The Best British Short Stories 2014

by Nicholas Royle

  He went back through to the other room. He called her phone, again, and again it rang through to voicemail. He called the number Josep had left, no answer. Daniel went into a mania, tearing through Isla’s belongings, her clothes, her bags, without a thought for what he would say on her return, desperately searching for some evidence of where she might have gone. He went into the bathroom. There was water dripping from the shower head, her toothbrush was wet.

  Uselessly, he left the apartment and blundered out onto the streets, still trying to maintain an outward veneer of calm, thinking that she would have gone for a walk or a coffee. He went back to the café they had visited that morning, but she wasn’t there. He walked on, not really knowing which way to turn, going into every coffee shop he passed, gazing through the windows of pharmacies and grocers. He looked up and down the pavement, wandering into the road between bursts of traffic to get a better perspective. For a moment, he thought he could see her, or her hair, bobbing between the heads of all the other pedestrians, but, in the end, he decided it wasn’t her. The street was busy and hot, the air and movement oppressive. At each junction he seemed to catch the lights at the wrong moment and stood there, almost jogging on the spot, looking this way and that, waiting for them to change. He called her again and again, his thumb hovering over the redial button, but each time it went through to voicemail, and each time the thought that she might be on the phone to someone else receded.

  When the street he was on came to a junction with a wide avenue, he sat down on a bench to gather his thoughts. He told himself that everything was fine, that he was overreacting. He phoned Josep, but there was nothing, not even a voicemail. He began to berate himself. He should never have gone for lunch. It was a disgrace to have left her, unforgivable. He would do anything to turn back the clock, to undo what he had done. When he resumed his search, he realised that he didn’t know where he was, that he had taken so many turns that now even the direction of the apartment was beyond him. Everything around him seemed both familiar, that he had seen it before, and utterly new, that he had never seen it in his life. His vision started to feel a little strange, as if he were not looking through his eyes alone, but through a telescope turned the wrong way around. The whole thing was futile, a farce.

  His phone rang. It was Josep.

  ‘Isla’s gone missing,’ Daniel said. He could barely breathe.

  ‘What, wait,’ Josep said.

  ‘She’s not at the apartment. I’m out looking for her.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘Calm down. I can explain.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I know where she’s gone – or where she was planning to go.’

  Josep explained: while they were in the restaurant, Isla had telephoned. She felt guilty about not feeling well on the trip and wanted to cook him – Daniel – a meal that evening. She had asked Josep for a good place to buy ingredients and he had suggested La Boqueria at the top of the Ramblas. ‘If she walked,’ Josep said, ‘it will take her a while.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Daniel said. ‘I don’t believe it. I was frantic.’

  ‘Relax,’ Josep said. ‘Go back to the apartment. Have a drink.’

  Daniel did go back to the apartment. As soon as he got inside, he felt immense relief, as if the unthinkable had been averted. He went into the bedroom and rearranged Isla’s things. His hands were still shaking and he didn’t do it right, the piles were uneven, not as Isla had left them, but he would be able to explain.

  He went back to the front of the apartment. The air was warm and the evening light came into the room. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked up and down the street. It was a regular Saturday evening in Barcelona. People sat at tables outside cafés. Isla would be back soon. They would cook together, eat, make love.

  When he caught sight of her walking along the street, Daniel’s heart leapt. He wasn’t expecting her to be there at that moment. She was walking up from the cross street, carrying bags from the market. He could see a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine. He looked away and then looked back again, to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him. It was definitely her. She was wonderful to behold. She moved hurriedly, her hair catching the light, her sunglasses back on her head.

  At the pedestrian crossing she stopped and looked up. She saw Daniel and began to wave, a smile breaking across her face. She must have thought that he had not seen her, however, that he was frozen in some reverie, because she began to wave more vigorously, like someone from the deck of a ship. As she did so her arm must have knocked her sunglasses off her head. They fell forward and to the right. Isla’s face changed into one of alarm as she stooped to grab them before they fell to the ground. In doing so, like an amateur juggler losing control of her batons, she succeeded only in throwing the sunglasses further forward and up into the air. Instinctively, she made a move to grab them, bringing her foot forward, but it caught against the bag she was carrying. It was going to cause her to stumble right out into the road, Daniel could see.

  As Daniel watched all this unfold, the frames began to move more slowly. He had no conscious sense of what to do, but his mind – as if it wanted him neither to witness nor imagine what seemed about to happen – did something that he would not even remember. It went into a sort of delirium, as if spinning rapidly through a range of highly detailed landscapes, so detailed that Daniel could not possibly take them in, the succession of images overwhelming his cognitive processes until everything, including his awareness of where and who he had been, turned completely white.

  He was on the patio of a bar, under an awning, having a drink with some friends. Somebody – it was Nando, he thought – was saying something, telling some anecdote. For some reason, Luis could not remember how it started and so he was finding it hard to follow, although everyone else appeared gripped. What was it about, he wondered. As he did so, his telephone rang. He answered it, standing up and turning away from the table. It was Penelope. She was excited, he could tell.

