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fiction serial

The Cloud – Episode 53

Janet has been awake now for a week. So Sergi says although with all that white kit on she can’t really see him never mind make out what he’s saying. He reminds her of astronauts. She could have been an astronaut. Imagine that, being fired into space with a rocket under your seat. Little earth all green and blue and spinning, spinning. Imagine being weightless, throwing your lunch to your colleague, playing a guitar upside down. How does sound work in space?

‘You’ve had a tough time, Miss Waters,’ he says as he rubs Vaseline across her lips with a small sponge on the end of a stick. ‘We’re all so proud of you.’

Janet lies back on the hard mattress and the hard pillows and lets him get on with it. Everything is too white and too stiff. Someone has pulled blue curtains around her bed and she doesn’t understand whether she is alone or whether there are others. There are too many tubes in too many orifices and her bladder feels strange. Full and empty at the same time. She’d love to sit on a toilet. Sergi smells of bleach and antiseptic. Sergi tells her his name every time he approaches her. It’s Sergi, Miss Waters. Here to give you a wash. It’s Sergi, Miss Waters, just checking your catheter. It’s Sergi Miss Waters, the doctors want a word.

Nearly a year, she hears him whisper to someone. No one thought she’d make it. Strong as an ox, someone else says and he whispers shush, shush, she can hear you know, don’t go round calling my patients oxen it’s not kind. A year of what? She can’t work it out. Who are these people in their cosmonaut suits and their visors and gloves and their tired eyes and their flitting from one thing to another and all that beeping and clicking and all those tubes?

A head pokes through the blue curtains. Hi, Miss Waters, it says behind its visor and mask. I’ve got the menu for tomorrow here. Doctors say you can have something soft. I’ll leave it with Sergi and he can fill it out for you.

Something soft? Janet isn’t hungry. She shuts her eyes. She hears Sergi pull the curtains back. Light lands on her face. It’s warm the sun. Warm and bright. She turns her hands over and lets the sun alight on her palms. She curls her fingers, catching the light, holding onto it.

‘I’m afraid you aren’t allowed visitors, Miss Waters,’ Sergi says, ‘but we could set up a phone call. Is there someone you’d like to speak to? A friend?’

Janet struggles with the thought. A friend? Does she even have any friends? There was a friend. But he left. Or he disappeared. Or someone took him. She’d been searching for him. That’s right. He’d been important. More important than anything. She’d been looking everywhere. Even in the sky. With the cosmonauts. With Laika. Laika sniffing through the stars looking for her friend. Barking and running and barking again at the endless iridescent trails.

She opens her eyes. Sergi, she says. The ferret. Who is looking after the ferret?

to be continued

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serial

The Cloud. Episode 48

February 2020, Edinburgh

‘What do you take in your tea, Mrs Waters?’

‘Ms Waters. Just black thanks, and weak. Wave the teabag over it.’ The receptionist, a wilted man of around fifty with a melancholy chin and a an olive green waistcoat that suckered in around his navel region, nodded and disappeared through the glass doors into the hall.

‘Aren’t you having anything?’ Janet asked Jeremy.

Jeremy shook his head. ‘I’ve been here before. Arthur makes dreadful tea.’ He flicked at a thread on his tie, smoothed the creases down on his trousers, picked up a magazine that had something to do with home security on the front cover, and sat down on the chair opposite Janet.

Janet waved a hand at the room. She said ‘I didn’t expect something so…’ He interrupted her.

‘Smart? Professional?’ Janet didn’t like his tone.

‘It’s been a while,’ she said, ‘since I’ve had anything to do with private detectives. Thirty years, maybe more. They were all a bunch of crooks then. Vietnam vets. Or police that couldn’t stick the uniform.’ Why was she telling Jeremy this? To impress him? To show him she wasn’t just a puddly old woman with eccentric tastes in pets? They sat in silence until Arthur returned, the tray with its white cup and saucer and a single plastic-wrapped shortbread on a matching plate shaking in his hands.

‘She’s just finishing a call,’ he said to them, ‘Dr Connolly-Smythe I mean, and then I’ll take you through.’

