Short Fiction

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'THE BERBERS’ PEUGEOT’

A long fifteen years ago, I visited the northern Sahara with my partner. We hired a car from a couple of Berbers in Marrakech, but I guess we haggled too much because the vehicle we were bestowed was unsuitable for the city, let alone the majestic sand dunes farther south. It was an old blue Peugeot and, while it - cosmetically - had a steering wheel, gear stick and three pedals, there was almost nothing that functioned. Beneath the bonnet was an engine made entirely of tin foil and goat bones. Nevertheless, somehow, we got to the desert, and slept with the Bedouins under paint-speckled stars to ride an uncomfortable pair of camels at the break of dawn. On the way back, unsurprisingly, we broke down in a sandstorm.

This is not that story.

This is a story about how I got home from the experience and wrote a story called The Berbers’ Peugeot. It was amazing, but you’ll have to take my word for it because I can’t find it anywhere. The colour of the fear inside that little car as the walls of sand battered us; the limpid descriptions of evaporating roads while our horizon became the same in every suffocating direction; the longing for the medina's minarets and a hunger for the tagine of Jemaa el-Fnaa. All gone. Before cloud storage, before USBs even, all my work was saved on floppy disk. I printed out a copy, I’m sure, but that’s vanished too, during a house move probably. Every now and again I resume the search but my story has eluded me all these years. Misplaced by changing times and technologies, but not quite forgotten. Lost, like sand in the wind.

'OPERATION REINHARD'

I suppose it would be easy to claim that I had no choice but, in truth, I did. I could have sided with the Great Dictator or I, and my family, could have been killed.

I’m not part of the ‘ground staff’ here at Chelmno. I don’t strip them, herd them like blinking cattle into the gas vans or rake their bodies into the brittle daylight. I’m in admin, if you must know. I corral the names, align the numbers, orchestrate nothing but abstracts.

I’m lucky. I don’t see the death of my own kind at first hand.

Not even my own kind, really. My dual upbringing permitted, seven years before the SS death machine stole the souls of so many, my birthright to be my choice. A proper noun scratched off my passport. A place stolen from me in Shamayim. I am pure.

I believe it because I have to believe it. The chance to run escaped me and now I live, if that’s the word, from day to day as a working man, providing money for his blond but Jewish sons, his terrified German-born wife.

I wear the uniform. I walk the step. I hail the Führer. But I don’t switch on the gas.

Besides, it can’t go on forever. It’s nineteen-forty-one. Someone will stop him.

‘ANGRY VICAR’

Dear Parishioners,
Firstly, before I begin this month's newsletter, I’ve got to say that 'more tea?’ joke has long gone stale, so quit offering me the bland stuff and give me a goddamn beer like any normal person (and your post-sip ‘Ahhh!’ of geriatric satisfaction is disgusting, Enid. It's a cup of tea, not an orgasm). Secondly, no, God DOESN'T speak to me. You do understand the concept of a ‘metaphor’, don’t you? I'm promoting the teachings of Babylonian sages here, not conducting Skype conversations with omnipotent deities.
Now that’s off my chest, here’s my monthly message:
You all suck.
Really. You do. The last church fȇte turnout was awful and the marrows at the vegetable-judging competition were borderline pornographic. Furthermore, whoever made those cupcakes should be ashamed. And, Mavis, have a word with yourself. I mean, Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness being tempted by Satan; would it hurt you to miss X-Factor for just one Saturday? I guess this is what I get for joining a sleepy, backwater parish that unanimously voted for an out-and-out racist whose elite party leaders ignore climate change whilst taking donations from oil companies and big pharma. Seriously, what the actual bloody hell is wrong with you people? I can almost forgive the fact that Colin never washes his Chinos but stop with the self-serving, holier-than-thou crap already. You're supposed to be Christians, for Christ's sake.
As usual, I am available for private prayer and consultation.
God only knows why.
Yours,
Keith

‘THE SLEEPWALKER’

My name is Sam Grant and I’m seventy-two, but don’t hold it against me; you’ll be old too, one day.
Actually, that’s not quite the truth, what I told you about my name. Having spent most of my adult life as a spy, a few of you might even remember me by some other title. Also, while I may have entered this world in 1948, in a far truer sense I was only born twenty years ago.
Let me explain. In my younger days, the missions kept me busy, whether in East Berlin, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, or some other land that no longer exists, and even during the months on the inactive roster, throughout convalescence or decompression, my mind was always focused on Queen and Country. But I was sleepwalking through life, only doing what my superiors ordered me to do, to think, to say. I didn’t know I was awake until I saw you that day in the café in Minsk, and you smiled the crooked smile that told me you understood how attractive you were, a challenge too great for the common man. Almost immediately, I said my goodbyes to Whitehall and we prepared to embark upon two happy decades together.
Funny how I find myself in that same café today, everything more plastic and tacky than I'd remembered, the music station too loud on the television. But, reborn, I love you more than ever. It almost doesn’t matter that, three months ago, I discovered you were a Russian spy with orders to seduce me. I dread to think what intel you’ve passed on over the last twenty years.
But there’ll be no more as of tonight, my darling. I still have my standard-issue cyanide.
It's time to go back to sleep.

