Category: fiction

2019, Portobello, Edinburgh

Janet stood with her arms folded watching the water in the kettle steam and stutter until it reached boiling point and the red light flicked off. She’d emptied the coffee grounds from the small Italian expresso pot, filled it with cold water, but changed her mind. She’d give Dan instant coffee.That would teach him. She kept a jar of Maxwell House for workmen, political party activists, and god botherers. It was three years out of date but no one had dared to complain yet.  She heaped two teaspoons of the pale brown powder into a mug, poured in the water, and gave the liquid a vigorous stir. She put the mug on a tray, along with two glasses of water, and carried the drinks through to the living room. The four visitors stopped talking when she entered the room.

‘Here you go,’ Janet said, handing the coffee to Dan. ‘It’s good and strong.’ Dan held the mug up to his face and sniffed. He frowned, and put the coffee down on the low table beside him. ‘Would you like some sugar?’ she asked.

‘No thanks,’ he said, ‘I’m not keen on sweet things.’ Janet nodded and handed the two glasses of water to the couple on the sofa whose names she still didn’t know. ‘About the cloud,’ he continued. ‘Could we see it now?’ Janet’s left eye twitched behind her glasses.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But just one of you at a time. We mustn’t frighten him.’ Amy, still standing beside the window, beamed at Janet.  

‘Of course. You know best. But it’s a cloud, Janet. Not an animal. It won’t even know we’re there.’ Janet looked around at them. Their patronising smiles. Their confident hands folded quietly in their confident laps.

‘Who wants to go first?’ she asked, avoiding Dan’s eyes. Dan stood up. ‘What about you, Amy?’ she asked. She lifted a hand and beckoned to the young woman. ‘Come through, and meet Cyril.’ Amy walked across to the doorway, giving a small thumbs up to the couple on the settee. ‘Sit down and finish your coffee, Dan,’ Janet said. ‘You look like you could do with something warm.’

She watched the two of them exchange glances. The sort of glances only new lovers do well. Dan sat down. Janet put her hand on Amy’s arm and led her out into the hall. As she opened the bathroom door there was a sound of tinkling. ‘Come in and shut the door behind you,’ she said to Amy. And keep your hands to your sides. You mustn’t do anything that might make Cyril feel threatened.’ A burst of ice crystals struck Amy’s face and neck.

‘What the fuck?’ she shouted. ‘What the fuck is that?’

To be continued.

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

Janet’s narrow dark hall wasn’t designed for five people. Especially when four of them were tall, young and gave off a heavy scent of patchouli oil and what Janet assumed was probably marijuana.

‘Come through,’ she said, ushering the four visitors into her living room. ‘Sit down. Can I get you something to drink? Tea, or water?’ She stood in the doorway and waved a hand in the general direction of the two settees. Dan sat down, crossed his legs and asked for a strong black coffee. Amy walked over to the bay window, put her hands on the glass, and looked out, saying something about the lovely view and all that beautiful sky. The other two, possibly also a couple, sat down on the settee opposite Dan, hips and knees touching. Janet couldn’t remember whether the young man was one of the Erics or not. And she didn’t recall ever having seen the young woman before. Amy hadn’t introduced them and Janet didn’t ask.

‘So where is it, then?’ Dan’s voice was firm, authoritative. Amy interrupted him.

‘Steady on, Dan, we’ve only just arrived.’ Amy looked at Janet and smiled. ‘He’s a big softy, really, Janet. Can’t bear the thought of suffering.’ Dan stared at Amy, shook his head, and frowned.

‘There’s no suffering here,’ Janet said, holding onto the door frame for support.

‘Of course there isn’t,’ Amy said. She was running her fingers around the window frames. ‘Assume you have to keep the windows shut all the time. In case?’

‘Not really,’ Janet replied. Only when he’s moving about. I’m very careful.’ Dan uncrossed his legs and looked up at her.

‘Careful to stop it getting out? Or careful of its well-being?’ he asked. Janet didn’t know how to reply. What did they know? They didn’t have clouds. Probably didn’t even have children. They couldn’t begin to understand how precious Cyril was. That she would do anything to protect him. Anything at all. She put her hands down by her sides and took a couple of deep slow breaths.

‘I’ll get the coffee. Anyone else want one?’

‘Just water for us, thanks,’ said the woman on the sofa.

