Litro #81 Christmas Teaser

WELCOME TO ISSUE 81 OF LITRO Editor’s blurb >> Editing a literary magazine is a dangerous job. Here at Litro we daily run the gauntlet of nuisance emails from disturbed and embittered writers. Our sincere thanks to one Chris Roberts, who writes: ‘I think “theme issues” not even in the category of true literary work - a very specific subject rammed down a writer’s throat. What is regurgitated is just that - indigested bits of forced prose of the one-dimensional, cardboard cut out variety. Real original, really boring.’ >> It’s Christmas, season of good will and all that. So to Mr Roberts (who also suggests we spend more time ‘at the local bar ogling the women’ than reading submissions) we say: BAH HUMBUG! >> This month we’ve assembled a festive hamper of stories from Martin Reed, Peter Higgins, Sarah Butler, GC Perry and E.G. Jönsson. We hope you enjoy them. Don’t forget to pass this copy of Litro onto a friend when you’re done, and also to check out our newly revamped website www. litro.co.uk for more features, news and views.

Season’s Greetings…

CONTENT TURKEY REPUBLIC Martin Reed A CHRISTMAS LETTER Peter Higgins LAST CHRISTMAS Sarah Butler Extract from YOU’RE ONLY YOUNG TWICE! Quentin Blake FISHING FOR SOMETHING GC Perry A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE E.G. Jönsson Extract from MY GOAT ATE ITS OWN LEGS Alex Burrett A SORT OF TRADITION Jon Gingerich Budo Cartoon Strip Events LITRO IS BROUGHT TO YOU: PUBLISHER-ERIC AKOTO-OCEAN MEDIA EDITOR-TOM CHIVERS DESIGN/PRODUCTION-ANASTASIA SICHKARENKO EVENTS EDITOR-JULIE PALMER-HOFFMAN

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Hugo Dalton's rendition of Piccadilly Circus as a (near) future London lagoon explores themes of flooding. Here London is slipshore; weeded yet glamorous still. Dalton has had a solo show at the Fine Art Society, Bond Street and his collectors include Kay Saatchi, David Roberts, Sam Parker Bowles, Anthony de Rothschild. To see more about the making of the Quaglino’s walldrawing please visit www. hugodalton.com

Design by Anastasia Sichkarenko

TURKEY REPUBLIC MARTIN REED

My friends and gatherstruts. Believe only what you feel to be true and wise. Trust only those you sense have pecked long and deep.

This freedom we enjoy could never have been given: it had to be fought for and won. They, the tallstanding Formers, called that time Now, living and loving for their pecksquabbles and superscrapes, fighting their own as none would think possible, with lobbings and fear and splattings and nonsense. Their scraptroubles were fiery, some massive, some tiny, all splatty, blooding the whosoever, making nonsensical misery everytremble.

That is how it was with them, friends. Blooded. Nothing more. Gnash gnash gnash they’d say, these Manthings as they crumbled their neighbours. Gnash to you all.

Some say they ate their young – which is perhaps no more than pre-Rising troublespeak - but we do know they ate so very many of our own. Dayup to Daydown they would peck and rip at us, slicing and mincing and dribbling and munching us. Tastybites they’d say, tastybites, chomp chomp chomp, have a scrumptious crunchy tastybite, have another, have another chomp chomp gnash gnash.

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A CHRISTMAS LETTER PETER HIGGINS

Dear All, Well, it’s been quite a year! Really, I hardly know where to start in telling you all the amazing things that have kept me, Bobby, Samantha, Harvey, Bob-Bob and the twins so gosh-darn busy during the previous twelve-month.

First things first: we have decided on a color scheme for the rumpus room. At last! We are going with something called “Magnolia”. It is all very exciting. Rest assured we WILL keep you posted on that one.

Other news. As well as dropping the lawsuit (finally!)

Doctor Morris says Bobby’s scars will hardly be visible once the hair grows back. I must say this is a huge weight off of our minds.

Speaking of huge weights, Samantha’s diet has been somewhat eventful. My statistics show that her net gain this year was 13 pounds. Hang in there, honey: you’ll get into that wedding dress one day!

Kirk - Samantha’s latest fiancée - is incredibly patient and says he will always love her no matter how big she gets (within reason).

