when she might be back at work?” I asked. 
   “Um, no, she’s just had an operation. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
   “Oh,” I said, then gathering up my pluck, I asked, “do you know if she’s hiring?”
   The woman looked at me, without blinking. “Um, I could find out. I’m heading back to college in the fall so maybe then?”
   “That would be great,” I said.
   The woman told me to come back in a couple of days.
   And well, I wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t all worked out. The cat lady was too sick to return to work. She visits though and we compare spots. We’ve ventured together into stripes. I found a fabric shop going out of business and bought all the cat prints they had. I gave her half of what I bought. When customers see us together they think she’s my mother. I’m totally fine with that because I don’t talk to my mother. In fact I don’t even like my own mother. She was never able to understand anything I did, nor did she approve of my husband. He, on the other hand, is relieved that I’ve found a job. He’s not sure about the outfits and the scatter cushions, but I think he’ll get used to them. As I keep telling him, I’ve gone too far to ever come back. Can you ever come back from anything as big as this? I ask him. 
   But my poor husband, he never has the answer.


This story placed third in the Wow! Writing Matters Flash Fiction competition in July 2014. The link to the three winners is below: 

http://www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk/2014-wow-winners.html

The Road to Napanee

When they stopped to pick her up, Ray was surprised Stephanie didn’t give him one of her lectures about responsibility. She never did approve of Ray’s habit of taking in strays. It wasn’t so much the weirdoes that Stephanie disliked, it was the fact that Ray made no effort to hide his kinship to them. He felt closer to the misfits and drunks than he did to his own wife and child.

    But tonight Ray was not about to drive past a woman alone on a highway in minus thirty-degree weather, with nothing but a rucksack and a cardboard sign saying NAPANEE. The tires skidded as he came to a stop.

    Stephanie turned sharply to look at him, “what the hell … ?” But her question was cut short as the woman jumped in.

    “Thanks,” the stranger said, tucking her bag by her feet. She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. “It’s fucking cold out there.”

    Stephanie said, “hey watch it.” And looked down meaningfully at the small girl sleeping on her lap.

    “She’s out cold,” Ray said in the hitchhiker’s defence. “She can’t hear a thing.”

    “Oh, sorry,” the hitchhiker said.

    Stephanie told the hitchhiker their names and then asked for hers.

    “Karl,” came the reply.

    In his rear view mirror Ray noticed the dark patches under her eyes. A pretty panda, he thought.

     “Karl. Isn’t that a boy’s name?” Stephanie had her schoolteacher’s voice on.
     “Yeah, my dad wanted a boy but all he got was me.” Karl laughed.
     “Oh, I see.” Stephanie turned back to face the front and was about to say something else when Ray switched the radio to the one station his car could pick up. He felt Karl tapping in time to the music against the back of his seat. Snow fell softly on the road ahead. He was taking it extra slow.

    “You should have got snow tires before we left. We’d be in Toronto by now if you had.” Why Stephanie had to bring this up just at this moment with the beautiful fresh snow, the music, the sleeping child and the stranger in the back was beyond Ray. He glanced at Karl in the rearview mirror. She was staring out the window.

     “Everyone is passing us,” Stephanie added.

     And it was true. Cars were zooming past theirs.

     “Well, I didn’t get snow tires so that’s that.” Ray shot an embarrassed smile at Karl who gave him a startled look in return, as if she knew more than he did.

     “Don’t you just love all this snow?” Karl said. “It’s so clean and quiet. It covers up all the shit everywhere. It even makes Napanee look pretty.”

     “Is that where you’re from then?” Stephanie still faced forward, shifting Emily on her lap. Ray thought four was too old to be sleeping on your mother’s lap, not to mention the safety issue. Forget snow tires, if they were in an accident Emily’s little body would be flung around like a rag doll. He tried not to think about it. 

     “Yup. Napanee,” Karl replied wearily. Then out came a productive chesty cough. With one hand shielding Emily’s face, Stephanie gave Ray a ‘Do You Think It’s Contagious’? look. The little girl carried on peacefully in a very deep sleep.

     The hitchhiker recovered her voice. “You wouldn’t think so, but even a town as small as Napanee gets dirty. You find shit all over the place when the snow melts.” Karl cleared her throat again. “Even my dad’s toenails got dirt under them. The guy never even went outside. But when I used to cut them I couldn’t believe how much was crusted in there.”

     Ray spotted a gas station up ahead, its lights shining through the early dusk. “How ‘bout a coffee?” He said with exaggerated uplift. What he was really gasping for was a drink, but he’d been dry for a month now and with Christmas coming he was trying hard. Coloured lights flashed around the windows splattered with fake snow. He turned the radio off and stopped the car.

     “So anyone for coffee?” he repeated.

