DANGER: NO FLOOR

It did not kill him, but it could have done. He pushed gingerly at the door. So far as he could hear there was no one down stairs but he was worried that he might dislodge something more. The door was stuck. He didn’t want to shoulder it for fear of falling. He stepped back and looked at the door of his living room again. There was the sign, hand written and stuck in place with silver gaffer tape. He glanced about. The electricity had been switched off but not the gas. It felt arbitrary, like what had happened to his front room.
And it was his favourite room too. Ben Worthless had wished it had happened to the back room which he barely use. But that’s the kind of pointless thinking he’d been trying to get away from for the past two years: If only this was like that, then that wouldn’t be like this. What do they say?: “If my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.” Pointless thinking. He tried to look on the bright side. He was lucky it didn’t give away under him, or during Saturday’s now postponed party. The idea of them all crashing down on the family below, glasses of red wine thrown involuntarily at the walls as they dropped the three meters, made him feel sick. The shock of it and the smell of faeces and blood like when Jenny had been mown down in her new driveway in Waverly. So maybe he was lucky: ‘Fortune in misfortune.’
But it was his living room. It’s where he lived. Where he had lived. And lucky’s not what he felt right now. The walls were still painted ‘Jamboree Yellow’ from when he and Jenny had lived together. The colour just seemed too happy now. He wanted to go for the all white look with the ‘signature’ colour in the window bay, a brilliant blue, maybe ‘Retonic Blue’ by House Hue Executive. It’s the fashion: a block of bright colour to set off the white. But one needs fascist flat walls to pull off that kind of thing successfully, not textured wallpaper, which must be there to hide something nasty in the plaster finish beneath. Something too damaged to filler over.
He’d built this small platform by the window so as he could sit up there and type and gaze out up Warren street to the new hospital for inspiration. The surveyor suggested it might have been the extra weight that caused the initial joist to give. The first Ben knew was when ‘downstairs’ rushed up to say their ceiling was coming in. He never heard a thing. Apparently there was a crack like gunfire.
Everyone seemed to have gone out. They were coming back but Ben didn’t know when: Later perhaps. The engineer, ‘downstairs’, the surveyor, the builders. Suddenly, after all that activity the place had gone dead, everyone vanished, leaving him alone again and this time without the sanctuary of his front room.
“Fuck it,” he thought and gave the door a good kick just by the handle. It shot open and banged about in mid air like a loose shutter on the second storey. He edged toward the doorway and peeked his head over into what had been his room. Two thirds of the floor had dropped out emptying most of his possessions into the flat below. His upturned couch, computer, oak table, potted plants and guilty platform were all strewn below in amongst the possessions of the downstairs flat along with a mass of rubble and plaster.
Ben sniffed in the powerful smell of dust and rotting joists and then hurled himself from the ledge of his doorway head first into the room, diving forward toward the glass coffee table below like it were a far off swimming pool or a window back to the past.

Words: 652

NATTER

“Yes. And without even opening the box,” said Catherine.
“It’s like a bit of Las Vegas by the sea,” said Helen.
“Bournmouth’s the entertainment hub for the whole of the West. I mean Torquey is all very well if you want to look at the same bit of art for six months but…”
“Well. You know I prefer the cinema.”
“Well yes, of course.”
“You get to take the weight off your feet for an hour or two.” Helen shifted the receiver a bit while she spoke. She was getting a crick in the neck. This had gone on and on.
“Yes,” said Cathrine.
Blue
“Although you never really know what you’re getting.”
“I just look at the blurb in the freebee and try to read between the lines. Actually that’s not true,” said Cathrine. “I just follow the herd. Not much point watching a film no one else wants to watch. You can tell them about it but they won’t really know what you’re talking about unless they’ve been there.”
“Unless they’ve seen it, yes.”
“Yes. Unless they’ve seen it. Otherwise it’s a bit of a non discussion. Like talking to yourself with someone else in the room.”
Black
“Mind you, I talk to myself.”
“Not with someone else in the room.”
“Well, no. It’s the first sign of madness isn’t it, talking to yourself?”
“First sign of madness, Helen.”
“Call me crazy.”
“Crazy Helen.”
“Thanks,” said Helen.
Blue
“Could be worse.”
“Oh I don’t know. I wouldn’t fancy it myself.”
“You don’t know till you’ve tried Helen. I think I’m cracking sometimes.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you?”
“The school is driving me nuts.”
Black
“Really?”
“The PTA.”
“Oh yes. That. Father McFearson says that most parents are bastards.”
“He Does Not!” said Helen, genuinely shocked. “Oh Cathrine really. Father McFearson’s a very nice man.”
Blue
“Oh I don’t know. Nice like Christopher you mean?”
“Of course. He’s gorgeous. Your husband I mean, not Father…” There was a long pause: the kind you can get away with face to face, sitting in the same room together. “Cathrine?” said Helen.
Black
“Laurence of Arabia was gorgeous and he was a sadist.”
“He was a masochist.” Helen corrected her. “Burning matches and all that. I saw the film. We saw it together didn’t we? You want to see something next week?”
Blue
“Helen I can’t. I’m...” There was another pause. “I’m busy,” while the tears ran down her face.
Black
“Cathrine. What’s wrong?”
Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue

