

Firsts

2014
Published by Writing on the Wall

Copyright © remains with the authors, 2013

Writing on the Wall

info@writingonthewall.org.uk

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www.writingonthewall.org.uk
Firsts

2014
Contents

Pulp Idol Firsts 9

# Pulp Idol Firsts

This 4th edition of Pulp Idol – Firsts continues the tradition of quality that we've come to expect from our winning writers. Sharp, witty, intelligent, intriguing, compelling, chilling and utterly readable; here you will find writing that will challenge and excite, and most importantly, make you want to read more. The work published here are the first chapters from the ten finalists of our Pulp Idol novel writing competition held during the Writing on the Wall Festival in May 2013. Pulp Idol gives a platform to new, unpublished authors, bringing their work out into the light to share with readers, agents and publishers, in the belief that their writing is strong enough to herald the beginning of a new career for all those on display in this book. The Pulp Idol writers have risen to the challenge of finding their voice and finding readers for their work. You can help them find a wider audience, an agent and a publisher. They'd like to hear from you, and would be happy to send you some more of their work. You can contact Writing on the Wall or contact each writer though their individual emails. We'd like to say a huge thanks to our sponsors, The Granada Foundation, all of our comperes, our judges, our volunteers, our editors and our venues, all of the writers who took part in each stage of the competition, and most of all you, the reader. We are sure you will enjoy these superb opening chapters and will want to hear more from these brilliant new voices.

Mike Morris Editor

Introduction

Sarah Tarbit's Snatcher is a stark and unsentimental critique of aggressive, inadequate masculinity. The young narrator struggles to overcome his brutal background instigated by his father, a damaged man himself, trains his son to be emotionally and physically invincible after the death by suicide of his mother.

The Redbrick by Nina McCallig is a sharply observed story told in a richly comic vein about a Liverpool/Irish family preparing for Christmas, featuring a stolen Christmas tree and a neighbour's competition for the best house decorations, as the family fights against the odds to maintain tradition.

The South Plain, where a young boy almost drowns while fishing for eels, is set in the grim 1930s, where the locals try to eke a living from muddy marshland. James Kenny vividly conjures this bleak landscape and the details of the hard daily grind of the characters.

In Abigail Inglis's novel Lee is a hooker who plies her trade along the Interstate 175. Under pressure to find money for rent and food she hitches a ride in a truck that leads her to take her first step into becoming a serial killer. 'Lee' is a compelling exploration of the effect of abuse and the soul behind the serial killer.

Nicola Copeland's Cormorano is a warmly humane historical novel set in Liverpool during the Second World War. For Joseph, a fatherless boy, part-English, part-Italian, the famous Liver birds become a symbol of the city's brave resistance to the German bombs that pulverise the streets.

In Ashleigh Nugent's Locks Aeon and Increase are two friends from Lancashire visiting Jamaica, looking for some answers to Aeon's identity through his father's family line. But it's no easy ride, and in the taxi that meets them at the airport Aeon realises he's got a lot to learn about himself and his father's own country.

Doyle's dilemma: save his friend Seamus, tied up in the backseat of the car he's travelling in, or kill Feargal, the driver, the only genuine IRA man among them, and put an end to their undercover operation to get to the heart of the IRA. Paul McGuire's tense opening chapter of The Concert will leave wanting to know much, much more.

Joyce, battered, her face black and blue, begs Anthony to help Billy, her boyfriend accused of murdering the man who put her in hospital. In Robert Batty's starkly told The Man Boy, Anthony steps in, knowing that helping out an old lover will take him back into a world he has been trying to get away from.

The Dictionary of Departures by Clare Doran is brief, compelling and utterly chilling. Bound and unable to escape, a woman is in a car driven by a violent kidnapper, who is clearly known to her, although his motives are far from clear.

A group of young men in a graveyard ruminate on lost opportunities in Jim Stanton's The Stargazer. The atmosphere of the setting, the pull of the stars and the narrator's regrets are sensitively described, creating an elegiac mood piece.

