Best British Short Stories 2018

by Nicholas Royle

  When the time came, or rather, when the point arrived after which no-one knew what might happen to Bike Boy in his suspension, I thought she might like to see it, so I went upstairs to find her. She was at her desk and before she saw me I watched her. It’s rare to see someone doing what she does looking so damn happy. Even gleeful. I mean, she’s a numbers person, she’s not reaching into chests to start a heart, she’s not inventing things, she’s not teaching, and I know that all sounds patronising as hell, but it’s true, no? I tapped on the glass. When she turned, first she looked worried, but I smiled, to help. And realised how I’d wanted her to look at me like she’d looked at her screen, her lists. Happy.

  We stood around his bed, so many of us, me the only one, I guess, not really a medical person, it was so nice of them to let me, to send someone to come and fetch me for this. I was trying not to seem as excited as I was feeling. My god! Here was this guy, in suspended animation, hovering, hovering in my brand new category, and we – they – were about to bring him back. And you could feel it, a wave shivering between all of us, I’ve never known anticipation like that, so thick, like we could pass it round, eat it almost, a rope of it tying us together. It was simple: they’d done all the hooking up, someone nodded at someone, they pressed a button, there was whirring, and we all stared at his face. His face! The blood was coming back into him, I couldn’t see where exactly. His blood, that they’d kept. Nudging all the saline out the way, and it made me think of some cartoon, of little blood men arriving and the salt maidens not wanting to leave, and I did have to stop myself giggling because this was serious, this was it, this was the moment. A sort of miracle, perhaps.

  She was watching Bike Boy’s face, so was everyone, we were all pretending we weren’t unbelievably desperate for it, for it to have worked. But I was watching her. That might sound like I’m in love with her or something, but I’m not, I don’t have it in me, not for love, not right now. Something about her makes me so curious, about her job, how she goes on when she’s staring at it every day. She’s staring at it not in the way we do, she can’t think, Death, how can I try and avoid it, how can I save this one? She must be thinking, One death, and another one, and another one . . . and on and on. How does she do it?

  Nothing happened, and more nothing happened, and it wasn’t like those films, where when they zoom into a close up of the coma person’s face, you just know that their eyelids are going to do that twitchetty thing and someone will come running and shouting, She’s awake! Real life doesn’t work on a schedule that suits an audience. We stood there and then after about 20 minutes there was some more nodding and someone said, Well, it might take a while, and we all began to wander off and I went back upstairs to stare at my categories. And I put my mouse over his name, I highlighted it as if I was going to move it, from its own special hush hush column into one. Or the other. And I really felt, really truly and so strongly, that if I moved him, it might . . . I might be able to. And I swear, I started shaking. I dropped my mouse and I put my hand over my own heart and it was like a drum was inside me, someone was pounding on it, just pounding.

  Later, I went and stood by him. Nothing. Nothing had changed. He was officially, medically, himself again, I mean, he was all blood, no salt. But he hadn’t moved, no twitching, no sighing, nothing. He was still on the ventilator, we were doing all his functions for him. I bent down. I bent down right by his ear as if I was going to whisper something. But I didn’t know. I just didn’t know what to say and I felt like a right idiot, so I fiddled, made it look like I was just checking. And when I got up, she was there.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing. Nope.’

  ‘How much longer? I mean . . .’

  ‘No-one knows. We’ve really got no clue, this is so . . .’

  MIKE FOX

  THE HOMING INSTINCT

  IT STARTED JUST after sunrise one September morning and inexplicably went on happening thereafter. The heron flew down the twisting river, circled a few times enquiringly, then veered off to alight on the small oblong of grass in front of the ornamental arches where they slept. Once settled it stood like a priest in a moulting cassock, erect and vigilant, while gradually their heads emerged from beneath the sleeping bags, old blankets and cardboard that formed their bedding.

  The arches, really an ornamental terrace, were no more than fifty feet from the river, damp but sheltered, quiet at night. It wasn’t an ideal sleeping place – all of those were indoors – but it had things going for it. It was near a public lavatory, they were not under anyone’s feet, and in the warmest nights of summer it could almost feel like camping. In fact last May a passing nomad had done just that, setting up a small tent across the path, where a broader sweep of grass sloped down to the river.

  Jessie and Orlando were comrades by default. She probably in her forties, but with heroin’s parting gift of taut, youthful features; he a large, affable boy who, if asked, replied simply that it all suddenly went pear-shaped.

  They had met at morning breakfast in the Crypt, eyeing each other suspiciously during the short mandatory prayer that preceded the food queue. Both were wondering why the other was there. Jessie, Orlando thought, looked tough and capable: someone who should be able to work the system, even in its current state. Orlando, Jessie thought, was an overgrown cherub who must surely have a home somewhere.

  She came over to sit beside him when they’d collected their food.

  ‘Rice Krispies and a banana?’ she said.

  Orlando eyed her sideways, his face low as he spooned the cereal. He’d known fights break out when food and warmth had thawed the numbness of a freezing night.

  ‘I’m only fucking asking,’ Jessie said.

