Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve. I watch the families come and go, grandchildren in warm Santa hats and muffled in mittens, daughters and sons, each come to spend an hour in the company of grandmothers, mothers, grandfathers, fathers, uncles and aunts, to show that they care; sharing seasonal greetings, the news and some laughter before they retreat down the wet evening path. They carry gifts wrapped in bright shiny paper and carrier bags filled with seasonal food.

I watch from my window, this coming and going. It’s raining out there. If in the morning I wake early enough while it’s still dark, and I am lucky to look at just the right moment I may see the fox trot up that path and briefly look up.

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Clowning Around

So much shoved in this flaming bag. I could chuck half of this stuff away. This is what comes of leaving in such a hurry. Should never have got behind on the rent. Where’s my red nose? Shoved in the toe of my boots of course. Toe to nose. Nose to toe. Smelly. Thought I’d get further than this at my age. Yeh, a clown would think that, arsehole. Ok got to get on with this. Forget my problems until after the show. I can sleep under the stage tonight if no one sees me but that won’t do for long will it. Had no breakfast. Had no dinner yet. Too late now. Not paid enough here to keep body and soul together. Damn this jar. Lids stuck again. At least the whitening covers these dark rings under my eyes. Slap it on thick. Wig is a mess. I am a mess. Life is a mess. I am supposed to land flat on my face. I can certainly do that alright. Might as well turn my toes up and be damned. Music has started. Time to go out and be funny. Funny ha-ha. What a joke. Too loud. The lights are too bright. No sleep last night. God I’m exhausted.

The Carpet

I stepped down from the beaten-up old bus and was dazzled by the headlights as I collected my bag from the roof rack. All the words not understood, and the darkness after the light was overwhelming. My eyes were still adjusting.

I heard a man’s voice, in French, offering a hotel.

‘I am English’, I said, as I moved away.

I stopped a moment, pulling out an old guidebook, adjusted my rucksack, and looked back. He was leaning against a wall, hands deep in his pockets, wool hat pulled down, shoulders hunched against the cold, scuffing at the dusty road with his shoe. Reassured by his lack of interest, I went to him.

He looked up and bowed slightly. ‘You want hotel? Cheap. Clean. Fes my city. You follow? ‘

He led me down a dark narrow street. Like a wary cat I trailed after him, wondering about my rash decision. We walked far enough for me to get anxious, but he left me safely at the hotel as soon as he had arranged my room. He refused my offered tip saying that I was welcome in his city and very politely, he bowed again and left me.

I woke to the sound of rattling buckets and looked out of my window onto the street. The sun was still low, but the sky was clear blue and bright, still a little chilly, and the café next door was just opening. I could smell strong coffee. I dressed quickly and went down. I sat at a table sipping hot coffee, making notes in my journal, and watched the street grow busier. The man at the table next to me wore a suit and very British wool check slippers. Incongruous. I tried not to stare.

I saw my guide of the night before coming towards me. He had what looked like donuts threaded onto string. A gift for my breakfast, they were fresh and delicious, and I offered him coffee. He said he would get it. When the inside of the café filled up, I realised there were no women and asked why.

‘Moroccan woman no come here. European woman is like man and lady same time. No problem. Like have two ticket,’ he said and laughed. His laugh was sudden and unexpected. He had been so constantly polite and serious. I noticed his eyes were green and looked away quickly. He told me his name was Rashid.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘I show you my city.’ 

We went down narrow steps through a street smelling of olives and coriander and fresh bread. He skipped down the wide, shallow steps.  I was careful, unsure of their rhythm. We entered a square where he paused, bought a single cigarette, and then set off into a maze of streets.

Donkeys and mules pushed their way through the narrow passageways as light filtered down through straw mats suspended above. We visited street after street. I would have been lost there without him, delightedly lost, but lost. 

In the silk district, the alleys were full of boys spinning thread onto bobbins from hooks in the walls. It was a street of rainbows. The apothecary was medieval. The shopkeeper, offering a dried hedgehog skin and herbs, told me some things were for medicine, and some for magic. Every shopkeeper who spoke any English joked with me. It was hard to know what was true.

