New Welsh Short Stories

by Author: QuarkXPress

  One day her mother came home from the shops and announced she had found a lucky charm. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tiny little hand made from cheap nickel-plated metal. The thumb was tucked into the palm and so were the two middle fingers, leaving just the index and little finger standing proudly erect.

  ‘Aren’t those meant to represent the Devil’s horns?’ the girl said, not knowing where such knowledge came from.

  Her mother’s eyes widened in horror and she threw the charm from her hand into the empty sink. Later she took it into the garden and was gone for some time. When she came back into the house she looked tired and frightened.

  ‘I tried to smash it,’ she told her daughter. ‘Then I tried to burn it. It’s indestructible; it must have been made by the Devil.’

  Now the girl is eleven years old and goes to big school where as the littlest, lightest one among her friends she always plays the dead girl.

  ‘This is the law of levitation…’

  There is no greater pleasure than the moment when the other girls lift her high into the air. Her body remains absolutely straight; at no place, either at one leg or at her head, does a weaker girl fail to do the magic, and she seems to almost float upward. No one laughs and the dead girl’s eyes remain closed. She believes. All of them believe.

  Her body is still that of a child while all around her the other girls are changing or have already changed into women. After sports they are meant to strip and go into the communal shower, all of them naked together, sixteen or seventeen girls, most of whom have never done such a thing before. None of them are muddy or even sweaty; a half-hour of netball is hardly an exertion, especially after the enforced stillness of sitting at a desk listening to an array of voices droning on about Pythagoras and the tributaries of the Nile and flying buttresses and Beowulf and blanket stitch and the creaming method for making cakes. She and a few other girls run to the showers with their towels wrapped carefully around themselves, then after splashing a little water over their heads and feet they run back to the changing area again.

  The poltergeist at home is getting worse. Last night after she had gone to bed he tore the television set from the stand and jumped on it. She doesn’t know if he was careful to switch it off and take out the plug first. Probably, as he’s always telling them all to do just that.

  She has dark circles under her eyes. She is thin and (though no one knows this) anaemic. She does not do her homework. Every time her parents ask if she has any she says ‘no’ or claims that she did it on the bus.

  She is like a fallen leaf caught up in a strong gust of wind. She has no locomotion. In biology Mr Thomas has taught them that as seeds have no locomotion they must find other means of dispersal, hence the helicopter wings of sycamore seeds.

  In the playground, from behind her, something hard and knobbly is laid upon her head. This may be the start of another interesting game, but when she turns, she sees that the hand belongs to a girl she does not really know, a girl who gives her a smile that is glittering with malice. She has only just understood that the object on the top of her head is a curled fist when its partner arrives to smash it down. It is meant to be like a raw egg breaking on her head, but it is far more painful than that. It hurts as much as if the girl had just straightforwardly punched her. It is instead a complex violence that is nearly impossible to react to. It is delivered in the guise of a joke, but the message is menace.

  She grimaces with pain and her eyes water.

  Don’t cry, whatever you do, don’t cry.

  Weakly she smiles, then grimaces again, this time comically, exaggerating her expression in the hope they will appreciate her humour. This is a tactic that usually works, but not now, not with this girl and her silent, sneering sidekick.

  Instead they point right at her, index fingers dangerously close to poking out an eye and laugh jeeringly, artificially. WHA HA HA!

  Then, as quickly as they had arrived they are gone, and whatever that was is over.

  At around two in the afternoon it grows unnaturally dark, nearly as black as night. The teacher has switched on the overhead lights, and attempts to keep their attention on the lesson, but beyond the big plate-glass window the distant hills and far-off steelworks are the dramatic backdrop to a spectacular performance by the weather. Grey-black clouds fill the sky and the air is charged with electricity. The children can barely keep their eyes from the window; the teacher raps the wooden board-duster sharply on her desk, creating a cloud of chalk dust, but their attention is snagged by a greater primordial force.

