A distant hum, like the sound made from running a wet finger around the rim of a crystal glass, but much, much deeper, vibrated through the frozen ground. He swung his torch round one hundred and eighty degrees, until again it lit up the digger.
Jesus Christ! The bucket had sunk further into the frozen ground. John blinked. Still holding the torch in his gloved hand, he brushed away his freezing tears. The vertical beam from the torch vanished. Blackness.
It must be the cold buggering up everything, everything that kept him safe and secure: the generator, the radios and now his torch. John tried to ram the useless torch into his pocket, but it just slid over the opening. In frustration, he hurled it into the black, moonless sky.
He tried his radio again. “Stig, Stig. If this is some kind of joke?”
Nothing, not even static.
The drone increased. He clapped his hands over his ears. Pain pierced his bare hand. Sharp spikes pulsed and pushed through his finger nails. He thrust both hands into his pockets, the pain increased. The drone changed pitch, rising like a chainsaw cutting through live wood. It rose up, reverberated deep into his muscles and turned his legs to jelly.
Then nothing. No sounds, no smells, no sight. Just silence and an eerie stillness. His diaphragm quivered and waves of terror pulsed through him.
An icy squall caught him full force. A cracking split the air. He fell backwards. No time to dislodge his hands to break the fall. The ground shook, it seemed to bounce from underneath.
John smelt urine and warmth seeped down his legs and up his back. A second later it turned icy cold and pierced his skin. He tried to shift his weight and pull his hands out of his pockets, but nothing responded. He willed his legs to move, but they remained fastened to the frozen ground.
Owl circled, hovered and fluttered the tips of her wings. She blinked and surveyed the two-legger, stripped of his dignity and his future.
Ariadne
by Charles Menzinger
This story might be read as a new telling of an ancient Greek myth.
She knew he was the owner of the Rolls Royce in the pub car park as soon as she saw him. It wasn’t so much his looks as his bearing.
Cavalry twill trousers, matching tweed jacket, beautifully polished brown brogues, white shirt and some kind of regimental tie.
He strolled over to where she was standing. “Hello. I see that you have been admiring my Rolls.”
“Absolutely. I love old cars, is it Vintage?”
“My Rolls? Not quite. Actually she is a Post Vintage Thoroughbred, a 1933 20/25 Owner Driver saloon with Thrupp and Maberly bodywork painted in battleship grey.”
Typical man, seizing every opportunity to become technical. Not only that, to him cars were feminine. So if a car broke down it was never the man’s fault, but perhaps ‘the old girl’ was having ‘a touch of the vapours’ and had to be treated gently with love.
She realised that the Rolls Royce man was speaking to her.
“Oh you’re back,” he said. “Where did you go, Venus?”
She laughed. This flirtation was going well. “No, not quite as far, but I was wondering, why do you say the car...” She hesitated for a moment, she couldn’t bring herself to use the feminine gender when talking about the Rolls Royce - to her cars were neither masculine nor feminine. So, if a car broke down, ‘it’ broke down. “I was wondering why you say the Rolls is painted in battleship grey. I thought cars were always sprayed?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, of course, but not a Rolls. I don’t know about modern ones, but the old ones were always hand painted. They were hand painted, seven coats and lovingly rubbed down between each coat.”
“I see,” she said a little lamely.
He made a dismissive gesture. “Enough car talk, once I get talking about them, I become a bore...”
“Not at all.” She stole a sideways glance at him. She was sure he was someone high up in one of the services - Army or Navy perhaps. “I’m interested too and I particularly like the smell of old leather,” she admitted. “Can we go over to the car and can I have a sniff?”
“You are funny,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Be my guest. But shouldn’t we make our introductions first? I am Jean-Paul.”
He pronounced it the French way - like in Jean-Paul Sartre. “You see, my mother was a Francophile.”
“How do you do, I’m Ariadne.”
Her mother had been fascinated by all the tales of Ancient Greece and had been reading nothing else while she was pregnant.
