Jack Arnold Oliver Barnes Nick Galitzine Zooey Gleaves Tom Holland Joe Kidson Robert Lamb Tom Lyons
Charlie MacVicar Alexander Murphy Harry Nightingale Jacob Sacks-Jones Mark Schunemann Alexander Scott-Malden
Angus Simpson Matthew Stone Matthew Wilcock
dulwich college writing volume 4 summer 2013
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The fourth volume of 17 is dedicated to the British composer, Gordon Jacob, OA (1895-1984). Gordon Jacob studied composition, theory and conducting at the Royal College of Music, where he subsequently taught from 1924 until his retirement in 1966. His textbook, Orchestral Technique (1931), is considered an indispensable work of scholarship. Jacob’s orchestral transcription of Sir Edward Elgar’s first organ sonata is one of his more brilliant and important scores.
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17 contents
Introduction
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39 Eden Close, SE21 Jack Arnold The Pursuit Of Substance Oliver Barnes
11 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 47 51 55 61 67 71 75 79 83 87 91 95 99
Hunger Nick Galitzine
A Rose At The River Styx Zooey Gleaves
Autopsy Tom Holland
Circle Joe Kidson
Comme Il Faut Robert Lamb A Clove Of Garlic Tom Lyons Towards The Sky Charlie MacVicar Commuting Alexander Murphy Matchsticks Jacob Sacks-Jones You Mad, Bro? Mark Schunemann Jamie’s Dinners Alexander Scott-Malden The Ants Are Getting Closer Matthew Stone She’s Always A Woman Matthew Wilcock Critical Commentary I Oliver Barnes Critical Commentary II Jacob Sacks-Jones Critical Commentary III Joe Kidson Critical Commentary IV Harry Nightingale Melody, Harmony, and Texture Gordon Jacob 91 Deceitful Ginger Cakes Harry Nightingale The Witnesses Angus Simpson
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Further Reading
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“The modern short story resembles a Byzantine mosaic: an arc of compressed movements and urgent colours in hard apposition.” The Editor
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17 volume 4 summer 2013
Dulwich College is a selective independent boys’ school in South London. Founder’s Day is celebrated at the end of the Summer Term to commemorate the signing of the letters patent by James I on 21 June 1619 authorising Edward Alleyn to establish a college in Dulwich to be called the ‘College of God’s Gift’.
17 is published for Founder’s Day by the English Department. Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, London SE21 7LD. Tel: 020 8693 3601 | Fax: 020 8693 6319 | www.dulwich.org.uk Registered Charity Number: 312755 ISSN 2041-2770 Editors: Richard Sutton | suttonrf@dulwich.org.uk Rory Bryant | bryantrj@dulwich.org.uk
Design:
Westrow Cooper
Photography: www.willreidvisuals.com The publisher would wish to extend thanks regarding the extract from The Composer and his Art by Gordon Jacob, reprinted with permission of the Gordon Jacob Estate. Copyright ©2013,The Estate of Gordon Jacob. The editors offer grateful thanks to Calista Lucy, the College Archivist, Soraya Cerio, Denise Cronin, and colleagues in the English Department, all of whom gave advice and encouragement. Westrow Cooper for his assistance and work on the design. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. A catalogue record for this periodical is available from the British Library.
Copyright © Dulwich College, 2013 Printed in Great Britain by Cambrian Printers
17 introduction
new stories
inspired by
Woolf
Bowen
Mansfield
Lawrence
Greene
Joyce
Murakami
Cheever McEwan
Carver Nabokov
Proulx
the trauma of perfection claims a victim a view through a window clarifies hope’s fragility a prayer for the answers goes unanswered a would-be war widow lets her fears bloom a domestic flashpoint leads to the inevitable the writer’s pen proves its might seemliness is not all it seems household supplies take a sinister turn a husband creates a ghostly solidity a train of thought leads back to jessica a child tastes unpalatable truths a smile floods a young man’s dreams the hidden city chimes with a thinker a unique craftsman takes pride in his work the neighbourhood watches a man’s conscience shrinks from the approaching ants the fantasist’s flawed addition leads to bitter division
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JACK ARNOLD
“Let’s squabble.”
John Cheever’s story, ‘The Enormous Radio’, addresses the reality beneath suburban respectability; my story similarly undermines materialistic human dreams, demonstrating how people can be forced into paralysing conformity.The short story form is a deliberately restrictive one; to follow conventional six-part structure, the resolution must be brief. Mine, following the epiphany, is brutal: the man’s death cuts short his imagined escape symbolically at its moment of conception: the protagonist becomes, ironically, victim of narrative convention.Thus, the central predicament is echoed by the structural form.