A doctor? Jeremy hadn’t said anything about her having a doctorate. Janet’s hands moistened. Heat flashed through her cheeks. She laid her palms flat on her lap and took two deep breaths. Doctor of what? Forensics? Investigations? Biology? She looked across to Jeremy. He was leafing through the magazine, pausing at the pages with the bigger pictures. She shouldn’t have come. This detective woman would work it out. She’d know as soon as she saw her. See it behind her eyes. The peccant wrinkles around her lips. Why was she here? Risking everything over a ridiculous cloud. She took a sip of tea, burnt her upper lip, and rattled the cup back onto the saucer.

‘OK, Lisa’s ready now, let’s go through.’ They followed Arthur down a wide bright corridor lined with large succulent plants and a series of closed doors with burnished copper name plates. Arthur tapped at the last door on the right, listened for a moment, then opened up. ‘Mrs Waters and Mr Hartridge,’ he said, ushering them in. ‘The ones with the missing cloud.’

The woman that walked out from behind the desk to greet them was short and neat, in a black suit with loose wide legs and a narrow boxy jacket that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a ship. Her shoes, impossible to ignore, were patent black gloss, with thick crepe soles and cherry red laces. Janet stared at the shoes as they came towards her and stopped just in front of her own.

‘Ms Waters,’ she said, ‘I’m so pleased to meet you.’ She reached out to grasp Janet’s hand. The detective’s hand was cool, and larger than Janet had expected. ‘Do take a seat,’ she said to them both, ‘and we’ll start from the beginning.’

Janet sat down beside Jeremy. Let Jeremy do the preamble while she studied the other woman. There was something odd about her, something unnervingly familiar. Her squared off chin. Her ears that angled out just too far to be attractive. Had she been on television? The woman was speaking to Janet now.

‘How about in your own words, Ms Waters,’ the detective said, with the lightest of an Antipodean twang.

‘Yes, of course,’ Janet said. ‘Cyril. But first, your accent? I was just wondering…? The woman laughed. ‘Oh, I was born in Australia. Been trying to get rid of the accent ever since.’ She flicked open her laptop. ‘You sound a bit similar yourself. Did you live in Oz, too?

It was the way she said Oz. A faint Australian drawl with a stronger Scottish burr. Janet’s vision blurred. It couldn’t be. He’d never mentioned children. Had he lied? She stared at the detective’s skin. Tried to estimate her age. It was possible. Yes. And the name. That double-barrelled name. Why hadn’t she spotted that? Worked it out before they came. All it would have taken was a quick search on the Internet.

‘Are you alright, Ms Waters?’ Doctor Connolly-Smythe was looking at Janet without a hint of recognition. But Janet knew. She was certain. The detective was the Inspector’s daughter.

To be continued.

Categories
serial

The Cloud. Episode 47

1966, Sydney

If Janet had written a diary we would know more of what she’d felt about the weeks following her first dinner date with Inspector Colin Connolly. But Janet was coy about writing things down.

There’d been a diary once. A present from her Pop George for Christmas just before she turned twelve. Ruby red leather with a pink satin ribbon to slide between the pages (or across her lips when she was struggling for a word). The paper was butter thick, and there was a whole page to fill up for each day of the year.  But any girl with two younger brothers knows the dangers of journal writing.

One drab Saturday afternoon in late April, Philip had found the diary in a shoe box under Janet’s bed. Roaring in triumph, he’d run out into the garden where Edward was playing with several other boys from their street. The diary was seized with glee, tossed from one grubby pair of hands to the other, until Peter, the oldest at thirteen, had climbed onto the shed roof, stood with the diary held aloft, and read out several passages to what had quickly become a shrieking mocking mob. 

Janet, who’d been helping her mother with the dishes when Philip had run past them with the diary, had thrown her tea towel at the fridge, and screamed at her mother to get it back. Bernadette, for reasons that she didn’t explain to her daughter, had carried on with the dishes. Janet, with no one else to turn to for help, fled the kitchen, slammed the door, and threw herself face down onto her bed, sobbing. Her father had retrieved the diary that evening, attempted to wipe it clean, and had taken it into Janet, who was still fretting in her room. But it was too late. Janet’s secret adoration of Mr Bennett, her English teacher, was public, and Philip would continue to bait her about it for months.

