All stories

You feel the soft movement, whispering along the stained strips of old oak. A fluster of dust curls and settles like a breath. If ever a secret was laid to rest, this is where it would sleep. The room waits dark and forgotten. Forgotten, until sweet, rose cheeked Tom, 46 years old, discovers, in the last will and testament of his estranged and terrible father, he is now the owner of a small cottage, nestled near the banks of the Langollen Canal, North Wales. See him now, nervously tapping his chipped and chubby fingers on the crumbling table of the stumbling, ever stopping train. Watch as his arrival in the village goes unnoticed, not even a shop assistant to frown and wonder at his puffed and glowing jowls, as he buys Tesco Sushi, paid on Credit Card, and nods to the reassuring and judgement-free sound of the self-service lady.

Follow him down the mile or so of winding lanes in the afternoon sun, as he hums and the wind whistles along. Perhaps for a time he is happy. Gone is the distant drumming of the London crowds, the computers incessant clicking keyboard, the lonely bell of the 3 minute microwave meal. Sit with him as he rests a while, enjoying the view of the hill backed canal side, warm from his exertion, but not, for once, exhausted. Onwards now, to the call of something else. He feels it clutching at him, tugging, step by step, until. There.

Hear, as he stoops through the overgrown bushes, soft sighs surrounding him as he sweeps through the grass, thigh high and sweet smelling. In the dimming flicker of dusk, the cottage seems to glow. The creeping ivy clings and climbs, the crumbling brick, slips and sags. But the faded mousey door creaks hello, as it swings inwards.

As if by an instinct that he has never known existed, he potters into the kitchen, to light the stove. With the strike of the match, he is struck by the thought of his father, alone here, making his tea. He tries to imagine what his father would think of him now, but it has been too long an absence and the dark memories cast him little light. Instead he cleans a cup, scrubs the sink and sweeps the floor. How many years of dust have happily lied undisturbed here, to now shuffle off into the deeper cracksto rest.

He bends down now, drawn by an urge to feel the old oak beneath his hand. His creaking back and his tired knees do not stop him and he sits. He finds to his surprise that he can still smile. Once more he pictures his tiny shoebox flat, dug into the bottom of a soulless city house. He tries to remember what had happened to him and then realised that nothing had. In a moment he has slipped through 5 decades of life, unnoticed and unliving. He is sure now that, that was not him. His fingers tap, tap along the boards edge and he remembers something more. Something hidden under the surface. Something buried beneath the boards. His hand sweeps across their edges. The timeless wrinkles and crevices each tell their own story. Hold your breath as you wait for him. There is a secret here he thinks. He can feel it flowing across him, a touch on his stooped shoulder, a brush against his ever-red face. And then he names it. Peace. And he plunges, wholly and happily into its arms.

Even Duncan’s empty house made Amy nervous. Bulky, just like him, leaning back with its mates, windows peering down at her like sardonic eyes. She opened the gate and walked up the path, battling the buddleia that lurched out in front of her.

At the front door she felt the familiar anxiety wash over her. Even now, it felt like all the times when they were growing up and she was sent to fetch him home for his tea. His friends would jeer and push and laugh until, finally, after much pleading, he came away with her. It was Amy who’d be in trouble if they were late.

He wasn’t unkind, exactly, just older; part of that boyish world where affection was a punch on the arm and calling each other ‘cunt’ meant you were best friends. Far from her Sylvanian families and tea parties.

Amy forced the door open against the tide of junk mail and stepped inside.His house was a state. She’d expected that, a man living alone. Where Amy was taught to be neat and clean, Duncan was left to grow wild, like the buddleia, while mum washed his pants and tidied his things. Until he’d left home, finally, at thirty.

And he’d only done that because Uncle Jack had left him a bloody house. No house for Amy, who could look after herself. Duncan, the screw up, got everything handed to him on a plate.

Inside the air was stale and Amy found half-drunk cups of tea growing ecosystems abandoned about the place. The things the solicitor would need were in the study, so she waded across to the heavy wooden door and let herself in.

The rug looked odd. Perfectly aligned with the wall in a room where papers teetered in stacks and furniture stood at odds with the walls, it stood out among the chaos.

Amy shifted it with her foot and saw scratch marks around the edges of the floorboard beneath. She scrabbled at it for a moment then prised it up with her fingernails.

The box rested among the dust and balled up credit card receipts and Amy’s heart sank. What valuable object or wadge of cash had Duncan been given and hidden under the floorboards? Never mind Amy’s bills piling up, despite her two jobs, everyone had to make sure that Duncan wouldn’t starve, surviving on his giro cheque, poor lamb.

Impatiently, she opened the lid, eyes already pricking with tears of frustration, but it was full of old junk. A shell, a postcard with a canal boat on it, some crayon scribbles.

A small Sylvanian Families rabbit.

Amy stopped. She had given this to Duncan, the memory surged to life; he’d spent a rare afternoon with her. Not pulling her plaits or teasing, but asking questions and drinking imaginary tea. She’d forgotten. She’d given him the rabbit to make friends, but when she asked about it later, he said he’d lost it. She’d cried at that. But it was here all the time, among his treasures.