Janet left the room and went into the hall. The bathroom door was closed. She put her hand on the door handle, turned it back and forwards and checked that the door was properly shut. The visitors had left their bags in the hall. One of the bags was a large black holdall. The visitors had dropped their voices and she couldn’t hear the specifics of their words. She lifted the holdall up. It was big enough to take Cyril’s Perspex box. And it was empty.

2019. Portobello,Edinburgh

A week after the meeting, Janet stood in her hall staring at the intercom system. They were late. They should have been there at 12. It was quarter past and still no sign of them. Perhaps they wouldn’t come. They’d have lost interest. Moved on to another cause. They’d be picketing the Parliament. Or climbing a rig in the North Sea. Or locking themselves to a chemical plant. Not wasting time inspecting the home environment of a pet cloud.

Janet walked into the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror. She frowned, pulled the thin silver string of her eyebrows together into a single curved line then forced her mouth into an artificial smile. She needed to stop worrying. Assert her authority. She’d been someone once. Someone to reckon with. An opinion former before the influencers came along with their pointless trivia and their turquoise highlights and their Instagram accounts. She’d been a woman who was invited onto panels. A woman who appeared in newspapers. A woman who was interviewed on the radio. Five whole years of it on and off. And then, soon after the second inquest, they’d dumped her. Moved on to a higher scale of misery. Two lost lives weren’t enough. The men in desert boots and bulging waistcoats wanted tsunamis. Earthquakes. Pandemics. Twin Towers. The falange of microphones had left as fast as it had arrived.

‘For God’s sake,’ she said to her reflection. ‘They’re young enough to be your children.’ She pushed her shoulders back, stood on her tiptoes, took a lipstick from the shelf, opened her mouth and painted her lips cherry red. Cherries in the Snow. Imagine having a job naming the colours of cosmetics. She smacked her lips together. Dabbed the excess waxy paste off with a tissue. The neighbours’ kids had given the lipstick to her for Christmas. We know you love cherries, Janet, the two of them had said to her in chorus. And it will make you pretty.

She ran her fingers through her hair and tousled her fringe. Her hair was thinning back from her forehead, exposing the dry scaly skin of her scalp. She turned to Cyril who was draped over the shower head. ‘What do you think, Cyril? Will I do?’ The cloud dropped a shower of tiny ice crystals into the bath. They bounced and tinkled on the enamel. ‘I guess that’s a yes, then.’ The intercom buzzed. ‘That’ll be them, Cyril. Look happy will you. And stay up on the ceiling. Just in case.’

1966. Tilbury

Janet’s father led them up the covered gangplank in a line that was either ordered by enthusiasm for the adventure, or height, Janet couldn’t quite tell. Either way, she took up the rear. Behind her father was her brother Edward, fifteen then, an inch taller than their mother and three inches shorter than their father if he stretched his neck and pushed up his hair. A new Brownie 127 camera swung loose from his shoulder and he’d insisted on taking several photos of them all lined up with their leather suitcases in their sunhats before they boarded the ship.

Next was her mother, who’d fretted for several weeks about what to wear that first day on board and had opted for a daisy yellow sundress with matching sandals and a white cardigan with swirling green mother of pearl buttons. Janet’s father had commented that Bernadette was showing rather too much thigh for a married mother of three but, he’d whispered to Janet, he’d been disinclined to make too much of a fuss given how long it might take to choose another outfit.  

Next was Philip, almost fourteen, the baby of the family. Philip, who’d recently discovered the Rolling Stones, walked from the hip and cultivated a frenetic fringe at eyebrow level. Philip’s eyes were red and, unusually, no one in the family commented. Janet stamped her feet as she followed Philip, forcing the gangplank to bounce the family into unsteady steps as they approached the Captain and his outstretched arm.

‘Welcome to the SS Himalaya’, he said to every passenger as they shook his hand and looked around, wide-eyed. ‘Looking forward to having you onboard.’

A neat young man with a blue uniform showed them to their cabins on Deck A. Cabin 90 for her parents, 92 for the boys, and 94 for Janet. The family were on the port side, a minute’s stroll from the swimming pools, a bar and a family restaurant.

‘Best part of the ship’, the neat young man said to Janet, winking at her. ‘Just you let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.  There’s a bell here.’  He pointed to the brass button in her cabin, ‘or ask at the reception area for Angus.’  He put a hand on her shoulder for longer than felt necessary, left, and shut the door behind him.

