Tag: serial

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 34

2020, Portobello, Edinburgh.

Janet sat in the dark on the tall stool at her kitchen window and stared out into the night. With the window wide open she could smell the smoke from the dancing line of bonfires that leapt skywards all the way along the coast to Musselburgh. Drummers drummed although where they came from nobody knew and nobody cared. Someone banged a tambourine and someone else rang a pair of hand bells.

Drunken renditions of Auld Lang Syne spilled along the Promenade as each raggedy taggle group threw their arms around the next. Barking dogs competed with the tears of weary children. A pale cat appeared on the garden wall in front of the sailing club, arched its back, bushed its tail, and disappeared. The neighbours projected a grainy black and white film onto the wall of the white flats. Charlie Chaplin danced over the brown stain of a leaking gutter. Someone, somewhere, was playing a piano in accompaniment although not quite in the right tempo or time.

Fireworks turned the pitch of the dark into momentary brilliance: kaleidoscopes of red and gold, green and silver, shot upwards, and, when rewarded with laughing screams, sideways. The ferret, standing on Janet’s lap with its front paws on the window ledge, cocked its head and shivered with each frantic explosion. Janet stroked its head. It was an absent-minded stroke, unconscious, perhaps driven by being alone when everyone else out there bringing in the new year had someone to wrap their arms around.

Auld Lang Syne. She’d always liked the tune. Even in Australia locals that had never set foot out of the state had sung it every year. Arm in arm in checked shirts and bright cotton skirts and flapping sandals, they’d charged forward and back, forward and back, until someone had stumbled and they’d all collapsed in on each other, a rubble pile of arms and legs and hands and heads all askew.

Janet murmured the words of the third verse. Or was it the fourth?

We too have paddled in the stream
From morning sun to night
But the seas between us broad have roared
From auld lang syne

Where was Cyril? Where was her cloud? Out beyond the Forth? On the other side of the sea? She pushed the ferret off her lap onto the floor and leant out the window. The sudden cold scraped at her cheeks and scrawled around her open collar.

The drummers had worked their magic. The sky was sharp black, the sort of black that fought off clouds for the sake of clarity, limpidity. Cyril would have been afraid of the fireworks. Perhaps that’s why was the sky was so clear. The clouds had scuttled off elsewhere. Sheltering in another time zone until the revelers had run out of booze and the stubs of smouldering pyrotechnics had fizzled their last.

She pondered Katherine’s plan. Infiltrating the group, the kidnappers, seemed reckless. Dangerous even. Amy and Dan wouldn’t be taken in by glossy words or a blond wig or emerald green nail varnish. But there was also something oddly exhilarating about it. Arousing even. Reminded her of the weird mix of fear and thrill she’d had in her gut through the whole Philip saga. Perhaps this was just what she needed to jolt her out of her aging reverie. A bit of subterfuge. She closed the window and swung around on her stool. The ferret was on the kitchen workbench, licking crumbs off the toaster. She laughed.

She’d ring Katherine the following afternoon. Tell her she wanted a bigger role in Cyril’s retrieval. She wasn’t quite sure what yet. She needed to think. But it would be big. And it would definitely be audacious.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 33

1966, Sydney.

The police station was hot, dim, and riven with dead insects. Yellow papery coils, dotted with dead black, spun from the ceilings. Fly screens clung to the open windows keeping the hot air in and the hotter air out. Cockroaches scattered through the reception area, twice on the end of a passing policeman’s boot.

We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Inspector Connolly said to Janet’s father as he led the family through a series of beige corridors to a room with a fan and a dusty Venetian blind. The Inspector motioned to her parents to sit down opposite him at the wooden table in the centre of the room. Edward ignored the Inspector and leant against the wall by the window, cracking his knuckles and crushing something dark and crunchy between his fingers. Janet joined her parents at the table. She was on the Inspector’s right, so close that she could smell his sweat and the faint smell of carbolic soap.