I could sometimes hear running water. Next time I heard it I asked Rashid where it came from.

‘River runs under street,’ he said. ‘Listen. Walk back. Now walk here. Sound different your shoes? River echo. Find echo, follow river. Need no guide. I go now?’

I laugh, fascinated. ‘I think I feel safer following you than the river.’

We stopped for mint tea outside a cafe. The sun was strong now. I watched the street. Smiles lit up on shop keepers faces as tourist groups entered the street and then faded away as they passed.

After a long silence I said, ‘I could find my way here by the smells and the sounds, if I could memorise them.  Here I can smell woodsmoke, meat cooking, and mint. The brass workers street is like beating gongs. The smell of cedar is strong near the carpenter’s street. The tannery stinks. The silk street is secret.’

‘No secret,’ he said. ‘Only no noise.’ I had confused him.

I looked up.

‘Why is that basket up in that tree?’ I asked, suspecting an explanation of symbolic significance.

He shrugged. ‘Wind put it there.’

I laughed, ‘I am an idiot.’

‘Not idiot,’ he shrugged, ‘New here. Hungry? You like meet my sisters? We buy chicken?’

With a freshly plucked chicken in a carrier bag we went up bare concrete steps into a block of flats. The main room had peeling plaster, soft blue and pale green. The mosaic floor was chipped and worn. Three of his sisters were sitting in a group stitching busily at a pile of Adidas trainers. Another was doing intricate embroidery. Caught off guard they tidied up quickly. He looked slightly worried about something and went out with his brother.

By the time he came back the chicken tajine with cous-cous and olives was ready. I was hungry. We all sat in a crowded circle and ate from one big plate, our fingers sticky with meat juices. It was fun. They were all so friendly and mimed whenever words didn’t work. One sister spoke good English. Rashid kept pushing the best meat towards me. His sisters laughed when I pushed some back and he pushed it toward me again, smiling. Later we walked back to my hotel through the empty streets, taking our time. The stars shone bright above us. He said he would come back in the morning.

The next day we went to a carpet factory and sat on the roof for hours in the sun on a beautiful carpet. Of course, I wanted to buy such a lovely carpet. It would be a meaningful memory back home. I paid a fair price. As we left, he asked if I was happy. I was very happy.

‘You look happy too,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Commission! Ten percent from this shop,’ he said, hefting the carpet over his shoulder, grinning.

I was glad. 

Over the next month I spent every day with him and visited his family often. In cafes young men would ask me about visas to Europe. I tried to explain how hard it might be for them in England.

Rashid took me to see his cousins, out on a farm. It was paradise. He was more relaxed there than in the city. I ate oranges fresh off the trees. We rode a horse through the river to a quiet meadow, to rest on a blanket, talking. He doodled an imaginary house in my book. I loved his family. I didn’t want to leave them or him, but I had to. 

I was near to tears at the bus station. He became polite and formal, enclosed, his face blank. I had clung to him on the back of a horse. We had leaned against each other sitting on the sedan with his sisters. I had slept in the women’s room in his home. He has kissed my hand the night before. He was a good friend, familiar, not my guide. I couldn’t understand this sudden coldness. I cried on the bus. On the plane I hid my face from curious tourists. I struggled with the carpet on the train, but it made me happy when I looked at it in front of my fire. I beat it in winter when the weather was cold and washed it in summer to dry in the sun just as he had told me. It improved the colours.

I sent a letter when I got home. He sent me a postcard. I meant to go back but I didn’t. Four years passed. When I decided I might go back I wrote to his sister to see if he was still there. She wrote back quickly.

‘My brother has been sick. We will be very happy to see you.’

I booked a flight. The only one I could get.

I arrived in Fes, late and tired, from a very long journey by bus and train the length of Morocco, from Agadir. It was dark and pouring with rain as I arrived through the old city gate in a taxi. The tarmac shone smooth in the moonlight but there weren’t many lights on. I peered through the car window as we passed my favourite café, but I couldn’t see well through the distortions of raindrops on the glass. I asked to be dropped at the hotel. The taxi driver didn’t know the way, but I did. The hotel looked run down.