  ‘Never mind the storm, we have work to do. Now, look at your books. What is the meaning of…’

  A flash of lightning draws a collective gasp from the children, loud enough to cut the teacher off in mid-sentence. Seconds later, distantly, there is the rumble of thunder.

  ‘Woah!’ one boy cries and abandons his chair to run to the window, and then nearly all of the children are by the window staring outside, their eyes wide with wonder. Lightning zigzags down again and again on the black shrouded hills; magnesium-white veins that burn onto the retina, while the tin-tray thunderclaps grow louder and more insistent.

  Unlike the others, the dead girl stays in her seat. She can see just as well from there as from the scrum of elbows and sharp knees and bony heads that are ducking and dancing and roaring by the window. She is no less moved than the others, no more obedient than they, but she has withdrawn into herself. She is a pair of green eyes looking out at the turning world as the leaf of her body is taken there, or battered by that, or torn by this.

  Seconds pass and finally she no longer wants to remain in her seat; she wants to belong, to be like the other children, to break the rules like them, to press her face against the cold glass by the window and feel the thrum in her cheekbones as the sound waves batter and shake it.

  ‘Children!’ the teacher is saying. ‘Calm down at once!’

  The dead girl pushes back her chair. She wears a beatific smile as she stands and begins to take the few steps which will bring her to the window. She seems to glide forward, focusing her gaze on the distant hills. She does not see the teacher bearing down on her. She hears the tirade of words coming from the teacher’s mouth, but they are as generalised as the thunder.

  ‘I will not have this! I will not tolerate such insubordination in my classroom. Sit down! Sit down at once! YOU!’

  The teacher catches her arm, wrenching it sideways, forcing her to turn. The older woman’s face up close is terrifying, her expression almost insane with fury.

  ‘How dare you!’ she roars, then slaps the dead girl’s left cheek. ‘Stop grinning child!’ she adds, but the girl’s smile has already gone and her face is blank once more.

  She closes her eyes.

  ‘She is dead,’ the girl standing at her head says, and the voices travel around her prone body, echoes of what has been, of what is to come. Then they are lifting her, higher and higher, to waist level, then shoulder level, then above their heads, to the furthest reach of their upstretched arms and fingers. Then higher still and higher again until she is floating far overhead. Then finally, although the other girls shade their eyes and search the sky they can no longer see her. She’s gone.

  RISING-FALLING

  Joe Dunthorne

  Her name was Zhang Lì but, for the ease of English speakers, she called herself Elizabeth. In one profile picture she played the grand piano in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Huangpu river. When we chatted online, she was always modest about her looks.

  – Women do not have body like mine in England?

  – No. If only…

  – In China we are slim but full-chested.

  – You’re beautiful.

  – :-)) So sweet.

  It may be clear to you from just this short exchange that I was not communicating with a real woman. If I had this thought, I decided to ignore it. You may say I was duped but I chose to be naive. In science, there are two types of p
eople. Those who see a beautiful, rich woman offering to fly a sixty-eight-year-old square-headed particle physics professor halfway round the world to make love and assume the woman does not exist. And those – I among them – who see in the same equation an outside probability that could make the dream real.

  When my office was still lit at 3 am, any passing students of mine may have presumed their tutor was busy exploring the limits of the observable universe. This wasn’t far from the truth – Elizabeth and I chatted until dawn. She lived alone, working as a coordinator for a shipping corporation. She was twenty-seven, which was not so young. I told her about my work, that it was my job to make a fool of Einstein. I have met Nobel prizewinners and can confirm they are often quite boring. She was never dull, even in a language not her own. I have rarely felt such delight as when reading the words Elizabeth is typing.

  She paid for my flight and hotel to prove her seriousness, she said, though I needed no reassurance. I turned on my out-of-office. On the plane, I practised conversational Mandarin, sitting in a row by myself. Learning a language is one of the most effective ways to keep the brain healthy. Passengers frowned at me from the toilet queue. I tried to shape the words in my mouth. ‘Wo-ah she-e wan.’ I like. I learned about the four intonations that widen each word’s possible meaning – rising, falling, neutral and falling-rising.

