Blood and Water: Three Short Stories

by Charles Jay Harwood

goodness,’ she said, ‘I thought he was going to squeeze the life out of you!’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I croaked. ‘I’m all right.’

  Mrs. Lee left the room and I overheard the policeman praise her for doing everything by the book. I glanced down at my waist and noticed my father had left a red pressure mark. The force of his emotions and what I had seen in his eyes did not follow the rulebook nor did it follow the rules of Uncle Martin’s money or the banality of the Silver Spoon. It was irrational, strange and mystifying. I rested my head on my pillow and let the tears spill across my cheek. I closed my eyes.

  Dead Letter Room

  I am not fond of my own company. That’s why I regularly volunteer to do the nightly stint sorting letters – anything to avoid the blanket of darkness and the blanket of my thoughts.

  In the early days, consigning myself the preserver of everyone’s viewing of Eastenders, Masterchef and University Challenge had earned me popularity. It didn’t take long before my fellow postal workers consigned me to Weirdsville. Now they ignore me. I’m always here under strip-lights, weighing odd-shapes packets, franking stamps that have evaded the ink, pigeonholing letters destined for Oxon, Lincs, Warks or Berks. Dependable old Finch, they’d say, he’s become as much a part of the sorting office as the forty-foot conveyor belt that drones a constant two-point-five miles per hour.

  But all the while, I would be waiting for those four syllables to cleave my boredom. ‘Here’s one for you’ – a purveyor to a puzzle and a further distraction. Tonight I was in luck. Eddie, the floor manager had deposited a small packet onto my desk. Eddie, in his immaculately creased uniform appraised me from behind square-shaped lenses that seemed to magnify his scrutiny. Eddie appeared to try too hard, to believe he was entitled to everyone’s obedience, but I had to remind myself he was second in command to hatchet-faced Mr. Rose who had once tucked into a pub lunch with his fellow senior officers shortly after dismissing two sorters on the spot.

  Eddie glanced at the photo on my desk. ‘How’s Nikki these days?’ he asked.

  I followed his gaze to the image depicting a freckled blonde sporting grunge jeans and a backpack. I forced a smile. ‘Two more weeks in Thailand and then she’s coming home.’

  ‘It wrenches the heart, doesn’t it?’ he offered. ‘Our Pam couldn’t stand the boys being away – even for school trips. Forever planning welcome home parties, she was. Still, that’s our Pam for you.’

  I chewed my lip. Eddie was notorious for spouting on about his Pam. But then, my shrine of family tokens was pretty showy: snapshot of my wife, Holly standing outside York Cathedral; a paperweight replication of the Mary Rose from my brother Derek; a small trophy my sister Barbara had won at crazy golf; a sepia print of a cottage in Stoke Golding, my mother’s birthplace. And photos of Nikki, my daughter in her gap year.

  Eddie resumed his officious tone to remind me of his purpose here and of his loyalty to Rosie. ‘See what you can make of it won’t you?’ he said referring to the packet. ‘It doesn’t look too good. None of us can decipher it.’ With that, he walked off.

  I eyed the packet with the anticipation one might experience when offered a selection box of chocolates. This had become part of my job description: caretaker of mail that had been carelessly scribed. No one here had wanted to be bothered with such matters, but since I had become part of the furniture here, the matter had somehow become mine. Often, the simple omission of a house number or a road name required a mere flick through the phonebook or the A to Z to establish its intended destination. At other times, opening the packet for clues within might be necessary if the contents have any chance of finding home. Eddie was right. On this occasion, it didn’t look good.

  I examined the packet closely. The shaky handwriting gave nothing away, the swirls and loops resembling the Queen’s language about as much as hieroglyphics. It’s funny how something as miniscule as the synaptic impulses from the brain could determine the fate of postcards, letters and commercial goods by the ton.

  I prised the packet open. Cufflinks of pure gold pressed into the shape of wheat sheaves fell into the palm of my hand. The convoluted edges scattered light upon the bubble wrap. I foraged around for further clues but the packet yielded nothing. It is surprising how often such valuables are sent without postal insurance or a recorded delivery sticker. Even if someone had tried to claim them, proof of possession would be difficult to ascertain. Things like these often went missing and there was little the sender could do. With that, the wheat sheaf cufflinks had likely met their fate: sender unknown, destiny undetermined. A dingy, windowless room awaited where its company of orphaned possessions collected dust. Dead letter room.

