THE SING SONG MAN

Recently my story, The Sing Song Man was included in the third issue of the Postbox Anthology.

See story below.

Published alongside some very fine company indeed.  See contents index.

The magazine is edited by Colin Will and published by Red Squirrel Press.  They are currently accepting submissions for issue four.  For submission details, and information about their other excellent publications see their website.www.redsquirrelpress.com
             

                     
             

THE SING SONG MAN 

The story goes that the Sing Song Man knows all the lyrics and every tune that has ever been written down or sung.  He can sing them in any language that has ever been written, or spoken, in the history of the world. 

This is his curse.

Or so they say.

Or maybe it’s yours.

If there is a tune that flies into your mind un-bidden, or a lyric that circles your memory searching for an open window, that is you summoning him.

What does he look like?

He dresses the part with his rainbow suit and sun coloured wide brimmed hat.  Like a country singer with too much Nashville I’ve heard him described.  His guitar is weather beaten. The strings stretched and for all the world you expect them to snap at any moment. 

They never do.

He plucks at his guitar.

He sings what you say.

Your soul opens.

Robbie summoned him on a cold December day on Sauchiehall Street. He hadn’t meant to of course, nobody does, for meaning is another name for control, and you have no control of the song playing inside your head.

A crowd had gathered around him as he tuned his guitar. Song titles were getting thrown at him, some desperately, most in mockery. 

Then he looked up from his guitar and looked straight at Robbie, and said quietly. ‘I’m ready.’ 

 ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining.’ Robbie said in barely a whisper.

The Sing Song man began to sing.

‘You're everywhere and nowhere, baby,
that’s where you're at.’

Robbie’s soul opened.

And the voice came out of the heat and blinded Robbie’s fifteen year old eyes.

‘Any chance of a game?’  The voice said.

Schoolboys running out the remaining school days before the summer holidays. Every day filled with football and lazing, and dreaming, and eyeing the girls, and even more football.

Robbie doesn’t answer.  He did what his mother says he shouldn’t.  He looked directly into the sun. But okay today. For a giant blocked it out.

Robbie had the ball at his feet. Like everyday since he could walk.  Football, football, football all the live long day.  In his back garden.  In the streets.  Any patch of grass that could be found.   Today Robbie had been first down the playing fields, throwing down his school jumper to act as one of the goal posts, ready and impatient for the others to catch up. 

Robbie kicking off.  Robbie flicking the ball through hapless defenders legs.  Robbie with Hampden Park in his minds eye. Robbie ready to smash the shot into the far corner of the imaginary net. 

Then the voice had come and he had hesitated.  He’d turned, ready to kill, whoever…

‘ Sorry. Didn’t mean to put you off.’ The voice had said.

Then the voice emerged from out of the glare of the sun.  The eclipse passed.  The voice walked as if in slow motion, a gladiator at ease with himself as he entered the arena. 

And Robbie tried to say something but failed.  For what do you say to a God? 

Robbie’s mouth flapped open as the voice stopped in front of him. 

The voice asked again.   ‘Any chance of a game?’ 

Another fifteen year dreamer stuttered.  ‘Yes.’ 

Who was the gladiator?

The mightiest gladiator in Scottish football.  

Bobby Campbell.

Who did he play for?

Airdrie Athletic.

Robbie’s team. Not the biggest team in the world.  They never touched the heights. But  in Robbie fifteen year old mind they just might, with Bobby’s help. With Robbie shouting support from the terracing, all the time aching to be on that green turf.  The terraces only a touch away from the arena, close enough to glimpse the sweat dripping from the gladiators as they battled-- for you. 

Robbie dreamed. Robbie played out his own game inside his head.  Robbie the hero of every hour.

Bobby Campbell ruled. He ripped the opposition apart. He burst the opposition net.  And one day Robbie would do the same.  

Bobby Campbell towered over him.  He really wanted a game. 

Would we mind?

What a question!

The gladiator moved, one against the multitude, drifting past them all with ease.  He hardly broke sweat and it was the hottest of days.

