Éclat Fiction - Issue 4 by Eclat Fiction

ÉCLAT FICTION

AN ONLINE FICTION ANTHOLOGY

EDITOR: Matthew Morgan - matthew@eclatfiction.com

www.eclatfiction.com | contact@eclatfiction.com

CONTENTS Rock Throwing (first place prize winner) 7 John Joseph Holmes

What the Man Said (second place prize winner)

Nathan Ouriach

Left at the Mini Market (third place prize winner) 25 L.J Spillane

The Miracle

Frederick Everest

Drinking Tea at the Coffee Shop Amna Khokher

The Pixellated Man

David Hartley

Dally

Hannah Campbell

Scorched Earth

Lynne Voyce

An encounter

Sana Rasoul

Fugue State

Robert F. Marazas

Queenie Sam Grainger

Closing in Five

Colin Watts

Amplexus

Alys Hobbs

Running Off Lewis Gordon

here has not been any rain since we arrived. The pond is shrinking, its funnelled banks cracked and sallow. The twelve-pound line is only

half-visible as the day nears dusk. But a faint glint on the wire signals a bite. One of the day’s last rays caught a moment on the nylon. Stillness

again. Perhaps it’s worked loose. But a jerk and splash and it’s hooked. A fighter, it takes a while to reel in. But eventually flops, dumb on the bank. Kay lands the convulsing trout, whipping and wrenching in the mesh. I wrestle it to the bucket as Kay steadies the lip of the landing net. It slips and thrashes in my hands. First catch here in nine years. Caron pelts down the hill, her khaki pants caked here and there in rural residue. ‘Well done, well done,’ she almost sings. ‘Shall I throw it back?’ I ask. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘No, no. Take it up to the house and kill it. We’re having him for dinner.’ Kay and I carry the fish up the hill as it fits in the bucket. ‘Ever killed a fish before?’ I ask Kay. ‘No. Don’t fancy starting today either. Your catch, your kill, my love.’ She smiles. ‘Great. I heard you’re to hit them with a rock.’ Sickly and hesitant, I decide to cut off its head. I salvage the snagged hook from its cheek and use a tooth-edged knife to break the scales. In a last snatch at life the trout opens its mouth and breathes out the poisonous oxygen. The sound it makes is almost human. It looks at me. And then it is dead. Head and viscera lay on the kitchen top while blood almost black swathes my hands and the bench. It is grim and goopy. Congealed with fish-slime and scum from the pond. ‘How ya getting on guys?’ Caron asks. ‘Okay, I think.’The trout’s diluted eye watches me as I answer. Its severed face expressionless. ‘Gut him and weigh him. We’ll think of something to do with him. Jennifer and Molly will be across from Bundeena soon. They’re gonna stay with us a couple of days. We’ll all have dinner together tonight.’ Caron told us about Jennifer and Molly earlier in the week. They lost Chris a month ago. Jennifer’s on leave and Molly’s quit school. Navigating the straits of life and death is an onerous task. We’ll meet them for the first ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

time today. I gut the fish with my hands and a fillet knife. An incision down the trunk reveals a gathering of orange globs in its belly. Like translucent berries from a sacred tree. The sight of the roe excites Caron. She decides she will fashion them into a sort of rustic faux-caviar. Outside Kay collects kindling from the fallen Staghorn branches in the yard. The trees here are different to back home. They twist and reach like people in the grip of seizure. Jagged and contorted dancers petrified mid-motion. Their bark is scarred with Aboriginal markings. Holy wounds and incisions. I watch from the kitchen window as Kay gathers up the dried and fallen limbs. She is different out here. We both are. I cover the trout with a towel and rinse its blood from my hands. Like a highly concentrated dye it is hard to get off. Jennifer and Molly arrive around four with a tuneful tap on the glass partition. A May sky throws a ghostly half-light across the crown of a ridge. The land looks parched. The beheaded trout lies in the weighing basin looking into its own vacated carcass. The needle rests around six pounds. Caron and her sister exchange tender glances. Kay and I stand and wait our turn to say hello. Molly looks comfortable despite our presence. The confidence of being fifteen. A sentiment that can switch with equal ease. We greet them both in that numb and stammered manner people Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

have when they are still strangers to one another. And then there’s the taut trepidation of foreign conduct. Should we exchange embraces? What is this for, they might wonder. A hello-nice-to-meet-you hug? A sympathetic I’m-sorry-for-your-loss hug? We decide not to. After the hesitant overture we talk and drink wine at the table. Molly watches television. Things have settled. We share our histories and don’t speak of Chris. That may come later. ‘So, how is it being stuck all the way out here? Missing home?’ Jennifer asks. She looks at us softly. Her blush cheekbones lift. ‘It was strange at first,’ says Kay, ‘Like getting to know someone all over again.’ ‘You learn things about people when you’re under some kind of pressure,’ I add. ‘Travelling asks a lot of you.’ ‘Sure.’ Jennifer nods. ‘Well, you both seem to be getting on just fine.’ We smile and drop our heads in unison. ‘I hear you hooked a beauty for dinner,’ Jennifer says to me. I take a deep breath and exhaling say: ‘Yeah, it’s not bad. Kay landed it, so it was a team effort.’ ‘How noble,’ says Kay. Caron bursts from the kitchen. ‘Hope you guys are hungry. He’s a belter.’ We break bread and tensions at the table and eat and drink together. The trout is no serpent but it feeds the five of us easily. The evening begins ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

to flow in loose rich waves, like the South Australian Pinot Caron decants with zeal. Come dark we’re sat by the fire Kay’s built from the boughs of desiccated wood. I think of the empty space outside. How far we are from anywhere. From home. Everything progresses without us on a parallel facet of the world. But at the same time everything is happening here. Molly suggests going out to look at the night sky. In the absolute dark of New South Wales it is peppered with stars. I recognise Orion’s Belt, upturned in this part of the world. ‘You know, dad will be watching us now, Moll,’ Jennifer says to her daughter. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ ‘What makes you say maybe, sweetheart?’ asks Caron. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just can’t see why.’ ‘Why what?’ ‘Why everything.’ Molly doesn’t look away from the sky. She just stands. Fey and indecipherable. Kay and I exchange glances. A conversation we didn’t anticipate loiters in the dusty yard. ‘Well some things are just hard to understand Moll,’ says Jennifer. ‘Will I understand when I’m older?’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘I’m sure you will.’ ‘Does that mean you understand?’ A question Jennifer didn’t foresee. Molly is a smart girl. ‘Caron, help here please. Your niece wants to know the meaning of life.’ The mood lifts but Molly is still looking for her father. She lowers her eyes. ‘You know the indigenous people sing songs and cut themselves open when people in their tribes die.’ ‘Well, that’s their way, darling,’ Jennifer says. ‘But what if it should be our way too?’ asks Molly. ‘We’re a different people Moll. We have a different god and a different afterlife. Are you telling me you want to cut yourself open?’ ‘No. But how can there be different gods for different people when we’re all humans together?’ ‘That’s a good question, darling. One you’ll have to keep until tomorrow. It’s getting late.’ ‘I had a feeling you’d say that, mum.’ Jennifer looks at Caron. ‘Your niece is too smart for her own good.’ Caron lifts her brow and shrugs. ‘What do you think, Caron?’ Molly asks her aunt. Kay and I look at each other, surprised how Molly addresses Caron by name. ‘I think it’s late, dear. Your mother’s right. Time we all got some shut-eye.’ Molly’s questions won’t be answered in the morning. But she knows ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

that. She will have more questions. Occasional musings for which she will seek comfort. And this will go on throughout her lifetime. In bed I stare into the darkness. I am thinking of Molly’s Aboriginal rituals. ‘I like Molly,’ says Kay. ‘I don’t envy Jennifer.’ ‘Yeah. I guess it can’t be easy.’ ‘It’s not. I remember when my father died.’ ‘Tell me.’ ‘How it felt?’ I turn to look at Kay. But there is only the black room. ‘Yeah. Unless you don’t want to talk about it.’ ‘No. I mean I don’t mind. It was weird. I just remember coming out of the hospital door and sitting on the steps where people were smoking. We were crying. Both of us. My mother and I. And people were just stood there smoking.’ ‘Were they looking at you both?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. I guess so. I mean you probably couldn’t help looking. Could you?’ ‘I guess not. But you’d try not to.’ ‘That’s the thing isn’t it?’ ‘What?’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘People always try not to. Try not to look. Try not to talk.’ After breakfast our job is to burn the dried turf we dug from the vegetable patch. Molly decides to help and we gather the sods of mud and grass in clumps with pitchforks. We stuff them into a rusted drum. Pack it all in layers with old copies of the Oberon Chronicle. It catches but doesn’t burn. Molly gets a flask of tractor fuel from the tool shed and pours it into the barrel. Afterwards we sit on the hill watching the drum smoke and smoulder. We throw rocks into its upward flume. ‘So, are you guys ever gonna get married?’ Molly asks. Kay and I look at each other and smile. The last question we expected. ‘Because you should.’ Molly continues before either of us answer. ‘My mum and dad were really happy when they were married.’ ‘They still are married Molly,’ says Kay. ‘They’ll always be.’ ‘I guess. But he’s not here anymore. So she might marry someone else one day.’ Molly pitches a rock at the drum. As she throws I look at Kay. The stone misses and rolls down the mound. ‘She’ll never stop being there for you, Molly. You don’t need to worry about that.’ ‘Kay’s right you know. In fact, she’s always right.’ I try to make Molly laugh. Lighten the moment. But she is looking at the drum. Watching the ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

flicks of fire and blackened flecks of newspaper in the air above the rim. I look at them too. Like recollections they dance and then disappear into the morning. ‘My dad used to take me squidding off the wharf back in Bundeena,’ Molly says. ‘We had to go at midnight because that’s when they’d come in. We caught one once and all its ink came out on my dad’s hands. It was like blood. Except it was black.’ Molly looks at her hands. ‘We used to catch them and my mum would cook them.’ ‘That sounds like lots of fun,’ says Kay. ‘You should take your mum sometime.’ ‘Mum’s good at fishing. Squidding’s just a bit different because it’s dark.’ Molly lobs another rock at the drum. It floats high and true across the yard. The three of us watch it from the top of the dusty knoll. And in it goes. A cloud of soot and ash wafts up into the air, startling a crow flying overhead.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

djusting the gear to first, Leala pulls the car through the thin path bordered by birches; the car parts a curtain of willow trees and stops

in the shade of the house her papi built. As Leala collects the bags from the boot, Patrick looks at the house and sees its history. He turns to Leala as if to ask a question but instead looks at the two cars covered in tarpaulin

and steps out of their car. He feels the sodden grass and considers last night’s rainfall. Leala points into the distance and shows him the neighbours’ house and describes to him the solitude of the place and the peace it used to bring her as a child. By the rosebush there is a lake full of purple water hyacinths. When Leala was five she was almost attacked by a dog there until her father picked her up and held her over his shoulder as the dog ran away. She doesn’t tell Patrick this. Around the house there was only green, ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

pushed all the way towards the horizon. Taking Patrick’s hand as much as she can, Leala leads him into a smaller building next to the house. The grass around this new building is unkempt and the weeds climb along the wall toward the top. Inside the smaller house there is the beginning of a kitchen with a workable oven, a sink and the wooden floor was almost laid. “Yes, this will be mine when it complete, c’est genial, non?’ ‘How long until it is ready?’ Patrick looks at the space in the room and sees that the opening for the second floor is blocked. Within Leala’s bedroom the view is covered with leaves from the willow. The bed is bigger than they are used to and in the night Patrick rolls from Leala and feels the history of his own space, how deep it is and he weighs how much he can give away. Believing him to be asleep, Leala looks at him with her eyes closed. She imagines walking within his history and asking questions that are kept for his reveries. She considers calling out but instead lies on her back. Patrick, unwinding his feet from her legs, looks at her and feels reticent in the night-light. On her back, with Patrick’s eyes looking at her, she imagines the wind from the field swimming up and over her. With his fingertips Patrick strokes her thick, brown hair and Leala dreams she is in the field outside lying amongst les colzas. ‘Today let’s drive to Arrou. I think I remember a place to walk,’ Leala ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

