There may be unavoidable spoilers in all my reviews (although I do try to avoid them). 

An author's blog HERE. "Had an interesting experience this week of watching an “as live” review of The Ephemera taking shape as it was being read."

Another author's blog here about the DFL review of his book: HERE. "So here’s a sincere thanks to Des for his perceptive and insightful reading of my work."

A review of DFL's review of Ligotti's book below: HERE. "If you're looking for a brief romp through weird literature and the banker Meltdown, or have wondered what one weirdmonger on the fringe thinks of another wordsmith of the high weird, then you have found your destination."

HERE: "Des you make me want to buy books. My dream is to have you one day do one of these enlightening reviews about a collection of my stories. Brilliant stuff!"

Paul Meloy: HERE: "Des, this has been an absolute pleasure! Delightful, unique, touching...an honour. I predict these stream-of-consciousness reviews will become the essential thing to have and be in great demand! Thanks for taking the time to do this, Des!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

May 2007: DFL's review ('On The Hoof') of Thomas Ligotti's 'Conspiracy Against The Human Race': HERE

with TL's reply.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nov 08 - Jan 09:

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/glyphotech_by_mark_samuels.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/beneath_the_surface_by_simon_strantzas.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/omens_by_richard_gavin.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/divinations_of_the_deep_by_matt_cardin.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/rain_dogs_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/teatro_grottesco_by_thomas_ligotti.htm

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/how_to_make_monsters_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/tamar_yellin.htm - Tales of The Ten Lost Tribes

(17 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_reach_of_children__by_tim_lebbon.htm

(21 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_impelled__other_headtrips_by_gary_fry.htm 

(7 Mar 09): World Wide Web And Other Lovecraftian Upgrades - by Gary Fry

(11 Mar 09): Beneath The Ground - edited by Joel Lane

(15 Mar 09): UNBECOMING And Other Tales Of Horror - by Mike O'Driscoll

(20 Mar 09): The Ephemera - by Neil Williamson

(25 Mar 09): Somnambulists - by Allen Ashley

(29 Mar 09): The Villa Désirée and Other Uncanny Stories - by May Sinclair

(11 Apr 09): Sanity and Other Delusions - by Gary Fry

(12 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/sleepwalkers__marion_arnott.htm

(15 Apr 09): ISLINGTON CROCODILES by Paul Meloy

(20 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/mindful_of_phantoms.htm by Gary Fry.

(6 May 09): The English Soil Society - by Tim Nickels 

(6 May 09): The Cusp of Something - by Jai Clare

Still in reading/reviewing:

"Real-Time Review of 'Weirdmonger' by DF Lewis" by DF Lewis 

Visits To The Flea Circus - by Nick Jackson

============================================================

PS:

Review of a long on-line novel:

http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html - a novel by PF Jeffery 

Mark Samuels' WHITE HANDS: http://nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/8/752.html?1227381699 (June 2003)

Real-time notes on Robert Aickman: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/robert_aickman.htm

.

Posted by weirdtongue at 11:58 AM EDT

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'Odalisque' by PF Jeffery (DFL's comments)

Chapter 16 – Rooms

There are some wonderful passages concerning the cutting of a sausage, including:

“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure she is – but has anyone got a knife to cut the sausage?”

“If there was any danger of a slice coming my way,” Fuquibelle said, “I think I could scare up a knife.”

“I reckon the sausage would go into ten,” I said, “we six – and you four.”

“You, Tuerqui, are an angel’s dancing boots.  I’ll get my knife.”

Basically this chapter is a memorably striking continuation of Tuerqui’s life at Madame Scurf’s establishment.  Much of the role-playing and other activities constructively reminded me of a literary version of the Unreality/Reality TV show ‘Big Brother’ -- plus the concept of ‘rooms’ as in ‘Big Brother’s’ Diary Room, Task Room etc. etc. and ‘Odalisque’s’ own  Groping Parlour, Robing Room etc, e.g:

As evening fell, back in the robing room, I realised that the girls were vying with one another to see who could paint her face most provocatively, and who could disarrange her garments in the most sluttish manner.  Joining the game enthusiastically – my effort was more successful than I’d expected.  The face that looked back at me from the mirror was a genuine mistresspiece of whoredom.  We chatted merrily on the way down to the groping parlour.

and

He seemed to be living the part.  To my surprise, I was living mine – rather than acting

...........

Typo:

repellant = repellent

Query:

Does the word ‘personable’ below convey any sense of ‘personage’?

My client was a clean and – in fairness – quite a personable man,

.

===========================================

Word docs of the actual chapters are freely available to readers of this blog.

 On this site, if you want to leave comments all you need do is type 'nospam' in confirm box and your name.

The links to all Chapter comments by me are here: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2008/06/odalisque.html

Posted by: newdfl on 8/3/2008 6:56:01 AM , 1 comments

Submitted by Pet at 8/3/2008 9:27:36 AM

Thank you for that!

And thank you for viewing "repellant" as a typo. The sad truth, I think, is that it was a spelling mistake. It's corrected now, either way.

An interesting question about "personable" -- and one that I hadn't previously considered. What does the word mean to Tuerqui? In Tuerqui's world, "person" means "non-slave" giving rise to these pairings:

slave/personslavery/personage

It is entirely possible that a third (similar) pair is:personable/slavishIt may be an adjective meaning "proper to a person (as opposed to a slave)". If so, the sense of this word, in context, may be:

My client was clean and – in fairness – a man quite free of slavishness,

Perhaps we might construe "personable" as meaning almost (but not quite) "of noble bearing". (A bearing appropriate for a person, although perhaps not quite appropriate for one of noble birth.)

On the other hand, "personable" could mean the same to Tuerqui as it does to us. In which case, the sense of this word, in context, is liklely to be:

My client was a clean man and – in fairness – of quite attractive appearance,

I think that this is probably the only occasion on which Tuerqui uses the word, so we can only guess.

Posted by weirdtongue at 10:22 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:23 AM EST

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RAW RAIN AND USED WICKS  

Known as the Wick Man because, being a purveyor of items which threaded, almost a Patron Saint of things-that-go-through-other-things, it was the most suitable name for him - or so thought the inhabitants of a City winding along the banks of the River Tiddle, a City called Abrundy.

            Dressed as a Red Indian from the Old Wild West (but, of course, it was not Old nor, for that matter, even forthcoming), a twin tail of coloured feathers hanging from his headband and tossing brightly down his back, the Wick Man knew that festooned poultry legs extruded from the collective dreams of all his his Abrundy Tiddle customers. 

            Despite the gaiety of his demeanour to catch the unsuspecting eye, his was a humourless mind.  He feared retribution if he should joke because, surely, life was circumscribed (like a wagon train) by the warmongering of Birth and Death, an dry dock of Time-Between so short it could only be taken seriously - or else what would life have been but a ridiculous scarecrow suit of flesh strung on a wooden cross of bones? 

