Best British Short Stories 2018

by Nicholas Royle

  Then she disappears, I cannot see where.

  The two figures hover, moving uncertainly. Then they turn and wind their way up the path again.

  The woman is not at dinner that night.

  I ask at the reception desk. ‘The American lady – sorry, I don’t know her name – she lent me a book and I would like to return it. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘She has gone to Gaucín for two nights. She will be back on Thursday.’

  I think of the hairpins on the road to Gaucín.

  Amelia comes to my table again at dinner.

  ‘I do not want to hear any more about that. What you told me the other night. You must stop telling those stories.’

  She sighs.

  ‘I know you don’t believe me. But you will see. You will know when it happens.’

  ‘Where is your mother right now?’

  ‘She has gone to Gaucín for a painting workshop. She will be back on Thursday. Maybe.’

  I do not reply. She pushes her chair back and walks away. As she goes she says:

  ‘Papa and I know what to do. She won’t come back. Maybe this time, maybe another time.’

  Most of Thursday passes. I go walking along the gorge and return in the early evening.

  As I go into dinner a taxi pulls up at the door and the woman gets out, carrying a holdall and a wooden paint box.

  The child needs help.

  I ask the woman if I can have a word with her. I walk into an alcove that is more private and she follows me.

  She greets me pleasantly enough and listens.

  I report the conversations.

  Her reaction is extreme. I would say theatrical, except that she is clearly not acting.

  She gasps, appears to be trying to catch her breath. Holding her hand over her mouth she makes a sound that sounds like a suppressed long sob.

  She runs past me, up the stairs, still making the strange sound. If you heard it out of context you might not know whether it was laughter or sobbing.

  There follows a scene of operatic extravagance.

  Running feet, slamming doors, a woman shouting. The phlegmatic author comes charging down the stairs, roaring like a bull, his wife and child running after him.

  I realise he is quite tall. He looms over me, his face lowered into mine, his eyes raging behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you invent such terrible things about our daughter! Such disgusting, twisted, perverted ideas!

  His wife keeps up a kind of counterpoint: ‘Disgusting, warped, appalling!’

  I literally have my back to the wall. I see Amelia standing on the stairs, watching the scene intently.

  ‘You will withdraw everything you said to my wife. You will never repeat such things again. You will apologise to my daughter, who is likely to be permanently damaged by your accusations. Withdraw now, apologise now, or you will hear from my lawyers.’

  He is breathing heavily, his shoulders shaking.

  The man seems mad. I think more than ever: the child must be helped.

  I look around for hotel staff for support, but none appear.

  At home I would report threatening behaviour. There is not much point in calling the Spanish police, if only because my Spanish would not be good enough to explain, and he might turn the complaint against me if he speaks it better.

  The child needs help. I am being threatened. But I have no choice.

  ‘I apologise. I withdraw the statements.’

  He exhales sharply and turns, shepherding the woman and child before him up the stairs.

  That evening I get room service.

  The next morning a clear day dawns, fresh flowery air blowing in from the balcony. But I have little pleasure in it now. I just want to get on the road to Arcos as soon as I can.

  As I come down the stairs I see that they, the three of them, are standing in the entrance hall. They are talking in a close, intimate way, in a way that seems inexplicable to me having seen what went before: low voices, small laughter.

  Amelia is wearing her blue dress again. She is holding a bouquet of pink roses. She comes forward and hands them to me.

  Her mother steps up to me too.

  ‘Thank you – thank you for being such a good sport.’

  Her New England drawl is cool, soothing.

  ‘Amelia gets bored to tears being hauled around Europe after us. She must have her little games. I hope you do not think us too extraordinary.’

  I cannot say anything.

  The mother has a cardboard folder in her hand; she puts it into mine.

  ‘These are for you.’

  They load their antique leather suitcases into a vintage dark green Bentley and drive away, laughing and waving.

  As I watch them go I feel anger, but to my surprise a sense of loss washes over that.

  I look inside the cardboard folder. Inside are four watercolour sketches of the landscape around Gaucín – luminous, delicate, beautiful.

  I walk down to the pool. It is empty, limpid blue with lights of the sun playing in it. On the way I throw the roses into a bush where they hang like foreign blossoms.

  I take out the paintings one by one, tear each into tiny shreds, and drop them into the water.

  WILLIAM THIRSK-GASKILL

  HOW TO BE AN ALCOHOLIC

  THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is to start gradually. Alcohol is wasted on the young. Get a decent education. Go to a respected university. Don’t start until at least after you have taken your finals.

  Do not, on any account, mix it with other drugs. In spite of the claims made by nicotine, heroin, cocaine, or cannabis, alcohol is the only drug you will ever need. It is legal, affordable, socially acceptable (mostly), and, if you want it to be, addictive.

  Let us not get into an argument about whether absinthe counts as alcohol, or as something else. All we will say is that absinthe would not be nearly as fashionable at the moment if it weren’t 55 per cent alcohol by volume.

  As with most things, the secret is in preparation and dedication. You will need a reason to drink. Work is the most obvious one. Get a job. Any job. But preferably one in which your co-workers drink. Become a ‘social’ drinker. That is, a drinker who drinks in the same room as, and at the same time as, other people.

