A short story that was sort of a by product of a larger one I was trying to edit for the longest time. Funny how the mind wanders and suddenly a complete story will emerge from a scene or a description. I quickly scribbled it down before it disappeared and went into someone else's head. Enjoy

Loose Ends                                                                                             

It’s now been two days since she left us here. It’s getting embarrassing.

We stand a couple of metres apart, waiting, and ready. But ready for what?

I wouldn’t have minded if she had brought us on a bit, you know? To past the introductions so we knew each other slightly better. As it is, it’s just bloody awkward.

There are implied memories, a sense of something between us but also a sense that she hasn’t a bloody clue what to do with us.

The time just drags. I mean, I know it is still the exact same time. It’s always the same time. That doesn’t bloody change. How could it? It’s just hazy. Stretched. My watch still shows nine thirty. Nine thirty, on a Saturday mid October. I really don’t know what year to be honest. Its dark and it's cold and I’m glad of my parka with the furry hood and for the boots and my fitted jeans even if the look is not exactly me. You know, I feel that she could have made a better effort really but at least I’m comfortable. And it hasn’t stopped raining in two days. How could it stop? It’s on a continual loop. If I pay attention I can see the same pattern of splashes onto the gravel, hear the same bullet like drops as they hit the corrugated plastic roof above my head. Concentration is the key. If you don’t then everything just goes blurry about the edges.

And so we stand there, two near strangers staring out at this dismal beer garden through a curtain of rain. Watching water drip onto the picnic benches and fag butts that litter the path in front of us. I have a Marlboro Light and he deftly hand rolls a cigarette before popping it onto the edge of his lip where it hangs in anticipation of the lighter.

Daniel.

This is his name. And I know this how?

We’ve met before, on numerous occasions.

We may even have had an affair once.

Well more of a one night stand type of thing; you know the type?- a drunken mistake. He’s behaving as if he doesn’t remember and maybe he doesn’t.  For me, it’s more of a past life lived, something that may or may not have happened.  I can only recall glimpses, the paleness of his chest hovering over me, the curve of an elbow, and the blur of his face. Images that slip in and out of my memory like jigsaw pieces sliding in a box.  When I try to remember they slip back further. Hiding.

We seem to meet in the same situations; usually it’s in a bar. Sometimes in this hotel. The last time he was less forceful, we didn’t have a conversation, more of an exchange of words. “Is this seat taken?” My husband, (Yes, I have one. Somewhere) my husband was buying a drink.

Hence the awkwardness.

And so we stand watching and smoking. We haven’t anything else to do. It’s what we are meant to do.

I glance at him. He is handsome enough in a weather beaten kind of way; his hair is long, dirty blonde, tied in a pony tail. He is beardless. He looks older than me and yet younger. He’s a musician, I’ve just spent the last hour watching him play the fiddle in the Hotel lounge and he’s good. 

Looking at him I know that he has lived, really lived. Not like I have. He’s written better, he’s travelled, been places. You just know he has friends all over the globe, always has a couch to crash on at the end of the day. He lives his life on a daily basis. There are no direct debits coming out of his account. If he has one.

He catches me looking and smiles, a lazy ready smile. And I think, ha, he remembers something. I bet he does. It’s fair to say, there is an attraction.

But I don’t know where it will lead. Things get changed around so much. One minute I’m in the Hotel and the next instant I’m looking out on Dingle Bay leaning against the car. Sometimes I’m on my own on a bus heading out to Dun Chaoin.  We’re rarely together, Daniel and I.  But there has been a lot of activity lately. Things are tighter, more controlled.  Some details are being left out and certain aspects made clearer. I feel that this may be the last time we do this.

There is a noise.

We both turn as the door back into the Hotel opens. It closes swiftly. Nothing happens.

“She changed her mind again” he turns away and looks back onto the beer garden.

I sigh and walk over to the edge of the decking, to where the plastic roof ends.

