The Tomb and Other Stories

by Stanley Salmons

  A Good Pull

  “Will I be getting something for you, Dan?” Brendan asked, as I approached the table. I saw he already had a full glass in front of him.

  “No, don’t you get up,” I replied, although in truth he had not moved a muscle. “I’ll be right back.”

  The five of us are in the habit of meeting up in Pat Moran’s after a day out on the river or lough. None of us ghillie full-time, mind, but it keeps us pretty busy from about the middle of May. I returned with my pint a few minutes later.

  “Conditions were not bad at all today, I would say, Brendan.” I took a seat across the table from him.

  “They were not. Seemed like we could rise a fish any time, but we saw not a thing. The gentleman was very upset. He wanted to catch a salmon very badly, so he did.”

  “We all of us want that, Brendan.”

  “Ah, but this one especially. It seems he had come here on one of these here budget airlines. The lady who is checkin’ him in says he is gone over with his baggage. He has ten kilos too much, she says, and she will have to chairge him for it. Well, it is his fishin’ gear that weighs so heavy, and he cannot leave that behind, now, can he? So he points to a very lairge gentleman who has just checked in ahead of him, and he says to her, ‘Now, I weigh eleven stone,’ he says, ‘and if I was the size of that gentleman over there your plane would be carrying a good seventy kilos more, so be a good girl and let me have my ten kilos.’ Well it seems this makes her very cross indeed. ‘If you’re after discriminatin’ against overweight people then I can take you off this flight right now,’ she says.”

  “He had a point, though, I’m thinkin’,” I said.

  “Ay, but he was a bit unlucky with the lady. As she gets up and reaches for his baggage he sees she has an airse on her like this.” Even allowing for some exaggeration, Brendan’s hands are an impressive distance apart. “In the end she puts him on the flight, but only after he’s paid for every ounce of excess baggage. He is still very sore about it. A decent fish would give him a good deal of consolation, to my way of thinkin’. Ah, there’s Declan.”

  I turned and saw Declan Muldoon towering over everyone else at the bar. He came over looking like he’d lost something, but then Declan always looks that way.

  “Did y’see anything movin’ there this evening, Declan?” I asked him. “My man went in early.”

  He shook his great head. “Seems like they were not at all interested today. Should be fresh fish in the river, though. Plenty of water. Vince and Jack may have done better, now.”

  Vince is the youngest of our little group. He is as small and lively as Declan is big and ponderous, and he is always playing the clown. So when Vince came in with Jack, it was nothing unusual to see him grinning all over his face. They had a surprise for us, all the same.

  Jack went straight to the bar to get the drinks, and Vince could hardly wait for him to get back.

  “Jack’s man caught a big one,” he spluttered. He sat down but he could barely keep still.

  We all looked enquiringly at Jack as he came up. He took his time, sitting down, loosening his jacket, taking a pull at his Murphy’s. Then he placed his big red hands on the table.

  “I was on the river with Dr. Beddowes,” he said.

  “Would that be the elderly gentleman I saw you with at the hotel?” asked Declan, and Vince passed his hand across his eyes. Declan always wants to get things straight in his own mind. Often as not he is so taken up with doing it that he will quite miss the humour of a situation.

  “That’s right, Declan.”

  “He has not much hair on the top of his head, and it is clipped very short at the sides.”

  “That’s the man. Anyway, there is a nice breeze comin’ down the river, and Dr. Beddowes has fished down to the Junction Pool. He is throwin’ longish casts to get to the other side of the tail, and I am fishin’ a little ways behind. Then I get into a fish. I shout to him so I can pass the rod, but when I look round he is nowhere to be seen. Then I spot him runnin’ up the hill. Now I’d say that is very unusual.”

  We all nodded our agreement. I have yet to meet the client who is slow to take ahold of a rod with a salmon on the end of it.

  “Then I see what has happened. He has caught a cow on the backcast. The cow has felt the prick and she is hoofing it up the hill and Dr. Beddowes hot airfter her.”

  “Now what breed of cow would that be, I’m wondering?” said Declan.