     “No thanks. It’ll come in one of those Styrofoam cups. Do you know that those plastic cups are giving us all cancer? The chemicals from them have been found in the breast milk of polar bears. Those cups and the people who drink from them are killing polar bears and everything else on this fucking planet.”

     Ray pretended to ignore Karl. Opening his door a crack, he turned to his wife. “Anything for you Steph?”

     She looked out over the dashboard and Ray recognised her calorie-counting expression.

     “A hot chocolate with marshmallows, if they’ve got any. And an apple juice for Emily.”

     He asked Karl one more time if she wanted anything, and she shook her head. Ray stepped out, and before shutting the door he leaned in and asked Stephanie if she’d be OK.

     “Fine.” She said. “I need to pee though. So be quick.”

     Ray crossed the forecourt and while he was paying he looked back at the car. The windows were fogged up and all he could make out were the fuzzy outlines of the two women. They looked like dolls. Not moving just sitting. Stephanie was probably worrying about pneumonia, TB, or the imagined dagger in Karl’s sock. She excelled at imagining catastrophes which disappointed her by never occurring. He wondered what Karl saw, whether she could make out the shreds of what they had, or if it was too late to see even the shreds.

     As he approached the car both women looked at him. Stephanie said she was going for her pee. She slipped Emily from her lap and got out of the car. “If she wakes up can you give her some juice?” she asked Ray.

     “Yup, sure thing.” He knew he was sounding lighter and brighter for the sake of the stranger. He then offered Karl a butter tart, which she refused.

     “They came free with the coffee. Christmas cheer and all that.” He held up the bag printed with red, white and green snowmen.

     “You know they’re poisoning us with all that refined sugar.”

     “Who’s they?” Ray asked.

     “Oh you know, the bankers, large companies, corporations, all those fat cats taking advantage of us little people.”

     “What have they got to do with sugar?”

     “Oh, it’s all linked. Nobody sees it though. Well not people like you.” Karl was fired up and suddenly took on the expression of a zealot. “You see if you get everyone hooked on sugar and make them fat then they can’t do anything. They sit all day watching TV and hey presto you have an instant audience you can beam your advertising to. Oh what the fuck. You would never understand.”

     She was right. Ray didn’t have a clue what she was on about. He wanted to ask her if she was one of those conspiracy theorists but Stephanie was already back.  

     She awkwardly manoeuvred herself into the car placing Emily’s little body onto her lap. “What are those?” she asked pointing to the bag on Ray’s knee.

     “Butter tarts,” Ray said. He looked nervously at Karl who was blankly staring out at the forecourt.

     “May I?” Stephanie asked.

     Ray stuck the bag on the dashboard, “Help yourself.”

     Stephanie took a bite, and bits of pastry fell onto Emily’s hair. Ray reached over to brush them off.

    “So have you two been married long?” The question came at the couple after another fit of coughing. Karl’s lips were unnaturally red and thin, and her pale face and large grey eyes made Ray think of the pre-Raphaelite poster Stephanie had up in her bedroom when they first met.

      “Almost five years,” Stephanie said. Ray stared at his daughter’s chest rising and falling and her face unmarked by worry.

      Karl continued, “I don’t get to meet too many married people. So what’s the deal? Are you guys happy?” Ray was wishing he were sitting across a table from her talking through the merits of single life. A cigarette. A beer. A dance. And a hand on a hip.

      “That’s a funny question! I don’t know. Ray what do you say? Are we happy?” Stephanie was trying to sound light as if she were teasing him.

      He reached into the bag of butter tarts. “Of course we are honey. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t happy.”

      “There, does that answer your question?” Stephanie seemed satisfied that this conversation was coming to an end.

      “Sort of. I mean the only people I know who have stuck together went past the happy stage into something else, like a sort of zombie stage. My folks didn’t though. My mom up and left when I was five. I don’t hate her for it. She just was never meant to have kids. Some people shouldn’t.”

      Stephanie blew on her hot chocolate. Ray wanted to know about Karl’s mother but Stephanie got in there and asked if she had any plans to get married.

      “Are you crazy?” A hoarse high laugh erupted.

      “Why’s that then?” Stephanie asked.

      “It’s like sugar. It’s just another way of getting people where you want them. Of keeping them in check. No way José. Not for me. I want to be free. No sugar in my bowl.”

      Stephanie looked at Ray, “Sugar?”

      “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Karl and I had a little chat about sugar while you were in the John.”

      Stephanie tapped Ray on the thigh and frowned. It was her code to let him know she was worried. He ignored her and sipped his coffee. He wanted to get going again but Emily began to stir.

      “I’m thirsty,” A tired voice rose from Stephanie’s lap.

      Stephanie got the apple juice out. “Ray I’m going to have to put Emily in the back seat. She’s getting too heavy.” She looked at him meaningfully.

