Best British Short Stories 2016

by Nicholas Royle

  Downwind of the Lapsang Souchong the smell was not so bad. What kind of gadding about had the Underwoods done in their day, he wondered? P&O cruises to locations filched from the National Geographic? Visits to the stately homes whose owners’ reminiscences Mr Underwood had schemed so valiantly to publish? And now here they were in a Suffolk garden, beaten back by time, with the world they knew sunk beneath the encroaching tide. He tried Bunny with a book about Kingsley Amis he had seen reviewed in one of the Sundays and got nowhere. Mrs Underwood, rising to her feet to inspect the tea-pot, looked suddenly shrunken, impossibly diminutive. She could not have been more than four feet ten. Not only had time beaten the Underwoods back; it had made them smaller. Soon at this rate they would vanish altogether.

  ‘Time for a refill,’ Mrs Underwood said, with what could have been deep-seated resentment or the placid acceptance of pleasure to come. It was inconceivable that so frail a piece of humanity should be able to lift the tea-things, so, tray in hand, he tracked her back through the verdant labyrinths and across a lawn where rooks grimly disputed cast-off bacon-rinds to a cubby-hole of a kitchen, where tea towels hung up to dry in the sun and the thought of being in a Beatrix Potter story where Johnny Town Mouse might soon appear at the window with his tail twirled over his top-coated arm was rather too strong for comfort. Here, framed in the triangle made by a Welsh dresser, a sink piled high with earthenware plates and an empty bird-cage suspended from wood-wormed rafters, Mrs Underwood turned unexpectedly resolute.

  ‘Of course, Bunny’s not himself,’ she said, filling the tea-kettle with several badly aimed spurts of water from the tap. ‘Not in the least. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. It may be medical. It may be not. There are some mornings when he won’t get out of bed at all. The other day I found him writing a letter – writing a letter – to some actress he’d seen on the television.’

  There was something horribly symbolic about the bird-cage with its gilded bars and open door. What had lived in there? What had caused it to take flight?

  ‘What sort of a letter?’ Tony wondered. After all, the actress could have been Judi Dench or Eileen Atkins.

  ‘An extraordinarily embarrassing one,’ Mrs Underwood said, without turning a hair. ‘Quite out of the question that it should be sent. I told him I would take it to the post, but after he’d given it to me I simply took it into the study and tore it into pieces. It’s no end to a life, you know. Not for either of us.’

  In all the years that they had been coming to Kersey, all the years that they had splashed through minor rivers that ran over village pavements, looked for road signs lost in the spreading hedgerows and sat pacifically behind items of slow-moving agricultural machinery, Mrs Underwood had never grown confidential. This was such an awful conceptualisation of her plight that he felt he had to say something.

  ‘You mustn’t think that,’ he volunteered. ‘I’m sure you must have a great deal to comfort yourselves with. ‘I mean . . .’ – he tried to think of something with which the Underwoods could comfort themselves – ‘I mean, there’s all the fine work that Bunny did . . . Your father.’

  ‘Bunny’s work,’ Mrs Underwood said, and left it at that. There was not enough room in the kitchen, and the job of unloading the first batch of tea-things onto the draining board was made more difficult by the curiously jerky movements – like some marionette whose strings were twisted from on high – that Mrs Underwood made as she spoke.

  ‘As for my father’s diaries,’ she went on emphatically, ‘do you know, there was a whole section – twenty thousand words at least – that I made the man strike out? It was all about when I was at school and how spotty I was, and not beautiful, and what a disappointment I was to him. I can’t tell you,’ Mrs Underwood said, drawing herself up to her full height and suddenly seeming taller, vastier and more consequential than she had ever done before, ‘how much it upset me. I minded most frightfully . . . Oh, for goodness sake, be careful!’

  But it was too late. The blue-and-white china cup had rolled away from his imploring grasp and smashed into fragments on the red-stone floor. Mrs Underwood bent to retrieve them, and having done so stood sorrowfully with them in the palm of her out-stretched hand, like a votive offering brought to the shrine of some pagan god.

