All stories

The Salty Landlubber was the only place to go in our village that didn’t just serve watery tea and damp biscuits to gummy pensioners. If it wasn’t exactly loved, it was certainly a well-used, familiar establishment.

Our village is like a bucket of crabs, where everyone pulls each other down and down and down again, until the thought of leaving seems an impossible dream, vague and indistinct, like the idea of heaven. But at least you could get your pint and your packet of salt and vinegar crisps down the Lubber after a hard day at the Factory.

You got everyone in the Lubber, from your hardened drinkers, chasing whisky with whisky night after night, to your underage dabblers, overwhelmed to nausea by their lurid alcopops. Mrs Quean didn’t care. She’d serve anyone, long as you had your £2.40 or whatever. She’d survey the room meanly, draping us in the oxymoron of her smile as a lifetime of pounds and pennies dribbled steadily from our pockets to hers.

I remember her now, standing squint-eyed in front of the jars of pickled bratwursts, floating like severed limbs in vinegar, until someone had a fancy for one and it was delivered, all pink-wobbly and dripping, wrapped in a serviette, begging for dick jokes.

I was fifteen when I first strode inside with my child’s version of what I thought confidence looked like. I ordered my Snakebite and stood for several trembling moments under her basilisk gaze - I thought that she’d refuse, or gobble me up right there at the bar. But serve me she did, and I often thought how things might have turned out for me, if she hadn’t.

We used to talk about all kinds of things back then - what we’d do when we finished school, when we got a car, when we became supervisor at the Factory, when we’d saved enough to leave the Factory for good.

In hushed whispers over our pints we’d plan and dream and laugh at those hopeless old soaks who’d laughed at us on our first day. Of course, we didn’t know then why they were really laughing; what they knew that we didn’t.

I remember how hammered Jonny Graves got when he passed his A levels, the only one of us brave enough to even try. Fell down the steps outside and we carried him home. Same when he proposed to Fiona, because he’d knocked her up behind the bikeshed. She’d had twins and Jonny’d not gone to Uni after all. I remember his eldest getting married, and then she was pregnant with her own twins. They say it’s like that with twins, don’t they?

And then, one day, we looked up and inexplicably found that it was us propping up the bar now, trading our pints for the cheapest whisky that would get the job done - our excuses for staying here, in this awful place, trailed behind us like oily petrol in the wake of a captainless ship.

“Where are we going today mummy?” Jack ran full pelt out of the school gates brandishing an invisible sword at Sadie and making the swooshing sounds.Sadie leaned in, conspiratorially.

“Today I really need your help Frodo - I need someone to guide me through Fangorn Forest, past the Trolls’ Lair and all the way round the Mattress Mountain to Bag End - can you help?”

“Fangorn Forest? Yesss! Let’s go!” and Jack was off.

Pushing through the groups of schoolchildren and their parents Sadie kept her head down. Jack was off ahead, slaying invisible but deadly foes, charging on his noble steed. They had named him Rocinante when Jack had been in his Don Quixote phase and he’d stuck around through all their adventures.

Sadie had enjoyed teaching him about Don Quixote, the windmill giants and Sancho Panza. She’d loved telling him Greek myths and watching him run about as Zeus and Poseidon. She had been less keen when he’d played nothing but Power Rangers for six weeks, but now he seemed to be embracing Lord of the Rings and she felt she was on home territory again.

Jack leaped triumphantly onto a bench, but his windmilling arms were in danger of taking out some school friends, so Sadie hurried over, braving the judgemental glares from the other parents and whispered in his ear.

“Frodo - there’s danger - Saruman’s spies are watching. We have to keep a low profile till we get into the Forest. Put on The One Ring.”

Jack sheathed his sword and they crept together along the crowded street. But as soon as the rounded the corner into the housing estate Jack ran ahead, kicking at the empty yoghurt pots and crisp wrappers lining the gutter..

He only drew back when they reached the house on the corner. Bag End was in sight, but they weren’t there yet.

“Jack - you need to guide me past the Trolls’ Lair and they mustn’t hear us, OK? Don’t wake them or they’ll gobble you up! ”

Sadie’s heart was racing. If they could just get past the door…

And they made it. Nobody came out. Sadie sighed in relief.