says as she looks through her parents’ clothes for something to borrow so as to not ruin their own. Patrick is looking at pictures on the wall. ‘Here are some clothes; papi and maman have clothes for us.’ Leala passes Patrick a navy blue pair of corduroys and a brown jumper with Club de Voile de Roscanvel written on the chest. ‘Who are the people on the wall?’ ‘Je sais pas,’ she says, holding her maman’s dress over her body. The room is small and standing close together they change into her parents’ clothes. The legs of his trousers are too long for Patrick and the tartan shirt Leala picks covers her hips and reaches to her knees. Patrick watches her move inside the shirt as Leala describes how as a child she would come upstairs with her sister and apply maman’s make-up, marking her wrists and hands in lipstick kisses and rubbing them off before her papa could see. Leala organises her parents’ bed. Pulling the sheet to cover each corner and placing the pillows in the same way they were left. She invites Patrick to sit with her. On the far side of the room is a large window that holds everything outside in view. The lake and the field outside moves closer. The land is flat and visible; the downcast weather smudges the horizon as the field meets the clouds and Patrick wonders about Leala’s past. Looking into his eyes again, Leala takes his hand and follows his sight outside. She likes the way the smaller house sits. ‘On y va, tu es pret?’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘How far away is Arrou?’ ‘Not long, papi said we can use the country car. It will be more safe. Why don’t you drive?’ ‘I haven’t driven for a long time.’ ‘Mais, c’est automatique.’ ‘I haven’t driven for a long time,’ Patrick says again. Patrick begins to tie his shoes as Leala collects wood for the fire in the evening. Patrick watches her carry all the wood, contorting her body through the door and kicking it closed with the back of her foot. She rushes her final steps and pours the wood into the basket by the fire. He watches her sweep away the old ash. Patrick sees this from the back room by the wine cellar. ‘I need you,’ Patrick begins but Leala leaves the house to remove the heavy tarpaulin. ‘Comment?’ ‘I need you to be my eyes when we get in the car.’ The drive is tough. The country pulls the car to the side of the road. Patrick brushes trees, descends into cambers and hesitates when oncoming cars appear. His reference points have changed and Leala turns the radio on. ‘What does that sign mean?’ After turning at the junction a tractor appears ahead and Patrick can ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

see the road is long. ‘Two lines together means you can overtake. One hard line is you can’t,’ Leala says. Accelerating past the tractor Patrick checks his mirrors in the wrong order and indicates to return to their lane. Escaping from the field a dog runs onto the road and Patrick is forced back onto the opposite lane as the dog pauses and stays close to the camber. Composing the car Patrick looks ahead at the road. ‘Fait chier.’ Patrick slows down as they enter Arrou as he focusses on his rear-view at what’s behind him. ‘Why don’t you ever show your emotion? Sometimes you need to disrupt your equilibrium.’ Patrick wonders how Leala’s words sounded inside her head and checks the mirrors again. ‘It’s possible to park here,’ he says, ‘there are no other cars around. I think I can park here.’ Slowly, Patrick pulls the car into an empty space outside of the train station. The afternoon train to Paris leaves. He focuses on the movement of the car; it’s bigger than the car he used to own and he feels it pull him. Looking in the side mirror and then turning his head around to view out of the back he tries to judge the position of the car. Leala turns the radio up. Pressing the break down gradually Patrick positions the wheel back to its default position and looks ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

at Leala. He begins to answer Leala’s question but instead turns the radio off. Beneath the bonnet the car makes a sound. Leala comes round to Patrick’s door, opens it and kisses him on the neck. Placing her hair behind her ears she smiles and points towards the field. ‘It’s good you are here. I was here before when I was a petite girl and now you are here.’ Leala pulls Patrick towards the gate and shows him how to climb over it. ‘You see the edge of the field la? We walk toward it and then we go through into the next field,’ she says, jumping onto the ground and turning to see Patrick. ‘Be careful when climbing the gate.’ There is a path where the ground had been walked on before and has created a natural divide between fields. ‘How do you call these in English?’ Leala says, turning round to see Patrick behind her and pointing towards the tall, yellow plant growing beside them. ‘They are oilseed rape. What do you call them?’ “Les colzas,” I remember running through these when I was little and they were trop grande.’ Leala throws her arms towards the sky and jumps on her feet. She is laughing and Patrick laughs into his hands. They follow the path along the edge of the field. There is not a gap in the hedge and it begins to rain, the ground becomes soft and Patrick’s feet stick. Leala is now in silence and she looks up at the sky and inspects each corner of it. She does the same with the ground. The rainfall increases. Patrick watches his feet move in the mud, placing each step on the dry ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

parts so he avoids the risk of falling. They continue with Leala looking up and Patrick looking at his feet. He has resigned himself now and walks slower, pushing his feet deeper into the ground and a distance grows between the two. Behind Patrick, Leala can see people walking towards them. The man and the woman are dressed in heavy jackets. The man waves his arm like her papi. ‘Bonsoir,’ Leala says, pulling Patrick’s arm to face them. She tells them that they parked at Arrou train station and are hoping to return and that all she wants is to return home. She points in the air and looks around and looks back at Patrick. Following Leala’s finger the man listens. His wife begins to speak but the man interrupts. He looks at Patrick and speaks at him. He tells Patrick the way back to Arrou and Patrick is staring at him and at his clothes and then at his own clothes. Patrick is in silence. The man’s sonorous voice preaches to Patrick and Patrick steps forward ahead of Leala and takes the man’s large hand. He wants to tell the man everything. About how his feet are cold and how the jumper he is wearing is heavier with the rain. He wants to tell the man in the field that he is scared to drive and that he can never express himself. He wants to describe what it’s like to miss the present. ‘Bon courage, Monsieur,’ the man clasps Patrick’s hand and places his other hand on his shoulder. His wife kisses Patrick on both cheeks and also ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

kisses Leala. The old couple walk past them into the field talking to one another and neither Patrick nor Leala can interpret. The old man’s hand brushes the oilseed rape. Patrick leads Leala by the hand to where the man gestured. They both cut through the field, gently pushing the tall plants to the side and holding each other up. In the middle of the field the space seems boundless and they continue towards Arrou. Patrick asks Leala what the man said. Driving back to Les Villier Patrick parks the car by the unfinished house, puts it into park, and looks over to Leala and watches her remove her seatbelt and take off her jumper. The jumper is wet and heavy and Patrick pulls it over her head and throws it onto the back seat. Their hands come together as they undo the buttons on her large shirt and Patrick pulls that off and Leala puts her shoes underneath the seat and unbuttons her jeans. She opens the door and runs across the grass in her underwear and her wet hair sticks to her face. Covering her mouth she laughs. Patrick wants to know what he looks like to her. In the car he watches her run towards the house underneath the willow tree. Carrying the weight of her wet clothes Patrick looks into the unfinished house. In the window’s reflection he watches himself walk towards Leala. She is in the bathroom and he is by the fire. He hears her move behind ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

him. Placing her arms around his waist she kisses his neck as he places wood into the fireplace. The heat covers the both of them and they wrap one another in their arms and lean towards it. They brace as if against the wind and talk past the night.

Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

lice produces a voice recorder. Henry swaps the cassettes and rewinds.

The tape spools around the wheels with a click-wrap and then a

crack. He’s reached a suitable place and starts recording. This is Alice’s

thirty-fourth lesson. All she can do is yawn, the biggest yawn her taut mouth can stretch to. She feels she may vomit, or her face will finally snap like a rubber band constricting too much hair. Alice’s bulging pink eyes are thick and runny, as inky black scratches of notes scuttle across the stave in front of her. She feels unmusical. The piano surely has no interest in playing itself for a fraud. She decides she needs the toilet and excuses herself. In the damp downstairs bathroom, Alice unzips her jeans and squats ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

over the bowl. She doesn’t need to go, but she’s prepared to hover a while, ensuring her snow white thighs never make contact with the seat. She glances around and counts the spots of mould on the grouting and shower curtain. Luckily, she notices remnants of shredded white tissue. It’s clinging onto the brown tube in jagged strips, like a patchy senior beard. She hisses the word ‘yes’ and zips back up again. The front door slams behind her. She walks to the mini market at the end of the road. It’s hot inside by the door where the freezers are, and the moist cardboard floor is squelching under foot as she passes rows of porridge and simple bran packets. Alice approaches the counter, skips to the slow tempo off beats and the tin whistle on the market radio. Stacked up next to the counter are bright matte boxes with holes cut out the front. Spiky sealed corn snacks reside inside them. She holds out her marker penned arm to the cashier. It reads: ‘toilet roll’. Henry pulls up a stool next to her and props up some double sided sheet music. It’s Christopher O’Riley’s version of Christian brothers. “Thanks for coming to get me” she says, “I don’t know how I got lost.” “Next time, I’ll go with you,” he says rubbing the black word from her arm. Alice likes doubled sided sheet music. Turning the page provides gaps in the music separate to her mistakes. She delays playing, expressing passion for the piece Henry has chosen. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

These declarations are common. At lingering she is a virtuoso. Her spiel leaks into full blown gesticulation, and eventually, she reaches into her rucksack for CDs full of music similar in style. She shows them to him, one by one, and gives a gratuitous account of how deeply she feels each track. Henry lets his fingers clink along the keys, but she does not join in. Instead she reaches for the mug on the upright piano and takes a sip. The tea is wonderfully sweet and dark like the body of the piano. She remembers, on this occasion, the piano is a nineteenth century Steinway and Sons, elaborate and made of burl walnut, still she asks him what kind of wood and age it is. He’s not sure if she’s really forgotten or is simply holding them up. Alice knows almost all the inner workings of the piano have been replaced. It’s a new piano in a mature shell. Inside her head, she repeats concerns about the long term tuning capabilities of the instrument, stacking up a supply of statements like ‘a piano only lasts eighty years’ and ‘it won’t tune no matter what’. She needlessly plays each note in chromatic order to gage the pitch. Henry waits for her to finish. He avoids colourless, noncommittal language in general, and so he asks her straight up to play the first two bars. “That’s a new one on me,” she says, “we’ve not done this before.” Henry bites his lip. They always start with the first two bars. Alice sighs, rubs her knees and gathers the sheet music, then puts it ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

back. Henry waits a moment for her to start. She tingles with cold and hums the words to Christian Brothers in her head. Behind her eyelids in the darkness, she dances to the quiet treble notes, away from censure. Where the water is coming from she does not know, but it’s a deluge. She slides steadily into a lake. As the music shifts to the penetrative chords, she sinks deeper, and the need to breathe is profound. Her pencil thin body darts down into the murkiness. She flings out her arms and legs to scrabble to the surface, but it’s difficult to know which way is up. Sharp salt slashes the inside of her ears, nose and throat, and then her feet slap onto the parquet flooring. Although Alice hasn’t been in water since the accident, she experiences the memory of a briny nosebleed burning down her top lip. Henry takes her shoulder, asks if she’s ok. “Yeah, I’m ok,” she says rubbing her nose. Henry tells her to be one step ahead in her mind, to think of the next position as she’s playing the current one. His words swirl over. The mixture of instruction and the memory of water hinder her thought processes. She stamps out a chord incorrectly. “Never mind Alice. Next one,” he says. She presses down hard. Malformed chords expel from her fingers, and the metronome tauntingly speeds up and slows down. She can feel the ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

blood fill her cheeks and the adrenaline stiffen her hands like cement in veins. She opens her eyes wide, her small mouth grimacing, and then she slams the fall board shut, unsure why she’s participating in this pointless exercise. “I’m making this the last one Henry,” she says as she gets up and takes her rucksack. “I’ve had it.” She steps out onto the pavement and looks left, then right. She’s undecided. Both directions are equally alien. She senses him near and turns tentatively. He reaches into her pocket and pulls out a set of headphones. “You might need this,” he says holding a small cassette which he switches in the voice recorder for her. Putting the headphones in her ears, he sets the voice recorder playing and walks slowly back into the house, hands in his pockets. Alice can hear Henry’s voice speaking to her. “As you leave, turn right. Walk straight until you reach the end of the road. Turn left at the mini market.” The streets are vaguely familiar and yet distinctly strange, like a bittersweet visitation to a childhood place you’ve been absent from for years. By the time Alice reaches home, she cannot control her tears. On tape, she hears herself play, expertly. It provokes an unpleasant recollection of being underwater, and the muscle memory being flushed away. By the sounds on the tape, Alice surmises she was once a gifted pianist. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“We’re working to get you back to this Alice,” Henry’s voice says. Alice searches for Henry’s number. He answers immediately. “Alice? Is that you?” “Do I cancel every week?” she asks. “Most weeks,” he says, “but we can work on that too.”