  ‘Lytton’s cup,’ she said miserably. ‘Lytton’s cup.’ Outside the noise of the rooks, still grimly disputing their bacon-rinds, rose to frenzy, followed by a human cry, so wild and alarming that they rushed into the garden to see who had made it. Here they were able to contemplate the interesting spectacle of an upturned easy chair, a second, shattered tea- cup and Mr Underwood, on hands and knees, daisy chain all askew, struggling to right himself. Jane stood at his side, a bit uncertainly, like a schoolmistress whose favourite pupil has cried off sick ten minutes into an exam, the expression on her face half mild amusement and half genuine alarm.

  Half-an-hour later, in the car driving west through the Suffolk back-lanes, past the head-high clumps of cow-parsley and the loosestrife-patterned hedges, he said: ‘I don’t believe for a moment it was Lytton Strachey’s tea-cup.’

  ‘It could quite easily have been when you come to think about it.’

  ‘Well, they ought to have kept it locked up in a cupboard then, or given it to a museum, where passing chartered accountants couldn’t get at it.’ Mrs Underwood had not said anything as she consigned the shards of china to the waste-paper basket. In some ways this cut deeper than the sharpest rebuke. Something else struck him and he said:

  ‘I know what you said to Oenone . . . to Christabel about the chair giving way, but why exactly did Bunny end up on the grass?’

  ‘I told you. He asked me, quite conversationally, as if he wanted me to pass the rock-buns, if I would come and “live with him and be his love”. Those were his exact words.’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘I told him not to be so silly.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘There was a bit of scuffling. And after that, because I was rather cross and I don’t like people’s fingers digging into my hand, I just gave him a tiny push.’

  The road signs, which had hitherto been sporadic and confusing, now suggested that they were somewhere near Colchester. He thought of Bunny’s balding, aftershave-scented head waggling above its necklace of daisies, and then of Mrs Underwood explaining how frightfully she had minded about her father’s diaries. His own father had kept a diary in which he had recorded the price of petrol and the avian traffic of their south-west London back-garden. There had been nothing in it of a personal nature, and no spotty daughters. Whatever pained disappointment he might have felt had been kept to himself.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘Somebody told me that she once had an affair with Philip Larkin?’

  ‘Well I hope they both enjoyed themselves. And that he had a light hand with the crockery.’

  He found himself imagining Oenone or Christabel sitting in a restaurant with Philip Larkin. The scene had a tuppence-coloured air of unreality. They were on the motorway now, flanked by a throng of mobile homes and caravans making their way back from the coast. Somewhere in the world, he supposed, lurked an art which you could set against the armies of commerce and bureaucracy to lay them waste, but it could not be found in the Underwoods’ green-girt garden. They set off home through the concrete and steel, past shoals of cars from which pale, incurious faces stared out, a firmament where broken cups were of little account and nobody, whether in jest or earnest, asked anyone to live with them and be their love.

  Colette Sensier

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie’s Castle

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie calls Josef on a crisp sunny Saturday in February. He says he’s working from home, too busy to talk, but she’d swear she can hear the latest girl kissing the back of his neck.

  ‘Josef, today I think I will go out.’

  ‘OK, Ma.’

  �
�You want to come with me? You can bring Kristen, if you want to.’

  His voice drops. ‘Mum, it’s Ilana, you know that.’ Blaming her perfectly good memory for his loose living.

  ‘You want to bring Ilana? That’s fine.’

  ‘Actually, Mum, it’s a bit of a tricky day for me . . .’ He laughs. ‘Where you going, anyway?’

  ‘First, I will go to Buckingham Palace. We can have sandwiches in the park.’

  Josef laughs again, louder. Mrs Świętokrzyskie’s children have been in England too long and they never want to go anywhere: spoilt. Herself, she likes to sit in the fine green park by the palace, half tourist and half proprietor with her indefinite leave to remain. After being disappointed, early on, by Tower Hill, this is now her model of the perfect castle: the symmetry, the gold, the guards, the many gates.

  Although she’d add dragons, herself. And flying monkeys, clutching daggers, instead of the guards in their fat furred hats.

