Best British Short Stories 2016

by Nicholas Royle

  ‘That’s so sad, Mr Mooney,’ she said. ‘Come back and look at my model any time you like.’

  After Ted Mooney left, Harold Beardsworth came over. He was from the Friends of Chorlton Park and had a stud earring, friendship bracelets, and was wearing a short-sleeved shirt bestrewn with stars. Charlotte stiffened, readying herself for more abuse about the low-quality specifications for the new paddling pool.

  ‘Is that Ted Mooney?’ he said, nodding at the photograph.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t use that picture.’

  ‘It’s simply a matter of asking Mr Mooney to sign some forms.’

  ‘Do you know the circumstances?’

  ‘I have to get back to my office now.’

  ‘They loved that girl. Couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to her after they died. He and Dorothy were in their mid-eighties, Heather over fifty. She never went out on her own and Ted and Dorothy couldn’t bear to imagine her in a care home. Ted couldn’t get the problem out of his mind, he went over and over it. He spoke to Social Services, everyone, but no solution satisfied him.’

  ‘It’s a photograph of a happy family,’ Charlotte said. ‘It will add a nice human dimension.’

  ‘Then, one Sunday teatime,’ Beardsworth continued, ‘Dorothy and Heather were sitting holding hands on the sofa like they always did, watching their favourite TV programme, Antiques Roadshow, and Ted saw them lounging there as happy as anything and, in his words, he felt an enormous rush of love like a tidal surge. He went out to the shed, found a claw hammer and took it back into the house with him. He phoned the police immediately afterwards and told them what he had done. You wouldn’t guess it, would you? A retired head teacher, respectable, peace-loving.’

  Charlotte sat down. She took off her glasses and placed them on the table. She pulled her long hair back into a ponytail tail and secured it with a rubber band.

  Beardsworth watched her in silence. ‘Not all old people are nice,’ he said finally. ‘I’m sorry.’ And he stalked off into the kitchen where she heard him clattering about with cups and saucers, preparing the tea and sandwiches for the evening consultees.

  Outside, the bushes were thickening with indigo shadows. She looked at the staring man in the model, then through the window at the sky, and thought about how poorly her model reflected the real world, with its smells, its sounds, its shapes and shades. She pulled the staring man away from his fixings, prised the park keeper’s building up from its base, and put him inside it, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. No one would ask what his function was any more. Her model would be just a model, and nothing else.

  Tony Peake

  The Bluebell Wood

  The expedition had set out at nine sharp – ‘We don’t,’ said Martha briskly, ‘want to make ourselves late for lunch, do we Sarah darling?’ – yet as the church clock struck ten, they’d still only got as far as the foot of the hill whose wooded crown was their ultimate destination.

  ‘I think,’ said Martha, fumbling in the pocket of her skirt for what, Sarah couldn’t help noticing, was a hopelessly inadequate handkerchief, given the amount of sweat it was expected to dab away, ‘that Owen, if you take that side – and do get a move on, my boy, we haven’t all day – and I take this side, and you Lucy, if you go at the front . . .’

  ‘And I think,’ interrupted Sarah gently, ‘that you’ve exhausted yourselves. This hill is way too steep and besides, it’s been lovely enough already, just to escape the house, I can’t remember when I had such a glorious outing, so why don’t we just . . .’

  Lucy, who’d moved meanwhile to the front of Sarah’s wheelchair, patted her aunt on the arm.

  ‘Sainted aunt,’ she smiled. ‘Don’t fret so. We’re managing just fine. All those hours Owen spends at the bloody gym, they ought to pay some dividends. Don’t you think?’

  To which her normally monosyllabic brother retorted: ‘Still, if aunt Sarah doesn’t mind, perhaps we could just . . .’

  He got no further. Fixing her son with a particularly withering look, Martha snapped: ‘Do I have to remind you, Owen, that ever since we moved here, I’ve always promised your aunt that one day we’ll show her the bluebell wood, even if she hasn’t exactly nagged me on the subject, and if we don’t do it today . . .’ She broke off, though not before Sarah had chased her sister’s half-sentence to its inescapable end. The last spring: this would be Sarah’s last spring.