            Philosophical implications never worried him, for everything seemed as logical as tomorrow immediately following yesterday: the use of others' dreams merely a business practice, no more nor less than the survival of the spiritually fittest.

            "New wicks for old! New wicks for old!"

            Whatever his salescry, it was not a jest.  He had stolen the idea from a dream captured one night, when only one of Abrundy Tiddle's inhabitants was bothering to dream at all - something that often happened after long hours irrigating fields, sleep turning out to be too heavy for anything else but dreamlessness to sit easy upon their minds.  This particular dream, then, of one who had not laboured sufficiently hard to ban dreams from watering his skull was a fairy tale about caliphs and rocs and lamps and High Muslimic ... and treasure.  Yes, treasure, somewhere deep down, further than the well of dreams seemed able to reach.

            On morrow morning's following, the Wick Man saw that unseasonable drought was flashing from the grey bandages of the sun-scorched sky - rippling, shimmering upon the brown walls of the valley, upon the marble onions of Abrundy Tiddle.

            Likely not to do much business in such unlikely weather it would be the Weirdmonger's own job to keep the wicks drier than the air around them.  He decided he needed a new salescry for the other merchandise into which he often diversified on days like this.  He was not frivolous enough to vend goods or bads so different from wicks, as to stretch the credulity of his pitch.  He determined that "threadings" were sufficiently embracing as a genre to cover almost anything Tiddlefolk needed - such as twiney cotton to lace the buckskins, dolls' clay fingers for little girls to glove, smoke to penetrate the old men's pipes of inner peace, carefully moulded turks' heads as overnight head-dress stands, even chains of endless indigestible provender to wind the labyrinthine intestines but, now most important of all, varied nurtured fluids to fill the flagons.

            To young women of the attractive persuasion, the Wick Man sold himself.

The Wick Man, that night, dreamed for the first time on his own.  He hoped to plumb the depths, seeking the treasure at the end of night's rainbow.  In the past, he had eschewed such trivial fantasising for fear of destroying his own steadfast self-image.  He was a man of means: a man who decided that sleep, like Death, should be nothing but sleep.  But, tonight, either by volition (or by some subconscious impulse - he wasn't sure - to tap unknown sources for their merchandisable potential) he delved into his own heart deeper than he ever dared delve before.

            He saw wicks burnt to a cinder, old women desperately trying to relight them so that they could eke out just a little more life before bed.

            THE TREASURE MUST BE BEYOND THIS, SO DOWN HE WENT FURTHER.

            He saw dead flesh woven with bones, poultry bones masquerading as a human baby's.

            THE TREASURE MUST BE NEAR NOW, SO DOWN HE WENT EVEN FURTHER.

            He saw a line of decapitated heads which reared upon the feet growing directly from their necks and then did waddle and begin to eat other with dry-tongued relish, with the fastest eaters lasting the longest and, without bellies, only sicking-up was possible and, before long, tatterdemalion skulls with half-digested cheeks fought for each others' neck muscles, becoming serried clottings of living gristle and, tail in mouth, the Long Worm waggled.

            THE TREASURE MUST BE CLOSE, SO CLOSE HE COULD EVEN SMELL IT, LIKE OLD GOLD, SO DOWN HE WENT YET FURTHER.

            He saw a plain peppered with wigwams and rain that swept it like acid, piercing then riddling the red skins with cores of pus.

            THE TREASURE WAS FURTHER THAN HE THOUGHT, SO DEEPER HE WENT.

            He saw screeching young women desperately trying to squeeze out yowking creatures from their innards ... pointing to the Wick Man dreamer as the one who'd put such creatures there.  "We told you that we'd no treasure inside our bodies," they sobbed.  So, they told him that he was no nearer his goal than before.

            SO DOWN HE SIMPLY WENT.

            Until, finally, he reached his own well of self: a man with a salesman's soul, smiling and charming his clients, bobbing his head-dress in a world of machine and glass which he'd only recognised from the dreams of millions squared, across Time as well as Space as well as Spirit.  He was a celebrity, a trivial human heart by-pass, a man with a trillion photographs and even more countless self-images.  The man smiled as he rubbed himself vigorously, merely for a wet-squirt of a Genie to appear from his lamp.

            As the Wick Man backthreaded at speed through the funnels of past and future dream, he was scorched to a cinder on re-entry.  It was a pity: he had found a new more meaningful salescry somewhere upon his rite of passage, but he was destined never to use it.  His deserted mind yearned for irrigable rain; Abrundy was indeed waterless, riverless, dampless, Tiddleless, throat-clogged with unripe riparian runes.

            He must have realised he had been screwing against the thread, against the grain.  Rain and brain.  Scorched Earth policy.  Piss-riddled airs and graces.  Ouroboros.

            His feathersprained head fell upon the pillow of down, dry smoke peacefully toying with his lips.  He had known in his dream, if not in the soft wax of his soul, that Time was unworth the candlelamp.

The Long Baby slept easy for once, sufficient unto itself, ignoring the distant pitch...

            "New deaths for old, new deaths for old:

      Lamps for Hell have been too cheaply sold."

Posted by weirdtongue at 11:19 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, 11 December 2008 11:20 AM EST

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AN ARITHMETIC ANGST 

When the saviour was due to conduct a sermon on the Mount, he had been warned in advance by the almighty that this was going to be the most important one of all.  The sermon on the Mount, in fact, so he'd better have something pretty good up his sleeve to deliver.  Imagine the saviour's consternation, then, when he arrived on the Mount, only to find just a bedraggled couple of non-entities waiting for him.  You could not even call them a tête-à-tête, let alone a crowd.  Although the saviour had blessings up his sleeve, he produced a rabbit instead.

            "Go forth and multiply!" he commanded the audience.

            And in the circumstances that was a very wise thing to have said.

I forgot I had a pen.  If I hadn't, why would have I tried to commit all this to memory?  Nothing short of a dictaphone or cassette player or reel-to-reel recorder was needed.  Or even an answer-machine somewhere at the end of a telephone line.  Yet, why did posterity need to be told in the exact words conveyed to me by the potential corpse's mouth?

            Then, I suddenly recalled the pen—lying in its case's bed of silk—my old school prize, nib still sharp, barrel hopefully brimming with indelible ink: its steel lever at the side prime for the pen's plunging into another black bottle, if the need should arise during my interminable scratching, scratching that was guided by the narrow feint lines of the foolscap.

            I could have killed myself for such an act of stupidity.  The parrot fashion grappling with the corpse's last message, the tussling with the long words, trying to get my tongue into gear, switching on hidden vocabulary sumps in my mind, rehearsing the rhymes and wherefores of each mysterious syllable—finally, giving myself elocution lessons for fear of the curtain rising and the audience sitting in silent expectation for my recital as a corpse's understudy.

