A SECRET ANCESTRY...
A collaboration with Gordon Lewis.The town was silent as night slid across the sky like a stormcloud. Inside the houses, thousands — no — millions watched flickering T.V screens where an important football match played out its drama.
Sandy smirked at the other two people in the room — knowing that the way things were going in the dying minutes of a vital match he would win a whole pile of money from his two friends and a betting shop — if the football score stayed as it was.
Suddenly, an equalizer was unexpectedly poked in by a rather lugubrious forward — and the watching world was faced with a ‘golden-goal’ situation, or at worst, an unsatisfactory penalty shoot out to end a very important match.
Sandy’s glee was expunged and, disgusted; he abruptly slammed out of the house to wander into the back garden despite the onset of a dampening drizzle. More a dribble he thought ruefully. In the old days footballers used to dribble the ball didn’t they? Cleverly foot-juggling with the ball from boot to boot as they weaved round the players towards the opponent’s goalmouth.
It was then he saw it, a huge black swathe swoop across the sky (darker even than the brooding rain clouds) with lights spraying like sparks in its wake. As this huge black shape approached above the area he was standing, Sandy stood transfixed as the ‘thing’ stopped directly above his head, hovering like a low black cloud with just a beam of light emanating from it.
Having always been sceptical about unidentified flying objects, he had, in an off-hand manner, read reports on UFO spotting, ending with a shrug of disbelief, especially when some people claimed they had been ‘beamed-up’ to be examined and interrogated by alien beings.
Shaking himself out of his stupor he found the propulsion to turn and run back into the house, not trusting to providence, for he knew he had seen something odd. Still trembling from his experience he burst into the TV lounge to be greeted by his two friends, Stuart and John. Still breathless, and before he had gathered his wits to blurt out his story, Stuart was the first to speak.
“Where did you fly off to? You should have waited to see the kerfuffle over that last goal. One of the linesmen claimed there had been an infringement, a handled ball. After quite a long con-flab with the Ref and the protesting players, the goal was disallowed. The whistle for full-time came soon after, so the match ended up with a score of 2-1, just as you predicted. You’ll pick up a tidy old sum from the betting shop tomorrow, you lucky dog, you’ll not bother with the couple of quid off us... will you?”
Still breathless, Sandy managed to speak at last...
“Forget the bloody football for a minute, come outside quick, there is something very odd in the sky above the house. A huge black shaped thing, too triangular, too uniform in shape to be a cloud... Come hurry up, it may be still out there...”
“You’re having us on”, John was quick to reply, “you never believed in there being anything like extra-terrestial beings.”
“I tell you there was something and I want you to take a look, maybe it’s some kind of plane like the stealth bomber… it could be some natural phenomena, but I want you to at least come and have a look...”
As they went into the garden, they all saw something, but as they went further into the garden they were met by an invisible obstruction, something intangible… like a glass wall, with no glass, just an impenetrable barrier.
An ‘impenetrable barrier’, so called, was what Sandy’s wife erected when he had his pals around for drinks or a game of cards. Except, tonight, it had been football on the telly... along with millions of others. Even folk with a tepid interest had their heads turned by the World Cup...
Stuart’s earlier speech about ‘kerfuffles’ and ‘protesting players’ now seemed to Sandy as if it were UNREAL. The very words had sounded learnt parrot-fashion. Sandy’s own words, including “forget the bloody football” didn’t sound characteristic. He’d normally have replaced the ‘bloody’ with a much stronger word. He felt himself ‘dumbed down’, as modern parlance had it. He couldn’t fathom things.
And when the three men returned to the house — having given up the ‘impenetrable barrier’ for what it was (imagination? a psychic condition thrown over the country by some petty dictator? or, indeed, a real barrier of paranormal dimensions?) — there stood Sandy’s wife. She had hefted the last six-pack from the fridge for Sandy, Stuart and John into the television-room for the after-match chat by pundits. She was a good old sort, really. Her bark was often worse than her bite.
“Thanks, dear,” said Sandy, as he relieved her of the cans.