LOVE IS AN AWKWARD CHILD

Bunny pushed back in his chair and looked out through the grime to the familiar trees beyond. If it did not stop raining soon he would either shit his pants or get very wet. There was one cracked print hanging lopsided on the caravan wall. It was someone else’s broken dream. Bunny had forgotten it was there.
He had grown used to the mildewed smell of the place but its mood inveigled itself into his soul, like the proverbial rotten apple in a barrel.
Outside there was a Christmas tree, now ten foot tall. It had appeared one January from the big house as a sideboard decoration and had prospered from neglect.
Last year a couple of men had arrived while Bunny was rolling asphalt, patching roads for the English. They ran a pale wood fence all round ‘his’ field just skimming his home by a hairs breadth. But it was no more his field than was the tired green caravan. He was a guest of the family that lived in the white house on the far side of the gravel drive. He had wondered at the fencing. After a couple of days a horse box arrived for the daughter of the house, the little girls birthday present, soon to be forgotten to wander disconsolately round it’s too small plot. That first night it had butted the window of his caravan frightening the bejesus out of him. After that he stopped using the back room and slept in his chair. Bunny was a small man and the equestrian beast was massive.
You might have thought that Bunny was born in his late fifties and died there too. But he was born young and died old like so many. He had not always lived like this: alone and during the winter months, cold as stone. Before he lost his teeth, apart from the ‘Bunny’ tagged front two, he had had a full set, the complete mouth and face of a younger man, the possibility of a home, independent of his mother and room enough for love.
But love is an awkward child and once when the little girl from the big house had been playing by the bonfire outside Bunny’s door, Bunny had invited her in. The child had stood in the doorway unable to discern a place where she might be, a patch of floor or a stool, and so had remained standing there, blocking some of the late afternoon light with her small frame. Eventually she asked Bunny how he was and Bunny had replied that he was ‘fine’ and then went on to say:
“You see those blues over there?” The child had looked at his work overalls hanging on a peg on the wall. “Well,” said Bunny. “They’re mine.” She had not been able to digest this piece of information and after a while had backed out of the caravan like it had been an indecent proposition. With studied casualness she had made her way back to the big house. Bunny had sat there a full hour after that, keeping his mind a resolute blank. Just once he had asked himself what he had said so wrong but then stopped before the tumult of answers that came, rushing down the years to break him up.
For almost as long as he could remember he had looked at life through the bottom of a bottle but had found no answers there, no message, not even a cry for help. Now it had become pure habit and a Guinness could last him all evening during winter, maybe three during summer.
Life had held out more to him once, many years before the caravan, even before the roads, though he had always laboured. He came to England for work. Maybe his soul had been washed over board somewhere between Cork and Fishguard. Maybe leaving Mary behind to live amongst Protestant wealth was the greatest mistake of his life. But back then it was a gallant move to win her with his foreign money and tales of work abroad. Little Mary. Not even a photo to warm his frozen heart.
The rain beat so hard on the caravan roof now that he could not hear himself regret and that was better than a Christmas whiskey or an extra bottle of beer. Even so it was as relentless as a bad idea, and Bunny’s anus was aching.
He picked up a sheet of news and took it into the back room. Squatting over it he crapped and wrapped it to a neat parcel. He placed it in one corner. The rain thundered and he wondered why he had never thought of it before.

Words: 790

THE CANCELLED APPOINTMENT

She was as jumpy as hell. Having had to wait at the salon, everything was now half an hour behind. She clipped across the parkey flooring glancing at the answerphone as she headed for the bedroom. There were two messages she’d need to check. She had an hour and forty to dress and makeup, do-able except for all the help she was getting which was bound to slow her down.
Just ten minutes behind schedule and the whole team of them bustled out to the waiting cars. Traffic permitting the delay was fully acceptable.

Later that day her hardened face looked again at the answerphone. Those two messages. Unread. She pressed play. The first was her step father wishing luck from Mozambique. The second was Carl. Her chest tightened:
“Hello Bella my love how are you? You doing okay? All nerves? Look, well of course, I’m ‘all nerves’ too. I mean, well you know. Sorry about this my love, I know I’m not supposed to see you today till the big moment and I guess you’re at the hairdressers but I know you’ll get this before hand. I know I shouldn’t speak to you on the big day. It’s bad luck and all that but, well you see, well I’m in Guernsey with my brother. I know what you’re going to say: “What the fuck are you doing in Guernsey you little shit?” And yes it’s true Jason was here, I mean there, I mean in London yesterday with me on our stag night and everything. I know I told you he wasn’t coming but he just bowled up. And then we all got drunk and we ended up moving the party from La Barca to the night train along with Trev and Jilly. I know what your going to say: “Not that bitch?” Right? But we just bumped into each other at Trevor’s house by chance, as she’s staying there and you know and then I got all panicked like I do and she said that you…”
There was a brief pause.
“Well never mind that. I mean. Oh no. Can I delete this message and start again? How do I do that? Shit!” There were a couple of beeping sounds as he punched the hash and star buttons, then lower tones as he tried one and two. “Bollocks.” He said under his breath but clearly audible from the little white box.
“What I mean is that it got late. Well not that late, as we got the last train, but… You know: We started early and the last thing I wanted was just to have you standing at the church and have no one turn up. Especially me. I mean, not no one, just not me…
“Not me turn up and the best man and Jilly. Well not her, because you wouldn’t let me invite her, didn’t you. You said “No old flames,” so no old flames it was, even though somehow both Bill and Stewart wheedled their way onto the guest list. I’ll be honest, if Jilly had turned out to be a dyke I can’t see you having allowed her along, but it was all different with Stewart and his big gay kisses and cuddles and as for Bill. I mean what’s that all about Bella? When was he ever a photographer? No way did he have to do the photos. I mean, he’s shit and my dad’s a pro. What’s wrong with my dad for fuck sake. He wanted to do it. No. Had to be hunky Bill. Bella. Anyhow, that’s not the point. I’m too far away and me and Jilly…”
She flung her forefinger out and stabbed at the delete. “Bleeep,” said the machine. One bleat sounding much like the other. She stood in the middle of her hallway dressed like a complete fucking fool and started to think about all the other ways she could have blown sixteen grand.