            All this time, there lay the pen and there leafed the paper in the untidy draughts of the concert-hall and, what was more, there grew the empty space of time in which to start my scrawl.

            Now, as the corpse’s apotheosis draws closer, I'm still struggling to recall the very last words, before it became the swordthrust's victim amid the weltering blood's blackness.  It grasped my wrist with a paralytic's last gasp—and asked: "Where is the pen?" 

            As if it knew my memory played it false.

            I smiled and answered: "The murderer has it."

            I would not have smiled, had I heard the whirring camera.

The saviour's moustache had taken well, despite only having recently stopped shaving.  The mirror certainly did it justice, judging by the reflection.  After his day on the Mount, he twiddled the upper lip to and fro as if he were a cat who had suddenly discovered that the spiky itches that had irritated him—since Christianity began—were whiskers.  But the face was his own, with pitiful eyes that spoke terrible memories.

            A boy raised his desk-lid and took out his Scripture books, trying to watch the teacher watching him trying to be unseen.  He'd forgotten his most important item: the neat-writing exercise book which he'd inadvertently left near the oven at home when his mother told him to turn the gas down for fear of the roast charring.  He remembered forgetting it there.

            Well, of course, there was the rough-working book still in his desk—a book of thick wood-knotted pages upon which he was meant to work out ideas, to practise joined-up writing, to test sums for answers and, most importantly, to exercise his faith in a narrow and faint Creation. 

            Well, this rough book had been issued to him at the beginning of term, along with the neat-writing exercise book, the latter sporting a red glossy cover, an allotted space on the front for his name and class, together with times-tables and weight-equivalents printed on the back.  So, today, he had to pretend his rough book was this glossy red neat book, or else the teacher would come down on him like a ton of bricks.  Or was it a hundredweight?

            He riffled in mock bravado through the bulk of his roughwork that sprawled between a good number of the thick-sliced pages.  Doodlings, in the main.  Pretence at practice made perfect.  Rehearsed religions.  Regurgitated arithmetic.  Random numbers masquerading as difference, division, product and aggregate.  Graffiti in the shape of someone raising the whole arm at an impossible geometrical angle of salute.  It was, after all, during the war years that memorabilia of his schooldays scrawled themselves thus on blotchy narrow-lined paper, rough to the touch as well as to the rough end of a lacklustre pen.  A scratchy nib and exploding blots.  Cartwheels.  End-to-end stick men.  Star designs.  Instinctive rules-of-thumb.  Monstrous concretions of back-of-the-mind abstractions.  Scribble become a nightmare with just one last intuitive stroke of the crayon to create another stick man stapled upon a cross of sticks. 

            But, then, there were the spit-smudged pencil portraits of the girl he loved in the next desk—portraits looking more like her insect sister.

He came unto my dream, a real jaws of a man.  Toting six-shooters, he came right up to my face with not even a bye or leave; he leered into my mouth as if he were a dentist. 

            "Hey! What you want?" I spluttered.  "Step outside if you want to sort something out." 

            I had forgotten we were already outside.  Infuriatingly, he failed even to deign a single reply. 

            "WHAT YOU WANT?  WHAT YOU WANT?  HAVE SOME RESPECT!"             This my splutter had turned into a full-blooded screech. 

            He showed his own sharkfin teeth in a silent version of a smiling reply. 

            "What are you doing in my dream, anyway?" I whispered, having decided that low profiles were all the rage—and no doubt the best policy with this ugly customer. 

            He spoke with a slickness: "Perhaps, I should ask you that particular question, as it's your dream, after all." 

            Evidently there was a lot of soul to search since, if I could not take responsibility for my own dream, I must have lived in a poor world disguised as rich reality. 

            I spoke again between gritted teeth: "Well ...errr ...what I mean to say is, you look like a man who knows his own mind—but, thinking about it, here you are claiming to be a mere pawn on the chessboard of my dream." 

            I was sure that he would have no answer to that little conundrum of a dilemma.  Indeed, he beat a retreat, accompanied by a Red Indian; the latter, in full war-dress, had been previously unnoticed by myself: evidently stalking the cowboy and myself amid the scrubroot desert.  Yet I had also failed to notice the desert itself—but that was surely too dreary for a resplendent dreamer such as myself to have dreamed as the dream's backdrop.  Perhaps it did not matter, because I hoped to wake up shortly—with at least one white shard of wisdom removed from my gum-holster.

What was that corpse's name?  He turned from the mirror, still finger-testing the moustache he was growing beneath his nose.  She'd been dead now for ages.  Many of her sort were killed during the war.  In ovens.

            He examined his hands and the arithmetic agony redoubled.  Only two hands.  Non-entities, both.  Lines of life palmed off on ill-considered futures.  An aggregate of near-miss digits.  Fingers bent like claws.  Tens without units.  Stars without shape.  Decimalisation.  Decimation.  The rough with the smooth.  Pitiful eyes like a cat's as it was about to be put to sleep.  Whiskers still flicking after death.  Numb numbers in subjection.

            He had really taught the girl, hadn't he?  The arthritic age.  Semitic sums of subtraction.  Mere semantics.  Whatever the case, the teacher shouldn't have smacked him for proving that religion was never neat.

It was such a stinker of a cold, it felt as if I were sniffing cowshit all day long.  I decided to leave the office at lunchtime, to give myself a breather.  In fact, surrounding the building, there were some quiet country lanes that were rather pleasant at this time of the year.  Despite the proximity to the M25 Ring, it was easy to imagine being in the depths of the Welsh hills—so peaceful, so lonely, so...

            Abruptly, I spotted a large crane in the distance, one of those huge monstrosities which swivelled their T-crosses in slow swathes.  It seemed to be constructing next to nothing in the middle of next to nowhere, since the base of the vertical stalk of girders was concealed by a meadowy ridge.

            There was no sound of an engine (or whatever was used to drive such outlandish contraptions) but the grinding clatter of the turning tower was clearly audible, but only as if I were hearing the echoes rather than its source.  My stroll was by its very nature a circular one: well-trodden by those occasions when I'd built up sufficient hours on the flextime clock at work.  I usually chose sunny lunchtimes ... but today was a little overcast.  I was, however,  trying to pump the bilge of my head rather than obtain an all over tan!  And what was more, there was the added advantage that the endemic cow stench of the countryside was not noticeable, since I'd been snorting a home-grown twin nostril version of it all morning, whilst goggling at the office VDU screen...

            I laughed out loud.  I was not an office worker, but a murderer.  I couldn't even convince myself as to my innocence.  I had pointlessly told myself that the crane was somehow peculiar, mysterious, uncanny, ghostly ... knowing all the time it was actually employed by the corpse I had murdered and her camera crew, all of whom were close-by over the ridge. 