The Inspector took a small notebook from a drawer in the desk, opened it up and laid it out on the table in front of him. Just a few details, he said. And then you can be on your way. You’ll be needing time to settle in. He took a pen from the pocket on his chest. Janet’s mother blew her nose into a small white cotton handkerchief. She hadn’t stopped snuffling since Philip had disappeared into the Indian Ocean. Janet’s father put his arm around her mother’s shoulders. She slumped into him. Her father’s eyes were rimmed red. His chin stubbed grey. He hadn’t shaved in days.

Janet watched the Inspector write down her parent’s words. He had round, child-like writing that wasn’t joined up. The blue ink smudged on the page from the Inspector’s sweating hand. He didn’t always get her parent’s words exactly right. She wondered if she ought to tell him. Correct him. Point out his errors. It might matter later. If this went further.

‘And you, Janet?’

‘Sorry?’ Janet said, suddenly flustered. She hadn’t understood that the Inspector had turned his attention to her.

‘Did you want to add anything?’

‘What?’

‘To your parent’s account. You were the last person to see your brother alive?’ Janet was sure Edward was looking at her. Staring as he crunched and crackled whatever was dead between his fingers.

She said, ‘I’ve said it so many times.’ The Inspector put his pen down and touched Janet’s arm.

‘I know, lass,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy. A tragedy like this. I need to go through the formalities, though. To help you,’ he paused, ‘your parents, you know…’ He stopped mid-sentence. Janet shook her feet out of her sandals and pressed her bare soles into the cool of the linoleum. She wanted to lie down. To rest her face on a cool white linen sheet. For Inspector Colin Connolly to stroke her back. For Colin Connolly to drape a damp towel over the back of her neck.

‘Janet,’ the Inspector is talking to you.’ Her father was irritated. He looked at Janet and frowned. ‘For Christ’s sake, Janet, stop bloody dreaming and just tell him so we can get out of here. Your mother’s exhausted.’ He took his arm from her mother’s shoulder and shook a finger in Janet’s face. ‘We’re all bloody exhausted. And you…’ His finger was trembling. blurring in front of Janet’s nose. Her mother interrupted.

‘No, Eric, we said we wouldn’t.’

‘Look at her, will you? Look at her!’ Her father, his cheeks red, stood up.

‘Not now, love. Please.’ Bernadette tried to pull her husband back into his chair. He shook her free. The Inspector frowned. Stretched his arms out, his palms up, in peace.

‘You’re all upset. Please, folks. Please sit down. We can finish this another time.’ Janet’s father sat down heavily on the chair. The legs scraped hard across the floor. Janet looked down to see whether they had left a mark. His hands, flat down on the table, were dancing. Fingers playing some wretched tune on a long-abandoned piano.

‘You speak to her again, Inspector. She knows more than she’s letting on.’

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 32

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh.

‘So,’ said Katherine, unwrapping two small gold packets of butter and spreading them both onto her white bread roll, ‘how have you been, Janet?’  Janet didn’t eat butter. At least, not like that. Not in full view of everyone else. Those poor wailing cows at Pop George’s cottage. Bawling night after night so that folk could spread fat on bread that didn’t even need it.

‘You know, doing away.’ Janet wasn’t good at small talk. She didn’t have anything of value to say. She couldn’t confess the ferret. And she wasn’t sure why Katherine was bothering to help her. Katherine seemed to be one of the busy young women that excelled at everything. They go to work, they go on fancy holidays with packs of friends, they swim in the sea on their own, they have their own mortgages. They probably even have sex toys. Although what they did with them she couldn’t be certain. She stirred her tomato soup with the spoon. It splashed up the bowl and onto the table. She didn’t like tomato soup, but she’d panicked when the waiter came to take their order. Katherine had known what she wanted straight away, so Janet needed to too. ‘You said something about news?’

Katherine put her knife and fork down on her plate and pushed it to one side. She took the salt and pepper shakers, one in each hand, and moved them across the table towards Janet. ‘See these?’ Janet nodded. Of course she could see them. ‘See how ordinary they are? How you only notice them when they’re not there and you want to add salt. Or pepper?’ Janet nodded again. What was she on about it?  ‘Well, I’m going to be the pepper.’ Janet raised her eyebrows. Was her mind getting away from her? It wasn’t the first time she’d been confused by something that Katherine had said.