Jenny Newman & Penny Feeney Editor
Sarah Tarbit

Sarah.tarbit@gmail.com

I was born in Ashington, Northumberland, but my heart belongs to Liverpool where I studied Creative Writing at LJMU. I writes prose and plays. I Hope that one day my words will pay the bills.

Snatcher

Snatcher is about men and masculinity, the duality of good and bad, hard and soft, love and hate, and how the mines closing in the late 1980's still affect the people living in small towns today.

Snatcher

Everyone wants to know that their dad loves them. I asked him once if he did. He was lying in his piss on the kitchen floor. Big, like a drugged-up tiger that couldn't move but still growled, threatened in his sleep. I sat at his head, whispered the words, half hoped he wouldn't hear.

He had 'LOVE' and 'HATE' tattooed on his knuckles; he drank with LOVE, hit with HATE. His rules were simple. Disrespected? Fight. Someone looks at you the wrong way? Fight. Fight for your friends, family, those who can't fight for themselves. Love your woman. Prove your worth. Don't lose.

I was six when Mam died. Dad bought me a 'good blood' rooster from Maurice at the allotment. Frankie had burning red feathers, was jittery, unpredictable.

Dad handed me him to me, said, 'My dad gave me one when I was a boy. Cocks don't fight to live, they fight to kill. They're hard. They fight with honour and pride. They fight for their women.'

First thing he did was slice off Frankie's comb and wattle.

Frankie squawked, squealed, flapped to be free.

'They make him weak. Need to be removed. Count yourself lucky I'm doing this for you. My dad made me do it myself.' The comb and wattle lay on the floor, looked like deflated balloons. I picked them up. They weren't as rough as they looked, felt like tongues, still warm, pulsating.

Through the winter I spent my pocket money on oats, wheat, split peas, long grain rice, corn and barley for Frankie. In the summer, sunflower seeds instead of corn.

For his first fight we fed and weighed him in the morning. Come the afternoon he'd shat out an ounce. If his shit had big, green globs in it, he was still bloated with food. When it was like white gravy he was ready.

At the fight, Dad dismantled a razor, tied the blade to Frankie's foot. Dad and Maurice held the cocks from behind, squeezed their breasts to keep them still. They billed the cocks, brought them face to face, hoisted them towards each other, back and forth, pulled at their feathers until they were raging enough to fight. Then they threw them at each other.

The fights happened in bursts in the air. They screeched, squawked, their feathers puffed up, wings flapped, claws grabbed and sliced, skin and muscle were nicked open, bled. Feathers floated through the air, stuck to pools of blood on the ground.

Frankie's eye was cut up. He stopped, turned his good eye to the other cock, started on him again.

It took forty five minutes for Maurice's cock to kill Frankie. I ran home, pushed my cardboard box full of toys in front of the bedroom door.

Dad came home pissed, sat at the other side of my door.

'He was a fighter!'

I cuddled the bear I've had as long as I can remember.

'You need to see through the blood to something pure, noble.'

Mr Bear smelt like Mam. She'd spray her perfume on it at night so I'd sleep in my own bed.

'I needed you to see it. You should have that hardness in you, to fight when you need to.'

I pulled at the loose stitching down Mr Bear's stomach.

'It's nature. It's not kind. It doesn't give a fuck. The spider kills the fly. The fly feeds the spider.'

I ripped the bear apart. Pulled out its soft insides, threw it across the room.

'What if I'm the fly?'

'You need to be the spider.'

Dad nurtured the birds from then on, made them fighters. He never made me do it again. But he took me hunting the summer before middle school. Gave me a slap across the shoulder, a smile, a flip blade. Said, 'It's a rite of passage. Leave a boy, come home a man.'

Pointer was my dad's pride and joy. He spotted the fawn, barked to be free, collar tight around his neck. The fawn was elegant, her auburn fur freckled like my mam's face. Dad let Pointer go. He was off, his leaps the length of his body. The fawn's too-big ears, too-skinny legs made it look like she was going to topple, but she swerved, changed direction, outsmarted Pointer. He'd hurl himself forward to bite, just miss the fawn's neck but eventually, he pawed her down, clapped his jaws around her chest. She squealed, yelped, kicked out.

