Best British Short Stories 2015

by Nicholas Royle

  B: Yes, uhh . . . In the movie here, the David character is now under arrest, and awaiting trial, and it’s a really tense part of the film, where David and Shawna are separated after her father has intervened, and we can see that the sheriff here, who was wonderfully played by Carl Liebling, is sort of caught between who to believe —

  A: You know, Baxter, I was never really satisfied by this part of the movie. I think that once the romance had been established, with that really kind of brooding, atmospheric, uhh, atmosphere, I think after that, the transition to a more thriller-like movement doesn’t really work for me. Maybe it just becomes too much of a boy’s movie, with all this business with the sheriff.

  B: It’s interesting you should say that, Marlie, because I really think that part of the great appeal of Dieter’s movies is the way they appeal to everyone —

  A: I’m not saying the movie doesn’t appeal to me, it’s just that, for me, I find something lacking in this part of the film.

  B: I wonder if it’s because your character has a much smaller role in this part?

  A: No, Baxter.

  B: Okay, uhh . . . Well, we now have this courtroom scene which is really pretty dialogue-heavy, and again this was all filmed in the studio, so everything you see here, all the benches and the gallery and everything had to be especially constructed by the very talented set design crew we had, who really did a wonderful job. Do you have any memories of the studio work we did for this, or about life on the set, Marlie?

  A: You know, not really. I was really just taking everything in, and trying not to screw up my big break as an actress, you know?

  B: Well, maybe we can talk about, you mentioned your healing, then, your journey of healing?

  A: Yes, that was what I called it, and when I called my book Journey of Healing, which has just been published, I wanted the word journey to work on two levels, because on one level I was making an actual journey, and in another way it was a sort of metaphorical journey. So the journey was a metaphor for a different sort of journey, a journey into myself, I guess.

  B: And this is with the Amazon, the tribespeople there?

  A: Yes. So, I’d always wanted to go up the Amazon, in fact I’d talked about it with Robin years ago, and we never did it. And then I found myself not getting hired so much, when I got to a certain age, and I suppose also with the stigma of the whole Robin case getting dug up. I had time on my hands, anyway. And I knew someone who was taking some people up the Amazon, to go and meet with this shaman and just to be with him, in the jungle. And I was pretty sceptical, you know, but the more he told me about it, the more I became interested. So I went, and we went up the river in this little tiny boat, and it’s the most amazing place, because you’re going along, and there’s the monkeys, and the vines and stuff on all sides, and when the little motor cuts out, you can hear just silence and nature for miles around. And after a few days we landed at this village, and we walked deeper into the jungle.

  B: And that was where you had your, uhh, experiences?

  A: That’s where I discovered the Ayahuasca experience, yeah. Ayahuasca is a plant, a vine. But it’s also a psychedelic, like mushrooms, and it’s really a medicine. We met this shaman who you knew was the most wonderful kind man just from looking into his eyes, you knew you could trust this man. And the shaman is really the doctor for the whole community. The healer. But unlike our modern doctors, there the shaman takes the medicine along with the patient, and they have this experience together. And the Ayahuasca is the major tool of the shaman. We’re losing track of the film here!

  B: Yeah, no, David has been released now, and he and Shawna are back together again, and they’re sort of wondering what to do . . . But this is interesting, let’s keep on this. You really think of it as being like a medicine?

  A: I was sick, yes. I was sick not in my body, but in my soul, and for the shaman, for these people, who are primitive in some ways, but in other ways infinitely more wise than us, for them that’s just as real a sickness. The shaman brews the Ayahuasca for three days, and it’s mixed up with another plant which activates its kind of properties, and it’s a real involved process, and you drink it down, and it’s a pretty strong thing to drink and to hold it down. I can taste it in my throat if I just think of it. Then it lasts for about six hours, and it’s like mushrooms, but it feels a lot more pure, if that makes sense. After we drank, the shaman walked us further into the jungle, we walked to this sort of temple he had built, and as it came on, it was clear that we were journeying towards the god within. You know? It was a great emptying of the self, a purgative effect, and then a great journey towards silence, away from the senses, and just a drifting inward, where you discover the most wonderful visions. I wrote about all this in my book, which has just come out. And it’s part of a whole cleansing ritual, you drink these things — the shaman gives you other things to drink — and then it’s really, you know, coming out both ends, excuse my vulgarity! And he boils these roots, and you rub the liquid on your skin, and pretty soon your skin and your nails go blue. All incredibly blue, like a smurf.

  B: So the dye is a symbolic, uhh, representation of the changes that are happening inside of you?

  A: Well, Baxter, you have a tendency to take things to all these extraordinary levels of analysis, but for me, it was just a detox. I don’t like to complicate things. It was just a cleansing, inside and outside. Altogether I stayed with the shaman for around two weeks, and I used the Ayahuasca I think six times in that period. And each time, I felt myself looking deeper into the god inside myself. But the funny thing is, after a certain time in that environment, you hardly need to take a drug any more, you’re freed into this wonderfully exalted and sort of euphoric and pure state of mind where you can just be, you can just sort of reside in your own being.