Suddenly Robbie saw his chance. Bobby Campbell moving towards him the ball juggling between his feet.  Robbie had it all worked out in his fifteen year old head.  It looked so easy.  Keep your eyes on the ball, move into the tackle and flick the ball away. Then move onto it,  home in on goal, pull back the trusty right leg and let fly and burst that net.

So easy.

He’d done it a million and one times before, in a million and one games down the years. Robbie Brown was good, everyone said. First pick in the school team, at Primary and High School.  Robbie moved towards his target.  A smile sneaked onto his face. If only his mother was here now to see this.  She never missed a game.  He loved and hated every minute of her shouting from the touchlines.  Robbie’s father had said that was the Grants for you.  The Grants were competitive.  Robbie was more of a Grant than a Brown.  The Browns were a quiet, sit in the corner family.  The Grants shouted to the world that they were there. 

And Robbie was there now.  The sun taking up the whole of the sky as Robbie advanced on the gladiator.  Robbie practicing his moves inside his head.  Robbie remembering what his mother had said.

‘My Uncle Thomas used to play for Hearts. You’re the spitting image of him. I’ve always said.’

And then.  It was over.  In the blink of an eye, Bobby Campbell was past him.  Robbie tackled fresh air, his leg whipped back on him, crumpling him onto the hard unforgiving grass. 

It burned through his school trousers. It singed his bare hands and arms.  Through the pain he twisted on its scolding surface to witness the gladiator, a real player burst the net.

It was then that Robbie awoke from his dream.  Reality stood over him laughing into his face. 

He would never be a gladiator.  No amount of telling himself, what did he expect?  Bobby Campbell was bigger, stronger, faster.  He was a grown up.  No.  He was only three years older than Robbie.  That moment he knew.  He would always be a fan and never a player.

The Sing Song man’s words faded and applause from those still there echoed around him. Robbie heard only his own sighs as his soul began to close. The Sing Song man was looking at him with the saddest of looks on his face.  Then someone called out another song and he turned away.

Rhona was waiting for him in the café.

‘You okay hun?’She asked.

‘Mmm?’

‘ Christmas shopping getting you down?’

‘A bit. You know me.’

‘I know you. You don’t have to get me anything special. A card will do. What else is there to buy for each other?’

 ‘He sang Hi Ho Silver Lining.’

‘Who did?’

‘The one I used to sing on the way to the football?’

‘When you were going to play for Scotland?’

‘Yea.’

‘Are you having your usual??’

‘Yea.’

‘Jings you’re in a mood today.  Sit there boss and I’ll get you it.’

‘Ta.’

‘Then I have another couple of shops to go to.  That’s all. And then we’ll head home.  Promise. You sit and relax your feet.’

‘I’ll have a German biscuit as well then.’

The German biscuit crumbled from his mouth, sprinkling the table as the doorbell tingled and Rhona was gone.

Rhona laid the two bags on the pavement, and stretched her shoulders, Christmas shopping all but complete. She should head straight back to the café.

‘I’m ready.’ Said the Sing Song man.

‘Denis.’ She heard herself say.

The Sing Song man began to sing.

‘Oh Denis, ooh-be-do, I'm in love with you.’
 Rhona’s soul opened.

‘You’ll be fine.’ Her sister said.

‘The place is mobbed.’ Said Rhona.

‘This is what you wanted eh?’

Rhona nodded.  Since she was knee high to her mother she’d sang at every opportunity. She had been in every choir since Primary. She sang at birthdays and weddings, no coaxing required for a party piece at the family gathering at New Year.  She was ready now for the world stage. Since seeing Debbie Harry and Blondie on Top of the Pops she’d known where her destiny lay. She was going to lead her own band. The Basement club was only the first rung on the ladder to success, she’d told herself throughout a sleepless night.

‘Calm down sis, you’re shaking.’ Her sister laid her hand on Rhona’s. ‘This’ll be the first of many gigs.  It will.’  Rhona nodded frantically.  Her sister said. ‘Imagine it’s our bedroom, and I’m your audience. You’ll rock the joint.’ 

‘I will, I will.’

‘By the way does mum know you’ve dyed your hair?’ Her sister smiled.