Dad stood on her head, yanked her back legs up until her neck snapped.

He stroked Pointer, 'That's my boy.'

He dragged the fawn across the fields to our back garden, took my flip knife, talked me through gutting it. I sliced from neck to piss hole. Reached inside, cut around the arse. Tied the intestines so shit wouldn't fall out. Split the pelvis. Removed the bladder. Cut the gullet. Let the guts fall to the floor. Cut the diaphragm from the ribs. Sliced through the windpipe, pulled it out. Ripped out the heart 'n' lungs. Rolled the carcass so the cavity drained. Threw the heart and liver to Pointer. Hung the fawn.

I hung the fawn. Threw up in my mouth. Swallowed it. Twice. Dad placed sticks in the chest to keep it open so air could circulate and cool the meat.

Pointer ate the heart and liver. Blood splattered all over the grass, dripped from teeth and muzzle.

While Dad bathed Pointer I curled up on the sofa. My arms were stained red to the shoulder. The fawn's insides were warm but the blood was cooling, blackening, cracking.

In the morning Dad skinned the fawn. Said it was a skill to leave the meat intact, pink and smooth. He did it in one, left the head and all the skin and fur in a heap. He used a cleaver to cut its bones. One tap is all it took to crack through its joints.

I started wetting the bed. I couldn't pretend it didn't happen. It was the same dream every night. Pointer's teeth. Dad's foot. The fawn's face. Big black eyes. Little white tail. The rip and crack of her neck. Gutting the fawn. Cutting the bladder. The piss spilling out. I tried cleaning my sheets but I couldn't work the washer. I scrunched them up at the bottom of the basket, hoped my dad wouldn't realise. He did.

In the allotment every night after that, he'd launch at me to scare me, neck out like a cock. He'd punch me to the ground so I'd learn to pick myself up. Make me think I was winning then put me in my place so I learnt not to get cocky. Once he had a proper go at me, not sparring, not training, just went for me. Fractured my jaw, busted my lip, left a gash across my right cheek pouring with blood. He sat panting, more surprised than I was.

He parted the split skin, poured in his vodka, put his lighter to it, burned my face to my eye. The flesh melted and boiled, the muscles contracting as they cooked, the smell of singed eyelashes. I screamed. Was told to shut up.

The wound was still gaping, oozing, stinging when we got home. He took a needle out my mam's sewing box. His hand shook, bottom lip trembled as he pushed the needle through my flesh.

'You need to fight. It's not an option. I should've always been hard on you.'

I could feel my wound closing with each pull of the needle.

'I needed to fight once but I didn't. I couldn't move. I stood there and watched him, watched him do it. I can't even say the word. He attacked her. I just stood there and pissed myself.'

The scariest thing I'd ever seen was my dad crying.

'That was my wife! I should have run at him, killed him! Saved her. I'm a soft shite, a coward, a fucking failure of a man. I know I am.'

He fell to his knees, whimpering, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

The needle hung at the end of the thread from the half open wound, swung as I ran and ran to the allotment. Stopped, panting among the crops.

Maurice was shouting in his plot. 'Caught myself a cat.'

It was lying at the bottom of the allotment, trying to lick its bones back together, and purring. Purring as though it didn't know the difference between pain and pleasure. He went towards it with a lighter.

'Fucking thing won't eat the poison but still manages to eat my crops.'

I hopped the fence. Punched and kicked the old man until his legs buckled and he fell to the floor.

I picked up Maurice's lighter, put it to his face.

I picked up the needle that was still swinging from my face, closed my own wounds, snapped the thread off and walked away.

Maurice's son came after me the day after. Started on me so I stood up. I felt the first bone in my hand crack but I didn't stop. More snapped, some grinded, one poked out of the skin. So I bit him, latched onto his nose and ripped the flesh from it, spat it back at him. I broke fourteen bones in my fist. I was hard. I proved my worth. I didn't lose.

Dad smiled, nodded, when I came home bust up and bloodied. He boasted in the social club about his son who was a hard man, a fighter.

Mam hung herself in the garden on the same rope we used to lynch the fawn. Pointer was licking her swinging feet when I found her.