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“You must be Chrissy.” She looked up in surprise. Although watching the door between sips of warm Sauvignon blanc she had somehow missed him, his appearance at her shoulder heralded by no more than a weak waft of after-shave. Perhaps he had truly arrived by magic, spirited on a gulf breeze. She had half-expected him to appear in a pointed hat and black gown, a twisted staff clenched in gnarled fingers. But this wizard, this controller of the supernatural, was humanoid. Of course he was - how could he be otherwise? “You started without me?” He had no accent. “What?” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

He motioned towards the glass. “I’ll get you another.” “I’m okay.” “I’ll get you another.” Monotonal, not to be refused. “A dry white wine.” Yes, it was a voice not to be refused, persuasive but not sinister. She watched as he leant forward on the bar, gesturing towards the barmaid and pulling a face. Chrissy smiled. The new glass of wine was also warm. Why had she chosen this pub? Did the sepia images in tarnished brass frames provide security? Perhaps an unfamiliar experience demanded a conventional atmosphere? Surrounded by the recognizable, physical, secular meant being here she could be nowhere else, unlike him. Chrissy crossed her legs deliberately, watching to see if his eyes darted to the momentary glimpse of bare knee in her fleetingly open skirt vent. But his eyes remained fixed on her face, the dark green irises seeming to search her expression for something elusive. “You’ve known pain.” His statement made her pause, glass mid-air. “I see your aura,” he went on softly. The father confessor was ready to provide absolution. “I see red, orange, black.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

His hands, Chrissy mused, were ridged with light blue veins. They were smooth, the knuckles slightly reddened. He looked pale, his translucency barely obscuring the white-lit absence of blood and bone. He’s a fake. He must be a fake. Through the window the sky had darkened and small rivulets of rain oozed down the pane. It was black rain all right. Her mother always warned her to beware black rain - cold, dark, heavy unmerciful droplets spattering from a suddenly leaden sky. He held up his hands like Moses and she could almost see the rainbow beam from his palm. She could feel the gentle pressure of his fingers as they hovered close to her head, but he did not touch her. She was silent, waiting. Two men at the bar watched out of the corners of their eyes. He did not speak, slowly moving his hands in airborne circularity. His fingers turned and twisted the mould invisible to all but him. She felt him pulling away the hurt, lifting and removing layer by layer. She heard herself breathing, each intake of air rehydrating her sticky dry tongue, sore-palated from corked wine. The black raindrops on the window seemed to convulse like the beads of glass in a child’s kaleidoscope. But she was gliding a gyre through cumulous cloud, seeing blue-sky ahead, coming out into sun. His hands dropped. She was relaxed at last. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

n Wednesdays, Razia liked to drink tea at Carolina’s Coffee Shop. She

went between breakfast and lunch, when the café was often empty.

Today, the sound of slow jazz filled the air. The wooden chairs were tucked neatly under tables and the newspapers folded away in magazine racks. The lights that dangled from the ceiling were in traditional mehndi colours and always reminded her of her own wedding. Small, triangular shades in orange, yellow and green hung on the ends of thick, black cords. She remembered herself as a young bride, her sisters painting henna on her hands and feet just days before her wedding, while her aunts sang about the joys of marriage. ‘Come in, come in. It’s cold out there,’ Carolina called from behind the counter. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘Cold, but sunny,’ said Razia, as she hobbled towards the counter. She nodded a hello and checked that her dupata was still covering her head. The wind had blown it here, there and everywhere on her way to the cafe. Carolina smiled and adjusted the flower in her hair; the cherry red was striking against the dark strands. Her tunic, in a matching colour, was fitted against her slim body and she looked radiant. Carolina was in her early thirties, half Razia’s age. Her vivacity comforted Razia and reminded her that she was once full of energy and dreams. That she once had a life that mattered before the grey hair she now dyed with orange henna, before she’d lost her figure to childbirth and her love of food. She wore only shalwar kameez now because the loose trousers and dresses covered everything but there was a time when she’d dared to wear fitted jeans and tops and attracted looks from men. ‘The usual?’ Carolina asked. Razia balanced her walking stick against the counter. ‘Thank you.’ She always ordered the same: English breakfast tea in a pot with a small jug of warm milk on the side. That way, she could let it brew as long as she wanted and add milk to her taste. She’d have the same at home, since the traditional, milky tea she’d drunk all her life didn’t suit her anymore. But at the coffee shop she could see Carolina and feel less lonely for a while. Carolina loved to talk and Razia liked to listen. ‘I’m missing home today,’ Carolina pouted, setting out a tray for Razia’s ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

tea. She placed a teabag in a pot and pressed her hands against her hips. Silver bangles stretched up her forearms. ‘Last night, I dreamt I was at the Trevi Fountain with my mother, eating lemon ice cream.’ Carolina pointed to a picture of the fountain, to the side of the counter. It was one of several framed photographs of Italy around the café. Carolina’s husband had captured the images of her birthplace on their travels. He was an excellent photographer. The picture Carolina pointed to showed the Trevi Fountain at night. Taken at a slant, the green-blue water contrasted with the yellow lights shining through it, giving the stone an ethereal quality. ‘Ach! It felt so real,’ Carolina continued. ‘The sun was hot on our faces. Scooters beeped in the distance. I could hear Italian, French, English, Japanese. And the ice cream – I’ve never tasted anything like it here!’ She was animated now, speaking with her whole body and her accent had become stronger. ‘Sweet and tangy, creamy and zesty: I could almost taste it when I woke up.’ Her hands curled against her chest to emphasise her longing. Razia smiled. Carolina talked more and more of home lately. ‘Will you ever go back?’ Razia asked. She leant against the counter to steady herself as she searched her bag for loose change. Carolina shook her head and spread out her arms. ‘This is home now. My memories of Chris are here.’ Her voice had softened. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

The first time Razia met Carolina, they drank tea together in the empty café and Carolina told Razia her story. She’d moved from Rome to England to study at eighteen, fell in love with an Englishman and never left. Chris died two years ago in a car accident. They never had children, always waiting for the right time – her biggest regret. The café was their joint project. ‘I’d always imagined moving back home with him and starting a family in a small village.’ Still counting her money, Razia pushed a pile of coins towards Carolina. ‘Is it the right amount?’ she asked. She’d begun to do everything in slow motion lately. Simple things – walking, cooking, turning on the television – took so much effort. ‘It’s never how you imagine,’ Razia said. ‘Look at me. Still here. Forty years!’ When Razia had arrived in Bristol in 1972, she’d dreamt of home every night. She couldn’t speak English had rented a bedsit with pale green walls and damp furniture. The greyness of England had depressed her and she missed the sun, the sound of roosters in the mornings, pulling her from sleep. She’d thought it a temporary matter, living here. Just until her husband saved enough money to return to Pakistan. Now, she’d lived here longer than there. Here had become home. She had little desire to even visit Pakistan. Visiting left her exhausted, with a bad stomach and ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

sore knees. She’d become accustomed to the clean, well-paved streets of Britain and the safety the law provided. No, she didn’t have relatives here who massaged her legs when they ached and refused to let her make her own tea but that was because both her children had married out of the culture. But they were happy, which was the main thing. And she wasn’t unhappy. Carolina scooped up the money and threw it into the till without counting. ‘I guess home is where you choose to make it. We are what we choose to accept or reject – someone said that to me once. I still feel Italian but I’m English too.’ Razia nodded. ‘It all becomes a part of you.’ ‘Sit. I’ll bring this over. Try one of these shortbreads for me too - fresh this morning.’ ‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’ It was something Carolina had begun to do over the past few months: sometimes it was a free muffin, other times carrot cake, once a slice of banana bread. Razia hadn’t told her she’d given up fatty, sugary foods since being diagnosed with diabetes. She appreciated the kindness. When Carolina was busy, she would slip the treat into a napkin and hide it in her bag. Then, she’d tell Carolina how delicious it was before leaving. Razia sat at her usual window seat. She liked to watch people. Carolina placed the tray on the table. She’d added a cup of frothy coffee, which she ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

picked up and stirred before sitting opposite Razia with the drink cradled in her hands. Across the road, in front of some of the brightly painted terraced houses that lined the street, a group of boys no older than eleven were smoking. Carolina shook her head. ‘Nothing better to do than mess around in front of my shop,’ she said. ‘They’re harmless, no?’ Razia replied. They didn’t scare or shock her. In the small village she was born in, boys became men before puberty. They worked in the fields, came home with wages and smelling of tobacco. By sixteen they considered marriage and families. This frightened her more, although it never used to. ‘They’re playing with friends, tasting life, growing up slowly,’ she explained. Carolina sipped her coffee and leaned in towards Razia. Her dark eyes widened. ‘During the morning rush today, a song reminded me of Chris and I started to cry. I had to go into the kitchen to stop. You’d think you’d get used to these things but you don’t, do you?’ Carolina stared at Razia. It was a genuine question. Razia reached for Carolina’s hand and squeezed it. ‘It gets easier with each passing year,’ she lied. Carolina squeezed Razia’s hand back. ‘Thank you.’ She turned her lips up into a half smile. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Razia was thankful for the lie that she could gift to Carolina. It was what people had told her when her own husband passed away, five years ago. It had helped her then, before she realised the truth that every day brought a different reminder, dug up buried memories. ‘Barcelona’s calling me,’ Carolina whispered. ‘I think it’s time. Gaudi, paellas, sangria. I’ve always wanted to see the Sagrada Familia.’ Razia’s heart sank. ‘I went there once. It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘You must go.’ For one month in the year, Carolina closed the shop and travelled. She’d started the tradition with Chris and now swore she’d never let go of it. Last year it was Paris, the year before, India. She never planned, she said, not any more. But she’d know when the time was right. Razia knew how important this was to Carolina and had come to expect it. The dread was unexpected. They’d both finished their drinks. The empty cups sat between them. They looked out at the boys – one, a short boy with spiked hair, jumped on a taller boy’s back. The others laughed. ‘Will you try my lunchtime special?’ Carolina asked, her face brightening. She pointed to the blackboard behind the counter. ‘Tomato, lentil and basil soup, served with walnut bread – I made it all from scratch this morning.’ Razia glanced at her watch, acting, for a moment, like she had other things to do and enjoying the feeling. She looked back at Carolina. ‘Sounds ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

tasty.’ Carolina smiled. A group of young ladies came into the café, distracting Carolina. Carolina served Razia’s lunch and then disappeared to sort out the women’s orders. Razia hid the shortbread in her handbag and made a mental note to thank Carolina. The soup was thick and comforting – made from the heart. The bread was light and nutty with thick crusts, which Razia dipped into the soup to soften; her false teeth could not chew hard things easily. Something else she had to get used to. The women were loud, talking non-stop. They showed no sign of leaving, even after Razia finished her soup. Razia watched the sun disappear and rain begin to fall; the boys scattered in various directions. Carolina came to clear the table. ‘I will go now,’ Razia said. ‘The weather’s bad.’ She fumbled in her bag for some money. Carolina nodded. ‘Lunchtime rush soon.’ ‘It was all very nice.’ Razia stood, slowly, carefully. ‘Really, delicious, especially the soup. And the shortbread.’ ‘You’re too kind,’ Carolina said, rubbing Razia’s arm. ‘Take care. It’s cold out there. You should bring a coat.’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Razia fastened her cardigan. She wanted to hug Carolina but she resisted. ‘See you next week,’ she said. It was her usual mantra but visions of the yellow “closed this month” sign filled her mind. ‘Yes, see you then.’ Carolina replied. Razia wrapped her dupata tight around her head. At least Arif would visit with the grandchildren on Saturday. She would call him when she got home and ask what he wanted to eat. If she started preparing now, it would keep her busy; stop her from thinking too much. She was sick of remembering and forgetting. She would get vegetables from Mrs Khan’s shop and have a good chat. She picked up her walking stick and shuffled towards the door. Opening it, she paused to look back at Carolina. Carolina waved goodbye from behind the counter. Razia nodded back. As Razia walked up the hill towards her house, the rain soaked her face and the wind tugged at her dupata, pulling it off every time she secured it back in place. Razia muttered a prayer under her breath, for God to keep her safe. Some habits never leave you, she thought, however much things change.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