39 Eden Close, SE21
‘Lunch was fun.’ ‘Yes, well…’ ‘And whose fault was it this time?’ ‘There seemed to be only a little tension,’ she said. ‘Well, let’s see: you said nothing. The kids said nothing, apart from being rude about the fish.’ ‘And you?’ ‘I’d say I made a valiant effort at pleasantries. At least I tried, even if my words were only met by silence.’ He stared out of the window at the two enormous fir trees, standing apart on either side of the drive. ‘I thought that it was a perfectly nice meal. The fish was well cooked, and we used the good silver. What else do you want?’ ‘Why on earth does that matter, about the fish and the cutlery?’ he demanded. ‘Who cares? I’d much prefer it if there were a tolerable dynamic to our family.’ ‘Well I see no problem; can’t we just quieten down and read a little?’ They were sitting in the living room; she sat on the white sofa, wearing a cashmere shawl over a blue dress. She reached up and fiddled with the pearls around her neck. He slumped in his chair by the window, having changed into a lumberjack shirt and his old gardening shorts. The room was exquisite, an exemplar of Dulwich life: their white carpet offset the velvet coffee of
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curtains restrained by shining gold holdbacks. Tasteful displays of silk flowers flanked their sleek black television. Everything was there to make the room just so. She began to read her book, keeping her eyes steadfastly downwards when he spoke to her. ‘God dammit, we can’t ‘ just read ’.This is important.’ ‘More important than your job? You have work tomorrow; let’s not squabble.’ ‘No, let’s squabble. I want to know why we’re like this – we never used to have such a rough time.’ ‘You expect me to know?’ she inquired, though her eyes did not leave her book. ‘Just remember how we used to be… when we got married. Dreams, ambitions, hopes - what have they turned into? We fell into the system as soon as we came to Dulwich.’ He now spoke earnestly and quickly, as though he didn’t have time to say what he wanted to say. ‘What system?’ He swung his arm in a wide arc across the room. ‘The quest for the house, the car, the kids, the private education, big TV, moving to the country… before that we had so much to look forward to. That dream of opening a little gallery under our old flat: gone. Now I’m in a job I hate; you spend your time gossiping about the same things to those shrews you call friends . Are you happy?’ ‘Yes, I am happy. For God’s sake, they’re our friends; don’t say such things!’ She suddenly closed her book, and looked at him with an air of incomprehension. ‘Well it’s true. I want us to do something, see? A change of scenery, hopefully a new job. It’s draining me. You don’t understand.’ He stood up and moved towards the window.The high, early autumn
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temperatures had brought a hot rain, and dark rain clouds lowered overhead. ‘Look,’ he said, exhausted. ‘I’m just asking you to think about it, OK?’ ‘Dear, there’s nothing to think about. You’re worked up over nothing.’ She returned to her book. A long pause ensued. The tick of the antique grandfather clock could be heard. Abruptly, he took his leave, and what remained of a bottle of scotch from the counter. As he departed, he sent an exquisite porcelain plate to the floor with his palm, accidentally, and it split in two. He had wandered into the garden, his garden, in which, as a newcomer to married life, he had taken such pride, finding time to care for it. He searched for the apple tree that he had once watched flourish,now imprisoned behind a dense, invasive display of decorative foliage that had been planted by the gardener his wife had hired. He attempted to release the tree from its bars, dropping the bottle of scotch to the ground as he did so. Rays of late afternoon sun shone through a sudden break in the dark clouds. As he pulled away the last of the plants, revealing their hidden secret, he caught glimpses of life: water-spattered apples reflected the light in glorious flashes of crimson, and a gentle scent of apple flower teased the furthest reaches of his sensory realms. His eyes glistened as he plucked an apple from its nest amongst the rich green leaves and ate. He felt suddenly clear: he knew what was to be done and he no longer cared what it took. He was * * *
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going to change things, move away, and start anew. A piece of apple became stuck in his throat. Within seconds, he was lying under the tree: eerily pale, completely still.
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OLIVER BARNES
“It began to cancan to the rhythm of their nation’s barbarity.”
‘The Pursuit of Substance’ traces the spiritual and moral development of its protagonist by incorporating the characteristics of modernist literature.The story’s departure from classical and traditional forms is reflected in the deeds of its main character who, in “... gliding from one unbeaten path to the next”, emulates the intrepidity of modernist authorship. Ultimately, this story adopts a Barthesian view of intertextuality, subverting the author’s dominance by multiplying the range of potential meanings, from one, where the author is God, to a multiplicity of meanings, where the reader is in control.
