Litro #103 Anti-Love Teaser

The Magazine of Great Writing

The Litro ‘Anti–Love’ issue

10 3

Lucie Whitehouse Mick Fitzgerald Emma Hardy Séan Padraic Birnie Annemarie Neary Vijay Parthasarathy

www.litro.co.uk

WELCOME TO ISSUE 103 OF LITRO

From the Editor What’s your anti-love? Hate, some might say; or fear. Perhaps friendship is the opposite of love? Then again, you could say that about lust, too. Maybe love is its own opposite: consider how different romantic love is from the love of a brother for a brother, or a parent for a child. Or could it be indifference, not hatred, that begins where love ends? Perhaps all of the above are anti-love.

Why ask the question? Well, around this time of year, just as the festive tinsel and New Year party poppers become a fading memory, a new threat (or promise) appears in the card shops and on the supermarket shelves. From January 1st we must endure a six-week build-up to the day of the year second only to Christmas for causing relationship breakdown: St Valentine’s.

Oversized teddies crowd shop windows: balloon hearts, giant cards, wallet-busting bouquets and expensive jewellery are on prominent display. What better way, after all, of demonstrating your love than spending as much as you can or as little as you dare on a present for your partner: not because you want to, but because it’s expected? If anything’s anti-love, it’s a gift of obligation; a forced show of spontaneity.

So this year we thought we’d put a twist on the February issue of Litro – not by avoiding or ignoring the love in the air, but by questioning it: turning it on its head, in fact. So the theme of this issue is Anti-Love, and I’m glad to say that our authors have tackled it in a dazzling variety of ways.

We’ve got a new and exclusive short fiction from the bestselling mistress of modern Gothic, Lucie Whitehouse, who

subverts the tired old cliché of the whirlwind romance in her story Early. Meanwhile, Irish author Mick Fitzgerald gives us first love gone but not forgotten in Wet Gabardine, and Greg Heath’s wonderful In A Barber’s Shop juxtaposes a father’s last chance at happiness and his son’s first brush with lust.

If you’re looking for the darker side of (anti-)love, you’ll find it in Endless by Annemarie Neary, which exposes the false camaraderie of festivals and the danger of being lost in music; and you’ll enjoy Emma Hardy’s perfect couple striving to seem unhappier than they are in her sly satire Ruth and Mikey. We also have A Quadrant Analysis of Love from Vijay Parthasarathy, and The Spark of Inspiration, exploring creativity as anti-love (or vice-versa) courtesy of Calum Kerr.

Ironically enough, there’s plenty to love in February’s Litro (not to mention the special online exclusive stories you’ll find at Litro.co.uk) … and we bet that single or not, reading this issue is definitely the most fun you can have on your own in public.

Katy Darby Editor February 2011 Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, Eric Akoto Editor, Katy Darby Contributing Editor, Sophie Lewis Online Editor, Laura Huxley Events Editor, Alex James Graphic Designer, Nicola Green

This selection copyright © 2011 Litro Magazine Litro Magazine is published by Ocean Media Books Ltd Cover design: Mikaela Westerholm Litro Magazine is London’s leading short story magazine.

Please either keep your copy, pass it on for someone else to enjoy, or recycle it – we like to think of it as a small monthly book of short stories. www.litro.co.uk

Contents: Early

by Lucie Whitehouse

5

A Quadrant Analysis of Love

by Vijay Parthasarathy

11

Abduction, Again

by Janis Butler Holm

14

Wet Gabardine

by Mick Fitzgerald

15

The Spark of Inspiration

by Calum Kerr

21

Endless

by Annemarie Neary

23

In a Barber’s Shop

by Greg Heath

27

Hamilton Women

by Mark Sheerin

31

Okay, bye

by Séan Padraic Birnie

33

Ruth and Mikey

by Emma Hardy

41

Events Listings

by Alex James

44

Early Lucie Whitehouse

S

ilently, aiming for weightlessness, Eleanor moved to the edge and lifted the blanket. The parquet floor was chill underfoot. She skirted the end of the bed, feeling with her hand for the protruding corner responsible for the yellowing bruise on her shin. Behind her, the shape beneath the blankets made a sound between a sigh and a groan, and turned over. She held her breath, thinking she was caught, but he only sighed again and buried his head deeper in the pillow. The steam heating grumbled in sympathy.