I saw a figure slowly approach from the far end of the street, walking uphill, huddled in a thin plastic coat with the hood up. He looked familiar but made no sign. He kept coming.  At last, sure it was him I raised my hand. He waved and walked a bit faster. Then his arms were round me. He buried his face in my neck and leaned his full weight against me, unmoving. I let him rest there. I felt like a life raft. I held him and noticed how thin he’d become. He let go of me and swung my rucksack onto his shoulder. It looked like a strain. He went in and argued with a boy behind the counter to get me my old room again. He seemed angry.

In my room he sat on the side of the bed with his head down and said, ‘No mint tea. Man in reception not friend.’ He passed me a can of Tango. ‘From café before close. In morning, I fetch you.’

He got up and left.

I was tired and puzzled.  I went straight to bed, but I had nightmares and kept waking up.

The next day he came and took me to his house. He told me to walk behind him, not beside him or he might get arrested. Shocked, I asked why.

‘Later I tell you. Come now.’

At his house his sisters greeted me, but their smiles lacked sunshine. The house was shabbier. Rashid and I went and sat in his small, pale blue room with the windows wide open to street noises. His sister came in with coffee. He told her to stay.

‘She say you,’ he said, ‘My English no good.’

His sister’s voice was warm and her accent pleasant. The story she told me was neither.

‘Some tourists, they bought a carpet. When they washed it at home the dye ran. Yes? You understand this?’

 I nodded.

‘So, they contacted Moroccan tourist board and made a complaint. The police, they went to the carpet shop to arrest the shop keeper. He paid them the bribe they wanted.  They arrest Rashid instead. He couldn’t pay bribe. He went to jail for six months. Now, if he is seen in the street as a guide, they will arrest him again. There are no jobs,’ she said. ‘What can he do? My brother is a good man. He brings us our food and pays for our books to study. My father brings only olive oil and flour for our bread. My sisters and I earn only little. You understand? This is why he is thin. You see this? Prison made him like this.’

‘But the dye does run,’ I said, horrified. ‘It improves the colours. Isn’t that why the older carpets cost more?’

‘Yes,’ Rachid said. He turned to his sister. ‘See. She understands carpet.’

The next day I sat in the café with coffee before I went back to his house. I watched police in shabby uniforms taking bribes from poor market traders, moving them on if they didn’t pay. I put my notebook away. It was no place to be seen taking notes. I used to feel liberated in Morocco. That had gone, along with what was left of my naivety after hearing that story. I suddenly felt I had to be the strong one.

That evening I told Rashid, ‘I will get you out of Morocco. I will get you the visa all the young men want.’

He looked shocked. ‘You promise this? How?’

‘I will marry you.’

‘You marry me?’

‘Yes, if you want,’ I said, realising I had just proposed. ‘It won’t be easy, but I will get you out. I promise.’

‘I still help sisters?’

‘Of course.’

He laughed. I heard his relief. He took my hand and gripped it to his heart.

 ‘Oh yes! I marry you. Real marriage. Not only visa.’

Little Red

It was a tormenting time. Small children were taken. Far away from their homes. Herded like cattle. The men said for education. But that wasn’t true. They were made to unlearn. All these children were abused. Their culture stripped from them. Their ancestral language denied. The men called them vermin. Ignorant men, so cruel. Claiming it was God’s Law.

Little Red was a boy. Son of a medicine man. Little Red was brave. Born under the wolf star. Blessed by the firebird. He had a secret cloak. Made of red feathers. No-one could see it. Only he saw it. It gave him great courage. He understood all he saw. He knew the forest ways. He could talk to wolves. They came to his call. One moonless night. This caused chaos. In the darkness he ran. Ran with the wolves. Deep into the forest. Far, far away. Away from all humans. The wolves were protective. He learned all their ways. He did the wolf dance. He sang to his star. For seven nights he waited. Wearing his red feather cloak. Wrapped tight around him. Feathers faded to grey. They became fur. He became a wolf.