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LAST CHRISTMAS SARAH BUTLER

Imagine: Christmas in Surrey. The house is worth at least a million, although the son’s girlfriend, stepping through the front door for the first time, gets the overwhelming sensation that this is not a home. She is kissed on both cheeks by the mother, a plain woman with frown lines tipping her eyebrows together and thin, dry lips, and by the father, who has the same pale, freckled cheeks as the son. She follows the three of them through a painfully neat living room – polished surfaces, carefully placed magazines, gilt-framed family poses – into a kitchen that smells of lemon scented surface cleaner.

‘You’ll want to put your bag upstairs.’ The son holds out his hand and she laces her fingers in between his, walks with him up soft beige steps. No dust on the skirting boards, no nicks in the paint. She has the constricting sensation of being trapped inside a photograph, pressed up against a glossed façade.

The mother and the father sit at the kitchen table and listen to the sound of the son and the girlfriend move through the house. The mother pours tea into the everyday mugs, which are painted with smiling animals and witty remarks.

She takes the mouse, the father takes the elephant. It 10

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FISHING FOR SOMETHING GC PERRY

Terry watches the tip of the float bob up and down in dark, choppy water. His feet are like stones and he flexes his knotty, purpling hands to keep them from seizing up.

It’s hard to concentrate now, but there are still a couple of hours of daylight left and he will hang on until nightfall, though the chances of catching in these conditions are slim and he knows it. He is the only angler on the lake.

A northeasterly wind has the leafless trees swaying to a new rhythm. No more the warm westerlies carrying the mild moist air all the way from the Caribbean, over the North Atlantic, to England’s shores. He knows about prevailing winds and the Gulf Stream because he learnt about them in his O-level geography lessons. Twenty-odd years on, this information is fresh in his mind. Same with Mann’s model of the British city. And the push and pull factors that lead to the development of shantytowns. He cannot, however, remember the date of his twin daughters’ birthday. Maybe if it coincided with a notable date in history - another O-level - like the Night of the Long Knives, or Armistice Day? It hasn’t been much of a Christmas and freezing his nuts off at the lake in the local park is preferable to the sub-zero atmosphere at home. The wife isn’t speaking to him and neither are the twins. Well fine. It’s not as if he did it on purpose. He’s been busy at work and with the twins’ 24

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A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE E.G. JÖNSSON

My brother’s wife and I go way back. As a matter of fact, I was the one who brought them together. I am reminded of this as I watch Maryam enter through the glass and brass door of the café, a Christmas decoration to her left, flashing Santa, making her face shift red-white, redwhite. She does a little twirl, takes in the room, our eyes snatching on each other’s, sudden static, white noise in my ears. A small, gloved hand comes up to wave at me, points to the counter, smile, nod. She winks and blows me a kiss. Her blue cape moves in fluid-motion, as if of its own accord, around and her back is to me, she is leaning across the counter (I imagine the round fullness of her pink breasts under that white shirt pressing against the marble, everything is breast-height to her, she is abreast with the situation, pint-sized, brother’s wife), ordering hot chocolate with extra whipped cream from the baffled boy behind it. Of course, most people look slightly baffled at a distance. I meet my own eyes in the mirrorwall behind him. Look away.

Maryam and I met at the university library. I was working extra there, trying to make ends meet. I had decided to go for my own apartment, never was much of the sharing type.

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A Burning House book 20th November 2008 ISBN 9781905636372 p/b £7.99

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Extract from My Goat Ate Its

o litr ter tas

Own Legs ALEX BURRETT

My goat ate its own legs. I’d left it in the field on its own for a month. It was the first holiday I’d had for eight years.

Farm animals happily graze uninterfered with during the summer. In fact, many prefer to be left alone. And goats are the hardiest of all the domesticated species. There was plenty of grass. And water. A stream runs through the wandering channel it has cut through the soft earth of my goat’s fertile pasture. I presumed it would be fine. How was I to know that a plague of locusts would strike a couple of days into my break – eating every sprouting plant and herbaceous thing?

Before it ate its own legs, my goat ate: the blankets in the barn; two saddles; an old tractor tyre; the bark off the huge tree in the bottom corner of the field; and the number plate and light covers off the trailer backed-up near the top end. It always had a healthy appetite. When I returned home, I thought it was as gone as the grass and other organic material. My first scan of a once-healthy field revealed a goatless post-nuclear wasteland. The rich variety of greens had been replaced with a singular, homogenous, oppressive brown. Everything blended into one – the scorched earth, the stripped-down bare wooden shed, the pared trunk. As I stared in disbelief and dejection, I noticed a feature – my goat’s head. It was jutting up from the stream’s sodden furrow like a seal’s inquisitive domed crown poking above a rolling coastal wave. Spirits instantly 43

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A SORT OF TRADITION JON GINGERICH It was New Year’s Eve and I was going to knock on George Martin’s door for the sixth time, for the sixth year in a row. The house was exactly how I remembered it, an off-white Ranch with a carport set close to the street.