  ‘Things are under way, Luis,’ she said. ‘My waters have broken.’

  ‘They’ve broken?’ he heard himself say. ‘My god, are you all right?’

  Of course, she was all right, she said. She was on her way to the hospital, her mother was taking her. Would he please hurry?

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ he said. ‘I’ll hurry all right.’

  Luis leaned back into the table. He held up his hand. ‘Nando,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your story, but I have to go.’ He paused. He was as calm as he could manage, knowing the importance of the things that were about to transpire.

  His friends looked up at him.

  ‘It’s happening,’ he said, extinguishing his cigarette. ‘She’s in labour. I’ve got to go to the hospital.’

  ‘It’s happening! Fuck!’ Nando said.

  They all came forward at once, to touch his arm, to pat him on the back. They all knew that it was possible, but it wasn’t expected to happen so soon. This was early, Luis knew.

  ‘Can we help, Luis? Can we do anything?’ Christina said.

  ‘No, but I have to leave. This is it.’ He could cry, right there, he thought; he wouldn’t mind. He knocked back his beer and took his helmet from the table.

  ‘Let me drive you to the hospital,’ Roberto said, lighting one of his little cigars. ‘My car’s around the corner.’

  ‘No it’s fine,’ he said. ‘It will be quicker on the bike.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t drive,’ Christina said. ‘You won’t be able to concentrate.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’

  They all stood and cheered him as he left. The bike was parked on the pavement. He straddled the machine and fired it up, testing the engine as he nosed it impatiently across the cobbles, people passing in front of him, unaware of the urgency, until eventually he dropped down onto the road, feeling the give of the shock absorber
s.

  He was away, out into the packed evening streets of Barcelona, that grand city where his heart had met its match. The sun slanted down through the trees. The machine throbbed beneath him, as if it knew that speed, its speed, was of the essence. He negotiated the cars, packed tight in the narrow side streets, and then turned, with relief, onto Valencia, that wide, beloved avenue, with ample scope to overtake. He wove between the slower-moving cars and buses, slanting his body, releasing the throttle, feeling the machine respond, the buildings flashing past as his speed increased. It wouldn’t be long. All he could think of was the hospital and how to get there, what to do when he got there, whether he would have to wear a robe. He could see it all, could imagine it all: Christina lying back on a bed, him by her side, clutching her hand. Fabulous. Fabulous. It would all be fabulous. As he rode through the streets, tears began to rim his eyes. It had been a question of choice, for both him and Penelope, a question of choosing the life that they wanted and leaving behind the ones that they didn’t. And now it was happening. At the same time, it was the grandest of sacrifices, giving up one type of life, so that another might be born. He allowed himself to become carried away and let the tears flow freely. At the hospital everything would change.

  Up ahead, there were some lights. Out of habit – for all his bravado, he knew that really he was a careful man – Luis glanced at the pavement, to see what was what. To his right, he became aware of a woman walking quickly up one of the cross streets, looking up, not at the road, waving at something above. His fingers twitched against the brake lever. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure why, her arms flailed in front of her and she stumbled out into the street, directly into his path. He was travelling fast, too fast. Christina was right. He couldn’t believe it. He was going to hit her, this foolish woman, there wasn’t time to react. Even as he thought it, however, as if some sixth sense, some instinct, were taking over, he found that he was easing back on the throttle, while putting every sinew into the action of shifting the bike’s course. He didn’t know how he was doing it, but he was. And then, like that – a flash, literally a flash – he missed her. It was by the narrowest of margins, but he was past her, fishtailing in an s-shape, until he recovered his balance and sped on towards the hospital, towards his wife, towards the woman who had transformed him.

  Contributors’ Biographies

  Elizabeth Baines’s stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World, is published by Salt. Salt have also published her two novels, Too Many Magpies and The Birth Machine. She is also a prizewinning playwright for radio and stage. She is published online at The View From Here.

  David Constantine, born 1944 in Salford, has published several volumes of poetry, a novel and four collections of short stories – Back at the Spike (1994), Under the Dam (2005), The Shieling (2009) and Tea at the Midland (2012). He is an editor and translator of Hölderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht. He was the winner of the 2010 BBC National Short Story Award and the 2013 Frank O’Connor Award.

  Ailsa Cox, Reader in creative writing and English at Edge Hill University, is a writer and critic with a special interest in the short story. She is the the author of Writing Short Stories (Routledge), Alice Munro (Northcote House) and The Real Louise and Other Stories (Headland).

  Siân Melangell Dafydd is the author of Y Trydydd Peth (The Third Thing), which won the 2009 National Eisteddfod Literature Medal. She is the co-editor of the literature review Taliesin and www.yneuadd.com and writes in both Welsh and English.

  Claire Dean’s short stories have been published in The Best British Short Stories 2011, Still, Shadows & Tall Trees, Patricide, A cappella Zoo and as chapbooks by Nightjar Press. Many of these stories, including ‘Glass, Bricks, Dust’, appeared under the name Claire Massey. An illustrated collection of fairy tales will be published by Unsettling Wonder in 2014. She lives in Lancashire with her two young sons.