Janet put her handbag down on the lower bunk and looked around. The cabin was fitted out with the micro-efficiency of a dolls house. Two bunk beds, a wash basin with hot and cold water, a narrow shower with a high entry step, a writing desk, and a wardrobe. A sign under the porthole said DO NOT OPEN. Janet lay down on the bunk. Through the porthole she could see the waists and torsos of people walking by, beyond that, the freshly painted white railings, beyond that, the sea, and beyond that, the sky. The sea was oily grey, and thick slate clouds were stacking up on the horizon. The cabin smelt of furniture polish and washing powder. There was a small pocket of sick bags at the end of each bunk and a sheet of instructions on what to do in an emergency.

Six weeks. It was going to take six whole weeks. The ship pitched and swayed. Nausea rose in her stomach. She wanted to change her mind. Run off the ship. Run down to Pop George, who was probably still standing there on the quay in his long black raincoat, giving them a military-style salute. Tell him that of course she’d look after him. She’d made a terrible mistake. A terrible selfish mistake. But beneath her came a thick rumbling vibration. And from above, a long low reverberating wail. There were sounds of cheering, shouting, clapping. A skirl of bagpipes from afar. It was too late. They were on their way.

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

Cyril didn’t want to go. Janet had pulled his Perspex travel box out from under her bed, taken it into the bathroom and waved her hand towards the open lid. The cloud was having none of it. He floated out of the room, well above her reach, and made his way to the kitchen ceiling, spreading his wisps out across the Roman white plaster until he was only around an inch thick. Janet followed him, calling that it was alright, alright, there was nothing to worry about. The first ice-crystal, the size of a pea, hit her brow. The next few stung her lips and cheeks. One of them drew blood. She retreated into the hall and patted the blood off with a tissue.

The crystal shower stopped. She pondered. The weather wasn’t the problem. It was a cool, clear evening. Nothing in the sky apart from a few planes, and a pale half moon rising up behind the sea. The instruction manual showed pictures of a smiling person with their happy cloud dropping into its box as soon as the lid was open. And if that didn’t work, to use the cloud catcher. Janet thought that was a bit extreme. It was one thing for Cyril to drop into the catcher voluntarily in the mornings and then arrange himself over her hair. It was something else to use it in apprehending him against his will. She wouldn’t like to be grabbed from behind by a fine steel mesh net on the end of a stick. It would be like using a choker chain on a dog. The problem was the owner, not the animal. So she didn’t use it, and now she was out of options. She’d have to go without him.

She arrived at the bar ten minutes late. She hadn’t wanted to be first. Sitting there like a lemming on her own, people staring, pointing, or worse, ignoring her altogether. But as soon as she entered, Amy shouted across the bar.

‘Over here’, she called, ‘over here, Janet.’ Amy was waving a glass at Janet. ‘So pleased you could make it!’ Three men sitting up at the bar turned around and looked, appraised Janet, and went back to their beers. Janet tripped over the rug at the entrance, blushed, and made her way to the back of the room where a large group were laughing and talking. Amy was at the head of the table, telling someone to get Janet a seat. There was shuffling, and moving, and switching around, and Janet found herself pushed down onto a chair beside Amy and handed a pint of dark frothy beer.

‘You do drink,’ Amy said to her, ‘or would you prefer a glass of wine? Or gin even?’ Janet hadn’t drunk a whole pint of beer for at least thirty years. Nowadays she preferred a vodka tonic or a small bottle of pear cider. But she wasn’t telling them that. ‘Now’, Amy said. ‘Let me introduce everyone.’ Janet stopped listening after Olivia. Or maybe Charmaine. There were two Erics. She got that at least. And there was the friend Dan, draped over Amy’s shoulder in what looked like a chocolate brown cashmere sweater. There were at least eight in the group and all of them must have been under half her age.

‘Cheers,’ one of the Erics said, raising his glass. ‘To Janet. And her pet cloud!’ There was more laughter and clinking and reaching and gulping. Janet took a mouthful of the beer and screwed her eyes up. It was bitter, far too bitter.

‘So,’ said Olivia or Charmaine. ‘We want to know everything. But first, where’s the cloud? One of the Erics, sitting beside her, dug the young woman in the ribs with his elbow. Janet leant back in her chair, trying to get out of the young woman’s immediate line of sight. The woman frowned at him and pushed a pile of thick blond hair back behind her ear. She shuffled forward, put her arm out and pointed a finger at Janet. ‘You haven’t killed it have you?’

‘That’s enough, Char,’ said Amy. ‘Let her be, she’s only just arrived.’ Janet looked at Amy and nodded a thank you. ‘They’re just disappointed, that’s all. They wanted to see the cloud. To check, you know.’ One of the young men who wasn’t an Eric interrupted.

