…Staggered through the heavy, creaking iron gates shortly before 9.30 a.m., heavy eyed and stiff limbed.  Slight suspicion that tongue may have been sand-papered overnight.  What a party it was!  Seven straight dandelion and burdocks and two helpings of trifle from those crinkled paper bowls.  Also Marmite sandwiches and Cheese & Onion crisps.  Sausages on sticks.  And red jelly.  Sally, the short freckled girl with braces on her teeth and unevenly pierced ears, made a big play for me during Postman’s Knock.  It took me a whole two hours to get the jelly out of my ear.  Also partial night brace from my left nostril.

Glanced up through designer sun-glasses to meet the stare of “Hoppy” Hopcroft as I stumbled gingerly towards the school entrance.  Smiled sweetly at him as he spun away on his black leather-luk swivel chair.  Have never been afraid of Hoppy – his school needs me: best runner in school, demon centre forward, ace seam bowler, opening bat and all round sporting hero.  Anyway, the photos I took of him and Miss Denby in the senior cloak room have always given me the edge.

Morning break.  Sat with Alison Penderford whilst others chased a threadbare tennis ball around to a final score of 47 – 33, twelve grazed knees, one badly sprained ankle, two fat lips (both, strangely, attached to the same face) and an already neurotic playground monitor taken to matron’s office with whistle fatigue.  Meanwhile, I took Alison behind the bike sheds and gave her the full benefit of my training as a doctor’s nephew.  She promised that I would be first to know if she suffered a sudden attack of breasts.

Sat through geography with Mr. Laing, vainly trying to concentrate on his lecture about watersheds, or anti-cyclones, or something, but unable to wrench my eyes away from his armpits.  Has he never heard of anti-perspirant?  He must be single.  No partner would allow him to sweat like that.  Nor wear those socks.  Or the purple toupee.  Nylon I shouldn’t wonder.  Probably attached with copydex.  Like my eyelids.

Shared a table with Linda James at lunch time.  She is a sweet girl and almost certain to embark upon puberty at any moment.  I do not want to miss it.  I gave her one of my luncheon meat fritters and she agreed to notify me the moment there are any developments.

Summoned to Hoppy’s office at 1.30 p.m.  He did not mess about.  He immediately offered me ten pounds in return for which I was to tell the rest of the class that I had been reduced to tears by his erudite and fearsome wit.  I enquired whether this was a bribe and he said `No’.  I said, `Good,’ and showed him the photos.

He made a renewed offer of fifty pounds, which I was pleased to accept.  We shook hands amicably and I made a mental note to look out the snaps of Hoppy in an extra-curricular romp with Mr. Wynecroft, the school janitor.  I intend to email a copy to myself in case of accident.  Also if Mr. Wynecroft attempts to show me up in front of Betty Smith again.

Fought with four uncouth youths from 7C during afternoon break, confirming my belief in the efficacy of a brick-loaded satchel.  The reason for this unseemly brawl was a loudly intoned slander on my good name.  I prefer not to go into detail, but suffice it to say that the question of my sexuality was raised, owing to my preference for spending the games session in the gym with the girls rather than out on the cold and muddy rugby pitch with the boys, none of whom are conversant with the game’s etiquette, preferring on most occasions a swift kick in the groin to the more orthodox flying tackle.  Anyway, I am allergic to mud. 

Walking home with Valerie, she suggested that we could find something interesting to do in the woods.  Blood coursed through my young, unfurred veins at a pressure that made me fear the imminent explosion of my upper cranium.  Scenes from ‘Don’t Stop Now’ flashed through my mind.  Or was it ‘Toy Story’?  I can never be sure, I slept through both.  “Hurry up,” lisped Valerie, leading me away to pleasures unknown.  Visions of two naked bodies, dappled with late afternoon sunlight as it filtered diaphanously through the autumn-brown leaves; relaxing contentedly entwined, leaning back against the trunk of an ancient oak, sharing a gob-stopper, one colour change apiece…

Picked thirty two conkers and found an old kettle which is probably solid gold.  Part of Captain Kidd’s hidden treasure I shouldn’t wonder.  Valerie took it home to her dad.  I’m sure a skilled craftsman could fashion a new lid, replace the spout and repair the hole in order to return it to its former glory, and Valerie’s dad has just bought a new hammer.

Past dark when I got home.  Mum yelled in a muffled sort of way (her teeth were soaking in a mug of bleach) and tried to hit me with a box of fish fingers.  I ran upstairs and wedged the bedroom door.  Below, I could hear my parents discussing what to watch on Netflix and arguing over the last tin of lager.  Attempted to read one of dad’s magazines under the bedclothes by the light of my phone.  Perhaps my battery is going, but I couldn’t make out the pictures at all.  I could not tell if I was holding them the right way up.  Certainly there was something amiss with the man whose beard had slipped, and I wouldn’t want to meet Doreen from Devon on a dark night.  Downstairs, not even the gathered might of Fast & Furious 73 could disguise the fact that mum and dad had settled the dispute over the lager and were now setting about the contents of mum’s secret gin bottle (not as strong as it was, since I discovered it).  Strange rustlings and giggling as I dropped off to sleep.