So Janet didn’t write down her feelings about the Inspector, nor did she have anyone to share them with. She had yet to start her new job, she was wary of the neighbours, and the only people outside the family that came into the house were Edward’s friends.

We could, however, get a sense of her feelings from the small wooden box she kept in the locked drawer of her dressing table. Not a written diary this time, but information of a personal nature nonetheless. There were receipts for green eye shadow, tangerine lipstick, black kohl eye liner. There were swatches of parakeet-coloured fabrics from the haberdashery store down town. There were pictures torn from her father’s newspapers – Jean Shrimpton with her big hair and her sweltry lips and her fervid eyes. And, neatly folded under all of these, the well-thumbed Cosmopolitan articles: The Pill of Liberation. Sex Without Guilt. Six Positions With YOU In Control.

Nothing was found in the wooden box on how to cover up a murder.

To be continued.

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serial

The Cloud. Episode 46

February, 2020. Edinburgh

How do you get rid of a ferret? Ferret, polecat, what’s the merit of a ferret? Especially a ferret that has moved in of its own accord, has no manners, and has taken to rubbing its backside on the treasured purple and gold velvet cushion that Janet had picked up on a Syrian road trip back in the 90s.

Would a ferret make a good wig? Were there even wig makers in Edinburgh? And would they take a live ferret? Maybe they’d insist on it being dead. Like taxidermists. You wouldn’t take a live animal to be stuffed would you? Drowning it would be easier than ringing its neck. She could pop it into a pillow case and do it in the bath. But how long would she have to hold it down for? And where would she put the body? She couldn’t just throw it into the wheelie bins in the street. It would be a health risk for sure. No, she was being daft. She couldn’t kill it. She didn’t have the gumption for that sort of thing. Not any more.

Janet took the half empty tin of cat food from the fridge and emptied the remains of it into an old saucer, gagging on the smell. She put the saucer down on the floor. The ferret shot out from wherever it had been guddling, slid across the wooden floorboards in the hall, looked up at Janet with what might have been a smirk, and settled down to eat.

The ferret wig thing was a bad idea. Its fur was too short. And then there was the smell. No matter how many times she lathered the ferret in the bath she couldn’t get rid of its stink. She was starting to wonder whether the bath made it even worse. And the carry on as she tried to dry it. All the keening and squealing and wriggling and nipping. You’d think she was murdering it. She’d had to explain to the neighbour’s children when they’d tapped on her door, their eyes all pink and teared up, that it was simply the ferret’s bath time and they were welcome to take over the task any time they liked, just say the word. Oh, and here’s an idea, if they’d like to keep the ferret they only had to ask.

Katherine did need a wig, though. Ridiculous to think she could go undercover without one. That was for Netflix, not Edinburgh’s Old Town. Janet had worn a wig herself for a few months after all that furore over Edward. She’d rather enjoyed the subterfuge. The blond bob had suited her. Especially with the sunglasses. She’d turned heads. Even got the odd wolf whistle. She’d walked from the hip instead of the knee. Lengthened her stride. Bought a new handbag that swung from her arm instead of her shoulder. Borrowed some orange corduroy wedges to match. She’d even tried smoking, just a cigarillo or two on Saturday evenings. She’d never inhaled, but she’d perfected the pout and the deft heft of it between her two fingers.

Where do you buy a wig these days? And what about the quality? This wasn’t Janet’s business. It was Katherine’s wig, not hers. But Janet had to know the how. It was her cloud. Her Cyril. Her rescue mission. It had been different in the 70s. Her wig didn’t need to look that good. Hadn’t needed to be fool proof. There’d been no CCTV, no social media, no camera phones, no busybodies wandering around capturing your every move.

This time the wig would have to look natural. More than natural. It would have to have character. Depth. A history. Katherine would no longer be Katherine. She’d be a gangster (or whatever they called themselves). And the wig couldn’t make her look prettier. That wouldn’t be right. Or fair. Not if it was being paid for out of the Contrails budget. The wig was for the return of Cyril. Nothing more and nothing less.