The door was ajar and in the slant of light from the next room she picked her clothes from amongst those strewn across the rug. She dressed in the relative sanctuary of the bathroom and ran her hands through her hair. There was no comb in her bag; she only had what was in it when she’d answered her phone in the library, keeping her voice as low as possible. She’d packed away her books and come straight over. Her hair didn’t matter, though; no one knew her here.

Contact lenses were more important but she didn’t have those, either, and her glasses were in Manhattan, eight stops away on the C train. Well, things would have to stay hazy for the time being.

He’d dropped his keys into the shallow dish on the counter last night and now she picked them up, threaded the one for the front door off the ring and slipped it into her coat pocket. Shouldering her bag, she quickly scanned the room, then turned the catch and noiselessly let herself out. In the hallway she exhaled. There was a dull ache in her head as if someone was squeezing her temples between thumb and forefinger.

In the lift – the elevator – she held the key in her pocket, stroking her fingertip along its serrated edge. In a few minutes, she thought, ten or fifteen at the most, she’d be making this journey in reverse, taking the lift back up.

She’d use the key and open his door for the first time.

Perhaps he’d be awake by then, making coffee. Perhaps, it occurred to her suddenly, he might think she’d gone, walked out without saying goodbye, but he’d see the breakfast things and laugh. They’d eat and then go back to bed. Or perhaps, exhausted, he’d still be in there when she got back and she’d leave the breakfast in the kitchen, drop her clothes on the rug and get under the blankets again.

She’d mould her body around his, pressing her breasts against his back. Her fingers would be cold on his skin.

5

Opening the lobby door, Eleanor stepped out into a sudden

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A Quadrant Analysis of Love Vijay Parthasarathy

W

e were going at our Korean takeout with chopsticks, my boyfriend and I, when he looked up at me and exclaimed, ‘I have it – I know how attraction works!’

Although just then I wanted nothing more than to curl up next to him and fall asleep while watching The Apartment – you know, the 1960s romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and a butch-looking Shirley MacLaine – I considered indulging him. But of course it was not my decision to make. He prattled on, not registering the look on my face that plainly said, ‘You don’t need to tell me; I’m a woman.’

‘The beauty of it is it has nothing to do with circumstance or luck. Attraction is not something you can decide to feel, though a relationship is something you may choose not to have,’ he said, slapping the table for emphasis. ‘Suppose we construct a graph. Plot the x-axis along degree of privacy from extreme emotional taking on the left to emotional giving on the right. We can only be attracted to someone who exists to our left on the scale at any given moment because humans only value those who are a little more mysterious, emotionally unattainable. For this intrigue value to have lasted between two people on, say, their eighth date, they need to be close enough to each other on the x-axis to keep each other guessing. For person B to consider A attractive, A needs to make B feel as if A is to B’s left, and vice versa.

It’s subtle, but there should always be a healthy amount of uncertainty about exactly how much the other person likes you. So always open up to the person slowly, let the person put in the effort to unravel you.’

‘Yes,’ I said patiently. ‘Will you fetch us a blanket, darling, please?’

‘You aren’t listening,’ he said, getting up. His voice boomed from the bedroom. ‘Now plot the y-axis along self-esteem; it correlates positively with maturity. If you think about it, every other factor you can think of strongly correlates to either of these two parameters; for example, getting fired from your job messes with your self-esteem, and could set off a chain of events that makes you needier, in general a less attractive person, at least temporarily.’

11

Abduction, Again Janis Butler Holm

In

the beginning, we soared. We knew the crackle of

constellations, the heat of worlds unborn. Our coupling was cosmic. He said it was in the stars.

Delicately, he probed me, mound and crevice, plane and orb.

He showed me his craft.

When the nights grew cooler, I should have returned to earth.

But he promised me the moon. I floated on a cloud.