A couple materialise out of the gloom, they stop to kiss under the shelter on an overhanging chestnut tree. They are young and furtive. Have they been there all along?

The rain is stopping. There is clarity to the night. Fairytale stars appear as if by magic in the perfect velvet of the night sky.

A scene is being set.

I turn away from the railing, moving purposefully towards my companion.

Hold out my hand like I am supposed to.

“Hi. I’m Ruth. We met in the bar last night”. Suddenly, I am nervous.

He is pleased. He takes my hand and holds it in his own, slightly rougher one.

“I knew it, I knew you looked familiar”

And we’re back.

The End.

Ode to Suzie

Oh Suzie. Queen of Cats. Queen of the Torties. Gracious and capricious Ruler of the Beanbag.

You are a week dead today. 
Seven long days of tears and remembrances. Of shock at your sudden passing and anger at the senselessness of your death. 

We miss your rudeness, your strange didgerydoo miaowing at the window sills. We miss the way you pretended to bite when we tickled in the wrong place. Your little orange tipped right paw. 

We miss your total belief in your self, your right to be inside all day long, your right to get into the house before any of your human counterparts did.

You lie under the apple trees. In the sunniest spot in the garden, wrapped in a beautiful blue and silver sari with a decorated wooden cross that my husband (you thought you were his dog) made for you. 

You leave behind four desperately sad children and two adults and your tabby friend - Willow. Your love/hate relationship, now disbanded had left him lost, he miaows at the window, he peers in looking to find you. He hurls himself about my legs at the washing line for attention. 
Hard to think it was only last week that you and he were boxing on the window ledge. Sparring with little paws raised and now you lie sleeping under the apple blossom.

Sleep soundly my friend. We will meet again. 

Nasty Nicotene

Nasty, nasty, nasty, lovely, no, nasty fags. They will be the literal death of me. 

Bastards. Apologies for the bad language. But really there is no better word for the little feckers. They mock me. They wait in my husband's pockets late at night when no one is awake to see me sneak out the patio door (it's quieter) and quickly roll and light up leaning against the deck. Last night I saw a beautiful half moon that slid gleaming yellow from behind the midnight clouds. No one there but me and the bats to notice. 

But there I go again, making something lyrical out of a snatched nicotene moment on the deck . Later, when I had scrubbed my teeth and guiltily slipped into bed beside my snoring husband, I felt the disappointment, the lack of self respect. I blamed it on the few glasses of wine, the fact that my cat died last week (another post). I find I have lots of reasons to blame my lapses of good healthy behaviour.

Today I went for a two mile run. To be good. To blast oxygen into my lungs. And I think it did good. I felt energised. I'm writing aren't I? Why would I want a rotten cigarette in my mouth? 

Absolutely never, never, ever going to have a cigarette again.

Husband. Hide the damned bastards. Please.

My Husband's Hair

My husband's hair is coming along nicely. His visit to the hairdresser last year, precisely the day before my daughter's confirmation is now just a nightmarish memory. Yes, we still have the dodgy photographs and the kids can still recall the screams of horror when he walked into the kitchen looking like a shaved badger. But it's fading. 

Now we have curls, we have bounce and please God some time in the near future we will have something like this:

Afterall I have three months left until the Electric Picnic and I cannot have a short haired man at my side.

My personal favourite is a mix of Poldark and Childermass. 
Hmm. We'll see. 
I have time, I can rebuild him.




Well, a girl can dream can't she?

Procrastination.

Ok. It's been a while. The spirit is willing but the body is definitely weak. God, I am having such a problem getting down to serious writing. I have been editing. Ok, I'll be honest, I've been semi-editing. The story I have been editing has come to a standstill. I am at a complete loss as to what to do with two of the main characters that I have left them completely in limbo. This has to stop. 

One good thing came out of it though. I wrote a complete and finished (very little editing required) short story about the two characters stuck in limbo. It came to me whilst I was waiting on my roast potatoes to finish in the oven. Husband on the couch devouring the Sunday paper, kids running about the kitchen and coming and going outside. I sat down at the table with a half cold cup of coffee and scribbled a near complete story down in about ten minutes. 

