All stories

It was the note that did it. ‘Gone to Sandra’s. Don’t wait up’ scrawled in crayon on the back of an old Cineworld ticket and held in place with a Coca Cola fridge magnet.

Mike snatched the note from the fridge and crumpled it in his hand. Jesus, he thought, if his wife was going to lie to him, she should at least do her homework. He’d filled up with petrol on the way home, slipping a sneaky pack of 20 Marlboro onto the bill, hoping Julie wouldn't notice when she did the receipts at the end of the month. It was Sandra who had served him in the garage, leering at him over the till, oh so casually undoing another button on her too tight polyester uniform. Mike was mesmerised by the way her name badge jiggled just above her right breast. ‘Evening, sexy’ she ran her tongue around her bubblegum pink lips. ‘Always a pleasure to see you in here. I finish at 8,’ she passed him his receipt, her hand brushing his. ‘Julie’s out tonight, isn't she? If you fancy some company.’ Mike blushed, ‘Thanks Sandra, but I don’t think so, do you? What with me being married, and you being married?’ Sandra shrugged, ‘Well if you change your mind ….’

As he stared at the crumpled note of lies, thoughts raced through his head. All the times over the last couple of months that Julie had gone out alone, often not taking her mobile, and never answering it when she did. And how did Sandra know Julie wouldn't be home tonight? And where the hell was she anyway? He took a cigarette from the pack and lit it over the gas hob. He dialled Julie's number, but wasn't surprised when she didn't answer. After the third attempt he gave up. Wherever she was, and whatever she was doing, fuck it, let her her get on with it. He checked the time and reached again for his phone. Two can play at that game. Sandra answered on the second ring. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’ The image of Sandra’s jiggling breasts diminished any guilt he was feeling about his errant wife. ‘Yeah, come on over.’

And they were even more delightful in real, naked life, Mike thought, as he pushed her out the front door an hour later. He was straightening the cushions on the sofa when he heard Julie’s keys in the door. ‘Hellooooo’ she shouted down the hall. Her face was flushed pink, and she was holding an ornately carved wooden coat stand. ‘Ta da’ she thrust the coat stand towards Mike. ‘It’s a surprise. For your birthday. I know it’s a couple of week’s away but I finished it tonight and wanted you to have it.’ Mike took the coat stand, the confusion on his face apparent because Julie continued ‘I’ve been doing a woodwork course. Thats where I’ve been, the last couple of months, at the community centre. I’ve learnt so much. Sawing, planing, dovetailing, screwing …..’

The Jones System for Screw Organisation and Delivery (JSSOD)

There he was on the stage, Captain Marvel Edwards, test pilot extraordinaire, him of the flowing blond locks and beautiful, beautiful white teeth. Jonesy of the balding locks and too many fillings was sat near the back with the other grunts – Chief Mechanic, him! – and in the rows ahead of him were personnel bods and project managers and even a guy from Poughkeepsie who’d won a tour in a raffle. There were murmurs of discontent from the other grunts as Marvel took the applause and beamed for the flashbulbs. He would be nowhere without men and women like Jonesy, without someone who had personally screwed in forty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty two tiny screws that would stop the temporal ship flying apart when the launch started.

And then it happened.

Down from the stage came Captain Marvel, down from the stage and into the crowd.

‘Where is he? Where’s the guy? Where’s the genius behind the patented Jones organisation and screw delivery system? The guy without whom I would be nothing if he hadn’t personally screwed in the forty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty two tiny screws that will stop the temporal ship flying apart when the launch started.’

Back stage Marvel asked him did he want a girl, or a guy? When Jonesy murmured of his wife, Marvel grinned at him, told him to fetch her along too. When Jonesy demurred once more Marvel took off his aviator sunglasses and through a smile that was forced and with eyes rimmed by fatigue almost begged him – ‘Please, take someone off my hands – for an afternoon! You don’t know what it’s like – I’m the man that men want to be, and women want to be with. I just want to sit down for a while, have a cup of tea!’

Though soon enough he would be sitting, and all by himself. He would be piloting the temporal ship on its maiden flight, strapped into the chair (187 screws) inside the cockpit (1,300 screws) just in front of the housing of the fusion reactor (25,038 screws).

Jonesy had a ticket to watch the launch from a nearby Cineworld with a bunch of the other ground crew, but not after that. The scrum he had to face trying to leave the facility, and it was nothing compared to the crowds of people at home, friends and neighbours and all the too busy to smile dog walkers, all of them suddenly wanting to shake the hand that had screwed together the most important ship in the history of science. He turned his car around, parked two blocks away and then crossed seven gardens until he arrived at his own.