“What was the score?” she meekly asked, pretending to show a little interest.
Sandy shrugged. He felt decidedly ill at ease. His wife’s personality, too, was somewhat out of kilter. Nobody, tonight, was truly themselves.
The whole ambience seemed so sexist, so type-cast. In many households, it was the women who often shouted and cursed at the football, eager to let their feelings rip with cheers or jeers. The women, indeed, demonstrated a certain uncouth bravado when cat-calling the imputed prowess of the studs who kicked a leather bladder, performing their rivalries as if the world depended on it.
Sandy could hear rain belting down on the roof — and he imagined a decade’s drought had abruptly decided it was time to slake the dry earth. He cracked open his very last can of fizzy amber and prepared to watch the News.
With John and Stuart’s help to see off the lager which his wife Margaret had served up, the can in Sandy’s hand was one of his ‘specials’ he always kept tucked away in the corner of the fridge for such an occasion as this. Left alone, his mates departed... and Margaret in bed upstairs, probably propped up, reading a few pages before turning out the light. He knew she would be appear to be asleep — even if awake — when he finally decided to call it a day. It was an unwritten law… there would be nothing going on after Sandy had a session with his mates and a lot more than one six-pack of cans of lager.
The sound of ‘Big-Ben’ faded away and the newscaster began with the main headlines of the day.
Though there had been an earthquake of devastating proportion in Eastern Europe, floods in Pakistan... thousands of people in jeopardy, some starving to death in Africa, the first item was the dramatic end to the semi-final of the World Cup! Sandy wasn’t paying a lot of attention, it was just his ritual to listen to the late news just in case something cataclysmic had happened… or was about to happen; he wanted to be one of the first to know.
The events of the evening with his closest of friends and the excitement of the football combined with the lateness of the hour were having an effect on Sandy. His eyes were getting heavy and there was the likelihood of yet another night’s sleep on the settee with the T.V. continuing to play to no one in the Jackson household, but it wasn’t to be.
Sandy Jackson was suddenly wide awake, roused from his stupor by piercing screams from upstairs. Desperate, hysterical screams that went on and on. Screams he never expected to hear from his usually calm, stoical wife Margaret. Screaming shrieks sounding nothing like the woman he had been married to for almost twenty years.
Galvanised into sudden action, Sandy lurched off the settee to hurry up the stairs. What on earth could have been so fearful to make his wife shriek so loud? Bursting into their bedroom he was shocked to find Margaret crouched in a corner of the room, babbling like someone completely ‘off her trolley’...
Disjointed words, bits and pieces he picked out of her incoherent outpourings were not making any sense. There seemed to be nothing untoward about the room, except that the bed was in a muddle...
As he hurried to comfort his wife, Sandy picked out one or two words Margaret was repeating...
“They were there, on the bed… they were there… horrible...”
Out of kilter she may have been earlier — but this was something else. He had never seen his wife’s face so distorted, she was almost unrecognisable. Even the anguish on her face after she reacted so strongly to the shattering loss of twin babies whom she had carried within her for almost a full term pregnancy, to sadly lose them after a fall downstairs... According to the prognosis, she would never be able to have children. As the years passed, so did the pain and anguish of losing the little boy and girl, children who would now be in their seventeenth year. Of course neither Sandy or Margaret would forget those desperate times… but surely she hadn’t flipped over what happened so long ago. There was nothing to indicate why Margaret was now a crumpled heap of humanity, saying the weirdest things. She could have had some form of nightmare — but still she kept ranting on in a language he had never heard before, knew for certain she was incapable of speaking. Still lapsing into recognisable English words, laced with unprintable swear words the like of which Sandy had not heard in the army or his workplace.
“They were there… them things... Horrible, horrible...”
As Sandy bent to comfort his wife, she looked up with loathing, seeming not to know him, and, as he attempted to pick her up, she became violent, fighting off her husband with tooth and nail, as if he was one of them... One of the things she had seen… or thought she had seen… was still seeing...?
“They were there, on the bed...” she repeated.
