Best British Short Stories 2017

by Nicholas Royle

  That crack once landed me an order. They were feeling sorry for me. Once a month every month is measurable, is regularity. A hundred percent. A man had his dick cut open without an anaesthetic. Having to have one’s dick cut open! Oh God. One could only shudder. Without an anaesthetic! That was just like – wow! Why even had it come into my mind! But it is such a fact; its incredible nature has it jump into one’s mind apropos of nothing whatsoever. It was in the papers, stuck away on page 7, 8 or 9. It should have been front page news. I must have been reading a quality. Unless it was a lie. Even a sexual disease, a serious one: none requires that sort of operation, a severing of the skin. Getting one’s penis sliced open without an aesthetic. Dear lord.

  Move on move on.

  Sliced was my word, not the newspaper’s. It just said cut, cut is cut, sliced is sliced and severing is, of course, severing, he intoned gravely.

  One considers punctuality. Why?

  The main question: why did Anne even consider a fool like me? It was beautiful she did but why? I was no looker, I was no nothing.

  Truly, I was not. Yet she had considered me.

  Come the cold light of morning this question continued to arise, to haunt my very being as the author of Gothic yarns would have it.

  I had one daughter. We never communicated. She used to tell me the books she was reading but due to my critical commentaries she stopped doing this, and stopped telling me about movies she enjoyed, plays she appreciated, painters that

  forget it. The main question, or should I say answer, to our lack of communication

  forget it.

  The only reliable method of knowledge is literature. I was a reader of books. Truth comes in books: we cannot trust internetual information, nor other human beings, obviously, given the chap sitting at the next table to me was reading a quality newspaper so-called, given that in hostelries of this nature such newspapers, not to beat about the bush.

  But what could Anne ever see in me? In the final analysis I was a prick. Upon my tombstone let it be writ: Here Lieth a Prick.

  Prick rather than dick; dick is a pleasant term.

  In contemporary jargon I would admit to having ‘fucked up’ my life. One should admit such matters and not conceal them if such issues are thought to be the ones, the main perhaps questions, while Anne herself, she was never a blinding flash, what do they call it, love at first sight, oh this is the girl for me, it was not like that. I was in sore need of female companionship. Males tire me eventually. On guard and have at thou. An acquaintance of mine was fairly camp, well, really a friend rather than acquaintance and not ‘fairly camp’ but wholly so if not blatantly. Male company exhausted him. He told me that. I was pleased he trusted me enough to so confide. I didnt wonder: how come this guy is telling me such stuff? Rather I confessed to a parallel feeling. He nodded, not at all surprised. I appreciated that somebody else felt the same even although I caught him observing me during a lull in the conversation. I respected our friendship but distrusted it. Certainly there were times male company repelled me. Males are uncharitable. Younger males too, perhaps especially. One would expect tolerance. Walking into some factory or warehouse and them all looking and sniggering, what is he selling, fucking fool.

  On occasion I need to sit, only to sit, to sit still, to sit at rest, to just be be be be, just be, and unaware of my breath. Without a woman this was impossible. Another friend was an ex-alcoholic and divorced. He told me the major boon concerning alcoholic friends is how they relax together; they share basic acquaintance, occasionally drink tea together, occasionally not. But they lapse into silence. They do. I found that remarkable. I should have expected a headlong charge into confession, each outshouting the other, listen to me listen to me, the poem of course, who was that now? Coleridge.

  Silence. The leaves doth grow, doth shed, falling.

  I first met Anne on the other side of town. She was in company. I was introduced to her and we got on. We met the following evening. The sexual attraction was mutual. My heart skipped a beat. What is beat? The assignations began and we lay together. She chose the rendevous. This bar.

  Life has the habit of booting one in the testes. Anything might happen. I checked my watch and, instinctively, my belongings. A man had risen from his seat, cigarette already in his mouth, making for the smoke exit. He was a shifty-looking bugger. An older man but older men can be shifty given they are less suspicious, immediately that is. Once one ponders a little one has second thoughts, these bastards are just cautious, seeking the slightest opportunity.

  The truth is that I did not care. If someone wished to steal my goods and chattels they were most welcome because I did not give a fucking shit one way or the other and that is to be blunt about it.

  I had become an afternoon drinker, an imbiber of false hopes, false dreams. Even one’s fantasies are false. What is a false fantasy? I once had a boozy conversation with my daughter. Unfortunately I advised her of my secret desire which, at that time, was death. Nothing false about that.

  Oh fuck.

  I reached for my briefcase to check the report. I had ‘a report’. A REPORT!

  Jesus god.

  I also had an anthology of short stories by writers from Central America. I left it concealed. Instead I would read the walls and read the tables, read the chairs and read the floor. Truths are where you find them.

  I opened the report once again, he sighed wearily.

  The sort of fucking garbage one is fed at head office. Not that I cared, I did not fucking give a fucking rat’s fucking arse, bastards. Even if they did fire me. I did not fucking care. Not one solitary particle for all their lies and dissembling: should one be cast onto the heap of forgotten souls? Never!

