In a Dark Wood

The world began to fall apart at nine in the evening. And it was prompted by my seventh gin and tonic. I suppose it was foolish of me to start drinking in the way that I did, but I was nervous, and whenever I am nervous I like to have a little alcohol to calm me. 

Mr. Briggs my boss was invited to dinner and this in itself was a rare and special occurrence. Marigold, my wife, was under strict instructions by me, to observe to the letter the diet that Briggs had handed me when he had decided to grace us with his and his wife’s presence that Sunday. Marigold’s ashen face when she had perused the dos and dont’s of the diet sheet told me from the off that we were not in for a good evening.

“What does he mean he can’t eat dairy, or wheat, or meat, and no fish that have a central bone?”

I suppose I should have been a little more tender in my reply, but I was dealing with my own anxieties, his drink requirements for a start.

“I guess, Marigold, it means just that. Surely you can find something to cook that doesn’t create a problem for his delicate constitution.”

“Meat is out. Fish seems to be out. Do you think prawns are okay, they don’t have a central bone, or do they?”

I turned aside to look in the drinks cupboard. Sloe gin seemed to be the only alcohol he could drink, and I didn’t have any of that, so it would be a trip to the off license to see what I could find.

Marigold headed off to the kitchen head bowed, and tutting.

Seven o’clock came soon enough, and by then I had poured myself a couple of sloe gins, just to taste, and I was finding I was beginning to relax. We’d set the table, Marigold had created a meal of sorts, when the door bell rang. 

I don’t think I did anything wrong for a few hours. Mr Briggs and his wife were perfectly civil, and I believe all would have gone well but for the extra gins I started imbibing. I began to feel a little fuzzy at the edges. And I noticed as we got towards the end of the meal that Marigold began to give me funny looks. But that didn’t stop me. Just another drop I would say, and pour another gin, while Mr Briggs and his wife both put their hands over their glasses to indicate they had had enough. 

I began to find some of the conversation difficult to follow. And when Mr Briggs began to stare at me expectantly I realised that some response was required of me, but by then words were impossible, and my mouth wouldn’t obey my brain. I knocked a vase over, in passing the salt. I was dimly aware of Marigold saying something and getting up from the table. The chairs were pushed back. Ahh , I thought , the ordeal is over. And so I started to stand. I should say I attempted to stand, because by then none of my limbs seemed to be following my commands. Feeling unsteady, I grabbed the nearest thing to me, which unfortunately was Mrs Briggs bosom, grasping onto a pearl necklace she was wearing, in my effort not to fall crashing to the floor. More need not be said. In fact, I cannot report accurately anything from that moment as the second I hit the floor, and a hundred tiny cultured pearls rained down upon me I passed out, and it was for my wife to inform me of the disaster that had ensued. 

I woke the next day with a terrific hangover, and with instructions to find myself a new employer forthwith. Not a successful evening.

The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell

Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I’ve come to learn is women. Women have a way of slipping into your soul and when you have given up all caution, and once you have welcomed them in, go on to another fool whom they can destroy. And so it was with Beth, one of the prettiest women in Salford. But this story isn’t about Beth, though she was the catalyst for my going to sea, she isn’t in this narrative any more than that. I refuse to give her any more importance. She has taken enough time up in my life to not deserve any more than these few lines.

I set sail on a steamship when I was 24 determined to leave behind everything that she had spoiled for me in England, and to find a new home. I was headed for the colonies, that great shining tower of opportunity, or so it seemed to me, New York City. I had managed to save some money for my passage, and borrowed the rest from a dear friend who could see that staying in the same country as the woman who had run off with my best friend was literally killing me. 

The first day out of Portsmouth harbour the weather was misty. The moisture in the air made my skin sting, and my eyes run. I thought how droll to be crying this day, not for Beth, but because the salt air was bringing tears to my eyes. Looking around the deck, and across the water, I felt finally as if I could breath again. Leaving was the only thing left to me, and irrationally it gave me the feeling that I was in control of something, when truth be told I was in control of nothing. My meagre funds would barely pay for my passage, and I was to spend the weeks sharing a small cabin on the lower decks, referred to by all as the pauper decks with a man who I would come to call Weasel. 