And, then, Sandy saw them for himself — or imagined he did.
Two small shapes stretched — as if with chewing-gum for skin — from the tangled bed-cover… fingers splitting into existence as they pointed at the ceiling.
Sandy reached out and actually thought he touched one of them — before both shapes vanished.
He felt some of his fingers with his other fingers to find them feeling distinctly sticky.
He turned to Margaret.
“Sssh! she hissed, putting her finger to her pursed lips. She seemed calmer — as if the storm had passed.
“Why were you swearing?”
“I don’t know Sandy. I really don’t” After a pause, she continued:
“Did John and Stuart enjoy the match?”
“I think so, though I expect they would have wished the last goal had been a good ‘un. They hate losing a bet — especially when they have to pay up to me - I seem to be always on a winner, according to those two scallywags.”
Suddenly, Sandy felt decidedly under-the-weather. That last can of very strong lager could have been that one-over-the-eight. As he turned to the window he saw a series of bright lights that reminded him of that thing in the sky, trailing sparks like a gigantic firework.
“Imagination can play some funny tricks.”
Which of them — Margaret or Sandy — said this, neither of them would later remember. It had definitely been imagination after all — that was certain.
When Sandy went to work next day at the local factory, the shop floor was throbbing with post-match expertise. Everybody had their own theory on the game… especially John and Stuart who worked in the same section as Sandy — until one of them said, out of the blue, something at which a few of the other men pricked up their ears:
“The sight of that thing in your garden. Spooky, wasn’t it?”
Sandy shrugged. He didn’t want to be reminded of it. He merely said:
“Margaret was a bit off colour last night” — as if that could explain everything. Could someone’s physical condition affect Nature itself, just as Nature could affect that same someone? Was illness a two-way phenomenon? Sandy almost believed that his wife’s attack was a cause of an insidious glitch in the world’s clockwork. Or, more likely, had a shadow passed over the land, causing people to feel ill, Margaret’s strange behaviour being one such reflection, an effect not a cause?
There was no time to ponder further. Men of their ilk were not accustomed to deep thoughts — and midday dinner in the works canteen found them sitting side by side, tussling with small talk rather than any significant debates. Funny — men like Sandy, John and Stuart rarely sat opposite each other, face to face. They simply turned to their neighbour wherever (or if ever) they had anything to blurt out; an intermittent exchange, a fitful sadness at their apparent inability to maintain a smooth communication.
Margaret had recovered from the previous night. In fact, she recalled literally nothing of the events at all. Football was o.k. She preferred the proliferation of the soaps herself...
She picked up the phone, having a strong desire to have a prolonged chat with her life-long friend Jenny Richardson. Usually they took turns at the week-end cheap rate ‘friends’ option. But Sandy was usually around — fiddling and fussing — a proper fiddle-faddle was he, interrupting the phone link between his wife and the friend she could bare her soul to — without fear of anyone else finding out their innermost secrets.
Margaret had not even depressed the numbers that would link her to Jenny some miles away in the Midland’s town of Long Eaton, when a strange feeling overwhelmed her, a feeling that she was a very young woman again. She imagined she was a version of her own mother... In fact the older members of her family often remarked about the remarkable likeness between her and her mother. Especially Great Aunt Maude — who had stupidly said if Margaret and her Mother had been born at the same time they would be identical twins. How she possibly could have imagined such an occurence was beyond Margaret... Ah well, the old girl was in her dotage; Margaret would listen to her Auntie Maude with great patience, keeping on the right side of the octogenarian maiden lady was important, for she was an eccentric, would change her will without hesitation if ever she was slighted in any way. There was a number of antiques in Aunt Maude’s cottage Margaret coveted — not in a mercenary way — but intrinsic objects of beauty she would never consider turning into money.
Margaret’s reverie, if such it was, was interrupted by a voice from the phone ear-piece... a crisp clear voice said “Number please...?”
Number please? Was this some new thing, reverting back to pre-dialling times, some girnmicky nonsense of the telephone company.