  The sun turns out a liar, bright but cold. Lords and ladies, she imagines from their confident strides, go past her in plain suits and low heels as she sits on the bench with her Thermos of coffee and sandwiches in Tupperware and pulls her imaginary fur up around her. She never sees fur in this country; except the white mink cape which flows over her shoulders, framing her metal-plated breasts.

  At home, her wrists dip low, rise, dip low, as her fingers move fast as dancers across the keyboard. Mrs Świętokrzye saved her computer from a landfill, when Josef’s office chucked it out, and with Josef’s tinkering, and the little black box he’s given her, it works quite well. She often thinks of the poor thing lying alone and dead, spreading its poisonous roots into the ground – irradiating the soil probably, burning the young bulbs. She’s saved it, and she’s protected the world from it.

  The light hidden inside the computer buckles and hisses and spits awake. Mrs Świętokrzyskie’s avatar appears, eagle-winged, catsuited, clutching two top-range crossbows in each hand.

  READY?

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie has a secret. She has met a man.

  Bernard came out of nowhere to challenge her in the arena a few months ago. She’s a few levels ahead of him, but not many, hardly enough to matter: three. His avatar is a blue dragon with a long neck and protruding eyes – ungainly as a giraffe, skin like old leather – wearing silver chain-mail armour trimmed with red and white fur.

  The two of them drew their swords and struggled for a good twenty minutes, Bernard displaying an impressive stockpile of Revivors. But Mrs Świętokrzyskie had bought a magic apple from a witch in Round 23, and when she was on the ground, about to choke, the apple sucked out the last of Bernard’s strength and bestowed it on her.

  Fair fight: the letters appeared one by one in the speech bubble.

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie didn’t know exactly what he meant by ‘fair’. Was he being sarcastic, implying that the sudden use of the apple was cheating? Or was he congratulating her?

  She took a risk and typed out Thank You.

  The next day she woke up too early, seven a.m. The shifts at the hospital ruin her sleep pattern; sometimes she’ll sleep fourteen hours, or crash in the middle of the day. She wasn’t due to work for another eleven hours. She tried to read in bed but couldn’t. She dared herself not to turn on the computer yet, and instead had a long bath with lavender extract, ate two bowls of cereal, and got dressed – right up to tights and jewellery – before calling her daughter.

  Mornings were usually good times to call, but when Gabriela answered today she sounded a little flustered. ‘Gabriela, if you have the babies with you, it’s no trouble, I can go.’

  ‘No, Ma, it’s fine, Ryan’s at school . . . it’s just that it’s not Magda’s nursery day today and she’s got a friend over, so I really should be watching them.’ Gabriela’s heeled shoes clicked across linoleum at the other end of the country. ‘There – they’re in the living room. I can see them from here.’

  ‘And is it a good day? Is the weather good, up in Glasgow?’

  ‘It’s good, Ma.’

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie thought Gabriela was giggling at her, not very polite. She gripped the receiver firmly. They took up a lot of her time, these phone calls, she was a busy woman with her job, her walks, her son, but she didn’t grudge Gabriela the time.

  ‘It’s really good.’ Gabriela paused. ‘You know, Ma, I worry about you down there on your own. Is it true Josef’s moved out for good?’

  ‘Oh, your brother has had his own flat for years now.’

  ‘You know what I mean, Ma . . . Well, I suppose he must nip back to get his shirts ironed every once in a while.’

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie thought she could hear her grand-daughter in the background. Ela’s house was always full of noise.

  ‘You’d like it up here, you know, Ma. There’s plenty of Polish families, and the neighbours are all so friendly. Not like the old place at all. You know, you walk out the door here and the people next door know my name, they know Magda’s name . . . It’s nice.’

  ‘Yes, Ela, lovely. Do you know, I saw that woman on the hallway today and she doesn’t say a word to me? Not even good morning? And she’s been here, what, six months, since last October – no, must be seven . . .’

  ‘The Iranian one?’

  ‘No, Gabriela! That was Mrs Far, Mrs Fah something – she’s been gone now a good year – ten months at least. Well, she wasn’t here at Easter, was she?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ma.’ This Ma has happened since Gabriela moved to Scotland, she always called Mrs Świętokrzyskie Mum, growing up.

