A Friday

Was at the old church in Pushton, and there's a garden out the back. In the garden was a small kennel-shaped thing, painted red and yellow. I wasn't really paying much attention to it, or to anything else, but the man on the platform was being boring, so I was watching the trees outside (this was frequently the case). It got to the end of the meeting, and a small girl crawled out of the kennel on her hands and knees. She looked about... I don't know... somewhere between 2 and 4. She had light brown hair and Japanese-English features. Someone said "Sabrina's awake!" and everyone turned to look. By this time, many people had left the hall already, I'd already said goodbye to Laurienne in the car park and been cornered by Emil and Derek in the toilets. I was back in the main hall trying to make my mother leave. Anyway... Sabrina's mother (tiny Japanese woman) left quietly, without her daughter. An old woman called Maud began talking quietly about what had been happening. Her daughter Amy was explaining to me and everyone listening that Sabrina had been in the kennel for two years and hadn't woken up before today. We were all watching her crawling across the lawn. A man went outside and picked her up, took her over to a hole in the ground nearer the hall itself, tied a rope around her ankles, and lowered her into the hole. She smiled and giggled. He did it again. Then he kept doing it, over and over again, faster and faster, she looked more and more scared, her features started to melt away to reveal a rotting skeleton child, and I woke up.

/

Sitting in her usual spot on the train - the floor in between two carriages - she had her weekly breakfast. She held firmly to the belief that a person needed no more than three meals a week, and this was what she had: breakfast on a Monday, lunch on a Thursday, dinner on a Saturday or Sunday. It may have accounted for her slim figure; 'to die for', pepole often seemed to say. And she nearly had. She smiled conspiratorially to herself, trying to ignore the nagging toothache that was creeping through her right jaw. 

#

The meeting with Seraphina passed uneventfully yet interestingly, as was always the case. They started off in a coffee shop owned by Seraphina's friend, but when marriage and Beltane celebrations had been discussed and she had brought up the next subject of conversation, it was agreed that they must go somewhere more private.



The look of pain that flitted briefly across her best friend's face made the girl sad to have told her, but not regretful. Seraphina could be trusted with anything, of this she was as sure as she was of the very fact that she lived. They talked about Lea, and Seraphina could not quite conceal the pleased glint in her eye when the girl explained that, whilst she loved Lea dearly, there were things she could never discuss with her; almost anything, in fact.



"They're organised, Seph", she said in a shaky voice her friend had rarely heard before. "I recognised two of them; I can't remember where from, but there was only one place I ever saw them... or one situation, I suppose..." Her voice trailed out, and Seraphina stayed very still before advising her to continue. They talked in euphemisms, as always: 'please him', 'friends', 'other ones'. It had always been their way to have a code, generally made up as they went along. Smiling, she remembered a chat from a time long ago:

'He's a fucking him.'

'A him-him?'

'Well, yes. But not like him him-him.'

They had continued until the words began to take on that weird, ethereal quality words had when you looked at them for too long, then they had stopped and moved on to something else. Barry the Busman, as he had been known to them, had teased them about it for a long time afterwards. Secretly, Barry the Busman had known, and they had known he had known, and that he had kept an eye on them subtly; and for this they had always been grateful, though they would never have dreamed of admitting it.

Admissions, she thought, plodding towards the station, clutching the piece of paper on which Seraphina had inscribed her most important morcels of advice, did not come easily to the clandestine.

~

'This is fascinating', she thought. Then, a little while later, 'I need a pee.' Such irreverent things fluttered through her mind, occupying her grey matter cells as Ant's coffin lay on the altar at the front of the hall. She assumed it was an altar, anyway. Never having frequented a 'normal' church, she wasn't really sure. Colleen and Bill came in, with a tall boy she had never seen before, but who bore such a resemblance to Ant that it had to be his brother Thomas. Colleen looked terrible, as could be expected. More than terrible, she thought; positively Glaswegian. The thought made her smile, and she glanced around guiltily. More than a couple of times already she had been in danger of giggling, and she was sneaking another clandestine glance at her watch when a rotund reverend approached the pulpit and began to speak.

It was obvious that he was trying not to cry. Colleen was shaking; shaking like the woman she had once known who shook all the time. Like a Polaroid picture, thought the girl, and the song started playing again in her head. At least it was all on a theme, she pondered, as Hey Ya was replaced with Big Girls Don't Cry. Not that she was going to cry, of course; it wasn't her style. Thinking of Ant dead... well, people did die, didn't they? It was a fact of life. He hadn't been the closest of friends; she'd lost far more precious people in her time; and she stood by her belief that losing people who were still alive was far worse than losing people to death. For death brought with it no apprehension, no uncertainty, no prospect of subsequent unexpected reunion. Thinking of Leila or Sidhe hurt far more than thinking about Ant, though in a different way.