And suddenly it hit her that her big brother was gone - really gone; that she’d never really talked to him, and now she never would. This link to her childhood was gone forever and, for the first time, Amy began to cry.

Cyril shifted his grip on the oar from right-hand two and four to left-hand one and three. The credit card on which he was floating rocked precariously but he spread his weight and squatted low, waiting for the wave to pass and the current to catch him again. As he floated down the canal of excrement, urine, and grey water, he reflected on his life and his world under the floorboards.

He had been lucky enough to find a house so receptive to spiders one chill January day. The thatch had been welcoming, with an abundance of places to hide, and the choice of eight legged females more than adequate. He had worked out the routes from the plug hole in the sink to the overflow pipe in the ancient toilet and through the multiple cavities and priest holes in the ramshackle farmhouse. And he had made this world his home.

But today he would have to leave. It had become clear that his mating sessions with Sophie had reached a point of tedium for her, if not for him. He knew how it had to end… It was the arachnid way. They would mate one last time and she would devour him. Well, he had other plans. The makeshift raft calmed and he resumed his rowing, pushing aside sesame seeds and rice which had dislodged from a huge turd floating by his left. His landlords must have had sushi for tea last night, it always went straight through Rebecca.

As the MasterCard slipped towards the final stretch of the outpipe, he saw the web, but too late! The current had him and as he frantically backpaddled, oar and legs flailing, he knew the battle was already lost. The raft hit the web, and Cyril felt the structure give a little, then bounce to a stop. He felt Sophie’s legs close around his body and her fangs enter his midsection. The soft wooziness of her poisons overcame him as she lifted him clear of another sesame speckled shit.

Cyril awoke in the cavity he and Sophie had called home these last few months. The high from the carefully administered toxins softened the edges of his consciousness, but he could make out the silhouette of his mate hovering nervously over him.

‘Cyril? Cyril! Are you ok? I’m so sorry I didn’t want you to struggle and fall in!’

Nice. Thought Cyril. She didn’t want her dinner covered in the predigested remains of Rebecca’s.

‘Where were you going?? I had a special

dinner planned for tonight’

Cyril tried to reply, but all that came out was a gentle moan. Why must she toy with him? Maybe I’ll reincarnate as a bat and repay the compliment, he thought.

‘Look, I know you don’t want babies, and I don’t want to eat you, I love you! So I had a great idea!’

With a flourish, Sophie whipped the acorn shell off the penny in front of Cyril. He looked in horror at the soft white fluffy mound.

‘Happy Valentines my love!’

The canal runs east-west through my neighborhood and was full of murky rainwater from the recent flood. I was walking along the embankment, trying to keep my boots steady on slippery ground. I carried with me a large burlap sack, and several times I almost slid down into the water as I tried to keep my balance. My arms were getting sore and my back hurt from the short walk from my home to the ditch, but I reached my destination before the sun awakened.

My Tinder date and I had gone out for sushi the night before. She’d taken an Uber, which was convenient for me as it was less hassle, and I also paid the dinner in cash to avoid a paper trail. Later, we’d traveled back to my place for a second helping of fish.

I enjoy killing, if I must confess. The sound of a blunt object against a skull. It makes a deeper thud than hitting a watermelon, which are good for practice. And quite juicy!

The first time I hit another human with the sturdy piece of oak I keep under my bed, I was taken aback by how much force it took to knock someone dead. Usually they come around more quickly than you’d expect. If you want them out permanently, you gotta bash them hard and bash them repeatedly.

Which brings me back to my Tinder date. She was cute. A red head. My favorite type. Petite with freckles and a little ass she liked to shake while she walked around in a tight-fitting black skirt.

My dick was hard the moment I met her. I didn’t bother to hide it through my khaki pants. She had this strawberry chap stick on that I could smell, and it aroused in me a great desire for violence and control. My brain zeroed in on the slightest detail of hair falling across her face during dinner. It was like a photograph of fixation burned into my brain.

This is when I knew I was ready to go. I call it The Summoning. The moment I suspend the present and fantasize about the future. That first blow that’s coming. That original thud.

Tinder girl put up a decent struggle. If I don’t connect right away with the wood, that’ll happen. You’d be surprised how hard a 95-pound young woman can fight!

After destroying her brain and her left eye socket, I figured I’d just throw her underneath the floorboards like usual, but the crawl space is getting crowded, so I took her down to the ditch. I didn’t bother to weigh her body down as I’d already scrubbed her in my bathtub, removing my DNA. I cut off her fingers, tossed them in the trash, and dragged her body through the night frost and into the swiftly flowing water, watching as the burlap sack bobbed and twirled like a child’s toy in a bathtub, and then I continued about my day, erect and satisfied.

It ain’t just the Prof can come up with these clever plans - I got it going on upstairs too. Nice and simple, this one, not like some of the Prof’s forty-seven step wonders that end up with Eggsy and Laddie dangling from ladders above a canal packed with snapping crocodiles or some such.