Now, if I'm disrespected, I fight. If someone looks at me the wrong way, I fight. It's simple, destroy or be destroyed.

Nina McCallig

nina_mccallig@yahoo.ie

I grew up in Dublin and have recently moved to Liverpool, following the footsteps of many before. I have always had a love of telling a good story, but it was when people stopped listening to me that I decided it was time to write them down instead.

The Redbrick

Brian is a family man with a lot on his plate. To get away from the chaos of home he takes himself to The Redbrick Pub, his sanctuary. That is until a local football tournament threatens to change everything he knows.

The Redbrick

Brian was walking around in circles in a desperate attempt to keep warm. It was seven o'clock in the morning and he was freezing his arse off. Growing up in Dublin you'd think he would be used to the dark cold mornings by now. It wasn't Spain after all was it? But none the less, Brian had promised his children a Christmas tree today and if he went home empty-handed he would never hear the end of it. This was all thanks to the Mooneys across the road. They were to blame if anything, with their fancy tree flashing in their window for the world to see. Lights everywhere in the garden and a bleedin' Santa Claus hanging off the roof. Fucking show-offs.

Every year it was the same, and sure it wasn't even December yet. Brian dragged his two boys with him to help, Derek and Billy. Although Billy was six, certain things did slip Brian's mind from time to time, like the child might need a hand getting ready in the morning, for the raggedy old fleece he was wearing was somehow inside out and back to front. The fucking eejit.

'Here, where did that jumper come from, son?' asked Brian.

'I found it in the house. It's yours, Dad.'

Brian stared at it for a minute trying for the life of him to think where on earth it came from. It wasn't one of his. Fleeces were for the auld grannies to wear to the bingo on a Friday night. Sure everyone knew that.

'Aw Jaysus I think that's Fred the painter's jumper,' said Brian, laughing his head off. 'It looks like one of his all right. He's an awful scruff him, son. I'd burn that if I were you.'

Billy was looking from his Dad to Derek and back again, hoping one of them would tell him what to do. Fred the painter was an auld drunk who lived down the road. Bit of a charity case really. People around usually gave him the few odd jobs to do when they seen him out and about looking a right state. It was an insult to hand a bloke money for nothing, so they'd get him in to paint a wall, give him a cup of tea and that, then send him on his way looking happier and feeling lighter with a few bob in his back pocket. His hands were always swollen from the gout, too much Guinness over the years. He could barely hold a paint brush, God love him. You'd have to hire a professional after him just to fix the fucking wall.

'Right so we're in agreement this is the best one,' said Brian, walking around the tree. He broke off a few branches that were in his way and began to cut into the trunk. The saw he had robbed from Paddy Murphy wasn't in the best shape. Kept bending for no good reason.

'Dad, why don't we buy our Christmas tree in the shop like normal people?' asked Derek.

'Because we're smarter than everyone else, son. Alright! Now Billy... Billy for Christ sake put your clothes back on.'

Derek burst out laughing when he seen his little brother standing in the snow with only a scabby vest on.

'No it's smelly I'm not wearing it,' said Billy.

'Well, you didn't notice five minutes ago, now stop your whining. If you die of pneumonia who would get the blame?'

'You would,' smiled Billy.

'Exactly. Now do you want a Christmas tree or what?'

'Yes I do.'

'Good because I need you to keep sketch for me.'

'Why, Dad?' said Billy, climbing back into the oversized jumper with some help from his brother.

'Just shout me if you see anyone, son.'

'But why?'

'Because, Billy, a long long time ago, some very lovely people planted these trees to make the place look nice and friendly, ya know what I mean, and every fucking year we arrive and chop one down. That's why!'

Billy walked a few feet away, eyes fixed on the path ahead, unsure exactly what he was looking for.

'Sam Casey's dad, he's smart and he buys a tree,' said Derek after careful consideration.

'Oh he is smart. I've heard that, Da,' said Billy, adjusting Fred's jumper.