  I landed in Pudong airport, the roof of which was shaped like a wave. This is an important shape for scientists. In astrophysics, a wave is just that – a signal travelling through time – the reaches of the universe saying hello. My name was at arrivals: PROF DAVID MILLEN, written on cardboard. The driver shook my hand and took my bag. He had gorgeous soft skin under his eyes. I practised my Mandarin thank you. Falling then neutral. He said nothing, put my bag in the boot.

  It was an expensive hotel. The lobby was tall, tiled and golden, with dragons on pedestals, opal carvings in glass cases, framed maps on the walls. In one corner there was a grand piano similar to the one Elizabeth owned. The hotel also had a view onto the Huangpu river and I was glad because that meant she was not far away. At reception, they told me the minibar and wifi had all been covered. I was to relax. In my room, I checked my email and found a message: So sorry! Work emergency! I cannot see you till tomorrow. I will make it up, my angel. XXX Perhaps that should have worried me, but I considered it good fortune that I would have chance to sleep and be my best for our first meeting.

  From my bedroom window, I watched the cityscape, the tops of lit skyscrapers steaming like the scalps of rugby players under floodlights. From my office on campus, I had often watched the university team practise. The world was as small or large as the reach of my imagination. As my eyes adjusted to the view, I noticed coal ships heading downriver, a line of them, prow to tail, empty and unlit, sliding towards the coast. It pleased me to think of Elizabeth’s job at the shipping corporation. The world would not stop turning for love between two strangers. Then, at 10 pm sharp, all the skyscrapers’ show lights blinked off.

  I woke late and opened my laptop. No messages. I sent Elizabeth an image of the view from my bedroom window and said: The boats pass on their way to you? I send my love downriver.

  I went to the hotel buffet for lunch. They had everything: broths, dumplings, eel, snake, duck’s tongue. How quaint the row of Western food seemed: roast potato, chicken breasts, sliced cheese. After lunch, I went for a walk and the air was so close I had the urge to loosen my tie though I was not wearing one. Back at the hotel, I had a message. Elizabeth was accompanying her boss on important business, she said, and would not be back till late. She apologised sincerely and attached a picture of her in her underwear.

  I settled in then, to work. I was happy to stay in the hotel. I wanted to save my exploration of this new city for when I could hold the hand of my tour guide. Half my suitcase was weighed down with a draft of a PhD thesis. My student was a small, intense woman with veins visible through the thin skin on her forehead. For the most part she did excellent work, though I felt she was being led astray by the glamorous allure of dark matter.

  At 1 am, I got a call from reception saying Elizabeth was at the desk and would like to come to my room. I was in bed. I was not ready. After a day of buffets, I had grown a little soft. I straightened the duvet, put on a shirt and trousers, turned on a bedside lamp and opened the curtains to the crowd of sleeping skyscrapers.

  When I answered the door, she was backlit by the light of the corridor, her black hair glowing at the edges.

  ‘You’re here,’ I said.

  ‘For you.’

  That was the last English she spoke. I took her into my arms. She was so small or I was so large. We kissed and her breath tasted of cigarettes. We kissed and she took off my glasses. I have never touched skin so soft. ‘Wo-ah she-e wan.’ Afterwards, she lay beside me as the air conditioner hummed us to sleep. I was so happy. In the morning she was gone.

  I’d known, of course, that the woman I’d just spent the night with was not Elizabeth. Even without my glasses, even in low light, they did not share the same body, the same face. They had different teeth.

  I received an email. Elizabeth said it had been the best night of her life and what sadness to disappear. Work had called her away for urgent administrating. She would be out of town for a fortnight. I should catch the next flight home, she said, and – if I would allow it – she would visit me in England. She attached a picture of herself in the changing room of a department store.

