Short Stories
Summer School
What are lives for? And love? Are we doomed to lose forever those whom
we love? The questions hung, burning, in the hot dark.
Chiuso, Aperto
He has given her a great gift, a gift above all others: a release from the
burden of hate. She has not forgotten or forgiven but she is free of him,
finally free.
The Force
‘After a while something strange started happening, almost like some
half-hidden pattern you spot out of the corner of your eye. A tiny trickle
of good luck happenings.’
Man in the Mirror
‘Such dear deposits of admiration! But hadn’t he always been admired,
cherished, taken? Sometimes indeed too pressingly, too brutally taken.’
Mint and Carnation
She had Alfred now and soon she would have her baby too. Now, and in
the years to come: the three of them together, above and apart from all
the rest.
Double Agent
‘These are riddles to which I cannot find answers and doubtless they will
accompany me to my grave … I fear I shall never be free of the shade of
John Johnson and his long and enigmatic embrace.’
The Bottom-Up Strategy
What then was the problem? For undoubtedly there was a difficulty, some small hard pea below the comfortable mattress of his existence.
Triptych
And that was how he was always to remember Lucy and Olly in the years
to come: two tiny figurines locked in perpetual combat, hard and brassily bright but ever smaller as time passed, and somehow always mysteriously mixed with the piercing cries of children.
The Bridge
‘“What remains of us is love”: he wrote that too. But, beyond himself, did he ever really feel it? I wonder. Wanting to reach out, break through, but torn and doubting, I don’t think he ever truly crossed that bridge. But do
any of us – completely? And maybe that is why we treasure him so much.’
Northern Soul
This was not how it was meant to be. It was to have been a day on which
the past would be finally and forever levelled. Instead, it had turned to
dust and ashes in his mouth. He, who had always taken from others, had
had the sweets snatched from his lips. But how?
The Food of Love
‘Pitch your tent on the steepest learning curve you can find and climb up from there. Aim as high as you can. Become a brand, then get out there and sell it to the world.’
Greyflake
Frank thought. Thought about what a fool he had been. Thought about
his cynicism and their callowness and the gulf between them. Thought
about the effort in starting over and the little time he had left …‘No,’ he
said.
Property Ladder
Precipitation – savouring the word, he semi-likes it: that note of winter
weather cycles, of misty drizzle closing in and of tired, aged feet finally dropping from the ladder.
The Last Hippy
He will devote his life to the revolution, the coming empowerment … he will wire the whole world.
Home
She is finally home in this strange old-young world of aged children,
boogying and driving, as long as their hearts and livers and brains hold
out, into the setting sun.