  ‘So let’s put our backs into it, shall we?’ concluded Martha, sounding to Sarah’s ears so like Miss Springer, their old sports mistress, that she couldn’t help shuddering. Hated Miss Springer, to whom all of life had been one long, sweaty race and the likes of Sarah – because Sarah didn’t put her back into things in the required way – of no consequence whatsoever. Sour-breathed Miss Springer, unimaginative, impatient Miss Springer, whose memory lurked on in the form of Sarah’s very own sister, since Martha did put her back into things. Always had. Always would. Like now, for instance, as she and her two grunting children struggled to manoeuvre Sarah’s wheelchair up the village’s steepest hill on the best day, or so Martha had been saying all morning, for catching the bluebells at their finest.

  Sarah knew she should be grateful that in the last chance saloon of her final spring, her sister should go to so much trouble on her behalf. Should so want for Sarah to see with her own eyes – and on the optimum day for it, too – the bluebells which Martha was forever praising.

  ‘Careful!’ cried Lucy meanwhile. ‘Auntie looks very uncomfortable. Are you all right, sainted aunt? Frowning like that. We’re trying not to jolt you too much.’

  Grateful. Yes – she really ought to be grateful. So why, then, this feeling of familiar antipathy towards Martha? Like she’d used to feel all those years ago at school, when Martha had been Miss Springer’s favourite – If only you other girls were more like our Martha! – and had won every race. Was it because to Martha, even something as evanescent as a bluebell wood represented just another lap of life’s race? A race (as always) to be the best and also, in this instance, a race against time. Time in more than one guise. First, the small window of opportunity for viewing the wood at its richest. Second, the fact that time in general was now running out for Sarah, running out fast.

  Once boarded, this train of thought imprisoned its passenger within its own, rushing confines. Clunkety-click! Clunkety-click! The effect of her drugs, perhaps.

  Was it only – or even – affection that had made Martha so determined to show urban Sarah one of the crucial seasonal sights of the English countryside? Or was this outing – here Sarah’s thoughts hurtled her into a tunnel – just another in a long line of reminders that Martha was the achiever (a husband and two children, after all; the Georgian house in the country; the bluebell wood on the hill behind her village), whereas poor Sarah had never managed to escape the dismal London suburb where they’d both been born? Or hold down a lasting job. Or even find herself a boyfriend, come to that. Never mind that in addition she’d then contracted a terminal illness while still in her prime. An illness Martha could only bear to signify as a letter of the alphabet. The big ‘C’.

  And as for the novel Sarah had always told Martha she was writing – which was also the reason she always gave as to why she could never settle to anything – well, the much vaunted novel was still no more than a collection of uncertain jottings . . .

  The train emerged from its tunnel into the most perfect of spring days. Into a wood, in fact, sun-dappled, cool and, of course, carpeted – as she’d always known it would be – by a haze of colour, more violet than blue, less a colour than a state of emotion, an indicator of hope.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Owen, please!’

  ‘Sorry!’

  A tuft of grass had caused Owen to stumble, Sarah’s wheelchair to jerk, Sarah herself to open her eyes. They were, she discovered, not even ha
lfway up the hill, nowhere near the crown: as remote from their intended destination as she’d always been from any of life’s finishing posts. Except for one, of course. The last post.

  Lucy was smirking, as if at Sarah’s silent joke to herself.

  ‘Owen’s language,’ she explained unnecessarily, ‘drives Mummy mad.’

  ‘It’s Owen himself,’ snarled Martha, ‘who drives mummy mad.’

  Sarah didn’t, however, bother to respond, not even with her customary tired smile. Instead, having closed her eyes again, she reboarded the train.