‘But we do need to know it’s alright. That you’re doing the right thing by it.’ He looked at Janet earnestly. That’s why we’re all here, right?’ He waved a hand around the group.’ We couldn’t stop the sales but now they’re in captivity we can still protect them.’ Janet stomach knotted. Heat rose up her neck and into her cheeks. Her hands trembled. Cyril had known. And she hadn’t listened. Hadn’t listened to her cloud.

To be continued.

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

A few days after the storm, Janet was standing in the queue in the fishmongers. The young woman in front of her was studying a poster on the wall, asking questions of the man behind the till, and taking forever to decide. She was going on about climate change and fish stocks and microbeads. The queue behind her sighed and stomped and sighed again. The shop was small and narrow, the queue tight, and Janet jostled the woman deliberately to try and hurry her up. The man behind Janet shouted something about leave and come back when you’ve made up your bloody mind. Janet thought that was a bit rude. The queue nodded and fidgeted. Eventually the young woman made her selection, paid, squeezed past them all and left the shop. Janet bought her regular two smoked haddock, walked out into the sunlight and looked up and down the street. Maybe she’d go to the library. Or should she have a walk in the park first? Or should she take the fish home? As she pondered, there was a tug on her arm. It was the young woman from the fishmongers.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, smiling at Janet, ‘aren’t you the woman with the pet cloud?’ Janet blushed, and put a hand up to her face. ‘I saw you in the library,’ she continued, ‘you were asking for books on meteorology.’  She waved a gloved hand at the sky. ‘And my friend Dan said he was sure, he was sure that it was you.’

‘News travels fast,’ Janet said. She didn’t know why she’d said that. It was just the first thing that came to mind.

‘Anyway, we were wondering…’ the young woman paused. ‘Sorry, I should have said, my name’s Amy, Amy Maddox.’ She held her gloved hand out to Janet. ‘And you are?’ Janet took her hand. Amy’s gloved hand gave hers a good firm shake.

‘Janet,’ she said. ‘My name’s Janet.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Amy said. ‘The thing is, we’re got this group and we wondered whether you’d come and talk to us. We usually meet on Wednesdays after work.’ Janet looked at the woman. The soft chestnut hair tucked under a yellow woolly hat. The red tights. The black patent leather boots. The green donkey jacket. Janet felt old, dowdy, ridiculous.

‘What about?’ Janet said.

‘Sorry, of course. About the cloud. Keeping the cloud. What that’s all about?’ Janet wished the young woman would stop apologising. It was her generation that had to apologise. Not theirs.  

‘I don’t know,’ Janet said. ‘There isn’t much to say.’

‘Of course there is,’ Amy replied. ‘There are only six in captivity in the city.’ Janet flinched. What did she mean by captivity? Cyril couldn’t possibly survive out there in the wild.

‘Sorry,’ Amy said again, ‘Dan says I’m always too dramatic.’ She put her hand on Janet’s shoulder. ‘We’d love you to come and speak about your experience. How it’s going.’ The young woman pulled a purse out of her bag, and took out a pale green business card. ‘Look, here’s my email. And number. Use whatever and I’ll get straight back to you.’ Janet took the card and put it into her coat pocket without looking at it.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a think. I’m not very good with crowds.’

‘Oh, it’s only the six of us. Sometimes seven. We’d love you to come.’ Janet nodded. ‘One more thing,’ Amy said, ‘you couldn’t…’ she paused, ‘…bring the cloud with you? So that we could see it?’ Janet shook her head. Treating Cyril like a circus animal. In this day and age.

‘I need to get going,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do.’ She put her hand in her pocket. Put her fingers around the business card. Felt the matt smoothness of it. It was tempting. But what if they made a fool of her? Or it was some sort of trick?

To be continued

1965. Edinburgh

‘It’s up to you,’ her father said. He was looking at Janet’s left ear. Janet pushed her fork back and forward across her plate, scooping the mashed potato into a small mountain. She used her knife to top it off with a dab of pale orange neaps.

‘Stop that, will you?’ Her mother’s cheeks were pink, the tip of her nose bright red. Her mother took another sip of sherry. Janet carried on with the fork. Green peas encircled the muddy white mountain. An invasion of pond weed.

‘You’re old enough to make up your own mind,’ Janet’s father continued. ‘But we can’t leave you on your own. You’d have to stay with your Pop George.’

‘I’m seventeen, Dad. I can’t stay with my grandfather.  I’d be the laughing stock.’

