SANDERLINGS

The Cloud. Episode 3

1958. Her mother had been running from the car before Wee Janet had even realised they had stopped. Sprinting towards a brown heap in the long grass outside Pop George’s cottage. A heap that had Pop George’s muddy wellington boots on the end, pointing straight up to heaven. Her mother was making long shrill noises that caught at Wee Janet’s throat and seared her eyes. Then her mother was by the heap, down on her hands and knees, feeling about the pile. Wee Janet’s chest was all tight. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her mother’s sounds wouldn’t leave her alone. And then the pile was sitting up and it was Pop George and he was roaring and her mother was shouting and Wee Janet was climbing down from the car and creeping towards them, one an older, squarer, more wrinkled version of the other. One watery-eyed and bemused, the other red faced and tearful.

‘I was just shifting clouds’ he was saying. ‘Best way to do it is to lie on your back and think them gone.’ Her mother, back on her feet, rubbing hard at the grass stains on the knees of her silvery grey slacks, had seemed close to spitting.

‘Is that true, Pop George? A human can move a cloud?’ Wee Janet’s eyes were huge.

‘For God’s sake, Dad. You know how impressionable she is.’ Her mother’s voice still seemed full of spit.

‘She’s ten, Bernie. Give her a break.’ He beckoned to Wee Janet. ‘Come here, love.’ He patted the ground beside him. ‘Now lie down beside me and look straight up’. Janet looked at her mother and then her Pop George. Her mother turned, and started to walk towards the cottage. The old man tugged on one of her pigtails. ‘Come on, Wee Janet, it’s only grass.’ The temptation was too much. She wriggled down onto the sweet prickle of the meadow flowers. Her grandfather lay down beside her. ‘See that goluptious cloud above the hill behind the village?’

‘The puffy one like a sheep?’

‘That’s it. It’s even got a lamb. Two if you look hard enough.’ He pointed up to the right of the cloud and his finger shook in the breeze.

‘I see it I see it!’ Wee Janet forgot about her mother and the spit.

‘Well that’s a Cumulus. It’s our fair-weather friend.’

‘‘Cumulus,’ Janet had said, testing the word in her mouth. ‘Isn’t it weird, Pop George, how your teeth have to grab your tongue to say it.’

To be continued.

Tags clouds

fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 2

The cloud came with instructions in diagrammatic form. There were no words in the four page leaflet; just child-like pictures. She understood from them that she should spray a fine mist at the cloud twice a day. Once when the sun came up. And once when the moon came up. She wasn’t sure whether to take this literally. Should she lengthen and shorten her days with the seasons? She’d forgotten to ask in the shop. She bought distilled Scottish water. Ordered it in bulk. She worried about all that plastic. But not as much as she worried about spraying treated tap water at her chaste, unadulterated cloud. The cloud quivered under the mist. The quiver of new butterfly wings testing their first flutter.

Tags clouds

fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 1

She bought the cloud in the Black Friday sale in an uninspiring warehouse on the edge of the city. She brought it home on the bus in a large white watertight box. People stared. Once in her flat, she shut all the windows. Taped over the letter box hole. Filled the cracks around the door. She opened the box in the empty bath. The cloud oozed out and up. Fluffed itself up like a diva. It was moist, pearly dove grey, cold as sleet. The shower head was a silver spoon in its mouth.

The cloud had special needs. Adaptations were called for. She stopped using the shower. Washed herself in the sink. She hated the shower anyway. Gathering her stiff limbs over the edge of the bath was awkward and ill-advised. Sometimes she sang to the cloud. The cloud tinkled back. The same tinkle of the wind chimes from that hot fly-blown verandah in Queensland the year missiles in Cuba opened their jaws and purred.

To be continued.

Tags clouds

Flash fiction

F

F is for Forward, she says. Like B is for Back.

No, he says. F means Carriage F. You’re wrong. That seat’s mine.

She checks her ticket. I’m not wrong, she says. I’m staying here.

A woman wearing an animal around her neck intervenes. Its glass eye winks. F is for Fox she says. Like B is for Badger.

The girl reaches out to the Fox. Tickles its chin.

The pelt opens its mouth. F, it says, is for get the fuck out of here. Both of you.

