CRYSTAL CLEAR
Aidan J. Reid
CRYSTAL CLEAR
Aidan J. Reid
First Kindle Edition © 2017 Aidan J. Reid
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Cover design: www.goonwrite.com
Contents
Barrymore
Finders Keepers
Front Page News
Trick of Light
Call to Attention
The First Vision
Quids In
Bubbly
Beagle
Leading the Chase
Stone Unturned
Celebrity
Return to Sender
Author’s Note | Bonus
Barrymore
“Quick! He’s doing it again!”
Paul Byrd followed the shrill cry coming from the living room. Entering, he followed the direction of her pointed finger. A popular TV presenter of the nineties was on screen, smiling manically and winding up the audience with overzealous movements.
His mother looked up expectantly, concern etched on her face. For a moment, she looked like a child, sitting atop a high chair. She was dressed simply. Beige trousers, on the end of which two sturdy flat shoes planted the floor. A pink, light jumper framed her thin body which, when she leaned over to focus on the TV, made it look like a scoop had been taken out of a strawberry ice-cream. Her short hair was cotton ball white. Thick rimmed glasses framed half of her face. Her eyes bulged behind them, flicking from the screen back to her son.
“Look! There again,” she pointed. “Why does he keep waving at me?”
Paul reached for the remote and flicked the channel.
“Is that better?”
“Did you change it?”
“Aye. Your shows are coming on shortly.”
“What?”
“I said your shows- “
“Joe? I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in, God knows. One of Roy’s lads. When is he coming?”
“He’s not coming.”
“What?”
Paul set the control down on her arm rest, adjusting the volume to a level just loud enough for her to hear, but low enough to prevent the tenants above from thumping the floor. Her eyes narrowed tight, staring at the screen six feet away.
The Byrds lived in the nosebleed section of their council estate home – fifteen floors high in the air. When the elevator wasn’t working, like today for example, Paul would usually find little reason to leave the comfort of his home. They had hoarded enough tinned food and powdered custard over the years to see through emergencies. It was wedged tight on dusty shelves in the small spare room alongside junk that hadn’t seen the light of day for two decades. Their very own time portal fifty metres in the sky. Today, with his mother in one of her moods, he needed to get out.
“I’m going to the shops. You need anything?”
The shrivelled raisin looked up at him from her sunken seat, studied his face as if deciding whether he was friend or foe.
“We need milk. That’s going tay go off tomorrow. A loaf too. There’s not enough to make sandwiches tonight. Sure, you don’t like the heels.”
Paul smiled. He had almost forgotten about the bread. His mother had made toasted sandwiches for him and his father for as long as he could remember. Their little grill must have melted thousands of slabs of cheese over the years.
“You can be as sharp as you want to be sometimes Ma.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Paul walked the length of the room to look outside the window – which is to say, he took three strides. Pleased that it was a cloudless sky, he decided not to take his anorak, but threw on an extra layer in any case. He heard the TV stations flick behind him, before finally settling on the sound of a cheering audience. Turning around, he faced the room and let out a heavy sigh. Beyond the two chairs facing the telly, a grandfather clock stood sentinel in the corner, older than Paul’s first memory. It still worked perfectly. The hanging chime faithfully delivering its bell on the hour. A little foldaway table was parked in the corner. On it was an adult colouring book – one that came free in one of the weekly glossy magazines his mother insisted he buy for her. Sunday afternoons were his favourite part of the week.
The TV would be off. She would be staring down through her magnifying glass trying to read the latest celeb tattle; taking a deeper interest in the fictitious Aussie soap characters she watched than in her own son’s life. He would be busy drawing or colouring in the edges of the book. In those briefest of moments, where only the sound of the clock suggested that time was passing, he found a place of peace.
“He’s looking at me again!”
Paul shook his head, patted his jean leg to make sure he had the key and headed for the door.
“Of all the people you choose to come out of the TV and talk to you it’s Michael bloody Barrymore. God, if I was your age Ma, I’d be watching the Playboy channel.”
“What?”
“I said, I’ll see you later!”
Finders Keepers
Paul took the stairwell in instalments. Ten minutes after leaving his mother in the flat with the gameshow host, he had left the council estate, breathing in the sea air around him. He decided against going for groceries straight away, noticing how unusually bright and clear the sky was, and opted for a walk along the beachfront pier instead.
It was still early afternoon on the Thursday. A fine spring day which the local businesses no doubt hoped would herald a sunny summer, but seasons were hard to predict in the coastal town of Bellington. Families, a short commute from the beach, would wake up on a beautiful summer morning, organise their kids playthings and bundle everything in the car, only to be met with a sheet of clouds the moment they had found a parking spot.