‘What does it matter what other folk think?’ Janet’s mother was clearing the table, crashing the crockery into the plastic dish-washing bowl. ‘Your Pop George has looked after you for years. Time you gave a bit back.’ Janet knew how it would go. More crashing, a dropped fork or spoon, a glass broken on the draining board, some tears, and eventually her mother would get her way.

‘You want me to look after him so you lot can swan off to Australia. The four of you. You want free care for Grandad and Dad doesn’t want to pay for my cabin. That’s the truth of it.’ Janet’s voice was as thin and green as a reed.

‘You’re being ridiculous. We’ve told you you’re welcome to come.’ Her father stood up and took a bottle of beer from the fridge. There was a stain on his slacks, just behind his right hip. Chocolate or brown sauce or Fowlers Wee Heavy. Janet scooped some peas onto her fork and loaded them into her mouth.

‘But my friends are here. I’m supposed to be going to university.’

‘You can do that in Sydney,’ her mother paused, ‘although the Scottish universities are better off course.’ A wet fork clattered to the floor. Her father leant down and picked it up, smacked it playfully against her mother’s backside, and put it on the table.

‘It’s emotional blackmail,’ Janet said. Her father got up, took a dish towel and wiped down the steamed-up windows.

‘That’s better’, he said, ‘we can see out now. There’ll be no steamy windows in Sydney, that’s for sure.’  Janet felt the draught cold around her bare ankles. She put down her knife and fork and pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her fingers. It wasn’t fair, making her choose. The boys were just told they were going. They weren’t asked if they wanted to live with an old man. Not that he was incontinent or anything like that. Or confused. But living in that village? She’d be the youngest person for twenty miles. She stood up and put her glass on the draining board.

‘I’m going out,’ she said to them, ‘once the rain stops.’ She didn’t tell them she wanted to go to look at the clouds. That the clouds would tell her what to do. What to decide.

To be continued

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

After the thunderbolt, Cyril seemed to change. He cowered above the shower head, refusing to come out of the bathroom, his wispy trails curling tight into the cracks between the rough taupe marble tiles. His tinkles were less frequent. He no longer dropped down onto Janet’s head in the mornings to soothe her scalp or separate her wrinkles. Noise seemed to disturb him. He’d shoot out a long contrail if a plane roared overhead. He condensed and shrank when the bin lorries rumbled down the street. He spat mini hailstones if the flat buzzer rang.  

Janet was at a loss. She searched the Internet for clues. Tips. There was nothing. No results for identifying the emotional problems of a pet cloud. No results for how to pep up a pet cloud that might be depressed. She wondered whether to call the Met Office. Or the coast guard. Or the vet. Or, god forbid, to swallow her pride and speak to the little moustached man in the Ice Tower.

She tried talking. Telling Cyril stories. Tit bits about the weather or the neighbours or the latest book display in the library. But Cyril remained inert. She tried a different distilled water in his spray. Tried keeping the blinds open. Tried keeping the blinds closed. She even had a bath, covering her bare pink breasts with handfuls of soft seaweed-scented foam while he sat tight three or four feet above her. Unmoved. Unyielding.

Finally, sitting on the bathroom chair one evening, she tried singing to him. She cleared her throat before she started. Pushed her glasses firmly up her nose. Smoothed down an errant grey eyebrow. She never sang in public. Not in church. Not even in the choir she’d once joined after her doctor had told her she really needed to socialise more. But she knew plenty of songs. She started with her favorite. Caledonia. She sang softly at first, the words almost inaudible. Then she built up, surprised at the confidence of her voice. How pleasant she sounded. How kind.

I don’t know if you can see the changes
That have come over me
In these last few days I’ve been afraid
That I might drift away

She lost the words at the fifth line. Shot away with other memories. She filled in the gaps by humming the tune, tapping the bath with her fingers, looking up at Cyril. The cloud expanded, softened somehow. And then, from somewhere close to his core, came the sound of hand bells. Pure, pitch-perfect. Angelic even. The sound of heaven. Janet’s voice rose and fell with those bells. Voice and bells in perfect time. In perfect harmony. They finished the song together:

But I’m steady thinking, my way is clear
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands have shaken and the kisses flowed
Then I will disappear

Janet allowed a full minute of silence at the end of the song before she spoke.

‘Don’t you disappear,’ she whispered to Cyril. ‘Don’t you dare disappear.’

To be continued.

Lyrics excerpts from ‘Caledonia’ by Dougie MacLean.