      “OK,” he said oblivious.

      “But do you think it is OK with all that coughing?” Stephanie lowered her voice for the last word, and angling her head towards the back seat she looked hard at Ray.

      “Oh that. Yeah, it’ll be fine,” he said glancing in the mirror at Karl to see if she had clocked his wife’s comment. A pair of grey heavy-lashed eyes looked back at him knowingly. He wanted to say sorry to those eyes.

      “C’mon honey in the back you go.” Stephanie twisted around and helped Emily through the two front seats. “Now here’s your juice.”

      “No.” Emily squirmed and held onto her mother.

      “But there isn’t enough room up here. And you can’t sit on mommy’s lap all the way home. It’s illegal. Now in the back you go.” Stephanie unhooked Emily’s chubby hands from her arm and eventually got the girl sitting in her car seat with her pink blanket.

      Karl stared out the window ignoring the little girl next to her.

      “Mommy,” Emily wailed.

      “Emily, you’re alright. Now drink your juice.” Stephanie handed her the small square box with its straw poking out. The girl knocked it to the floor.

      The wailing continued. It soon became crying.

      Over the noise Ray said, “Stephanie, why don’t you go sit with her?” He would have suggested anything for some peace and quiet.

      Stephanie shot him an angry glance. “Oh all right then.” The two women got out of the car and swapped places.

      It seemed to Ray that Karl was looking a bit smug. She took off her jacket to put her seatbelt on, and at that moment he caught a breath of her scent. It reminded him of the smell that came up from the ground when he raked the leaves in the Fall. Earth and Sun and just enough decay to start making life again.

      “Karl can you pass me my hot chocolate?” There was a touch of anger in Stephanie’s voice. “And the butter tarts.”

      Ray knew that later on he’d get the blame for making her go over her allotted number of calories for the day. The fat on her hips would be his fault.

      Karl turned towards Stephanie, the leather jacket on her lap making a crisp twisting sound, and handed her the bag and the hot chocolate.

      “So are we ready?” Ray took a final sip of coffee and put it back into the mug holder on the dashboard. He glanced at Karl’s legs and noticed her jeans were worn over her knees. They looked bonier than he would have liked.

      He cranked up the radio, and sang along to ‘After the Fire is Gone’.

      “It’s crazy isn’t it? I mean this is why two people should never get together in the first place. Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline, and all the rest of them, they knew a thing or two.”  Karl had a renewed confidence about her and shook her head with emphasis as she spoke. He snatched a look out of the corner of his eye. She had a surprisingly fine profile.

      Stephanie spoke over the singing. “I can’t hear anything you two are saying with that music blaring away up there.”

      “We weren’t saying anything,” Ray said, brusquely turning the radio down. He let out an exasperated sigh. Karl looked over at him and smiled. He hoped Stephanie hadn’t seen. God she was pretty. If only he’d listened to Stephanie and gone up north on his own this weekend, he’d be alone with this girl. For once he had convinced Stephanie to shield him from his crazy family and it had completely backfired.  

      With Karl sitting next to him, he felt he had committed some crime, when all he had wanted was for Emily to stop crying. He tried to catch Stephanie’s eye in the mirror but she was staring hard at the hills of snow, which had become simple outlines in the dusk. He couldn’t see his daughter but imagined she was now happily sipping her juice next to her mother, his wife.

•

After an hour or so of driving they arrived in Napanee. The snowplow hadn’t passed through, and there was waist high snow on the roads. The car crept through the centre of town, keeping to the tracks made by the wheels of previous vehicles.

     Then Emily piped up, “have you got a best friend?”

     Karl was taken by surprise. “Um, yeah, I guess so.”

     “My best friend is Freya.” Emily said. “She broke her arm and went to the hospital.”

     Ray intervened, “Honey, I don’t think Karl needs to hear about Freya.”

     “Ray, don’t get angry. It’s not like she’s doing anything wrong,” Stephanie argued.

     “I know, it’s just that….” Ray didn’t know what it was exactly. Was he embarrassed at the mundanity of his child? What seemed to him her pointless preoccupations.

     “Anywhere here is fine,” Karl said as they drove through the quiet streets.

     Ray thought Karl sounded sad, but he often heard things that weren’t there.

     “Will you be alright? Everything looks pretty closed.” He strained to see out the iced up windows.

     “Yup. Fine. I’ve got a room with a friend just over there.” Karl cleared her throat and pointed at a squat red brick building.

     “Can we go into your house?” Emily asked.

     “No, honey I don’t think so,” Stephanie said. 

     Karl held her hand out for Ray to shake, “well it was nice meeting you.”

     Ray shook her hand, feeling the fragile bones. Her skin was warm and softer than he expected. She turned to Stephanie who was explaining to Emily why you can’t invite yourself into strange people’s houses.