He missed his home. He missed his grandma. At last, he went home. She knew him at once. She was happy. But she knew the danger. The danger was great. The men often taunted her. She always refused to speak. They stole her food. Food she had grown. Food from her own toil. They chopped down trees. She wasn’t afraid. She feared for the boy. So, she hid him away. He came out at night. In the day he slept. Hidden under her bed.

One day the men came. They lit a fire. They took grandma. They called her a witch. They set her on fire. The boy could do nothing. The wolf fears only fire. Little Red stayed hidden. Later he crept away. He howled alone. Alone in the woods. Later his tracks were found. Found near the lodge. Wolves can’t burn people. But they blamed him anyway. They made up some story. They always spoke lies. Wolves always get the blame.

Just like Geronimo. Just like Cochese. And Sitting Bull. Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. And Running Bear. Little Red belongs amongst them. It’s the same old story. Over and over again. Always the same. Never think it can’t happen. It might happen to you. Listen with care, my child. Hear my words. It’s not easy. Living like Little Red.

(This story has sentences of 5 words or less – try one)

The Changeling

She never answers when I call but sits alone and mutters or goes amongst the old ash trees and whispers to the leaves. I can’t decipher all she says, the words are never plain, but the music of their pattern is always much the same.

She plays with mud and twigs and lays them out repeatedly in one ornate design. Like hieroglyphs, they seem to have significance, but she will never write her name. Her teachers and her parents are much disturbed by her. They say she’s on the borderline of a broad and complex spectrum that I don’t understand. I ask, in jest, if she might be a special rainbow child. No-one smiled. I’m here as the au pair and I just let her play.

There’s avoidance in her eyes. She simply won’t obey. That much is very clear. They want her analysed, pinned, defined and measured. I know she’s wild, but I have secrets I’m not prepared to share.

She chases hawks away from mice. She calls the birds to comb her hair and lets them hide in there. When she sleeps the owl hoots twice to let the forests know, the fox creeps from its lair and sidles past my fireside chair to rest all night contented, dreaming at her feet. The family is completed.

She’s turbulent. She’s troublesome. She’s stubborn and she’s free. She’s very gifted too, but she won’t let them see. I know it’s very strange indeed, a little fae for sure. She’s always been my own sweet child, there’s no changing that.

We have to make a plan and spin it very soon. We have to get away from here.

I must discuss it with my cat before the next full moon.

Through the Fire

A Lady sat by a fireside in a warm and pleasant room.

The Lady was young, she was innocent of face and fair.

In the corner stood a harp, a mirror, a loom.

Deep and deeper into the heart of the glowing fire

She gazed seeing images flickering there

While she considered her hearts desire.

Her imagination set free, she wandered.

She saw pathways and forests and caves,

Fortunes won, lost and squandered,

Extravagant creatures with wings,

Battles, books and jewels and dark open graves,

Crowns and horses and rings.

Her heart beat fast and filled with desire

For all that she wanted from life.

She longed for adventure and never to tire,

Yearned for love and wealth and fame.

In a heartbeat, she forgot herself

And reached her hand into the flame.

She had passed through the fire,

Into the cave she had seen, encrusted with gems.

Diamonds, emeralds and rubies hung from the roof

Entwined and supported by golden stems,

She plucked them like fruit and hid them deep in her skirt..

She turned then toward the cave entrance,

When a sound she heard made her quickly alert.

She heard the song of a distant bird,

The like of which she had not heard before.

Having no plans or well-laid intentions

She decided to find the source of the song.

She stepped barefoot from the cave onto the mossy floor

Of a vast forest filled with the scent of flowers.

Looking about her she felt she didn’t walk long

But as the light fell she realised

She had been walking for hours and hours.

She saw a giant oak, gnarled, misshapen and ancient

In a clearing surrounded by lofty trees

And high in its leaves, on a far off branch, she saw the bird.