  ‘It’s what I like,’ he said defensively, and the way he said it made her want to smile.

  The conversation didn’t really progress, but they found themselves walking up the stone steps together when the final part of the morning session, a more formal prayer followed by a short homily from the verger, was over. This they tolerated: food mostly came with God attached. Outside the church basement they found brilliant early autumn sunshine. Both carried a can and an apple: lunch and supper in entirety, barring providence.

  Having the gift of time but nothing specific to do with it, they continued walking together. Each had been outside long enough to know that people could fall into your life then out again at any time.

  ‘How about the library?’ Jessie asked, after they’d strolled a few hundred yards.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Orlando said. It was quiet, warm, and only a handful of older people used it now. And providing you stuck to a few basics no-one threw you out.

  They made their way there, picked some reading matter, and settled into the armchairs in the corner.

  ‘Do you like bikes?’ Jessie asked, seeing the magazine he chose.

  ‘I used to have a mountain bike,’ Orlando said.

  Jessie nodded as though this was significant. She was reading The Grapes of Wrath.

  ‘We did that for GCSE,’ Orlando said. ‘It was seriously depressing.’

  ‘It’s meant to be,’ Jessie said. ‘It’s about real life.’

  Throughout the day Orlando caught Jessie looking at him, and his rucksack, appraisingly. He was used to this and said nothing. As evening fell she said, ‘Where are you kipping?’

  ‘Probably outside the bookies in the high street.’ He had noticed immediately that she wasn’t carrying any gear, which meant she had settled somewhere.

  ‘I’ve got a better place if you want,’ she said. ‘There’s always space. Been there nine months and never got hassled.’

  So he went with her to the arches, a small folly which faced the river and was built into the lowest part of a steep hill. At the front a series of brick pillars supported a substantial flat roof, from which grew clematis and ivy. A concrete plinth, raised a foot above the grass, carried the whole structure. Set well back, four inscribed benches rested within alcoves. Behind the bench
es were stacked tight black bin bags, bedding and utensils, spare clothing, and what looked like a brazier, improvised from an old park waste bin. An elderly golfing umbrella peeked out next to the head of a teddy bear. Each corner was tucked in carefully with cardboard.

  Jessie saw Orlando taking this in. ‘We make sure it’s all neat,’ she said. ‘And there’s nothing there that rats or foxes will go for.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ he said. The benches were long enough to lie on, and raised slatted timber was a lot warmer than stone paving.

  ‘Alright, George?’ Jessie enquired of an older man who sat fiddling with some oversized trainers in the corner. He had a long, heavy tweed coat that might once have been very expensive.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Orlando soon realised that George’s breathing wasn’t great, so he mainly spoke in monosyllables. Jessie explained later that he came from an artistic family, and was known to have directed a film about Hieronymus Bosch. The trainers, two sizes too large, had been plucked from a jumble sale as a remedy for feet that, after several months without shoes, wouldn’t tolerate anything tighter.

  Orlando had slept on his bench for about ten nights when the heron arrived. Along the river path geese, gulls, pigeons, ducks and even moorhens could vie for human attention when food was around, but herons were more aloof. It was unusual for one to come so close. Orlando saw it one morning when he was first to wake. It was standing no more than six feet from where they lay. It seemed detached, as if in reverie. Coming out of troubled dreams, he found the bird’s stillness calming.

  Gradually the others woke and stretched inside their bedding. The heron craned its neck forward in response to each movement but stayed where it was, seeming to look at some oblique point to the left of the shelter. They sat watching it for a while, as though sharing in its presence. No-one tried to stroke or even approach it: it was obviously not that sort of animal.

  ‘I think it’s someone’s spirit,’ Jessie said eventually. ‘Do you know anyone who’s died?’

  ‘Loads of people,’ Orlando murmured quietly, and Jessie bowed her head as though regretting the question.

  The bird returned daily from that point on, standing silently for two or three hours before flying off down the river like a small pterodactyl. Positioned between the arches and the footpath, it brought them attention, but also deflected it. Police occasionally strolled past. They should, of course, move these people on. But the situation, as they viewed it, caused them not to. If a wild bird felt safe, how could humans come to any harm? It was almost like a sentinel: statuesque except for the occasional minute twitch of its neck. It fled when George was taken off to hospital in an ambulance, but came again the next day to resume its vigil. Jessie and Orlando began taking turns to bring a tin of sardines from the morning session at the Crypt, placing one carefully a couple of feet from where it stood. The first time they did this it inclined its head in apparent surprise, then with a sudden abrupt movement stepped forward and darted down with its beak. They watched as the small fish made its way down the elastic gizzard. It stood slightly closer from then on.

  The autumn nights grew colder. When a frost began to settle they drew two benches alongside to share body warmth, opening their sleeping bags, doubling their blankets, grateful to absorb each other’s heat. On one particularly raw morning a young woman in a thick quilted jacket came to see Jessie, sitting close on the bench and passing her coffee and a packet of mints.

  Jessie introduced her. ‘This is Maggie, my keyworker,’ she said to Orlando. Then putting her arm round Maggie’s shoulder, ‘You’re going to find me a nice little gaff in Putney, aren’t you, darling?’

