Best British Short Stories 2018

by Nicholas Royle

  SWATCH

  PETER NOTICED THE unspeakable colour during Stuart’s twelfth birthday party. The house was erupting with all the usual paroxysms that accompany excellent games of Hide and Seek. There was shrieking, stomping, hissed invectives and sharply slammed doors. Peter and Stuart had happened upon the same bolt-hole at the very same moment and they eyed each other warily on its threshold, but within the moment there was no point wasting time negotiating terms or rights of way – they bundled into the airing cupboard on the upstairs landing in one movement and pushed the door shut by falling against it in a shushing, adrenalised heap.

  In the airing cupboard Peter and Stuart could hear bellows of triumph and dismay through the door for the first few minutes, and partygoers’ footsteps came as occasional thunder in the corridor. Each time this happened both boys covered their own mouths as if aware that some involuntary primal mechanism might prompt them to give an answering call and reveal their whereabouts. All returned to quiet soon, however. A triumph! They celebrated their success with hushed giggles and congratulatory dips of the elbows into each other’s ribs.

  These nudges gradually changed and became tangled, bored tussles for space when it became more obvious that their spot had been chosen perhaps rather too well. It occurred to Peter that they had unwittingly committed to a whole new way life. They had already endured sharing this airing cupboard for at least thirty years or possibly a whole half an hour and the initial giddy fear of possible discovery was transforming into horrified suspicion that they might never be found again.

  Stuart was not like Peter and the birthday boy decided that he must put their cloistered time to good use. He produced a bag from his corduroy dungarees and with a solemn expression began demonstrating the best way to fit handfuls of marshmallows into Peter’s mouth without causing suffocation.

  ‘Five – six—’ Stuart counted in whispered tones.

  Peter crouched a little tighter with his back against the water-heater and his legs were beginning to go to sleep, but the twinge of incoming pins and needles and the discomfort of the heater’s scald-creep-bloom across his back did not feel entirely bad. Peter was wearing his very favourite jumper – Hawaiian Blue 4 cotton that featured a Volcanic Red alien vinyl decal giving a thumbs-up – and the water-heater made the airing cupboard smell like tinned peaches. Stuart had been hitting the jelly and ice-cream table pretty hard since breakfast and his pupils were larger than usual. As he let marshmallow upon marshmallow push past his teeth, Peter was aware that he was looking at his friend’s eyes rather than looking into them, and that realising this meant that he had to look away at once. He concentrated on a knot in the wooden shelf above him for a second then felt his gaze slip back down.

  Peter knew that his own eyes were an odd mix of colours. When asked for their colour he would say, ‘Brown!’ but not only were there odd squiggles, quirks and dots within the colours there, soft twisted braids and paisley patterns in the meat of his iris, but the actual shades of Peter’s eyes changed minutely, but crucially, according to both the season and time of day. He saw Cocoa Latte in his eyes some days, Truffle Leather 3 during others. There was even a greenish contour of Enchanted Eden 2 to be found if he examined his eye in strong morning light. Some years ago Peter really, really leaned in against the bathroom mirror to work out what was going on there, straining on tiptoe over the sink and making sure that he did not knock over his dad’s shaving cream or contact lens fluid. In this position if Peter stared himself down in bright summer sun he could see a notch of Tangiers Flame in one of his eyes and the shadow of a shadow of Amethyst Falls right beside it. At this discovery Peter had not been at all sure that he liked the fact that infinite variety was playing out in his face – in a way that was so plain for all to see! He burst into tears and his eyes grew hot and the blue and orange there became more vibrant: Cerulean shot through with Scorched Topaz. He had to stay in the bathroom with his head to the cool tiling for a good while before he felt brave enough to unlock the door and leave.

  He had mentioned the colours in his eye to his dad at bedtime that evening and made sure not to let fear edge into his voice.

  ‘You have hazel eyes,’ said his father. He was still wearing overalls and had speckles of dried paint above his eyebrow.

  ‘But the orange and the blue,’ Peter pressed and his father turned on the bedside lamp to examine Peter’s eyes very carefully, tutting and tsking, then gave a professional’s nod.