It's short, a mere three pages, less than a thousand words but I have to say, I'm quite proud of it and it gave me the confidence to get back in the saddle so to speak.

Now, what to do with those two stubborn, and now complaining characters? I still hate the original story but there are good bits in there, if I can pull them out and shine them up. I think I can do something with it. 

Well, here's hoping.

Writing is definitely a discipline. I must make a specific time to write and stick to it. It's that simple. 

And yet it's not. It's a mental bloody torture. The thought of writing is in my head from when I crawl out of bed (angrily, most mornings, resentful of the fact that I have to make sandwiches and organise the kids to school) to when I hit the pillow. The only way to get it off my back is to sit down and tap the keys, scribble in the notebooks that I seem to leave in every room in the house. But most of the time it's like struggling through thick heavy mud, the message from brain to finger tips is constantly being re-routed or interrupted. Damn you facebook, Damn you twitter. Damn you youtube. 

 

Have to do more. Have to be more.

Have to stop watching my favourite bits of Poldark over and over again on my smart phone.

There Will Be Turkey!


I worked late last night  - Christmas overtime. It seemed a great idea in theory. Hell knows I need the cash. I mean I haven't even began my Christmas shopping apart from some chocolate coins and an advent calendar. Oh yeah, I forgot about the disposable Christmas  table cover from Lidl. Fancy. Only the best for my family! no holds barred.
Anyway back to the overtime. I work in the Mail Centre in Portlaoise. It's hard, it's dusty, dirty and at times goddamn soul destroying for a sensitive soul like myself. But the money is good and the evening hours meant that I could have the days with my children rather than stick them in childcare.
I recently applied for job share and this means that I only do half the hours so I have a nice bit of time at home with the kids and my husband sitting by the fire, drinking wine occasionally (who am I kidding with the occasionally shit?). I get to watch crap like I'm a Celebrity (guilty pleasure) read, and do some decent writing. It's great except for the only getting half the wages part! So crazy woman went and put herself down for lots and lots of late overtime and is now regretting it big time. But needs must. We shan't starve, there will be turkey! But .....Nightmare!!!
So I am going around like a zombie, my back is killing me and I've nearly got through a tube of Voltarol (rubbing it on rather than consuming it) and I've only done one bloody night.
Mind over matter, I will be strong; I will survive this. Though I may have to self medicate.

This is a short story that I wrote as an exercise in editing and using various writing techniques i.e portraying the story through scene, dialogue and action. It was written in a day and I edited the hell out of it. I had to bring it down from over 2,000 words to 1,000 which was a job and a half, meaning that I had to cut out pieces that I personally liked but weren't entirely necessary. A very useful exercise and cathartic. 

Here's the finished product. I hope you like it.

A Table By The Window

If I hadn’t arrived early I wouldn’t have got the table. I wanted the table by the window, it gave me advance warning. But, like me he arrived early. I had hardly taken off my coat when I spotted him striding past the window, his iPhone stuck to his ear, a frown on his face. Two minutes later he stood in front of me.

“Hello Jeanie”.

 Nobody else called me Jeanie. He made my name sound so much more exotic than flat one- syllabled Jean. That syrupy Italian accent that turned the most banal of everyday words –dustbin, tomato, toilet paper, into poetry. It was a formidable weapon.

“Luca” I nodded. I could be civilised.

He hung his jacket across the back of the chair and placed his hands across the table palms down. He leaned forward so that our faces were nearly touching and I was inhaling his Acqua di Parma.

  “You want coffee? Latte, Mocha?”

“Yes, please. I’ll have a latte”

“Something to eat? A sandwich or a pastry?”