  At the end of a rain-splattered journey, I entered my flat. Silence smothered me like a tomb. Since my mother’s death two years ago, this place had become a mere place to sleep. In society’s eyes, there was something odd about a forty-two year old living with his mother. Since her passing, I felt no more accepted into society. No wife, no kids, no brothers no sisters. No living relatives, just passing opportunities that had never crystallised. Society’s orphan, you could say.

  I entered the living room, casting my eyes over the smattering of African art, Japanese silk prints and a Turkish tapestry Nikki had brought me on her travels. Holly’s slippers sat in their usual place next to the fireplace, her Martina Cole collection illuminated by the lamp. I plucked one of my brother’s Frank Sinatra CDs and put it on. Every object here charged the room up with their sender’s intent; each imprinted with a history and undefined purpose. One might argue why not obtain similar objects from the high street shop? Online was an Aladdin’s cave of choice. But they lacked heart, a personal input and a spiritual imprint after falling virginal from the manufacturer’s conveyor belt. Why opt for such soulless goods when their more meaningful counterparts awaited their fulfilment within the dead letter room?

  I dug into my pocket and took out the cufflinks. I tried them on. They gleamed under the filigree wall lamp Barbara had bought last year.

  ‘Nice cufflinks,’ Eddie observed the next day.

  ‘A present,’ I explained. ‘From my wife. Wedding anniversary.’

  ‘Oh.’ Eddie sipped his tea. ‘And what did you get her?’

  ‘Tickets. To see the Riverdance.’

  Eddie nodded. ‘Very romantic. Pam and I have just celebrated our silver wedding anniversary. Spent the week in Venice.’

  ‘How romantic,’ I echoed, my voice betraying an edge. Eddie took another sip of his tea before walking off.

  I returned to my shrine for my lunch break and to admire my wife’s gift when I noticed someone had left a letter for me to decipher. I examined it in a cursory fashion before opening it. A note inside read, ‘I know what you’ve been up to.’

  My heart slammed in my chest. I glanced up and caught sight of Rosie striding into his office wearing his customary pinched expression before displaying a ‘do not disturb’ sign on his door.

  A rap came to my door. I crammed the note into my pocket as Eddie walked in. ‘Hello Finch.’ He appraised me. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  I watched him loiter at the door. Waves of seasickness lapped at my gut along with a sense of resignation that this day had finally caught up with me.

  ‘Solid gold, those cufflinks,’ he said. ‘They have my initials inside. EW.’ The room fell into a tense silence. I stared down at the floor. I knew it would be futile to deny what I had done. Eddie would be proved right as always. Eddie just needed a clipboard and a name badge to show everyone what an officious and interfering little man he was and in his own way as bad as Rosie. The two of them deserved each other.

  I glanced across at Nikki, or whatever her name was, amongst the other mementoes and suddenly saw them for what they really were: by-products of a sentiment that had passed their sell-by date, like the junk at my flat. I restrained an urge to sweep them from my desk.

  I calmly unfastened the cufflinks. ‘Take them back,’ I said. �
�Perhaps Rosie might give you a promotion for your detective work. You could even treat Pam to a trip to Florence.’

  ‘I don’t want them,’ he uttered. ‘Pam left me two years ago.’ I glanced up at him, confounded. ‘I haven’t reported you or anything, although I know I should. At the moment, this place just gives me a reason to get up on the mornings.’

  I watched Eddie park himself onto the edge of the table and slowly take off his glasses. ‘I envy you in a way, Finch. You’ll never know how much it hurts. Maybe one day you will.’

  I pushed my chair back with a clumsy scrape. ‘My desk will be empty when you return,’ I said.

  Eddie watched dolefully as I stood, and I could have sworn his eyes had acquired a moist film. ‘There’s a quiz night on Thursday. How’s your sports trivia?’

  I stopped dead. ‘All right,’ I said stupidly. In fact, I could only be sure of the year England had won the world cup. ‘Actually I’m rubbish.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We call our team the Wooden Spoons. We always get the booby prize.’

  I stared blankly at him before he returned to his work, leaving the door ajar.

  What Simon Knows

  ‘Hickledon Village,’ my dad said, ‘is the oldest village in the Shires – nearly got washed away during the Great Storm of 1895.’ He glanced at the