'Yeah he's a doctor, wears a suit and everything, shiny black shoes too. And when he comes home from work he says things like "Margaret" - that's his wife – "fetch me my slippers and a glass of your finest wine," and she'll get them for him and everything. Not like Ma is she? So he'll just sit there in his chair with his feet up, reading The Times. And sure, that paper doesn't even have the good-looking women in it.'

'Yeah, you're right there, son,' nodded Brian.

'When I grow up I want to be walking around in shiny black shoes, being all smart and everything. Fancy, the way he is. He drives a BMW as well! That's not bad is it, Da?'

Brian was nodding and trying to focus on the task before him.

'And he puts a star on his tree; not an angel,' said Derek

'Aww Da, can we do that too? Can we put a star on the tree?' shouted Billy across the dark morning.

'I'll be putting Sam Casey's fucking da on top of the tree if Derek doesn't shut up talking about him. Do ya think I give a shite what car this man drives or what he wears on his fucking feet? Now come on gis a hand here, instead of standing there yapping like an auld one.'

They got the tree down, eventually, and began dragging it up over the hill and home as Billy ran ahead keeping his eyes peeled for anyone who might consider this daylight robbery.

Brian, worn out both physically and emotionally, didn't understand why he'd brought the kids with him in the first place. They caused more hassle than anything. But at least it was done now, and they'd all be too busy decorating the fecking thing to notice he had disappeared off to the pub for some peace and quiet.

'Is that a Christmas tree you have there?' said Paddy Murphy from next door.

'No it's a fucking reindeer. What does it look like?' said Brian as he stopped to adjust his grip.

'Well it's about time. We were all starting to get a bit worried.'

'When did yours go up, June was it?'

'I just put a sleigh on the roof. What do ya think?' said Paddy, pointing up at his house that was beginning to look like Butlins in the summer. Not even nine o clock on a Saturday morning and this chap had been up on a ladder connecting more fuckin' lights.

'Well?' said Paddy, awaiting a response.

'It looks good, not as good as the Mooneys though. Apparently they had their gear shipped over from the States. Imagine that,' said Brian, waiting for the man to lose the plot altogether.

'Joanne! We needs more lights NOW,' screamed Paddy as he stormed up the garden muttering things to himself like a fucking weirdo.

'See lads they're all mad – all competing with one another. Makes me sick,' said Brian as he watched Paddy flapping around his garden shouting at his missus.

James Kenny

j.p.kenny@hotmail.com

In 2012, I graduated from LJMU with a degree in Creative Writing. My short stories have appeared in The Cadaverine, Scholars & Rogues, and In the Red 10.

The South Plain

January. 1936. The New Year has brought tragedy to a farming family. In a place of history, legend and myth, they begin to question both the past that defines and haunts them, and the reality of the outside world that threatens to invade.

The South Plain

The last light was falling over the plain. Two miles east, above the village, a thumbprint of moon was showing. Sam Fiddlewick stayed the oars amongst a crackle of ice, reached under the hessian sacks and produced the hurricane lamp; the handle was rusted from years of wetland air. Sam searched his pockets for a match and looked up at his two boys.

'Now,' he said, 'do you know why we fish for eels in The Lum?'

'Yes,' Fran answered.

'No,' Dick answered.

Fran, elbow on his knee, chin in his palm, looked over the lake.

'Because, Dick,' Sam said, 'it's deep.'

The cold inveigled Sam's body, cracked his skin, purpled his fingers; but he held the match with a steady hand. It was damp with dew and only fizzed into a flame after a few strikes. The oil hissed in the lamp and light yawned out over the skiff. Coils of rope, fishing poles, the bobbing bag. He set the lamp between his boots and rowed them towards the centre of the lake. Dick, leaning over the gunwale, watched a feathery wave trail the paddle and sink into itself. 'How deep is it?' he asked.

'Oh,' Sam said, eyeing the back of Fran's head, 'about thirty foot.'

'Never,' Fran said, turning sharply. His peak shaded his eyes.

'So you are listening,' Sam said. He pulled the oars, muscles creaking, arms tightening against the sleeves of his Sunday suit jacket; the day's scything had made him stiff as wood. He could still hear the slink and slice of scythe blades from the reed bed. 'Anyhow, Dick,' he said, it's the deepest lake left from the old mere.'