The Pursuit Of Substance
A tide of indignation had reduced Sybil to a clenched fist. Dispossessed, he trod the margins of Regent’s Park and Fitzrovia, gliding from one unbeaten path to the next. His voyage was circumscribed by a legion of imposing Victorian townhouses, constructed by calloused hands to stand as a testament to the vigorous impotency of their proprietors. Together, they illuminated the heavens, beholding to the Empire the might of England. Within, lords and ladies and gentlemen exchanged trivialities on wars in Persia and Kowloon.The ease with which such platitudes were uttered with the deepest conviction scandalised Sybil who, with little pelf, still emphasised the outmoded notions of probity and virtue, which one damnable efflorescence had sought to uproot. Such a palpable sense of impurity inspirited Sybil to raze to the ground the manifestation of noetic and moral decay which bore down on him. Devoid of the necessary resources, however, he consigned himself to gazing vacantly into the middle distance. As if through a telescope, he espied the opulent environment of the drawing room in which the genteel men cantered and capered about.The saccharine wallpaper, etched with an Epilobe design, infused the room with a scent of frivolity and hedonism. Blissfully ignorant of the realities of war in the Orient, the room, replete with patricians, proceeded to kick its legs in joviality. For in a manner akin to that of Napoleon, it began to cancan to the rhythm of their nation’s barbarity. Sybil was immune to such merriment; instead, he was apprehensive over the conviviality of the evening. Nonetheless, a lowly figure like himself was expectantly intoxicated by the occult sensation of that night as, though the senses he experienced were merely vicarious, the
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spectacle of that party was immediate and thus difficult for Sybil, an indigent, to comprehend. This transition from expostulation to admiration was in contempt of every value for which Sybil had an avowed belief. He was, thus, greatly ashamed, when he came round from his stupor, of his moment of arrant disregard for his social kinsman. For he had chanced upon that grandly prodigious mansion for a reason, not to gratify its occupants, but rather to remonstrate with them about the depravity and venality which they had precipitated within the highest legislature of the land. For he, in his personage, constituted little threat to the inner belongings of those vast mansions; instead, he merely wanted to exhibit his beliefs. This abortive struggle for deliverance had rendered him crestfallen. Restricted by intellect and resource, the individual in question was, thus, imperilled by the inevitable pangs of torpidity. Sybil, now overcome with a sense of despondency, survived only off his last vestiges of hope, for he had been greatly dispirited by his inability to garner recognition, and out of fatigue fell to the earth, exhaling what he thought to be his last breath. At that moment, though, he descried, quivering on the horizon, an angel, naked in the stone. A divine being of inimitable hope, who embodied everything for which Sybil had longed. As he waded towards her, through tepid water, her eyes seemed to glaze over, her body to fold back into itself. She was clearly a timorous creature, who needed doting upon and Sybil obliged, bathing her in the seething waters around his feet. Now, with a renewed sense of liberation, he poured all that was good from him into her, but still she did not react and remained inanimate and reticent. He began to caress her shoulder, but no movement transpired. Now he was becoming impatient with her, for he had dedicated himself to her but received nothing in return. He lamented their sorry relationship, for what had she given him – bar life, which he hardly needed anyway? It was
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the most emotionless beast and for it Sybil no longer cared. It had extricated him from his moment of near-passing but now it would not meet his desires and consecrate their bond with an utterance. It was at this moment when Sybil fell backwards into the pool, to be engulfed by its waters. It remained motionless as a tide of mortality immersed Sybil, shocking him to the core.
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NICK GALITZINE
“Do you like what you see?”
In order to illustrate a clear narrative voice, one which appears gauche and socially inept, I decided to use two structural techniques: ruptured linearity and the caesura. By severing the narrative chronology and breaking the paragraphs into smaller sections, the dysfunctional behaviour of the protagonist is reiterated, creating a surrealist effect.The boy’s going off track as he speaks to God in church is symbolic of the generic decline in religious faith of humanity.The leitmotif of the egg is also symbolic, paving the way for the quintessence of the story: the philosophical dilemma of what came first, the chicken or the egg?
HUNGER
It’s so hard to create something from nothing. Mother says I need to talk with you. She says I will find solace. I want to tell you my story, but it won’t do. You want something exciting, something memorable, something that will make you proud of what you have made. But it’s virtually impossible to craft this thing, when everything seems to be a cliché. You know that.They say we are all different, all unique, but you have made us a trillion times over. What do you want from me? “Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem…” Who am I? That’s what I really want to know. That’s what everyone wants to know. Well, I know I’m a boy. At least I think I am. Hah! Only joking. Obviously it’s not that I am confused by, but the stuff underneath all the hubbub: the nitty-gritty. You see, when you strip everything back to its skeleton, cut away at its meat, it all comes down to one simple question: who am I? To explore my confusion, let me conjure up a visual aid. Just last Tuesday I was pondering this question when I thought, if I’m going to find out the answer anywhere, it will be in the big blue encyclopaedia. (Not your book. Haven’t looked at that in a while. Sorry about that.) Anyway, it’s on the middle shelf, fourth from the left. Not the sixth from the left though. That’s my father’s compilation of PILOT – this week’s issue including a free Pioneer 400 quattrocento poster as well as Pat Malone’s latest article: 250,000 – a price worth paying for a decent CAA CEO, whatever that means. No, I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. “…factorem cœli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium…”
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Why put it so high? You see, it’s my mother’s. She’s always looking at it. She insists on having a weekly ‘Trivial Pursuit’ contest - killingly boring I know, but it’s a ‘family ritual’. Oh, that reminds me. Here’s a fun fact: did you know that though ostriches lay the largest eggs on land, the whale shark lays the largest eggs in the WORLD! Fourteen inches in diameter! I wouldn’t want that coming out of me. Anyway, I think it’s cheating, which I know you don’t like, and the rulebook says it’s cheating too, but the silly old woman won’t stop using it. It’s not fair. Life’s not fair. I’m getting off topic now. Well, the encyclopaedia’s first definition of ‘identity’ was ‘the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.’ But that’s not really it, is it? No. Kind of confuses things, doesn’t it? “…per quem omnia facta sunt…” Now hang on, no need to get irritated. I can find it, just give me a second. Here we go. Definition two: ‘the collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known.’ So if I stand naked in front of a mirror, is that who I am? That’s what it means, right, ‘characteristics’? But suppose I didn’t like what I see? Do you like what you see? Is that why people wear clothes? To cover up their identity? Why should people cover up who they are, so they can fit in? People are a bit like eggs.They hide in their little shells until at some unsuspecting point in time, they pop out. What you don’t understand is that there are so many types of egg. Big ones, small ones. Brown ones, white ones. Then you have different categories of eggs - quail eggs, whale eggs, chicken eggs, ostrich eggs. Hey, didn’t Job have a gripe about ostriches ( species struthiocamelos, which is of course part of the struthionidea family)? Yeah, it went something like ‘She leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them.’ Reminds me of my upbringing.