Now he’s light-years away. No longer the chosen one, I wonder where I’ve been. Here, in the dark, he said he needed space.

Janis Butler Holm lives in Athens, Ohio, where she has served as Associate Editor for Wide Angle, the film journal. Her essays, stories, poems, and performance pieces have appeared in small-press, national, and international magazines. Her plays have been produced in the U.S., Canada and England.

14

Wet Gabardine Mick Fitzgerald

He decided that April was the right time to look back. Just as the year was awakening from winter he drove down by the grotto and the saw mill and onto the highroad that overlooked the village. There were clouds across the mountains hiding the sea, pressing against the sun. For now it was still, even warm.

Seamus in the meantime stood where he always stood in the mornings, in the road above his little house looking down on the village. He was studying a colony of flying ants that stretched halfway across the road onto the far wall seemingly with little interest in going anywhere. He rubbed his eyes and stretched. He had reached an uneasy truce with a bad tooth in the early hours of the morning and saw the dawn creep slowly across the floor with heavy eyes. Amid twisted grey dreams that ended nowhere he had found a troubled sleep.

He watched with his unshaven face and the high-water mark around his neck as a blue middle-aged car came into view and finally drew up beside him. He recognised the driver immediately.

‘It must be ten years,’ he said as he shook the driver’s hand.

‘It must be at least,’ said the driver. Then looking at the ants: ‘You’re keeping strange company.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been watching them this late while and they go nowhere for cars or anything.’

The driver turned and rested his elbows on the wall, looking back on his journey. Below him on the turn of the road to the grotto stood a small house just away from the village but a little higher up. The far away clouds seemed to be pinned to the mountains, making a sort of canopy over the house. There was a woman in the garden taking in washing unaware of the two men above watching her with growing interest. A dog, black and old it seemed, wandered around the perimeter of the garden which apart from a few newlysown vegetable patches was stony and bare.

The old school house on the far side of the village was closed 15

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The Spark of Inspiration Calum Kerr

I’m a writer, or at least I used to be. My first novel was short-

listed for three prizes. My second won one and my third ended up on the ‘3 for 2’ table in a chain of bookstores I’m sure you’ve heard of. And then ... nothing. No fourth novel, no stories, no novellas or reviews. Nothing.

What happened? Well, I met someone and I fell in love. It was crazy and whirlwind. I lived the cliché. We met in a bar in a French hotel and were married within four weeks. I was so happy, so content, that the angst, the fear and the anger which had driven my writing just evaporated.

Two months after we were married she told me she was pregnant. Six years and two more children later and I still haven’t written a word.

It’s not that I didn’t want to, you understand. Nor is it that I haven’t even tried. I have, but nothing happens. In the past year, as the money I earned from my early success started drying up and we had to move to a smaller house and sell furniture to make ends meet, I’ve tried more and more.

I’ve even taken a ‘proper’ job teaching Creative Writing in a university, but it hasn’t solved the basic problem that I could no longer really call myself a ‘writer’.

Then, last night, as I sat on the bus on the way home, the woman in front of me finished telling her friend some rambling anecdote with an aphorism that I had never heard before. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘at least bad decisions make for good stories.’

I hadn’t heard what her decisions were, so I couldn’t judge the worth of her story, but the phrase wouldn’t leave me. I laid awake next to Mathilde all night, the idea of bad decisions and good stories turning over and over in my mind.

At some point, I slept, and when I woke a conclusion had been reached without me even being aware of it.

This morning I went into my class, told them they were all crap and should become farmers or pharmacists but not writers, and I walked out. I went into my Head of Department’s

21

Endless Annemarie Neary

T

he fields that surround the festival ground smell like warm bread. The girl wonders what kind of crop they grow here.

Perhaps it’s corn, she thinks, or even hops. She lost the others before the music even began. Some went to pitch their tents. Others joined the beer queue. But, even on her own, she’s fizzing with summer.