  B: It’s a wonderful story, Marlie.

  A: Thank you. It was a wonderful thing.

  B: And we can see now, we’re almost right at the end of the film, where Robin walks off into the sort of sunset on his own, in that famous ending that seems so full of ambiguity and potential . . .

  A: And Shawna is left on her own.

  B: Is that your understanding, that the characters won’t see each other again?

  A: Yeah, I think it is, and certainly that was how I played it, in these final scenes, as if she wasn’t going to see him again, even though it’s not stated in the script. But . . . seeing Robin here really at his most beautiful, you know, I want to mourn for him. Not that he’s dead, but that so much has been taken from him, with all these allegations and charges. And I just feel so sad that in all his life he’s never known the sort of quietness of being that I experienced on the Ayahuasca.

  B: Well, here come the credits... Thank you, Marlie, this has been a lot of fun, and I hope the audience has learnt something. I’ve been Baxter Fields.

  A: And I’m Marlie Prince.

  The Lake Shore Limited

  K J ORR

  ‘TALK ABOUT A view,’ the woman said. ‘Will you look at that view?’

  He acknowledged her comment with a nod, but did not speak.

  ‘Will you look at those clouds?’ she said.

  He was looking. He didn’t have much choice. The train was crowded and he was standing shoulder to shoulder with this woman and a line of others, their backs pressed flat against the wall of a sleeper compartment, leaving just enough space for people to squeeze past along the corridor. He was facing the windows, as they all were, by default, bags tucked behind legs. The woman was to his right. Conversation might have seemed more natural to her than silence, but he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to be curled up in a seat by himself in a corner somewhere, asleep.

  The rail tracks ran so close to the river that he felt they were skimming the surface of the water and that any moment they would all be sucked into a chaos of water and air. The river reflected a mass of high clouds – great puffs
, cotton balls, blinding white, a spumous procession.

  ‘When I see weather like this,’ the woman said – she spoke slowly, giving each word weight – ‘when I see clouds like this, you know, I think of my husband, my George.’

  She shifted beside him. Cramped as they were it was a small adjustment of weight on feet. He sensed her looking at him – and so she was, her head tilted awkwardly against the wall. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling and had a guileless expression on her face.

  ‘He passed three years ago, almost to the day, and it was just like this. So very beautiful. I couldn’t help feeling it was a sign.’

  The way he was standing he could feel his toes pressed hard against the ends of his shoes. He moved his feet a fraction. He fixed his gaze on them.

  She kept talking.

  ‘And when my grandson asks where his Papa has gone, and what he should do when he wants to talk to him, my son says —,’ and here she paused for a moment, swallowed, ‘my son says, “Anytime you want to talk to him you just look up at the clouds. Look up at the clouds.”’

  The young woman to his left was deep in her book. Intermittently, depending on the play of light, he saw her reflected in the window. She had a smile on her face, which could have been the book, or the situation; either way she didn’t seem inclined to help him out.

  He could turn to her, a plea in his eyes.

  He could lower himself down the wall, slowly; in his bag, propped behind his legs, there were things he could fetch. He could take a step forward, towards the window, and turn around to pick the bag up.

  But it was beyond him. He let his head fall back against the compartment wall.

  ‘You look tired,’ he heard the older woman say. ‘Are you tired?’ He could feel the pressure of her arm where it rested against his. ‘But you have lovely skin. You must have been told that. You must have been told that many times.’

  He had closed his eyes and now he opened them a fraction, but he didn’t respond. His stomach was furious with acid. He wished he had food.

  ‘Do you have a regime?’ she said. ‘For your skin?’

  He shifted his head without lifting it from the compartment wall. She wasn’t looking at him, he found, she was staring out of the window at the view, but when she sensed the movement she turned once more and beamed straight up at him, her eyes still damp.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Silly question. You’re too young for a regime.’

  He thought to make his way to a washroom. He thought perhaps he could shake her off. But an attendant, now, was making her way down the corridor, taking reservations for the restaurant car. She was substantial. Her progress was slow. People were adjusting bodies and legs as best they could.

  ‘I got five, a quarter after, five-thirty, a quarter of, six,’ the attendant said, at volume, nasal, as she arrived in front of them. She had a buzz cut and pale, peeping eyes. She was so wide she seemed to be addressing both of them at once.

  ‘I’d like to eat early,’ the woman beside him said. She turned to him. ‘Do you mind eating early?’

  ‘I’m not eating,’ he said.

  ‘Come now. Young man, I would like to buy you dinner. It would be a pleasure. What time shall we say?’

  ‘I’m putting you down for five, okay? For two,’ the attendant said. ‘What name? Gotta move on. Got a lot of folks.’

  ‘Joanie,’ the woman said. ‘And five is just perfect.’

  Maybe she was getting off the train, he thought. She was so keen to eat early. It would be surprising if a woman of her age were going any great distance without a seat.