Despite convincing herself she was entirely unaffected, she was pleased and comforted when Steve walked past, resting his hand on her arm for a moment and glancing at her just long enough for her to know he was there if she needed him. She knew it had been Bernadette really, the reason why she had been taken in to the family, but Steve had accepted her more than willingly, and for this she was very grateful. Bernadette wasn't there: a good thing, really, for she was one of those people in front of whom she would have felt ashamed about appearing too strong. Though Bernadette would not have been surprised, she thought, as the music started and people began exiting the building. Cutting through the crowd, she scuttled off to where Carys was waiting in the car, still as dry-eyed as she had been for a long time now.

'What's the matter? You're not letting her get to you, are you?' 

Heather made no answer. 'Have you ever read Tess of the d'Urbervilles?'

'I saw the film. I'm not much of a reader. Nor are you, though. Why do you ask?'

'Oh, I don't know.' She did know, he thought, but didn't want to say. 'I had to read it when I was at school. Not for O levels, it was before that. I was nearly fourteen.'

Puzzled, Edmond said, 'Did you enjoy it?'

'When you don't read much, things you do read stick in your mind. But it doesn't matter. I'm going to bed. Are you coming?'

For the first time since he had met her he sensed in her an absence of trust. It seemed to him that perfect confidence had existed between them but did so no longer. She hadn't lied but she had hidden the truth and for a little while - only a very little while, he hoped, only this evening - she had separated herself from him.' ~ p. 165

`

She was, to all intents and purposes, the perfect employee. Hajar had emailed her that morning, asking her to work overtime - two days' worth of overtime in one day, in fact - and she had replied with an enthusiastic 'yes'. She had demanded no recompense; partly, thought Hajar, because she knew one would come; but also partly because none was needed. She wasn't that kind of girl. Then, about halfway through the afternoon, tagged on the end of an email about the work she was doing, Hajar found a discreet note explaining that she might have to take another day off, and apologising. This was out of character: Hajar read on. Two of her friends had died within a week of each other, it explained. Separate incidents; very strange. She may or may not go to the second funeral; if she did, she hoped it would be alright to take the day off and apologised again for the inconvenience. Hajar marvelled at her most senior employee's tone. No fuss was made; this was not her style; but equally, she was so strong it seemed almost inhuman. Hajar thought back to the day before, when she had arrived at the office, joking with Les about her morning run, chatting with Skye and Callie about Jeremy Clarkson, laughing at Tom's jibe when she said she would be away on Thursday. No one but Hajar knew she would be at a funeral. The girl was impossibly strong, thought Hajar again. Impossibly so. Sighing, she sent a sympathetic but non-fussy email in reply, wondering what her favoured employee was doing right now. 

She was, in fact, walking to the nearest village to pick up the shopping. Bralingyr was located quite literally in the middle of nowhere - which was why she and Lothario had chosen it as their home - and travelling to the shop usually meant taking one of the hourly buses that rumbled past on the quiet country road. Not today, though. Today she had decided to walk. It was only four miles, after all; and already she had seen the most beautiful deer, so large it was almost the size of a horse, watching her through the trees. On she had hurried, past the self-proclaimed 'character offices' holding a marketing firm and a lawyer's bolthole, past the farm gates, down the long lane. She crossed the road at Stone Hall and walked past the Star garage, debating the wisdom of stepping inside for a coffee. She decided against, did the shopping and hopped on a bus home. 

Arriving back, she realised why people had been smiling at her all day. It was out of character for a small village in Yakmount, where mostly the people looked like miniature rainclouds on legs, grey and grunting, seemingly unable to make humane conversation. She sighed as she noticed her spotted pyjama bottoms still adorning her legs; her dress, hanging half off of her fairy-like frame, looked like a skirt with a couple of tassels. She had no bra on; at this revelation, she baulked, having grown up amongst the Roma, an intensely modest people. She did, at least, have three layers on, as well as her purple jumper. Her hair was quite obviously the product of a manic home-chopping episode, though few would ever realise quite how manic such times were. Lothario would laugh, she thought, putting the milk in the airing cupboard before remembering the fridge. 

Yawning deeply, she plopped down in the largest wicker chair and picked up the phone to call Lea. Another day, another lapse of brain, she thought to herself, and dialled the number she felt terribly guilty for not knowing by heart. 

Growing Green

Lea is one of my closest friends, and the only person with whom I am ever 'girly'. Today she sent me a message regarding the shop she runs - a beautiful place from which she sells all sorts of exciting things - saris, corsets, ouija boards... which may explain the customer she had today: 

'...just had some woman in fast talking, trying to confuse me and haggling to the point of nearly breaking me down to prices I could scarce afford. She said she was a gypsy and said she'd give me a charm, and then claimed to be one of the seven sisters... That's a bit cheeky... Or have I just invoked a cursing?'

To keep her mind at rest (and the gypsy woman's at unrest, if haggling with my friend she shall be), I replied: 

'Ask her which of the three she is, and tell her you have a friend who is first and third. If she's invoked a curse I'll remedy it... war of the gypsy women!'

Of course, I would never turn against one of my own. Not without good cause, anyway. But I imagine Lea's feeling both more confused and (hopefully) less worried. My work here is done.