The Staircase

The smell of lavender wax hung in the air. The servants had polished the railing and the steps of the staircase into gleaming perfection. The carved columns of the railing shone with the loving attention bestowed on them, the steps glistened with the depth of several layers of wax. It was a wonderful piece of carpentry, he reflected, winding gracefully up to the next floor, an elegant curve teased out of the wood, the columns turned just so, with taste and a cunning hand.

It was an old staircase, it had seen generations of people walk up and down; seen their first ventures on all four, their first wobbly steps, the trampling of young schoolboys off to their first hunt with their fathers, the sweeping of young women in their finest dresses, hearts pounding at the prospect of seeing their lovers, the impatiently hurrying feet of young husbands, eager for their brides, the slowed down tread of matrons in mourning, the three legged struggle of the old and infirm, and that last leaving, the pallbearers walking sedately, carrying down the coffin.

He set a foot onto the first step, wriggling it around. It moved with ease on the shiny steps. Only yesterday had he remarked to his wife, “Those steps are dangerous. There should be a carpet on them. How easily could someone slip on it and have an ugly accident”.

She had laughed and patted his knee. “It would be a shame to hide the wood. And a carpet is so difficult to keep clean. The staff would rightly complain about the additional work it would cause.”

He had left it at that.

At the top of the staircase he could hear shuffling steps. Above the railing the grizzled head of his father appeared.

“There you are. I've been waiting for you. Have you prepared everything?”

“Yes, Father. Everything is ready. The documents are in the library. Mr Trevelyan should be here shortly.”

“Very well. I know, you are not happy with my decision, but considering the financial problems I think my decision is for the best. The house has to be sold.” The grizzled head began to move towards the stairs. The son went back into the library. On the long oak table was a tray with a decanter and several glasses, and a briefcase. He opened the briefcase and took out the document that would rob him and his family of their home.

Out in the hall he could hear the tapping of the stick his father used these days. It had been a long time before he finally conceded to use it. His proud spirit accepted only slowly that his body was giving out on him. He would use it, but only because holding on to the furniture or other people was even more loathsome to him.

The son looked back at the document and his throat tightened. Losing the house was worse for him than losing the business. He had grown up in it, his past was intimately linked to it. His father couldn't understand that he preferred the house to the business. And he had never really understood or forgiven his son's indifference towards the business he had built up.

The son laid the document back onto the table and sighed.

There was a sudden, dreadful clatter out in the hall, a shout and then a terrible thumping noise. It seemed to go on forever.

“Father!”The son ran out into the hall. At the foot of the stairs his father lay in a crumbled heap. A dark stain slowly spread across his grey hair. The son hurried over and touched the side of the throat. The skin under his probing fingers was silent, not even the flutter of a pulse. A servant came running into the hall.

“Run for the doctor. Quick!” The servant dashed off. The son hurried up the slippery stairs, while alarmed and questioning calls echoed through the big house. He unwound the trip wire and pushed it into his pockets before returning to his father's silent form.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I couldn't allow you to sell the house.”

Teddy

Teddy was the curse of my childhood. His malignant presence poisoned my life, and made the nights almost unbearable. When I was small I used to turn him with his face to the wall before I went to sleep. Knowing he watched me with his glittering black pinpoint eyes robbed me of my dreams.

Teddy was a gift from my godmother. My mom thought I must be fond of him because I was fond of my godmother. I couldn't tell her I hated Teddy, so every night she insisted on tucking him in with me. But his furry face next to mine gave me nightmares.

Why I didn't try to get rid of him? I tried, believe me, I tried. First I took him to kindergarten and 'forgot' him there. I was very free with lending him to other children, hoping another one would like him and take him home. But Miss Hillier unfailingly hurried after us when we were leaving, pressing him into my arms. “You must be missing him,“ she said. Teddy's malevolent eyes seemed to grin with terrible glee, as I closed reluctant arms around him.

Next I tried to 'lose' him on the playground. I buried him in the sandpit. A dog dug him out again before we left. At least I was spared his presence that night, because Mom insisted on washing him first.

Whatever I tied, Teddy returned like a bad fiver. He was even sent back from Denmark, when we went there for holidays and I left him in the hotel. And every time he was returned to me, his big grin seemed to have grown wider.

Eventually I was big enough to relegate all my cuddly toys to the cupboard. But even there he always seemed to turn up in the first row, staring at me with his glittering eyes, whenever I opened the cupboard. I pushed him back behind all my other toys, but he always ended up in the first row again.