She tries to call her friends, but there’s still no reception so she spreads a rug on the wiry grass, and waits. People around her wear funny hats, or flowers in their hair. They laugh, talk, smoke. Bet they’ve all been here before, she thinks. She feels obvious and stupid on her rug, all alone at a festival. In her backpack there is wine, chocolate. She doesn’t have a corkscrew, though, so she borrows one from the people in the funny hats. ‘Cool,’ they say, but they don’t start a conversation and maybe that’s just as well because her friends will turn up soon, and that will be enough.

The girl doesn’t move, but stays in the spot where she saw them last. She lets the sun sting her cheeks, gets woozy from Chardonnay, smokes. Then, she lies down a while and examines the sky. It’s an endless Argentina flag, she decides, pale blue and white and sunshine. She tries to listen to the warm-up, but the sound is crap, all clash and blur. She has another swig of wine and starts to make a daisy chain. She listens to the people in the hats instead. They are talking about the Legend and how he was at Glastonbury. ‘Immense,’ they say. The girl doesn’t really like his music. That’s not why she’s here. Why is she here, then, she wonders? She looks at her phone. One missed call from Maya, but no message, and now no service again. She plants the daisy chain crookedly on her head. She bites at her lip, tugs off a little tuft of skin with her teeth, tastes salt metal on the tip of her tongue.

Soon, the warm-up acts are over and the crowd is swelling.

She packs away her things and joins it. Lines of flowery girls weave expertly through the gaps, spilling dashes of lager.

She hopes she looks the part, with her daisy chain and her tie-dye skirt and the bangles she bought at Brick Lane market.

Before she knows it, the crowd around her has become a solid thing. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. She can’t even smoke any more, and so she inhales the crowd instead.

23

In a Barber’s Shop Greg Heath

T

he man and the boy step off the grey street, up two shallow steps and into the barber’s empty waiting room. The man looks through another doorway to a further room where the cutting is done. It too is empty. The boy moves mutely to the man’s left, and sits with his back to the wall that separates the rooms.

‘I won’t be long,’ says the man, stepping through.

With his father gone, the boy feels nervous and alone. He glances at the half-full ashtray on the smoked glass table before him, and the pile of magazines beside it. He sees on the far wall, at about the height of his head, a disused electrical socket with black tape over the holes. On a shelf above it is an abandoned pair of scissors. He hears his father on the other side of the wall behind him, shouting through yet another door: ‘Shop! Shop! Is anyone there?’

The boy picks up a magazine from the table, his face flushing slightly as if it were an act of theft. On the front cover, surrounded by flashes of brightly coloured lettering and oversized exclamation marks, is a woman, curved and bronzed and glistening in a shiny gold bikini. She stands, legs slightly apart, hair thrown back, her hands on her hips. Her lips have opened into what might be a smile, or the remnants of a kiss. The boy pretends to be reading the words that hang above her head, or those that lay at her feet, as if his interest is in something other than the woman herself.

In the other room the barber appears, ushering the boy’s father backwards and into the big fake leather chair.

‘How are you?’ he says, stroking the bristly hairs on the back of his own neck and trying to mask his reaction to the smell of whiskey that fills the air. ‘Nice to see you. I was just having a chat with Cyril out the back. What can we do for you today?’

For a moment, the man hesitates, then he produces an old creased photograph of himself from some twenty years ago.

‘I want to look like this,’ he says.

27

The barber takes the photograph and examines it closely.

Hamilton Women Mark Sheerin

I was in love once, of course. It was years and years ago, and

I only decided it was love when it was over, because I spent the winter in complete misery playing one song all day, on a record player. Yes, that long ago.

I wasted my love on a total jerk who I met at CND. It was so easy for him to get me into bed, with the thought of that siren and the three-minute warning. Half the girls in our local group ended up in bed with him, in the darkness of the shadow of the Soviet nuclear threat. It was sexy, I’ll admit.

Then ten years passed, in which time I barely got over the jerk, barely but surely in time to meet my husband. The Berlin Wall had come down and it seemed there were now other criteria for choosing men, such as bankableness. My husband was certainly bankable. He could have bought a Trident missile.