Slept fitfully, waiting for the inevitable thump of parents attempting to climb the stairs quietly; faint echoes of whispered abuse; pleas to come out of the bathroom quickly, and the distant twang of the Slumberdown.

Sex, drink and violence, that’s all adults ever think about…

First Published 09.05.2020

Originally written for a magazine that went bust before the end of the print run. We all love a morality tale don’t we?

The old man placed the single gold coin onto the scales and peered myopically at the needle in the centre of the balance.  ‘Doesn’t weigh enough, he said, glancing down over the rim of his glasses.  ‘It’s not heavy enough for a sovereign.’
‘It’s not a sovereign,’ replied the man on the other side of the meshed metal grille.
‘I know that,’ said the old man.  ‘I told you, it doesn’t weigh enough… and it weighs too much for a half sovereign.’
‘It’s not one of those either.’
‘I know that,’ sighed the old man, pushing the wire frame of his glasses back along the bridge of his nose.  ‘I told you, it weighs too much.’  The old man shifted slightly in his seat and studied the man who had presented him with the unfamiliar gold coin.  He was small.  He was fidgety, nervous thought the old man.  Better watch him.

The small man removed his hat and scratched his head.  He was even smaller without the head gear.  ‘Well,’ he asked, staring up, his eye line below the height of the counter.  ‘Will you buy it?’
‘I don’t know.  What is it?’
‘It’s a punt Éireannach.’
‘A what?  A punt?  They never made gold punts.’

The little man stared down at the floor, grappling with his thoughts.  After a few moments he looked straight up at the man with the scales.  He sighed deeply.  ‘Leprechaun gold,’ he said.  ‘It’s Leprechaun gold.  From the end of a rainbow.’

The pawn broker readjusted his glasses and carefully studied the elvin man on the other side of the screen.  He was even smaller than a more casual glance had led him to believe.  Child sized.  But he had a beard and long grey hair.  He looked like an ageing cherub in a green twill suit.  The uncle spoke slowly, as if to a child.  ‘Leprechaun gold you say?  From the end of a rainbow, you say?’
‘You musta seen it,’ said the little fellow.  ‘The rainbow.  You musta seen it yesterday.’
‘I saw the rainbow,’ he replied.  ‘You’re saying that this gold coin came from the end of it?’
The dwarf nodded so violently that his hat flew from his head.  He picked it up, dusted it and wedged it back in place, pulling it down firmly to his ears.
‘So, it is actually yours?’ asked the pawn broker.
‘I told you, it’s Leprechaun gold.’
‘And?’
‘And I’m a Leprechaun, hence it is mine.’
‘Is it not,’ enquired the dealer, leaning forward slightly in order to more closely observe the lovat Lillipution on the other side of the counter.  ‘Is it not the property of whomever finds the end of the rainbow.  Is that not what it is there for?’
‘Human myth,’ said the homoncule.  ‘Leprechaun gold belongs to Leprechauns.’
‘So how come you’ve only got one coin?  If it’s gold from the rainbow’s end, it comes in pots, doesn’t it?’
‘It was a small rainbow.  I’m a lone worker.  Don’t have the resources to deal with the big jobs.  Have to leave those to the big boys – as it were…’
‘So you’re telling me that Leprechauns don’t put the gold at the end of the rainbows?’
The Leprechaun answered with nothing more than a derisive snort.
‘So who does put the gold there then?’
‘Ah,’ said the Leprechaun.  ‘That’s the mystery, isn’t it?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Well of course not.  Nobody knows.’
‘So you can’t possibly know who it actually belongs to.’
‘Well I found it.’
‘I went to London,’ said the old man in the chair.  ‘And I found Buckingham Palace.  Doesn’t mean I own it.’
The Leprechaun looked at him long and hard.  Tension pulled so tight on the muscles of his forehead that his hat fell down over his eyes.  ‘Ah feckit,’ he said.  ‘D’youse want to buy it or not?’
‘I’ll give you fifty Euro,’ said the man.
‘Fifty Euro,’ spluttered the pygmy.  ‘Fifty feckin’ Euro?  It’s worth twice that.’
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘Fifty Euros?  You’d rob a feckin’ Leprechaun.’
‘But you’re not actually a Leprechaun at all, are you?’
The little man pulled himself up to his full height, which just allowed him to see over the counter top.  He seethed with impotent rage.  ‘I want cash mind,’ he said at last.