  I gave naiveté to myself as a gift. I let myself be happy and booked a flight home. For my last day in Shanghai, I drank local beer in hotels and hostels overlooking the river. In the street below, there were shops for Swiss watches, Italian couture, American sportswear. When I was drunk enough, I walked back to the hotel, admiring the androgynous models on the posters that lined the street. That was when I saw her or what I thought was her, advertising denim on a spinning billboard high above a junction. I sat on a bench across the road to watch her turn her back on me, over and over. Westerners are famous for not being able to tell apart the faces of those from other cultures. I was drunk. I was being primitive, unreconstructed, I thought, for not seeing the obvious differences between this face and Elizabeth’s.

  I became angry. I stood up and started walking at the pace of international business. The pavements were still busy with men and women in suits jousting for taxis until I turned down a side road where the streetlights stopped. I passed a four-by-four, struggling to make a many-pointed turn. I felt my shirt stick to my back. I walked down a badly paved lane lined with squat red-brick homes. In the half-light from an open back door, four men huddled round a fold-out table, playing xiangqi. Washing lines and vines hung between buildings. I felt I was moving back in time. I was moving into my own fantasy. It was so dark I could barely see my feet. The lane was, I realised, a cul-de-sac and at the end of it a small doorway glowed like an open fridge.

  I stepped through, I don’t know why. It was a kitchen. A man was chopping unnameable vegetables. He stopped singing as I came in then said something that felt aggressive but some languages just sound angry and that may have been my prejudice. I took a step closer. He raised the knife. He sounded angry but perhaps that was all interpretation. I had been warned that westerners often mistook the falling tone for irritation. I wanted to be saved from my own assumptions. I took another step.

  The public’s biggest fear about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was that we would open a tear in the universe or create a black hole that would swallow the planet. To avoid hysteria, we were careful to make reassurances. High-energy physics is not as risky as it sounds. In truth, of course, the public’s biggest fears were exactly the same as our most hopeful dreams.

  Back at my hotel, I was still alive, watching a slow moth circle my body as though waiting for a runway. I had a lump on my head from where the chef had pushed me out through the low door. There were six hours until my flight.

  On my laptop, I looked up the advertising campai
gn and found the name of the model I’d seen. I found her microblog, her photos. This took just a couple of minutes. I saw her piano. There she was in underwear. There she was in the changing room of a department store. She had eighty-thousand fans. She lived in Singapore.

  All that I knew was that I knew nothing. The internet had brought me here so I let it guide me home. With one finger I slowly typed the search terms. China. Love. Scam. Before I pressed return, I reminded myself that there was nothing inauthentic about the night I spent with a woman when we could not pronounce each other’s names. Then, at the website’s suggestion, I checked my luggage for lumps.

  Within five minutes, I was sitting on my bed with two bricks of someone else’s cocaine. They had been wrapped in foil then sealed in plastic like lunchbox sandwiches. I weighed up my options and, after some thought, went downstairs and out of the hotel. I felt watched as I entered the minimart. The streets were never not busy. In the shop, I bought a tall beer and a roll of masking tape.

  Back in my room, I stuck the packages to the underside of the desk. Then I drank the beer and, standing at the window, watched the moon rack up a line on the river. I had never been a hedonist myself. Had never felt my mind needed expanding or narrowing, either way.

  At the airport, once I was through security, I sat on a stool at the internet cafe. I emailed Elizabeth to tell her I loved her. I explained I had found her gifts while packing my bag. So kind of her, I said, but I could not accept it. I told her where she would find them.

  On the plane, I watched no films, learned no Mandarin, read no PhDs. I had ten hours to weigh up whether an international drug cartel’s pride is so easily bruised that they would kill a professor to avenge the expense of a week in a mid-range hotel. I imagined Elizabeth’s representatives using an underqualified translator to call their colleagues in the UK from a payphone with an echo on the line and I rigorously worked through all the possible miscommunications.

  At Heathrow, baggage reclaim coughed up hard cases wrapped in clingfilm. My wheelie bag emerged through the rubber strips with what felt to me like showmanship.