t is a slow Wednesday, mid-afternoon, the sun at its hottest and brightest, at its most attentive in its task, when the soft bell tinkles and the Pixellated

man enters the shop. I close my book, thumb wedged in the pages. I look at him and then immediately look elsewhere at nothing. I open the book and return to the page. He shimmers off to the Biography section, apparently in the act of browsing. The story in my book has halted. I cannot engage my brain to restart it. I can move my eyes across the words, but the sense of them is not processed. The screen of the old till falls into standby mode. A little window bounces over the darkness. I touch the screen, resuscitate the familiar Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

image and hit the lock symbol, just in case. I put the bookmark in the stubborn book and close it. The Pixellated man emerges from the aisle, crosses the shop in front of me and disappears once again into the opposite section where the Cookery books are kept. He had not looked at me. I’d watched him, unable to look away, willing to offer a tentative smile should he glance over, but he did not. I had to wonder about that. I had to wonder about a lot of things. Mostly things I don’t claim to understand. Things I’ve never bothered nor wanted to understand, because I’m happy in my small-city bookshop dealing with enthusiasts and collectors. Pixellation, its rights, rules, technicalities and otherwise don’t factor into my nutshell life. I decide to bland my mind out with emails and Twitter and hope that the Pixellated man’s curiosity will wane enough for him to move on before anyone else comes into the shop. I am expecting Justin to pick up his order and this is his usual time of day. I check Justin’s twitter feed. No mention of coming over. Perhaps that bullet would be dodged. ‘Excuse me.’ His approach had been silent; his voice sounded like it had come from the top of his head, rather than his throat. But it had not sounded ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

electronic. ‘Hi,’ I said. He did not continue straight away, like he’d glitched. I used the pause to take him in. But my frantic brain processes the image fleetingly. Flat, smooth, shine where there should be shade. Over-emphasised stubble. Clothes meeting skin with a flawless visual seam. I examine no more and flick back to his dull eyes. ‘Do you have a Gardening section?’ ‘Gardening?’ I stumble forward off my chair and move around the desk. I have smoothly switched myself to automatic service mode. More comfortable that way. ‘Not really, but you might find something in Leisure and Hobbies, just round here.’ I quickly reach the relevant shelf, but the Pixellated man has not followed. I scan the stock, pick out a few items and carry them back to the desk. ‘This is what we have,’ I say. He considers them for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ he says, and picks up the first one from the pile. The contact of pixel to book looks to my deceiving eyes like an experienced fisherman holding his catch; a firm grip but slippery nonetheless. Faint ripples and shimmers of light emanate from the points of contact like fleeing tadpoles. I try not to look for too long. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

He turns the pages slowly but steadily, looking at pictures of allotments and crops. ‘How’s business?’ he asks. ‘Er- well, a bit slow at the moment really. Very slow.’ I sit back down on the chair as if the act of it could sever our connection and abort the conversation. I don’t like talking about the shop at the best of times. ‘This is a great little place.’ ‘Thanks. It’s mostly just for collectors and enthusiasts, but people like to browse.’ ‘I imagine so.’ I grind my teeth. I start to nibble at the bits of skin next to my fingernails. I press the tip of my tongue against my upper lip. The gaping silence seems to bother him. ‘This is good,’ he mutters, ‘this is what I want.’ ‘Do a lot of gardening?’ I ask. My index finger has started to bleed where I tore at a bit of skin too much. I drop my hand out of sight and make a lame attempt to rub the blood away. ‘I’d like to,’ he answers. ‘I find plants fascinating. The cycles, the food, the care, the time. I’ve been told it’s a very peaceful endeavour.’ ‘I’m sure it is.’ His voice is soothing and pitch perfect. His demeanour is relaxed and gentle. He even treats the book with utmost respect, as if he was just ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

about to uproot it from his dream garden patch. I feel like he’s trying too hard to relax me. I need to get him out of the shop. ‘So, do you want it then?’ He looks up. ‘Er, yes, yes. Fine. I’ll take it.’ He passes it to me. I forget about my bloodied finger and take it with that hand. If he notices the blood he doesn’t say. ‘I’ll just have a look at these ones too,’ he says. Did I detect a bitter tone? Whatever tone he used, a bitter one registered with me. I scan the book, place it on the counter and produce a small bag in readiness. He takes his time. I steel myself for a standoff. I look up at the door. It opens and Justin walks through. The bell tingles its material chime. ‘Afternoon Jim,’ he says before his weary eyes find the Pixellated man. As they do they sharpen. His stride, however, does not falter. The Pixellated man glances up and nods briefly. He returns to his study of the second book. Justin is now looking at me directly in my eyes. ‘Hi Justin. Come for your order?’ ‘Indeed.’ He removes his cap and places it on the counter. It feels like a talisman. Or a gauntlet. I take Justin’s order from the shelf behind me. Two Agatha Christie novels and a John Grisham. The Grisham apparently completes a set. I had put it on the top in anticipation of celebration. He barely gives it a second ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

glance while handing over his card. He clears his throat. His eyes watch the electric tadpoles. The Pixellated man glances up again, gives another brief smile, and closes the book on his thumb. ‘Your name sir?’ says Justin. ‘I’m Michael.’ Justin thumps the desk with the palm of his hand. ‘Fuck off; “Michael”!’ he says under a laugh. The Pixellated man removes his thumb from the book. His face looks flattened. The contours of his nose and chin seem to flicker into existence for the briefest of framerates. ‘I’ll just take the first one, thanks,’ he says to me. Justin, for the moment, remains quiet, but he cannot stand still. The Pixellated man produces a Visa card from a pocket. We don’t take Visa cards. We genuinely don’t take Visa cards any more. They charge too much to the antique book trade industry on credit. I stopped accepting them years ago. People know. People understand. It’s never a problem. I quiver as I say it. It feels like my whole nervous system is trying to collapse beneath me. Justin hoots into a forced, heavy, fake laugh. ‘Can’t you just download it mate?’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

‘Fine,’ says the Pixellated man. ‘I’ll come back later.’ ‘Don’t bother,’ says Justin. I look down at my oozing finger. ‘Why not?’ asks the Pixellated man without stopping to hear the response. Justin doesn’t offer one, just grins. The bell of the door shouts an angry reply instead. ‘Fuck me...’ mutters Justin, but I am watching Michael through the window as he strides across the road, head titled at an odd angle. A car hits him, shocks him, passes through him as he staggers. It brakes to a sudden halt, pauses there holding Michael awkwardly, then slams into motion again pulling out of him with odd difficulty. It leaves behind distortion; Michael’s legs are separated and confused, like in an old cartoon. After a moment of impossible suspension, his top half remembers to crash to the floor. The legs crumple at the same time. Pixels scatter like diamonds and then fizzle into blips of static, then nothingness. I dash out from behind the desk, past a dumbstruck Justin, out of the door and into the street. Already, people are fiddling for camera phones, lining up for the best angle. I hesitate. The legs are twitching madly, spitting pixels from the severed waistline. Michael’s eyes are straining to watch the death dance, while his mouth gapes soundlessly. It is a pure horror that flickers on that face; a horror which deranges my blood, maddening the cells to rush from my head and stab at my belly. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

I have to stop the face, calm it down, calm me down, so I lunge forward and take the torso in my arms, holding the flailing arms in tight. It feels oddly selfish. I avoid looking directly at the phones which are silently multiplying in number. I look at Michael instead. He calms. His eyes tear away from the legs and shift to look at me. The legs fall silent. Lamely, I grab a foot and pull them nearer, as if a closer proximity would calm him further. Finally, the horror mouth closes and he licks at his lips. ‘Sorry,’ he says. I shush him gently. ‘Sorry,’ he says again. Dark bands of static begin to sputter down his body and turn his skin and his clothes to greyscale, then monochrome. The pixels continue to fall away; his belly now gone, the process climbs slowly through his chest. It is the most beautiful thing I have seen, but also the worst. ‘It was a beautiful beginning,’ he says, his voice now atonal and distant. I look up at the crowd. Among them I see some more Pixellateds, hanging back, straining for a view. ‘You have a great shop,’ he says. ‘Thanks,’ I manage. Then his eyes catch mine with a final effort. ‘Don’t let this change things. It was a beautiful beginning. Beautiful.’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Only his head remains. The pixel disintegration is getting quicker. He closes his eyes and his features slide from near-perfection to a stranger smoothness. Soon they become complex polygons, shedding sides and angles, collapsing down to basic 3D shapes. It feels perverse to watch so I look up. The traffic has stopped in front of me. Nobody moves, no-one arrives to help. Justin is standing in the doorway to the shop, not quite wanting to venture outside. I notice he has put his cap back on. Further down the road obscene car horns begin to blare. The weight subsides in my hands and becomes a tickle. I stay there knelt in front of my shop until the very last pixel disappears.

Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

inally the day has worn itself out. The last few dots of sun, which has set,

are phased out by the soft hum of city lights. The day whittles down,

and Dallas watches as the city breathes in and out. From up here he has seen it all. Pepper sprayed whores, sopping their

wounds with milk, Scientologists selling their faith to down and outs, and the tramps parading around in stolen fanny packs. This is where they belong, the big and the outrageous, with the filth of the city coursing through their blood. Dallas opens an old carton of Luckyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. There are only a couple left, so he places one in his shirt pocket for the ride home. The other he places against his lip stroking it against the dry skin, thinking. His older brother, Whit, is outside packing suitcases and boxes into a cab, so that right now Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

there is only Dallas and an empty apartment. He takes a drag of the cigarette exhaling into the stale air, and reminds himself to open the window before he leaves. Years ago, when he was young and the world was still his, he’d taken the bus into the city. Back then his ideals of city life were taken from snapshots of young socialites, young rockers and rollers torn out of his brother’s magazines. His brother had once dreamed of the city too. But he had gotten a girl pregnant by accident and after the baby was born, stowed his dreams in a trunk under the bed. Over the years the two cases that Dallas had crammed beneath his seat on that drive in have steadily accumulated into a mess of Knicks and knacks, various shit odds and ends, little bits of meaning and nostalgia, that now he has taken the time to caress and pack into brown boxes. There are the Chopsticks from his first date with Laney, a cheap restaurant in Chinatown that can only boast of a brief shot of its exterior in the latest Hollywood blockbuster. The restaurant has a screen shot of it tacked onto the window outside, blurry and pixelated, but sure enough, there. He packed the fanny pack that he’d stolen from a sleeping tramp. It was empty apart from a lighter and a miniature cigar. He’d smoked that eventually. He had leant out of a cab, and exhaled the opaque dust into the dirty city air. Back then when he was a part of things; you’d probably ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