Rhona glanced at her newly blonde hair in the polished table. Glimpses of her true brunette could be glimpsed but she would blonde them out for the next rung. 

‘She’ll come round. When I’m rich and famous.’ She told her sister, knowing full well her mother wouldn’t.  Her mother wasn’t a fan of blondes. 

‘Blondes have more fun!  We all know what that means.’ She’d said mid Top of the Pops Blondie, much to the embarrassment of her daughters.

‘You’re up Debbie!!!’ Her sister said.

‘You taking the piss?’

‘No, go for it sis.’

Rhona knew every word but her voice strained, cracked and choked, and she could see the rigid pain on the audience’s faces.  She imagined she saw Debbie’s somewhere in the shadows, shaking her blonde head, and walking out, smiling to herself that her throne was safe. 

Another wannabe exactly that.

Rhona died inside when the sniggers came during her sad attempt at the French part of the lyrics.

Her sister smiled a strained smile and hugged her when she sat back down but couldn’t find any words.  They waited long enough so it didn’t look like they were walking out in shame, then left.

That night Rhona dyed her hair back to its true colour. She knew she was always going to be in the audience and not on stage.

The Sing Song man’s words faded and applause from those still there echoed around him.

Rhona heard only her own sighs as her soul began to close.

The Sing Song man was looking at her with the saddest of looks on his face. Then someone called out another song and he turned away.

‘We’ve got a train to catch.’ Rhona said.

‘Have you bought the whole of Glasgow?’ Robbie asked.

She shook her head and was already heading out the café.

They walked in silence and in the cold, and carried by the wind they heard the words. ‘I’m ready.’

Both looked across in the direction of the Sing Song man.

A woman stood apart from the small crowd. They could see she was forming a song title on her lips.

‘No.’ They said together.

.

             

COLLAGE PLAY TWO

The second of my collage plays aiming to break up the normal flow and surface connections in a narrative, aiming go deeper in the connections than the naturalistic.  To disrupt expectation.



(Woman sits stage right with a blank mask on.)

(Narrator enters and stops centre stage)

NARRATOR— This play is about nothing.  (Re woman.) I have no idea who she is.

 (Two other women enter and start to draw a face on the woman`s mask. They draw a sombre expression. They speak as if speaking to themselves as they work.)

WOMAN ONE— When an object travels at the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite. The universe puts on the brakes and the object cannot go any faster than light. A subject that has been given much thought in the world of physics and beyond.  How do you travel what seems infinite distances? 

WOMAN TWO—Albert Einstein developed the theory of special relativity in 1905.  He spent many years wondering about the effect of adding acceleration to the theory.  

WOMAN ONE—In 1915 this wondering became the basis of his general theory of relativity.

WOMAN TWO—But that’s a story for another day.

(They stand back and admire their work. They seem satisfied. They go to exit but stop when the masked woman mumbles and indicates for them to come back, which they do.)

(They hold up a speech bubble above the masked woman.)

(It reads.  E equals MC squared equals the Atomic Bomb.)

NARRATOR-- (Plays the violin, no music is heard.) Einstein is quoted as saying. `The music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it-that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed. `

(During the playing the masked woman acts distraught.  The two women draw a huge exaggerated smile on the mask and she is released to dance with joy to the unheard music.)

NARRATOR-- (Still playing.) He also said. `It is impossible for me to say whether Bach or Mozart means more to me. In music, I do not look for logic. I am quite intuitive on the whole and know no theories. I never like a work if I cannot intuitively grasp its inner unity. `

(The Narrator stops playing.  The woman stops dancing.  Two women draw a sad look on her mask, and they hold a speech bubble above her head.)

(It reads:  I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.)

NARRATOR—Einstein again.

(The Narrator plays again, mournful music, the masked woman dances mournfully.)

(During the below the Narrator plays more frantically, the masked woman dances more frantically. The two women clap along with the dance and music.)

WOMAN ONE-- The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,282 miles per second.  Miles per hour, that is, near enough to, 670,616,629 mph. You could whiz round the world seven and a half times in one second, traveling at the speed of light.

WOMAN TWO—Thanks to Einstein and others, light speed limit is believed now to be theoretical. A constant called "c"

WOMAN ONE—This science is no barrier to speculation about different theories.