Katherine looked at Janet. Janet sensed by the tightness of the lips that she was exasperated, frustrated that Janet wasn’t as clever as she was. ‘Could you just explain it to me,’ she replied. ‘I’m not following.’ She wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. It came away streaked rusty orange. How long had her mouth been stained by that soup? She put her hand to her face and blushed. She should have worn the lipstick. Eaten more carefully. Ordered something without colour.

Katherine said ‘I’m going to infiltrate the group.’ She leant back in her chair and put a finger to her lips. ‘And when they realise they can’t do without me,’ she paused, ‘I’ll strike.’

Janet opened her mouth to reply just as the waiter returned to the table. Katherine waved him away. ‘What do you think, Janet?’

‘Isn’t it dangerous?’

‘Do you want the cloud back?’

‘Yes, of course. But…’ Katherine interrupted her. ‘It’s either this or the police. And you said you didn’t want the police.’

‘Yes. No.’

‘Although I wish you’d tell me why the police are a problem.’

‘Infiltration. Yes. You’ll be great at that.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Janet looked at Katherine’s fingernails. Neat, just the right length, polished in emerald green. Her thumbnails flashed. Two little silver stars on each one.

‘Will you need to be disguised?’ Katherine turned to look at the other customers. She was conspiratorial. Something out of a movie.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Were they disguised when they came to your flat?’ Janet blushed again. Of course they weren’t. Or were they? How would she know?

‘But I can wear a wig if you’d like,’ Katherine went on. I’ve got three at home. I’ll send you the pics and you can choose.’

‘For me?’ Janet asked, scrunching the napkin into a tight fist.

‘No, you idiot. For me.’ Janet managed a smile. How stupid she was. She hadn’t always been stupid, though. She’d got away with murder. Not everybody could say that.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 30

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

The ferret had been living behind the floor-length linen curtains in Janet’s bedroom for two days before Katherine rang with an update on the kidnappers. The ferret, not keen on door buzzers or ringing phones, ran straight up the curtain and swung there, claws through the black-out lining, until Janet was able to shake it down with one hand while scrabbling to answer the phone with the other.

Katherine had news. They needed to meet up. Would Janet be free for lunch the following day? Janet, transfixed by the cleaved curtains that had been made to measure by John Lewis and taken seven whole weeks to order, deliver and hang, nodded in agreement.

‘Are you still there?‘ Katherine asked.

‘Yes, sorry. What time?’

‘Let’s say two, at the Espy.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you OK, Janet?

‘No, yes. It’s the ferret.’

‘A ferret did you say?’

‘Never mind,’ Janet said, I need to go. See you tomorrow.’

Janet didn’t know how to explain the animal to Katherine. It was one thing having a cloud, a kidnapped cloud at that. But introducing a ferret took on a whole new dimension. Janet was in danger of jumping her own shark. Although, if she was completely candid, she’d never quite understood what the expression meant.

She’d visualised it though. Her, out there in the Forth on a summer afternoon, back in her yellow polka-dot swimsuit, her skin salted caramel smooth, her knees bent, her feet strapped onto the water skis, the shark circling, the speedboat captain giving her a thumbs up and a huge squeeze of the throttle. Picking up speed. The wind hosing her long dark hair back from her face. The spray cool and fresh on her bare shoulders. The crowds falling silent on the beach, watching her with crooked smiles, holding their children’s hands too tight, their camera phones high in the air, wanting and not wanting Janet’s jump to fail, the shark to jump, the jaws to snap, the salted caramel limbs to bloody, and disappear, flailing, thrashing, down, down into the brine of the chopped up sea…

Couldn’t she just backtrack? Get back into that queue at the fishmongers and not jostle the young woman who happened to be Amy? Not succumb to vanity and keep her phone number to herself? Not give her contact details, and then open her door, to a gang of fanatics? Just delete the last twenty-one episodes and start again?

No, too much work involved with that. And how could I, the author, yes me, murder my own darlings? But I do need to get this story back on track. This ferret malarkey is taking Janet down a rabbit hole. It may have worked for Alice but Janet is not seven. She’s seventy plus. She needs to focus on Cyril. Cyril isn’t just a bit part. He’s the star attraction. And, at this point in the proceedings, it’s hard to imagine how a curtain-climbing polecat can be of any use at all.