There was only one thing I could do to get rid of his presence. One day I took the scissors to him. I cut off his button eyes, ripped the arms and legs from his body, slashed open his belly and removed all the stuffing. Then I snipped and snipped until his shabby fur was only a heap of tiny fragments. I burned every single bit in our old wood stove. The smell was terrible.

That night, for the first time in ages, I slept peacefully. But I kept the scissors in my bedside table. Just in case.

It's stifling

„Are you resting again? You lazy sods, get up and go back to work!“ The screeching voice jolted the two brothers from their dozing under the shade of the oak tree

“You know, sometimes I wish she'd just collapse and die. It's flamin' hot and I'm gonna get a heat stroke if'n I can't take an occasional rest. The heat is stifling.” The younger brother wiped his brow with the sleeve of his dirty shirt. It cleared the skin of his forehead from the grime and dust that had settled there. The older brother grinned and took a last swig from the beer bottle.

“Yea, I sometimes wonder why I don't just go off and work in one of them smelting works. Can't be worse than here.”

“You know quite well, why you ain't goin'. She would't let you.”

“Hey, I ain't no slave! She don't own me!” the older brother blustered. The younger brother gave him a sly grin. The older scowled and took another swig from the beer bottle, realised it was empty and swore under his breath. He chucked the empty bottle angrily onto a heap of other discarded bottles where it shattered with a satisfyingly loud jangle. He looked over across the dusty expanse of the field to the house. In the shade of the porch their mother was washing the windows.

“Don't know why she bothers. With the next dust devil they're gonna be as dirty as before. Work, work, work. If she ain't workin' she ain't happy.”

“Yeah. If she only didn't expect the same from everybody around her! She's one tough old boot. Guess she wouldn't complain about the sun.”

The older brother frowned. “She can't live forever. Once she's gone I won't kill myself any longer with working.” He sighed at the prospect of a leisurely life.

They looked at their mother, still spry at seventy, still controlling her sons with a firm hand.

“She ain't gonna kick the bucket any time soon, that's for sure.” The younger brother sounded resigned to the thought of a continued life of servitude, as he considered it.

“Well, I don't know. Hasn't she been complaining about pains in the chest lately?” The older brother said thoughtfully.

“Momma? She never. Ain't one to complain about any little bit.”

“No, no. You're wrong. I'm quite sure. She told me so.”

“Told you? She'd never tell you nothing like that.”

The older brother looked at his sibling.”You know that and I know that. But who else would? I mean, she's seventy-three. Ain't unusual for people to just drop, even quite healthy people.”

The younger brother's eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you talking about? Are you suggesting we … help her along?”

“Well, it wouldn't be that difficult, would it? One of these days she's going to take her afternoon nap and just don't wake up any more. And a pillow don't leave no traces.”

The younger brother gave a nervous laugh. “You're joking, aren't you?” They looked at one another Around them the cicadas went on buzzing and the sun burned the soil a little more into cinders. The older brother's eyebrow rose quizzically.

“Am I?”

The younger brother's mouth curved into the faintest of smiles.

“Let's go back to work.”

The scissors

The scissors gleamed on the bedside table, their tapering blades reflecting the dim light.

“Where is my bed jacket? You've taken away my bed jacket again.” The old woman's voice was creaky, petulant as a child's.

“I put it away because I thought you were asleep.” The daughter turned her back to the scissors and went to open the curtains. The musty smell of old body was stifling.

“What are you doing? Don't open the window! The cold will kill me!” The old, querulous voice grated across the daughter's nerves.

“Just a few minutes. The fresh air will do you good. Here, put on the bed jacket.”

The old woman clenched the hot pink wool with arthritic fingers and her face pulled into a cranky scowl. “You know I can't get it on by myself.”

The daughter held out the jacket. The mother's knotted hands seemed to develop another set of fingers as she struggled into the loosely knit jacket. The daughter, bending over to help, bumped her hip on the corner of the bedside table. The scissors rattled faintly across the marble. The daughter rubbed her hip, reflecting that she would develop a bruise there. She bruised so easlily these days. And her swollen feet gave her hell as she walked back to the window. The mother's nose poked like an accusing finger out of the pink wool as she gathered it tightly around her.

“There is a draft. I can clearly feel it. I'm going to get a cold!”

“Mother, the window hasn't been open for more than a minute.”

“I'm going to freeze.” The mother's black bird-eyes glinted malevolently. “Is that what you're trying to do? Freeze me to death?”

With a sight the daughter closed the window again. As she passed the bedside table the glint on the scissors seemed to hold the same malevolence as her mother's eyes moments before.

“I am thirsty! I need a herbal tea. The cold is giving me a sore throat.”