            And a corpse murdered is more than just a corpse.

            But, surely, the crane's revolving crucifix arm had for some time been a customary feature of my mini-rambles, spoiling the otherwise idyllic ambience of lunchtime.  I returned to the office with my back-brain snot reasonably uncurdled.  After slotting in my flextime key for the duration, I spent the afternoon pretending to be a whole load of numbers on a screen out-staring a dull-eyed female corpse who was pretending to me.

            I find it more difficult to say thank you than goodbye.  But what I find always impossible to say is never.

            It's OK where there're no speech marks to spotlight such words' sayability.  But when I'm called upon to stick a chest, throat, tongue, teeth and lips into the fray, I think I'd rather choke on my last dying words: "I love you."

            Life's fragility centres on one's head.  Even the best of visored crash-helmets cannot expunge fears of toppling cranes, head-on collisions, earthquakes, metal girders slipping off backs of lorries straight into one's windscreen, sharpened pen-nibs slipping into the eyeball...

            For some people, it is easy to put such fragility concerning their heads out of their minds, simply by means of the rough and tumble of normal existence—but resulting in the wear and tear of mental processes to the extent that they cannot even worry about such matters, let alone think straight.

            Once, I saw a person staring blankly into the distance, with tiny serrated nib-blades being wielded from inside the head, cutting round the eye sockets...

            It was a pity that I was too senile to notice it was a reflection on blank a computer-screen.  Thankfully, though, I did not need to fret about my murderer since the crane let my face fall to the narrow feint paper and eye-lined a last incriminating message.  I loved you.  With no speechmarks.  Nor blessings.   

Posted by weirdtongue at 8:51 AM EST

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THE LOST  CHORD

Dear Greta,

High time, I thought, for a letter to my oldest friend.  How are you?  I’m OK but a lot’s happened since  I wrote last spring.  And things have gone awry with me, but no use in complaining.  Something missing from the music, as the saying goes.

Do you know what?  Adam has got himself into a lot of trouble over some girl.  And I always thought he was a joy, can’t tell these days.  He fell head over heels with someone called Prudence – I met her once – pretty enough – but not much up top, in my estimation.  Adam must have been after things that didn’t come from people’s heads.  Anyway, she led him a rare old dance.  Musical chairs didn’t have anything in it.  Off with Adam one day, off with someone else the next.  Hunt the lost thimble?  Prudence had several silver ones strung through her nose, it seemed. I didn’t look up close.  Greet, believe me, I’m sure some of the holes were festering!  Talk about something missing from the music, she sings at pubs with pianos, and I can’t imagine anyone liking her screeching. 

Enough about Adam.  Safe to say Prudence is no longer on the scene.  Adam’s no oil painting, as you’ll recall from his first communion, but he deserves better than her.  He’s back to his old ways.  Sinking jets, he calls it.    I call it something else.  There’s no telling them these days. I just have to sit back and watch him waste his life.  His teeth are still pearly white, though.  His best feature.  (Sorry, went back and crossed out jets, and put jars instead – whatever the case young men are hardly ever sober, with binge drinking and things like that).

I don’t get around much now, myself.  Too much telly, with it being on so often.  I preferred the good old days when you could only get a test card and light music.  Susie visits.  She’s not like Adam.  She’s settled down with her Peter and both got well-paid jobs.  No kiddies.  Not sure I want grandchildren anyway.  How are yours? Great grandchildren, by now, I be bound.  I’m sure your hands are full making Cjrismas present all year round, eh?  (Hey, just noticed something else wrong – misspelled Chritsmas.  Got it right now.  This letter will all be crossed out by the time I finish!  You’ve got to laugh).

How are your troubles?  Hope the rashes have died down.  Not that we had pins and needels in our bodies in our day – and pores weren’t the easiest things to clean.  I still wash out my nostrils with soap every day after coming back from shopping, and I’ve not had a proper cold now since … well, ages ago, I forget.

Sorry this letter’s not very newsy.  I suppose at our age, Greet, news happenss to younger people.  Telly’s full of it.  All those wars and people having affairs and people being greedy about everything they own, houses in the sun, makeovers, repairs … talking of which I’ve just checked through this letter and corrected some more spellings and crossed some things and inserted others I won’t bother to mention.  But there’s something my mind’s lost I meant to put in somewhere above. On the tip of my tongue.  Never mind. It all makes sense without it, I suppose.  Couldn’t have been important.  Probably only just a word.  Maybe something to do with Prudence’s singing.  At least she’s happy.

All the best for now.

 Love, George. xxx

Posted by weirdtongue at 8:41 AM EST

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I read 'Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan.  It just seemed the right book to start with.  I'd spent most of my life reading non-fiction and biographies, believing this to be more worthy than reading fiction.  Fiction isn't real.  Therefore, fiction is a waste of time.  But, then, I decided: out of the blue: to give it a try.  And 'Pilgrim's Progress' seemed the right place to start.  I was a sort of a pilgrim myself, embarking on a rite of passage towards a something that never happened or didn't exist.

Nobody had told me, you see, that even non-fiction was a concotion of misappropriated facts leading to a similar altar of untruth.  History, biography ... all networks of criss-crossing lies.  Fiction was no different.

From Bunyan - I literally leapfrogged all so-called literature such as Shakespeare and Dickens - and started reading a Private Detective novel featuring an investigator who was known for his Hawaiian shirts.  One shirt in particular - highly coloured, wearing it time after time.  Its armpits hung out, but you didn't notice under his wide-lapelled baggy suit.

Amazing coincidence.  This novel I had picked out at random as my second step in the Ways of Fiction happened to feature a central character - the investigator with the Hawaiian shirt - who was actually called John Bunyan.  How did the author of the novel *know* that I would be reading this straight after 'Pilgrim's Progress'?  Such things only happened in fiction...

I worked out who committed the murder before the Private Dick did, I'm proud to report.  It was as if I simply knew - or, incredibly, that I was truly *there* watching events as they unfolded.  I witnessed John Bunyan as he questioned various wide boys and coves who inhabited the Slough of Despond that some call downtorn Dark City.

Bunyan even attempted to finger me - the reader of the book.

I escaped to another city - where I live now.  Tomorrow I shall start another book.  Not sure which one  yet.  Maybe a Stephen King.  Maybe a bigger, blacker, older book.  Instead of a crown of thorns on my head, there is a garland of Pacific flowers.

Posted by weirdtongue at 8:36 AM EST

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THE MORNING AFTER

He looked in the mirror.  A shaving one that magnified his pores, but seemed to leave his eyes alone.  Or were they always such small, squeezed-up apertures with red whites and completely no pupil.  He’d never learn, it seems.  A skinful last night, and here he was examining the ruins of the night.  He stuck out his tongue to see if it was discoloured.

No tongue.