  ‘Not aiming quite as high as that,’ Maggie said, rubbing her palm between Jessie’s shoulder blades, ‘but we’re getting closer to some shared accommodation in Hounslow.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Jessie said.

  ‘Can you do anything for me?’ Orlando asked.

  ‘Sorry – I’m in assertive outreach,’ Maggie said, suddenly looking embarrassed.

  It was then that he knew Jessie must have had mind problems. It should have been obvious really – every morning he had watched her shake a tablet from a little phial she kept in her breast pocket. She never missed.

  ‘Keep hoping, sunshine,’ she said now, patting his knee.

  ‘Hope’s like a drug to stay away from,’ he thought, but he said nothing.

  As the days drew up to Christmas they found themselves alone together beneath the arches. George had never returned, and most of the people they met at the Crypt had taken to sleeping in shop doorways, where light gave the illusion of warmth. It was worthwhile sitting yourself down on the pavement with a cap in the week before Christmas, though everybody did it, and you had to compete with chuggers and the Big Issue as well. So they sat two hundred feet apart on the high street, and pooled whatever came in.

  They were there one Tuesday afternoon when it all kicked off. Orlando heard Jessie’s raised voice, even over the traffic, and jumped up to run towards her patch. As he got near he saw her chasing a group of lads, and when one of them tripped, she hit him with a bottle. The boy had run off bleeding from his head by the time Orlando reached her.

  ‘Little sod said I look like a fucking lesbian. He needed sorting out,’ she said, panting.

  ‘You’ve cut your hand,’ Orlando said. ‘We need to go to A&E.’

  It took some persuading, but she went with him. To stop the bleeding he wrapped the wound with his scarf, tying it tightly around her wrist. When they arrived the small reception area was busy and they sat together in a queue, feeling exposed under the strip lighting. They were nearing the front when two police officers came through the automatic doors and looked round.

  ‘That’s got to be her,’ the female officer said.

  Before Jessie rose to go with them she kissed Orlando on the cheek. It surprised him almost as much as how gently she allowed herself to be led away. He never saw her again.

  Two days later the basement at the Crypt flooded, and was closed for emergency repairs. There was no food now, only a notice of apology.

  Orlando reconciled himself to Christmas on his own under the arches. Late on Christmas Eve he rummaged through some refuse sacks outside one of the fast-food chains, and found four baguettes still in their wrapping. Just past their sell-by date, he reckoned he could make them last three days.

  But each morning the heron still joined him, though now there was nothing he could spare to give it.

  The day after Boxing Day Maggie came by, bringing him a coffee and a slice of cake with icing.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you about Jessie,’ she said. ‘She’s been charged and she’s in The Orchard. Whatever happens she’ll be there for a while, but this time I’ll make sure she isn’t discharged with nowhere to go.’

  Orlando looked at his feet. ‘Is she okay?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s safe and she’s well,’ Maggie said, ‘and she’s not confined to her room, so she can exercise.’

  ‘She’s an amazing person,’ Orlando said, as if to himself.

  ‘I’d say so,’ Maggie said. ‘Not many people manage to clean themselves up while they’re still on the street. I need to get along now – you take care of yourself.’

  He watched her walk away and wondered who the next person he might meet would be.

  After that he checked the Crypt every morning. One day a notice on the door said it would re-open on the third of January. Jessie had called the time between Christmas and the New Year ‘the charity vacuum’, and now he could see why, but he thought he could hold on for these few days. ‘You can get used to anything,’ he said to himself.

  And then it happened. One morning the heron was late to arrive. He was sitting up, but still shrouded in his sleeping bag when he saw it beginning to circle. It looked different, its neck stooping, and he realised it was carrying something. He watched it land awkwardly, balancing the weight in its beak. It stood impassively for a moment, then dr
ew closer with its stilted walk. The bird always brought its own silence and he looked on, sitting very still, as it leaned to drop a fish before him on the grass.

  BRIAN HOWELL

  MASK

  ‘There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.’

  Macbeth

  THERE HAD BEEN no other experience like it for Yuki. Perhaps it was a kind of drug, an addiction, but a subtle one, to be sure.

  It started with a simple recommendation to try out a new dentist. He had been grinding his teeth for some time and had felt that his regular dentist no longer cared about his welfare. This dentist wasn’t even interested in making money out of Yuki, it seemed. He was just indifferent. Where his regular dentist had been local, the new one was located in Tokyo, in an area between Ueno and Akihabara, also known as Electric Town. He had been to these places before, of course, but seldom to the area in between.

  His new dentist, a man in his mid-fifties, was polite and friendly and wrote him a letter to take to a university hospital, but Yuki never went. In a sense, he lost his way. He could not describe it in any other manner. He became distracted by what turned out to be an endless round of teeth polishing and cleanings which started with him, a man of forty, being shown how to brush his teeth. Not once, but on several occasions. However, this series of tutorials was not administered by the dentist who ran the clinic, but rather by a female hygienist with a nice manner; as far as he could see, she was attractive.