  ‘You must remember if you saw her at Easter! That’s the last time you were down here . . .’

  ‘Look Ma, I’ve got to go. You should come up, you know, if you’re lonely. The kids would love to see more of you . . . And Jamie wouldn’t mind.’

  But Mrs Świętokrzyskie has moved once already, across the whole of Europe. She doesn’t intend to move again. Here she has Josef; she has a new girlfriend of Josef’s to meet every few months; she has her girls at her hospital, and she has a Silver Sword ranking on the computer.

  She lit a cigarette and sat down at her desk, the sharp brooch on her jumper prickling her chin. The computer makes a fearful noise as it strains to reach MagiKingdom, like a carrier pigeon with a crucial ten-page letter strapped to its back. She loaded her account up with money and bought two outfits, a new MasterSword, and a blue peacock for her castle. Then she checked her email, and in her inbox was a Private Message from the blue dragon.

  That was six months ago. Now, she duels with Bernard two or three times a week. In between, he emails her. His hours are more regular than hers: he gets home at six o’clock on the dot, every day, and usually she has an email by seven. Sometimes there are two or three.

  With no degree and shaky written English, Mrs Święto­krzyskie is not a nurse. She is a healthcare assistant, and she feeds the patients and removes their waste, turns and washes their big bodies all day, so whatever time she comes home, the first thing she does is take off her shoes. As she sits in her big green armchair, she reaches down to rub her sore feet in between the levels on the games.

  She lights a cigarette. A message is in.

  Klara,

  Just got in from the Office, wondering how you’re day went?! Today we had a complaint so I was ‘on the phone’ all day! – but it’ll make my day better to see you later on around the Marketplace. All my Best,

  B

  He’s a good man. He’s a kind, good man, and his emails are something to hold onto. And he knows what it is like to lose a child; although his daughter is only in Australia, she’s his only one, and he knows what it’s like to miss, twenty years too late, the warm heft of a child’s body in your lap. Mrs Świętokrzyskie can talk to him, about Wladyslawa. The long years when she wasn’t here and they didn’t know if she was anywhere else; and the phone call telli
ng her that her daughter was dead, in such a horrible way, and how nothing has ever seemed truly normal since.

  She answers his email at once, and they both log on to MagiKingdom, where together they slay a witch in disguise and take from her two PowerSwords, a Vengeance Potion, and seven frogs’ legs, which aren’t worth much.

  Bernard bought her the first leopard.

  About three months ago the gawky blue dragon approached her in the forest, and in his hand was a lead attached to the collar of a beautiful, slow-moving cat. Its eyes were blue like sapphires, the pixels of its fur smooth and bright. As Mrs Świętokrzyskie admired it, the animal suddenly swelled to fill her whole screen. A message flashed up:

  ITEM: Roaming Leopard.

  CATEGORY: Guard Animal.

  STRENGTH: Eight.

  FLEXIBILITY: Nine.

  SURVIVAL CAPACITY: Six.

  COST: $40.

  ACCEPT GIFT?

  The leopard’s figure revolved, shadowed into 3-D, and it moved its head a little and twitched its tail.

  Mrs Świętokrzyskie clicked YES.

  She hasn’t told anyone about Bernard, but their interaction is written plain on the computer for anyone to see who cares to look. She doesn’t hide his emails; she flaunts his leopard at the head of her pack. Now she has fifty leopards, all except Bernard’s gift bought and paid for by herself. It doesn’t do to depend on men: that’s why she’s always kept her job. She had to work hard to keep it, in England, but it was worth it, because now she can provide for herself.

  Time flies by so quickly, when you’re old or when you’re getting that way. Up in Scotland, Gabriela’s pregnant again. Mrs Świętokrzyskie doesn’t know how much Ela wants all these babies: she’s used to seeing her daughter being the eldest, bossing younger children around, and this doesn’t seem much of a change. How can Gabriela tell if she wants to live this life, when it so closely resembles her old one? Even her little house in Glasgow could almost be Mrs Świętokrzyskie’s flat, doubled onto two floors.