Janet looked down at the ferret. It had finished the cat food and was lying on its back at her feet. She bent down and tickled its belly. It curled up its toes and dooked, clucking like a hen that’s just laid an egg. How could she have thought of killing it? She would ask the neighbour’s kids to name it. Why did she care about the Syrian cushion anyway? The trip had been a disaster. And the woman that had made it was probably dead.

To be continued.

Categories
serial

The Cloud. Episode 44

February 2020, Edinburgh

Katherine sent the plan to them a couple of hours after the meeting. It was in Excel. Janet didn’t do Excel. Not because she didn’t understand computers. Of course she did. She just did words better than numbers. Why put words in cells when you could put them on a page? She scrolled through the columns, sighing and tutting.

Cyril. (There’s no column for Cyril. Why hasn’t he got a column. Have they all forgotten what this is about? Katherine will have to add him in. Straight away. Note to self to tell her..)

Budget. £15,000 operating budget. All receipts to go to Bessie. Bessie will refund within 24 hours. (Why is Bessie insisting on paying all that money. Where did she get it? Patronising. Still, a PI expensive. If they want to pay up to them. B feeling guilty?)

Communications. WhatsApp. Everyone to change email passwords regularly. No talking to the Press. (For God’s sake, who’s going to hack my email? It’s a cloud not the bloody First Minister. I’ll forget the new password a minute after I’ve changed it. Should have argued about the press at the meeting. Be better to have press interest. Flush them out. Note to self – bring that up at next meeting.)

Katherine. Prepare and keep project plan up to date (DONE). (Not as organised as she wants us to think – found her note on the table after she left – can’t even draw a cloud!)

Katherine. Set up new profile on social media for undercover. (Can’t wait to see the pictures and the wig. She has to wear a wig. Could I choose the wig? Can’t look too pretty. Threat to Amy. Has she thought that through? But attractive enough for Dan? Hope she doesn’t irritate Amy. Could ruin the whole thing.)

Jeremy. All decisions to go through him. He’ll respond within six hours. (Easier to keep the peace and just let him think he’s the boss. and anyway we need him. Wish Katherine wouldn’t goad him. How did Bessie bring up such a chauvinist pig? She’s supposed to be a feminist.)

Jeremy. Will hire investigator by end of week. (At least I got him to get a women. Hope she gets on with Katherine. She’s bossy. Might think it’s competition. Exciting, a private investigator.. Can’t wait to meet her. Hope she doesn’t investigate me. Have to prevent..)

Bessie. To put together a file on ARPL. Everything in public domain. (Why Bessie – isn’t a researcher? Is J trying to keep her away from the important stuff?)

Janet. To write a full brief for the PI on the details of the theft by Thursday. Include photos. (Why do they insist on using the word theft. Demeaning. Sounds like a pair of shoes or an old purse.).

All. To keep looking up. (Glad I got that in. He might have escaped and is trying to get home. So dangerous. How would he know how to get back? They wont recognise him. But I would. Especially if he tinkled. Miss his tinkles.)

All. Next meeting on Friday (on-line). All to report on their actions. (Will K come in her disguise?. J would be angry. Can’t have any falling outs.)

To be continued.

Categories
serial

The Cloud. Episode 43

1966, Sydney

Two long raps and a short. Two long raps and a short. Everybody in the Waters family knew the Inspector always knocked twice. Views diverged on the purpose and value of his visits.

Eric, with tight lips and clenched fists. ‘He’ll have nothing new to say. Just leading us on.’

Edward, throwing stuff out of the laundry basket. ‘Has anyone seen my rugby shirt ask him why he looks at Janet that way the creepy little shit.’

Bernadette, with blinked back tears. ‘He’ll have a date this time. He said he would. He has to.’

Janet, with flushed cheeks and a check of her fingernails. ‘Just going to my room (to change).’

Bernadette opened the door and let the Inspector in. He followed her through the hall and into the kitchen. Eric got up from the table and went into the garden, slamming the screen door behind him. Edward, having found his rugby kit, shouted goodbye, that he’d be staying with a friend overnight, and left via the front door. He didn’t say anything to the Inspector.  