     “You can have your seat back now,” Karl said as she undid her seatbelt.

     She got out of the car and pulled her leather jacket tight around her thin body. Stephanie was busy reasoning with Emily about going into the front seat without having her on her lap while Karl walked around to the driver’s side. She leaned into the open window. Ray was convinced she was going to kiss him.

     “Don’t go listening to too many of those bleeding heart songs. They’re not good for your health. And stay away from sugar. It’ll kill you.” She smiled and he saw her teeth for the first time. They were small and square like a child’s.

     Stephanie was now in the passenger seat doing an exaggerated shiver. “God it’s freezing.”

     Karl stepped aside and Ray pulled the car away from where she was standing. He put his arm out the window and waved.

    “God what a weirdo!” Stephanie pushed the buttons on the radio until she came to a phone-in show. She turned up the volume and Ray felt her hand on his thigh.

    “How about dinner. Are you hungry yet?” Her voice had gone from school-teacher to wife almost instantly.

    “I guess I could eat. We’ll stop at the next town.”

Ray was back on the highway, driving through the darkness. On the radio a woman was talking about the belly dancing classes she’d taken to lose weight, spice up her sex life and make her more confident. They worked so well, she ended up dumping her husband, leaving her children, and marrying the teacher. Ray could imagine what she looked like just from the voice. It surprised him how much he hated this woman. He wanted to smash her face. Then he hated himself for thinking like this. The radio audience clapped and Stephanie laughed.

    “Imagine that.”

    “What mommy?”

    Ray sped up wishing he’d paid the extra for snow tires. Stephanie was explaining to Emily the difference between belly dancing and ballet dancing and Ray caught a glimpse of his daughter nodding sagely at this information. He couldn’t wait to get to the next town and out of the car and away from that radio and all those voices. He closed his eyes for a split second and swore he could smell that earthy scent. There was no snow at all for that second, just grass and leaves, a long, fine Fall evening and the beginning of something new, something like life.

Published and available in this beautiful anthology: https://www.createspace.com/4458125

Also available on Amazon with some five-star reviews to its credit: 
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Road-2013-Twelve-Travel/dp/061589903X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Also published in Cooldog, 2010.

Don't Breathe a Word

Graham was not the kind of kid who lied. Today though he’d worked out the birth date that would make him eighteen, and kept the number crouching there on the tip of his tongue just waiting to pounce. He walked up the three steps to the white clapboard house he passed on the way to school every day, and took a deep breath. “Nineteen fifty-three,” he whispered, and then repeated it. He knocked on the screen door trying not to think about his lack of muscles and non-existent peach fuzz.

No answer. So he kicked the door until it rattled. Graham could feel the piece of paper he had been working on all weekend softening in his hot hand. He peered up close to one of the panes of glass, painted black from the inside, and got a shadowy reflection of himself. Graham kicked again. He heard the inner door being unlocked and then the man appeared. He was tall and stooped. He held a cigarette tightly between his thumb and forefinger. With the screen door closed Graham eyed him through the mesh. He could just about see inside and wished he had clothes more suited to the place. Maybe something with a Stones logo on it. His Montreal Canadiens T-shirt embarrassed him.

“We’re not open yet,” said the man letting loose a long, chesty cough.

Graham stared at the grey beard growing in one straight line from just below his bottom lip.

“But can I book an appointment anyway?”

“For who? Your older brother?”

“No I don’t have an older brother.” As he said those words, Cynthia’s face came to him and he pushed it away as quickly as it had appeared. “It’s for me.”

The man laughed, “I’m sorry young man but you have to be eighteen to come here.”

He was just about to turn away when Graham flung open the screen door and pushed past him. He’d forgotten his rehearsals where he’d made up stories of growing disorders and hormonal imbalances, and worst of all he’d forgotten his made-up birth date. All of his practicing was useless once the man started shouting.

“Hey kid, get outta here!” he hollered, but Graham was already pulling the money out of his pockets and throwing the stolen bills onto the black leather sofa in the middle of the room.

“Please. Please. You don’t understand. I need to....” Tears crept up his throat, and as he swallowed them back down, the man picked up each note one by one – four fifties – and counted them.

“Two hundred dollars.” He pulled on his stringy beard and looked hard at Graham. “So what’s this all about? Where did you get this?”

Graham calmed himself, and the next bit came out with a naturalness that surprised him. “For the last four years, that is, ever since I was ten,” he said adding two years for good measure, “I’ve been mowing lawns in the neighbourhood. It all adds up,” Graham said using one of his dad’s expressions.

The man sat down on the sofa and asked Graham what he had in his hand. Graham held out the piece of paper.

“I see. Your girlfriend’s name is it?”

“Not exactly.”