He tried to poke hard with muscles at the root of his mouth, but they merely had no flag with which to wave.  Panic was about to set in.  Except he was yet insufficiently awake not to discount a drunken dream.  Binge-boozing was like that: intoxication even to the very bottom of the mind’s imaginings: voluntary or involuntary hallucinations of a mismatched sleeping and waking, as the body itself tossed and turned amid the runkling covers.

Bingo!  There was his tongue.  Poking out like a flat fleshy fish flapping for breath.

No, <I>that</I> was the dream.  The reality was tongueless.  He tried to stir the cloudy frosty air with an imaginary flannel of yellow meat.  Breath was in gusts of wild smoky terror at its missing friend the tongue. Terror is more terror with regard to nothing than it is to something.

His eyes now bulged, the pupils popping out like black peas, the redness in the whites brightening to a tone of scorched scarlet.

Even the shaving nick under the nose which had left a scar from the previous morning seeped a renewal of blood.  He put a tiny tear of toilet paper upon it, creating a red archipelago upon the tissue which he even recognised as real geography given the calmness to recognise <I>anything</I>.

Scar tissue was the least of his worries.  Yet patches of his skin were so thin, the skin itself seemed to threaten bursting the banks of its blood dams.  That surely was imagination.

Tonguelessness was real.  Thoughtlessness came to his rescue.  If you didn’t understand anything, put it out of your mind, he thought.  And he staggered into his living-room where the floor was scattered with spent bottles of hard spirit.  He waded through thousands of them, it seemed.  Clunking and dribbling beneath his feet.  He slumped on to the couch – only to find the clunking magnified manifold, as he tried to make himself comfortable amid the rounded arches of funnelled glass.  The neck nozzles intertwined like stone. snakes.  Except the description was not on the tip of his tongue.  He had more worries than verbalising the terror of the moment.  Terror has no diary, as Terror cannot write.

This ‘morning after’ was so severe, it seemed, he actually wondered if it were after death itself.  After was a peculiar word, one he couldn’t quite pronounce in his current predicament.  The f became an s and the and ah & er a blur of groan.  Words mixed and matched with foreign languages so foreign they were from the voices of aliens with speech patterns only possible with a completely different geography of the mouth.  Human geography could never survive the ultimate bodily self-degradation as the binge drinking he had last night imposed upon his most valuable ally: himself.  His self. A self that now floundered to gain a grip on reality.

Without a tongue, anything was possible.  Words were said, in his hearing, that would never otherwise have been said.  Words concocted from the very air around him, as the bottles clicked and clunked semi-articulately in rhythm to the still vilely gusting breaths of his body’s metabolism.  The room compensated for his own inarticulate grunts and tongueless mouthings, by itself speaking through the natural settlement of its walls and the automatic creaks of its furniture as the cushions and springs recalled bodily inhabitants from the past. The man’s wife.  And friends.  Now no longer customary visitors to the room that now fondly remembered their visits. And the room thus spoke of the degradation with which the man had shamefully tortured his body and mind the previous night.  This had been a sight all the room’s contents had witnessed in the very room which thus spoke of his wild cavortings of intoxication and later despair.

Morning itself spoke.

“Morning” it said.

And, in response, he tried to make small talk about the current cold snap in the weather.

Tried so very hard to enunciate the tiniest possible word.  But he was too cold to speak … or even breathe.

Posted by weirdtongue at 8:34 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 5 November 2008 8:35 AM EST

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THE CRIME by DF Lewis and Gordon Lewis

As I walked away from the cinema I was still overwhelmed by the film I had just seen.  Little did I know that it was going to have a profound effect on my life.

            As usual, on my way home, I called into my favourite public house.  Charlie the barman was his customary cheery self as he bid me welcome.

            “Been to the cinema, Tom?  What was it like?”

            “It was very good as movies go,” I replied.  “A bit thought-provoking, but it was entertaining.”

            “I thought so, too,” said the young man who joined me at the bar.  He was a complete stranger but I didn’t think he was being intrusive.  He was easy to talk to as we exchanged our thoughts about the film.

            “Do you think it possible to commit such a crime?” I asked.

            “It would take a lot of nerve to carry out,” he replied.  “Need a lot of careful planning as well as all the right props.”

            We had moved away from the bar to sit at one of the tables and our conversation turned to other aspects of the film, peppered with associated items of beer talk.

            “You’re not suggesting that we two could commit a similar crime, are you?” I asked.

            “Why not?  Just a one off job.”

            I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation – talking to a stranger about matters that would not normally cross my mind.

            He could see I was slowly becoming uncomfortable.

            “Come on, come on, let’s think about this.  Let’s pretend we are in a film ourselves – as directed by someone we have no control over, so we should not feel guilty if we commit the crime.  We simply follow the path he – or she – has set for us and maybe we won’t even go through with the crime.  Hold back at the last moment.  Not reach the thrilling climax.  Like a bubble bursting.”

            He smiled as I nodded.  Suddenly, having just watched a cinema film about a perfect crime, here I was actually appearing in one, talking to a perfect stranger about committing this very crime!

            The pub became very busy.  Milling about were countless folk of all shapes and sizes, gripping jugs of amber liquid, shouting instead of talking, billowing with clouds of smoke, then laughing as they jocularly split from their various groupings to relieve themselves in the realms of near privacy elsewhere.  I seemed to recognise one or two faces from the film…

            I shook my head.  I could not believe I was thinking what I was thinking.  I turned back to my new found ‘friend’.

            “Don’t worry, Tom,” he said.

            “How do you know my name?”

            “How do we know anything in this life of unexpected turnings and wild coincidences.”

            He stood up and I followed suit.  The pub was becoming very oppressive.

            “I want you to meet someone,” he said.  “A lady who knows a thing or two.”

            We hit the cold night air of the pub’s car park.  Standing by one of the vehicles – a black hunched shape that reminded me more of the Sixties bubble car than anything of more modern vintage – was a tall lady in evening dress and sporting a hat that would have been worthy of Royal Ascot.

            This was bordering on the ridiculous – or was I dreaming?  The last person anyone would think of meeting; such a lady whose outstretched hand I took in mine as introductions were made.

            “This is Tom, Nadia,” said the man who was a stranger (stranger by the minute) until I heard the lady call him Edmund.  At least I now had a name with which to take a handle on absurdity.

            We walked back to the pub, but this time we entered the Lounge bar where there was comparative peace.

            Our conversation ran the gamut of topics, other than the one I had earlier had

with Edmund, until the subject of the film came up again.  It seemed that Nadia had seen the film and became interested when Edmund mentioned the crime and the possibility of getting away with it in real life.  The biggest crime of all.

            I was becoming bored with the subject knowing that I wouldn’t dream of entering a liaison to carry out such a crime anyway, so I swiftly changed the subject, before it managed to change me.