“Stupid Trolls” shouted Jack “I’ll cut off their heads and I’ll flush them down the toilet! I’m not afraid of them.”

But Sadie was.

Mattress mountain loomed. Always a challenge. Jack wanted to climb it.

“Wolves” Sadie improvised, pointing “They’ll eat you as soon as look at you up there. Look - Bag End! Last one to the door’s a rotten orc!”

Disaster averted with a battle cry and a sprint.

Inside, Sadie shut the door behind them. She looked out of their shabby window at the street littered with discarded, urine soaked mattresses, shopping trollies, broken bottles; the drug dealer’s house on the corner where the addicts came and went in varying states; the peeling paint; the rusting cars; the squalor that she painted into magical shapes for Jack and carved into monsters to be overcome.

I pressed firmly at the pearl white bell push set inside the ring of gold. The bell dinged merrily but faded away sadly mid dong.

Mrs Taylor opened the door and peered at me through her glasses.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘you’ll do.’ She stepped aside from the door and beckoned me inside the hallway richly carpeted with a floral pattern, wallpaper bright in blue and gold vertical stripes. She patted the top of an ornate chair, wooden scrollwork up the back, base of it padded in pink silk.

‘Just pop your clothes on there and I’ll show you to the sickly door chimes.’

She was all bulging fish eyes through her glasses.

‘Uh, I’m Doctor Smith, here to have a little chat with you.’

A scowl deepened her wrinkles.

‘The head doctor,’ she said. ‘Well I’m busy, you’ll just have to take me as you find me.’

She marched off down the hall, stopping abruptly next to the first door she reached.

‘I’m sure they’ve told you of the parrot cage. Yes, you will find inside a green plastic parrot glued to the perch. I’m partial to the cage for sentimental reasons, but I can’t abide all that squawking.’

She turned and walked, but paused after another half step.

‘And you’ll find the fish tank, and what’s a fish tank but a picture of life under the waves so why not a picture of some fish? No water to change, and the sound of that pump was getting on my nerves.’

She marched again, down the hall and through into the kitchen. A vast cauldron was atop the stove, steam wisping gently from the top.

‘It’s yoghurt, for Zeus,’ she said.

‘And Zeus is your cat?’

‘He’s in the conservatory.’

Sitting on a bench reading a copy of The Guardian was a well muscled black man, firm biceps and pecs glistening in the sunshine. He looked up and showed a wide smile full of bright white teeth. I edged back into kitchen.

‘So that’s Zeus. Is he…?’

‘Oh yes, completely. Would you like to see his ding dong?’

I could only shake my head limply.

‘Oh he doesn’t mind. Between you and me, I think he enjoys it. He was off with his togs and strutting about with the duster before we even discussed his daily fee.’

‘Is he your…?’

‘Good Lord, heavens no! I’m eighty-four years old – that ship has long sailed, and sunk in the harbour. But I can still ogle from the shore.’

From the bread bin she took out a thick sheaf of paper, edges curled and worn, post it notes sticking from the edges.

‘My will,’ she said. ‘I like to keep it handy, for up to the minute adjustments.’

She set it down at the table and took a seat. She raised a thick black marker.

‘Now then,’ she said. ‘Which of my lovely family was it hired you to say I’m mad?’

Dressed in a Dougie Howser white coat, Mark walked in to the lecture theatre on his first day of med school. His entire (short) life had been building to this moment. This was where the living really began. Gray’s anatomy, dissection rooms, ward rounds – this was it. No more piss taking from the cool kids. No more ostracism for being the geeky weirdo in the front of the class, hand in the air with answers ready to go. Mark was now among kindred souls.

The first week was a little more mundane than he anticipated. Enrolment followed by a whole 2 hour session on how to access the learning modules. Being treated like a fool was wholly unbearable.