The mother was waiting like a vulture for some opening that would allow her to swoop down and rip into flesh. The daughter kept herself with difficulty from answering the accusation and swallowed the bile in her throat. She didn't have the strength for an acrimonious and emotionally exhausting showdown with her mother. Encountering the challenging eyes in the bed she just blinked owlishly, an expression that had always annoyed her mother, then walked on sore feet downstairs to prepare the herbal tea. While she waited she rested her sore feet on a small stool.

“What took you so long?” The mother glared at her as the daughter walked to the bedside table. The scissors grinned at her. She put the big hand on them to push them aside. Under her palm she could feel their cold smoothness, the wickedly sharp points. Tea slopped from the cup into the saucer. The big hand slowly closed around the terrible blades as if to shield them from her view.

“You're such a clumsy creature. Always were. Why did God punish me with such an inadequate offspring?” The mother's voice vibrated with the resentment of the incapacitated for the able. The daughter held cup and saucer out to her mother. In the other hand the scissors' points slowly began to slip from the confines of the fist.

“One of these days your clumsiness will cause you to fall and break your neck. And what will become of me, then?” The claw-like fingers curled around the cup, the beady eyes peering through the rising, curling vapour.

“Do you hear me?”

There was a soft thump as the scissors fell into the drawer and a silken purr as it shut out their gleaming points from sight. The daughter smiled angelically.

“Yes mother, I do hear you.”

The Monster

 

For the umpteenth time that morning she bent down to retrieve the toy dog from the parquet floor. Each time she felt the weight of the unborn drag at her, pulling her forward, straining the muscles in her back. At one stage she had become tired of the game and left the chewed toy on the floor but her boy had started screaming at the top of his voice. Unable to stand his piercing screams she had given it back to him.

“I wish you were out of that phase,” she muttered, tired. That stupid game. It kept her from catching up with all the housework that had accumulated. There was the laundry waiting, a pile of dirty dishes, the beds were still unmade and lunch, only an hour off, was not to be thought of. Leaving the boy to chew on the ears of Doggy she went to the washing machine in the bathroom. She opened the door and stuffed a pile of vile smelling cotton diapers into it. In the living room the boy gave a happy gurgle, a sure sign that once more Doggy had landed on the floor. Moments later the gurgle turned into a whimper and quickly into full-scale foghorn volume. She sighed and hurried to set the machine in motion.

“It's ok, lovely, momma is coming.” Outside, the howling continued unabated. She hurried back into the living room and picked the hateful toy up. She pressed it into the boy's hands and his knitted, angry brows and overflowing eyes cleared with miraculous swiftness to sunny contentment. She knew she had a few minutes of grace before the toy would be used for ballistic research again. She looked at the clock in the kitchen and then at the mountain of dirty dishes. She should be thinking about lunch, her husband would soon come home. He wasn't an exigent eater but he expected his meals to be ready on the dot. She began running the water from the tap into the sink, shoving dishes around to get the dirt water out. Behind her Doggy slapped wetly on the floor but she couldn't hear it amidst the nervous clattering of the dishes. She glanced again at the clock. A plate slipped from her soapy fingers and hit the rim of the sink. There was a dimmed sound as the plate split in two and disappeared into the sudsy water. Her boy's piercing scream and her own exclamation came in perfect synchrony.

For a moment the need to do several things at the same time paralysed her completely. The slight pulsing in her temple began to grow more intense with every heartbeat. The boy's wailing seemed to pierce her eardrums and scorch her brain. Suddenly jolted into action she dashed across the room, picked the boy up and shook him violently.

“Be quiet! Be quiet, I say!” The boy's head snapped violently back and he gave a howl of pain, quite different from his previous enervating wails. The mother stared with wide open eyes at his twisted mouth, his stiff body, vibrating with the shock of the violence directed against it.

“Oh my God! What have I done!” She began crying under the stress of too many emotions. Clutching the boy against her, she talked soothingly to him, with tears rolling down her own cheeks.

She staggered over to the sofa and curled herself into a small ball, the boy in her lap. Rocking him out of his distress she felt a deep emptiness inside her. He gave a last hiccup and then fell asleep. For a long moment she listened to his breathing, his small body still occasionally shaken by a tiny whimper. Tears still welled from under his eyelids, coursing down the side of his face.

She studied his rosebud mouth, the tiny, perfectly shaped fingers, curled into tight fists, the flush on his velvety cheeks. Finally a deep sigh escaped her.

“Dear God, you have created a monster.” She began crying again in silence, tears rolling down her face and mingling with those of her child.

The Changeling

The changeling

She heaved a sigh as she sank into the deep armchair. Her feet were giving her hell again. She was getting too heavy.