It wasn’t the most beautiful of beaches but the residents were determined to make the most of it when it was on the doorstep. Blow-ins from other towns would come with beach towels and quickly find them not fit for purpose on the stony beach. Others, feeling a little better prepared, would bring inflatable blow up seats. However sharp stones would pop their chairs, much to the delight of the solitary ice cream vendor – a man whose face hadn’t changed since Paul’s youth.
The tide had gone out, and Paul decided to step down from the pier and walk along the patchy sand. Despite the relatively good weather, there wasn’t a soul around. It was a work day after all, he reasoned. High above came the sound of seagulls, their squawking calls as they careened across the sky. He looked up, and watched them glide across the canvas of blue, carried in the light breeze. For a moment, he wondered if they were higher than his flat. The thought didn’t last long, as he stumbled forward and fell on his knees. The gulls seemed to delight in his fall, and Paul was thankful that his knees had met only sand.
Standing, he brushed it off and looked to the place where his foot had tripped. A sharp angle protruded from the sand.
“No respect for our beaches,” Paul started, and reached down to what he thought was a bottle fragment. It didn’t budge under his careful pull.
Bending down on one knee, he slowly traced a finger over the edge and corner. It was smooth and didn’t seem to be cut like any bottle. Again, he pinched it between his forefinger and thumb and tried to nudge it out
of the packed sand, but it refused to give.
“Flip sake.”
Pulling out the key to his apartment, he began scoring lines in the sand up to the object. Then he dug his fingers down into the cracks and eventually managed to give some wiggle room to the object. Another yank and Paul prised the beachfront Excalibur out and stood. Rubbing it on his jumper, he finally held it up to the sky and was struck by its beauty. It was a solid glass prism. The outer edges had been rounded and polished, smooth under his touch. It wasn’t light. It felt like a paperweight and was a good fit in his palm.
He tapped it with a fingernail and could tell it was dense. Not likely to break. He tossed it up in the air and caught it in his open palm, before sliding it into his back pocket. When it was suspended in mid-air, Paul thought he saw a rainbow twinkle from the object just as it caught the sun’s rays. There was something beautiful about it. He was certain his mother would agree.
Front Page News
The afternoon was passing slowly for newsagent Lily Nugent. It always did until the children finished school. She had spent the last hour sorting out the sweetie collection that took pride of place on a shelf behind her till. Ten clear glass tubs stood behind the stooped woman, as if their very weight over the decades had taken a toll on her shoulders. Nugent’s was her great grandfather’s enterprise, the man immortalised in a side profile portrait that hung beside the belled entrance. The shop had been passed down through the generations, changing hands, but the one everlasting presence during the decades had been the sweet rack.
Colourful, plump wine gums. Chewy midget gems that always seemed determined to clump together – safety in numbers. Fat gob stoppers with thick coatings that changed colour and taste the more you sucked. Flying saucers that melted on the tongue to reveal a sharp sherbet, fizzy centre. Chocolate Brazil nuts that fractured and smeared the inside of the glass walls. Brandy balls with their fiery heat, long since fallen out of favour with the current generation and tropical fruit salads and ‘Black Jacks’ that coloured the tongue and teeth.
She was preparing a combination of the sweets for a ‘Lucky Dip’ mix – using some of the older stock at the bottom of the tubs when the little bell above the door tinkled.
“Ms. Nugent.” She looked up, narrowing her gaze on the man who stopped short at the newspaper stand.
“Paul, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me…”
“Ms. Nugent,” he jumped in to steal the words from her. “I know. One of these days.”
Paul did a quick scan of the magazines on the top rack, most of which were obscured or had strategically placed stickers and plastic wrap across the images. For a moment, he thought about reaching up and picking a loose one off the shelf, but he could see from the corner of his eye that the little woman was leaning over her counter, a hawk’s eye on him. Instead, he squatted down, knees giving an audible crack and almost fell backward, holding out a palm to steady himself.
“How’s Bridie?” came the shopkeepers voice from the other side of the room.
Paul felt the object in his back-pocket press, and knelt on one knee to ease the pressure as well as the pain in his joints. He looked at the date on a stack of newspapers before lifting a top copy of the Daily Echo and struggling onto his feet.
“You want to start looking after yourself a bit more,” she said. “Not normal for a man your age to be popping like bubble wrap.”
“What? I’m fine. And Ma is good too,” he said, grabbing a half pan of loaf from the rack. He moved to the counter and fished into his pocket searching the sea of coins for a couple of fat ones.
“Weren’t that long ago you was in here, bouncing full of energy. I hear it in your voice, and your bones you’re in pain. You wouldn’t make much of a burglar. Bridie not feeding you well?”
“Yeah, she is,” Paul replied. He suddenly felt like a little boy again. She had caught him stealing, some forty years earlier - an incident that he was certain she still remembered.
“Just back from a walk along the pier,” he said and pulled out a few coins. “Lovely day for it.”
“For now,” she said and took the money, dropping it into the till. “Maybe a storm coming.”