“No thanks. Just the coffee”

He pivoted and approached the counter. I watched him gesticulating as he ordered, conjuring words in the air. A tattoo peeped from under the right sleeve of his polo shirt. A rose. I closed my eyes and imagined its thorny progress as it travelled up his bicep to meet the bird of paradise on his shoulder. “Jeanie” appeared on his left shoulder above “Mama” and the Hands of God.

I wondered if he would now cover it with another’s name or perhaps a portrait of the Pope. When I re-opened them he was standing at the table watching me quizzically. He had bought coffee and a plate of pastries. Typical Luca, he didn’t like to eat alone.  It was an Italian thing.  He placed the pastries in the centre of the table and handed the coffee over, before pulling his chair in tight to the table. He started picking at a pastry with his fingers before popping a piece into his mouth.

“So how are you?” his tone was polite.

 We hadn’t seen each other since he’d moved out. A week ago (seven days, six hours and counting).

“I’ m good” I said fiddling with an earring. Even though, I was anything but. I forced my hands into my lap under the table where they fought each other like little silent dogs.

“You’re looking well”

And I was suddenly and stupidly pleased with the compliment.  I had deliberately dressed down, jeans and boots with a baggy jumper. A lick of mascara, some lippy. Okay I’d had my hair done but it looked the right type of tousled, as if I’d just got out of bed but with really good hair.

“Thanks” I smiled and took a sip of the coffee. “How are things in the restaurant?” We were grown ups, we could be civilised.

“Really good, thank you, lots of covers, busy, you know?”

 He was practically beaming, his enthusiasm nearly contagious. Nearly but not quite. Busy was one of our problems. Busy was a deal breaker.

“And your folks?” I liked his parents. They were good people.

“They miss you” He concentrated on his pastry.

“I miss them too”. I miss you more; the words were unspoken across the table top.

And that was the moment right there.

In a movie the camera would pan around the table, the lights receding to a single spot above us, an indie track would start to filter in slowly.

“How’s James?” And like that he ruined it.

Luca!” I groaned. “I told you I haven’t seen him since the party”

I pushed the coffee away from me and glared at him. Jesus!

“I saw you kissing another man! Did you expect me to just forget? I can’t” He was shouting. The couple at the next table stopped their conversation to listen into ours. He lowered his voice and shook his head in disbelief.

“You know what happened. I’ve told you a million times. Why can’t you just believe me?”

“I believe what I saw” he had that look on his face; full of self righteousness.

“What you saw was me saying goodnight to an old friend, a drunken peck on the lips. Nothing more”

“That’s not what it looked like to me!”

“If you’d been there at the bloody party it wouldn’t have happened”

“Okay…I get it. It’s all my fault” he laughed sarcastically.

“It was my 30^th Birthday Party, Luca! Everyone was there except for you. How do you think I felt?”

“I told you I was held up, I was really...

“Busy?” I spat out the word.

He looked away from me. His phone rang.

“Don’t answer that” Our eyes met. The phone continued to ring in his pocket.

He cursed, pulled it out and answered.

I grabbed my bag and stood up.

He held a hand up. “Wait” he mouthed.

“There’s just no point”.

I grabbed my coat and walked out.

I was half way down the street when the rain started. Great. I pulled my coat around me and searched in vain for a taxi. I was just turning the corner in the direction of the Tube station when I heard footsteps behind me. He was running hard. .

“It’s ok.” He grabbed my arm. “It’s ok”

The phone rang again. I glared at him. He answered, grabbing my hand tightly as I wriggled to get away.

“Listen, I’m not coming in tonight or tomorrow. That’s right. Ok. Ring you later”. He winked at my shocked expression and hung up.

“Is it ok?” he held both my hands captive. I thought for a moment.

“Say my name” I looked up at him, flicking the wet fringe out of my eyes.

“What?” he looked confused.

“Jeanie” It rolled off his tongue, deliciously.

I closed my eyes. “That’s what I’m talking about”

“Ho mangiato la vostra pasticceria”

“What?” I leaned closer.

“I ate your pastry”

I punched him on the arm.