WOMAN TWO—The wish, the need to travel beyond our limits persists. This has become known as  the general  theory of science fiction.

(The Narrator freezes as does the masked woman.)

 (The masked woman sits down and the two women wipe the face of the mask, it is now blank again.)

(The Narrator puts down the violin.)

NARRATOR—This play about nothing I have titled.  ‘We can but dream.`

COLLAGE PLAYS ONE

Part of a series of collage plays to break up the normal flow and surface connections in the narrative, aiming go deeper in the connections than the naturalistic.

Any voice can be played by any gender.

This was the first one I wrote, or assembled, others I`m working on the various elements are further apart textually and visually but seem to connect across the spaces between them.

VOICE TWO-- The personal is in the national, the bus missed on the important day, the vote that

goes the other way.

VOICE THREE-- They wheezed their way to carbon cars. Some sat in silence. Others shrugged. ‘We’ve survived worse.’

VOICE ONE-- Listen closely as the wind carries their cries. To the untamed ones lashing the air with their unruly branches. 

VOICE TWO-- She watched it turn blue and she knew their lives were over.  Sandy would say different of course.  Sandy the optimist, the champion looker on bright sides.  

No, not this time.  Especially Sandy.  He would know this couldn’t be fixed with a joke and a waltz around their living room to the music inside their heads. She smiled at the time he’d been made redundant at the factory and they’d danced, and she’d asked him.  ‘Sing the song.’

VOICE ONE-- You to. Ready? One two…

VOICE ONE AND TWO-- (Sing.) Stuck In The Middle With You.

VOICE THREE-- Let me tell you about a road.  Tarmacadam stripped pale, shimmering in the fallen sun.  Let me tell you about a car, travelling slowly down the centre of that road; shadows stretch from either side, cover and grip the car.  Inside the car a mother, a father, a sister, squint into the low sun, to look and bend to point and twist and shout at the car to stop, to reverse, to turn into one of the shadows. Also inside the car, a boy sits against the plastic back of the seat, to blink and look…gaze as the shadow looms, drops, wavers with slightest of breeze…A boy sits…What do you see?

VOICE ONE-- Framed in the doorway a husband and wife, a father and mother hug and smile across at the boy who watches from his side of the canal.  He sits on a broken tree which lies on its side roots stiff in the airless air…like petrified guts. Petrified guts?    No. Try again.

VOICE TWO-- A boy sits on the broken tree. Can we call him a child?  Yes we can. He’s only ten years old.  He bounces a football and watches it roll down the banking of the canal and float in the still and clear and pure water.  He listens to his parents laugh and smiles back as they smile across at him.  His mother shouts.  ‘Tea in ten minutes Mark.’  He nods. He feels hungry.  He is a growing lad on the cusp of starting High School and the rocky road to adolescent.  He sits with a knife…Leave alone.  The boy spreads his fingers wide on the tree and brings the knife down again and again between the gaps.  Once he…Leave alone.

VOICE THREE-- For the first time since his mother had died he cried. 

VOICE TWO-- Thing is: I was there. Thing is:  I read that book. Thing is:  Fiction or fact that’s me.

VOICE ONE-- Things I wonder. What if it is?

THE FACTORY.

Below is the first chapter of a work in  progress novel. 

I wrote four chapters aprox same length then put it aside for other things.  Resurrecting it and aiming to finish it now, hopefully.

Hope you enjoy the story so far.

‘Grrrrrrrr.’

The pillow hit the window with a soft thud.   Jenny gave a yelp as the glass wobbled in its frame. It held, the glass settled. 

The noise in the courtyard below continued.  Bolts scraped back; boxes dropped; voices chattering and LOUD.

Jenny grabbed the other pillow and almost…almost.  Instead she slapped the pillow against the bed.  Not nearly as satisfying.  If this was the way of things they were going to have to bite the bullet and get new window frames so that she could throw something half way decent at the bloody thing. 

That is, or move!  Chance would be a fine thing she thought.  She didn’t have the energy to try and persuade Bobby.