'What about End Lake?' Fran asked.

'What about it?'

'I've heard it's fairly deep.'

'Can't say that it is.'

'Someone drowned in there.'

Sam sniffed. 'Can't have been very tall then.'

A gust of wind crumpled the lake surface, like someone blowing on hot tea. Dick smiled as water knocked under the skiff. It was only his second time out in the boat; they could have gone fishing for eels anywhere, Sam thought, but he liked to get the boys used to the water. It was their only neighbour. They had no choice but to get along.

'Keen are we?' he asked. Dick nodded. 'Right then. Do we have the bait?' Dick reached down to his feet and picked up a brown paper bag dark with damp along the bottom. He clutched the top of it with both hands. Sam lifted the peak of his cap and held the lamp up; the light glinted over dirty islands of ice. As good a place as any, he thought, and placed the bobbing bag in the water. 'Alright lads,' he said, 'out they go.'

Fran had his pole ready. He took a worm from Dick's bag and pierced it on his hook. Baited, line weighed down with a plumb, he cast out, hitting the water almost soundlessly. He was twelve and a natural; but he knew it a little too much. He wasn't wearing a jacket like Mary had told him to. Thin shoulder-blades jutted under his flannel shirt. Sam hadn't filled out at that age either. Dick was six years younger – a late hatched one, they called him. He and Fran couldn't be more different. Fran liked the smell of warm shotgun cartridges, collected fishing hooks and rifle pellets; Dick cracked stones to see the jagged colours running through them, plucked leaves from goat-willows, oaks, sycamores, and examined them curiously. He threw his line out and the plumb broke the surface barely two metres from the skiff.

Fran laughed. 'Use your strength, Dick.' Sam gave him a hard look. Fran regarded the lake. He asked Dick how many eels he thought he would catch this time.

'Hundreds.'

'Hundreds?'

'Yeah, hundreds.'

'Here,' Sam said, gathering the line and handing him the pole, 'if you're going to catch hundreds you'd better try again.'

He cast out. The plumb dunked into the water and resurfaced with a bob.

'Better,' Sam said. He stood up with the lamp and looked over the plain. Fields stretched out with unpunctuated flatness. Last night's snow had filled the grooves between ridges, frozen so a shovel produced only a dull ring. Lapwings speckled the last strip of light in the west, below them shadowy alders sat like sad, wounded giants, their limbs gnarled and twisted. January. The Lancashire lowlands. Mere End Farm. Everywhere he looked he saw his past and his future.

He noticed Dick looking up at him. His line trembled.

'Can I bring it in?' he asked, excitedly.

Sam nodded, still staring out at the plain. Dick sat up on the gunwale and leant over the edge. He fumbled with his line in the water, trying to get the flickering catch into the bobbing bag. He leant a little further.

Somebody shouted from the dry land. Sam, wrenched out of his thoughts, turned too quickly for the rusted handle of the lamp. It clicked and give way, smashing over the gunwale, causing Fran to jolt up. The skiff lurched suddenly and forcefully to the left. Dick cried out but his voice was swallowed by a deep crunch of water and ice. Sam was rooted. It didn't feel like Dick had gone under. For the briefest of moments everything was as quiet as smoke. The lake pulsed under the soles of his boots. Then he registered Fran crying uselessly for his brother. Sam broke through the surface feet-first, plunging into cold darkness, a rumbling explosion detonating in his ears. Light and shape and the sound of Fran's voice were sucked away. Shock seized him. He thrashed around, grasping for an arm, ankle, anything; the water had made him sluggish. He felt like he was moving in a dream . . .

Had he been down seconds, now, or hours? Was he sinking or rising? The lake invaded his lungs, filled his nose. He had to emerge or the cold would claim him. Urging himself up into the black nothingness, he bumped into something. A branch. A boat oar. He prayed for a limb and gripped it and forced himself upwards, pulling its weight. A sound went off as though a plug had been pulled from his skull and he could taste copper and his chest was bursting and bursting and

One more kick

One more

One

*

Mary Fiddlewick still wore her sun-bonnet even though it was winter. A white apron, starch-stiffened, reached down to her boots. The wind did not blow it against her legs. She scraped the reeds together with a long-handled rake, dragged the brush through as though delivering a punishment, and tied them up with as little twine as necessary. Her fingers worked mechanically. Like spiders' legs. She laid the finished stook on the horse-drawn wagon.