Another scrum here, around the holoscreen in the lounge. When they saw him they surged his way. Jonesy retreated into his fortress of solitude – his garage. It was home to his pride and joy, a ’38 Lotus two seater he had put together from a kit. It was a mere twenty-seven thousand four hundred and six separate parts, but just to lay his hands on that gleaming bonnet, to feel the chill of the metal.

Calm slowly returned, his breathing settled.

When there was a discrete tap at the door a few minutes later he was calm enough for it not to startle. It was his wife, and she thrust through a crayon scribble on a piece of paper. It was a stick man lacking in hair with his right hand aloft holding onto a giant screwdriver.

Jones opened the door and let his wife into the garage. She shut the door and then locked it. She faced him, and said, ‘Hey mister, aren’t you the guy who invented the Jones System for Screw Organisation and Delivery?’

Jonesy could only nod.

His wife undid her top button. ‘So you’re king of screwing, right?’

Jonesy nodded again.

His wife got into the sports guy, and, holding the door open, said, ‘You gonna join me?’

Forty-seven minutes later she had to beg him to stop, but this time it wasn’t old baseball scores that has so effectively staved off the moment, this time it was a rattle, it was a sound from the car that should not have been there. He had put the car together using his system, he had worked out all the kinks in the system on this very car prior to accounting for and screwing in every single one of the forty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty two screws on the test ship.

Jonesy tore through the eighty seven binders till he found the section (suspension, rear, off side), and from there he went to the box sixteen and box ninety-three of the part installation confirmation forms to confirm that – yes – every single part of the suspicion had been fitted.

And yet, there was a noise. There was a rattle.

Jonesy went now to the original boxes for the car, able to find exactly the box he was looking for thanks to his label maker and the cross reference inked on both installation confirmation forms and written down four times in the binder.

Inside the box was a single teeny weeny steel screw, the lack of which was causing the car’s suspension to rattle.

‘Oh shit,’ Jonesy said. ‘I need to sit down.’

Hook, line and sinker

Rosa pinned up her wispy white hair and surveyed her reflection in the lopsided mirror. You’re not 21, she thought, but you’ll do.

Carol, her eldest, had suggested the online dating and she resisted at first. But, Rosa reasoned, it wasn’t fair to be such a burden on Carol and the grandkids. It wasn’t up to them to keep her company now that she found herself so suddenly alone. She smiled wistfully at their crayon scribbles pinned up around her dressing table and resolutely swiped right.

She was meeting Mike - or was it Nigel? Better check. Nigel: 68, no children. Rosa didn’t know what GSOH was, but she was surprised to find herself excited for the first time in what felt like forever.

She pulled on her smart coat at the front door. The coat hooks were working themselves loose again; she’d have to see to it. Gerald had always managed that side of things, she was useless at it, but she wouldn’t think of Gerald now. Nigel was waiting. She shut the front door with a determined bang and sashayed confidently down the street.

She’d stood in the drizzle for half an hour outside Cineworld when she realised that Nigel wasn’t coming, her smart coat leaking, pretty hairdo all spoiled and feeling a perfect idiot.

She walked slowly home, past the closed up clubs and the disused garage, under the creepy bridge that smelled of pee and pigeons and feeling dreadfully sorry for herself. She planned to get in, turn on the radio to drown out the awful silence and make some biscuits that nobody but she would eat.

Then the rain began in earnest. She hadn’t brought her brolly and, almost without thinking, Rosa ducked into the nearest shop to shelter from the deluge.

It was a hardware shop. She’d never been in one before, but there was something about the smell in there she liked. It felt solid. Real. She thought of her drooping coat hooks and sagging shelves and suddenly felt filled with determination. Why not learn to fix these things herself? She was a capable woman - if she could make a souffle she could mend a shelf!

“Young man?” she beckoned an assistant, blushing at how old-womanish she sounded. But she stood firm and asked what she’d need for some simple DIY.

He led her to shelves stacked with boxes of nails, packets of screws, cellophane-wrapped hammers and vicious-toothed saws. There was a gentleman there already, who tipped Rosa a wink. She blushed.

They browsed together silently for a while. Rosa thought she’d need screws, so she picked up a packet, but she was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by the array of products. She was starting to panic when the gentleman turned to her with a leer:

“I’m pretty good at the old ‘screwing’, love” he told her “How about it?”

Excellent, thought Rosa, smiling and taking his proffered arm. This DIY crowd was very friendly - perhaps he’d help with her coat hooks!