Janet put the phone down on her bed, opened her window wide and leant out. The moon was rising up out of the horizon (had it been in Fife?), slipping in and out of the gappy spread of stratocumulus as it banked left towards Musselburgh.

‘Lacunosus,’ Janet whispered. ‘Finally.’ Was Janet correct in her identification? If so, she’d struck lucky. Lacunosus is a big tick for cloud collectors. Identified by the gaps between the clouds elements rather than the cloud itself, it is fleeting, rare and elusive. Janet smiled. It was a good omen. She was sure of that. She padded through to the kitchen and shredded some ham into a saucer for the ferret.

‘Make the most of that,’ she said as the ferret climbed up her trousers and opened its dainty pink mouth. ‘I have it on good authority that you won’t be around for much longer.’

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 29

1966. On board the SS Himalaya

It was a mid-afternoon in late October when the ship baulked and kicked and snorted its way into the dock in Sydney Harbour. A great throng of swans were gathered along the pier to meet it, their long white necks swaying in the hot sun. Some of the swans were waving paper streamers or balloons. Others were cheering. Many held pieces of cardboard taped to sticks with names written out in clumsy red or black felt-tip pen. Janet, leaning against the railings with the cat in her arms, blinked and looked again. How stupid. They weren’t swans at all, but the elegant white-gloved arms of women waving a welcome to the passengers.

The ship’s tannoy coughed into life. Welcome to Sydney, folks. Welcome to your new lives. There were further instructions about disembarking. About immigration. About how to collect luggage. But Janet didn’t absorb the detail. She was looking at two men on the pier who didn’t fit in with the gay cheerfulness of the crowds. Janet was sure they were policemen – black uniforms, black hats, aloof somehow, standing solid, their legs slightly apart. Were they here for her? Did they know? Had whoever been with Philip that night dobbed her in after all?

The cat, clearly irritated by the new tightness of Janet’s grip, wriggled free, jumped down and walked through the crowds of passengers towards the dining saloon. Janet struggled through the milling people, trying to follow it. ‘Hetty, Hetty,’ she called. But the cat’s ramrod tail disappeared through the legs of an elderly woman who was doubled over, stuffing a half-eaten packet of biscuits into a basket.

‘You can’t take it anyway. It’s not yours.’ Edward’s voice was at her shoulder. ‘Dad says you’ve to come down to the cabin. Now. We’re waiting’.  Janet looked at the old woman again. She was upright now, the wicker basket slung across her arm. There was no sign of the cat.

‘I don’t want to,’ Janet said. ‘I don’t want to live here.’ Edward looked at his elder sister. His expression wasn’t kind. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Dad said it would take hours if we don’t go now.’

Janet wanted to ask him to look at the men in black. To ask what he thought of them. She needed someone else’s opinion. Bessie would have known. Would have figured out their posture. What they were up to. Bessie had always been able to read people. Especially men. But Bessie was back in Edinburgh. Just started at art college. And Janet was certain she’d never see her best friend again.

‘I can’t,’ she said to Edward. ‘I want to go home.’ Edward’s mouth crumpled. His cheeks reddened. ‘Stop messing about,’ he said. He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him. Janet shook him off. The slap was sudden, flat and ferocious. Janet staggered backwards, bumping into a man with a toddler in his arms. The toddler howled. Her cheek stung and tears bled from her right eye. ‘Dad should have done that to you,’ said Edward, his fists clenched by his side. ‘But he didn’t have the guts.’

Two hours later, the family, four instead of five, walked down the covered gangplank. Janet’s father was at the front. Janet took up the rear. They were intercepted by two police officers just as Janet’s feet landed on Australia.

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 28

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

Janet knew that the scrabbling at her door that night wasn’t Cyril. How could it be? Clouds don’t scratch around at the sordid base of things. They’re clean creatures. Verging perhaps on the compulsive obsessive. There’s nothing worse than a dirty cloud. Clouds with silver linings are particularly fanatical. This is why you’ve never seen a cloud scuttling around in filth or detritus.