Katherine watched her mother's ritual. 'I wonder if they've caught anything,' she said.

'Let's hope so,' Mary said, 'because that's your supper. You'll have to forget about eel pie. I'll not have time to make a crust. They'll have to be cooked in milk.' She climbed onto the wagon. 'Now, let's have the rest of them.'

Katherine looked around the clearing. The stooks, green and sporadic, were the shape of six-foot hourglasses. Between them she could see the men scything in the reed bed. Twelve altogether, young and old. A line of caps and coats. Boys were red-faced and raw from razorblades. Some of the men had moustaches blowing like meadow grass above their lips. Older ones coughed up rattling clogs of phlegm. Katherine tucked her fingers under the twine of a stook; a few good frosts had stiffened the reed necks. She thought about how deeply engrained they had been in the earth, the land. But when the men's blades cut through, they toppled like ancient towers. Gone. Thatch for roofs. It was a durable material and much better than straw. It helped to be durable. She gripped the twine and carried the stook on her back as ants carry crumbs of dirt.

'It's getting dark,' she told her mother. 'They'll need the lamp.'

Mary stood on the wagon, feet apart, legs making a white triangle of her apron. She stared out to the lake. 'Sam?' she called out.

Somewhere, something broke the surface.

Men were shouting from the reed bed, sloshing frantically through the shallows. Katherine felt her heart sink into her stomach. She ran after them into the clearing between the reed bed and the lake; they were calling for the lamp, voices catapulting around in the near-dark. Light grew over her shoulder as if a door was opening. Someone passed her with the lamp, illuminating a swirl of eyes, caps, beards. She kept running.

At the shore the waves broke like dark glass. She knew someone was out on the water. She could hear the dip and drag of an oar, see a shape forming. Her clothes felt as if they were shrinking onto her, the elastic of her knickers choked her stomach and thighs. Her bodice tightened, a hot prickling wave swept under her stockings and dress, spreading up her back, over her shoulders, down through her arms and fingers. She called out for her father and brothers. Fear had gripped her throat too. Was she dreaming? It all had the quickness and lucidity of a dream. Of her dreams. Dreams where she's lying in the ditch, grave-clothes rippling, holding flowers from the brook. Like Ophelia. But now she stood on the shoreline. To her left was her mother, head bowed and shaking, hands pressed together in the trembling light. 'Our father,' Mary prayed, 'who art in heaven . . .'

The skiff came slowly into view. Fran dug the oar through the water and ice as though it was gravel. She called out again but could not hear herself over the others. The bow hissed through the wet soil of the shoreline. Her father, clothes wet and weighed down, carried Dick from the back of the skiff and away from the lake. Katherine's insides clenched when she saw him. There was a cut on his forehead. Like a third bloody eyebrow. His lips were lung-blue, right arm outstretched, fingers curled, hanging onto some piece of himself. She knelt down to him.

Her mother drummed her fists into Dick's chest, praying between each assault.

'Heavenly father.'

Thud!

'Have mercy.'

Thud!

'Have mercy!'

Fran recoiled at the sight of his little brother's boots twitching in the dirt. Her father leant on his fists, sucking in the air, cheeks and neck turning beetroot. Above her a halo of lit-up faces, eyeballs sliding. Some held caps clutched at their chests. They'd given up. They'd all given up. They all knew he was dead.

'Bastard,' Mary cried, a smearing of snot above her lip. 'You bastard!'

Katherine felt the anger rising through her. She shouldered her mother aside, crossed her hands over Dick's sternum, and plunged her arms down into him, emptying herself of all the life she had. Waves broke inside him. And then Dick hurled up a projectile column of lake. Caught on an in-breath, Katherine swallowed, gagged, retched. The smells were awful: stagnant water, sour milk, sweat and breath and shit. Veins flashed up in his neck. Katherine, face dripping, rolled him onto his side. She hesitated, slapped his back, screamed at him. There was a rattling sound with each cough. She worked her hand into the warm cave of his mouth, stretching her fingers, cursing them for being too short. At the curve of his throat something flickered like a serpents tongue. She pinched this thing and pulled it, carefully, from his mouth – a long and blood-blackened length of sedge.