The first time I saw him, he was playing cards in the casino room on top deck and as yet I had no idea he would be my sleeping companion. He was tall and angular, and had sharp pointy teeth that made him resemble a rat like creature, hence his nickname I suppose. Extraordinarily, once we had made our acquaintance, he proudly introduced himself as Weasel, as though this name carried for him, real quality. His given name in fact was William de Burr. 

I was drawn to him that first afternoon because of the intensity in the way he played cards.

There was something mesmerizing about it. And although he wasn’t winning much he was very definitely ahead of the house. When he had won a little he would move on to another table in such a way as to refuse to draw attention to himself. I soon saw that he had a method of counting, which seemed to be working for him, and I endeavored to find out what it was.

From Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

Mr and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. And they told everyone that they were normal many times. But no matter how many times they stated it, no one in the suburban cul-de-sac believed them.

Mr Bridges next door at number two did not think it was normal to do the gardening in the nude, no matter how hot the weather was. But Mr Dursley wouldn’t hear of doing it any other way. When confronted by Mr Bridges, sent out by his indignant wife to deal with the situation, Mr Dursley didn’t even blush. He had answered the bell, in the same way he had been dressed clipping his roses, starkers. Mr Bridges tried very hard to avert his eyes, but the very fact that Mr Dursley was so brazen, made it difficult for him to avert his eyes from the offending member.

“ Mr. Dursley! You have most put out my wife. I have come to ask you. Indeed implore you to put something on, at least when you are in public view. I do not ask you to cover up when you are in your own home, but at least have the decency to cover up when you are in your garden. Our bedroom window looks directly into your garden, and my wife is most offended.”

“Why?” Mr Dursley began to wave around his secateurs. “Why in God’s name is she offended? Hasn’t she realised that there is nothing to be ashamed of under heaven.”

“ Look Mr Dursley, don’t take this the wrong way, but it just isn’t normal ….”

“Normal. Of course it’s normal. Weren’t Adam and Eve naked in the Garden of Paradise?

There is nothing for man or woman to be ashamed of.”

Mr Bridges was just about to remind Mr. Bridges that Adam and Eve had been evicted from Paradise, and he wished he had the power to do the same for Privet Drive, but he didn’t. There was just no reasoning with some people. 

Things had never been quite the same since the Dursley’s had moved into Privet Drive two  years ago. If it wasn’t gardening in the nude, it was the noise that they made when they had their friends over, and cavorted in their new outdoor jacuzzi, again in the nude. If the residents of Privet Drive had realised that the new neighbours were nudists perhaps they could have done something about it, but as it was it was too late.

Mrs Bridges had never been quite the same when, being a welcoming neighbour she had gone round to introduce herself to the Dursley’s a few days after they had moved in. She had baked her specialty, a German recipe of coconut biscuits that had been handed down in her family. When they were still hot from the oven she had taken a plate over to number four. Her smile had frozen when Mrs. Dursley had answered the door wearing her birthday suit.

“Oh I am so so sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you .. I”

But worse was to come. Mrs Dursley invited her in and Mrs. Bridges, not wanting to appear rude carried her delicacies into the kitchen, where Mr. Dursley, similarly un-attired, smiled and told her he was putting the kettle on, and how lovely it was to move into such a welcoming and warm neighbourhood.

Suffice it to say that when Mrs Bridges returned home twenty five minutes later she was not longer the woman she was before. Mr. Bridges could not understand why his wife, who had been in such good form when she had left to deliver her present, had returned, and immediately told him she was off to bed, and didn’t want to talk to him, as she had a splitting headache.

And so it was that little by little it became apparent that the neighbourhood would never be the same again.

from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone   J.K. Rowling

And the material doesn’t stain, the sales girl says.  I look at her with the contempt that sort of remark deserves. Who does she think she is, and more to the point, who does she think I am. Surely she can tell I am a woman who couldn’t care a fig about the stain repellent features of an outfit. Would I be buying a dress costing this much if I had to worry about that sort of thing. I give her another scorcher of a look. Little tramp. Little does she know that within a week I am to marry one of the richest men in the area. Mr. Christopher Ecceles of the distinguished Salisbury family. 