The bird continued to sing as if it intended to please.

The bird was unexceptional and grey of plumage

But its eye was very bright and in its beak it held a jewel.

She greeted the bird by instinct, feeling sure that it could speak

and then asked the question that burned in her heart

”Pray tell Sir Bird, what is that jewel you hold in your beak?”

The bird placed the stone beneath his feet

” Lady pray tell, what would you like it to be?”

She considered this question a while

Realising there was magic afoot

She answered, with what she hoped was an alluring smile,

”The Stone of Immortality”

”And why would you want such a thing?” said the Bird

”Surely this is what we all want” she replied.

The Bird cocked his head

”I can think of many things a girl such as you could want,

Happiness, peace, the joys of the bridal bed,

Knowledge, understanding, children, wealth…..?’’

”Yes I do want those things’ she said,

”But forever, in eternal good health!”

”You will have all else forever also” warned the Bird

”Grief, sorrow, loneliness, you may sometimes hunger or fear,

cruel words and dark thoughts are also a part of this dish.

Immortality is not a bed of roses, my dear.”

With that, he pushed the stone off the branch

To land at her feet. ”Pick it up, or not, as you wish.”

Without hesitation, the Lady stooped down and took it.

At first it dazzled and burned in her hand,

But finding herself in its possession she bid the Bird farewell

And set out smiling to further explore the land.

She gained fortune and fame

For she had long to develop her natural talents

And many came to revere her name.

She achieved every challenge to which she aspired.

Her fairness of face never changing

She found love and was much admired,

She fulfilled every one of her dreams.

But she also saw that with all these blessings

Immortality is not the gift it seems

And the Birds warning had been correct.

She saw all her loved ones pass on without her

And with this sorrow came the endless time to reflect

Upon her loss of all she had treasured most.

She watched her friends over aeons,

Numerous they were, a vast host,

One by one, in repeating pattern, pass away.

While she remained lovely and vibrant with health

They all seemed to go as if in a day.

She saw her lovers beauty and strength fade,

Her children grew old before her eyes.

She kept her fame, her knowledge, her wealth

But these are worth nothing when all we love dies.

Feeling tired, abandoned, alone, forlorn

She returned to the Forest, to seek the Bird.

She arrived at the clearing in the soft light of dawn.

The Bird sat as before high up in the Ancient Tree.

He no longer looked grey, unworthy of a glance.

This time she saw that he was a Dove.

The bird moved on his branch in a circular dance,

And then gently bowed to her. ”What is your desire?”

”I want to be mortal” she said ”and return through the fire

And accept my true fate, whatever is to become of me”

”I see” said the Dove, ”then I must ask you one question,

What is the greatest treasure anyone can possess?”

Without hesitation, the Lady answered, Love.”

”You have learned the greatest lesson my child”

The Bird bowed again, ”Now return through the fire,

Use this understanding well, for short and fleeting

Is your time in this world. Go now and find Love,

But most of all remember to nurture and live it.’’

”This will be the greatest gift you take from our meeting;

Love is not for the taking. Remember to give it.”

Shattered Light

She is screaming out in the street again, a crying toddler in her arms. He has tried walking away several times, but he keeps going back to answer her accusations. The kid is crying. They go out of sight towards their house. I hear bin lids crashing and broken glass. Those two look a match for each other.

 Worried about the child more than anything, I call the police. An impersonal voice takes details. I explain what I have seen. I say a toddler is at risk. I give all the details twice.

 I say, ‘They have gone out of sight now, while we have been talking. Gone back to their house.’

 ‘You have an address?’

 ‘No, I don’t. I’m not sure which house is theirs. There are three or four houses in a row. It could be any of them. The back gates are all obscured by trees. So no, I don’t know.’

 ‘We can do nothing then. Call us again if they come back outside.’

 She hangs up on me before I can protest.

Nothing more happens. Not that day. Soon the lamps are on and the street is quiet. I watch the lights flashing and blinking and changing colours on a Christmas tree in a window across the street. I don’t really have room for one in my place.