Number PLEASE? said the voice again.
Margaret blurted out the ten digits of Jenny’s number, to be interrupted by the now irate operator
“Are you calling the Man-in-the-Moon, Madam? Kindly give me the number you need or replace your ear-piece.”
‘Replace your ear-piece’ sounded most odd, until Margaret caught a glimpse of herself in her Cheval-mirror, a proud possession left her by her great-grandmother. Her mirrored image was holding an old-fashioned phone, ear-piece in one hand and an upright mouthpiece thing in the other; what is more she thought she was looking at her own mother in a floral old fashioned frock which Margaret wouldn’t be seen dead in.
So shocked was she, she fell back on the settee in a crumbled heap again, mouthing obscenities and the strange language of the day before… then she lost consciousness… a complete black-out.
“If you can hear me Margaret, squeeze my hand.” A sentence repeated over and over again by a motor-cycling paramedic — evidently called to Margaret’s side by the friendly next-door neighbour, one who normally called in to see Margaret around morning coffee-time.
Eventually Margaret responded, despite still representing a case for the casualty department of the local hospital. She regained consciousness — still ranting and raving, becoming violent, to the dismay of Margaret’s neighbour and the mobile paramedic. Restraining the termagant Margaret was difficult but the ‘Medic’ managed to use his mobile phone — calling urgently for the assistance of an ambulance crew.
Margaret tried to establish her mind’s equilibrium. What the Hell is that small contraption the strangely uniformed man is pressing to his ear and talking into? No wires. Too small to be a walkie-talkie. Then, as full equilibrium kicked in, she concertinaed back — or was it forward? — into a more acceptable belief-system, where modernity seemed as natural as the breaths she could now take calmly without feeling as if she was on the brink of hyperventilating.
The ambulance dashed through the busy streets, sirens blaring towards the local casualty department of the hospital. Later, she felt a bit of a fraud, feeling almost back to normal — but by what measure could ‘normal’ be judged? Memory was the only determinant. She went through the hospital ritual programme… until she was released.
Sandy drove her back home in his old jalopy, hearing all these things...gathering information from between the incessant chatter she kept up. The story was still unfolding, in words neither of them could control, or even, understand.
Stuart and John were at their house as a welcoming party — to see what was so urgent about Sandy’s sudden summoning to the hospital from their place of work. Despite their tacitness and diffidence, they were both showing a determined concern for their pal’s wife, as they bustled around with cups of tea and words of comfort.
Incredibly, soon after John and Stuart had left beneath the gathering grumble of another storm, the doorbell rang and there stood Jenny Richardson — freshly travelled from her Long Eaton home. Apparently, her phone had rung — and then cut out before she was able to reach it. Ringing 1471, she discovered the call had come from Margaret’s number. She became concerned that there was no answer when she tried to ring back — kept getting the engaged noise, and sensing, via feminine intuition, something was wrong, she had taken the first available train south, telling her husband not to worry. She’d kill two birds with one stone. She’d ring her doctor in Harley Street (just up the tube line from Margaret and Sandy’s) the next day and insist on an appointment for herself. She’d been meaning to consult her doctor for some weeks, but not got around to it. Fate now pointed to the fact that it was important to do so.
“Hope everything is OK with both you and Margaret”, called out Mark Richardson as he watched Jenny leave the front hall to take a taxi to the local station. He could not see the driver as Jenny waved goodbye. Something in her sensed she would never see Mark again, but she put it out of her mind, even before she proceeded with the silly thought.
‘I put it out of my mind ,‘ Jenny thought as she stared into the distance and dwelled on the events of the day. She and Sandy had managed to get Margaret settled in her bed — forced her, in fact. To Jenny, Margaret appeared to be the same... yet different in some way.
Sandy flaked out next to Jenny on the settee. Too close for comfort.
“Want to watch the World Cup match?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before flicking on the telly with the tiny remote control.
Jenny nodded non-commitally. “I think I’ll go up and tuck Margaret in for the night,” she said, quickly standing up.