I rip the dress out of her hands and give it the once over. She is shrinking a little into her corner, thankfully. Good, she can see I am offended by her overfamiliarity. I go and hold it up the light at the front of the shop. It is a pale blue shock-silk dress, pleated and bowed in all the right places. It is the dress I will be wearing at the reception. Or is it? I have tried on about 20 dresses in this shop alone, and I am beginning to tire of the whole exercise. This was the one I thought was the best of all the ones I have looked at this week, and was coming back merely to buy it and have it altered, but I am now in a foul mood, and want to make that little strumpet suffer.

“ Oh I don’t know, if it is quite the right thing after all.”

The blonde pasty girl comes nearer. 

“Would you prefer the salmon one? I thought it showed off the colour of your eyes so much better.”

I give her another glare. What the hell does that mean? Pink shows off my eyes? Is she being insolent on purpose. I tut. I look back at the dress I am holding. It is the best, but I am loathe to make this easy for the trout-faced girl.

“ Pink is so not in this season. I thought you would have known that, working in a shop like this.”

I wonder if she is too stupid to feel the barb I have just delivered.

I can’t tell anything from her face. A mask of non-expression.

“But then this blue. It’s not exactly the right shade for an October ceremony either.”

The little shop assistant’s face brightens.

“A wedding? Oh how wonderful, are you the mother of the bride? I have a lovely hat that would go brilliantly with this outfit. Let me fetch it.”

And she is off. How dare she. Mother of the bride! I tap my foot waiting for her return. I am now fuming. I think, there is no way I am going to be able to buy this damn thing now. No way at all, and yet. I hold it up to the light, the crystal buttons at the back twinkle. It really is a very lovely dress.

In a moment she is back. It seems too late to put her straight. I take the hat and hurl it to a nearby chair, hoping the glare of my large diamond engagement ring will blind her as it catches the light.

“ Oh what a lovely ring.” she says.

“ Oh this little thing,” seeking to convey in my voice that there are plenty more where these came from. I am beginning to feel calmer. Perhaps I will buy the dress.

“My sister’s beau gave her a ring like that. It could almost be the real thing, couldn’t it?”

I stutter. I splutter. The little harlot, this really is too much.

“This my dear girl, is the real thing!” I can feel my cheeks pinken.

“This is the real McCoy, not your sister’s glass make-believe trinket, my dear. This is the full monty. And as for this….” I thrust the dress, the perfect dress, the dress I will not be wearing to my reception party, at her, “this stain resistant frock, is definitely not what I am after.” And with that I turn and head held high leave the damn shop, thinking to myself that next week I shall be back looking for another dress, a far from perfect one, but one that will have to be better than the one I have just thrown back into her face.

The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I had initially come to the city to try my luck at getting a job, but that was not going well. I had been pounding the streets for weeks now, leaving my CV around the town, and getting nowhere. I was just beginning to think about going home, back to Montana, where at least there would be some cool air circulating, and I would be able to hook up with some friends, and spend what was left of the summer down by the lake, drinking beer and swopping stories about the girls and their summer outfits, when I was approached by a ten year old girl.

“ Excuse me, do you have some time to help me?”

“Sorry?”

She was standing directly in my path and was fixing me with a concentrated stare.

“ What do you need help with?”

“Well I am trying to find my dog, and he isn’t anywhere.”

I couldn’t see her holding a lead, so I guessed the dog had been following her and run off.

“When did you last see him?”

It was getting hot standing in the full sun, and I was aching to go and sit somewhere and get a cold drink, but I could see that she wasn’t going to let me go in a hurry.

“Not for a couple of years.”

“What?”

I looked around her to see if there were any undesirables lurking. This sounded like a bit of a crazy ruse, one of those gimmicks that might land me in hot water. Wasn’t this exactly a good way of luring innocent people to a sticky end? My mother, who never wanted me to head for New York, had warned me about the city. 

“There are muggers round every corner Ed, you be careful.” were her parting words to me at the bus station five weeks ago, when she saw me off.