Graham was hoping not to have to explain anything. Once he started talking he couldn’t stop. Like the time the principal, Mr Conklin, called him into his office to say how sorry he was and Graham ended up describing the accident and how he and Cynthia had swapped places and if they hadn’t she’d be the one still alive not him. He clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms, and watched the man slowly re-light his roll-up while squinting at the piece of paper.

“OK, so where do you want it?” The man dragged hard on his cigarette to keep it burning.

Graham felt his palms relax. He lifted up his T-shirt and twisting from his waist pointed to a spot high up on his back. “There.”

The man stayed seated, and reaching up, let his fingers run along the dip between Graham’s shoulder blades. Graham couldn’t believe that the hands touching him were those belonging to the name he saw from the school bus every morning and afternoon:

Randall’s Body Art

Ontario’s oldest Custom Tattoo Parlour

Adults only

“How big?”

“Bigger than I’ve done it. I want it huge. I want it so that no one will forget it if they see it.”

“Gosh you must really like her.”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“In black ink?”

“Yup.”

“Right my boy. Lie down on your stomach.”

Graham watched him pocket the money.

Randall then rummaged around out of sight, and came back with a needle attached to a long tube of red rubber, some cotton wool and bottles of transparent liquid, like the ones Cynthia had on her dressing table. He lined everything up on a stool next to Graham but before getting started he squatted, bringing his face level with Graham’s. The man’s grey watery eyes were those of old dog.

“Now you listen to me young man, we have a deal OK? I do your tattoo, and you keep your mouth shut. Right?”

Graham nodded.

“If anyone finds out, I’ll lose my license and get into loads of shit. And I don’t need more shit. You got it?”

Graham nodded again.

“I want to hear you say it. Tell me you won’t breathe a word. You won’t breathe a word – to anyone.”

Graham repeated, “I promise I won’t breathe a word.”

“And what if your mum sees it while you’re at the doctor’s or something. What will you say then?”

“She’s dead.”

“You’d say that?”

“No, I mean you don’t need to worry about that. She’s dead.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s still alive.”

“No I mean what if your dad sees you. I dunno swimming or something. What will you say?”

“Nothing.” Then Graham lied again, “he wouldn’t mind anyway, he’s got loads of tattoos.”

“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Randall said.

Graham didn’t reply in case he broke the spell and Randall changed his mind. He kept still and let him get on with swabbing his back. The cool liquid smelled like rubbing alcohol. Then Randall began tracing the letters with something like a ballpoint pen. Graham tried to imagine how the letters would look from the feeling of the pen’s nib against his skin. While Randall concentrated, Graham rolled his eyes upwards to look at the photos tacked to the walls. He had seen similar pictures in the magazines his dad kept under the bed. Some of the pictures were signed. A woman in a bright red bikini lying across a big black bike caught his eye. Graham could just make out the handwriting: ‘To Randi, Thanks a million, Luv Cindi.’ A tattooed snake coiled up her right leg. He thought it was some sort of sign that she almost had his sister’s name.

“Now, I don’t want you to look. Keep that head down.” Randall cleared his throat as he spoke and pushed down hard on the back of Graham’s head.

Graham heard him get up, and then a click. He lifted his head just enough to see Randall plug the long rubber tube into a socket. Then Graham felt the hand again. “I said don’t look. Believe me it’s easier for us both.”

Graham obediently hid his face in his forearms.

Randall turned the machine on, and over the whirring said, “this’ll hurt a bit. I want you to focus on the noise, not the feeling. You’ll see it’s a bit like a pinprick.”

As the man spoke Graham noticed a soft breeze on his skin. Then suddenly he felt it. It was worse than he expected. It wasn’t like a pinprick at all. It was more like the carpet burns he used to get on his knees and elbows when he and Cynthia wrestled.

Thinking of her helped him put up with the pain. Out of sheer stubbornness he wouldn’t allow himself to cry. He stayed as still as he could for as long as possible and let Randall go to work on his back. Once he felt the machine reach the middle point between his shoulder blades, he adjusted his head and noticed the tingling in his left arm. It had fallen asleep but he didn’t dare move in case Randall got angry or lost his concentration and then Graham would be stuck with ‘CYN’ or ‘CYNT’ on his back. He wondered if that ever happened. If there were people wandering around with unfinished words on their bodies.

During what seemed a very, very long time, Graham drifted off into thinking about Cynthia and about what he’d be doing right now if they were at home. Probably eating cookies. Their mum used to say that they would all turn into buckets of lard if she didn’t stop with the chocolate chip cookies. But Graham and his father never complained. When the pain deepened, Graham experimented with breathing at different speeds. When that didn’t help, he focused on the close-up leather of the sofa, trying to make out patterns. Just as he thought he could see the shape of a rocket, or maybe the Empire State building, Randall stood up.