Clouds hang out in skies for a reason. Skies are unsoiled. The ground, for the most part, is not. Could a cloud open a door, climb stairs, sit on a doormat and beg to get in? Perhaps. But it’s simply not going to happen. No cloud worth its vapor is going to take that sort of risk. No, if Cyril had managed to make his way home he would have appeared outside Janet’s kitchen window, pressing his nebulous maws to the glass, and discharging a few icy sparklers to get her attention. Cyril would be a young man throwing quartz pebbles at the window of his pretty long haired lover.  Not a cat with a headless sparrow stripping out another layer of British Racing Green paint on a fire-proofed front door.

So Janet opened the door with a mix of hopeless realism and pointless faith. She looked up before she looked down. The glass cupola was clear. And the ceiling corners had nothing but the feint webbed threads that the spiders spun that everyone in the stair just let alone because there’s nothing worse in a tenement stair than the buzz of an incarcerated bluebottle. Then she looked down.

She half expected to see Hetty. Dear Hetty, with her black patched right eye and her tortoiseshell saddleback. Dear Hetty, who’d snuffled and purred more than fifty years ago as Janet had smuggled her into the ship’s cabin and coddled her under her thin blanket. Dear Hetty, who’d lanced Edwards’ right shin when he’d seen her and gone berserk because how could she, Janet, bring a cat into the cabin when she, Janet, knew Philip was allergic and didn’t she, Janet, have any respect for the dead?

It wasn’t Hetty at the door. It wasn’t even a cat. It was a small, short-haired animal, with a bandit face, a pink nose, and dark curved claws at the end of its dainty paws. Compared to Hetty, it was petite, with a thick black chest and a chocolate-coloured rump. Its tail was black-tipped and waving. It didn’t have a collar. Janet stared down at it. It sat back on its hind legs, raised its two front paws and looked up at Janet. It caught her eyes and locked on. It took Janet a breath or two to work out what it was. She cycled through small animal names. Racoon. Stoat. Weasel. Rat. No, none of these. It was a ferret.

‘What are you doing up here?’ she said to the ferret. The ferret made a soft popping nose, a cork loosed gently from a bottle. It cocked its head to one side. Janet bent down and put her hand down to its head. It rested a paw on her finger. Janet’s stomach loosened. Her shoulders relaxed. She smiled at the ferret. The ferret smiled back. Could a ferret harm a cloud? Janet didn’t know. Didn’t really know anything about ferrets at all. Except that they were dangerous. Aggressive. That they killed rabbits and ate raw meat. But that paw. That little gangster face.

‘You better come in,’ she said, standing up and opening the door wider. ‘I’m about to make some supper. I imagine you’d like some ham.’

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 26

2019. Portobello, Edinburgh

Janet sat on the rim of the bath in the dark, running a finger up and down the edge of the shower screen. She hadn’t had a shower since Cyril had arrived. Hadn’t wanted to encroach into his space. Or risk the fragile filigree substance of him with hot steam. She’d adapted quickly. Standing naked on a towel each morning with the sink half full of tepid water. Wetting and soaping her face, then her neck, then her underarms and finally across, between and under her breasts. She used a facecloth someone must have given her for Christmas. She’d never bought a face cloth in her life. Then she’d pat herself dry with a hand towel.

After that, and a cursory glance in the mirror to look for further sagging, for further gravitational pulls on bits that used to point out and now lunge downwards, she’d move on to her lower half. Same process with a piece of towel she’d cut up especially for the task. She must have learned that from a grandmother. Or an old aunt. Making things go further, not buying things that could be made out of other things.

There was something about separating the top bits from the bottom bits that seemed important. Essential almost. Janet wasn’t obsessive about hygiene. She was tidy, and she kept things clean. But she didn’t fixate on germs. Didn’t scrub at her hands. Didn’t bleach or sterilise. Didn’t use anything with the word antibacterial on the label. She’d seen products in the chemist that implied she might be getting this wrong. That there was a thing called feminine wash and wipes now. Bottles of pale peach Femfresh Intimate Hygiene. Or handbag-sized Femfresh Instant Skincare Pocket Wipes. What did women do with these things? When did they use the wipes? At their offices? At the gym? After traveling on public transport? After riding a bike or a horse? Even if she knew how to phrase the question, she had no one to ask.