There was no one near who looked like the sort of person I imagined would be in cahoots with the girl, but still I was wary of a scam.

“What makes you think you are going to find your dog after two years?” I said, trying to maneuver myself round her. She moved in front of me again, and I started to get irritated.

“ Because I’ve got a photo now, and I didn’t have one before.”

She began to look for something in her patchwork bag. At length she pulled out a folded piece of paper and unfolded it. She handed it to me.

I was expecting to see a scrawled message saying something along the lines of,

‘Follow the little girl, I am armed, if you make a move I will shoot.’ But in fact it was a photo of a black and white collie, well worn and creased in many places.

“This is your dog?”

“Well not my dog, but one just like him.”

“ Look, I don’t really have time for this. I am busy. And I’m hot. I hope you find your dog, but if you lost him two years ago, it’s sort of unlikely.”

I started to walk away, moving her out of my way as I made to turn the corner. I should have kept going of course, but the moment I realized she wasn’t following me my curiosity got the better of me, and I turned momentarily to see where she was.

I must be a sucker or something, but when I saw her sitting on the steps of a brownstone crying, I couldn’t stand it. If this was a trick to mug me, it was working. Instinctively I asked my mother’s blessing for doing something so stupid,and went back the way I’d come. As I sat next to her, I heard her say,

“ That’s what everyone always says. They’re too busy. But they never look busy, they just look like they can’t be bothered.”

And it was then that I got dragged into the most unbelievable few hours of my life looking for a dog, that had been hers when she’d lived in the neighborhood two years ago.

from first line of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Sorry to say…. better learn to save….in future…

tomorrow another day.

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

At first he thought it may be because he had recently moved into the small apartment, 12C Rosehill Avenure, and the caller was looking for the man that had lived there before him, but after the third time, he began to feel menaced by the voice.

Each time the same rough East End voice, and each time the same name.

“Can I speak to Mr Humphreys,” and another time, “ I need Mr Humphrey’s he has an obligation to speak to me.”

No amount of telling him that he was the only person living in the flat seemed to satisfy the man. This went on for a week or more. The same man, the same question, the same name, a name he had never heard before.

He even went to the landlord of the building to check to see if a Mr Humphrey had ever lived in the building, perhaps in another apartment, or before the tenant he had replaced, but he merely shook his head and showed little interest in his midnight caller, shuffling off to fix the boiler in the basement.

He began to be nervous of staying in and engineered it that after work he would stay out as late as possible, in an effort to avoid the man who refused to believe him. He drank too much on these late nights, returning drunk, and falling into a coma. But still, the phone rang. And even though he didn’t answer it anymore, the effect was the same, the gnawing fear at the edge of consciousness. The sense that something was far from right, and that this was no innocent mistake.

At work they soon noticed. He was an accountant, working for a firm that needed employees with clear heads to work on wealthy businessmen’s accounts, and he was making far too many mistakes. After a few weeks of being called into meetings with his boss about these errors the boss’s good humour had worn thin and within a month he was given notice to quit. His nerves were shot. He didn’t blame the firm. He knew he was good for nothing. It sounds strange to think that this wrong number, relentlessly perusing him could have had such an affect. Could turn this promising man’s career in the big smoke into ash, but it did. From the start to the finish he had only lasted six weeks.

After giving notice to the landlord, he paid his bills, and said good-bye to the few friends he had made in his brief stay in the city. He was returning with his tail between his legs. After  settling everything and having packed his bags he was ready to go back to the small hick town his father had always told him would be his world, just as it was his. He called the taxi and waited for it on the steps of the apartment that he had thought was the place he would call home while making progress in the city. But which was not to be.

Just before he got into the taxi he heard a voice. A voice he recognised. He looked behind him and saw two men standing on the steps to the apartment. One he knew was old Roy the landlord, and he was shaking the hand of another ,  a tall dark –haired man . He could hardly make out what Roy was saying to him, but he did hear this,

“Welcome Mr Humphrey. Glad that you could move in today, let me show you to apartment 12 C. It’s just this way.” 

 Paul Auster City of Glass