She had been half awake anyway but all the same, the other half of her was still sleeping!  Even though Bobby always tried to keep quiet, the creak of the floorboards, and the loudest kettle in the world, pulled her into the day. She would listen to him move around as if a distance away then up close with the new day sloppy kiss on her head.

`Morning beautiful. That`s me off now. The early shift calls. `

She would sleepily smile at his smile and drift away again…Till the courtyard concert began.

Her head hit the pillow.  She puffed and breathed hard into the cold linen.  Soon enough she had to come up for air.

She listened.

Silence.

She risked a smile.

Mistake.

Another box getting dropped on something solid. ‘Some people are trying to sleep.’ Jenny jumped up and shouted at the window.  She knew what it was.  Bread trays on the concrete floor in the back of the bakers shop.

It didn’t help matters knowing.

She collapsed back on the bed and kicked her legs in the air mentally sending the bread trays flying. She glanced at the clock. 

5.45am.

An hour and a half till she needed to get up from work.  

Bobby Bobby Bobby the love of my life, her darling, her soul mate.

If only he was snoring beside her right now she could thump him awake.  A brass band would be marching through their bedroom and Bobby would sleep the oblivious sleep. 

She rolled out of bed and headed for the toilet, giving up trying to go back to sleep?

Bobby damn Bobby, why did you fall in love with this place?    

Every turned on tap or voice whispered in the other flats, or deliveries to Baker shops’ sounding like they were in the room with her.

Sitting on the loo realizing that tomorrow would be their first month anniversary in their first home.

She stopped at that thought. 

She wiped herself.

Their ‘first’ home.

Another bloody crate.

She kicked the bathroom door closed.

‘Think.’ Bobby had said in his usual excited little boy voice. ‘Fresh rolls every morning.  I can bring them in after I finish the night shift. And all we have to do is roll out of bed and we’re at our work.’

She hadn’t been convinced that was a positive but he’d grinned and…he was Bobby. The deal was done.  Why did she have to go for little boy lost looks?  A grizzled rough and ready biker would have been so much simpler!  For a start the biker would have gone down and scared the living daylights out of the baker and no more early morning deliveries.  Bobby was too…She’d gone down once and the baker had promised, the bloody man had promised…next morning….THUMP THUMP THUMP.

She pulled off her tee shirt and turned on the shower. It took her the usual forever to settle on the right temperature.  She shivered and contemplated putting her tee shirt back on.  She didn’t. She shivered until the water was right and she stepped under the harsh stream.  When the water hit her skin it tingled hot on cold.

The cold melted and the hot water calmed her.  She soaped her face and body washing away her doubts.

When she closed her eyes her mum was there with her raised eyebrows.

‘ Say it mum’.

‘ You want to live together.’ Her mum had said. ‘ That’s your business.  It seems to be the modern way. But…’

‘ But?’ Jenny practiced biting her lip.  It was better to let her mum have her say now than have those eyebrows flicking up and down for evermore.

‘ All I’m saying is…’ Her mum had started.  ‘ You work together.  You see each other every night.  It’s all very romantic and…living together is another kettle of fish.  Married or not.’

The water turned cold and Jenny did a dance of frustration in the shower. 

The water turned scolding and she jumped out the shower.  She tested it a couple of times then ventured back in.  If she could just get her hair washed!!

She wasn’t an early morning person that was it.  Unlike Bobby who was awake as soon as his eyes opened and bouncing into the day.  She needed more time.  Lack of sleep churns stuff to the surface that has no right to be there.

Shampoo applied the water drifted to lukewarm, then cold, then hot.

She stuck it out.

She loved their flat that was the truth of it, though she was determined not to admit it.    It was just that Bobby had used up all the jumping up and down. She had to be the sensible one of the pair.  The pointer out of things.  Bobby was the one that ignored things and dragged her along.  Like up those bloody hills. She needed that.  Though that was something else she would never admit. 

She loved the living together thing.  She caught herself smiling and didn’t notice the water chilling till her hair formed icicles.

She shivered and stepped out the shower.  Enough was enough, her hair was clean enough.