He turned the machine off and Graham heard him say with a sigh, “there.”

Graham began to roll over and the man shouted, “stay where you are. Don’t move!” Graham froze, and then Randall said, “no need for alarm. I just want to tell you a few things before you do anything. Just stay on your front and we’ll let that scab do its thing for a while.” He left the room for a few minutes and returned with some pieces of paper. “You can read can’t you?” he asked.

Graham nodded.

“Good I want you to stay still for a bit and read these.”

He handed Graham some muddy photocopies. The top copy had a large title in bold letters ‘Keeping your tattoo clean’. Another one was headed ‘Keeping your tattoo bright’. The last one was called ‘What happens if you change your mind — removing your tattoo’. Graham scanned them all, not really taking them in.

“Right, I guess you’ll want to see it then,” Randall said as if reading Graham’s mind.

“Yeah.” Graham wanted to sound cool but the excitement was too much, and his voice cracked and went up an octave.

The man picked up a mirror and held it up facing a full-length mirror propped against the wall. “C’mon over then.”

Graham swung himself off the couch, his head reeling slightly. He stood between the two mirrors. The word was bigger and blacker than he had imagined, and the bubbles of drying blood only made it more impressive. Where Graham had drawn almost fearful squiggles onto his piece of paper, Randall had drawn impressive flourishes as if he’d plucked each letter from an alphabet designed for an April Wine album cover. The tail of the ‘y’ coiled back around the ‘C’ and the cross of the ‘t’ snaked around the dot of the ‘i’. He had taken Graham’s marks and made them into something beautiful, amazing, frightening. Graham would call it a work of art and Randall a master. Despite his amazement all he was able to force out of his mouth was, “wow”.

“Happy customer?”

“Yeah.” Graham wanted to stand and gaze at his back forever, but Randall put the mirror down.

“C’mon, it’s getting late, I’ve got people coming ‘round.” He handed Graham his T-shirt and then tossed him a bandage wrapped in cellophane. “And if it starts to act up put this over it. It’s medicated.”

Graham folded it and stuffed it into the back pocket of his Jeans. “Thanks,” he said, still transfixed by the image he had just seen.

“And come back and tell me what she thinks of it. This Cynthia of yours.”

“Yeah, OK.”

“Maybe she’ll come and get your name put on her back.”

“Yeah, Maybe.”

Graham winced as the cotton of his T-shirt brushed his tattoo. The man caught Graham’s expression and added, “and don’t sleep on your back for a few nights. It’ll be fine after that. You’ll never even know it’s there.”

Graham didn’t want to hear that. He wanted to feel it all the time, from the moment he woke up to the moment he curled up in bed. And when the pain of this one went, he would get another. He walked down the steps into the sunshine and jumped onto his bicycle. As he pedalled, his loose T-shirt flapped like the sail of a boat, brushing against his tender back. The faster he pedalled the faster the blood pumped around his body, and the more the black ink mingled with his blood, seeping into him, into a place so deep inside him. A place he had yet to name.

This story was long-listed in the 2012 Mslexia short story competition: http://www.mslexia.co.uk/


Also published in Riptide, 2011: http://www.riptidejournal.co.uk/


And joint first place winner in the 2010 Segora short story award: http://www.poetryproseandplays.co.uk/

The Woman in the Cupboard

“Would you like some tea?” I whisper across the kitchen sponges and rolls of paper towel and Tupperware and Thermoses.

    Her face has been getting progressively clearer over the past few weeks. I can see her fine grey eyes, straight, classic nose. And her hair: dark brown, like a World War II land girl, cut in a bob.

    What do you call a man with no arms and no legs floating in the sea? Bob.

    I don’t tell her this.

    “No, I don’t want tea, you idiot. I want Champagne. The best. And if you can’t afford it, go get a job.”

    “We don’t have any Champagne in the house,” I plead with her.

    “What kind of house is this? A slum? A house for losers?”

    She’s right on the money. Except my husband and son aren’t losers. They’re members of society.

    What do you call an unemployed woman talking to a face in her cupboard?

    Ellen Jones.

    Ben breezes in.

    “Ellen, what are you doing under there?” he asks.

    “Just getting a new sponge for the washing up. The old one smells like the inside of a dog’s mouth.”

    He pours himself a large cup of coffee.

    “I’ll be late tonight. David just called to say there’s an emergency meeting scheduled for six o’clock. You’ll be OK won’t you?”

    He kisses the top of my head.

    “Yes, I’ll be fine,” I reply.

    Noah bounds downstairs. I can smell the mango hair gel over the coconut shampoo and deodorant. He’s a walking cloud of pheromones, parabens, fake fruit additives and something that smells like artificially clean laundry. He is giving us all cancer.

    “What’s for breakfast?” he asks.