  ‘Mud and milfoil,’ Peter’s father said finally. ‘Pondweed and a fast, peaty, strong-flowing river – that’s what I see. But, you know, would you believe it? There are occasional kingfishers along the bank.’ He let Peter sit up a touch in bed. He smelt of calico dustsheets and turpentine, Peter’s favourite smell in the whole world. ‘Do you know what a kingfisher is?’

  Peter had nodded but his father was already tapping on his phone and bringing up pictures. Peter leaned in.

  ‘I knew that,’ he said.

  ‘Have you heard the word glaiks before?’ asked his dad. He let Peter look it up on the phone.

  ‘“Chiefly Scots”,’ Peter read there.

  ‘Go on.’

  Peter hesitated, his eyes close to the phone’s screen. ‘“Deri – no – der-i-sive deception, or mockery”,’ Peter read. The paint on his father’s eyebrow had lowered at this, and Peter let him take the phone back and scrolled a little.

  ‘This,’ he pointed, ‘is the one I meant. This is the meaning I meant, I mean.’

  ‘Under the number 2?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘“Chiefly Scottish”,’ Peter said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘“Quick flashes of light”,’ Peter read and then he pulled his blanket up and asked if he could look once more at the pictures of kingfishers, and that night he went to sleep knowing that what was really important about the secret colours in one’s eye is the fact that somebody would have to be very-very-very close in every way before they could know about anything about them.

  ‘You have to really shove them along the sides,’ Stuart was saying, sternly, as he pressed another marshmallow into Peter’s mouth with his thumb. Stuart was training all his attention on the task at hand. Efficiency was not the only consideration with the current procedure and as Stuart drew each marshmallow from the bag, he insisted on inspecting it with a specialist’s courtesy before putting it in place alongside Peter’s teeth.

  Peter tried not to breathe because he had a sense that not-breathing in this circumstance might be important. He shifted against the water-heater and studied his friend’s irises a little more carefully.

  French Vermouth? Was that a colour name? He thought about his dad’s pyramid pots of sample paint in the shop window and the magic names printed on their labels that you could say aloud and cast like spells. Atmosphere 1? Jade White?

  ‘Ryan managed fourteen,’ Stuart said in a low but conversational voice, his hand dipping once again into the marshmallow bag. ‘Fourteen and he could still sing the whole of the school song and you could hear every word really clearly. Even the—’ and Peter watched Stuart’s eyelids narrow as he sought the right word ‘—the letters with the lines in them. The—the sharp ones – ts and things.’

  Peter’s throat creaked or rumbled a taut appreciative yes.

  ‘Lift! Up! Your! Hearts!’ Stuart sang quietly. As he emphasized the final glassy sibilant his wide eyes drew even wider with wonder at the memory or the imagined memory of Ryan’s performance.

  Peter squared his shoulders against the water-heater and gave a trial run. ‘Lift! Up! Your! Hearts!’

  ‘Lift!’ Stuart urged. Peter thought about the machine at the back of his father’s shop. Customers could bring in an object or a picture or a fabric or a fleck of paint that they liked and Peter’s dad would pass it beneath a special lens so that the computer could run its programme and mix a combination of all its millions of potential colours. You could reproduce the exact shade you wanted and take it home wi
th you that day sealed in a little tin. If the surface area is half a centimetre in diameter, we can match it! promised the poster that was fixed next to the machine. Peter’s dad had allowed him to Blu Tack this poster right onto the wall and in the summer holidays, when the kingfishers in Peter’s eyes were at their most obvious, the Blu Tack would swell an infinitesimal amount and the poster would sometimes slip to the floor.

  ‘Lift!’ Stuart repeated.

  ‘Lift,’ Peter said, forcefully, but the word came out all disappointing and claggy, chewy somehow and too muffled to be much use. He saw that Stuart frowned a little as he selected another marshmallow. Peter had always hated the school song. Above the swamps of subterfuge and shame, all the pupils around him would shout on the first day of every term to the tune of a thudding piano, not needing to refer to their hymnals because they were so familiar with the lyrics, The deeds, the thoughts, that honor may not name. The whole school would swallow cubic fathoms of dusty air and announce with one voice the lines to the Assembly Hall’s Polycell textured ceiling. The halting tongue that dares not tell the whole! For whatever reason Peter always imagined the other boys sitting next to him in their arranged ranks were all thinking about turning around to him as they sang, and that the secret skirmishing colours in their eyes would all be suddenly brighter. Lift! Up! Your! They would begin to pull at his blazer buttons and at his shirt. Peter could not sing this song without seeing in his mind’s eye all these phantom bright-eyed boys closing in and tugging a Brick Red weight free from his chest. They would sing and he would fall to the parquet floor and they would raise the messy thing way above their heads in their newly Brick Red and glossy hands.