  The train was working its way up the river. They passed a string of small stations, platforms only a few metres long, hovering close to the water. They passed the old prison, its walls worked over with barbed wire and weeds. Nearer to Manhattan he had seen a flotilla of white sails on the far side of the Hudson, the New Jersey side, but nothing since. The towns they passed seemed emptied out – parking lots with no cars, deserted streets dividing rows of neat, quiet houses.

  Joanie had fallen silent. For the moment she was watching the world coursing past. Now and then, an intake of air as she braced herself against the motion of the train, the jolting back and forth.

  A change in the land beyond the river, to wooded hills.

  When the train slowed and they pulled into a station, the carriage juddering and becoming still, he remained a long moment, palms flat behind him, pressed against the wall.

  ‘You have a half hour, folks. Half an hour.’

  People were manoeuvring past, filing along, bags hugged to chests. And then the corridor was clear, and they were gone. Joanie, too.

  On the platform he gratefully breathed the fresh air.

  He made his way up a flight of steps towards the facilities, following the throng from the train. There was a water fountain outside the washroom and he drank from that, splashed his face. Heading back to the platform he was following his hand, skimming his palm along the smooth rail that ran beside the steps: Joanie.

  ‘It sure is a long way up!’ she said. She was hauling herself one step at a time with the help of the rail. He took her in: the roomy, low-cost, middle-American clothing. The hair, which must be grey or even white, dyed caramel and coaxed into a wave.

  ‘Do you want a hand?’ he asked. He was unable to stop himself. The words just came out.

  ‘Oh no! You are a very lovely young man, but this is good for me, this is necessary. Look around at our nation, won’t you?’ She pulled herself up another step so she was level with him. ‘Fatties!’ she said, bugging her eyes and raising her brows knowingly. ‘Look around.’

  He didn’t look around, and neither did she. He waited until she started moving again, and then continued down to the platform, leaving her on a slow upward trajectory.

  Passengers were standing alongside the train, stretching their limbs, sipping coffee or sugary drinks. There wasn’t much to see. On one side the view was blocked by the carriages, and on the other there were railings, another empty lot, a thin row of trees.

  A flurry in the leaves of the trees and it started to rain. It didn’t matter. They were all under the cover of a walkway. He watched the rain fall, soft and thick and wet, adding a slick sheen to the expanse of asphalt opposite.

  ‘Would you see that!’ Joanie was at his elbow, face angled to the sky. ‘Oh I knew it!’ She was jubilant. She was actually clapping her hands.

  He could see what she saw: just visible in the rheumy air, faint above the gunmetal parking bays, a rainbow. Joanie was gripping the railings with both hands. ‘Isn’t that something?’ she said.

  It wasn’t much of a rainbow. He had seen better.

  ‘When we buried my George,’ she said, clapping one hand to her chest and spreading her fingers wide, ‘when we buried my George, a rainbow just appeared in the sky.’ With her free hand she reached out and touched his arm. ‘A perfect rainbow. Perfect. Right. Over. His. Grave. I had been waiting for a sign and there it was.’ She was looking into his eyes as she spoke and when she had finished speaking she kept on looking. Tears were coming. She was trying to smile but the smile turned into a grimace and then she let out a series of sobs. Suddenly she pulled herself in towards him and pressed her face into his chest. People were watching. He couldn’t do anything about that. He brought up his hands and saw them stop, poised, just above her head.

  When it was time to board the train once more, the carriage guard – who had also been watching – came forward and, assuming they were together, offered them seats in the compartment he used.

  Joanie nodded her head, attempting a smile and wiping her eyes with the edge of one hand, still clinging to him with the other: her weight on his forearm, his bag slipping from his shoulder, a trail of warmth on his skin from the pull of the strap as it slid down the length of his arm.

  Caught up as he
was – a seat, perhaps, even so, he thought.

  The guard showed them the way, leading them along the cramped corridor where they had been standing to the sleeper where he had set himself up – the fold-down table top laid over with neat rows of Amtrak ticket stubs, and brochures, and timetables.

  ‘You are a nice man,’ Joanie said.

  She was sniffing but seemed to be over the worst. As if to confirm it, she flashed her teeth in an approximation of a smile, took a sharp breath, sighed, and settled into a seat.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Would you look at this.’

  He had found himself in Times Square that morning, had stood bathed in colour, had closed his eyes.

  When he opened them, there it was: a vast animated hoarding with a moving image of a woman. She was looking down – at the street it seemed – and holding one finger to her lips. She was deciding.

  He hadn’t slept and it had taken him a moment to understand what was going on. Those people looking up at her were being filmed, so they appeared on the screen somehow, in miniature, like minions at her feet.

  The giant woman held her finger and thumb like a pincer, suspended. She would move her hand so these jaws would rove and stop, rove and stop. They would be poised of a sudden above a person’s head like a threat. A smile on her lips.

  It was random, pre-recorded, but it looked like intent. A cluster of tourists close by were tracking her hand, moving about so that it might be them standing beneath. The camera zoomed in to pick out faces. Each time: a cheer from the street.

  And there he was. He was suspicious-looking, shifty. This look he now had.