The next day, I go downstairs and outside. The broken glass turns out to be a smashed light globe on the edge of the communal garden for our block of flats.

 ‘I saw that little shit deliberately hit it as he walked by,’ Eva says. She shrugs as if to say it’s normal. ‘Now the landlords probably won’t replace it for months, like everything else around here.’

 ‘I was worried about the toddler,’ I say, trying to refocus the conversation onto my main concern.

 Eva looks at me as if I am from another planet and says, ‘Yeh, well that one will grow up to be a shit too.’

 I open my mouth to answer and think ‘What’s the point.’  I know she is a racist. Her Carer is from Jamaica. Eva is nice enough to her face. But that’s not what I have heard her saying to neighbours, calling her a monkey.

 You can’t convert total idiots. Especially the ones over eighty. She isn’t my generation. She won’t change now. No point even worrying about her opinions. Not everyone over eighty is a fool, thank god. My mother wasn’t.

I don’t want to go to a party

• 

I don’t want to go to that party or any other party ever again. I have never liked parties. Now I like them even less. Everyone laughing and playing as if the world is the same as it was, as it was before but it’s not.  How can they play at a party? Don’t they know or care that we’re all going to die. Everything dies. My dog died; my cat died. I cried. It was sad but the world was still normal. Now my grandad died, and it’s changed. Christmas is not going to be the same. They said Father Christmas isn’t real. Nothing is the same. It’s all nothing. The world feels like it’s wrapped in an old damp sock that I can’t take away from my mouth. They told me not to cry so I don’t. They said I will make it harder for everyone else if I cry. I wouldn’t cry now anyway. I am stuck inside a bubble. The world used to be light even when it was cloudy. My grandad and I played a game with the clouds, seeing shapes and making up stories. We saw a dragon swallow itself in the wind, one little puff at a time.

Penny’s Desk

Penny was trying to tidy her desk of the piles of stuff that had accumulated since she last did any work. She felt she couldn’t deal with the task at hand until the desk was clear. She looked at the withered poinsettia her mother had given her at Christmas. Like her mother, it had died. This made it hard to throw the plant away. It was the last gift her mother gave her and during the rushes back and forth to the hospital she had neglected it. She shut her eyes a moment and then, closing her mind to sentimentality she tossed it into the bin.

     Next, she looked at the business cards she had carried in her wallet for years when visiting clients. She certainly didn’t need them anymore, though she was proud of the corporate title she had once achieved. Into the bin they went.

     The Tarot pack was gathering thick dust, she wiped it over and put it in the drawer. That Tarot pack had been useful when she was made redundant. It had boosted her income. She had never charged for a tarot reading in her life before, but needs must when the devil drives. Those readings had paid for her groceries for several weeks. She hoped she wouldn’t need to do that again, but the future is always uncertain. She placed the silver locket on top of the pack and closed the drawer.

     She shifted a pile of books and papers and discovered a pack of red hair-dye. That must be well out of date. She gave up dying her hair as soon as she left her job. It was a relief to be able to stop using the dye and watch the grey roots grow longer after she didn’t have to look presentable to clients anymore. Penny was not interested in being presentable these days. Another one for the bin.

1967

Her Pakistani boyfriend

held her sticky, sugared hand

as they jumped down off the bus.

The pavements rose to greet her

in blazing summer heat,

There in Clifton Road,

where the buses stopped

by Mrs. Morton’s sweet shop,

her mother’s weekly treat.  

Liquorice and gumdrops,

and everything that’s sweet.

An echo of her childhood.

The one she’s quickly lost. 

It was then she saw the faces

staring from the windows,

staring in the street.

Disapproval, shock.

She raised her chin defiant,

sweat trickling down her neck.

Little English girl in a flowery summer frock.

He was ten years older.

She looked older than she was.

‘Reach out I’ll be there’ he said.

He was gone within six months.

It was then her face, at first just ghostly,

Turned a whiter shade of pale.

She went off to the coast

And she’s never coming back.