‘BACK TO SCHOOL’

(or ‘A Return to Form’, a new prologue, of sorts, to The Art Teacher)

Patrick Owen sat at the front of his empty classroom in the first week of September, the border rolls of his new displays colour-matching their backing paper, his PowerPoint presentation cued, a feeling of dread and desperation in the mine of his diaphragm. It was, he considered, the very worst of feelings; a Monday morning terror exacerbated by the length of the holiday (wasted, naturally - that fortnight in Penzance had seen very little in the way of blue skies). He was better than this. One more year. He’d endure one more year.

If anything, he owed it to his son, Danny, to leave the school.

He knew that the real tragedy was not that we became like our parents, but that our children became like us. Patrick hadn’t yet run out of time to set a good example to his son, to become what he wanted his child to be. He could still break the chain. It was no good hiding from the light and then asking Danny to be outgoing and world-beating. It didn’t work like that. One more year. He’d endure one more year.

As the first lesson bell of the term tolled, he looked over the familiar names of the children in the register. His Year Eleven class were due period one, and that meant… Yes. He was there. Denis Roberts, the most feared pupil in the school, if not the whole of Union City. There was even a shake to the handwriting he’d penned him in with. One more year. He’d endure one more year.

After all, he’d already managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face.

‘A PARISIAN BILLBOARD’

Monsieur Galois stood at his bedroom window in his little apartment on the Rue des Martyrs and frowned as he watched the men peel off the old billboard poster and plaster up the new one. For the last six months, the advert hadn’t changed.
It was a large 'Missing' poster. The impossibly blue eyes of a girl called C---- had been staring straight into his apartment for twenty-six weeks now, a confidential crime number written beneath her frozen smile. These were bad streets.
He’d asked his neighbour why she thought they bothered to replace the same poster, week after week. After all, he’d pointed out, the ones to its right and left, and across the rest of Paris, were different every seven days. She’d squinted tired eyes and announced she hadn’t even noticed.
He called the conseil municipal to complain and, after a long wait, was put in touch with a young man in charge of the necessary bureau. ‘Monsieur, it is a different advertisement each week. And, to my knowledge, there's never been a poster fitting that description.’
The next week, Monsieur Galois stood at his window, the Parisian light floating golden motes between him and the accusing eyes of C----. If it was the same poster, he’d decided, he would act immediately. He simply couldn’t take this any longer.
The new poster went up. There she was. The cold, blue irises. That frozen smile.
He rang the number.
‘Inspecteur? My name is Monsieur Galois and I’m calling to admit to the murder of C----. I can tell you exactly where to find the body.’

'HIDE AND SEEK'

He slipped inside the thin gap between wardrobe and wall and listened to the excited voices of his three children.

‘…8…9…10. Coming, ready or not!’

They burst, chirruping, into the room. After a quick check under the bed, they rushed off to the laundry room. They failed to find him there, just as they also failed to find him behind the curtain in the living room or under the kitchen table. A few minutes passed. When he heard them playing with the train set in front of the television, he knew their game had been entirely forgotten.

He remained in place. As time wore on, his mind – once sharp, now occluded by haste and sleeplessness and the ennui of an approaching middle age – began to clear the mists of the last few months. It had been a mistake moving to this town. His job was a joke and, though he’d tried, he just couldn’t forgive Samantha her affair with Robert.

With a heavy heart, he emerged from hiding, lifted his coat from the hook by the front door and left the family home. Maybe in a few hours they’d remember the game and resume their search, but they’d almost definitely never find him.

‘FALLING’

The blast from the exploding engine earthquaked through the cabin as I bounced drunkenly to my seat to find oxygen masks dangling like extended bronchi from the roof of our steel lung. Emergency lights blinking on and off, I clipped the mask over my nose, trying to ignore the screams of other passengers and focus on my own fear. I became devoutly, unquestioningly religious.
While the plane bucked and wavered as though swatted through the azure sky by a giant hand, it all began to make an inevitable, horrific sense; I had always known I would die like this.
A voice cracked over the intercom.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’ve experienced a malfunction and have lost cabin pressure. We will now be flying at a lower altitude and are rerouting. Apologies for the inconvenience to your journey, but there is no cause for alarm.’
Seconds later, a piece of debris from the engine punched a hole in a window and it felt as though my ears had been ripped off.
Icy, we fell.
I thought about my children, my mother, my dog waiting with forever-expectance at the window. I wondered if my wife would ever remarry. Mainly though, I mourned the unfinished novel on my laptop.
I didn't know anyone in the plane. I had no hand to hold. So I wrote this.
I think I might have just enough time to press send.

'THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SON'

In those days, farther south, on an inlet of the sea, there lived an impoverished fisherman and his son. Each morning, before the boy woke, the man went out in his boat to fish and, afterwards, harnessed his little donkey and loaded it with his catch and trotted a mile to the market in the local town to sell the fish. While his father was gone, the boy would repair the nets, tidy their modest house and prepare supper. The boy relied upon the man and the man relied upon the boy.

One day, the boy found himself bored. He had completed his chores early and an hour remained before his father was due to return. He knew he wasn't supposed to leave the house while his father was in town but he was getting restless as he grew and knew the surrounding countryside and shoreline so well there couldn't possibly be any danger.

He went down to the beach, removed his clothes and folded them together under a rock. Wading into the warming water, he noted the declination of the sun and calculated exactly how much time he had before his father would return.

On his way back inland, he spotted a curious sight moving towards him. A huge sail, black and dorsal-shaped against the sun.

Ten minutes later, the fisherman returned home to find his son's chores complete, the supper ready. But of the boy there was no sign.

'SUMMER, 1997’

After you die, you make up the rest of your story. Trust me.

I can’t be certain what we talked about now; it may have been our plans for beyond the summer, as if such things exist when the sun’s out. The days were warm, the city busy and the wasps furious. Britpop was on the wane but New Labour were in, the Hale-Bopp comet was above us and Suzy was speaking to me and smiling in all the right places. Life was getting sweeter when Tate Britain’s fire alarms shrieked.

Security streamed out the main doors in a crackle of radio, ushering us down and along the Millbank railings. In those less paranoid times, bomb scares were an exciting distraction in otherwise pedestrian days and we ambled along the Thames as the art lovers ran around, arm in arm with hysteria. I was already nostalgic about our meeting, already constructing an apocryphal story the grandchildren would become bored to tears by. Maybe it wasn’t a bright day at all. Maybe the wasps were only mildly agitated.

We went for a drink in deepest Soho and kissed for the first time outside The French House. As I walked her to the tube, an Evening Standard display board told us that the Tate had been the recipient of a bombing by an ‘as yet undisclosed organisation’ - two people were dead - and she remarked that we ought to remember the day for the rest of our lives as the day we were nearly blown to pieces.

Watching her beautiful brown hair descend the stairs at Tottenham Court Road, I knew with absolute certainty that I already had been.

'BLUE SKY THINKING'

Naples. High summer dawning. An azure sky over Giardinetto Mercadante, the grass so dry it snaps underfoot. The nearby church bell tolls in rapid, tuneless mirth. It’s one o'clock in the afternoon.
A group of Neapolitan boys, playing the noisiest game of football Italy’s ever known, punt the ball into the busy road through a hole in the park’s dishevelled fencing. A dog, snatching its lead from the sweating palm of its owner, a woman in the infancy of her old age, chases after it to a chorus of panicked squawking from the fight-ready traffic. For three or four minutes, everyone’s involved. The drivers shout at the dog owner. The dog owner shouts at the footballers. The passers-by and bench-dwellers group together and, with violent gesticulations, go through the entire drama, apportioning blame and shame with ruthless judgement.

And then, a few gestures later, after what seemed apoplexic anger, the cars drive on, the football resumes as vociferously as before and the chuckling dog owner freely lets her dog defecate next to the old climbing frame. The fury and swearing amounts, in reality, to little more than an Englishperson’s shake of the head and a muttered aside. What once was life or death is now of no consequence.
Half an hour later, the park is empty - for it is lunch time - and there's nobody to witness the tourist's kidnapping.

'THE RESCUE'

Beyond the bustling, raucous souks, where the beggars rattle tins of dirhams and plead for medicine, evening bruises towards night. Weak, tea-stained light filters over the minarets and falls across a tessellated floor, revealing the body of a man in a long, striped djellaba and Fez, lying on an ivory mosaic, his eyes wide open, unseeing. The blood still runs.

Three metres from the body, a Western girl of about ten stands pressed against the cool shadow of a wall. She’s been there an endless fifteen minutes now, a long, curved knife in her shivering hand. Will others be coming for her? Or will the police arrive first? From the ground, an increasingly desperate voice issues through a dropped mobile phone, but she doesn’t understand the fast and hard music that is the Arabic language.

She cringes at the sound of splintering wood. Huge shadows approach through the portal at the far end of the room, its stone steps worn in the middle by centuries of babouched feet.

‘Shurta!’ a stern voice calls. Arabic for 'police', it sounds to the girl like ‘shoot her’.