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“…Et in spiritum sanctum, dominum et vivificantem…” Who am I? I mean, I’m not expecting you to just come out and tell me the answer. You never do that. It’s not your style. Maybe just poke me in the right direction. ‘Identity’. Definition three: ‘the set of behavioural or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.’ Hmm. Let’s get primeval. To belong or not to belong? Quintessentially, that’s what it’s saying right? But what if they don’t want you? Because I don’t fit in. It’s all a bit confusing really. The more I run it through my head, the more it all becomes a load of mumbo-jumbo. I don’t know if you’re listening, I don’t know if you’ve heard me, I don’t know if you care. I’m tired and confused and I still have no answers. I’m really, really hungry. Hungry for eggs. “…Amen.”
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ZOOEY GLEAVES
“All things exotic behind me.”
The cultural and historical background of this creative piece was inspired by John Cheever and his story ‘The Swimmer’. Set in the Sixties, in particular 1964, my story uses the Cold War, and more importantly Vietnam, as its context: references to Communism, as well as Scarlet Vincere’s name, were used to foreshadow Vietnam’s victory in the war against America. Italian and Greek names were also used to show the roots of stories from Greek and Roman history: the Styx was the River of the Dead used by Charon to ship souls to Hades; Dakryon comes from a mythic source meaning ‘pool of tears’.
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A Rose At The River Styx
I really am quite cheery about the whole thing, and, to be honest, why wouldn’t I be? Gallivanting around on boats with friends in an exotic country, away from the wife and responsibility: if I were a man I’m sure I’d love that. Oh, how fresh the breeze must be, when it doesn’t smell of petrol or of machine gun fire, or of bodies piled high, used as sandbags for the rich waves of democratic and peace-loving bullets, needling through confused but calculating men and women. The life of a soldier in nineteen sixty-four must be quite extraordinary. I wonder if he’ll bring me anything back fromTonkin? I suppose, though, there can’t be many gift shops there, and he probably won’t be able to pick me up a carved bamboo shoot or an exotic spice mixture in time. He and all of his friends were joking about how he wouldn’t come back. Only him as well; none of the others weren’t going to come back. Only him, left in the jungle, or like a floating buoy leaking red ink in a sea full of a bizarre array of predatory and exotic fish. Oh, how hilarious they all were, and their wives, sat nattering inanely about how hilarious the thought of Billy or David getting shell-shock would be, leaving only poor Scarlet Vincere to sit pondering her father’s return from war in nineteen forty five - how he looked at her like he were turning her to stone, and never spoke to anyone again. If he were to die then I suppose I would have to plan for the future now. How long would he be? If he were to die out there, I would like to be a quiet widow. Like the spider, I mean. I do like
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black dresses. However, the Black Widow kills its male partner, but I’m going to have someone else do that part for me, and then my babies’ll eat me.What a way to go! Pretty exotic though, and very un-traditional. Well, God, I do hope he doesn’t come back dead. A house and a car, a television and a lawnmower: all of our possessions left to me. I don’t really want to be alone in the house though, with people pityingly visiting me, bringing cake and cards and flowers. I would live a funeral every day. Like Susannah Dakryon, a friend I once had. A proud and open relationship with a sailor had led her to believe that she was at the height of her social class. The fact was, though, that she was Greek and could clearly be linked to her father’s involvement on the communist side during the civil war.This was a problem for some, but I and other comrades of the group ignored this fact. She was fun, when she wasn’t slurring on her martini or talking louder than everyone else at a party. And then she became pregnant. For a while she drank and smoked and then stopped, finally realising that gin wasn’t the best thing for foetuses. That was until she realised they were triplets - and then they died, all three. The Sailor ran away to prep for Vietnam as soon as he could. She was left ill, weak and empty. She stood like a dead tree in her doorway all day, but her house was bare and quiet. The last time I saw her was in the local mall. All that was in her trolley was white makeup, red cigarettes, brown whiskey. Her face was a mask of twisted waxed powders and her lips were the colour of pomegranate seeds: a shell of a person. My God, what if I were left a shell? I don’t want to be left as just a person without soul, sucked away by some pointless, selfish movement fromThe Fates, just left to rot in my prim and proper house, without purpose or motion. I would sit, looking into a
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mirror, with all things exotic behind me, a Mai Tai and a new man by my side. All very lush and sugary sweet. And then my reality would be a numb exterior, filled with dust piling on my dresser, my sheets filled with bed bugs and hair full of lice. I would have to cut my phone cables, shut myself off from the world, which would be full of colour and joy and makeup and peace. I would be without man, and would let my babies eat me, my nutritious, crumbling and detritus-like body wilting like a red rose left without water, still holding its shape with perfection but drying and crisping like cured meat. I think I’ll make myself a drink. I think Burt Bacharach’s “What the world needs now is love” will do. On the record player. The only thing, there’s just too little of….
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TOM HOLLAND
“Soon the yellow eye came round again.”