Janet stood in front of her open wardrobe and studied the three dresses, the four skirts, and the five blouses. She was bored with yellow, tired of polka dots, and wanted something different. Something grown-up. But she had yet to start her new job, and, without her own money, there was no chance of a new outfit. Not unless the Inspector paid. But they weren’t at that stage. Not yet. And, if Janet was honest with herself (she wasn’t always), they’d only been on one actual date. One date, one kiss, one ice-cream and a large stick of pink candyfloss to share.

The green dress was shorter and tighter than the others. Bought in a sale the one time she’d be into the city centre to shop. Her father had frowned when she’d brought it home and asked how much money she’d wasted on it. Edward had said it was the same colour as the slime down at the sewage treatment works. Her mother hadn’t even noticed. The Inspector hadn’t seen the green dress. She’d been saving it for something special. For when he invited her out to dinner. She changed into the green dress.

‘Hello, Janet,’ he said, as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I was just telling your mother we have a date for the inquest.’ Janet stopped. Her stomach knotted. Heat rose up her neck and into her cheeks. She’d been sure that this wouldn’t happen. All that international law of the sea stuff would be too complicated. What could they say without a body? They’d call her as a witness. She’d have to swear on something. The bible maybe. Or the queen? Did they even do that in Australia?

Bernadette was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘I’m so grateful,’ she said to the Inspector, ‘for all you’ve done for us.’ The Inspector nodded. Patted her arm. Janet poured herself a glass of water from the jug in the fridge. Leant back against the wall. Whose side was he on? How could he have done that to her? Put her in front of the coroner? What’s the point of bringing that stuff up all over again. She gulped back the water.

‘In three months,’ Bernadette said to her daughter. ‘It’s a long time, but at least we know it’s coming.’ Janet couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at the Inspector. He’d betrayed her. Just kissed her to get her to say something. Open her up. Ready her for the prosecution.

‘You look nice,’ the Inspector said. ‘Are you going out somewhere?’ Janet shook her head, left the kitchen and returned to her bedroom. She pulled the dress off, changed into her old clothes, and threw the dress into the back of the wardrobe. She lay face down on the bed, put the pillow over her head, and wept.

Two long raps and a short. Two long raps and a short. That was her door, not the front door. Janet sat up. Yes, she said. The Inspector opened the door.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Janet. Just wondered whether you’d be free on Saturday night?’

To be continued.

Categories
serial

The Cloud. Episode 41

1966, Sydney.

A police inspector drapes an arm over the bare shoulders of a young woman. The woman’s face is hidden under the flop of a wide-brimmed hat. A yellow polka-dot ribbon swings from the hat, tickling the sun-bleached hair on the Inspector’s arm. The arm spans an age gap of eighteen years.

A man spinning clouds of pink candy floss has lost a shoe. Children notice and point. Parents keep their eyes on the prize. Maybe the missing shoe is part of the sell. Maybe not.

The bar across the beach is tasselled with dogs waiting for their men. The dogs pant pant piss. Most of the men piss out of sight. At least three of the dogs will be named Bluey.

A small child runs into the legs of the police inspector with a melting ice-cream in a cone. The Inspector’s navy shorts are dolloped white. The Inspector laughs, wiping at the cream with his fingers. The child’s mother offers the Inspector a red balloon on a long string. He shakes his head, no.

Eucalyptus rubbed between the fingers is a medicament for some. A memory of something lost by others. The woman selling it from a basket promises an end to flies and a future flushed with fortune. New migrants invest handfuls of unfamiliar coins in her augurs.

So we sailed up to the sun. Til we found the sea of green. Try to see it my way. I’m picking up good vibrations. We can work it out. She’s giving me excitations. Smooth tanned feet everywhere drumming to the beat.

Immigrants are surprised by the rain’s vertical nature and its mocking insistence on dribbling where it shouldn’t. Most didn’t pack umbrellas. Those that call themselves locals lie on the beach, face up, and just carry on.

The young woman has never seen so many people on a beach. Has never felt sand so hot. Has never smelt that salty sun oil barbecue sweet. It’s her first time out in a bikini top and a matching mini. She could be on the cover of a magazine.