They find her, these good men she called upon for help, wild-eyed, panicked, her crimson blade flashing Cobra-fast towards them through the muggy twilight.

'THE HOTEL ROOM'

It was shortly before the publication of my first novel. I was in London for a meeting with my publisher and I’d booked a room in a King’s Cross hotel for two nights. Nothing fancy, just a small room with a bed, desk and an en suite no larger than a cupboard. Not being a religious man, I wasn’t a fan of the crucifix above the bed but, try as I might, I couldn’t take it down. Someone sure wanted that thing hanging there.
I was due to meet my editor in the afternoon so didn’t bother setting my alarm and had an extravagant, headachey lie-in, having spent the previous night with old friends in Camden.
I should say at this point that I had no idea about the hotel’s history and had passed the strange smells and coldness in the night off as problems with the radiator, which I’d meant to tell the staff about in the morning. The day passed, the meeting went well and I returned to the hotel just after sunset as I had an early flight to catch the next morning. Something was wrong. I can’t explain it, but the whole room had the still and silent redolence of invasion. I checked every inch of that tiny room for a trespasser but found no evidence, and eventually put it down to me being tired and missing my family. Nevertheless, I made sure the door was securely locked before I went to bed.
It was only the next day, on the flight home, that I realised. Among the photos I’d snapped with my phone soon after I’d arrived - the sky over Tower Bridge, the friends at the pub - were a pair of images I hadn’t taken that chilled me to the bone. Two photos, one from each night of my stay in the cold hotel room, of me. Sleeping.

‘HEAVEN KNOWS I’M MISERABLE NOW’

Looking back, everything was Morrissey’s fault.

The ex-Smiths crooner was on the bill the second night. Quiffed, gestural, angry. He’d amassed a number of bespectacled fans before him, and also Benedetto, who ran into Rosie while estranged from Amy thanks to an expired mobile phone. Like the majority of chance encounters, which humankind generally builds into acts of fate and karmic providence, life could easily have denied them this meeting at a soggy Reading festival, in a field churned and percolated into a frothy river of mud resembling the Somme, but they were thrown together by a series of circumstances, top of the pile being a quantity of watery Carling in combination with 'How Soon Is Now?'. Back at the camp, the girls teased each other over which of them would kiss him first but it was Rosie who eventually slept in his tent (more of a marquee compared to Amy’s ghetto construction; the missing flyleaf, the stench of armpits, of dope) and devoured his last Pot Noodle.

The pair of them lay under the stars and talked while the well brought up and educated young people around them suddenly took on the manic personalities of feral beasts and, after two days without proper toilet facilities, defecated into bags and flung the matter at trees. Their discourse seemed fresh, meaningful, and when she kissed him for the first time he was unwashed and tasted slightly of the soil.

They were due to be married this year but, being sensible types, they went their separate ways last Tuesday. After all, Morrissey was now unmistakably a racist.

‘REFUSING AN EXORCISM’

Father De’Athe enters the bright, noisy climbing centre to find Bishop Snyder halfway up a wall in even brighter, noisier gym clothes. A scruffy, talc-palmed man stands underneath the greying forty-five-year-old, holding a safety rope. Snyder clocks the clerical-collared newcomer and rolls his eyes heavenwards.

‘Ah, Father De’Athe. Come to make your confession?’

The new arrival remains silent.

Snyder sighs and begins climbing down. ‘Give us five, if that’s alright, Sam.’

‘I’ll take over,’ Father De’Athe says as the helper stalks away.

The Bishop halts his descent, his grey face staring uncivilly down at the Father, now holding his belay. ‘What is it? Be quick.’

‘I need you to speak to the Cardinal. The church must intervene urgently in the case. He talks in tongues. He self-harms. He cannot resist much longer.’

‘A mental disorder. Plain and simple.’

‘Impossible. His room itself shows evidence of an unclean spirit.’

‘I was talking about you,’ Bishop Snyder calls down.

‘There is evil at work, Bishop.’

‘There is evil in the supermarket. There is evil in the cinema. There is evil – God forgive me – in the Church. We can’t go around exorcising every human being of sin. Who would be left to take Mass? Last month you were almost defrocked for these gnostic tendencies, and now you come to me again? If you’re so concerned, why don’t you perform the silly ritual yourself? Maybe the Devil will recognise your authority.’

Father De’Athe wraps the rope around his right wrist. ‘On your soul be it.’

‘Who is this poor unfortunate, anyway?’

A drop of sweat from Bishop Snyder’s chin narrowly misses the Father as the junior man gives a sharp tug on the rope. His eyes flash. ‘It’s me, Father.’

Bishop Snyder’s neck breaks with a crack not unlike that of a communion wafer as the body hits the gym floor.