Nice and simple, and right on cue, just as the Major’s Bentley rounds the bend, out steps Sharon. Do anything for me, that girl, including take a stroll dressed only in her underwear. The Prof would have had a broken-down minibus full of nuns or a pregnant lady with three toddlers, but all it takes is a nearly nude girl to draw the Major’s car to a halt.

That girl is a pro, cowering in terror, fingers trying to shield her eyes from the bright glare of the Major’s headlights. Only Eggsy and Laddie are with me, both of them in the back, and both of them playing against type as dunderheads because they’ve both remembered to bring their binocs.

I press transmit on the walkie to signal to Duncan. Drawn the short straw he has, up on a ladder with a nightvision scope – the lookout man. ‘Duncan, you have eyes on the Major and Sharon, over?’

Several seconds of static, and then at last he replies I the affirmative, but his voice is a little breathless. Poor guy, must be cold up that ladder.

---

We just drive up to the house, nice and simple. Round to the French doors at the back that the old duffer never locks, and then upstairs to the prize. Not his big green safe protected by lasers, not an idiot, am I. Into the bedroom, move a wardrobe, roll back the carpet, and bingo, check out the floor as old and decrepit as the rest, but check out the shiny bright screws at each corner. Underneath are five metal boxes that fit neatly into the gaps between the joists.

‘Oh yes, boys! Nothing but sushi and gold credit cards for us now!’

Eggsy and Laddie high five and whoop.

I call up Duncan for a sit-rep. Eventually, and after much, much static, he answers. That Sharon, what a girl, still playing the part of a damsel in distress and keeping the Major occupied. From what Duncan says, based on the noise from the car, she’s pretending to have a hysterical breakdown.

This means we have time to screw the floorboard back down, roll out the carpet and move the wardrobe back, and stroll out of there like we own the place. No frantic rush, no hurtling the car around narrow country lanes; we turn up at the hideout like we’ve been out for a Sunday drive.

Eggsy and Laddie spent the drive trying to guess the contents of the Major’s boxes. Solid gold doubloons, based on the weight. They are so crestfallen when we open one up to find that it’s full of metal toy soldiers.

I pick one up. The workmanship is exquisite.

‘Lads, lads, lads. Where’s your vision? Where’s your lateral thinking? Really old toy soldiers? Worth a fortune these are.’

Eggsy and Laddie’s faces brighten.

I continue. ‘Yeah, we’re gonna be rich. You seen the price of lead these days?’

The carpet is up and the kitchen is rammed. We’ve been living on curry sauce and chips interspersed with Tesco’s Sushi for three days. A late change to the handover date means we are still here today but it is really the last of the days now. An old window, never fixed, rattles slightly in the wind.

Upstairs, we took up some loose floorboards because a credit card dropped through, I was waving it around on the phone to the removal man. I found a Westlife CD, a quavers packet and a very old, empty leather satchel that must have been left down before we arrived. The old bedroom’s secrets finally revealed, opaquely.

The symphonic silence of space around the stacked boxes swells and rolls between a blutac-stained wall and a boot-imprinted door. I can only apologise to the old spare room for the way we let it go at the end.

No point fixing the washer on the tap now either. It never really worked. Our old bathroom was a source of constant grief.

The ghostly echoes of Sam and Ellie are summoned by the garden, shrieks at a wildly directed water hose on a summer’s day or a dead rat. The old garden became too big without them.

I’ll pick a route between the tufts from taken down trampolines and terra cotta tomato pots. Down to the end to the canal which no longer carries it’s initial romance. We stopped watching for the rowing boats and mallards, the barges and even the rarely-seen herons in the end. Now gentrification pushes prices ever northwards and we thank the old canal for allowing us to move.

Across the canal is the carpark of the Hotel. At night I have stared into it’s lighted windows, bright against it’s dark form and beckoning me to further inspection like a newly opened door on an advent calendar. Sometimes naked silhouettes were revealed to me as I looked into it. I made stories for my mind about them. The squalid adventures of the old hotel may never have been true.

Behind the hotel is the old road out of town. It leads to some big supermarkets and then a dual carriageway that merges into the motorway and leads to Mum’s. The old road to Mum’s we’ll never need to use anymore now she’s gone.

Go the other way and you are on the old road to town. Town is where the station is that brings Sam and Ellie from uni with their increasingly bohemian partners. The last one was a situationist mime artist who didn’t say a word the whole weekend but seemed agitated when I failed to comprehend the signs she was making, Ellie implied I was somehow being insensitive for not playing along. Anyway I hope she doesn’t come again. It surely shouldn’t be possible to be nostalgic or wistful about the old road’s noise or traffic jams? But I am and I haven’t even left yet.

This is the old house where memories are.

“Do you remember when the kids were little?”

“Sam used to love hiding in that old cupboard”.

The new house won’t have so many. Not because we are old yet but because we are becoming too tired to seek adventure and there are now only two of us, mostly.

But the new house will bring comfort and safety and ultimately that will probably be more important as memories recede and time goes by.