A police inspector leads a young woman down through the crowds onto the steaming sand. He is holding her hand. Guiding her steps. Picking past the picnickers. Kicking a stray football back to a group of running lads in black shorts. He takes her to the edge of the water. Removes his sandals. Then hers with a grinning bow. He throws them all back up the sand.

The water will be colder than it looks. He lifts her up. She shrieks. He wades in deeper, holding her just above the ocean. The waves crash up to his waist. He is soaked. She is salt sprayed. She is laughing. She has her arms around his neck.

The kiss yokes the Inspector to a murder. The kiss yokes the young woman to the Inspector’s yet to be declared bastard child.

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 37

1966, Sydney

It’s not easy to sleep on your first night in an old house in a new country on the wrong side of the world on the back of the death of your brother.

When your living brother, snoring softly up the hallway, knows you’re a murderer.

When your parents, still whispering and snuffling on the pining wooden chairs in the kitchen, wouldn’t use the actual word murder but you’re sure they’re sure you had something to do with it.

When the cicadas outside are thrumming your brother’s name.

When the large spider on the naked white wall is scuttling out his initials P.O.W.

When the night scent of the garden flowers is bristling the bitter sweet of funeral laurels through the fly screen.

When there should have been five in the new old house and now there are four.

When one small brown leather suitcase remains conspicuously unopened and unpacked just outside your door.

When some bird has cocked up the dawn chorus and has ramped up a solo so euphoric, so ecstatic, that it could bring a whole congregation to its knees.

When it’s your first night on dry land in six weeks and your bed, with its pre-slumped mattress, pitches and shakes and fouls your stomach until you’re retching into your pillow.

When you ache for the night to keep on going but the moon is already sweeping into its dying arc and cold white light is readying itself to turn warm golden rose.

When the sweat is weeping down your back and across your buttocks and you’re so so thirsty but you don’t know if the water out of the tap is safe to drink.

When you plot escape plan after escape plan, each more outlandish than the last, until you remember you have no money.

When you want the water out of the tap to be mephitic and pestilential, and you see yourself standing in the dark in a long white nightdress, gulping down glassful after glassful.  

When you draft the first family breakfast scene in your head and you try every which way to change the chronicle but there’s no way that you can stop your father throwing you out into the street before you’ve even had your toast.

When the mantel clock, brought by your mother on a whim in her hand luggage, is so upset by the epic nature of its journey, that it chimes four then three then two then one.

When every creak is the footstep of a passing ghoul.

When your sheets, too white and starched stiff, crab and scuttle with every toss and turn.

When the whine and buzz of a mosquito becomes a sharp angry welt on the side of your neck. And then again between your breasts. And then again on your cheek.

The night was long, and when Janet finally came to in the dim grim of the morning, Philip was still dead and nothing had changed. Nothing had changed at all.

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 36

2020. Portobello, Edinburgh

New Year’s Day in Edinburgh. Janet had nothing to do, at least nothing useful. Katherine had told her not to call, that she’d be hung over and that they’d touch base on the second on the third. Touch base? What did that even mean? Something to do with rounders? Or American football? And who was supposed to touch whose base? Was she to ring Katherine? Or would Katherine ring her?

She didn’t understand the rules and she didn’t want to. It irritated her, that sort of lazy English. Why couldn’t people just say what they meant and get on with it? She’d never say that to Katherine of course. But she’d frowned at the time and Katherine had arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow in response.

Of course, she could phone a friend, or family. But the author has been remiss in not setting this up. Episode 36 and we still don’t know whether Janet has any living relatives. Pop George is definitely up there somewhere, sat back on an armchair of lenticularis, having died of a shattered heart after the first inquest.  

But where is Edward? And what about her parents? Bernadette would be 102 in a month’s time. And Eric, her father, 104. Are they still alive? If so, Janet has been a dreadful daughter. Negligent in her attention. Not even a mention in her innermost thoughts. Unless of course there’s been a family rift. Which wouldn’t be surprising given the circumstances of Philip’s death. And what about Bessie? There was mention of her way back, a childhood friend. Are they still in touch? Or has Bessie also met some unfortunate end that may or may not implicate Janet?