  Vince pulled his hat down over his eyes and ears and slapped his thighs alternately.

  “I’ve no idea, Declan. Big brown-and-white job, with a pink tag in the ear.”

  “Ah, it would be one of James McLoughlin’s. He keeps Ayrshires, I do believe.”

  Jack continued. “For a man of seventy-six, Dr. Beddowes is moving very sprightly, and I yell some encouragement. The cow is gainin’ on him, all the same. It has taken out the line and about a hundred and fifty yairds of backing.”

  “That’s a good run,” offered Brendan.

  “It is, right enough. Well, with one eye I am tryin’ to watch Dr. Beddowes runnin’ up the hill, and with the other I am tryin’ haird to play my fish. It is nice and fresh, and it has already jumped clean out of the water three times. Right now it is headin’ for the weeds. I bring it midstream and risk another look over my shoulder. The good doctor must be nearly down to the reel by now, but for some reason the animal has stopped. I watch him walkin’ towards her, reelin’ in. She has taken a size 12 treble in the rump and it is well in.”

  “Ah, you see?” says Brendan. “Foul-hooked. That’s why he could not play her properly.”

  The others grinned.

  “Would that be a shrimp fly, then?” asked Declan.

  “Ay, it was, Declan. A Wilkinson’s Shrimp. I do find ’tis an excellent fly for brown-and-white cows.”

  By now Vince had placed his head on the table, and all we could see were his shoulders heaving up and down.

  “Anyhow, he plucks out the fly and comes down the hill to me. Now I would have had this fish in the net long ago, but it is not good form for a ghillie to land a salmon under the nose of a client.”

  “Oh ay,” I said.

  “So by now it is all played out and it is lying on its side out in the current. Dr. Beddowes comes up, breathin’ a little haird, takes one look at the fish, and says: ‘That fish is dead.’ ‘Dead tired, it is, sir, but dead it is not,’ I say, handin’ him the rod. ‘No, it’s dead, for sure’ he says, and drops the tip of the rod. Well, before I can blink an eye the fish has disappeared and the line has gone slack altogether.”

  “Aah,” we said together.

  “So Dr. Beddowes looks at me and says: ‘It wasn’t dead, was it?’ ‘No,’ I say, ‘It wasn’t dead.’ ‘You know, Jack,’ he says, ‘this puts me in mind of something happened to me more than forty years ago. I hadn’t been qualified long, and I was doing my house jobs. There was a chap on my ward who was very ill. As I was talking with the nurse about him he stopped breathing. I felt for his pulse and there was nothing there. I worked hard to resuscitate him, while the nurse called the emergency team, but it was no use. After several minutes I said, ‘I’m afraid he’s gone, nurse.’ Then just as she was pulling the sheet over his face the man blinked and very nearly sat up. Well, I can tell you, the nurse was pretty shocked, but not as shocked as I was. Then the emergency team arrived, and they had some very choice things to say to me. Word got around, of course, and I had to put up with a lot of ribbing about how people were dying to meet me – that sort of thing.”

  “‘Well then, doc,’ I say to him. Here y’are, forty years later, and you should be older and wiser by now, and yet ye’ve made the same mistake all over again.’”

  “You said that to him?” I asked.

  “I did, but I have known the man a good long time. Besides I was bitter about losin’ that fish. ‘You’re right to admonish me, Jack,’ he says, and with that he lifts the rod and the line goes tight as a bowstring.”

&nb
sp; “The fish is still on!” exclaimed Brendan.

  “It is.”

  Declan was still frowning. “Now which rod would that be you were usin’, Jack?” he asked.

  At this, Vince lifted the collar of his coat and twisted his hat the wrong way round. It is a trick that makes him look like he is sitting there with his head on backwards. I’ve seen it often enough, but it always makes me laugh. I tried to keep a straight face, for Declan’s sake.