            Commenting on the way Nadia was dressed, I asked if she had been to a wedding.  Weddings always being happy hatty occasions.

            “No,” she replied, “I have been to a ‘bit of a do’ up at Wakeland Hall until I remembered I had promised to meet Edmund here.”

            She had taken off her hat by this time and I couldn’t help but remark how beautiful her hair was … a shame to hide it with any kind of hat.

            “Thank you, kind sir,” she simpered.

            I was getting along with her very well until I sensed that Edmund wasn’t pleased with the way things were going.

            “Ah well,” he said, “it’s time we should be moving, Nadia,” then turning to me, he said: “Perhaps we can meet again, Tom, I am in this area often.”

            Not expecting to meet him again, I merely said it would be my pleasure – without being specific in making arrangements.

            Once they had left, it felt almost as if I had never met them at all.  What was more, I could no longer see any faces in the pub’s crowd that remotely retained any lingering connection with the film … the film which I had viewed earlier in the Electric Cinema.  Ah, yes, the Electric Cinema.  Some place!  A very old-fashioned picture house with a ticket kiosk straight from the ancient memories of an archetypal childhood.  Words that were more grown-up, though, blurring exactly what I intended to mean. 

            No wonder – any film seen in there stayed put … fastened itself in the mind as well as the mind’s flickering eye.

            I took slow sips at my pint, gloomily glancing at the neighbouring drinkers who suddenly – it seemed – had grown quieter, more surly, more sullen, more potentially comprehending of my deepest sophisticated thoughts.  The rough and tumble of pub talk put away somewhere behind the gravity.  No more hubbub.  No longer the alcoholic connections.  Nobody came.  Nobody left.  Their bladders must be fit to burst.

            I shrugged.  I was no longer in control of my wayward thoughts, until I was brought to full attention…

            “Want to buy a bubble car, eh?”

            The voice sounded grimly familiar.  It was indeed – one of various drinking pals, the one who always mumbles into his beard as well as his beer.  Talk about being the soul of the party – Ted Roberts was ever its death!

            “Hiya, Ted, how are you?”  I mustered a smile.

            I saw you outside, Tom, staring at that dame with the bubble car.”

            “Did you?”

            “Yes, it looked as if she were trying to sell you that little buggy!”

            “Really?”

            “Yes – what were you doing outside alone with the likes of her?”

            “Alone?”

            What about that Edmund, I thought.

            “Yes – she was very strange-looking with a hat as big as … that!”

            Ted stretched his hands around the wide brim of his own imaginary headgear, in order to demonstrate.

            “Where are you from?” I asked.  “Where were you hiding?  Where were you looking from?”

            Ted, by now, had turned towards another frowning toper and was exchanging a few more dismal phrases with this ugly customer.  I decided not to divert Ted’s attention back to me and I left the bar, ostensibly to spend a penny.

            I walked past the door to the men’s toilets and out into the evening air.  The freshness after the smoky lounge bar felt good as I set off for home some ten minutes walk away from the pub.  My wife Ann would probably be watching TV and have something to say about my being later than usual.

            I was about halfway home when I wished I had visited the men’s convenience before setting out, so I quickened my pace.

            “I suppose you called in The Dog and Pheasant,” were the first words that greeted me as I entered our sitting room.  “Did you meet someone there?” she asked in conclusion.

            I was about to mention the two strangers I had met but held back to say: “Old Ted Roberts was there and the usual crowd, no one special.”

            With that I hurried off to the bathroom as my need had become very urgent.

            Returning to the sitting room, Ann had switched off the TV and looked like she was preparing to retire for the night, leaving me to make my usual cup of tea before I too would be calling it a day.

            I switched on the TV to watch the late night news as I sipped my warming cup of tea.

            I was surprised by the sound of the front door bell and on opening the door I was taken aback when I saw Edmund there.

            “What on earth are you doing here at this time of night and how did you find out where I lived?”

            “Charlie at the pub introduced me to someone called Ted who knew your address.”

            There are some thoughts that often come to you at the drop of a hat, thoughts that you cannot actually land on the bank from the torrenting river of your mind.  Not a stream of consciousness as such – more a white water rafting…

            “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” was one such thought, taken from a million others, it seemed.  The only thought I remembered thinking.

            Again, I had the sensation of appearing in a film, having learned my lines and actions in many forgotten rehearsals.  I even held a stage prop in my hand – the TV’s remote control.

            Edmund suddenly stood aside, revealing Nadia – now hatless – who stood behind him, beaming – a gun in her hand … glinting viciously in the cruel shafts of stage lighting that forested down from the night sky.

I then realised that it was not a real gun at all – but my own novelty lighter that I must have left at the pub in the rush for the loo.  A stage prop in the vague shape of an automatic weapon and when its trigger was pulled a flame would generously plume from the end of the barrel.  Indeed, she had just lighted her own smoke with an adept flick of her thumb.  Momentarily, I thought her cigarette holder was, if anything, a trifle ostentatious.  And I was irritated that she had the effrontery to use my belonging in such a laissez-faire fashion.

            The pair had not spoken at all, as she offered the return of the lighter.  She held it out to me … smiling.  Not a kind smile.  More a sardonic grimace.  Edmund had by now clicked his fingers … and, as if at his whim, the brazen lighting effects were swiftly doused.  I gazed up into the blackness, expecting to see gantries carrying theatrical spots on runners.  But, no, the gulf of emptiness was simply that … with the distant drone of a plane and the clatter of vanes. 

            Ann, by now, had approached from the well of our hallway and stood at my shoulder.

            “Why don’t you invite your usual crowd in for some refreshments?” she asked in a somewhat stilted voice.

            This was quite out of character for my dear Ann.  She was usually wary of strangers.  She was rather shy and retiring.  I was her everything.  But there were those unaccountable thoughts of mine.  Those inappropriate imponderables again.  Ann now seemed gregarious!  Ann loved visitors!  Ann loved entertaining!  She pushed me aside to allow the forbidding couple to breach our defences by crossing the sacrosanct threshold of our marital home.  I pocketed the remote and followed behind.

            And all this without even a word from anybody … because I somehow doubted that Ann herself had said anything.  I even doubted that the novelty lighter belonged to  me.

Tom’s mind, too, was in a whirl, almost feeling as if he’d become a different person … but he managed to introduce the couple to his wife Ann.  He had nothing in common with Edmund except their mutual thoughts about the film they had seen.  Surely he wasn’t going to bring that subject up again!

            “I hope you don’t mind the interruption, Tom,” Edmund said, “ but I could think of no one else to turn to.  My car broke down just a few hundred yards from the Dog and Pheasant and in spite of everything I tried, the damn thing wouldn’t start again.  We returned to the pub but there was no room there, so we had nowhere to stay the night.  As I told you, your friend Ted gave us your address and here we are wondering if you can put us up for the night.”