My lasting memory of the marriage is of making constant adjustments to the lighting in our suburban home. We were always fiddling around with it. There was a dimmer switch which he could never get right. We had designer lamps. But when I put those on, he complained that it was gloomy. And then we were driving home from a dinner party one time and the old song came on the radio. The only light was from the cat’s eyes on the road and then I knew it was over.

Now I have the house and custody of our daughter. She is fourteen, and I would like to ensure that mistakes I may have made will not get repeated by the next generation of Hamilton women (I have reverted to my maiden name and my daughter, who hates her father, has done the same.

Thanks to me she knows full well what it means and what it feels like to be cheated on by someone who supposedly loves you).

But she has a boyfriend. He comes to the house. They light candles in her room, sit around on cushions, play music. It looks like the 1970s all over again. We even hear news of nuclear threats from Iran, North Korea, China. The young have a new shadow. Sexy for her, but a nightmare for me.

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Okay, bye Séan Padraic Birnie

1.

Hi this is Duncan I’m not by my phone at the moment or maybe I’m busy, anyway leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.

Duncan, I’m here. Answer your phone. Pick up your phone.

Hello?

Duncan! I am here. Hold on a second, I need to put in another twenty pence.

Duncan. Hello. My God, this is expensive. Why aren’t you answering your phone?

I’ll hang up and call you back and maybe you’ll hear it this time, and I’ll say I think some crazy lady’s left daft messages on your answering machine, you better delete them, don’t want to talk to her.

Okay, I’m calling you back.

Hi this is Duncan I’m not by my phone at the moment or maybe I’m busy, anyway leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.

Well hello. Somehow I knew you wouldn’t answer. This is ridiculous. Why weren’t you at the airport?

I hope nothing’s happened. Has something happened? I wish there was someone I could call.

Hi this is Duncan I’m not by my phone at the moment or maybe I’m busy, anyway leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.

Christ, I’m running out of pennies now. Anyway, Duncan, if you get this, I’m here, I’m waiting. I got the bus into town.

My battery’s dead so I had to find a phone box, it was like trying to find a decent quill in a stationers after the invention of the biro. Or something.

This is making me feel obsolete.

33

Ruth and Mikey Emma Hardy

M

ikey and Ruth live in a semi-detached house with three bedrooms.

Ruth and Mikey do not need anybody else, for they are so in love. Nothing else matters except being together. But they live in this world, our world, and therefore this can never be allowed.

They must go about their daily business. They must go to work and come home from their jobs every evening. This only makes their love stronger. As each day passes they long to be back in one another’s arms.

People do not understand how they can be happy, how everything isn’t a compromise.

After work on the first Monday of the month, on her way home in the Volkswagen Golf she and Mikey chose together one Saturday afternoon at a used car showroom, Ruth stops at Ikea. She buys cheap plates and bowls. At home that night, she and Mikey throw bland Swedish crockery across their living room, letting the plates and bowls crack against the walls. In this way they create a semblance of normality for the neighbours.

In work, on Tuesday, Mikey grumbles about how the washing machine broke at the weekend and how he and Ruth had to wash their underwear in the kitchen sink. He relates how tedious this task was to Geoff from HR, but in his head recalls the fun he and Ruth had throwing their soapy underwear at each other.

On Wednesday, Mikey and Ruth try not to offend their old university friends when they are invited round for dinner.

They do not need the comfort of these old friends, or to recollect undergraduate japes and drinking games, but they recall and reminisce with the others for their sakes.

On Thursday, Ruth attempts to cover up a bruise on her face that she gained whilst engaged in acrobatic sex the night before. She overstates to her Pilates instructor, Michelle, that this bruise is nothing and merely the result of her inherent clumsiness. This leaves Michelle with the accurate impression that the bruising has been inflicted by Mikey, but 41

43

cartoonist: Louie Stowell

Event Listings, February 2011 From Egyptian mummies to the daddy of folk, via French farce and classical music, there’s so much more to February than hearts and flowers. Wander lonely as a cloud or grab a friend and take a trip through London’s vibrant cultural scene with the help of our monthly listings, edited by Alex James.