  “My old Bruce and Walker, nine-foot-six for an eight, Declan. And the fish is still on the end of it. It has swum towards him and it has been sittin’ just below the bank. A few minutes later I have it in the net. And lovely and fresh it is, too, ten pounds at a guess. I am about ready to give it a good knock when the doctor stops me. ‘Jack,’ he says. ‘Do you think this fish will live if we return it to the river?’ ‘He seems to have recovered well,’ I say, ‘so if he swims out of our hands I think he will.’ ‘Then let us return him.’ Dr Beddowes says, ‘I don’t deserve to take him.’ I give a sigh. ‘As you wish,’ I say. I take the hook out, and we wet our hands and lower the fish into the water. It rests there for a moment, and then with one big wag of its tail it disappears into the river, and the doctor declares himself well pleased to see it go. So airfter all that, there is nothin’ at all to put on display back in the hotel.”

  Brendan shook his head.

  “Well, Jack,” I said. “Ye did not have a blank day, now. A ten-pound spring salmon and a thousand-pound brown-and-white cow, both caught and released.”

  “Ah, you cannot count the cow,” he said, “For he did not have it in the net.”

  “It has to count as a good pull, though.”

  “Ah, it was that. A very good pull!”

  “Speakin’ of which…” said Brendan, holding up his empty glass…

  {First published in the literary fishing magazine Waterlog Autumn 2005. The story is loosely based on a true incident. The part about the fish is, however, pure fiction.]

  An Interesting Case

  “Rajiv, so good of you to come over.”

  Chris Howell extended a hand to his visitor, Rajiv Gupta, lending emphasis to the warmth of his greeting by gripping the visitor’s slender upper arm with his other hand. The two consultants turned and walked down the hospital corridor.

  “Sorry I’m late, Chris. Held up by a patient at the last moment. Bipolar affective disorder, went manic just as I was leaving. He was telling the nurse he’d just bought Google. I had to adjust his medication.”

  “No problem.” He held open a door. The chap I wanted you to have a look at is through here.”

  They went into a large lounge. There were about twenty elderly patients here, the women in flowered dresses, the men in baggy trousers and wool cardigans, most of them watching television. On the other side of the lounge a short corridor led to a sunny day room. There was just one patient here, seated in a wheelchair, the sun creating a halo of an untidy mop of brown hair. Gupta came round to the front of the patient to take a good look at him.

  The man appeared to be in his thirties. He was gaunt but clean shaven. His checked shirt was open at the neck and the angularity of his legs was accentuated by close-fitting jeans. A pair of thick, padded trainers sat firmly on the footrests of the wheelchair. His face was expressionless, the grey eyes behind the tortoiseshell spectacles gazing vacantly ahead.

  Gupta picked up a hand as if weighing it, and replaced it on the arm of the wheelchair.

  “He seems to be in good condition physically,” he remarked.

  “Oh yes, he’s really well looked after here.” Howell turned to the patient and spoke a little more loudly. “How about a change of scene, Alex? The garden?”

  “The school.”

  Gupta was taken aback. In his mind he had been formulating a preliminary diagnosis of catatonia, yet the response had been unhesitating. On the other hand it had been delivered without a flicker of actual communication; the patient continued to stare into space as if it had not been his own thin voice that had penetrated the quiet of the day room. Chris Howell seemed unperturbed. He took the handles of the wheelchair and began to push.

  They went through some doors and down a ramp into the garden. Then they followed the path to a bench by a rose garden and Howell turned the wheelchair to line it up with the bench. Gupta looked at the carefully tended garden, contrasting it to the small, litter-strewn patch of parched grass and withered shrubs at his own sprawling inner-city hospital. How could they afford the upkeep?

  The late sun streamed across the lawns, striping the path with the shadows of a row of standard roses.

  “He followed her into the old school,” the patient announced suddenly. “Down the corridor with its green tiled walls, its floor striped with sunlight from the row of mullioned windows.”

  Gupta stood stock still, his head turned rigidly towards the voice. He blinked several times. Howell took him by the arm and guided him a short distance away.

  “Best to leave him alone when he’s like this,” he said.

  Behind him the voice continued, thin and clear:

  “She whirled on him.

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘Please, Penny, I wanted to talk it over…’

  ‘There’s nothing more to say. Don’t you understand, Mark? It’s over. Finished.’