  Stuart was reaching once more for the bag. ‘Thirteen—’

  Both boys heard the hand fall upon the cupboard’s door handle at the same time and Peter, mouth glazing over, watched his friend’s extraordinary and unnameable eyes dart to the door, appalled and thrilled in equal measure.

  LISA TUTTLE

  THE LAST DARE

  ‘I’LL BUY YOU a Halloween treat,’ said the grandmother.

  The little girl backed away from the display of walking zombies and howling ghosts, rubber spiders and blood-shot eyeballs, shaking her head: she didn’t like scary things.

  ‘Let’s keep looking,’ the woman coaxed, and, taking her granddaughter by the hand, walked further down the aisle of the store.

  They came to a shelf of stuffed toys, featuring ghosts and grinning pumpkins, teddy bear zombies, vampires and witches. The little girl stared, then swooped on a sweet-looking black kitten with green eyes, a conical orange hat rakishly cocked over one ear.

  ‘You like that one?’

  Anxiously, the little girl nodded, even as she pulled away.

  ‘Sweetheart, of course you can have it. Or whatever you like. We’ll go buy it now. I love Halloween; it’s my favourite holiday. How about you, Madison? Do you love Halloween?’

  Madison shrugged her skinny shoulders and raised the stuffed cat to her face, rubbing it against her cheek. She whispered, ‘Love her.’

  ‘Has she got a name?’

  ‘Holly.’

  ‘Holly? That sounds more like Christmas to me.’

  ‘Holly – for Halloween.’

  They had reached the line for check-out, and at the grandmother’s characteristic short, sharp bark of a laugh, another woman turned, looking startled.

  The grandmother apologised. ‘I was just laughing at myself for being silly.’

  The other woman, a well-maintained platinum blonde of indeterminate age, widened her eyes. ‘I know you. Elaine Alverson? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, but how – Bobbi? Bobbi Marshall?’

  With exclamations of surprise and delight, the two women embraced.

  ‘Gamma, who is it?’

  The girl who spoke was dressed like a tiny Goth in a black T-shirt and ripped leggings, her hair teased and gelled into spikes.

  ‘Ruby, my youngest granddaughter,’ said Bobbi. ‘She doesn’t always look like this.’

  ‘Just for Halloween,’ said Ruby. ‘Tonight, I get to wear eyeliner and black lipstick, too. I never met you before, did I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ said Bobbi. ‘This is Laney . . . Elaine . . . Ms Alverson?’

  ‘Call me Lane.’

  ‘Lane and I were best friends when we were little, since second grade.’

  ‘I’m in second grade,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Me, too.’ Lane was startled by Madison’s voice, no longer a whisper, but piping and clear, the way it had been before she left New York. Her daughter had told her that Madison was finding it hard to settle at her new school, having arrived late in a class where friendships and pecking order were already firmly established. Someone had made fun of her accent, and the child’s response had been to clam up. Lane was even more surprised to hear Madison address the other little girl: ‘Your hair looks so cool. How do you get it like that?’

  ‘Actually, my mom did it. With a ton of hair gel. She’s going to do my make-up, too. Black,’ she added, with relish.

  ‘Mine won’t let me wear make-up.’

  ‘Not even for Halloween?’

  Madison cocked her head. ‘Well – maybe. I’ll ask.’

  As the girls chatted, Lane’s attention was claimed by her old friend. ‘This is so amazing! When did you move back?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She barely repressed a shudder. ‘I would never move back to Texas. But Kate – my daughter – came here for her husband’s new job. They wanted me for Thanksgiving, but I’d made other plans.’

  ‘You must miss them. Your only grandchild?’