  Stuart Evers, born in Macclesfield in 1976, is the author of the novel If This is Home and the short story collection Ten Stories About Smoking, which won the 2011 London Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The Best British Short Stories 2012, Granta.com, Prospect and SundayTimes.com. This story is taken from his new collection Your Father Sends His Love to be published by Picador in 2015.

  Jonathan Gibbs was born in 1972 and lives in London. His debut novel, Randall, is published by Galley Beggar Press, and his short fiction has appeared in Lighthouse, The South Circular, Allnighter (Pulp Faction), and from Shortfire Press. He blogs at tinycamels.wordpress.com.

  Jay Griffiths is the author of A Love Letter From a Stray Moon, a short novel about Frida Kahlo. Her non-fiction includes Wild: An Elemental Journey and Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape. She won the Barnes and Noble ‘Discover’ award for the best first-time author in the USA, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and a World Book Day award, and is the winner of the inaugural Orion Book Award.

  David Grubb writes novels, short stories and poems. His most recent poetry collection, Box, was published by Like This Press in 2012. Previous poetry collections have been published by Salt, Shearsman, and Stride. He was a winner in the 2012/13 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition with a sequence, ‘Ways of Looking’.

  M John Harrison was born in 1945. His novel Climbers won the Boardman Tasker Prize in 1989. His most recent novel is Empty Space. He lives in the Midlands.

  Vicki Jarrett is a novelist and short story writer from Edinburgh. Her first novel, Nothing is Heavy, was published in 2012. Her short fiction has been widely published, broadcast by Radio 4, Radio Scotland and Radio Somerset, and shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize and the Bridport Prize. She is working on a short story collection and a second novel.

  Richard Knight was born in 1966 and lives in Greenfield near Manchester. His first published work was in Arc Short Stories in 1997, followed by stories in Brace (Comma Press) and The Possibility of Bears (Biscuit). His short story ‘Atlantic Flats’ was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2009 and he was shortlisted for the Fish Prize in 2010. Richard has also published three children’s novels and is currently writing his first novel for adults.

  Philip Langeskov was born in Copenhagen in 1976. In 2008, he received the David Higham Award. He has an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, both from UEA. His stories have appeared in various places, including Bad Idea Magazine, Five Dials, Warwick Review and The Best British Short Stories 2011.

  Anna Metcalfe was born in Westphalia in 1987. Her work has been published in Elbow Room, Lighthouse and Tender Journal. She lives in Norwich. ‘Number Three’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

  Louise Palfreyman works as an editor and copywriter in Birmingham. Her short fiction has been published by The View From Here and the London School of Liberal Arts. She is part of a thriving community of writers called PowWow. The group meets weekly at a local pub and holds an annual literary festival.

  Christopher Priest is the author of thirteen novels and four short story collections. His 1995 novel The Prestige was filmed by Christopher Nolan and his latest novel is The Adjacent (2013). He lives on the south coast.

  Joanne Rush lives in London, where she divides her time between writing and teaching. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University in Renaissance literature and she travels frequently to the Balkans, this year to work with the non-profit theatre company Youth Bridge Global. Her current project is a novel about modern Bosnia. ‘Guests’ is her first published short story.

  Mick Scully lives and works in Birmingham. In 2007 Tindal Street Press published his short story collection Little Moscow. His first novel, The Norway Room, was published in 2014, also by Tindal Street Press.

  Joanna Walsh has been published by Granta, the Tate, the Guardian, London Review of Books and the White Review, among others. Her collection of short stories, Fractals, is published by 3:AM Press. She is currently working on
a book, Hotel, for Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series.

  Adam Wilmington is a writer, poet and songwriter born and raised in Wigan. He is currently completing a degree at the University of Nottingham. ‘It’ was the winning story in the 2013 Manchester Fiction Prize, worth £10,000.

  Acknowledgements

  The editor wishes to thank Gareth Evans, Alison Moore, Gregory Norminton, John Patrick Pazdziora, Katherine Pulman, Rob Redman, Ros Sales, Robert Shearman and Conrad Williams.

  ‘Tides or How Stories Do or Don’t Get Told’, copyright © Elizabeth Baines 2013, was first published online in The View From Here and is reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘Ashton and Elaine’, copyright © David Constantine 2013, was first published in Red Room: New Short Stories Inspired by the Brontës (Unthank Books) edited by AJ Ashworth and is reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘Hope Fades For the Hostages’, copyright © Ailsa Cox 2013, was first published in 3AM: Wonder, Paranoia and the Restless Night (Liverpool University Press/The Bluecoat) edited by Bryan Biggs, which accompanied the exhibition of the same name curated by Angela Kingston and shown at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

  ‘Hospital Field’, copyright © Siân Melangell Dafydd 2013, was first published in Beacons: Stories For Our Not So Distant Future (Oneworld Publications) edited by Gregory Norminton and is reprinted by permission of the author.