  He bit his lip. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? Shepherd. He’s forcing you to do this.’

  ‘Please, Mark, don’t make this any harder than it is.’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said. ‘I swear I will.’

  ‘Mark, don’t let him ruin your life the way he’s ruined mine.’

  ‘I can’t help it, Penny, I love you, I want to protect you.’

  ‘Mark, I…’

  She fell into his arms. He felt her lips, warm and yielding under his. Her slim fingers curled behind his neck. Abruptly she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

  ‘Mark, you must go. He’ll be here at any moment. If he sees me with you – ’”

  “Very interesting case,” Gupta said. “I have not seen anything quite like it before. Delusional state, of course. But remarkably coherent – like a waking dream.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” replied his colleague.

  “What’s the history?”

  “His name’s Alexander Thane. No family that we know of. He was a lecturer. Took up creative writing as a sideline. Had a major success with his debut novel. Wrote another, and that was a bestseller too, so he gave up the day job to concentrate on writing. Worked hard at it: another four novels in the next two years. From what we can make out, the stories were still going around in his mind when he went to bed. He started to dream about them. After a while the dreams merged with reality. That was how he was when we admitted him eighteen months ago. His condition hasn’t changed since.”

  They glanced in the direction of Alexander Thane, who was saying:

  “‘That couldn’t be more perfect! Now listen carefully, Penny. This is what we’re going to do.’”

  He stopped and looked vacantly up into the sky.

  “I think he’s finished for the moment,” Howell said.

  They approached the wheelchair, just in time for Gupta to hear the patient say “Four thousand words, that’s enough for today” and close his eyes.

  Howell said, “You won’t get anything more out of him now.” He approached the wheelchair and detached a small black box from the arm rest. He looked round at his colleague. “Dictaphone,” he explained. “Voice-activated.”

  Howell took the miniature tape out and swapped it for an empty one. Then he clipped the dictaphone back to the arm rest.

  “I’ll give this to Frieda,” he said, pocketing the used tape.

  “Frieda?”

  “Yes. She’s in a very similar state. She used to type up copy for a publisher.”

  “What treatment are you giving them?”

  “Oh, we’re not treating them. No need to, really. They seem perfectly h
appy.”

  Gupta jerked his head towards the wheelchair.

  “You could try ECT. Might disrupt the disordered thought patterns.”

  “Hell, no! It could knock everything out of his head, and then he’d be left with nothing. Besides,” he leaned closer to Gupta and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, although there was no one remotely within earshot. “His last two novels were bestsellers, too. It’s become a major revenue stream for the hospital.”

  Gupta raised his thick, dark eyebrows. “Good Heavens! Well, I’m bound to say I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here, Chris?”

  “I wanted to ask a favour of you, Rajiv. I was wondering – if, on your rounds, you come across a professional illustrator with the same condition, do you think you could you send him our way? Only we were thinking of doing the cover design for his next paperback in-house.”

  [First published on line in Secret Attic Story Book 2, July 2007]

  Banquet

  The Ligurian Ambassador leaned towards me, his skin shining blue-black in the subdued lighting of the banqueting hall. He kept his voice low.

  “Don’t stare at them. It makes them feel uneasy. Didn’t anyone brief you?”

  “Time was short. They briefed me on the history and political system, but no one had the wit to tell me anything about their biology. I wasn’t expecting them to be green and translucent.”

  “They use cyanoglobin as a respiratory pigment. They probably find our appearance just as revolting.”

  “But how do they see us? They’ve got no eyes.”

  “Oh, they can see you all right. They have an array of photoreceptors close to the cephalic ganglion. The skin is transparent so they don’t need a separate organ. Better put on your translating phones now. His Excellency is about to speak.”

  I turned back to the table. I was glad the Ligurian was around: he was a useful source of first-hand information. The Ligurians have had a presence here for years – I’ve no idea why. Maybe they bestow the Ambassadorship to Thanus as some sort of reward following a lifetime of service. I visited Liguria once; it orbits a binary star. If I lived in the searing heat of those twin suns I’m sure I’d be delighted to get a temperate posting like this one.