  Did any of it matter anymore? Had it ever mattered? So what if her life, as viewed from Martha’s perspective, should consist of nothing but a rented flat, a lack of relationships, a jumble of incomplete notes? That wasn’t the point. Never had been. So what if she’d never committed anything of consequence to paper? Her so-called novel had nevertheless still given her an interior life, a life of the mind, richer, fuller and more various than any reality, certainly any reality of which she felt capable. And by the same token, so what if her sweaty family never managed to crest the hill? In her mind’s eye, she’d already seen her bluebell wood, already knew its colours, its textures. Even – if she concentrated hard enough – even its faint, peppery fragrance. Indeed, so exquisite was her wood, so vibrant, so delicate, there was every chance an actual wood would disappoint.

  The truth, as with all truths, was unutterably simple. If you wanted a bluebell wood, you had merely to close your eyes. It was that easy. Just close your eyes. And there it was, waiting for you in your imagination, as you’d always known it would be: cool, inviting, seemingly without end.

  As if from a great distance, and very faintly, Sarah was subliminally aware of her chair ceasing to move, of Lucy’s worried treble, underscored by her sister’s contralto, then Owen’s cracked bass. But she no longer heeded their meddlesome music. She’d already stepped from the train and, quick as air, was entering her wood. To her delighted surprise, she was floating completely clear of the ground. As if she’d crossed a line and was able, therefore, to admire each flower without doing damage to any of them. To savour the moment as it should be savoured. In complete accord with it. In perfect peace.

  Kate Hendry

  My Husband Wants to Talk to Me Again

  My husband wants to talk to me again. The children have gone to school, he’s supposed to be leaving for work, but he insists he’s got half an hour spare. I never imagined we’d have to have so many discussions. The decision’s made, what is there more to say? We had agreed. It was a relief. Now there are things that need to be done. Separately.

  But no. We need to talk, again. This time it’s about the CD collection. He wants me to take my CDs out. I don’t see why he can’t do it. Most of them are his. Surely he can sort them when he’s packing. But no, we need to talk about it.

  Except there isn’t anything left to say and I’m trying to do the laundry. The sun’s come out; I could get a load out on the line, if only he’d stop talking. He wants to know which Marvin Gaye are mine. I bought Here My Dear but he listened to it most. He wants to keep all the Marvin Gaye together. I tell him he can have them all.

  The washing machine is on its final spin. There are five minutes left on the LED display. It’s the best thing about this machine – the timer. I can set the machine the night before and make it come on in the morning before I’m even up. I can see how long it’s got left to go. I crouch down in front of it, watch the minutes counting down.

  In the washing machine, clothes are tumbling around each other. They’ll come out dark and unrecognisable, tangled together. Tights will have tied themselves in knots, zips will have caught on Velcro, a soggy child sock will have squeezed into the folds of the rubber seal. There are only seconds left.

  My husband has stopped talking. He’s still there though and I can tell he’s disappointed in my lack of interest in Marvin Gaye. I’m kneeling down, so he can’t see me, pulling at the stiff bulking block of wet hard clothes. I’ve got the basket ready and I’m trying to get each item of clothing out one at a time. Shake and fold, socks and pants last. The machine’s over full, a heavy pair of my husband’s jeans gets stuck.

  It’s only a matter of weeks before I’ll be doing the washing for three, rather than four, but I resent every heavy pair of jeans he puts in the laundry basket. How they take up half a load, how they take days to dry. I’ve thought about saying ‘do your own laundry’ but the time for petty acts of bitterness is over. He’s going and I should be kind.

  He’s started up again. He’s telling me about a flat he’s found. He thinks it’ll do, for the moment. It’s near the children’s school, so they can walk in the mornings. When they’re staying with him. He adds that quickly and I feel a twinge of pity for him. He knows he’s got to be nice to me, if he wants to see the children at all. He’s not going to fight for custody in case he doesn’t get them. The flat, he tells me, has two bedrooms. He can’t afford three.

  So there I am with my hands round the heavy jeans, a pair of my tights knotted round the legs and my husband is describing the layout of his flat, as if I need to know.