            Tom was flabbergasted by the cheek of the man and was rendered speechless as Ann said the couple could stay if they didn’t mind being split up.  The single bedroom for Nadia and the settee in the lounge for Edmund, as their son and daughter were already asleep in the other bedrooms.

            “Thank you,” said Nadia, “that will suit us fine.  We are not in that kind of relationship.  Just friends, that is all.”

            They were actually giving accommodation to two virtual strangers and Tom was trying to keep his feelings of intrusion bottled up.  What else could he do in the circumstances?  He had to go along with Ann’s unexpected offer. 

            Time was when Tom knew himself as an individual with a definite handle on his own personal self.  But now he felt he had become that face across the other side of a room or bar … a rippling reflection … a stranger … a stranger with a weak bladder … in whose body glove he had taken to live and breathe and simply be.

            He took the gun from his pocket.  Put it to the side of his head … tentatively.  Took it away again.  Put it back.  Time and time again.  He could hear the visitors mumbling in deep undercurrents within the hastily improvised guestroom above.  Tom also heard his wife’s voice.  She was up there with them, uncharacteristically trilling with laughter.  Shush, or you’ll wake the kids.  Some joke.  Some charade, perhaps.  Or acting out. The usual suspects talking of a trip to a point-to-point in the grounds of Wakeland Hall … then a revivalist meeting at the newly renovated Electric Cinema.

            It seemed as if all the participants had known each other for years and years.  Tom almost sensed he could hear Ted’s uncouth voice among them … and Charlie the barman … but at least those voices could be blamed on imagination.  Whoever they were, though, they seemed to be hatching a plot or the pre-fabrication of a crime … a gratuitous ignition…

            Tom pulled the trigger…

            I was surprised that it did not emit a plume of flame to singe my sideboards.  I watched, instead, a black filmy bubble slowly swell from the end of the barrel before it swiftly burst.

Posted by weirdtongue at 6:24 AM EST

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THE LAST HOME GAME.... by D.F.Lewis and Gordon Lewis

The lad was green. But only a head short of me. I took him to his first soccer match as soon as I judged him fit enough to withstand the cut and thrust of the touch-line. I had christened him Tom after Finney, not that I’m particularly religious.

He was my nephew. I’ve got no kids of my own and Tom equally had no parents. The story about them (my brother and his wife) is a long one and I have no intention to tell it here. This story is about Tom and myself.  I am more hands on than Gordon Banks as far as fatherhood is concerned. The local match I took him to watch was a needle one. I supported Rovers and got Tom to support Rangers in the hope of sparking a manly rivalry. The early kick around reminded me of when I sported studs myself, roaming the goalmouth like a good ‘un. You see, one of the players in that match (Tom’s first to watch) was a spitting image of my younger self, the acclaimed new signing from across the valley.

The match ended in a draw, the teams having scored two goals each. Leaving the ground was more subdued than usual. No cries of ‘We are the champions^’ and such like chants. But there was an argument between Torn and me.  He seemed to think that the equalizer the Rovers scored in extra time should not have been allowed.

There was the usual trouble getting away from the ground and by the time we set off across the fields the argument was forgotten.

Arriving home there was the usual ‘Who won?’ from my wife Sarah. When she knew the result she seemed to be pleased that there would not be the usual discussion of the rights and wrongs of the match.

* * *

The days passed by without any significant happenings until the day I received a letter from a firm of solicitors in the distant town of Elmsford. It seemed they wanted to talk to me about a Great Aunt of mine who had passed on leaving a will in which I was named as a beneficiary. The time that passed to the day I was to travel to the firm’s offices were days of much speculation as to what the reading of my aunt’s will would reveal.

The solicItor’s offices were surprisingly modern, not at all the dusty musty place one expects. I was kept waiting for a while and I began to get fidgetty especially as there was no one else in the waiting room.

A door opened and a man who introduced himself as Mr Grantham ushered me into his office. Once I was seated he faced me across his desk to quietly tell me I was the sole beneficiary of Miss Agnes Fisher’s last will and testimony, and the bequests included her property, goods, chattels together with all her monies, stocks and shares etc.

There was a proviso however... I had to occupy her rambling old house for at least two years. I was to receive £50,000 immediately to defray the cost of moving from my present address and settling in the old mansion.

I remembered that I once visited the old place when I was just a youngster. All I could remember about the house was that it was reputed to be haunted. I remember too, that it was a place that looked the part of a place that deserved to be haunted.

Still in a state of shock when I arrived home I acquainted Sarah with what happened in Elmsford. She was stunned by the news. Tom was excited with the news and said he was looking forward to living in a haunted house. Sarah was less enthusiastic but soon accepted it when she knew what was involved.

***

When we eventually arrived at Argylle House, I was surprised how unfamiliar it was. The old turret that had stuck in my memory was now replaced with a shorn-off cornerstone.  Mrs Boscombe — who welcomed the three of us into a cheery firelit study — explained that the turret had become unstable over the years... forcing my Great Aunt to have it scaffolded and finally removed brick by brick by local gypsies.

Tom was so excited he was allowed to wander off on his own. Hopping, he went out into the corridor. Yipping with delight, too. Nothing often fazed kids like that. Mrs Boscombe assured us that all the disused rooms in the house were firmly locked. Yet that didn’t stop him from getting lost...

She winked and smiled as she spoke of domestic matters. Of course, she had not been at Argylle House when I visited it as a youngster. That would have now made her well over a hundred. Yet, why did she seem so familiar to me? Later that night, I compared notes with Sarah and felt unacccountably relieved to discover that she also found Mrs Boscombe familiar — an impossibility since Sarah had only arrived in my life fairly recently.

Tom, we believed had been esconced in one of the servants’ bedrooms. Mrs Boscombe — a cheery, ginger-dyed mop of a lady — had seen to all the ministrations concerning the boy’s settling down for his first night here. Mrs Boscombe was the only item remaining that could possibly be described — at a push — as a servant.

Sarah and I had not seen Tom again that night since his initial foray into the maze of corridors. Football had seemed such a down-to-earth activity. A hobby that had been so healthy and character forming. I couldn’t quite put out of my mind the appearance of that youngster I’d seen playing on the occasion of Tom’s ‘first match’. That player had been so like me when I first visited Argylle House all those years before. I think I forgot to tell you how he scored both goals for the Rovers... with his head. Diving at the keeper’s feet. A brave soul.

As I fell asleep, eventually, next to Sarah, I speculated on the distance we had travelled both physically and spiritually… from the simple pleasures of soccer, followed by laughter, and a cold walk home across fields and stiles for piping hot stew and dumplings. Tom had been such a handful, full of questions about his parents — a live wire with odd moments of sadness. Now a once forgotten Great Aunt had changed all that — brought us face to face with a completely different environment of thoughts and ambitions. I couldn’t help but think that things had taken a turn for the worse. The missing turret appeared that night in my subsequent dream, drifting in and out of mist. I could even hear Tom’s high-pitched snores from whever he’d been billeted. Or so I imagined. Thus the house slept until morning.