have taken him for a native. His favorite, though, was the busy address book brimming with the various saints and sinners he’d come across since riding the bus in. The nurses he’d made occasional conversation with on subway rides home, the messenger boys sprawled across car bonnets, the scramblers and the strugglers, the natives and the outsiders, all of them with something to say. There was Kelley, who was rich and addicted to crack. He is dying now and poor to that substance which he praised and which once took him away from his messed up life. He was lying in a hospital bed when Dallas visited to say goodbye. Beside him his mother keeping a vigil - waiting for her son to die so she can grieve and move on. Then there was Kelley’s sister, the beautiful Laney, who stole his heart and his city. Who was his Eve, his Delilah, Bathsheba reincarnated in the childish socialite. When he first came to the city he was so sure he was supposed to be someone, someone important, and someone life changing. But he had given that self to Laney and for it she has killed him; she has bankrupted him and left him outside to die. Laney left him stripped of ambition, of courage and youth; unable to pay his debts back to the city. So he’s going south now. Back home. Where he’ll settle down with a wife and have a couple of kids, perhaps a dog or a cat or something. He stubs out the ends of the fag onto the carpet – it’s not his anymore, ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

anyway – and listens for brother in the hallway. Witt’s heavy steps have been protruding across his memory. ‘Dally are you ready?’ he calls ‘Yup’ Dallas responds. In the distance New York City is on fire. Dallas has seen the city burn before. Twice now he has watched it cave beneath the flashy halogen bulbs. You only notice it when you’re on the outside, driving towards it or away from it. The skies erupting in fake light. The shine that swells to a bitter flame, constant, beautiful, sinful, an exemplar to the world in all its corruption. An exemplar to the world in all its beauty. New York City is burning. On their way out, they drive they pass more stragglers and the scramblers, the dreamers and the escapists, the dropouts high on Salinger and Fitzgerald heading in – outsiders all of them, all of them adventurers.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“Hold my hand Ariel. I know a way through,” my voice is thick with smoke and adolescence. She touches my palm and my fingers close over her slender hand. It reminds me of a picture on the kitchen counter: Mom and Dad holding hands, me toddling in front in a diaper. Turning to look at me, Ariel still clings to the corner of the white clapboard house with her other hand. Even in the smog her hair is the colour of Woeber’s mustard, her eyes the colour of Mrs Michaelson’s swimming pool. An American princess ready to be rescued: by me. She wears cut off jeans and pink slippers; her legs are pale like they never see the sun. I can see the curve of her breasts through her teeshirt. I want to touch her. Keely Ingmar in 8th Grade said I could feel her tits over her bra at Sheldon Michaelson’s birthday party but I said no. It would have been ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

beneath me. In the distance town firemen and rangers shout: “Clear the area! Clear the area! Forest fire! Fire!” It’s like a war zone. I get a thrill out of being ahead of them: I feel it in the pit of my stomache and my groin; like the fizz of indigestion tablets. I wonder if that’s how Dad felt when he skimmed the land in his Apache. The flames are a little way off but the smell and smoke are already here. “Let go,” I say softly, “let go.” Her eyes fix on my soot blackened hand. “Who are you?” she croaks as the smoke begins to billow and the heat creeps up. “It’s Ok, come on.” I coax. “I know you’re scared.” I look at our entwined fingers; it’s a dream. Her nails are neat and painted peach; just as I thought they would be. I gently pull her away from the house: the wood will be getting dry and flamable now. On Rescue 911 a house nearly quarter mile away from a forest fire spontaneously combusted because of the heat. Ariel looks up at the sky, her eyes kind of swim: it’s the first time she’s been out of the house for two years. Ash and sparks whirl above us like the slow onset of summer rain. It was a year ago, the last week of summer vacation, when I first heard Mrs Rivera talking to mom about a girl called Ariel who wouldn’t leave her house. Mrs Rivera said it had come on all of a sudden, no one could understand it. Ariel had been popular at school: she’d been on the ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Lacrosse team; was editor of the newspaper; sat with the pretty girls at lunch. Then the next day, in a moment of serendipity, Aaron Parker’s mom came in at 6.30 a.m. and said he couldn’t do his paper round because he had sunstroke. He’d been sick all night because he’d been mowing lawns to get money to buy tickets for Creed. Mrs Rivera threw Aaron’s messenger bag at me as I was stacking shelves: “Get on your bike sonny,” she said. “You ain’t my mom and you ain’t the boss,” I retorted. She launched a Hershey bar at my head: “Why d’you think you’re here at 6.30 in the morning you little prick: to pay your mama back for all the bad things you done. Her hearts nearly breakin’. You don’t need a coat - it’s hot out there already.” I wanted to say: ‘Mom ain’t been right since my dad never came back from operations.’ But I didn’t. I can’t even remember my dad so what’s it got to do with me. All I know is that when the helicopter crashed it was night time and you could see the fireball from five miles away; the fuel and shrapnel grasping at the heavens like firework fingers. I think about that a lot: the red and yellow flames against a black Bosnian sky. I also know my dad was a hero, or so mom says. I quite like Mrs Rivera she reminds me of my biology teacher but she’s got bigger breasts. Sheldon Michaelson next door says he’d do her: I told him he made me sick but I kind of see what he means. She cooks for me ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

and mom every Wednesday while mom’s not well; normally pupusas and guacomole. Mrs Rivera’s husband is away working on a construction site in Wilmington and her daughters sing duets in a hotel on the Cape. Mrs Rivera’s got nice hair and nice ankles; I bet she was hot in high school. There’s the sound of the gas canisters in the house down the road exploding: Ariel lets out a little scream. I can feel her trembling. No one’s on the main grid here; I know there’ll be canisters in Ariel’s garage too. I guess we better split. I clutch her hand tighter: she lets go of the house and lets me lead her down the path towards town. “I need to ring my mom and dad at work,” she says, “It’s happened so quickly, so close to the house; no one might have told them what’s going on yet.” “We’ll ring them from my mom’s shop. We gotta get going.” Her shoulders start to shake and her legs sort of slow down. God she’s beautiful. I remember the first time I saw her: that August morning when I did Aaron Parker’s paper round for the first time. I’d cycled away from town and was coming down the path where the group of houses were. They were a couple of miles from any where: the sort of place where people take their family to hide or to live wild and free. Anyway, I’d stuffed the paper in the mail box when I saw her at the window, stretching like she’d just woken up. I knew straight away who it was – Ariel, the girl who never left the house. She was wearing a teeshirt ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

that day too. I had to look away; she was so bright. So bright in this God forsaken, dull town. I’d heard at school she did her lessons on the computer and Mr McKinley, my sister’s English teacher, went round once a week to see how she was getting on. All the way back I thought about that creep McKinley with his bald head and belly. I bet he loved sitting in her room, looking at her while she leant over her books. My sister said he’s a kind teacher but they’re always the ones aren’t they? The ones who rub themselves against the desk while they’re teaching about present tense. “How’s the lessons,” I say to her as we pick our way along the forest path, the spluttering devastation behind us. “What? Are you crazy?” “I...I...”Wrong call: I was trying to strike up conversation; maybe I should wait til the fire is out. Hell, she doesn’t know I’ve returned here every day for a year just for the chance of a glimpse of her. When I got back to the shop after first seeing her I took a twenty out of the till when Mrs Rivera went looking for a roll of quarters. I told my mom I’d seen Aaron Parker take it. Aaron cried when he got the can: I thought he deserved it then - for being a cissy. Mrs Parker came in later: “Aaron’s been framed and I know who did it?” She pointed at me but Mrs Rivera was in the back taking stock. “My mom’s the boss around here. She can hire and fire who she wants,” I said, “You don’t know everything about ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

your precious Aaron; you just go ahead and ask him about stuff when you get home.” I had nothing on Aaron but you should have seen her face when I said that; she was seriously worried. There’s loads of skeletons in that cupboard, you can tell. In a strange twist of fate I heard on the radio just before I came to Ariel’s that Mrs Parker was in ICU. She’d breathed in smoke when she’d tried to save her dog when walking in the forest. Smoke inhalation can be deadly. The dog’s Ok though. The radio also said the fire had started because of lightening from this morning’s storm striking before it had rained, while every thing was bone dry. It wasn’t the lightning: it was a newspaper and lighter fuel from the shop. I threw a match and watched it burst into life: a fledging flame, crawling through the brush about to take off. Set far enough away from Ariel’s house to let it catch but close enough so they couldn’t put it out before I reached her. It’s their own fault it’s caught so good: they usually drop water this time of year but they said they couldn’t afford it this time on account of the recession. Yeah, the Mrs Parker thing is unfortunate and I guess Aaron’s crying now but who cares: I’m holding Ariel’s hand.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

e held the letter firmly in his hands. Folding and unfolding it into

tiny little pieces until the creases began to map out over the words.

The bus ride seemed to take a lifetime and he began to feel sick. Not your everyday kind of sick. More like a double blow to the stomach or when someone is pressing hard against your chest. His heart beat fast and his face began to drip little beads of sweat. He knew that it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t because of the long drive. It was something else. This was ridiculous, he thought. He was a grown man for goodness sake. Not the kid he used to be. Matured was the word. Yes. He was mature now. He would deal with this in a rational manner but his shaking hands belied his own words. His reflection stared back at him in the window. He had not changed much since the last time, except for the lines forming Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

around his green eyes and the hint of gray in his dark brown hair. Even so, you could still tell it was him. ‘Next stop Diea,’ shouted the bus driver. He was almost there. He unfolded the letter slowly and smoothed out the wrinkles. He had not read its contents since he started his journey. It didn’t matter anyway. He knew it off by heart. It was etched into his mind as naturally as his own name. The bus screeched to a sudden halt with shouts of ‘Diea’ coming from the front. He stepped out and took a taxi to the address stamped on the letter. The place was even more beautiful than he remembered. After all these years, it had not lost its charm. There was a peacefulness to this place that he had never really understood. ‘We are here sir,’ said the taxi driver. Paying the man he stepped out and walked past a tiny farmhouse before turning left until he came to a stop. The cottage was standing alone, surrounded by a huge garden and looming palm trees. From the distance he could make out the outline of the green hilltops. The effect was majestic. He smiled to himself. It was exactly as he had pictured it. The olive beamed ceiling. The rock patio leading into the cottage. It was truly a rustic beauty. He stood watching the place for a while preparing himself for what would inevitably come. He took a deep breath of the clean countryside air and knocked on ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

the door. Realising that he was still holding the letter he quickly shoved it into his pockets. When no answer came he knocked again, a little more desperate. A plump looking woman answered the door. She spoke too fast for him to understand. ‘Sorry. I don’t speak Spanish well. I’m looking for Mrs Lila Grey.’ Her face lit at the mention of Lila’s name and she nodded with rigour. He was afraid that his heart would jump out of his body and start dancing on the grass. She was still here. ‘Can I see her?’ ‘You do not know?’ she said in heavily accented English. ‘Know what?’ She stood at the doorway staring at him for a minute longer while he thought of how stupid an idea this had been. Stupid. He had received the letter a year ago. A lot could have changed. Did she have a family now? Did she want to see him? Stupid. Stupid. ‘What is your name?’ she asked him accusingly. ‘Alex Holding.’ On hearing his name the women seemed to have made up her mind about something. She told him to wait, her face seemed suddenly tired. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes that was not there before. What an old fool he was. She obviously felt pity for him. This was a terrible idea. He ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

should never have come. It was bloody torture, that’s what it was. ‘I will take you to her Mr Holding.’ He had half a mind to run back. No. He had travelled all this way damn it! He would see this to the end. ‘Come now, she is not far from here.’ They walked in silence, both deep in thought until they reached a small white gate. It opened with a squeal and she stepped aside. He had a perfect view now. He felt his body go limp. His throat had dried up. His dancing heart suddenly dead. The sickness he had felt on the ride her returned to him in a violent wave. Alex fell to his knees. ‘I’m sorry. She was a very kind lady.’ said the women. He could only manage to whisper out a ‘how?’ ‘She was sick. She told me she had leukaemia for two years.’ He said nothing. The women gently touched his arm and left him to his grief. He lay there in the mud for a long time. Lila Grey- beloved friend it read. He traced the outline of her name on the gravestone. Slowly, he took out the letter from his pocket. Was he so blinded by pride that he had not really read the letter at all. Yes he knew what it contained but did he know what it really meant? He smoothed the paper once again and began to read.