Tags trains

75 words Flash fiction

Drawing arms

The dusting of night snow on the platform flares fickle orange. They look out at the weather and each other through the window. They are strangers. Separated by a table and thirty odd years of other people’s lives. She blushes, puts her hand to her neck. He stares on, draws a smiley face in the steamy glass. She adds hair. He provides the body. She traces two legs. The arms are never drawn.

memoir

Without thinking of you

It was seven years on the 30th January. The eve of Brexit. The anniversary of your death. I can’t believe it’s been seven years. If someone had asked, I’d have shuffled and counted and eventually settled on four or five. It’s still so raw.

There’s a bus stop in the West End outside a shop that used to be a chemist. The bus stop doesn’t have a shelter. I went to that chemist for your drugs when it was open out of hours. I can’t wait at that bus stop without thinking of you. The plain white boxes of medication piled up on your dresser. The arrival of your hospital bed. The smoky coal fire in the room that became yours. The soft winter sunlight that waltzed over your sheets.

There’s a cycle path that runs along the Water of Leith. It winds past Tesco through a stippled bower of trees and on to the Scotland Street tunnel. Sometimes there’s a community art project in the tunnel. Or young folk nodding heads to music in the rain. I went to Tesco for you. Stood stricken searching for small things with big tastes or tempting smells. Prawns in a gingery sauce. A blistering avocado. A bag of peppery rocket. The flowers would stick up out of my pannier, pint-sized soldiers with soft floppy hats. One night the heads severed. A trail of creamy petals shimmered the tunnel in woe. I can’t ride that path without thinking of you.

There’s a beach outside my flat. A great blond stretch of sand, held together by parallel lines. Beside it there’s a bar with not much of a view. It was a lunchtime in a season with cold days. We were eating soup. Pushing hard butter out of golden wrappers. Spreading firm yellow squares onto white bread rolls. You told me then. The words so simple out of your mouth I couldn’t believe they were true. I can’t enter that bar without thinking of you.

There’s a desk in my room. It, too, is pale. Pale oak. It has shelves and drawers and a round hole for cables. On the top shelf I have a light, a jar of pens, and a row of thick reference books and thin jotters. Sometimes the books and jotters topple. The light, held solid by its smooth lead base, never moves. You collected that desk. You put it together while I made us coffee and read the instructions and faffed around and pretended to help. You were well then. I can’t sit at that desk without thinking of you.

There’s a text on my phone. The last text from you.

Tags grief

Flash fiction

The Violation

His hand is on her shoulder. A rough hand with dark crimped hairs and short stubbed fingers. A slim neat scar runs the length of his knuckles. Her coat is green tweedy wool flecked with red. The colour of sphagnum moss after weeks of rain. Wool that looks soft and deep. Wool you’d like to lay your cheek on. George Street is almost empty in that dark, eclipsed time between closing shops and beckoning bars. A group of tourists wearing pink disposable rain ponchos straggle a crooked line outside the Assembly Rooms on the other side of the street.

‘Excuse me,’ he says to her. She starts, her mouth opening. Her black umbrella swings down from above her head, caught by the wind and the sudden intrusion. ‘I need to tell you something,’ he says. She pulls away from him. Leaves his hand spare and loose in the air, his fingers dangling. She wields the umbrella, now a turbulent barrier between them. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he says. Her head twists from one side to the other above the umbrella. She’s searching the street.

She manoeuvres the umbrella back up above her head, pulls her large leather shoulder bag in close to her side and moves away from him. Checks the road for traffic. Left, right, left. She crosses, her steps a sharp staccato. She doesn’t look back. He follows her. He’s a good ten years younger than her. Perhaps thirty. Holed up in an olive green parka, the fur rimmed hood dropped over his face. The hems of his jeans are wide, wet and torn. Dirty cotton threads trail over his trainers. ‘You need to check your bag.’ He is calling after her with twisted vowels and smoke-tarred edges. He may be foreign. Her pace quickens. Her thick red heels startle the gloom of the pavement. Rain spatters her calves, tracking up the pale tan of her tights.

He stays a few paces back. ‘It was when you were putting up your umbrella outside the shoe shop.’ His voice is raised against the wind. She is almost running now, pulling the umbrella hard down over her head, pushing her legs through the thick pleats of her coat. A young couple, arms wrapped around each other, splutter out of a bar a few doors ahead of her. She waves her free hand at them.