It was uncomfortably hot in the living room. As usual, he had insisted on drawing the curtains so that he could follow the match on the telly. For the umpteenth time she wondered why they only showed sports on a weekend. There were people who preferred watching something else, once in a while. She would have liked to read or knit but turning on the reading lamp would only elicit a protest from him. Since the armchair was the only comfortable piece in the house, apart from the sofa he was occupying, she was condemned to sit in the flickering blue light, trying to blend out the roaring of the spectators and the exited shouts of the commentator.

In her feet an army of ants was exercising with pins. She should take a foot bath. It would do her a world of good. If only she wouldn't have to get out of the armchair again. She closed her eyes to shut out the stroboscopic light that gave her a headache and snuggled a little deeper into the armchair.

“Goaaaal!” Her husband was shouting in harmony with thousands of other viewers. The echo reverberated through the street and drifted in through the gap in the curtain. She frowned. That would be water on Mrs. Jenkins' mill. Her living room adjoined theirs and the walls were very thin. Mrs. Jenkins always had some snide remarks after a match. She detested sports so Mr. Jenkins preferred to putter around in the garden.

She opened her eyes again. Her husband was lounging in the sofa, a can of beer in one hand, the bottom of his singlet riding up over his extended belly. The air in the room was sticky and humid and patches of sweat stained the fabric under his armpits and on his chest. In the flickering light the skin had an unhealthy, almost decayed looking cast, hanging in flabby folds over the waistband of his old moleskin. She knew that under the fabric of his pants his legs were thin as matchsticks, the muscles gone soft from lack of exercise, the knees knobbly and wrinkled.

He looks like some kind of gnome, a monster, a food devouring machine, a visual vacuum cleaner, sucking up the images of the telly. What has become of the trim young man, full of energy and a sense of adventure?

Was this the man she had once felt was Prince Charming? Who was this disgusting old man? For almost forty years she had washed and cleaned, cared for him and the children, run up and down the stairs of their small house, lugged the food up the steep road from the supermarket because he had needed the car to go to work. Somewhere along the line her Prince Charming had become a frog and no kissing would turn him back again. Like a changeling from a fairy tale he had been turned into something loathsome.

He burped and scratched his belly. “My can is empty. I need another one.” His eyes didn't leave the screen as he held out the empty can to her.

She looked at him from narrow eyes. For many years this had been her signal to get up and bring him another one. Today she was too tired.

“What's the matter? Didn't you hear? Get me another beer!” Her silence finally caused him to tear his eyes for a split second from the scree. Enough to make sure she was there and alive. He held out the can and shook it impatiently.

“Get it yourself,” she said calmly.

His eyes snapped back from the screen, unbelieving. She smiled faintly, and closed her eyes. As she dozed off she heard the clatter of the empty beer can, dropping from his hand.

Written about 1998, revised 2013

Song of Crystal

Episode 1 Head-huntress

“Hold it right there!”

He froze. That tickling in his neck told him a weapon was pointed at his back. He knew that feeling well. Years on the run had developed it into an almost mystical sense. Too bad it didn't warn him before people started pointing guns at him.

“Raise your hands. Slowly.”

The steely undertone set his nerves tingling. He spread his hands away from his body.

Can I make it around the corner into the warren of the smugglers' quarters? He discarded the thought as futile

“Turn around. Slowly!”

He turned, as requested, his hands level with his head, while his eyes looked for a way out

The gun was an ugly piece of technology, its power setting glowing a malevolent red. One shot and he'd be a puff of greasy smoke. The woman holding the gun was a different matter. She was gorgeous. Deadly gorgeous. A Venus fly trap in human shape.

He smiled slowly. “What...”

“What's a pretty thing like you doing with such a big gun?” she cut in. “Don't bother saying it. I've heard it all. They all regretted their words.” She nodded at him. “Your gun.”

The narrow passage offered no means to dive for cover. Resigned he pulled the gun out of its holster with two fingers and dropped it.

“Your other gun. In your boot.”

He looked back at her, spread his arms, smiled as if to say... you got me... that's it.

She didn't buy it.

“Why don't you make life easy for us and just unpack? There's another gun, three knives and a Laothian boomslang hidden on you. Quite aside from a set of blowpipe and darts, and a coil of mono filament. Don't forget that pack of booby-trapped rare poisons!” she added, sounding amused, “Are you sure you packed everything this morning?”

He gritted his teeth. She's got you down pat there. Giving a shrug he started to discard his arsenal of weaponry. Finally he spread his hands again. “That's it.”

Her thumb flipped a switch on her gun and she shot him.

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