    “Whatever’s in the fridge,” I reply. I’m still decongealing last week’s scrambled eggs from the frying pan.

    “Oh god Mum, that looks gross.” He peers into the sink full of floating egg and washing up liquid gone flat from so much grease in the water. “I’m going to Jen’s tonight for supper. Don’t wait up. We’re going to watch a DVD after dinner.”

    No kiss from Noah. But I do get a smile and four sentences. I am grateful for anything.

    The door slams. I hear him unchain his bike from the front gate. I know every sound within a radius of about a hundred feet from this house. It is amazing how much noise can be heard in an empty house.

    Ben is upstairs getting ready for work. His steps are lighter than Noah’s.

    “OK honey, I’m finally off. See you tonight,” he calls out as he leaves. Honey? He hasn’t called me that in ages. Does he know something I don’t?

    The woman is shouting. I stop my egg scraping and listen.

    “Champagne, Champagne, Champagne!”

    I bend down and look at her. “I’ve told you we don’t have any Champagne and I can’t afford to buy you a bottle.”

    “But it’s what I want. And if you don’t give me what I want I will make your life hell. Hell!”

    I collapse into a kitchen chair, my face in my hands. I have no choice. I get my coat and walk the ten minutes to the Tesco Metro. I find their cheapest Champagne and put the £24.99 on my credit card.

    But the woman in the cupboard is not impressed. She wants a brand name: Moët or Veuve Cliquot or Taittinger. However, she drinks Tesco’s Finest* quickly, her Adam’s apple pulsing with every gulp. I have never seen anyone drink Champagne like that, as if it were water. She asks for another so I get the same again. She drinks that one up too. Then she gets more abusive. She’s swearing and telling me I’m worthless. She asks me what Ben sees in me and how my son can bear to look at me and call me his mother. I don’t deserve the words ‘mother’ and ‘wife’, she says.

    What do you call a woman cursing in your cupboard?

    Drunk.

    I’ve had enough and wander upstairs to lie down.

    This is how Ben finds me when he comes home around 9:30. He wakes me gently, asking if I am all right. Why does he keep asking me that? I am fine I tell him and then apologise that I haven’t made anything for dinner. I find us a frozen Pizza. We share that with a few carrot sticks and some yogurt just on the right side of edible.

    He tells me he is going away for a few days. There is a conference in Germany in some hotel in the middle of a parking lot on a roundabout near an airport. I know the type. I worked once. I have also stayed in business hotels smelling of particle board and bedbug spray.

    “That’s fine,” I tell him. He gives me the dates that he’ll be away and then stands up, stretches and says he’s hitting the sack.

    “I’ll be up soon,” I reply.

    He throws me a wan smile. He looks tired. Poor Ben.

    The woman in the cupboard starts knocking.

    Just as I am about to tell her to shut up, Noah walks in.

    “Hi Mum,” he says opening the fridge and standing in its glare assessing its contents. He closes it. “When are you going to buy some food?” he asks.

     He doesn’t seem to hear the woman.

     “Um, maybe tomorrow.”

     “We need, like, everything. There’s no milk or orange juice or anything,” he says, not exactly sounding outraged.

     “OK, why don’t you start making a list. I’ll go do a shop tomorrow,” I say.

      “OK. G’night Mum.” He bounds upstairs.

      I know I should feel lucky. I have a sixteen-year-old son who doesn’t spend his weekends getting off his face on pills and weed and Vodka. He still speaks to me in sentences, he does well at school and is nice to his girlfriend. Does life get any better?

      Now she is shouting. She wants asparagus tips with béchamel sauce and some poached salmon with buttered baby new potatoes. A lemon tart for pudding. Fresh, not frozen.

      “Are you crazy?” I whisper. “I can’t go shopping now. I’ll get you what you want tomorrow.”

      “Fucking lazy whore,” she shouts, “you’re nothing but a loser. A pretend person.” She is laughing at me.

       Even when I block my ears I can still hear her.

       I tie the cupboard doors together with garden twine. You can’t be too careful. As I pad upstairs I hear a tinny headphone buzz coming from Noah’s room. Light seeps out from under his door like melted butter and spreads itself along the cream hall carpet.

       Ben is fast asleep. After brushing my teeth and slipping my clothes off, I get in next to him naked. I’m feeling horny. Why don’t we have sex any more? I slide my hand down between my legs and pleasure myself. He used to do this for me and now he is always too tired. After staring at the ceiling and listening out for the woman in the cupboard I finally fall asleep.

•

I wake to hear the front door slam shut. I impress myself by knowing it is Friday. Most days are the same as each other. Apart from Saturdays and Sundays when Ben is around. I hate how much I look forward to those days.

      I find some still warm coffee in the cafetière and as I take my first sip, the shouting begins.