  During your twenties, you will probably find that your consumption is curtailed as much by financial constraints as by your own capacity. You will also find that you spend a certain amount of time throwing up into toilets, or gutters, or sinks. This is a terrible waste, but don’t worry about it, because you will get over it, later. It’s just a phase.

  At about thirty, you will need another reason to drink. The most obvious is a bad relationship. It doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight: find a partner who is either deliberately or inadvertently trying to destroy you, and vow to stick with him or her, whatever happens.

  If you have been careful, it is not until this point that you will be accused of having a drink problem. There are various ways of mitigating this. For a year or two, you should be able to manage only drinking a few days per week, or only drinking relatively low-alcohol drinks, such as beer. Once you have exhausted these techniques, you are ready to move onto the next stage, which is concealing alcohol. This is a graduation in your development, and probably the biggest since you started drinking.

  The only limits to concealing alcohol are the dimensions of your house and the fertility of your imagination. It is tempting at first only to try to conceal spirits, because they are more concentrated, but that is missing the point.

  That bottle of Ribena at the back of the cupboard that nobody has touched for three years could be emptied and refilled with port. That over-filled spice-cupboard could be augmented with a couple of bottles of Chinese cooking wine (13 per cent ABV) which are unlikely to be noticed and, even if they are, might legitimately be there as cooking wine. It helps if you altruistically promote the habit of going to the supermarket by yourself, and also if you keep the old,
gunge-coated bottles, and refill them from the new ones. If you have got this far, you will already have established yourself as the partner who does all the cooking. The kitchen is your domain, in more than one way.

  The kitchen is not only the place where much of your consumption takes place, but also where you carry out many of your concealment activities. For example, a partner who never cooks is unlikely ever – even after an incident – to be interested in oven gloves. An oven glove will easily accommodate a quarter bottle of vodka, and makes a much safer point of concealment than a shelf in a study or bedroom, or at the back of a clothes drawer.

  Have no compunction about cleaning up your own vomit, or admitting to the therapist what you have drunk, when, and why.

  Once the relationship which turned you into a serious drinker is over, you are ready for the next step.

  You need to learn to drink just for the sake of drinking. How you do this is up to you. It is likely during this period that you may decide more than once that you want to stop drinking. Stay with it.

  CASE STUDY

  I moved into a house with Caroline and Jacob and the kitchen was too small and the bathroom had no shower and so we built an extension. The builders demolished the garage and built out across the drive and we got an extra bedroom and a bigger bathroom with a walk-in shower and a bidet and downstairs a utility room for the washing machine and vented tumble-drier and I was wondering where we were going to put the litter tray for Caroline’s cats when she told me she and Jacob were moving out.

  I sit on the new sofa in the extension. This area is too cold. This area doesn’t have enough radiators. This area doesn’t have enough plug-sockets. What do you want plug-sockets here for they said. I said mobile phone chargers, lap-tops, Kindle chargers, battery-chargers, and anything else that somebody might invent. I didn’t bother to say portable electric heaters. They said no. I was angry because I have built an extension before and it didn’t have enough plug-sockets. I know about plug-sockets and radiators. There aren’t enough in this extension.

  It is time for me to put my walking-boots on and walk to the filling-station. I could get to the filling-station much quicker if I drove there in my car, but that would not be a good idea. It only takes about nine minutes to walk to the filling-station. Of course, it takes about nine minutes to walk back again from the filling-station, but it only takes about nine minutes to get there.

  There are two ways to get out of my house. I usually go out of the front door, but this time I decide to go out of the patio door at the back. I unlock the patio door. I turn the patio lights on. I open the door. I step through the door. I come back in again and turn the patio lights off. I leave the door ajar, because I can.

  I walk to the filling-station.

  I select a bottle of Argentinian Carmenère. I would prefer the Malbec, but the Carmenère is two pounds cheaper. I select a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc which is slightly above my usual price range. I select two bottles of Indian lager which are on special offer.

  There is no queue. As I place my basket down, I ask for a half-bottle of Smirnoff. I pay with my debit card.

  This is about the eleventh time I have gone out with the patio door open.

  The first, second and third times, nothing happened.

  The fourth, fifth and sixth times, I found a cat on my kitchen counter, looking for food. It was a ginger cat which sprayed piss. I had to clean the kitchen with bleach.

  The seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth times, nothing happened. There might have been another time.

  Having let myself out through the patio doors at the back, so that I could drop some bottles into the recycling bin, I return through the front. I don’t remember having left the lights on.

  ‘Hello, John,’ someone says.

  ‘Hello, Scott,’ someone else says. That is me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ says Scott.

  ‘I live here. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was hoping I might be able to stay here for a while.’ That question is typical of Scott. I hate Scott. He leaves toast crumbs in the margarine. He takes hours and hours in the bathroom, and he leaves damp towels everywhere. He insists on having the television on all day, whether he is watching it, or not. He uses food, soap, shampoo, shaving foam, deodorant, detergent, and every consumable you can think of, except salt. He brings his own salt, which he broadcasts widely over the sofa and the carpet, every time he sprinkles it.