  Lane nodded, glancing at the girls who had progressed to exchanging secrets, hunched close together, whispering and giggling.

  The two women traded personal details as Bobbi’s purchases were scanned, and with the impulsive warmth Lane remembered so well, her old friend invited them to lunch. ‘We have so much to talk about – and I do believe our babies feel the same – look at them! Best friends already. You don’t really have to rush off.’

  ‘I was just going to look for somewhere nice for lunch.’

  ‘My house! I’ve got a heap of fresh shrimp.’

  ‘Where do you live? Is it far? I don’t know my way around anymore, the city has grown so much.’

  Bobbi grinned, a familiar, mischievous gleam in her dark brown eyes. ‘Oh, you’ll find my house all right. It’s on Cranberry Street.’

  Cranberry was one street over from Blueberry, where Lane had spent the first twelve years of her life. She remembered well enough how to get there, but since the girls wanted to stay together, Ruby came along to direct: ‘When you get to Cranberry Street, she’ll show you Grandma’s house.’

  The entrance to the old neighbourhood was a wide, quiet boulevard that wound like a slow, concrete river through the heart of the residential area, divided by a central esplanade.

  Lane had not thought the children were paying attention – she never did, at their age – but when she put on her turn signal, Ruby cried out: ‘No, not this street! Cranberry is the next one.’

  ‘I know, Ruby, but this is Blueberry – where I lived when I was your age. Wouldn’t you like to see my old house?’

  ‘I would,’ said Madison.

  The pink brick house on the corner was as she remembered, but Lane stared in bafflement at the house next door. Her old home had disappeared. A chain-link fence enclosed the property, which boasted a mini-mansion so new it was still under construction. The tree she used to climb, the bushes she played under, the flowerbeds and lawn were all gone, churned up in mud in front of a house that was patently too big for the lot, dominated by a huge garage.

  ‘Which one?’ Madison asked. ‘Did you live in that pink house, Nanny?’

  ‘No. That was the house next-door. My house is gone.’ She felt hollowed out, and did not understand why.

  ‘How can your house be gone?’

  ‘Somebody bought it, and tore it down to build a new hous
e.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, probably the people that bought it wanted to live in this neighbourhood, but they needed a bigger house.’ Glancing along the street, she saw this was not the only new, much bigger house to replace a modest, single-storey home from the 1950s.

  ‘Why?’

  Putting the car back into drive, she moved on. ‘Can you think of reasons somebody might want a bigger house?’

  ‘If they have lots of children.’

  ‘Or lots of pets.’

  ‘So they could have a home movie theatre, and a gym, and a game room.’

  While the girls competed to come up with reasons for a bigger house, Lane drove to the end of the street, then took a left and went on six blocks to cross the boulevard. Ruby noticed as the car turned right into Azalea Court.

  ‘Hey, where are we?’

  ‘Haven’t you been here before?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  Blueberry, Cranberry, Blackberry, Bayberry, Gooseberry – and she could not remember how many other -berries – had been part of a brand-new subdivision in 1950, streets filled with affordable starter homes built to an identical plan. On the other side of the esplanade the streets were named after flowering plants, and the houses were larger and more expensive. It had been unknown territory to her when she was seven, like the girls in the backseat, but once she was a little older, she went exploring.

  ‘Spiders,’ gasped Madison. They all stared at the oak tree, draped in white gossamer strands. A spider the size of a large dog clung to its trunk; two others, puppy-sized, dangled from the branches.

  Ruby laughed gleefully. ‘Cool! And look next door – zombies! A zombie invasion!’

  Lane checked her mirror, tilting it to see her granddaughter’s face. The little girl was pale, but her eyes were wide, absorbing the sights that delighted her new friend. She was reminded of her own long-ago relationship with bold Bobbi who never worried, the way Lane did, about dangers or getting into trouble.

  The residents of Azalea Court had really gone to town with their seasonal decorations, she thought, turning her attention back to the street. Ghosts, witches, a multitude of jack-o-lanterns, flapping bats, black cats, and gravestones decorated the well-tended lawns. One red-brick walkway hosted a parade of brightly painted skeletons – more Dia de los Muertes than Halloween.