‘aardvark, aardvarks, abaci, aback, abacus, abacuses…’ The ritual began. Mark used to find it difficult to control his anxiety. Having such an extreme intelligence made it seem as if the world around him was working in slow motion. Could people really be so stupid? What if he was turning as stupid as they were? At the age of 13, he memorised the entire alphabet to protect himself from the ‘stupidity demons’. This way, whenever things got even slightly uneasy or uncomfortable or even if he had to engage in social etiquette that was just all too hideous, he could resort to something logical and worthwhile.

‘abaft, abalone, abalones, abandon…’

“Dude! Like, what the HELL?”

An affected lad of 18 sitting to his right turned in his direction. Tousled blonde hair stark against sunkist skin from a summer hanging out at the parental pad in coastal Cornwall – a landlubber used only to wearing the surfing look.

Mark’s mummerings couldn’t drown out the incessant drone of inane chatter around him. He raised the volume a smidge and started playing with the label on his pure silk neck tie.

“Seriously dude. You need to tone it down!” Blondie was leaning in to make his point heard. Too close, too close! Mark couldn’t bear it. He was in hyperdrive now, racing through the G’s, H’s and I’s.

“For god’s sake….” A tanned arm grabbed hold of Mark’s shoulder.

“OXYGENATION, OXYMORON, OYSTER.”

The whole lecture theatre turned en-masse to stare at the root of the noise.

“PAEDOPHILIA, PAELLA..” Mark’s mouth was foaming. There was no way out of it now. He was lost in the cycle and knew that he had to go all the way to the end of the alphabet to make it all OK. He stood up and stammered his way loudly through U, V and W.

“ZESTY, ZETA, ZEUS, ZIG…” The end was in sight. “ZOOS, ZULU, ZULUS!” He had done it! He sat down exhausted, his blood sugar having taken a serious dip. Mark reached into his bag and pulled out a packet of special edition bratwurst flavoured Pringles. As he ate, the swirling in his head stopped, his vision became less blurred. Half way through his second mouthful, he realised the entire room was watching him – 200 jaws open in amazement.

I stared at the tumescent bratwurst on my plate, curled, turd-like, and glistening. How had this come to pass? It had seemed a fairly ordinary day, when I had awoken in my 2nd floor flat in east London (not the cool bit, sad to say). How was I now in Berlin, sitting outside a bar, surrounded by a drunk party of stags dressed as pirates shouting ‘avast ye, landlubbers’ and other ludicrous stereotypy at the top of their lungs while they pretended to fight one another with invisible swords and calling anyone over a B cup who had the misfortune to pass by ‘busty wenches’. Wankers.

Well, this sausage wasn’t going to eat itself.

I looked at the man opposite me, handsome; but in that thick-as-pigshit kinda way. You know the type? The sort of fella who could make passing females crash their cars into a roundabout whilst checking out his tattoos on a scaffold, bit couldn't spot an oxymoron at 100 paces, let alone spell or define it.

I excused myself and made my way to the lady’s room. It seemed excessively still and calm in there after the rowdy hubbub outside, in which the only words I could understand came from the stag party. I opened the door to the middle cubicle and sat myself down on the cool toilet seat. Perhaps I could just stay here where it was cool and quiet until things started to make a bit more sense.

---

I awoke with a start, my face pressed against the tiles and a trail of drool hanging from the corner of my mouth. I was lying on the floor of the cubicle, one arm bent backwards and trailing up the wall behind me, legs in child’s pose, and the other hand extended into the adjacent cubicle. I tried to stand, and felt the blood rushing back into my legs, so wobbled myself onto the toilet seat. This made even less sense. Had the sausage been spiked? But if so, why?

I left the lavatories, completely discombobulated. I didn’t know what time it was, and until I reached the darkened street and noticed the German on the signs above the closed shops and closing bars, I’d forgotten that I was even in Berlin. The table I’d occupied with fit-but-thick earlier was empty. Well, if it had been him who’d spiked me, he’d clearly given up waiting. The floor was scattered with fag butts and bottle tops, sticky with spillages. It had obviously been a good night.

I walked away, unsure where I was and unsure where to go, eyes roving left and right and up and down, looking for clues, familiarity, something to latch onto. But there was nothing. I walked, and walked, and walked. And as the orange of the street lights faded into the ink of dawn, I reached the train station.

‘One ticket to Paris, please’.