Perhaps she should take a shower now that she had the chance?  But it was all wrong. Like gambolling on Cyril’s grave. How could she lie back in the amniotic water, all warm and bubbled, and look up at the Cyril-shaped hole above the shower head? She had taken the occasional bath when Cyril had been in the kitchen. He’d be pressed up against the window pane watching a great flank of weather froth up the Forth. He’d spend at least an hour there, leaving her to soak and overheat with Middlemarch or Ulysses. She’d liked to think that he was scrutinising his feral cousins, discerning cumulus from nimbostratus, or counting the shredded clots of the cirrocumulus.

She got up from the bath, walked through to the kitchen, and rested her cheek on the cold glass of the window. It was only an hour since she’d said goodbye to Katherine outside the café. Only five hours since Cyril had been kidnapped. But already the slight, cold, breathy feel of his presence had disappeared from her flat. And her scalp itched from prickly heat without the brief cling of his crystals to her hair when he was alarmed or out of sorts. What was it Katherine had said? Something about a bigger boat? She’d had a brief flash of the great ship’s white hull. Of her mother staring out to sea for so long, hours turning into days, that for months afterwards she hadn’t been able to focus on anything close in. She couldn’t even read.

What was that? Something scratching, scrabbling at her front door. It couldn’t be, surely? He’d found his way back! Got into the tenement stair all on his own! She padded quickly through the dark hallway and peered through the peep hole. There was no one on the landing. One of the lights was out and the stair was dim and thick with gloom. The scrabbling started again. It was down near the bottom of the door. She took the chain off the lock and opened the door, just wide enough to let a chink of light fall through onto her stocking feet.

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 24

2019, Portobello, Edinburgh

Janet followed Katherine to a table at the back of the cafe. It was early evening, and most of the other customers were older couples, leaning into each other with earnest expressions, cutting their pitta breads into neat strips, ordering tea in pots, not mugs. Janet wasn’t hungry. Couldn’t imagine ever eating again. The menu shook between her fingers. The small black letters hopped and skipped before her eyes. The prices melded into thousands. Millions. She put the menu down on the table, held it flat with one hand, and traced each line of the options with a finger.

‘What are you having, Janet?’ Katherine’s voice was kind, matter of fact. No indication of a crisis. Of wrong-doing. ‘I’m going for the soup. And a cheese toastie.’ She smiled. ‘You should probably have something to keep you going.’ Janet stared down at the menu. Stabbed a finger at a random line.

‘I’ll have that,’ she said. Katherine took the menu from her. ‘Greek salad. Good choice. I’ll go and order then.’ Janet rested her chin on her balled fists. Closed her eyes. How could she have let them in? Trusted them. What had happened to her? When had she become a foolish old woman?  Letting vanity get in the way of good sense?  All these years of being so careful. Being private, self-sufficient. The daily anxiety of wondering whether someone somewhere would turn up and put a hand on her shoulder. We know what you did, Janet. Lead her away and lock her up.

It had taken its toll. Such loneliness. So many secrets. Secrets such dangerous things. Turning fact into fiction. Turning fiction into fact. Everything misted up. Twisted into wrong shapes and muted colours. Like getting posted someone else’s holiday snaps. You’re several photos in before you realise it’s the wrong people. You don’t know these people, or that place, at all. It was almost you. But not quite. Maybe she was wasn’t there? Didn’t actually see it. A whole life based on something misremembered. A tragedy. Not a murder. And now she’d been weak. Let her guard down. Put herself at risk. And Cyril. Cyril was gone, maybe even dead. His vapor dissipated into the milky haze of the city. She heaved back a sob.

‘Penny for them,’ Katherine said, as she sat back down at the table. She leant over and took Janet’s hand. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You need to tell me what happened. Every detail. And we’ll take it from there.’ Between sobs, and a gap for the waiter to set down their cutlery, and then for their food, Janet explained what had happened. How she’d met Amy in the fishmongers. How she’d gone along to the pub to meet the group. How they’d turned up and tricked her. How bereft she was. How frightened.  Katherine sat silently, listening, until Janet had finished. ‘Have you phoned the police yet?’ she asked.