  They no longer pretended respect. But I had none for them so there we are. Whatever I had was gone. Such incompetence. They were unable to back a chap! They wanted to sack me but could not. Ever heard anything like that! At my age, all one seeks is competence, efficiency. People who do their work in a consistent manner. They do not fall down. They do not leave one high and dry. They do not forget the most important component of any business. Salute in passing oh colleague. Do not fear. One’s hopes and dreams will not fall on stony ground.

  It does not matter how gifted the scientists are, how advanced the products, if those cannot be sold they will sit there in the warehouse. These are not planks of wood and tons of gravel. Wood and gravel will be of use in a thousand years’ time. For new technologies all it takes is six months, if these cannot be sold in six months let them be consigned to the heap of forgotten ideas.

  On a daily basis fevered spasms struck my brain. A customer said to me: William, your brains are palpitating, look! See the sides of your head: your temples are banging together. Look, look at your whatyacallthems!

  How does one spell ‘forever’?

  The new technologies are of a certain order. Technologies do not change things in the world they change the world.

  I had a proposal for Anne; not wedlock, of slightly greater importance than that. But she, however, was a woman.

  What do I mean by that?

  Nought may be taken for granted.

  I had one ex-wife and one who – well, the reality, I had been a widower when I married her. My ex-wife was my second wife. My first wife died a heck of a long time ago. So so long ago. Mother of my daughter. Yes I thought of her. Parents, mothers, fathers.

  It would be wrong to say that I did not think of her. Yes, I did, after so many years. I no longer felt like her lover because I had been her lover. I carried a photograph of her and had scanned a couple too. My daughter kept most of the photographs. She was quite remarkable really. She had a smile – what would one call it? – beautiful, the most beautiful smile. Girls are so damn open, they are so damn generous! In fact

  move on.

  Women regard wedlock in a favourable light.

 
Vodka and water. A typical drink. Not my favourite. A colleague described it as a ‘working drink’.

  Things that are truths are no longer truths. This type of mental whatdyacallit peregrination. By the time one remembers the context one has forgotten the word. It was age. Ten years ago I would have followed the thought, wrestled from it the sense. My line of work destroys the intellect. I was a university graduate. Now look at me. I glanced round quickly, having spoken aloud. I did. I thought I did anyway, maybe I did not, maybe it was

  oh well, and if I had, what odds, what odds.

  The reader of the quality newspaper appeared to be concentrating unduly. He must have heard me speak.

  The reference was freedom. I saw it as a possibility, as substance. When I was a student, many years ago, I lived my life taking freedom for granted, intellectual freedom. Enmeshed in that assumption is the concept ‘progress’. Students assume progress as a natural state. A false assumption. Nor, if it does exist, need it be chronological or should I say linear, geometrical rather than algebraic, in keeping with the digital thingwi, revolution.

  Vodka and water.

  Once a widower always a widower. If one’s wife was one’s first, one’s first love. Not just a relationship, a marriage, complete with child, finished. One wee girl. It was nice having a wee girl.

  It was a pleasant drink aside from anything. In the past I used cola which had become too sweet so then lemon, bitter lemon, stressing the bitter. A vodka and lemon please, bitter. Vodka and orange, bitter orange. Gin and bitter orange. Gin and lemon of course. But not gin and water. Why! And of course Spanish brandy and water, I had a fondness for Spanish brandy, if only to annoy the purists.

  Drinks that do not stain the breath; which does not refer to the Spanish although it too renders one too eh well now how to say it, pissed.

  Life is strange. Context is all. Without context where would we be? Where would the world be? This question is the most real. One might consider much. But, howsomever. Then when the context is human, a personned-entity, another person, i.e. not oneself. When another intellectual being, repository of humanned data, has become the context. Love is indicated.

  How does one define love? Anne is not at all in the image of my first wife and yet and yet, needless to state, I, well, perhaps, ah, perhaps, indeed, may I love her, do I love her? do I do I – a song by Blossom Dearie, oh Anne do I love you, do I do I.

  essence of woman

  Language turns a man inside out. The world through Anne-tinted spectacles; today William is wearing his Anne-tints.

  Having said all of that, ignoring reports and briefcases, if not for university I would not have read and appreciated Monsieur Sartre. I did appreciate Sartre. People condemn universities. Not me.

  I was so looking forward to seeing her. I had failed to appreciate how much. If she was not going to turn up, and let us face it

  Why was she not here? She was not here. She was not coming. Ha ha.

  I was not a man for the one-liner. I enjoyed proper jokes. More jape than joke, and japer than joker. I performed japes. Allez oop. Just sign there madam.

  Yet when it came to it, thinking about how much time I gave to her, to thoughts of her. Not all that much. I thought about everything else. But she was never faraway, lurked within, inside of the brain old gel, she was at the root, her presence determining negative space. Mine was the most healthy negative space one could discover: so much so it was the opposite of negativity where negativity is an unpositive element. Anne was the direct opposite, and inside my head she was like that. My head had been full of vile bitterness, a composition of bitterness and anger. And rage, irritation and frustration and bloody hurt sensitivity, hurt sensitivity, too much even to think about; such that it drove a man to distraction. Soon she would enter the bar. She would place her hand upon my brow. In a former life she was a healer. Upon the brows of the ill and dying, and they did heal. She has retained this ability through various transmigratory peregrinations. Peregrinations, a damn fine word. I would to construct a monument to my love, this woman of the balm. Vodka and water. I gestured with the glass as in a quiet salute to the dearly departed, the yet-to-arrive.