  All the clothes are out and I’m holding the basket against my chest, ready to take it outside. The socks are in their pairs on the top. But now my husband is asking me about the furniture. What can he take for his new flat? What about the green armchair? It was his from before. I say I never liked it anyway. What about the red cupboard in the bathroom. Can he take that? I know he knows I’m fond of it. He knows I know he’s not. Take it, I say. He looks disappointed again. He can see the basket’s heavy, that I’m on the verge of dropping it if I don’t get out soon, but still he goes on. Bookshelves, the magazine rack, the kitchen table, a mirror.

  Finally there’s a pause in his monologue and I manage to get outside with the wet clothes and the pegs. The sun is in a perfect position. It’s hitting the far end of the line and will move westwards as the afternoon progresses. I put the clothes that take the longest to dry in the middle and the socks at the ends. I’m thinking about the next load that needs to go in. The whites. Oh the joy of the timer. I can put the whites in now and set the machine to start in three hours. In this hot sun, the first load will be dry by the time the second load’s ready.

  Back in the kitchen, my husband is making himself some sandwiches to take to work. I position myself between the laundry basket and the machine – emptying one and filling up the other. I shove the whites into the drum until the basket is empty. I used to think that freedom would be an empty laundry basket. And because the laundry basket stays empty for a matter of hours at most, that was why I always felt trapped.

  Laundry for four, keeping up with it, dreading the years ahead as the children grow into bigger and bigger clothes, filling up my laundry basket everyday, barely aware of who empties, who washes, who dries, who irons, who folds, who puts away, who lifts the lid on the laundry basket and sees not the dark wicker bottom but piles and piles of clothes.

  Once my husband has moved out, I’m going to treat myself to a tumble dryer. I have to think about the long wet winter ahead. I shake powder into the drawer and remember the warm purple fluff that collected on the filter of the tumble dryer when I was a little girl. Mum made that my job; lifting off the felted fluff, like warm biscuit.

  The machine loaded, it’s time I started on the washing up. My husband shifts out of the way to make space for me at the sink. He decides to iron a shirt. Anything to keep himself in the kitchen where he can talk to me. I clear the left-overs from breakfast into the compost, drain juice down the plug hole, glasses first in the warm bubbles, rinsing them while the sink’s still filling so there are no finger prints left, holding them up to the light to check.

  ‘Do you remember where we got that mirror?’ he asks. I know what he’s up to. If we talk about the past, we can talk about Why Things Went Wrong. This is the risk of antique furniture. Next time, I’m doin
g Ikea.

  ‘That second-hand shop in Brockley. You remember – the one with all the bowls and plates stacked by the door,’ he prompts.

  I grunt a sort of yes. I do remember. We bought all sorts for the house together. My husband had a good eye for how a rotten piece of wood could turn out to be a shiny walnut dining table. With his loving care. He’s good at wood work and other sorts of DIY. I’m going to have to learn. Last week I saw a copy of The Reader’s Digest Complete DIY Manual in the charity shop. Hopefully nobody’s bought it.

  ‘I wonder if it’s still there,’ he says. ‘Merryfield’s Emporium.’ He moves his hand through the air like he’s touching the sign.

  ‘Stupid name,’ I say. ‘Like it was posh. It sold junk.’

  ‘We found quality pieces there.’ My husband is affronted. As if it were his shop. He’s easily hurt these days. ‘Proper antiques.’

  ‘You can have the mirror,’ I say. ‘You found it. You did it up.’

  I refrain myself from telling him I never liked it anyway. Even though that would definitely stop him talking.

  My husband has finished his ironing. He’s putting on his shirt, there and then, in the middle of the kitchen. Half-naked. This is how he’s always got ready for work and I suppose I’ve not noticed, until now.

  I’ve got the cutlery in the bottom of the sink soaking, while I tackle the big stuff, plates and bowls, the least dirty first, the scrambled egg pan last.

  Washing up is at least three times a day. The draining board is as rarely empty as the laundry basket. But I like washing up. Step-by-step washing up glasses, plates, bowls, cutlery, pans. The muted thuds of dishes deep down among the suds. The art of stacking the draining board so nothing falls, so everything dries.

  My husband is dressed now, ready for work.