My story moves between three time frames: the present, past and ‘flashback’ moments offering an additional, eerie dimension. I set the account against a monochrome backdrop to create a sense of foreboding: “Greyhound Forest”, “black tailored coat” and “white shrubs” all present a world devoid of colour and into this starkness I have introduced colour sparingly. I wanted emotion in my story to be subtle, even though the events were clearly grave. To do this I used pathetic fallacy: in the opening paragraph the “whole land was lifeless, so cold that the spirit was drained out of it” to reflect Ethan’s sense of alienation.
AUTOPSY
Had you walked through Greyhound Forest almost two years ago, you would have seen an odd man limping by the lake. You would have noticed him clenching his thigh with his left arm, as he looked around anxiously. The frost rested on the grass either side of the frozen waterway. The tops of the trees were bare, exposed by the wind that ran through the forest.The whole land was lifeless, so lonely and cold that the spirit had been drained out of it. Ethan waited for the reflection of the blue lights to pass the lake before shuffling towards the tree stump. He slumped down, ripped off a strip of his shirt underneath his coat, and tied it around his thigh. Had you been there that day, you would have seen a man get up and slowly move towards the lake as the sound of glass smashed under his feet. You would have realised that he wasn’t himself, was an almost completely different person. He knelt down beside the lake and cracked the sheet of ice that lay on top of the water. Moving his hand away from his thigh he dabbed it into the ice- cold water. With his wet hand, he brushed his thigh carefully. He repeated this five times before washing his hand for the final time in the cold, red water. Fixing his eyes on a small rock beneath the water’s surface, Ethan fell into a trance as his mind took over. A sound, like a ticking clock, grew louder and louder until a dark-clad figure came into view. The outline sharpened to reveal a slender woman wearing a black tailored coat and black high heels. As Ethan continued to stare he saw that she was being monitored closely by a man clutching the taut collar of his drab winter coat. Pausing only momentarily to remove her gloves, the woman made her way to the end of the road where she opened a gate and entered a house.
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Ethan could hear the sound of footsteps surrounding him. He rose and moved to a large oak tree lit up by blue and red lights like a Christmas tree. A yellow eye began to scan around in all directions; he crouched down by some white shrubs. As the eye passed, Ethan moved towards a hut just twenty yards in front of him. The wind began to pick up again, sending a chill down his spine. The whole area began to grow colder; he could hardly feel his finger tips. Even the snow accumulating on the grass began to freeze over into thick, black ice. Ethan checked for any signs of life before making his move.The hut seemed rotten, with snow seeping in through the cracks. The wooden boards at the base of the structure were beginning to chip away.The door was padlocked and the hinges were frozen over. Soon the yellow eye came round again, and Ethan quickly hopped round to the side of the hut and ducked down, allowing the light to bounce off the roof away from him. The image of the man now moving down the street stunned Ethan. The man moved forwards, furtively sticking to the shadows that carved their way into the pavement every other metre. He stopped for a moment as the CCTV camera on the lamp post adjusted itself to the left. He waited for the ten-second loop before swiftly crossing the street. Then he approached the house, with its visible security alarm, and silently went inside. The faint noise of sirens began to emerge from a distance. Ethan slowly stood up with his right leg, using his left arm to support his left leg. As quietly as possible, Ethan smashed the glass window at the side of the hut and stepped inside, being careful not to cut himself on the glass. He sat down on the floor, resting his leg as his face contorted in agony. He looked up at the damp in the corner, and was consumed by his thoughts. The man moved past the sitting room and tiptoed towards the kitchen at the end of the corridor. The noise of a kettle boiling
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was the only sound. He stood in the doorway.The woman turned around and stared into his eyes as if she was expecting him. Had you been there that night on Crescent Dale Road, you would have heard the sound of shouting and screaming, like a couple having an argument, in the house on the edge of the street. Almost five minutes later you would have seen a shady- looking figure leave the house in shock, gripping his left leg, as if wounded in a struggle. As Ethan lay there the sound of sirens grew louder and louder, the blue lights closing in on him, as the eye trained in on his face.
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JOE KIDSON
“I must reach the denouement before I stop.”
In ‘Circle’, I explore the use of metafiction, making readers aware that they are reading fiction, and comment on the seeming class struggle between the two protagonists.The climax of the story is when the boy strangles the author in a role-reversal of character and writer.The ending is foreshadowed through the description of the seasons, something Saki uses to create macabre humour in ‘The Reticence of Lady Anne’. Here, “... short, green shoots beginning” in the greenhouse are meant to represent an artificial spring, while the outside reality is full of the “crimson leaves” of autumn hinting at impending death.