Janet threw the duvet to the other side of the bed and examined her naked legs. It was hard to remember now whether her legs had always been that boxy shape or whether gravity was just getting the better of her. A thin blue vein had appeared on her right shin a few months ago. It was a lovely graceful thing, winding its way down her leg the way a half decent skier would tackle a new mountain run with wide gracious arcs. It stopped somewhere just above a puffy area around her ankle bone.

She reached down and pushed a finger into the distended skin. It was flaccid and malleable. She gave the area a hard rub with two fingers, pushing the errant fluid up towards her calf. Two years ago, after a sudden and unexpected bout of cellulitis brought on by knocking her ankle on a dry-stone dyke in an old sheep fank, a doctor had told her to wear those long socks that kept the circulation going. The doctor had smiled and said she wore them herself when she worked long shifts at the hospital. Janet had tried to smile back at the tall woman in the casual white coat, and had taken a note of the brand the doctor recommended. The socks turned out to be tight, ugly and grasping.

Janet levered herself off the bed, picked her dressing gown off the floor, put it on, flicked the blind cord up, and opened the window a few inches. The beach, grey and dreamy in its lace curtain haar, was starting to fill with people. Janet shuffled through to the kitchen, put the kettle on, dropped an Earl Grey teabag into a mug, picked up the binoculars, went back into the bedroom and studied the beach.

The people looked odd. Not because of the way they moved, although even that was strange. No, it was what they were wearing, or what they weren’t wearing. Some men were simply in trunks. Short snug black or red affairs that cinched in tight around their hips. Some, men or women, she couldn’t tell, were dressed up in tiger costumes. Some cut a dash in sailor suits. Some were bears, football mascots, or something indeterminate with beehive wigs and long glittery frocks.  The hardier of the women were stripped down to their swimming costumes, with pink frilled tutus, thick woolly hats and those funny shoe slipper things that Katherine wore into the sea.

One group had lit a fire and were huddled together around it, singing and beating small round drums. Two of the men fanned the young flames with pieces of cardboard, and a third was pouring whisky into small plastic tumblers. Everyone in that group had the same short bobbed blue hair. Janet chuckled at their wigs, and the ferret appeared from whereever it had slept the night, stood up on its hind legs and sank its claws into Janet’s graceful blue vein. Janet slapped down it down and it shot away between her legs, mewling.

The smell of smoke eked into the bedroom and she shut the window and sighed. No matter what was burning on the fires out there, it always smelt like smouldering tyres.  Janet checked the time on her radio. Eleven-thirty. She’d slept late. All those people out there on the beach must be the loony dookers, gathering early, read for the gunshot sprint in and out of the freezing Forth.

Janet enjoyed the loony dook. She’d never done it herself of course. She had what others would call a healthy respect for the sea. Not that the Forth was the sea. Any fool knew that. But it was close enough. Sometimes, when she walked along the water line in the early morning as the dawn pinked across the smooth sand, she’d see a thick stump of driftwood and wonder, just for a moment, whether it was Philip. She’d see a pixie ear, or a bony shoulder, or the nape of a young neck, and her skin would goosebump and she’d hurry back to her flat for a mug of hot mint tea and another hour under her duvet.

Janet put the binoculars down, sat down on her bed, and fingered her phone. No messages. She checked her emails. Nothing. No one wishing her a happy new year. She ran a hand through her hair. First day of 2020 and not a single message. She picked up the phone, ran through the contact list, found Bessie, and tapped the dial button.

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 35

1966, Sydney

Janet sat in the back of the taxi squeezed between her mother and her brother. Bernadette had her knees tight together under her thin pale green cotton dress, presumably, Janet thought, to avoid having to touch her daughter. Bernadette dabbed at the bruised puff around her eyes with her white hanky. Would her mother never stop crying?

Edward had his head out of the open car window and was naming the make and model of each car that passed in the opposite direction. When he got it wrong, Eric, stretched out in the front passenger seat, corrected him. It wasn’t a friendly correction. Her father’s fingers were still drumming, now on the shiny wood-veneer of the dashboard. His nails clicked like the crickets that had sprung under Janet’s feet as she’d walked out of the police station to the waiting taxi. The naming the car thing had been Philip’s game. How stupid of Edward to play it. Janet tried elbowing him, a sharp bony jab jab under his ribs. He turned briefly, stared at her, curled his lip, and continued on with the game.