Ariadne, in one of those ancient myths, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete. She fell in love with Theseus who had come to kill the Minotaur. She gave him a ball of string to unroll as he went to and fro in the labyrinth in search of the monster, so that when he had found and killed it, he was able to guide himself back to the entrance.
It was a nice name, but her mother hadn’t done her any favours because whenever she told people that her name was Ariadne there’d be the familiar response. They’d invariably mention the labyrinth and the Minotaur, or they’d get mixed up and confuse Theseus with Hercules, or think that the name had something to do with the siege of Troy.
So, when she gave her name to Jean-Paul, the Rolls Royce man, she waited for the usual questions, but they didn’t come.
“How do you do?” That was his polite response and he accepted her name without making any comments about it. Was he one in a million?
Instead he said, “Now we’ve met, let’s go over to the bar and have a drink. What’s your poison?”
“You read my thoughts,” she nodded. “Brilliant suggestion. I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke. What about you? What does a person who owns a near vintage Rolls Royce drink, I wonder? Is it a tot of whisky? I suppose it all depends on which of Her Majesty’s Services you’re in. Army? Navy? Air Force?”
“Navy,” he replied. “I suppose I ought to be drinking rum - but I prefer whisky. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I suppose being in the Navy, you’ve a girl in every port.”
“Now, now. Do I detect a little mischief in your make up?”
“Nothing like a bit of mischief making,” she agreed. “No point in being too serious and intense. I believe in flirtation and you’re the sort of man one can flirt with without discarding one’s knickers five minutes after being introduced.”
“I have a feeling,” he answered laughing, “that the lady protests too much. Maybe you would like to discard your knickers?”
She raised her chin. “Now, now,” she chided. “What can a naughty boy in a vintage Rolls Royce be thinking of?”
He laughed out loud and spread his hands. “Do I have to answer that?”
“Maybe not,” was her reply.
She noticed that he was not wearing a wedding ring. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. There are men that dislike wearing rings, just as there are some that wear rings on every finger so that, if they got into a fight, the rings could do a lot of damage. But she couldn’t very well ask him. Sooner or later she was bound to find out.
In the meantime, she was enjoying the verbal fencing match. “Can I ask you another question instead?”
“Fire away.”
“Why a Rolls Royce?”
“There are several reasons.”
“Such as?”
“First of all, the Rolls is over 25 years old.”
“So?”
“One doesn’t have to pay tax on it. You know, the tax disc, the Road Fund License or whatever it’s called nowadays, is free. That’s one of the few regulations to do with motor cars that make sense.”
“I see…” she said slowly. “But, please forgive my curiosity. You said that there were several reasons.”
“Of course. The Rolls is what I call a ‘dog-type’ car.”
“What on earth is a ‘dog-type’ car?”
“I’ll explain,” he said. “It’s really a kind of private language, a private joke. You won’t find the word in any dictionary.”
He paused a while then went into what is often called ‘a brown study’. After a moment or two he squared his shoulders. “Oh, let’s have another drink first. Same again?”
Did her questions remind him of something he was trying to forget? The absence of a wedding ring, she was sure had some significance.
“Jean-Paul?” she said softly.
He came out of his reverie. “Oh yes, I was trying to explain. In most cars, not left hand drive ones of course, the gear lever is in the middle between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s. There is no way a dog can sit in the front and look out through the windscreen. However, in a Rolls like mine, the lever is on the right, the front seats are wide and meet in the middle, so your dog has plenty of room to sit or lie between the driver and passenger and is not relegated to the backseat. Unless of course it’s got impossibly long, spindly, legs like a Greyhound or an Irish Wolfhound. Do you get it?”
“Yes, but I have never heard the expression before.”
“I invented it,” he said proudly.
“So what sort of dog have you got now and who’s looking after it?”
“A yellow Labrador. My daughter is with him at home in Portsmouth. She’s about your age.”
So she was right. He had a grown-up daughter. She was sure there must have been a wife. But what happened?
She decided to let that lie for the moment and came back on a different tack.
“What brings you here to Hastings then?”