CIRCLE
It is a certainty that a great writer must devote his life to his art, and upon completion of his magnum opus often end all together. Hence, I have long delayed the final chapter, in fear that such a fate awaits me. I wonder if I might spontaneously combust on the ultimate dot, burst into flame and send the pages fluttering upwards, away from a cluster of grey, smouldering ash. Alas, what an end! I settle into a plush armchair – pen, ink, paper... The boy was now puffing hard. It was meant to hurt. Revolution upon revolution had driven him upward past grey apartment blocks and coarse neon after the boy had escaped the grey apartment where his foster parents lived. For years, school had been a torment; They had known that if They pushed him to the edge... and They had known how to. The High Street, Morrisons, a crisp packet, a dog, cars, petrol, trucks, red lights went unnoticed. Only the goal – wait till his mates heard this; he would show them. As the wheels whirred beneath him he wobbled precipitously across the road.Terrorized by brakes screeched and horns blasted, the wide-eyed boy pedalled out of the city, out on the Roman road, out to rolling hills, patchwork fields, stretching to an infinite horizon. How lovely! I am sure the publisher will say: ambiguity, contrast, and - dare I say it - Originality. I admit it: I am rather proud of myself today. This writing really works up a thirst; a paragraph surely merits tea. A bell tinkles. I look around, at the vegetable patch, the newly planted seeds – flown all the way from South America you know – with short, green shoots beginning, and the last batch ready to be moved out. I like writing here; scientists say it is good to write near plants
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(something about oxygen levels); I like the light, the glass still hot from the afternoon sun, the cool conditioned air. Settles the mind. He came to the end of the road.The crumbling castle sat contented upon a rise. His nervous hands juddered on the crunching gravel; he was afraid he might be heard. No, that was impossible; five o’clock is the changing of the guard. The boy braked suddenly, apparently scared of the crimson leaves which flew up, catching the last weak rays of light, and turned back down to fall. The boy dismounted, leaned his bike up against the ivy-wall, headed towards the yew door, paused on the threshold. He left behind the last leaves, dropped from the towering oak, fluttering down towards the city like moths. Where has my tea got to? Ah, five o’clock, the butler will be off duty. My, I am writing awfully quickly today. Looking over what I have written (such an important part of writer’s craft!) it occurs to me that writing is an ever-declining art. Greats are omnipotent – that which bears similarity is a pastiche, difference a break from tradition – ‘noise’. Is that a car on the drive? I am sure I heard something. I’m hearing things. Anyhow, I must reach the denouement before I stop; I shall be finished soon. Perhaps I should ring, just to let someone know that the author is still alive. A sound whispered to him, and the boy naturally cowered. Only the fear of ridicule drove him on, past tapestries of long forgotten battles, through rooms with high, painted ceilings. Desire to pillage, to steal, rose up within him, but he knew only one thing would win acceptance with The Gang. This was easier than the games he played, but he supposed he was unarmed - so that made it fair.There. The boy sees a hunched figure in a plush armchair. Glee and nausea combine. He steps forward tentatively, scared of what he must do, and what if he doesn’t?
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That must be the butler at last. Put the tea on the table. That will be all. He is decisive. He pulls out a plastic bag and pulls it tight around the old man’s head. Barely a tremor, and soon the old man relaxes, except that hand scrawling down some final sentences. He will flee, and when the butler returns, the old man will be sitting, asleep, the book gone. To be published.
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ROBERT LAMB
“How proper!”
‘Comme il Faut’ is a dramatic monologue in the form of a letter, leading to confrontation and a departure from family life; the story examines themes of obsession and paralysis, its protagonist blinded by obsession with propriety.The titular phrase becomes a mantra the protagonist accepts willingly without appreciating its irony or even understanding what it means, namely that he is anything other than proper during the course of events.The use of this technique is similar to the universal adjective “nice” in Joyce’s ‘Clay’, the lack of meaningful epithets suggesting mental paralysis through physical inarticulacy.
COMME IL FAUT
The fact of the matter is this - we were a happy family, a family who were much respected in the locality for, despite living on a blank street on the edge of North Sodmington, we were still able to maintain what my wife termed ‘a commeilfaut existence’. I’m still unsure as to whether it is ‘ commeilfaut’ of me to be writing this; is it right that you should be subjected to it? I don’t suppose I had any choice in the matter. That isn’t, of course, to say I was forced, more that I was rendered unable not to. I hadn’t been planning to write this. It just happened. Anyway, I would come home with the children every afternoon, and every afternoon I would find my devoted wife scrubbing away in order to achieve the doctor’s-surgery feel which she was obviously going for: she called it ‘hygiene’. This would happen every day - every day until the day when it did not, a day which I remember too vividly. Of course, it would be wrong of me to continue to write, because I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble. I am, ultimately, being selfish, but then a leopard doesn’t change its spots. When I returned on 5 th November 2003 at 16:03, put my Yale key in the lock, removed my Ralph Lauren duffle coat, placed it on the cherry newel post, took the children’s coats off and helped them with their shoes - how lovely their little feet were! How proper! - I noticed that my wife was on the phone. I don’t know what it was that troubled me about this; she was, after all, just using the phone. Perhaps it was the way in which she was using it: she never was one for elegance. More likely it was just me… As she would say, “it’s always just you.”