Alex, It has been too long. Three years and five months and three weeks to ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

be more exact. I’ve never had the courage to do this because I was afraid. Afraid of what...I don’t know exactly. Maybe I was afraid of your silence. Or that I would one day get an envelope in the post with a picture of you in your new life wherever and with whoever that may be. Sometimes it’s just easier to leave things the way they are. I’m a coward. But I guess you knew that already. I know it too now, a bit too late. You never really understood my reasons. You left without hearing what I had to say. Do you remember that day? It was December and pouring down with rain but neither of us cared. Even with the rain pounding down on us I could see your anger dancing flames in your piercing green eyes. You thought you were meeting me so that we would plan our future together and instead I told you I was planning it with someone else. I was never afraid of you, I respected you but you didn’t frighten me. I have to say now that you scared me that night, when you smashed the windows of my beaten down Toyota and left your blood to mingle with the rain. I tried to explain but you couldn’t see past your own anger and pain. I sat there on the ground where you shoved me in your fury feeling as beat down as the car next to me. I stayed there until it was light and I could not bring myself to squeeze out anymore tears. I don’t blame you for any of it. But I want you to hear me out. I married Brian because I was afraid of being with you. You will never know how much I loved you, and love you still. I was selfish and hungry ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

for it. I was never a jealous woman but it took every strength in me not to shout or lash out at you when I saw you with anyone else. It was like I was hypnotised and for all the beautiful moments we shared those feelings surfaced again and again. I couldn’t control it and I didn’t like that. If I stayed would you have ended up hating me? Would you have left me? Got tired of me? Would you have hurt me? I was a fool; I let those childish teenage thoughts ruin what we had. But at what point do we stop feeling insecure? I’m a coward because it was easier to let you go then to be with you. I’m not writing this as an excuse or because I think you may understand me and ride in like a knight in shining armour. But just know that you haven’t escaped my thoughts for one minute in these lonely years. When I couldn’t speak to you I wrote of you in various ways. In my first novel I set the scene in Diea where we first met. In the last novel bits of you spoke through the character of Mr. Bedford. It was my alter ego who played the daring Secila unafraid by the boundaries that life placed in front of her. I left Brian a year after our marriage. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought and he didn’t seem too upset over the whole matter. I moved out of my home in London and I write to you from Diea. I thought it was best to spend the time I had here, amongst memories that refuse to die down. Do you remember the first thing you ever said to me? I was travelling, map in ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

hand even though I had no idea how to follow the directions. You came up to me sure of yourself as you have always been. ‘Is that map showing you directions to our date tonight?” I tried to act like I couldn’t hear you but you were so persistence. I found myself laughing. You were charming and a little cheesy at the same time. I look outside now at the flowers beginning to bloom and feel at peace, for the first time in years a burden has lifted off me. I have realized too late the magic that could have been. Please take care, and be happy. Life is too short, too sudden for us not to say the things we need to. I just hope I’m not too late. Love Lila x He placed the letter neatly onto her gravestone and walked away. The tears fell down. For the magic that could have been.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

arrying a single bag, the young man is travelling alone at his whim

with no particular destination in mind. And yet he senses something

drawing him to some unknown place. He is not particularly confused by

this feeling. Nothing confuses him because he can’t remember his life. Well that’s not entirely true. He does remember the city where he boarded the train he’s now on, and the tiny apartment where he lived, and the menial job he had in a fast food restaurant a scant few blocks from his apartment. What he can’t recall is how he came to the city or how long he’s been there or the rest of his life before he suddenly (to his mind) appeared in the city. On a cold, gray cloud-laden day he stood on the downtown sidewalk peering at the three floor apartment building, clutching the same canvas bag now resting between his legs on the floor of the train, and walked inside ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

and rented the ground floor two and a half rooms listed on a cardboard sign taped to the window of the entrance door. That same day he walked two blocks in a steady drizzle and found the fast food place and applied for the job listed on an identical cardboard sign in the window. He has been staring out the train window at twilighted barren fields whose crops have long since been harvested. Now he turns, surprised to see a man sitting across from him. He does not recall this man being there when he first sat down. The man reminds him of the doctor who treated him in the city. But when the man makes eye contact and smiles with a wry twisting of his mouth, the resemblance to the doctor fades. “Going to Setonsville?” the man asks, his voice sounding like the doctor’s. He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know what to say and because the man’s voice seems to grip him and hurl him back to the doctor’s office where the doctor steepled his fingers and told him he’s suffering from a rare and poorly-understood form of amnesia called dissociative fugue, in which some or all memories of one’s identity become temporarily inaccessible. This memory loss is triggered by a traumatic life event. He was puzzled. He didn’t recall any traumatic event. All he had in his wallet spread out on the doctor’s desk was a few hundred dollars, a social security card with the name Robert Marzz typed on it, and a folded note with the scrawled words Ask Aunt Louisa. Obviously, the doctor concluded, you must be Robert Marzz, but the name meant nothing to Robert, nor ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

did the words on the note. But the doctor insisted that they had made progress. Robert found it curious that at no time did the doctor touch him or his wallet or the few objects in it. “Nice town, Setonsville. Be surprised what you’ll find there.” Robert looks up to find the man standing at the door between cars, sliding it open. As he glances back his face changes and Robert is surprised to see that the man resembles him. But the man is gone and now Robert remembers a dream he had (before he went to the doctor? before he came to the city?). In the dream Robert is in a house, in an attic, in a rocking chair that creaks as he rocks. He faces double glass doors in the wall beneath the a-frame roof. The doors stand open onto a tiny fragile looking balcony. On that balcony a figure leans on the railing and looks down into the darkness. Robert feels something is about to happen but he can’t stop rocking. From the right of the doors another figure rushes across the floor, hands outstretched. As the train slows, the conductor hurries through calling out the next stop. Robert feels compelled to get off the train but doesn’t know why. No one else disembarks. As the train eases forward with much hissing Robert stands on the dark platform and looks up at the sign barely illuminated by the low wattage shaded bulb above it: Setonsville. He hefts his canvas bag and wonders at its lightness; he doesn’t recall packing it. But soon he walks away from the train station and the vast rail yards and into the ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

town proper as if he knows where he’s going. Few people walk the nighttime streets but he thinks nothing of this. Only the feeling he had on the train pulls him; he must follow. In the near distance he sees a building and peers up five floors to the neon sign that blazes: Forest Hotel. He knows it is the tallest building in town but does not know how he knows. As he passes a man stumbles out from the hotel’s cocktail lounge and lurches to a stop and gasps. “You’re dead!” Robert shakes his head in denial but the man insists. “Dead, I tell you! Don’t tell me! I covered it for the Chronicle. Took a header off the balcony of that creepy house on Main Street. Broke your neck.” Again Robert shakes his head. “Dammit I’ll prove it. Wait here, I’ll get the clippings from the Chronicle office. Wait here!” He lurches down the street. Robert continues walking, forgetting the reporter. Now his gaze rests on a figure a half block away, ambling slowly, every few moments turning back to see if Robert is following. Robert stares hard through the night shadows and the ghostly neon reflected light from the row of bars and restaurants. The figure’s face resembles Robert’s but before Robert can react the figure disappears around a corner. Robert reaches the corner and looks up at the street sign: Main Street. Down the street the figure appears again, strolling at leisure and turning ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

back to look at Robert. Robert follows past looming bulks of Victorian homes on both sides of the wide street until the figure crosses to the other side onto a long expanse of lawn where a house sits set back from its neighbors. By the time Robert steps on the lawn the figure is gone. Robert moves forward toward the front door and glances up at the right side of the house where the balcony is silhouetted. To the left of the door is a mailbox with a name tag on the bottom: Louisa Marzz. Inside looks familiar; bulky furniture crammed into the rooms, low wattage floor and wall lamps casting more shadow than light, a stale mustiness that hangs in the air. Robert mounts the narrow, worn-carpeted stairs to the second floor, and then even narrower wooden stairs to the attic. As in his dream he sees the rocking chair still rocking slightly as if someone has just left it, and sees through the open doors a figure turning toward him with a face that is his face, and sees another figure springing forward from the darkness with outstretched hands to shove the man with Robert’s face through the balcony railing. The scene changes as Robert clutches his canvas bag and moves toward the doors. Louisa turns and looks and her eyes and mouth widen. “No, no, it can’t be you, I killed you!” She jumps backward and crashes through the railing and plunges down into the night. Robert stares at the dark for a long while, and then, as if waking from a ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

dream, unzips the canvas bag and reaches inside. The bag is empty except for a single document: a death certificate for Robert Marzz. Two security guards are driving in the steady rain to their midnight shift at the college outside Setonsville when the driver peers through the watery wiper blades and elbows his partner. “Hey lookit that dumb guy walkin’ in the rain like he’s in no hurry.” The other man leans forward. “What guy?---oh yeah, carryin’ a canvas bag?” As the driver slows the pickup truck and pins the figure outside with his headlights, the figure appears to fade away until only the pouring rain is illuminated, bouncing hard off the tarmac.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

e remembers that time when it all felt right. When everything was as it should have been. He remembers that place, the people, and

the colours on the waves, the blonde hair in his face that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t his, the giggles, and the boiled egg sandwiches. He remembers the rainbow windbreaker thudding in the wind, the napkin hat and messages in sand, the

soft wet sandcastles too. He could have been left there forever. He wants nothing more. His eyes open to her. There are white wires and beeping, and he has to leave. Isaac is sat alone at the bar in the middle of the afternoon. The coaster is warped by too many kisses from his whisky damp glass. It reads: There Is Hope. He stares at the coaster, flicking the tumbler with his index nail. Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

There Is Hope. He necks the last drop and looks over at the girl behind the bar. He taps the stained wood. She half-smiles, and pours him another serving. The room around Isaac is dulled and heavy. People sit in private clusters, their voices low. A few get up occasionally to order a drink. They stand at the other end of the bar. Isaac looks at some of them. They look back, then quickly away. Some of them hold Isaac’s gaze. He shifts his weight, takes a sip and runs the glass over his knuckles. He doesn’t blink. But, they don’t hold the connection for long. Not long enough. They look everywhere else, but not back at him. So the whisky keeps filling, and it keeps draining. “Waiting for someone?” the girl behind the bar asks. Isaac shrugs. “Late? You’re nearly halfway through that bottle.” “No.” She stands toying with her hair, not knowing what else to say. She wants to say something, but slips away to the other end of the bar. She cleans a few glasses, refills a few spirits, and glances at him when she thinks he isn’t looking. Isaac finishes another measure. A man in a grey fitted suit stands up from a table near the bar’s entrance. He gets up with a four pint laugh and a relaxed swagger. He waltzes to the bar and orders drinks for himself and his “buddy boys”. He jumbles the words to “what’s a horrible girl like you doing in a... oh, whoops!” He ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

laughs a four pint, stood up too quick, head rush confident chuckle, and looks at Isaac. Isaac looks back at Grey Suit. Grey Suit carries on laughing, folding, but soon drops to a smile. Isaac doesn’t blink and Grey Suit doesn’t break the stare. Grey Suit stares for just long enough. “I hope all your regulars aren’t this miserable, Annie?” says Grey Suit, and carries on staring, his smile wiped. “He’s not, just waiting for someone,” the girl says, awkwardly. “What’re you drinking?” Grey Suit asks. Isaac doesn’t reply. He looks with a dead-pan gaze. There is nothing there. No intent, or malice, just a look. The eyes fix without depth. They are dark and blood shot. “Nice. You’ll die a bitter old sod, my man, unless you turn that frown upside down. Cheer the fuck up, why don’t you?” Grey Suit walks back to his table slowly, four pints of lager overflowing. He looks over his shoulder at Isaac before he sits down. Isaac swivels on his seat and turns to face the table. He sees Grey Suit make several glances at him during conversation. He sees the tight features of the buddy boys, their pints sit untouched on the table. Hand gestures whip and flash between them. Nods. Smirks. White knuckle popping. Clammy palm clapping. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Isaac moves the glass up to his lips, but doesn’t drink. It smells of long grass and driftwood. The liquid rolls around in the glass as he tilts it. It has the colour of a high tide washing over wet, March sand. He drinks, letting it pool in his mouth, rinse between his teeth and tongue. There isn’t a taste. He swallows. It’s warm and numbing, but it leaves his mouth dry. He stands up and walks towards the table. Four bodies hold breath and square shoulders as he approaches. Grey Suit turns around slowly, arms folded. “Can we help you?” Grey Suit asks. The whisky glass connects with the bridge of the nose and the forehead. It shatters across the eye lids, blood and shards fall onto the shoulders and collar. One scream leaks out from Grey Suit, but his skull is forced into the full pint sitting on the table in front of him. Beer slops from the other glasses and floods the laps of the buddy boys. Grey Suit goes limp. Isaac pinches a palm of lager damp hair and wipes away the broken glass and alcohol with Grey Suit’s face. The girl behind the bar starts to scream. The surrounding tables sit and watch in grim silence. Isaac lets go of Grey Suit’s hair, and the bloodied face claps against wet, stained wood. He leaves the bar, closing the door behind him slowly, so it doesn’t slam. The nurses never stop Isaac. He sways into the hospital sheeted with sweat. They all stare at him, and he ignores them. His eyes follow his feet. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