All February: The London Concerts, The Barbican Centre and Southbank Centre. Two great venues have joined forces to bring Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker to London for a series of four concerts in 2011. The London Concerts series opens at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday 20 February, then continues with two concerts at the Barbican Centre on 21 and 22 February and concludes on 23 February at the Royal Festival Hall. See: www.barbican.org.uk

February 15-16: Love or Loathe? Renaissance Pubs.

Leading West London pubs are honouring haters of Valentine’s Day this year. For the day itself, a Valentine’s special menu will be offered, but for those who feel that romance is off the menu, Renaissance will be offering a bottle of bubbly to every group of four dining on the following Tuesday or Wednesday after Valentine’s Day – everyone’s a winner. See: www.renaissancepubs.com

February 21-27: Exhibition and Theatre Tour.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The Globe Exhibition at Shakespeare’s Globe will be open throughout the spring halfterm offering visitors access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive exhibition devoted to Shakespeare. There will be a rolling programme of live events including sword fighting, costume dressings and printing press demonstrations. www.shakespeares-globe.com

Until February 26: Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales, The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. From the archives of retro TV’s Tales of the Unexpected. Enter a wonderfully dark and dangerous world where nothing is quite as it seems. Expect the unexpected with tales of sinister landladies, sweet revenge and gambling with the highest of stakes from Jeremy Dyson, one quarter of the

44

League of Gentlemen and creator of smash hit Ghost Stories.

See: www.lyric.co.uk

February 28: Storytails, Upstairs at the Birdcage, Stoke Newington. Featuring readings of short fictional stories from some professional, and some not-quite-so professional writers, Storytails is held on the last Sunday of every month from 5pm Upstairs at The Birdcage in Stoke Newington, London.

See: www.storytails.org

Until March 5: A Flea in Her Ear, The Old Vic, Waterloo.

The ever-escalating trend for burlesque comes to the theatre.

When the beautiful wife of Victor Chandebise suspects him of having an affair, she enlists the help of his dearest friend to entrap him. Their plan to entice him to a rendezvous at the Hotel Coq d’Or spectacularly misfires and chaos ensues. Set in the decadent surroundings of Belle Epoque Paris, Feydeau’s quintessential farce promises to be an exhilarating evening of mistaken identities and comic disaster. See: www.oldvictheatre.com

Until March 6: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, The British Museum. February is the last full month to catch one of the first epic stories ever told. Follow the ancient Egyptians’ journey from death to the afterlife in this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition focusing on the Book of the Dead, a compilation of spells designed to guide the deceased through the dangers of the underworld and ensure eternal life. See: www.britishmuseum.org

Until April 2: Woody Sez. The Arts Theatre, West End. It’s the award-winning, foot-stomping, heartfelt theatrical journey through the life of America’s greatest folk icon and storyteller, Woody Guthrie. Weaving together Guthrie’s words and songs, Woody Sez paints an engaging portrait of this folk hero’s fascinating life. Featuring a talented cast of multi-instrumental musicians and actors, this show brims with infectious enjoyment.

With such classic tunes as This Land is Your Land and Bound for Glory, it’s easy to see why Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash idolized Woody, and why his music continues to inspire some of today’s finest songwriters including Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison and Billy Bragg. See: www.woodysez.co.uk

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LITRO 103 ‘I’ve left my husband.’ She blinked and two streams ran down her cheeks.

‘Oh.’ ‘Just now. I walked out.’ Her attempt at self-control collapsed and she broke into violent sobbing. ‘I still bought breakfast – I didn’t know what else to do.’

Lucie Whitehouse, Early, pg 5

‘Anti–Love’ Early by Lucie Whitehouse subverts the tired old cliché of the whirlwind romance Mick Fitzgerald gives us first love gone but not forgotten Greg Heath juxtaposes a father’s last chance at happiness and his son’s first brush with lust Annemarie Neary explores the false camaraderie of festivals and the danger of being lost in music Emma Hardy shows us a perfect couple striving to seem unhappy Vijay Parthasarathy gives us A Quadrant Analysis of Love Photography: Mikaela Westerholm COVER IMAGE, Model Veri, 2010

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