‘Wait,’ she calls. ‘Wait!’ They look at her, soft-mouthed with matching kohl-lined eyes. The boy hails the black cab that has slowed in front of the bar. The couple slide into the back seat and slam the door. As the cab moves past the woman, the girl’s face is pressed to the window. The girl smiles and waves. And then they are gone.

The man catches up with the woman. Pulls his hood down. Holds his hands out, his palms open, catching the rain. ‘I just want to tell you what I saw,’ he says. The umbrella tumbles from her hand. She pulls her bag across her front, shields it with both hands. The man and the woman both look at the bag. The open zip. ‘Get away from me,’ she says, ‘or I’ll call the police.’ The man drops his hands to his sides. ‘I was just trying to help you,’ he says. The woman’s eyes narrow. Her lips thin. She may be about to spit. ‘Help me?’ she says. ‘A man like you?’ He shakes his head, opens his mouth and shuts it. He looks at her wet red shoes. The spots of muck on her legs. He pulls his hood back over his head and turns his back on her. ‘You’re not even from here,’ she says. His shoulders slump. He stands still for a moment, working his fingers, then walks back towards the way they came.

Tags Flash fiction

Uncategorized

Podcasting

The Porty Podcast is produced by David Calder. Launched in late 2016, David highlights events and issues relevant to Portobello. For several months, David and I have been discussing the idea of a podcast featuring Spokes Porty. Spokes Porty campaigns for better walking and cycling infrastructure in and around Portobello. We’re always looking for interesting opportunities to communicate active travel issues with the people who live and work here.

We needed a hook though, and when the hooks came along the timing was never quite right for one or the other of us. We finally got our opportunity to put something together when David offered to use the audio files from the Spokes Porty short film series (still in production). We did the podcast interview over Skype, using a lav mic plugged into headphones to get decent audio quality. I’d bought the mic for a tenner for use on the film productions. David worked his edit miracles and the Spokes Porty podcast went live today. Thanks to a bit of lateral thinking, and some great collaboration, David made his podcast, Spokes Porty got some profile, and we got to use our film audio files twice.

Tags cycling, podcast, Portobello

short films

Yassine and Rayyan

Towards the end of 2019 I signed up for Edinburgh University’s Introduction to Filmmaking course. I had commissioned and produced three short films before, but I’d never directed or edited a film myself. In the first ten minutes of the first class, our tutor, Andrew Rooke, told us we were all there to make a film. We nodded and smiled. I don’t think I really believed him. But that man worked miracles. Over a ten week period, we went from concept to storyboards, from cinematography to sound design, from lighting to directing, and finally from editing to publishing. Every Thursday evening for three hours we slogged through theory and practice. Deadlines came and went, and I met every one of them. The last class was a mini film festival. We ate popcorn, showed our films, took questions from the tutor, and bowed. I was stupidly proud. I still am.

My initial concept proposal was to make a short campaigning film for Spokes Porty. Spokes Porty works to make walking and cycling safe, fun and practical for everyone in and around Portobello, Edinburgh. I thought it would be straightforward. No actors required. No script. No fancy lighting. All I had to do was find a cinematographer and some willing volunteers to get in front of the camera and talk about cycling.

However, as with all projects, things changed along the way. Despite intensive and careful planning, detailed call sheets and shot lists, everything that could go wrong did so. Filming on dark dreary Scottish winter days is not ideal. People get ill. Technology fails. I forgot how some things worked. I was stressed about recording the audio. I’d never fully understood that sound is more important than visuals. People will accept poor quality visuals if the sound is good. It doesn’t work the other way around.

But many things exceeded my expectations. Simon Russell, the cinematographer, was happy to work with a first time director for free. And the stars, local people aged from nine to ninety five, gave up their time to sit in front of a camera, speak into a microphone, and tell us about themselves with clarity, honesty and humour. It was humbling, inspiring, and fun.

Like everyone who goes out to record people’s feelings and experiences, I ended up with too much material for one short work. I didn’t want to waste it. So instead of making one film featuring four local people, I’m in the midst of making five films: four shorts and one longer version. I’ve been back to one person to record more audio, and I’ve put a GoPro on bike handlebars to get some more footage to use with it. I’ve also given the audio files to Porty Podcast. Podcast 151, supporting the films, is available from 4th January 2020.