The man counted out the notes and slid them under the grille, from where the emerald-hued elf snatched them and stashed them under his hat.  ‘Not a feckin’ Leprechaun,’ he said, turning to leave.  ‘I wish you good day sir.’  And with a ‘Pop!’ he disappeared.  As did the coin in the pawnbroker’s scales… 

First Published 30.11.2019

I remember only that there was a rainbow in the distance as I wrote this. It remains one of my favourite stories…

The bus was empty, but I knew as soon as I saw him climb aboard, that he would choose to sit beside me.  He smelled like a dump in summer and something of which he appeared completely unaware, was moving around under his coat.  He tried to release a smile, but it merely flitted across his face like a leer in a convent and as he sat, he turned his entire body towards me as though his head had become fused to his shoulders.  He licked his lips revealing teeth the colour of teak.  He had eyes like midnight and breath like petrol, his hair sat atop his head like a hat, threadbare, unkempt and matted like a cat that could no longer clean itself, undisturbed since sleep.  He pulled a slightly threadbare fur coat tight around his shoulders, just failing to cover the lace neckline of the nightdress he wore beneath it, in an overt attempt to create a small space between us.  In his hand he carried a small stuffed toy: a penguin I think, it was hard to tell.  His stare forced me to look away and casting my eyes down I noticed that his shoes were several sizes too big for his feet, that one sole flapped loosely, mouth-like, allowing fleeting glimpses of an un-socked foot as he moved his toes rhythmically, as if they were accompanying a song in his head.

I had seen him before walking around the town, unhurried and unbothered by both drunken youths and bored policemen, and I ‘knew’ his story in my head, his name and everything about him.  His name, I concluded, was Geoffrey and he had a St John in there somewhere.  His surname was double-barrelled, probably featuring a double ‘f’.  He was definitely aristocratic, devoted to his mother who had died unexpectedly – probably from Lassa Fever or something equally romantic – leaving him alone, vulnerable and, eventually, here on the upper deck of a midnight bus with me.  A mental breakdown between then and now I surmised, life in an institution surrounded by his mother’s furs and nightclothes, and his own childhood toys, but nobody to care when he wasn’t there at night.  Nobody to worry.

I offered him a mint which he took with thin, elegant but grubby hands and a nod of thanks.  His nails were long and grimy, but elegantly filed into shape.  It seemed strange that he should take such care over the shape of his nails, but show no concern over the filth that had accumulated behind and around them.  I wondered if he cared for anything else in his life or whether this was the last thing he refused to let go.  I noticed that he had worn a ring until recently, the mark still palely traced across his finger, and wondered if it had been stolen from him or whether he had sold it to buy… what?  He didn’t smell of booze or cigarettes, just decay.  He wore nothing that could have been even approximately new and I remembered that when I had seen him around the town centre in the past he had often worn long, white satin evening gloves, the kind that are only ever otherwise seen on overdressed women at the opera or by the murderer in an Agatha Christie mystery.  Where were they now?  Had they been taken with the ring?

The bus slowed to a halt and he half-turned his body so that he faced the curved mirror that allowed a view of the bus’s doors below.  He seemed fixated on the doors, but they did not open.  I guessed the stop was one of those where the driver had to stop – do they call them ‘timing points’? – but I wasn’t sure: I had never travelled the route before.  I would normally have got a taxi home, but it was a warm night so I had started to walk, unaware of the rainclouds developing in the darkness above my head.  I was sheltering in a bus stop when the bus came along so I jumped on and asked the driver where would be the best place to get off.  I won’t pretend that his first answer was altogether helpful, but eventually we found somewhere acceptable so I paid the fare and took a seat upstairs that was, as far as I could tell, out of his view and beyond any unwelcome conversation, where I sat, happily disengaged, until my ‘companion’ stumbled into his seat. 

Eventually,  after I’m not certain how long, maybe two or three minutes, the bus sighed, juddered into gear and pulled away from the kerb, and my companion dragged his attention away from the mirror.  I felt a sudden pressure to speak, but I am the king of the non-committal nod.  I have perfected the shy smile and slight eyebrow twitch to such a degree that I seldom find it necessary to actually engage anybody in conversation.  It wasn’t going to work here though, was it?  I knew I had to speak, but how to start?  “You know, you really could do with a bath,” was honest, but not entirely tactful.  “Excuse me, but is your name Geoffrey?” might lead him to think that I was confusing him with somebody else – I had no real basis whatsoever on which to assume that it really was his name.  How do you start a conversation with a smelly, old man upstairs on a midnight bus that is not open to misinterpretation?  “What’s a smelly old man like you doing on a shitty old bus like this and why, in God’s name, did you choose to sit next to me, putting me in this insidious position?” was probably not going to cut it.  In the end, societal cowardice dictated my subsequent strategy.  “Excuse me,” I muttered, half rising.  “I think this is my stop.”

And it was then that I caught the unmistakable glint of reflected light from the knife blade as I felt it nestle uncomfortably against my side.  I felt shocked at first, not by the action, but my reaction to it.  I knew that I would not be unable to lunge past him and all that I could remember thinking was, “How has he kept that blade so shiny when he can’t even wash his bloody hands?” but I felt it unwise to enquire.  I sat down heavily.  Should I shout out for the driver who, without question, would not put himself in danger to help me?  Strangely calm, I wondered whether this was how it was all going to end for me, on the top deck of a bus with a smelly old tramp, when a sudden realisation hit me, that he probably felt he was just protecting himself, that he himself had felt threatened by something that I had said or done.  I raised my arms, palms open, as I believe it is done, and opened my mouth to speak, but he merely lifted one grimy finger to his lips and shushed quietly.  “Money, phone and watch,” was all he said.

First Published 02.07.2022

I saw this man around town regularly. He was quiet, good natured, he went out of his way to avoid upsetting anyone, but I always thought he had a story to tell…