“The pier. I represent a charitable organisation. They are interested in various worthy causes and restoration of the pier is one of them. They sent me down to keep an eye on things and report back. How the money is spent, any progress, how the weather is affecting things and so on. I’m their trouble-shooter.”
“Do you get paid for that?”
“Not a penny. I do it out of the goodness of my heart.”
“You must have a big heart.”
He laughed. “Now, what about you? Do you live in Hastings?”
“Oh yes,” she assured him. “Actually, the bit where I live is St. Leonards, but it is all part of the same district. They call it 1066 country. My Nan left me a lovely little cottage by the sea. I paint and play the piano. I have a number of students that I teach art and music too. It’s not a fortune, but I get by. I loved my Nan, even though she had a wicked sense of humour.
“She also left me several kittens and a retired Greyhound with impossibly long legs who wouldn’t fit into the front seat of your Rolls. The final gift was what she called a ‘fool proof’ way of finding out whether a person - some man - you fell in love with, is genuine and doesn’t lead you up the garden path...”
“Glory be,” was Jean Paul’s reaction. “How do you achieve that?”
“Shall I show you?” she asked.
“Why not - the night is still young,” was his rather mundane statement.
She opened her handbag and took out Nan’s final gift - a ball of string - and tossed it over to Jean Paul who caught it, looked at it, then remarked; “I see.”
“You see what?” she asked.
“That you would like me to find my way out of the labyrinth of conflicting emotions - like the feelings I still have for my late wife and find my way back to you - into your heart - yes?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
That was a good answer. She was excited and a little afraid.
Was she falling in love like her namesake long ago in ancient Greece? But more importantly, would he fall in love with her?”
The Telephone Rang
by J Ballard
The telephone rang at eleven-o-clock
and I heard your voice on the line.
Little wonder you sounded so hollow and strange,
you’ve been dead such a long, long time.
And you told me you loved me and missed me so much
you’d decided to come back home,
and you just couldn’t wait, and you wouldn’t be late,
and then... you hung up the phone!
The telephone rang at eleven-o-clock,
and now it’s half past four.
And I sit in the dark in a state of shock,
dreading your knock at the door.
Cinderella; The Story from a Beach Dog
by Melvyn Grant
I thought I’d like to take the story of Cinderella and stand it on its head, then set it on the beach from the point of view of a scruffy little dog.
It’s a perfect day and I’m sitting on the shingle looking at a clear sea with all the little waves dancing at the edge of the water. I enjoy the tangy smell of beach and the feel of the hot sun on my back. I’m tempted to take a paddle, but the water is deep and with my short legs I could end up swimming... and those gulls are awfully close. Then something hits the water with a loud splash. I jump back and the gulls fly off.
“Hallo, mind if I join you?” I hear laughter behind me.
I peer up as this girl sits beside me and unwraps her fish and chips. I lick my lips. I love that smell... I notice an old sandal floating on the water.
I don’t really know her, but I’ve seen her around, although never this close. I sniff at the food. The gulls are back.
“Would you like some?” she says and offers me a chip. Then she shares the whole meal with me and I fall in love with her.
She laughs and ruffles my head. “I’m Cinderella, but you can call me Cindy.” Her laugh has a lovely sound, a proper chuckle.
When we’ve finished eating, she scratches me behind the ear. I haven’t had someone do that for a long time and it feels good.
We watch the gulls bobbing on the water. I hate those bloody gulls; they’re always stealing my food, but I give them a ‘SOD OFF’ face and they give me the cold beady stare. Grrr...
There’s another loud splash as a piece of driftwood hits the water and they take off.
“Up, up and away gulls,” says Cindy. “You’re upsetting my doggy friend.” She laughs again. Cindy has a wicked sense of humour and I love it. Oddly enough, the gulls don’t fly at me, squawking and trying to peck pieces off me. I think they’re finally showing respect.
After a while, Cindy pats my head and stands up. “Well, bye-bye little doggy, it was nice dining with you. Let’s do it another day.” She bends down and kisses the top of my head.