She towelled herself and decided to think positive.  The kitchen room enough for one where they played their own game of Twister to get plates out of cupboards, and cutlery out of drawers; their bedroom, wobbly window frame and all; their living room cuddling and kissing while watching their Box sets. Their social life now that they had the flat and the factory was on short time. 

Last night it had been Season Five of the Sopranos.  Not her favourite really but like climbing those bloody hills it made Bobby happy.

Noise or no noise this was their world. When they made love everything receded and fell away.  They had made love every night before Bobby went in for the night shift.    

One time she had cried and didn’t know why. 

Bobby’s face.  ‘Did I hurt you or something?’

‘No.’ She’d said.  ‘I’m happy. Just have a funny way of showing it.’

The second time she cried she’d said.  ‘I don’t like you doing nights.’

‘We need the money.’ He’d said.

‘I don’t like being alone here.’

‘ Something happened?’

‘No. It’s just…Nothing.’

A week later he’d swapped shifts with his brother. 

Since he’s started on the early shift they made love less often.  Now and again he would cuddle her and she would arch her back and he would slip in.  It was nice.  She had never liked the word ‘nice’ and she would never say that to Bobby but that’s what it was.  Dreamy.  Nice. 

She lay on the bed still wrapped in the towel. Now if Bobby had lain on the bed in a wet towel she would have given him merry hell.

Was she a nice person she asked herself?

The noise continued in the courtyard below muted now by the towel pulled up over her face.

See, she told herself, it isn’t that bad.  All you have to do is go about with a towel over your face!! And folk have got to make a living.  Yes, be positive.  Bobby had been true to his word about bringing in the rolls after the night shift.  Now it was her turn. She would start going down for early morning rolls.   

Yes, that’s what she would do.  She might even take him in fresh rolls for his lunch.  The look on his face would be priceless.  She would be a good wife, even though she wasn’t a wife, and they’d never talked about going down the legal church type route, no matter how many times her mum hinted when she came to run the disapproving rule over the flat.  At least her mum had stopped bringing little bits and bobs to help her. Last time it had been bleach since she’d noticed they were out.  How she had noticed without delving into cupboards Jenny had never asked. 

Jenny had the idea that her dad had a word with her mum.  So no more bits and bobs. 

Jenny and Bobby were on their own.

  By the time she had dried herself and wrapped herself in her dressing gown it was one minute past six.  She switched on the radio and sang along to whatever the song being played regardless if she knew the words or not.  Most of the time she made up her own words. 

She filled the kettle and dropped two spoonfuls of coffee in a cup.

All was quiet in the courtyard.

She waited for the kettle to boil. 

 It had been quiet for some time.

She listened.  They weren’t usually finished this early. 

The kettle boiled and poured the water into the cup.  She opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. 

Even that bloody diesel engine bloody lorry wasn’t rattling the walls.

She walked past her coffee and out of the kitchen milk still in hand.

She went to the window in the living room and tugged it open.

The driver must have switched the engine off.  Why would he do that?  He was always in too much of a hurry to get off to the next delivery.

Then she heard footsteps on the cobbles, and voices.  She couldn’t see who.  They were in the close that led onto the High Street.

Voices mixed and high pitched with…what?

The voices came into the courtyard and materialised in the form of Hugh Jackson the Baker, and a man who Jenny took to be the delivery man.  He was on his Mobile.

And…

‘Bobby!’ She shouted, not meaning to shout.

He stared up at her.

‘Bloody hell Bobby why aren’t you at work?’  His face.  ‘What’s happened?’

Many said that the factory it looked like church.  With its rough pimply walls and two high rectangular windows that it was rumoured once pictured angels in all their Raphaelite glory.  The building was over one hundred years old and in that time it had been many things.

It had once been a cinema.

It had never been a church.

As far as anyone knew.

Jenny pushed at the factory door and let it swing open.  She half expected someone, Chris more than likely, to jump out and shout ‘boo’ and collapse laughing at the whole stupid lot of them.

No-one jumped out. 

She stepped inside.  To her right was the yarn store.  She tried the door.  It was locked as it should be.  The store men started work the same time as Jenny. 