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Was I right to confront her about it?Was it the decent thing to do? In any case, I did; I felt like a toddler plunging into the Adriatic with no armbands, but nonetheless, I did.The confrontation was brief. I asked who she had been talking to and she told me to ‘mind your own.’ ‘Mind your own!’ What a way to speak to your husband – your gentlemanly husband. That is when it started. That is when all the pieces began to fit together. I began to see what she was doing. How stupid I had been to ignore what must’ve been going on before my eyes for years - how naïve, how deluded, how improper. From then on I would tell the children to play hide and seek in the woods behind the house whilst I fed my theory. What possessed me to sit on that drain cover for two months, ear pressed up against the brick wall, straining to hear something of use, I will never know. I don’t even know how I would have used the knowledge. Besides, with the arrival of what was, according to the weatherman, ‘the most dismal weather England had seen since the 1800s’, it wouldn’t have been proper to ask the children to keep playing in the woods, so I was forced to relent. I had no choice - I had to confront her. It had to be done. As I sat in the cold dark dingy armchair, I was angry, so angry. On the miserable, cheap carpet, twenty years of dust shook in anger. She entered the room and it was like the kettle had finally boiled over – I had no option but to come out with it, commeilfaut or not. “Who is it?” I screamed. “Who is Mr.Wonderful? Who is it who is so much better than me?”She looked at me, stunned, as though I was a schizophrenic psychopath.That was the last straw – how dare she give me such a look? I stormed out. It was not as though I had any choice in the matter: I had, after all, just been subjected to a very traumatic experience. I crashed through the trendy, smartly-polished front door into the bitter street. And it was there I started writing this,
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and here I am now, writing my final words. You will understand why I did it; you will understand that I had no option. But at the same time, you will understand that nobody forced me, you will understand that what I will do is nothing to do with the situation described, nothing to do with my darling, commeilfaut wife.
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TOM LYONS
“She’d be waiting for him.”
In ‘A Clove of Garlic’, I have used the supermarket queue as the medium for the central character’s thoughts after the apparent murder of his wife, Susan. I used a combination of reliable narrator interposed with snatches of Martin’s feelings as a method of narration; as the story progresses, I increase the proportion of interior monologues. I implemented the technique of objective correlative - presenting somebody’s material environment to illustrate what they are thinking - when describing Susan’s lists as “prim”.This offers the reader a glimpse of her structured lifestyle which will result in her demise.
A Clove Of Garlic
Feet drifted languidly forward. A little girl (she looked like a Sophie) was skipping around her mother, animatedly talking about her day.Martin listened.He wasn’t nosy,merely... interested in people. The mother’s soft undefined face reminded him of Susan. Sweet Susan. Sophie’s basket was crammed with Cadbury’s chocolate. Susan would never let him buy any; it would rot his teeth. He looked down at his shopping list, his sprawling chaotic handwriting juxtaposed with Susan’s prim and well-ordered style: she usually wrote the list. He gazed down at the batteries and looked at the price: £2.77. How absurd! He looked again at his list and felt a spasm of annoyance: he’d only wanted one clove of garlic, and yet according to the monosyllabic shop assistant he had to buy a whole bulb. He must tell Susan when he got home. Then again, she would probably know already. His thoughts were punctuated by the automated,serene command of “Cashier number three, please”. The queue trudged on; the check-out was tantalisingly close now. He looked at cashier number three. Her name tag said “ Margaret , Here To Help”, that sweet façade of service laid on by all Tesco cashiers. He remained dubious, however, that she would go beyond draining his cash. He inspected her more critically; Ms Cashier Number Three had exactly the same austere hairstyle as Susan, her russet hair wrenched off her face in a tight ponytail. The Susan-imposter was serving a haggard-looking middle-aged man. His tie hung dead round his neck. His basket contained a ready-meal and a pint of milk – the food of the hard-working bachelor. Before the collapse of Northern Rock,Martin had held a highly- important, well-respected job at Mandwick’s accountancy firm.
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They had been “forced to let him go”.Their loss - plenty of other people wanted Martin’s experience and anyway he had begun to despise that oppressively-controlled company. The queue was not moving. Martin needed to get home; she’d be waiting for him. How long did it take to buy a fucking ready- meal? No, he must not swear, he knew what Susan thought about it and he wasn’t sure he could bear anymore of her criticism. Susan, his sweet tyrant. Sophie was still pirouetting merrily around the Susan look- alike. He’d forgotten how innocent children were. She’d grow up, lose her naivety. Soon the world would corrupt her with the cold malevolence of authority. And yet Martin marvelled that she could twirl in her spotlight of fluorescent strips, carefree in her freedom. The structured artificial lighting jarred with Martin.He gazed up, needing to see the world outside, and saw, to his relief, a grimy narrow skylight.The autumnal tepid sunlight earlier that day was being replaced by a deathly, thundery night. Martin continued to stare up, mesmerised by the inscrutable swirling hoard of clouds. The first shocking punch of thunder sounded, and Martin was dazed by its potency, its fists repeatedly battering the defenceless sky with deafening strength. He doubted whether anyone else in the shop had noticed the sky outside. It was strange that his senses appeared so much more receptive than the other shoppers’. They were all continuing their existence, unaware or uninterested by the torment going on outside their immediate lives. The bachelor obeyed instructions and entered his card into the chip and pin device, jabbing in his number without looking at the screen. He quickly made way for the store’s exit. Shopping-Susan eventually met her counterpart; they displayed no hint of familiarity. The sky had fallen silent, motionless and listless.
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Why was it that she insisted on antagonising him? Susan knew what he was like; he tried to control his anger so why did she taunt him? He thought of her at home, the TV still blaring inanely and the curtains blocking all light. He’d been careful to close them before leaving. Sophie and her mother left; soon he too could leave the Tesco mausoleum. Why the hell did she do it? She just would not stop undermining him; she forced him to do it. She must have wanted to get him in trouble; this was just another of her teases. But he had been too clever for her tricks this time. Amid his Cheerios and Granny Smiths lay his final three items: a spade, three extra-large black sacks and a bottle of bleach. “Cashier number three, please.”The disembodied voice took on a menacing coldness. He thought back to all those times she had mocked his virility. His actions were justified, he reassured himself. She deserved everything she got. “Cashier number three, please.”