She climbs up the shingle toward the boats. I follow her, but when she comes to the road in front of the Fish Market, she turns. “Sorry little fella, but you can’t come home with me.” I sit down and as I watch her go up the back steps of the Nell Gwyn Pub, I realise just how lonely I am.
*
After that, I often notice Cinderella around the fishing boats, or paddling in the sea, so I walk with her. We become good friends; in fact, we become best friends. If she wasn’t human, we could even have become mates. I like the way she makes a fuss of me and says nice things or brings me food from the pub to make sure I don’t go hungry. And for the first time in my life I have a real name.
“I’ll call you Gary,” she says one morning. “Short for Garibaldi, or maybe Baldy if you lose any more fur around your bottom.” And she laughs. But she doesn’t call me Buggeroff or Ringworm, or RaggedArse, or any of those angry names like some humans do. I share my company and affection, but the truth is I’ll do anything for her.
*
I think Cinderella is a lonely person too. She knows lots of people, but doesn’t seem to have any really close friends, except Mrs Tinsdale, who somebody said is her godmother and Mrs T’s daughter, Tessa. They live in a small cottage along Rock-a-Nore road and are really kind people. I like them a lot. Tessa is about the same years as Cindy. They’d like Cindy to live at the cottage, but even I can see the place is too small for three.
So Cindy lives at the pub with her father and his new family and they’ve changed him, because now even he sees her as a wastrel. I hate them all, especially the daughters, they throw stones and beer cans at me.
“Here comes t
he Runt,” they say. “Ole RaggedArse the dirt dog.”
They’re big, brutal bitches with udders like dairy cows. You can hear the webbing in their bras creak when they turn. They always look a mess in their dresses and they smell like old carrion and urinated underwear - makes my nose sting.
Cindy is pretty and smells nice. Clothes always look good on her and they hate her for that.
The other day, one of them was bending over picking up a coin. Great big arse in the air, I couldn’t resist it. I ran past, jumped up and bit it. Boy, did she jump.
“Ow, you little runt bastard, come ‘ere!” She screams and chases me all around the boats with a large stick, yelling ugly words, but I’m too quick for her. And when she flops down on a lobsterpot to catch her breath, I sit on a second one, just out of reach and leer at her. She throws the stick at me, but can’t aim for old bones.
They’re always on heat too, going with males across the beach at night and submitting in the shadows under trawlers. Sometimes, I follow and when they’re lying there doing it, I cock a leg in their direction from behind an old fish box or something and then I’m off before they realise it isn’t rain.
*
Cindy has a small brick hut on the beach, covered in black waterproof paint. It’s her private place and she keeps it locked. It used to belong to her grandfather to keep stuff in when he had a trawler, but he died last winter. Her dad had the trawler then, and he swapped it for some money. Cindy had the hut and she kept it. She calls it ‘Her Castle.’ Inside it’s a proper little home, with a bed for Cindy and a bean-bag for me, a little table, a couple of chairs, a lamp, a small cabin bathroom and some nice crockery. And sometimes, when she’s had enough of the Nell Gwyn, Cindy sleeps there, although she’s not really supposed to and I sleep with her. One night, she tells me about her plans for the future.
“Garibaldi, you’re my little man,” she says, all smiles that make me feel good. She gives me a great big hug. “One day, when I’ve enough money, we’re gonna’ escape from Hastings and that rat hole pub and go off somewhere, London or America, Canada or somewhere and we’ll have a better life.”
From under the bed she brings out a metal box. She calls it her ‘Fairy Cake Box’.
“Look Gary,” she says opening the lid. “All my escape stuff and money is here. Things I’ve saved for the trip.” Then she looks at me, smiles wickedly and puts a finger to her lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anyone...” and she takes out a small pickle jar. “And these are my spliffs; they’re for when the pub gets too much...‘cause I don’t drink.” She holds up the jar, wobbles it and then unclips the lid and takes one out. “I think you’ll like this.” She puts one end in her mouth and picking up her lighter from the table, lights the other end and sucks in the smoke and a moment later, blows it all over. I love the smell, it feels like a fluffy bird in my head and I start barking.
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