One, two, three footsteps past the yarn store there was a ramp that marked the official beginning of the Frame Knitting Department.   She stopped on the lip of the ramp.

She was on her own.

‘Bobby.’ She said.  The men were packed tight at the factory entrance each pushing and shoving to see what was happening.  Bobby was at the front.  

‘Come on scaredy cat.’

‘I’ve already checked.’ He said.

‘Well we’ll check again.’ He didn’t move.   ‘My big brave man.

Even though no-one had jumped out on her it was all one big joke of course.  She knew that!  Something to wile away the boredom of watching knitting machines shunt back and forth, and back and forth again…and again.  

Still Bobby usually wasn’t one for practical jokes.  He had looked scared dragging her out of the flat, barely enough time to pull on a decent pair of jeans.  Never mind dry her hair.  She was commando below her jeans.  The tee shirt was the one she`d  slept in.

The baker had said something about phoning the police.  The driver was half way through dialling when Bobby had stopped him.  He’d told her this as he pulled her along the High Street.  She was wearing his slippers for God Sake.  More than once they’d slipped off on the short journey to the factory.  More than once she’d stepped on a stone and cursed Bobby to the high heavens.  She’d been cursing him when he told her about how he thought ‘get Jenny’ before calling anybody.

Jenny would check. Jenny would tell him and the other men that they were not mad.  You didn’t want the police turning up and you ending up the laughing stock of the village.

No, Jenny had thought, just drag your girlfriend half dressed along the street.  Nothing laughing stock about that!!   Empty street or no empty street folk would find out.

When Jenny, Bobby, the baker and the driver had arrived the rest of Bobby’s shift, Adam and Grant, were standing on the pavement outside.  They weren’t quite cuddling each other for support but not a kick and a shout off it.

Jenny had almost laughed at the pair of them.  Usually they were ten pint a night men and see how many they can throw up on the way home.

Bobby had asked them.  ‘Well?’

Adam had answered.  ‘We’re not going back in.’

Jenny had said.  ‘I don’t hear any machines.’

‘I switched them off.’ Said Bobby.

‘Too spooky.’ Said Grant.

She had waited and she had waited, looking from one man to another, starting with Bobby, and ending with him.

‘We’re right behind you.’ He had said.

‘My heroes!!  Not.’ She’d said.

She said it again to herself as she turned and stepped into the knitting flat. walked slowly down the passageway toward the managers office.  Machines running or not it was spooky.  There was always something spooky about a silent factory.

 There were six frame machines in all.  Each with twelve knitting heads they took up most of the department.  The manager’s office at one end, and the machines that knitted the cuffs and ribs for the jumpers at the other, topped and tailed the frame machines.   With short time only three ran at any one time during each shift.  Each machine had one operator.

Chris, Jack and George. 

Eyes searching over and under the machines Jenny cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted.  ‘Okay you lot.  Ha ha and all that. April Fool has been and gone.’

Her voice echoed around the empty, silent, room. She shivered.  It was her hair not dried properly, she told herself.

Every thing felt unfamiliar.  Yet she worked here five days, sometimes more, every week.  Most days she visited the Frames half a dozen times a day.  Mostly to bring back work that wasn’t up to scratch.  Now and again to chat to Bobby.  Once or twice just for a break.  She worked next door in the greasy linking department. The frames shaped the yarn into body and sleeve parts.  She joined the sleeves to the body before they went to get washed.  The frames were hardly ever silent.  Except on shift changeover.  The shoosh shoosh of the machines a constant backing to the chatter and gossip that went on in the linking department.  Not that she joined in with that much.  They other girls probably though she was a bit stuck up.  She wasn’t.  She liked to keep her head down. That way you made the money.  Maybe the other girls didn’t like her making the money. It didn`t help in the popularity stakes when the supervisor used her as an example of getting the work done. 

`Teachers pet.` Was the not so quiet whisper.

She climbed the three steps that led up to the manager’s office. It too was locked as it should be.  Jenny had wanted him to call Roberts but like the police Bobby convinced her it was best first to check.  What if it was all a joke?  What if he ended up landing Chris and the rest of them in trouble?