  I think it is the salt that does it. Somehow, I get him to move out. I can’t remember how I do it, or how long it takes. All I can remember is that the neighbours complain.

  I am drinking white wine from the off-licence, for the fourth night in a row. Tomorrow starts in one hour and fifteen minutes, and is Tuesday, a work day, but this is only week 1 and so I don’t have to do much other than sign in.

  I have fleas. I have had fleas since the last of Caroline’s cats moved out. I sit on the upstairs toilet and watch the fleas jump onto my legs. I spray a bit of eau de toilette onto the bidet, which is next to the toilet, and then I pinch the flea between my thumb and forefinger. If you press a flea onto a surface covered in eau de toilette, it can’t jump away. I think it must be the alcohol. It goes into a stupor, and then dies. I’m killing them at an average of about six or seven a day. I think the record for one day is twelve. It is either twelve or twenty-two.

  I go to bed.

  I wake up. I don’t bother to set an alarm. If I did, I would probably sleep through it. Eventually, I get up.

  I sit on the sofa in the kitchen-dining area downstairs, either in my dressing gown, or with my trousers rolled up, and I watch fleas jump onto my legs. Because the eau de toilette is upstairs, I destroy them with my fingernails. You pinch it at first and get it between your thumb and forefinger. Then you get it under your thumbnail. And then you bring up a fingernail, so that it gets caught between the hammer and the anvil. You can see the legs fanning out as you flatten it. It is easy to tell the difference between a live flea and one that has been destroyed. They are piling up on the floor. I wonder what eats dead fleas. Some kind of spider, possibly. I am not afraid of spiders. I have stopped cutting my fingernails. I have two pairs of nail scissors, and I know exactly where both of them are. I still cut my toenails, sometimes. Toenails are no use for killing fleas.

  The problem is while I am asleep. I tend to pass out, which means that the fleas get to drink warm Bloody Mary all night, on tap from me. When I wake up, I inspect my lower legs. What I am looking for is pale pink spots. That means recent flea bites. I released poison gas in my bedroom a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t seem to have cured the problem. I check my phone and my emails to make sure nothing has exploded at work, and then I run the bath. At least I have a tiled bathroom with a walk-in shower, a bath that is big enough for two, basin, toilet, bidet and towel-dryer. I can’t afford to pay for it, but it is still mine, for now. I have given up on Molton Brown bath bubbles, because I can’t afford eighteen quid for a bottle. I buy Radox from the Co-op. It isn’t as good, but I put up with it.

  I wash my lower legs, especially the areas that have started to bleed or suppurate because I have scratched them. I don’t want to go septic. That would not do at all. I make sure to put plenty of soap suds on those areas. The warm water makes the new bites itch unbearably, and so I scratch both legs alternately for a long time, from my heels to my knees. While I am in the bath, it doesn’t matter if some of the bites start to bleed.

  There is cricket on the radio: a test match. I kick myself for having slept in beyond 11 o’clock.

  I look for my spectacles. If they are on the chest of drawers next to the bed, or the window ledge in the bathroom, that probably means that I knew what I was doing when I went to bed the previous night. If they are under a sofa or in the fridge, it probably means I did not.

  I put the kettle on. I take 40 milligrams of fluoxetine, sometimes with water and sometimes with the remains of a glass of wine. Sometimes I have remembered to put the wine g
lass in the fridge before I go to bed. Sometimes I haven’t. I make tea. I make two cups, including one in Caroline’s old lady’s cup, as if she were still here. I add sugar if I have a hangover. I drink the tea.

  I log on again and I find that something has happened at work. I start to deal with it. I’m actually working. I know what I’m doing and I’m good at it. It is too complicated to explain what I do.

  I have put LED bulbs in the bathroom. It is cheaper, because I never turn that light off. At least there is one light that never goes out. I’ve had a letter from work and another which looks like it is from the police. I don’t know when I am going to open them. The police one might be something to do with the car.

  When all the work stuff is over, I still have some white wine and some lager left, and two of my friends are online.

  ALISON MACLEOD

  WE ARE METHODISTS

  TOBY – HE tells me he’s called Toby – heaves his toolbox and himself up the spiral of my staircase. Toby is a plumber. A heating engineer. I am a client. A new homeowner.

  We know our parts.

  At the top of the staircase, he stands and stares. Above us, the old chapel window rises twenty-five feet to a vast pine arch. Once, this window was a Methodist view on Creation, on the hills of East Brighton and its glittering sea.

  ‘That’s something,’ he says, and is slow to turn away. Through the clear panes, to the north-east, the green flanks of the Downs rear up with spring. To the south, the sea is silvered in the midday light. Above the chimney pots, the gulls are ecstatic.

  I watch Toby measure the window’s proportions with his eyes. From floor to ceiling, eight bright stems of glass rise up, pane by pane, until they burst, high overhead, into four golden arches. These arches, in turn, bloom into three circular windows that nestle beneath the main arch. What is it about circles? I don’t know. I suspect Toby doesn’t know. Heads back, chins up, we’re moved to silence. At the top of my staircase, suspended in a moment we will soon disregard, we’re strangers.