I slept fitfully in spite of the long first day at Argylle House. If indeed, the house was haunted, the ghosts were not the noisy variety such as the poltergeist element. Apart from the occasional snore from Sarah the house seemed as quiet as the grave.

Mrs Boscombe hadn’t mentioned anything about the house being haunted, so I decided to bring up the subject at the first opportunity. As she was housekeeper only until Sarah took over the reins, I was determined to find out all I could from the lady before her stay in the house was over.

Sarah, Tom and I breakfasted in the kitchen, it being the only place that was heated. While we ate we decided the day should be spent in settling

in.  We were to inspect all the rooms to see whether they were locked or not. Armed with a big bunch of the house keys we started from the cellar and gradually climbed up through the house to the topmost rooms in the attic. It became evident to us that the rooms above should remain locked, because the rambling place was much to big for us.

Mrs Boscombe was a bit hard of hearing which made having a conversation with her difficult. However I managed to draw her out on the subject of the house being haunted.

“They do say there be something in it” she said, “but I have not seen or heard anything, but Miss Agnes used to say she bad seen the ghost of a man on the top landing of the house peering down to the hail below.

Yet, there was something about Tom, that first full day at Argylle House, that didn’t please me, an intangible undercurrent; in fact, whatever it was made me unaccountably sad, though I didn’t realise quite how sad at the time

— until I experienced it again through the forces of hindsight many years later. Tom, somehow, that day, seemed less perky, slightly older in the face (even during the course of a single night), with a look of knowing in his eyes: a look I had never witnessed him make before. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have joked and ruffled his hair (as was my avuncular wont) — then questioned him about football and other trivial matters.

But we were all so concerned about the new abode and its domestic arrangements. All I could manage to utter was a cursory “Did you sleep well Tom?”

“Yes, thank you , Uncle,” he answered purposefully, then biting his tongue.

It is simply my retrospective view that had added nuances to the conversation.  I forget now, however, where it ended up. Oh yes, Sarah asked Tom about the T-shirt he was wearing for breakfast. She claimed to have never seen it before. It bore a strange fairy-like creature with sugar-glass wings and

a sun like a sliced blood orange. Tom mumbled something about a bottom of

a trunk and Sarah wondered if weren’t damp.

Mrs Boscombe didn’t give it a glance — as if she already knew more about it than met the eye. She simply bustled around… from the kitchen into the future.

* * *

Years somehow passed. Not even in stories, could one imagine the time thus telescoping. Servants came and went. I recall a Miss Albion (a shamefully dishevelled lady with pinched features and long, sweeping skirts), someone who tended to help Tom with his lessons for a while, we being too far from a school for him to travel. Presumably, the Authorities had not got wind of our arrival in the area and we became too dilatory in our own way, to care much. Anyway, I also recall a tall gentleman by the name of Accrington — a moustachioed military figure who often hung around the corners of the downstairs hall and on the upstairs landing. He was, I suppose, Argylle House’s factotum, hired by Mrs Boscombe before she left us. Yes, you’re right Mrs Boscombe did leave us in the end — without too much fuss and bother, but not without me noticing a tear in her eyes as she gave our Tom a last glance.

Tom, indeed, when we come to face it, grew quickly — too quickly by half, if you ask me. During puberty, though, he still made me have a kick-around with him in the stable area, a healthy activity but strangely spiritless, trying hard to pretend we were still Finney and Lofthouse. But my own aging bones soon put paid to all such shenanigans.

Those obligatory two years (and more) at Argylle House had passed quickly by, and as the conditions on my Aunt’s will were honoured and I inherited all her estate lock, stock and barrel. As a family, Sarah, Tom and I had grown quite fond of the estate — so much so — we decided to settle down there. The top floors were opened up but there had been no sign of a ghostly apparation. Perhaps the ghost was there to haunt Aunt Agnes and when she died it simply faded away into oblivion, its last ties with being earthbound were no more.

Over the years since that first day, Tom’s private education had been very thorough and as he approached the end of his teenaged years he was ready to move on to an university. Gone were the days of bantering about football; he was now an adult, ready to go out into the world to make his own way in life. I had officially adopted him years before and was proud to call him my son, for the boy had grown to be a young man of stature. So familiar had we become he had stopped calling me uncle and I believe he was proud to call me Dad, but strangely he called my wife Sarah, I suppose because she was so much younger than me.

Though those days of his final education passed by all too quickly, his times spent at home during those university years were always looked forward to and they passed quite amiably; a diversion in the work entailed in running my estate. A job perhaps ready made for Tom to take over in my later life.

I often now gaze into the future. Tom’s university life petered out and he returned here. The world was not the place he expected, I guess. I see Tom as old as myself, sharing, perhaps, with his own son the magic of soccer. I will never see it for myself and I am rather dismayed that Tom is an only child. And being back at Argylle House is not conducive to romance...

One day, I see my own Sarah, growing strangely younger, as she does, by the day, mooning along the first floor landing, as if seeking company. Perhaps she longs for an erstwhile Mrs Boscombe who used to trip along thereabouts in the busy-body fashion that was typical of her, still young enough to dance a quiet jig to herself when she thought of the people she had once known and loved.

Accrington still works at the bottom of our long garden. I’m told he has a potting shed down there which he has managed to make weather-proof for all seasons. Miss Albion often pops in here for a convivial cup of tea. She looks remarkably ancient for her years, these days. I think she is headmistress at the nearest school, the school which Tom should have attended, could have attended, given the new trunk road that the Authorities have pushed past Argylle House, between the two new towns that have swamped Elmsford. Even now, I can hear the insidious hum of its traffic from the garden, when I venture out there.

Sarah and I have separate rooms, now. I can’t recall how this first transpired.

I often wander around the various corridors — then at my favourite spot, near the part of the roof where the missing turret was once rooted, I stand and peer from the smeary window. I kick my heels… watching a sunset, as three figures, one the spitting image of my younger self, then growing more like Tom than me, another being a younger version of Sarah, the third a fairy-like shape that carries a ball under its wing. Sometimes, when the scene repeats itself, the third figure is more like a tall gangling shadow. I often see gypsies amid the green blur of the distance beckoning. I cannot explain everything, I cannot, indeed, explain anything.

Inevitably I weep, scuffing the skirting-board, as I do. I feel that Aunt Agnes is not far away, after all… still teaching me how to head my head into an open goal. All rovers and rangers need their last home game...

Posted by weirdtongue at 6:19 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 4 November 2008 6:21 AM EST

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