Nothing ever changes at George’s house and even though I don’t know him I’m sure that’s the way he likes it.

This whole thing started as a fluke, or at least that’s the way I like to remember it. Six years ago I was on my way to a party at Bob Paschen’s place, this coworker of mine from the IT department. Bob’s neighborhood was a damned mess, all the houses looked the same and the streets had similar names too. I mistook Ashwood Drive for Ashwood Terrace and next thing I know I’m holding a casserole in front of this fat old man in a bathrobe and pajamas. He gave me this look like I’d spooked him. His face was red and puffy and he had these long black hairs that went over his bald spot like an old brush. He had these fat little Vienna Sausage fingers that wiggled when he gripped the door, like he was going to slam it in my face at any second. I got the feeling people don’t knock on his door that often. His place looked cozy, at least from what I could gather over his shoulder. The TV was on and it smelled like he’d been cooking hamburgers. I knew I was at the wrong place but I figured I’d clarify the situation by asking if Bob lived there anyway.

“No,” he said. “No one lives here with that name.”

He arched his eyebrows and drew the words out slow he when he spoke, like he was answering a trick question.

I apologized and went about my way. Boy, he looked really spooked. That was the end of that. That was six years ago, like I said.

The second year was purely intentional. I was going to Bob’s place for another one of his parties when I passed the old man’s house. I figured it’d be a riot if I 46

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EVENTS Five For Filing If you’ve time for only five events this month, squirrel the following away for safe-keeping in your diary: Philip Pullman, Claire Tomalin & AN Wilson on Milton, Courtauld Institute, 8 December Candlelit readings of A Christmas Carol, Dickens Museum, 10 & 12 December Michael Palin, Stanfords Covent Garden, 12 December Tales of the Decongested, Foyles, 12 December Dans le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, British Library, 14 December

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EVENTS December 4 Poetry and Maths, featuring Paul Fournel, Ross Sutherland and Matthew Welton, 6.30pm, Lecture Theatre 220, Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College; curated

by Poet in the City Hardeep Singh Kohli, Indian Takeaway, 7.45pm, Southbank Centre 8 Where Joy For Ever Dwells: Philip Pullman, Claire Tomalin and AN Wilson celebrate Milton’s 400th birthday with a discussion of his work and influence, 7pm, sponsored by the Royal Society of Literature and held at the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre at the Courtauld Institute, Somerset House Words on Monday: Clive James in Conversation, 7pm, Kings Place 10 Colm Tóibín, on Paul Cézanne, at the Courtauld Gallery, 5.30pm How Free Is Our Speech? Debate, performance and film to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 7.45pm, Southbank Centre Candlelit reading of A Christmas Carol, Dickens Museum; call for details 11 Polly Toynbee, discussing her recent book with the timely title Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today, 7.30pm, Clapham Books 12 Tales of the Decongested, a celebration of the short story, 6.30pm, Foyles Candlelit reading of A Christmas Carol, Dickens Museum; call for details 13 Music through Unconventional Means, featuring beatboxer Shlomo and highlighting the use of music as an aid to fight knife crime, 7.30pm, Southbank Centre 14–21 Comedy This Christmas, part of the Southbank Centre’s holiday series, and including performances by Jerry Sadowitz, Pappy’s Fun Club, Chris Cox, Tim Minchin and Keith Farnan 54 36

EVENTS 14 Get It Loud in Libraries: Dans le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, 3pm, at the British Library 16 The Big Read: London Writers Meet the Readers, featuring Diran Adebayo, Ekow Eshun, Esther Freud, Stephen Law, Sarfraz Manzoor and Adam Thirwell; 6pm, at the British Library

January 11 TS Eliot Prize readings, Southbank Centre, 7.30pm 15 Jackie Kay on Edgar Degas, at Courtauld Gallery, 5.30pm 19 Words on Monday: An Anniversary Reading, sponsored by Faber & Faber and th Arvon Foundation and featuring Wendy Cope, Daljit Nagra and Rebecca Lenkiewicz; Kings Place, 7pm 21 Gillian Beer on Vanessa Bell, at Courtauld Gallery, 5.30pm 26 Words on Monday: Desert Blues, featuring international poetry and curated by Poet in the City; Kings Place, 7pm

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