      “Don’t forget my lunch. I’m starving in here. Can you get a move on?”

      Someone has untied the cupboards. Maybe Ben needed a thermos to carry his coffee into work. There she is: red-faced, her grey eyes full of fury. “Get me my food, you cunt,” she shouts at me.

      I bang the doors shut and run upstairs to shower. I am trying to understand this phenomenon. How can a woman be living under my kitchen sink?

      What do you call a greedy woman living in your cupboard?

      Shelf-ish.

      I chuckle as I dry myself with a towel and find some clean clothes.

      The breakfast dishes need washing and then there’s the shopping to do. Should I do the shopping first to stop the woman’s outbursts? They are beginning to drive me crazy. I am not a lazy cow or a whore and I don’t appreciate her language.

      I wrap myself in my coat, which is one of those long wearable duvet types, and rush off to buy what she has asked for. I walk the extra distance to Waitrose. I know the woman won’t settle for anything less than the most expensive ingredients. I am beginning to get a feel for her character.

      I arrive back home in time to hear her coughing. She calls out to me in a hoarse voice. “I think I’m ill,” she says.

      I open the cupboard and can immediately see that she is very sick indeed. She looks tubercular. I make her a cup of hot water and honey and squeeze the lemon that I bought for her to have with the fish.

      “I don’t think I’ll be wanting that lunch after all,” she says softly, taking the hot drink. “I think I just need to sleep.”

       I close the door and leave her to nap while I tackle the breakfast dishes and tidy the house. I have let it go these past few weeks. There are dirty clothes everywhere and Noah’s room smells like sweaty rubber. God knows what he does in there. Maybe just growing and sleeping are enough to create such a stinky fug.

      I check on the woman periodically. She carries on sleeping. I take her half empty mug and put it in the sink.

      Around nine o’clock in the evening, I cook the salmon and vegetables and make a béchamel sauce. Ben gets home as promised around 9.30 and we share the woman’s meal.

      “This is great,” he says, smiling. “You haven’t made anything like this in ages.”

      It is getting late and Noah is upstairs revising. He had some pasta earlier as there wasn’t enough fish for all of us to share.

      “Thanks,” I say. I think I can hear the woman snoring under the sink, but I can’t be sure.

      Ben comes over to where I am rinsing the plates and hugs me from behind. “I’m going up to bed. You coming?” he asks.

      “Yeah, I’ll just finish the dishes. I’ll be up in a second.”

      I check on the sleeping woman who is breathing through her open mouth. She looks pale, almost green. I turn out the kitchen lights, climb the stairs and find Ben in bed with a legal magazine. He is highlighting sections of it. I stopped asking him about his work as soon as I started finding it boring, which must have been about ten years ago.

       I pick my book up from the floor and get in next to Ben. He looks at me with his handsome face and says, “You seem better today.”

       “Better?” I ask.

       “Yeah, you’ve been,” he pauses looking for the exact word. He is a stickler for using the right word. “You’ve been a bit detached, like you’re shut away from us,” he finally says.

       I shrug and open my book whose cover shows a woman staring out to sea. There are no women living in cupboards in this story. It is about a failing marriage and infidelity and blame and recrimination and jealousy. Nothing in it feels particularly real to me, at least not as real as the woman living under my sink. She is real. But I don’t tell Ben about her. Instead I tell him about the woman in the book who thinks she deserves an affair because her husband has stopped finding her attractive.

      “Do you think she deserves one?” he asks.

      “Yes,” I say. I can see his gaze moving around my face not knowing where to land. “I think people should do whatever they want,” I add.

      “Right,” he says clearing his throat. “Of course they should.” And with that he rolls over to fall asleep. I recognise that tone of his.

      Once his breathing steadies, I walk quietly downstairs.

      I open the cupboard to find the woman lifeless. Her eyes are closed, her head is flopped to one side, her hair falling forward like the filthy strands of a mop. I reach out to touch her face. It is cold. I stare for some seconds taking it all in. I wipe my eyes and sit back on my haunches. Do I need to dispose of her? Or will she leave as she arrived, without any assistance? I realise her face is growing fainter. She is disappearing before me.

      Suddenly the lights come on and I jump.

      “What are you looking at?” Ben asks.

      “Nothing,” I say. “I thought I heard something dripping under the sink. But it’s stopped now.” My heart is racing.

      “Good, now come to bed,” he says sounding annoyed.

      “OK,” I say and follow Ben up the stairs like the good girl that I am.

      What do you call a dead woman in your cupboard?

      Nothing.

Available now at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GIIZYXG/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_H4pGsb0W0S1G0


Highly Commended runner up in the 2013 Bath Short Story Award:
http://bathshortstoryaward.co.uk/


A little blurb on the Good Housekeeping blog can be found here: http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/archives/news/by_author/104698/3;1