‘Serves them right.’ Jenny had said. Still this wasn`t like Chris either-

A short way along the walkway that led into reception she stopped and leant over the wall that ran along side the walkway. 

Each machine had a table at the end which the men measured the pieces coming off the machines to see if they were the correct size.  If they weren’t’ they would have to adjust the weights that governed the tension of the wool.  On one of the tables a piece sat measuring tape stretched across its length.  At another a lunch box sat opened, sandwiches displayed. Next to it a flask the cup half empty with tea.  At another a paper was open at a crossword mostly finished pen sitting at the ready.  At all three jackets hung on the back of chairs by the tables.

She took all this in, and the fact that Bobby was walking her way.

A few moments later he was leaning on the wall beside her.

‘Everything just left.’  He said.  ‘ No-one.  There’s no-one here Jen. The bloody Marie Celeste.’

In her head she was telling him don’t be so stupid…but the words didn’t come out.

 He touched her hand, and they both jumped as a phone rang. It took them a few moments for them to realize where it was coming from.

One of the jackets.

READING

Up until about fourteen the only books I had read were my parents Readers Digest book club books, and some westerns that my dad had.

I read a lot of comics and magazines especially football related. The football magazine Shoot I got weekly from the shop next door to our house--very handy that shop was.

Then I discovered the library.  Airdrie Library which I didn`t even know it existed until the day I wandered in by chance.

I`m writing something in more detail about that which I`ll post in due course.

In the meantime a couple of poems and examples of the eclectic nature of my reading.  Imaginative reading is reading to me regardless of the form.

Roy of the Rovers:  my favourite since I could kick a ball around my back garden, and still reading the anthology pictured below.

The Brother Karamazov: my all time favourite book even though I`ve only read it once.  That was when I was twenty and read it over the Christmas holidays from college.  I dispapeared to my room for that time as I couldn`t stop reading it, it really did blow my mind regarding what you could do with writing.  Heavens knows what my family thought I was up to!  I would get worried knocks on the door checking if I was okay.  `Just reading.`

Poems are below the images.

ROY OF THE ROVERS            

George Best to Jimmy Johnstone

A flick of the ball from Roy of the Rovers

To me.

Collecting it without breaking my stride

Weaving past imaginary opponents

Eagle eye the top corner of the net

My deadly right foot thunderbolt net bulging

Taking the rapture of the crowd in my stride.

George, Jimmy and Roy beaming the beam

Of the daily last minute goal.

We had done it again.

Dreaming was real.

The comic script inside my head

Inked and drawn in my back garden.

The clothes poles a tough defence.

The garage wall the one two

That fooled them every time.

The unstoppable blast against the top corner

Of the garden fence.

It was a dream I woke from

Not realising then

That I was building another dream

Within a dream.

Images stored with feeling

For this poem.

 

 THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV   

Crunching through knee high Russian snow.

Devouring pages of Dostoyevsky bread and vodka

Feeding my mind.

Burning thoughts into existence.

Murder, mayhem, good and evil square go in front of a burning log fire.

Can you say that the fledgling writer says to the murky candlelit room?

‘Och aye.’ Says Dostoyevsky!  ‘Dinnae muck aboot. Get in there with your

Aching soul, pull up a chair and tell your tale. 

Lay it bare, peel the skin off the face

Let the thoughts lie where they fall.’

I’ve never re visited the book.

Sometimes I doubt I even read it.

A memory picked up from someone else and re written for my own end.

Tell you a story.

Two cousins sitting beers in hand cherry picking the past.

Two cousins sitting beers in hand remembered white sheets Chaplain, Keaton,

Beamed along a smoky beam.

Two cousins sitting beers in hand nodding heads at the shared memory.

A projector stuttering to a stop

Mid Chaplain funny walk twirling walking stick.

The white screen sheet tumbling from the window

Crumpling Keaton’s deadpan face.

Hand up I’m one of the cousins.

Two hands up if I wasn’t even stardust in my daddy’s eye on movie nights.

Thing is: I was there.

Thing is:  I read that book.

Thing is:  Fiction or fact that’s me.

 

 Published under the title Dostoyevsky in  Southlight magazine issue 26.