Don’t bother. She’s sound asleep, I peeped in on her a few minutes ago.
Reluctantly, Jenny lowered herself back on to the settee, subtly. increasing more elbow room between her and Sandy. She’d always considered Sandy to be a surly creature. Didn’t understand how a beautiful Margaret could possibly have married someone so decidedly fiddly and low-key, as she glanced at the man’s huge hands and hairy arms. Almost uncouth in her eyes.
There were goals in the match — but only one wonderfully exciting goal the ball shooting into the back of the net from a great distance and at the acutest of angles — as thunder rumbled growlingly above the house.
But Sandy had no one with whom to share the excitement of the outstanding goal that surely would be nominated as the goal of the tournament. Even his whoop of delight failed to waken the sleeping Jenny. Obviously bored out of her skull by the whole silly proceedings of World Cup Football. What a fuss about twenty men chasing a ball between two goalmouths, as exciting as watching paint dry, she thought. The finer points of the game were lost to her. Jenny and her husband were not of the plebian masses. Her friendship with Margaret went back a long way; the only reason she had condescended to be sitting on a settee next to Sandy the husband of the only friend she had from the old days. Her only friend outside of the Hunting, Golfing and Shooting fraternity to which she had elevated when she married wealthy Mark Richardson. Keeping friends with Margaret was only important because the two women shared a dark secret they had sworn on a bible never to divulge. A secret from their early teenage that would rock, or even wreck both their lifestyles, different though they were — and it would be Jenny that would suffer the most.
Sandy became aware that Jenny had fallen asleep, to dream of things other than football. He studied the sleeping Jenny’s profile and his eyes wandered down her body to the shapely silk clad legs and back again to her chest, to watch the shape of her breasts rise and fall as she slumbered on. She had obviously fitted well into the cream of society for her clothes and make up (from her elegantly coiffured hair to her stylish shoes) simply oozed wealth and good taste. As well as the pang of jealousy of the man she married, Sandy felt a stirring in his loins at the sight of a truly beautiful woman.
He had his fill of the usual strong lager, but in spite of his desire, he turned again to watch the football that still had twenty minutes to the final whistle. But the excitement had gone, the winning team was obvious, having three clear goals in front of their rivals. The result was a foregone conclusion and the winning team was just pussy-footing along with trick football, boring long passes and time wasting moves. The lager and boredom, had their effect on Sandy, and he too had dropped of to sleep.
Jenny slumped sideways and her head came to rest on Sandy’s shoulder.
He was unconscious in his alcohol induced sleep. The lighter sleeping Jenny became aware of the snorting, snoring drunk at her side and her eyes opened to see Margaret silhouetted against the light from the flickering TV screen, Garishly made up with lipstick, mascara and rouge — without a stitch of clothing on — but it was not her nakedness that her mesmerised eyes were fixed on — but the cleaver she held above her head with light glinting on the steel blade...
The next day — the vision forgotten — Jenny Richardson paid the visit to her posh doctors. There — amid much prevarication — they informed her that she needed to go under a real knife. Gallstones, Kidney stones. A leathery bladder… something worse… killed by two birds...
She shrugged. Whatever the nature of the illness, she simply knew that she would only be cured, if at all, by the skin of her teeth. Margaret’s sub-conscious beckoning from London to Long Eaton had a lot for which to be thanked.
She and Margaret somehow shared somebody in the past called Auntie Maude — a secret antecedence that neither had confessed to the other. A common shadow cast by ancestry. An indefinable celebration.
Meanwhile, Sandy and Mark (their two husbands) remained the mere men they had always been. They could be left to their own shallow devices — them and their beer and their petty thrusting ways. Women had a deeper instinct — like a bruised sky-wide shade that came and went with the rhythm of global warming — came and went in tune with even darker, direr archetypes... sipping from the cup of plenty, the world’s cup of eventual goodness...
John and Stuart sat side by side in the works canteen. Silent. Where was Sandy? But they did not think to ask the question.
The End.
Posted by weirdtongue
at 5:52 AM EDT