This first film, launched on social media on the 1st January 2020, features Yassine and his son, Rayyan. It’s a simple love story about a father and son who travel around together on a bike. There was no time to cover the importance of character in documentary in the university course. Working with Yassine, I stumbled on it inadvertently. Yassine taught me that character is everything. First, find a character that is engaging, authentic, and has something important to say. Second, provide the conditions for that character to engage on screen and make an impact with an audience. Yassine did the first part. I hope we have managed to do the second.

Yassine and Rayyan – A short love story from Spokes Porty

Tags cycling, Edinburgh, Portobello, short film

Uncategorized

Not you, me

I fill silence. I can’t help myself. It’s a family thing. We take a hush and we trash it. We’re right in there when you’re just pausing for breath, readying your next word. Sculpting a phrase with your tongue. We’re seizing the space you’d rounded out for yourself. Our mouths wide open before yours had even closed. Spittle on our lips. We might point a finger. We might even stand up. Stand over you. Lining you up through our cross-hairs. And then we launch. Our opinions tearing at you like missiles. Right in there on God, independence, nuclear waste. On mental health. On climate change and food banks and the monsters that spread fake news.

Don’t take it personally. I fill my own silences too. Speak to the dead more than the living some days. ‘Don’t go in there, lass. Bloke’s just hung himself,’ the policeman had said outside our front door. And then I was out in the dark street while they cleaned it all up. The world was different in those days. Before social media. Before mobile phones. Before the Internet. I try to describe the new world to the dead lover. Tell him about the future that he’d twisted off with a belt. Use words that I hope he’ll understand. Twitter, I tell him, is when you tell the world your latest umbrage and you type it out on a little machine and send it out like a telegram and lots of people you don’t know might send it on to lots of people they don’t know. He raises an eyebrow. His teeth are neat and white except for the crooked one at the front. His jaw hasn’t sagged. His skin is still smooth tablet brown. He can’t grasp it. Twitter? He motions to his sketch book. Passes over a blunt pencil. I reach out to stroke his cheek. How do you draw a tweet? His questions skim over the cool of my bare arms, slip through a barely open window, slither into a thin shadow at the back of the shower. I watch him in the mirror. Running long pastel-smudged fingers through the dark curl of his hair, buttoning up his brown striped shirt, kneeling down to fiddle with the laces of his cherry-red sneakers. I don’t look at his neck.

After his death I kept his photograph in purses then wallets then inside pockets. A passport photo he’d given me the day after we’d met over spilt cider in Mathers. I was dressed up as a gnome. He must have liked gnomes. Took that photo with me backpacking across Australia. Hitchhiking on river boats down the Sundarbans. Cycling the Andes. In the evenings, lying lonely in dank hostel bunks, I told him everything. The crocodile eyes floating on night rivers like scattered diamonds. The tiger prints disappearing into the muddy swirl of mangroves. The volcanoes puffing and panting out coils of thick grey ash.

Smudged and faded, the photo curled at the edges and every so often I’d put it between a couple of books to flatten it out. And then one day it wasn’t there. ‘Sorry’, I said. I’m so sorry for all of it’. He didn’t reply. He never says it wasn’t my fault. It isn’t, wasn’t in him. One day he’d taped his last Rolo to the handlebars of my old brown Raleigh. Another time he’d sent me a ‘miss you’ card to the French hotel I was staying in without him. ‘It’s not you, it’s me’, I’d said as we’d stood on the platform on Waverley and he’d begged me not to go. After the funeral I tucked that card into his sketchbook. On dreich days, when the starlings crowd in on the guttering with their heads hunched low and their tiny beaks pressed up hard against the glass, I get it out and trace the words with a finger.

I don’t hurl my opinions at the dead. I whisper. Bargain. Petition for clemency. Plead for release. I curl my tongue around my crimes. Roll mercy into the balls of my cheeks. Sometimes the dead lover catches me out. I see him slipping down London Road, or turning up Leith St. I call out to him through closed lips, without sound. Once, on the bus, the words escaped, voluble, fizzing. ‘I love you,’ I’d said. And someone young looked up from a mobile phone, then turned away. Embarrassed for me. As with the living, as with the dead. I fill silence. I can’t help myself.

This piece was originally written for the Scottish Book Trust’s Blether series 2019

Tags grief, suicide