He takes the lift, filling it with whisky tinted mist, to the tenth floor. One time, it got stuck between five and six. He broke the emergency alarm button pressing it so many times. His shouting was haunting and desperate. It was so hopeless, it felt out of place in the hospital. The engineers opened the doors an inch with their crowbars before Isaac wrenched them open himself, and took the stairs. Eighth floor. The lift stops. A father rolls his daughter in a wheelchair past Isaac. They both look at him. He’s slumped against the corner, eyes closed. “Is he poorly, Daddy?” she asks. “Quiet, sweetie.” the father replies, pressing ten. He strokes the beanie on his daughters head and she sits puzzled, looking at the figure leaning against the lift corner. Tenth floor. The doors open and Isaac lurches forward, drifting out into the corridor. “He smells funny.” the daughter says. “Shush.” the father says, and rolls the wheelchair in the opposite direction out of the lift. The doors are all the same. They’re faded white, leading to death and too many emotions. Isaac tumbles past them, getting closer the right one. It’s at the end. The hallway pinches smaller, tighter; he can’t breathe. When he reaches the door, he’s on skates, wheezing and puffing. He straightens, ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

brushes down and ruffles up. The door is spinning, and the floor beneath him sinking. If he waits long enough, the ride will stop. So he waits. He opens the door. She is laying flat on her back. Her hands are by her side and one foot is out of the blanket. She is breathing slowly and her jaw is drooped. There is an IV drip in her left arm, and a tag on her right wrist. A tube leaves her nose, curling to the machines beeping by her side. The beeping is rhythmical and loud, it’s always there. Isaac pulls the blanket over her exposed foot. He moves gently and sits down next to the bed, looking at her face. Her eyes are barely closed. Her skin is like a layer of dust on a raw meat; grey and faded, spotted with purple lines and red blemishes. He holds her hand softly in his. It’s warm, like the room, but he leaves his jacket on. He looks at her face again. “Hi Mum. I’m sorry, I’ve been drinking again. I know you hate it. But, at least I have a reason. I would’ve come sooner. But, I ran into an old friend. We had a few drinks. He’s not doing so well. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

But he has a nice suit. I might have to get myself one. I told him about Dad. His passed recently too. But his Mum is still kicking about. He knows he’s lucky to have one left. So he sends his love. Cos mine doesn’t seem to be enough. Does it?” Her eyes open at the question. She grips his hand slightly and takes shallow crackling breaths. “Isaac?” “Hi, Mum.” “Have you been drinking?” “No, Mum. It’s the smell of the IV. They’ve just changed it.” “Oh. Sorry, I should stop it.” “It’s okay.” “Isaac?” “Mum?” “Don’t leave, again.” “I won’t. I just needed air.” “It’s too hot?” “Yeah it is. I’ll ask a nurse to sort it out for you.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“No, no, please, I like it. I like the warm.” “Okay. I won’t ask.” “Window.” “No, it’s okay. You’ll get cold, Mum. I’m fine.” “Alright, Isaac.” “You can go back to sleep now. I won’t go.” “You won’t?” The beeping fills the room. It’s harsh, but lulling. While it’s still there, he feels nervous. The pair hold hands in silence. He fidgets from the drink, widening and blinking his eyes awake. She drifts into a half-sleep. She’s smiling. Her hand becomes loose, but he still grips it gently. “Mum?” “Isaac?” “Don’t leave either.” He remembers the night the snow fell heavily. He remembers green, red, and yellow lights hung up on the shelf, the dust of hot chocolate on the side of the mug, too many card games and not enough food, and nobody singing. He remembers a radio, not a television, the smell of wet wood and damp carpets, her sitting near the window, holding a picture and a bottle. He remembers most of all, the present left unopened, in case he came home, the porcelain look on her face, and the answer she gave when he asked if he ever would. ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Isaac is woken up by silence. He’s still holding her hand. It’s cold, but the room is stuffy. He holds it for a little longer, then leaves.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

was sitting with Sal in the Strawberry Fields café on Penny Lane. It had that late afternoon listless feel to it. Rain battered the windows, twisting

the Methodist church opposite into strange shapes. No blue suburban skies that day. Oh, and there’s no roundabout, just a triangular traffic island. No shelter in the middle either, just a sort of cabin with a faded signboard saying SERG ANT PEP RS. It’s been closed for years. It was Sal’s idea, apparently – the book club. Only no books were allowed, just stories. Mid-afternoon, Monday for anyone who could make it. Mostly slatted wood chairs and small tables we’d pull together to fit the size of the group. in one corner, mock-leather armchairs round a mockteak table. Framed posters of American Jazz musicians and singers on the

wall. Anyone could come, tell a story for no more than five minutes. I’d only ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

been a couple of times, just to listen. Today Sal told about how all the cars in Cuba were old American Chevys and Cadillacs, lovingly restored. She said it was their revenge against trade embargos. I thought it was more likely because they were cheap, but I didn’t say. “Just you and me then,” she said, as the door closed on Sian and David. “Yes,” I said. “Shall we move to the sofa?” she said. “Yes,” I said, though I meant No. “Don’t say much, do you,” she said. “I’m biding my time,” I said, shifting along a bit. “You should like grab the bull by the balls.” “Shouldn’t that be horns?” “Got to start somewhere.” “I had a story about Cuba,” I said. “but I was too—” “Aaah,” she said. “Go on,” she said, “Tell it now. To me.” She leant closer. “It’s, er… It’s about John Lennon’s specs,” I said. “You could wear granny specs,” she said. “You look a bit like him.” I got confused at that point and forgot the capital of Cuba. I had to play for time. “D’you want another coffee? I asked.” “What about these specs?” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“In a minute. Do you?” “Yeah, OK.” I went up to the counter and asked for two plain coffees. The girl behind the counter was prettier than Sal, but not as smart, I reckoned. Or as scary. “That’ll be Americanos,” she said. “Regular or large?” “When do you close?” “Five o’clock.” My watch said twenty to. “Our time,” she said. “Small, I said”. “That’ll be regular,” she said. When I got back, Sal was examining the posters. She took one of Bill Evans down from the wall, slid her hands round the frame, huffed on the glass and polished it with her sleeve. “What are you—?” “—Just looking,” she said. “You know he played with Miles?” “No.” “Miles told him if he joined the band, he’d have to fuck all of them as they were all in it together. He thought about it for ages and then he said he couldn’t do it. Miles had been joking. He got the job.” She hung it back up. “Looks a bit like you,” she said. “Must be the specs.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“I don’t wear specs.” “No, but you should.” I handed her her coffee. “Americano. Regular.” “I bet they wouldn’t call it that in Havana.” “Havana!” I said, remembering. “Cuba,” she said. “Capital of.” “I know; that’s what I was going to tell you about.” “You been there?” she asked. “Last year.” “Me too,” she said. “Wow,” I said, “we might’ve—” “But we didn’t,” she said, a bit too quickly. I wondered if she actually had. “You know they have, like, these community gardens,” she said, “all in amongst the houses?” “Yes, I saw them. And there’s this park—” “You know the houses are all, like, colonial mansions falling into disrepair. Everyone shares them. They’re like co-operatives.” “They are,” I said, “they’re just like co-operatives.” “So, what about these specs?” “There’s this park—” “—Parque Lennon,” she said, “where the statue is.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“It’s got an inscription,” I said: “ ‘You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.’ ” “‘Dirás que soy un soñador pero no soy el único’,” she said. “It’s in Spanish.” “I know,” I said, rather more forcibly than I’d intended. “Can I get on with my story?” “I think you’d better. They close at five.” “I know,” I said. “Well, the artist who made the statue forgot to make the specs. They got Yoko Ono over from England to open it.” I didn’t tell her, but I made that bit up to test her. Actually it was Fidel Castro. “You don’t open a statue, she said.” Gotcha, clever clogs, I thought. “Whatever,” I said. Yoko was furious. “ ‘Where are the glasses?,’ she said. He was blind as a bat without his glasses.’ ” “Must’ve been to shack up with her,” said Sal. “Miaaaoooow,” I said. “Anyway, they had some made.” “I bet they had lenses in. I bet they like found out his prescription and made them right.” “Maybe.” “Did you know, Cuba has, like, the best health service outside Europe?” “Yes.” “Better than America’s.” “Yes.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Literacy levels are higher, too. “I know.” The waitress came over. “We’re closing in five,” she said. “Did you hear that?” said Sal, when she’d gone. “She said ‘closing in five’. Talk about cultural imperialism. She’s not even American. You’ve got four.” “Well,” I said, “they made these specs and fitted them on. They looked great.” “So?” “They got robbed.” “Go way!” “So they got these old guys who hang round the park to set up a kind of vigilante group. Paid them about a dollar a day each. Gave them a mobile between them and they took turn and turn about to guard the specs. You know what they called them?” “Los guardas?” “Spec Savers.” “Ha, very ha!” said Sal. The waitress shouted across from behind the counter. “We’re closing, she said, as of now.” “ ‘As of now’,” said Sal. “I like that. Come on,” she said; “as of now it’s stopped raining. Let’s go and make the two Ns on the Penny Lane sign ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

into a pair of granny specs. That would be cool.” “They moved it,” I said. “About four years ago. ’cos of people like you.” “Where is it? We’ll go on a pilgrimage. Like with Mark Bolan.” “It’s still there,” I said; “they’ve just stuck it high up on the wall, so no one can get at it.” “My Dad’s got a ladder,” she said. Then she laughed. “Ho, ho,” she said, “I’ve got a better idea.” Warning bells rang in one of the more sensible parts of my head. “You know the new John Lennon statue,” she said; “the one at the airport?” “The bronze one,” I said, my heart sinking. “The one with the bronze specs.” “We can be there in half an hour,” she said. “The 80A goes all the way. There’s a stop outside Woolys, she said,” pointing across Allerton Road. “I need to get some work done,” I said. She gave me a look. Pity, mixed with disgust. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll go to my Dad’s first and get some pliers.” She grabbed my hand. Hers felt really warm. Then she stopped. “Distract the waitress,” she said. “Why? Wha— ?” “Just do it.” “I went over. Thanks for the coffee,” I said. “Americano. Regular. Great” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Have a nice day.” I turned. Sal was halfway through the door, hiding something under her coat.

ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

rish has her knees up on the dashboard. Every slight bump in the road makes her thighs quiver, and she’s hoping that Vic won’t notice. The

denim shorts were a mistake, but she was swayed by a Cosmo article into

thinking she could pull them off. Men don’t like girls with sticks for legs! The article had said. Don’t hide your body this summer! At the time it had sounded convincing, and she pictured herself striding down sun dappled streets in a bright mini skirt, her hips swaying, her hair flowing down her back, catching the light. Now it just seems desperate, a little frantic. Her thighs look like mashed potato, mashed potato with lumps in. At least it’s getting dark now. Earlier, in the sunlight, she kept spotting hairs that had escaped the razor. She plucked them out with her fingernails when Vic wasn’t looking, but they left red splotches and she had to say that she ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

was getting a rash from the grass. “So much for getting back to nature,” Vic had said, and he’d made them walk on the path after that. “You want to get a burger?” He says now, turning down the radio. He’s still wearing his sunglasses, even though the sun has pretty much set now. He says he wears them to decrease his chances of getting eye cancer, but Trish is pretty sure he just likes the way they look. Very Bob Dylan, very Lou Reed. He’s chewing gum noisily, Trish hates that. She can smell the flavour on his breath, that sour grape variety he likes; she can see him pulling it around with his tongue, a bright green streak in his dark mouth. No grape was ever that green. “Nah,” she says, although she’d love a burger. With cheese, and extra pickles, and a diet coke. “The picnic filled me up.” “You only had that disgusting salad.” Vic says. He’s annoyed that she’s said no, she’s refused them that indulgence of drive-through food in a bag, the novelty of it. “Well, I don’t have much of an appetite at the moment.” This isn’t true, but saying it makes her feel thinner. It’s something that thin girls say, as they wrap up half a chocolate bar for another time. Trish lights a cigarette instead, hoping that it will curb the sudden craving for meat and cheese. Her salad was disgusting, Vic’s right. There was hardly any dressing, it was just lettuce and spinach leaves, tasteless, like eating water. Vic had eaten a big chunk of pork pie, washed down with two beers. “Beer always tastes ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

better outdoors,” he had observed. “You shouldn’t drink, we’ve got to drive back” Trish said, partly out of jealousy. She would have liked a beer, but had stuck resolutely to her diet juice when Vic offered. The juice actually burned calories, according to the label. Something in it made your metabolism work extra hard. Vic had given her that sideways look, that little sneer. He poured the rest of his beer out on the grass. “I could have had it,” Trish grumbled. “Oh well. Look, the ants are having a piss up now,” Vic said. He had poured the beer over a swarm of them. They must have smelled his pork pie and sent out a raiding party, and now they writhed and squirmed in the foaming liquid. Trish had wondered if ants could really get drunk, if they staggered back to their ant girlfriends, like Vic did, and pissed in the bed. She couldn’t imagine a drunken ant; they were always so precise, so alert, always moving. “Get on it, lads!”Vic cheered. But they had all drowned by then. The cigarette has taken the edge off her hunger now. She got the habit from her mother, who would always have one just before supper, calling it her starter course. Vic has turned the radio back up, he’s sulking. Trish finishes her cigarette and flicks it out of the window; she watches the orange glow of the stub disappear into the gloom. She always forgets how dark it is, in the country at night. There are two streetlights right outside ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

their bedroom window at home, but out here there’s nothing except the occasional light from a farmhouse, a little glitter from a window at the end of a long driveway. Trish always imagines fireplaces in these houses they pass, and round faced farmers with round bodied wives. She imagines crooked little rooms and a family cat, two dogs, all the food home-grown, eggs in a basket still warm from the chickens. She wishes she could live in a house like that, belong in the body of a dumpy woman who only cares about making bread and feeding goats. But she doesn’t think she could eat an egg that a chicken had only just been sitting on. That seems unhygienic. It’s cold now, and she presses the button to make the window roll up. There are goose bumps on her legs, and she wishes she could go back to this morning and put jeans on instead. She’s felt self conscious all day, inspecting every other woman she passed on the nature walk to see what they were wearing. If the girl was wearing something short too, she felt better, unless the girl was thinner than her. If the girl was covered up, and especially if she was thinner, Trish felt worse. She felt ashamed, like she ought to apologize to them for having the audacity to get her legs out, when they, with their slim thighs and flat bums, were so politely tucked away. She won’t wear shorts again, no matter what Cosmo has to say about it. She’s eager to get home; she wants to wash away the smell of cows and grass. Her feet hurt from walking all day, and she’s got sunburn on the ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

back of her neck. Vic got burnt worse than she did, but he’s pretending it doesn’t bother him. He’ll be complaining all night though, telling her that the nature walk was such a stupid idea, and he could have stayed in and watched the rugby. But no, he’ll say, he had to go and look at a load of sheep and ponds, and get bitten by midges and burnt by the sun. Trish decides she’ll take her sleeping pills tonight, so she won’t have to put up with it too long. The pills are good, they’re a natural remedy. There’s a sudden bump, bigger than before, something hit by the front wheel. Vic jumps, swears. He reverses a little and turns up the headlights. “What was it?” Trish says, squinting. There’s a weird lump in the road, a disjointed, sprawling thing in the circle of light from the headlights. Vic is leaning forward too, pushing his sunglasses into his hair. “I think it’s a frog,” he says, laughter in his voice. “Eurgh, no, it’s two frogs. They’re all stuck together.” Trish can make it out now; she can see their limbs and their warty backs. The car caught the front of them, their heads, which have been half crushed. The bodies are still moving, still humping in the black globs of blood and brain. “I think they were mating,” Trish says. “Poor things.” Vic laughs through his nose; Trish gets a whiff of sour grape. “Poor things,” he says, mocking her. “They shouldn’t have been fucking in the road.” ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Vic puts the car into gear, turns up the radio. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another bump as they go over the frogs again. Halfway home, Trish relents on the burger situation, and they find a fast food place.

Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

Running Off Lewis Gordon

ackie stopped by the gate. It was an ancient graveyard. No one had been buried there for decades. Most of the gravestones had toppled

over and the writing had worn from many of them. The reason Jackie stopped was the arm. He saw it stretching upwards,

a bare arm with its sleeve just visible. From where he stood it seemed to be coming out the earth. He stepped over the trampled fence. The hand clenched and unclenched, reaching to pluck out the sun. It had been a hot, bright day. He hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t run far yet and his breath was still quite even. The man was smartly dressed. He lay with a suit jacket crumpled beneath his head and his white shirtsleeves pushed up. One eye was closed tight and the other squinted at the sky. A red tie draped over his Ă&#x2030;CLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

shoulder so its tip licked the mud. Jackie peered down, his feet at either side of the man’s head. ‘Hi,’ the man said. His arm stayed up. ‘Are you okay?’ ‘You’re that jogger. I see you, most days.’ He sat up. Jackie took a step back when the head brushed his crotch. The man twisted round. ‘I’m alright,’ he said. Jackie smiled. Neither of them said anything. A car alarm started up then went silent. ‘Ok.’ He nodded and ran off, making small, light steps. ‘Hang on,’ the man said. His leather shoes made loud slaps against the pavement. They were uncreased and still had a faint sheen. ‘Got any kids?’ he said. Jackie shook his head. ‘Wife or anything?’ He continued shaking his head. ‘A bachelor then?’ Jackie spoke, ‘Sorry. I can’t talk and run. I don’t breath through my mouth. Just my nose.’ ‘What’s the point in that?’ ÉCLAT FICTION

JULY 2012

He shrugged. The man had tied his jacket around his waist. The arms struggled to hold on to each other and began to untwist. They fell open and the jacket slipped away. He looked back at it lying on the pavement. Its limbs were strewn out like the victim of some accident. They ran on. Instead of crossing the bridge they followed a track alongside the river. A pensioner in sandals was standing by the fence, staring back where the jacket lay. His little dog was splattered with mud and turned to watch them pass. ‘Are you headed for the park?’ Jackie nodded. The red tie flapped up and whipped his eye lightly. ‘Sorry.’ The man tucked it inbetween two shirt buttons. ‘Those muscles in your legs,’ he said, ‘They’re like potatoes. I always think that when you go by.’ Jackie made a tight smile. ‘You look like you’re serious about it. Like an athlete, that’s what I mean.’ He was silent for a few steps. ‘I used to be a bit of a machine myself. I was petrified of getting fat. Then I met her and we got together, had the kids and everything and I just stopped,’ he spat on the grass. ‘Thing is, I didn’t get fat after all. I must be built that way.’ ‘Careful,’ Jackie said. ÉCLAT FICTION

100

JULY 2012

There was heavy traffic on the road. They ran on the spot until a gap appeared and crossed half way. The man removed the tie, balled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. It made a bulge against his thigh. He took it out and looked at it for a moment then dropped it on the road. Another gap appeared and they crossed to the other side. Jackie clenched his jaws and breathed harder. The man hadn’t spoken for some time. His shoes still slapped loudly, even though the ground was softer. ‘Try running on your toes.’ ‘Can’t. Gives me the shin splints,’ the man said. A couple blocked the path and they passed on either side. A thin man was pulling a woman into his chest and pressing a kiss against her face. He was shirtless and grizzled with pinched cheeks and blue ink tattoos. She was wriggling and squealing, pushing him away playfully. Her skin was bad and rolls of fat struggled under her tight vest. ‘Come on, come on. I know a wee place,’ the thin man was saying. Jackie felt a nudge on his shoulder. The man was beside him again. He was grinning. ‘Imagine that pair going at it,’ he said. Then his grin fell away and he looked serious. ‘They’re probably on benefits. Pumping away all day long.’ They left the woods and the park opened up around them. A green ÉCLAT FICTION

101

JULY 2012

bank rose on the opposite side of the river. Folk sat on blankets or just lay on the grass. Kids dipped their feet at the edge of the murky water. The last of the sun baked everything it touched and sweat trickled from Jackie’s hairline. ‘You must be roasting.’ ‘Not sweated like this in years,’ the man said. He pushed his palm into his side and winced. A woman and a small boy cycled past. The man looked back, twisting his neck until they were out of view. Jackie had to tug his arm to stop him crashing into a wall. ‘Thanks,’ he said. He hacked something up and spat again. ‘My wee girls had to go around on a boys bike. A red thing with flames all over it. I was certain the second one would be a boy,’ He rubbed the sweat from his head, ‘And now there’s another one on the way. God help it.’ Jackie nodded and watched the man remove his watch. He put it in his pocket and squeezed his side again. Jackie slowed, just a little. The path leading out the park was steep. Their steps became tiny and their breath short. ‘Look at the ground,’ Jackie said, ‘it makes it easier.’ They rounded a corner and reached the overpass. Cars sped by beneath them. ÉCLAT FICTION

102

JULY 2012

‘Shit. Where’s this?’ the man said. He looked around, ‘I never realised this was here.’ They went through a housing estate and on to a main road. Jackie ran on the spot for a second or two then turned right. The man followed. ‘Know where you’re going?’ He made a quick thumbs up. Eventually they reached a small row of shops. The man nudged him. ‘Wait’, he said. His face was bright red and his skin glistened. His eyes looked wet too. ‘Wait,’ he said again, ‘Please.’ He went into the shop. Jackie grabbed the top of his trainer and stretched his leg back. He checked his watch and looked around then took a step forward. He puffed some air from his mouth and stretched the other leg in the same way. He took another step and then he was still. The man came out the shop in bare feet. He said nothing, as if his socks and shoes had never been there. They set off in the direction they were going. ‘Here,’ the man said. He held the bottle out. Jackie frowned at it and shook his head. ‘Here,’ the man said again and shoved it so the glass bashed against his chest. He took it this time. The seal had been cracked and someone had taken a good gulp. He put the neck to his lips. The momentum made ÉCLAT FICTION

103

JULY 2012

the bottle tip and the clear liquid went down his throat. He swallowed hard and hissed. ‘Good,’ the man said, not smiling. He took the bottle and helped himself. They ran on, passing the bottle back and forth until it was done. The sun still hung on by a sliver and everything looked its best. Weeds sprouted between the joins in the concrete. The man glanced around then dropped the bottle. It clunked on the ground and didn’t smash. Jackie laughed. If they had come the wrong way it would take a long time to get back. He turned to say something to the man, to tell him something but as he opened his mouth the man burst into a sprint. His feet made quick, soft claps on the pavement. For a moment Jackie watched him go. Then he sprinted too. He caught up and jerked his head out. He took huge gulps of air and stretched his legs. But the man matched his pace, bustling to get a shoulder in front. For some distance they ran neck and neck, listening to each other wheeze. Then it was too much. Jackie stumbled. His legs shook, gave in and he stopped. He doubled over and held his knees and heaved. When he could speak he said, ‘Okay. Okay.’ He looked up and saw the man, running off.

ÉCLAT FICTION

104

JULY 2012