‘No, we can’t. I’m not going to the police.’ Her voice was too loud. Too strident. The couple at the next table turned to stare at them. Janet scraped her chair on the floor, pushing the couple out of view.

‘Why not,’ Katherine asked.

‘We can’t waste their time. Not with something like this. They wouldn’t understand. Please.’

‘Well, it’s up to you,’ Katherine replied. She picked up her phone. Interrogated Janet. For descriptions. Names. Phone numbers. Typed everything into her phone. Scrolled and swiped and scrolled again.

‘OK,’ Katherine said. ‘I need to eat before it gets cold. But we’ve got enough to go on.’ She took a mouthful of soup. ‘Seems like they’re well known in the animal rights world.’ She took enough spoonful, then a bite of the toastie. ‘They’ve got form. They’re clever, duplicitous. They’ve tricked their way into corporations. Factory farms. That sort of thing.’ Janet picked an olive out of her salad and chewed at it for longer than necessary.

‘Are they dangerous?’ she asked.

‘Not sure,’ Katherine replied. ‘There’s no reports of violence. But they’ve never been charged with anything. Seems they’ve been too clever for the police.’ Janet interrupted her.

‘So we’ve got no chance then.’ The olive stone fell out of her mouth into the salad bowl. She put a hand to her face, wiped her lips. Hoped Katherine hadn’t seen.

‘If we’re going to get him back,’ Katherine said, ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat.’

To be continued.

Categories
fiction serial

The Cloud. Episode 23

1966. On board the SS Himalaya

Janet would never remember the detail of what she did in the hours after Philip went over the railings into the Indian Ocean. Or perhaps she did remember, and her actions had been so ruthless, so conniving, so venal, that she’d buried them away too deep to be excavated, even by herself. Had she screamed? Had she prayed?  Had she shouted for help? Had she tried to launch the lifeboat? It was clear that she hadn’t raised the alarm. Hadn’t run into the ship’s dining room and screamed at the Captain to stop the ship. Hadn’t pressed the emergency button that they’d had so many drills on. Hadn’t done anything at all that might have saved her brother’s life. What sort of sister leaves her brother to drown? Janet didn’t have the vocabulary, or the courage, to come up with a cogent answer.

She was in a foundry or a workshop or some sort of factory. The building was large, dark, and searing hot. In each corner was an open fire, surrounded by soot-laden men. The men were wielding vast anvils, hammering hot metals, welding great pipes of lead that flashed and sparked and exploded and broke into thousands of pieces. The men seemed to have nothing to protect themselves but leather aprons that writhed around their waists, and small swimming-type goggles that they wiped for each other when they paused for breath.

Sweat beaded out down Janet’s groin, around her breasts, seeped out of the crack of her buttocks. The beading became a trickle. The trickle became salty rivulets. The rivulets became a flood. A briny pool formed around her bare feet and spread out towards the filthy men and their thrusting fires.  She’d forgotten her shoes. How had she forgotten her shoes?  A man by the nearest fire called out to her. Loz! Big Loz. You sleeping on the job? She leant back against the hot metal wall. She felt faint, nauseous. We’ll have the usual. Tuna for me. Sardines for them.  She looked down at the tray of sandwiches that hung from her neck on a thick red canvas belt. The pool of water was creeping up around her ankles, inching up the bare skin of her calves. She’d drown in her own sweat. She couldn’t read the labels on the sandwiches. Big Loz! Our dinner pal! The men came towards her. Banging their anvils in regimental time. A line of drummers. A beating throbbing mob. She’d forgotten the sardines. Her shoes. The pool of sweat up at her waist. And still the men kept coming.

‘Janet. Janet!’ Janet rolled onto her back, opened her eyes. She was in bed. Safe in her bunk. Steeped in a slick of sweat. Someone was knocking on her door. Loud and insistent. She flicked her light on, checked the time on her watch. Four thirty in the morning. She wiped the damp of her face with her sheet. ‘Janet, it’s Ed. We can’t find Philip. You need to get up!’  

To be continued.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started