The taxi driver, recently arrived from Greece and what a journey that was, sick the whole way not like his wife and three daughters and even the baby okay and couldn’t eat a thing for three weeks and had lost weight and never felt better since, had already learnt nearly all of the street names in the city. Or so he said to them as he accelerated through a red light. He regaled them with the name of each street just before he drove into it to prove his point.

Janet wanted the driver brother car street naming duet to shut up. She was hot, tired, and angry. How dare they all blame her. The Inspector had clearly known she wasn’t guilty. The way he’d looked at her. Drawn her apart from the others. Why didn’t they believe him? A proper policeman. She fingered the card in her pocket. The Inspector’s phone number. Just in case she remembered something else. She was to phone anytime. He was here to help. Such a terrible tragedy to happen to a lovely new Australian family. He hadn’t had time to say anything else nice to her. Her father had pushed them all outside. He had wanted, he said, to get home. Janet wasn’t sure which home he’d meant.

Eventually the taxi slowed and the driver leant out of his window. We’re near, he said. Forty-eight, forty-six, forty-four, and then Edward was shouting, and her father was pointing and the taxi slid to a halt outside No.36. Number 36, Macaulay Road. Their home for the next six months. Or longer if Eric couldn’t find their own house to buy at the right price. Janet leant back on the sticky plastic car seat and stretched her neck. Four large flies was crawling across the ceiling of the taxi towards her father. A brown spider, as big as her finger nail, stood upside down in the corner above her head. Its tiny feet tap tapped on the cream plastic. She’d read somewhere there would be insects here. But she hadn’t realised how many.

Edward was already out of the car, pulling open the black metal gate which scraped across the concrete with an unwelcoming scour, and jumping up the steps to the house. He lifted up a pot with a cactus type plant, felt around underneath, then held up a key in triumph. Her father was fumbling in his wallet, checking the unfamiliar currency. Bernadette was murmuring something about a tip and poor Philip, poor Philip not even seeing the house. The tree in the garden next to theirs was swaying and squawking. As the taxi driver opened the boot to get their cases out, it exploded into a swirling mass of flashing blue and green. ‘Budgies,’ said Janet,  to no one, ‘those are budgies.’   

Janet was last into the house. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The house smelt of wood polish, lavender and something that was probably fly spray. She was confused at first by the lay-out. The house defied normal logic. It was long and thin, with the hall running down one side and all the rooms, apart from the kitchen at the end,  off to the left. The floors were all wooden, apart from the kitchen with its smart black and white linoleum tiles. Each time someone spoke, the house spoke it back to them.

She followed her mother through the hall and into the kitchen. The same yellow spirals from the police station twirled from the ceiling in the light breeze from the screened off windows. Janet opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the garden. It was small and boxy with a large tree that she didn’t recognise, a brick barbecue with a blackened wire grill, a small square of lawn, neat borders with pretty flowering shrubs that smelt tropical sweet, and a wooden deck with four metal fold-up chairs leant up against the wall of the house. The timber fences on each side of the garden were just high enough to hide them from the neighbours.

A pale cotton net hammock was tied from two of the branches. She sat down on it and it dropped, almost to the ground. She pushed herself back and forward on it. It was quiet in the garden, just the rustle of leaves and the sharp calls of a few early birds gathering in preparation for the late afternoon chorus. Something nipped at her foot under the leather of her sandal. Then again and again. And then the other foot. She bent over to have a look. Her feet were covered in tiny golden ants. She tried brushing them off, but the more she brushed, the more they came. She stamped her feet. Smacked at the pain.

‘Janet, in here now.’ Her father had come outside and was standing on the decking. ‘Your mother needs help to unpack.’ Janet stood up and nodded. She didn’t look her father in the eye. ‘And your room’s the small one at the back.’ The smallest room. The dreariest room. Her punishment presumably. She sighed and, stamping her feet again, followed her father into the house.

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