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CHARLIE M ac VICAR
“A spectrum was cast, suspended in inexplicable being.”
‘Towards the Sky’, in which the narrative follows the conscious thought of an old man living under the delusion that his late wife is still alive, is primarily concerned with a presentation of the natural world. The image patterns used to describe the narrator’s wife, her “transparent skin”, “barely existent lips” and her billowing white nightdress, contribute to a portrait of a ghostly woman.The unreliable narrative voice creates a series of snapshots, ruptured by subtle changes of time, and the use of pathetic fallacy becomes colder, more melancholic as the story progresses towards the tragic, elegiac ending.
Towards The Sky
With an infantile spurt of excited spontaneity, I had leapt from bed to experience the radiant tickle from the sun and the icy air with the spirit of a man many years my junior. Most of the solitarily magnificent garden basked in the light, but the sun’s aborted attempt to penetrate the back wall cast a malevolent shadow over the depleted flowerbeds, almost forcing them into seclusion. My breath curled peacefully upwards as I admired the bare tree at the bottom of the garden, imagining the picture it formed in the spring, when the pink and white blossom engulfed its branches.The avid grass poked upwards with zeal for growth, perky and ardent, pullulating easily with the delicate layer of moisture remaining from the night. Framed in the back doorway was my wife,with her barely-existent lips curved into a familiar, knowing smile. The whistling wind made her white nightdress billow and the silvery curls atop her head, the remnants of her illness, danced in the morning sunshine. I gave her the same intrepid morning kiss I had every day for the last fifty years, which she returned with unconvincing reluctance and a glint of ecstasy in her eye. The intricate details of her face were illuminated by the sun’s glare; a thousand wrinkles splayed out from her eyes, and the grey eyes themselves shimmered with adoration in the morning sunlight as she absorbed me. A few of the wrinkles embedded in the almost transparent skin of her forehead were broken by a small scar towards her left temple. She had been robbed of her conventional fairness by the omnipotent thief, Time. However, to me, her contented smile sparked in her a fierce and blazing beauty. It was impossible to accept that the garden, which was now drab and littered with brown leaves, had, just a few months before,
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been a haven for bountiful and blossoming wildlife and my wife, with a forced façade of pleasured annoyance, would glide amongst the flowerbeds, carefully planting the sunflowers, and lovingly watering the poppies. She would smooth the earth with her white coarse hands, hovering on her knees, and, after graceful ascent, her knees left barely-noticeable dents in the ground. Every day of March and April she spent a considerable amount of her energy pouring nurture and colour into the fruitful garden. On the days that the grey clouds began to gather and a heavy downpour struck, she hovered in the kitchen doorway, gazing out at her soaking flowerbeds, clutching the doorframe as if relishing its solidity,preparing to launch herself into the tumultuous drizzle. The bright lamp in the kitchen expelled a lambency of luminous intensity, which was refracted by the desperate droplets of water clinging to the aged window pane, and a spectrum was cast, suspended in inexplicable being but undeniable existence, close and far away, corporeal yet intangible: the imprint of a stunning, beloved rainbow left upon the earth, something discernible by science but an aesthetic wonder. On a winter’s day that year, a fragile cascade of snow had descended upon the village. My heavy footfalls had left a lonely trail of prints in the wide expanse of snow.The air in the central square stood still and an eerie silence enveloped the village, instilling it in benumbed algidity, delighting my wife. She sang with a restless tranquillity as we stood in the square, her fractured lament of unerring beauty bringing the town to a placidity so full of silent serenity it extended into the metaphysical. The snow- topped gingerbread houses and shops sat patiently, vociferously- muted spectators in the heavenly ghost town. Back at home I stood with guilty anxiety in the driveway. I had reversed into the driveway with sporadic bursts of acceleration and some of my wife’s best-cared-for, snow-covered yellow pansies were crushed unceremoniously beneath the back wheel
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of the car. She hovered in the car doorway staring fixedly at the tragic, broken flowers. One of the flowers lay painfully sombre, the petals now dirtied and crooked, the stem distorted and bent; however, it remained bewitching in beauty under her forgiving gaze of stricken passivity. I had once before seen her eyes that way, only about a month before, during a phosphorescently-black night.The lively silence of the night was penetrated by the barks of the neighbour’s three dogs.My hand lay on my wife’s chilly shoulder.Her features were sleepily stiff and wore an unchangeable expression of mild defeat. She was barely disturbed by a breath. I observed the garden curiously from the window. The scarlet poppies bristled in the hungry wind. The white blossom on the tree at the end of the garden was captured by a gust and stole away upwards through the night, towards the sky.
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ALEXANDER MURPHY
“Do you want fries with that?”
In ‘Araby’, Joyce describes a character by the light that surrounds her: she is “defined by light” and “the greater part of the hall was in darkness”; I have aimed to use this technique similarly.The image of Jessica’s “elegant and sensual body” defined by the sun draws emphasis to the drab life she leads at home. Light also comes to represent sensuality in an otherwise banal world through the use of Jessica as a symbol. Murakami’s comic, surrealist style, as evident in ‘The Second Bakery Attack’, interested me greatly and I have acted upon that in the way that my character’s thought patterns have been created.
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