“What do you mean?”
The woman tapped a thin finger on the newspaper between them. Paul read the headline – ‘Bellington Excavation Extended’.
“A team of scientists and some arkologists from the city are sposed to be on their way. Liz Traynor found some old ruins when they was extending her gazebo. Told the council and they sent a man out. Said the area had to be preserved so they could do their own tests.”
“What did they find?”
“Well, Bill Jennings was in the other day.” Paul’s confused expression prompted her to add detail. “The new neighbour. Lovely fella. Getting married next month to Donna. You know she’s pregnant with her third as well. Only twenty-three and all!”
“Ms. Nugent…”
“Lily. How many times?”
“Go on. What did they find?”
“Well,” she said, lowering her voice and looking towards the door, over the shoulder of Paul, before continuing. “A bowl.”
“A what?”
“A bowl.”
“What, like a cereal bowl?”
She nodded. A moment of silence passed between them, staring at one another.
“What’s so important about a bowl that a bunch of scientists would be coming down?”
The thin smile on the woman’s face suggested that he had asked the right question, key to unlocking the conversation which dragged longer than Paul would have liked.
“They think the bowl was from the last century and that there might be a lot more things like it hidden round town.”
“Why here?”
The little woman shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe, cause we’re near the sea. All sorts of stuff could have washed up over the years.”
Paul could feel the object press into his butt cheek. He picked up the paper and looked at the article. A smaller subheading said, ‘Digs to commence on Broadmoor shore this weekend’.
“You OK?” He looked up and saw the scrutinising face of shopkeeper. Her sharp eye studied his face.
“Yeah, fine. I’ll take a bag as well actually Ms…Lily. Sorry.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, maybe chuck me a bag of sweets too.”
The woman smiled and turned around, pulling down one of the big tubs and planting it on the counter. She screwed off the lid and plunged a scoop into its mouth. A sea of sweets parted, until she managed to reach the sunken depths of the bottom. A great big clump broke off – something that looked like it should be in a science lab on display as a molecular atom. She dropped the weight onto a measuring scale before using her nimble hands to break the structural walls, freeing up individual sweets and shovelling them into a small paper bag. She handed it to Paul along with a plastic bag.
“There you go. A pound of brandy balls. Our bestseller and your ma’s favourite.”
Trick of Light
In his youth, Paul could run up and down the flight of stairs of their council flat before an ad break ended. Now, his journey needed ad breaks. The vertical ascent was never enjoyable, and always sweaty. The brandy balls were of little sustenance, as he reached the mid-point. Pausing, he reversed into the corner where he could prop himself on the thick banister, and concluded the sweets tasted like grimy pennies. He had half a thought about opening the milk. It would certainly help reduce the load, but the noise of teenagers shouting from far below made him get going again. When he finally reached the entrance hall that led to their flat, he allowed himself the opportunity to catch a breath.
His mother looked sideways from her TV set when hearing the bolt of the front door turn.
“I bet you forgot the milk,” she shouted out.
“No. Got it,” Paul replied, “Tea?”
He entered the kitchen, opened a cupboard and tucked the bread inside, before moving to th
e small fridge. The little interior light fizzled when he opened it before blinking out completely.
“Stupid thing.”
“What?”
“Light’s gone in the fridge.”
“Turn on the kitchen light.”
“I know Ma. I mean the light in the fridge. I can still see.”
“It’ll soon be time for bed anyway.”
“Ma. It’s only twenty to five.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ma,” Paul said, replacing the old carton of milk with the fresh one. “Sure, your soaps aren’t even on yet.” A pause. “They’re on earlier at the weekend. At one. Weekdays they’re on at six.”
Without looking Paul knew she’d be squinting at the clock face on her wrist.
“Today’s only Thursday.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
He left the kettle to boil and went across to the living area, kicking off his boots. His breath and heart rate were beginning to normalise again and before he could get too comfortable he emptied the contents of his pockets on the counter. The foreign bulge in his back pocket was still there. He took out the object, sat in his comfortable chair and fingered its smooth edges. He was about to open his mouth and say something to his mother, but decided against it. She was staring absent minded at the television set, unaware that he was watching her. The kettle began to squeal for attention.
“Tea’s ready,” his mother said. “Hurry before it gets cold. I don’t like cold tea.”
Paul got off his seat and propped the triangular prism up on the window ledge, before going in to prepare two cups.
*
“Is it six yet?”
The old woman was quite content after a dinner feed. She had dozed through the gameshows but now, like clockwork had woken at the prescribed time.
Paul was half-heartedly colouring the edges of a sketch from his colouring pad. His feet were up, with the book on his lap. It was a mosaic of the face of Jesus which failed to inspire him. It was always better when he didn’t know what he was drawing until the colours were added. He leaned over on one side, and then the other, checking the floor.
Crystal Clear Page 1