  A bar worker was gazing across. I nodded to him but my nod was not acknowledged.

  I was an interloper.

  People’s lives are sacred.

  Through the side window the street lights blinked. It was early December yet still warm. I liked the north of England and Lancashire in particular. Jokes abounded but I found it okay. It was not dull and it was not dreary. Ever stepped down from Wigan Central and not enjoyed a large brandy in the bar of the Station Hotel? Or am I thinking of Rochdale? The old Station Bar had gone of course, like community fellowship, the days of which too had gone, yea. One crosses the road to the licensed grocer as once we termed the mini-market, a half bottle and a couple of cans for the rest of the trip home, perchance one avoids the more obvious error, madly dashing back up the stairs into the station and stumbling onto the slow train to Fleetwood, or Blackpool or where was I when the conductor came calling? Never mind sir.

  It was two and a half hours since the text. Anne was most overdue, let us say – albeit her life, her life was complicated.

  Other than Anne and my first wife I have had five women as serious presences in my own life, excluding my paternal grandmother with whom I had an early bond. My ex second wife, my present partner, my elderly mother, my daughter and Joan Richmond with whom I had a lengthy affair some years ago. It struck me that these six women, in fact seven – eight including my grandmother – shared characteristics yet nevertheless were so different.

  In fact it was eight women. Dear god!

  This was predictable.

  Eight women.

  My daughter did not count being of myself. I was attracted to aspects of myself. Yet at the same time we two were so different! How could we be so different and at the same time be aspects of the one?

  Shared characteristics and traits. Such a cliche to say that I loved most all but I did, nevertheless, I did. I do not hesitate to use the word, ‘love’, for what is love? The indefinable, he said with a cheery grin. But Joan Richmond? I could not have loved Joan. Joan was just

  I set down the new vodka and water, what was left of it, very little.

  My ex second wife was generous.

  My God almighty sometimes it took her ages, bloody ages, we are talking ages. If somebody said to me are you coming and I said yes I would be there in two minutes, but that did not work with one’s spouse. Nor did it work with Anne. If she said two minutes it was two damn days by the time she took care of everything so I had to advance her notice beyond reasonable limits. But of course. What was wrong with that? People cannot be expected to drop everything. Especially women; which is no sexist joke. I do not like sexist jokes. Women require greater segments of space and time.

  Hells bells.

  The shifty-looking smoker had returned to his seat and the door opening again. Whoopee. I was onto my feet and to her, grinning like a madman, taking her by the elbow. Anne Anne Anne. Sorry I’m late, she said.

  Oh God, dont worry dont worry. I was laughing now and trying to put the reins on it. I showed her to where I was sitting, assuming she would sit on the chair next to me but she pulled back another, to sit facing me. I waited for her to talk. It was important to do so. She looked so great. She did! She glanced about the room. Same old place, I said.

  She grinned.

  Oh jees. You are looking wonderful my dear, my god you are, you are, you truly are.

  Anne whispered but too low and I couldnt hear. I asked her to please whisper it louder, more loudly.

  I couldnt get away, she said quietly, self-consciously. She gazed to the bar and added, You look tired.

  I am. I’m going nuts into the bargain: g & t?

  Thanks.

  Imagine forgetting the damn drink!<
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  I ordered another vodka and water for myself, a packet of crisps and a packet of nuts. I was looking forward to the night, looking forward to a meal. Where would we go? I hoped she would opt for Indian food. She preferred Chinese or Italian. I preferred Mexican or Indian. Grub needed bite. One for the notebook that. I smiled and shook my head. Grub needs bite, I said to the bar worker who didnt reply but smiled vaguely which is always fine by me; if I get somebody to smile then half the battle be o’er, I shall get them to buy, for ’tis my job, the modus operandi.

  Anne was signalling to me; munch munch. She was wanting a packet of crisps!

  Allez oop. I abracadabrad at the bar where lay the bag of crisps side by side with the bag of nuts. The bar worker smiled honestly while handing me my change. Thank you most kindly, I said.

  Anne ate her crisps in a mechanical way. But it was interesting. I was chomping a nut. Nuts for me and crisps for her. Aha! Hey! I said, a wee test.

  She chuckled, and it stopped me in my tracks. I had been about to say something but her chuckle, her chuckle. You’re laughing at me, I said.

  Wee test…! She shook her head, smiling.

  My Scotteesh voice senorita eet knock you for seex? Seriously, I said and I snatched the packet of crisps out her hand. Without looking at the packet, what flavour’s the crisps?

  What do you mean?

  Nothing, I’m just asking.

  Could you repeat it?

  What flavour’s the crisps?

  Aah . . . Anne frowned for a moment, then studied me. I know it’s a trick.

  It’s not, I said.

  Mm. She frowned again. Is flavours a noun or a verb?

  Pardon…

  Is flavours a noun or a verb? she asked.