When the air hit his lungs Dick let out a painful, throaty bawl. She had never heard a more disappointed sound. A cry of loss for something she couldn't register. She threw the sedge away, slapping against someone's shins, and held him. There was only herself and her brother. In those few seconds she had lived out his death over and over again.

Limp as a dead eel. That's how Dick looked as he was carried back to the wagon draped over her father's big arms, head lolling in the crook of the elbow, chunks of wet hair loosening.

Katherine climbed onto the cart seat next to Fran, the reins creaking in his grip. Reeds crackled under the weight of her mother and father and Dick in the back. The men shook themselves out of their coats, threw them over Dick, and gripped the wooden spokes of the cartwheels. Their faces were determined; heaving, straining, biting their bottom lips.

'Come on,' Fran shouted at the Shire horse, voice breaking.

She could smell the animal's sweat, see muscle ticking in his hide. Fran lashed the reins so hard she felt it ring through her; they broke the horse's skin and the leather was wet with blood. The horse gave a shrill whinny and pounded the earth with its hooves. The wagon rumbled over the frozen back field, jolted onto the sunken cobbled yard. Light throbbed dimly in the kitchen window. Her father kicked the door open with the heel of his boot and the door handle struck the wall inside. He laid Dick on the hearth rug in front of the range.

'Get him something warm,' he ordered.

Katherine looked around for her mother and heard her upstairs. She went through to the lean-to and looked for the brick to warm in the oven. It was colder in there. The walls were covered in the dull steel of cleavers, ladles, pans, knives hanging by string. She didn't want to be in here, this wasn't her place. Yes, she could butter bread, wring a chicken's neck, pound the pig's heart and liver into offal. But she could also tie a willow bow to a scythe, take the kick of a shotgun, do all the things a girl of eighteen wasn't supposed to do. That's what the men and her mother told her. No, she didn't want to be in there. At the moment, she didn't want to be anywhere.

She spied the brick on the worktop propping up two leather-bound recipe books.

'What are you doing?' Mary ducked under the doorway and picked up the books with one hand. She placed them on the shelf. 'Give me that,' she said, taking the brick. Katherine could smell her: iodine on cotton wool, meat juices, sweat. Somewhere was the tang of her homemade perfume – rose petals infused in water. 'Come on,' Mary said, and stepped aside.

A bed of flock pillows, blankets, and the pea-green eiderdown from her parents' bed, all her mother's creations, had been made for Dick in front of the range. The blankets were pulled up to his neck. A rash spread from under that itchy material. Her father sat in his chair dressed in fresh long-johns, a flannel shirt, and a towel over his shoulders. He didn't take his eye from Dick. Katherine stood behind him, her fingers curled over the back, clawing at the wood. Mary placed the brick in the oven. She filled the kettle from the enamel jug and swung a trivet over the coals. Katherine watched her draping Dick's wet clothes over the clothes horse. It didn't have to be done now, she thought, things like that don't matter. As she opened up his trousers Mary stopped, turned her face away, and folded them back together. The smell of Dick's shit was pervasive. Katherine hated her mother for doing that.

There were men in the yard, passing the window, filling the kitchen. Dust from the stone floor powdered their damp boots. Suddenly everything was crowded. Men nudged past her, all trying to speak to her father, all edging her out of the way, out of the firelight, into the shadowy part of the room. Katherine moved away from them, rubbing against sleeves on her way out. She pulled her grey wrap-around tighter and crossed the yard to the stables. What did she want? Approval? Recognition? It was best not to expect anything.

Fran had hung the reins on the far wall with the horse collars, saddles, harnesses. Katherine walked through to where the Shire horse was lying down in the cold dark. She could hear him breathing. A strong smell of livestock and trampled straw. She made sure there was enough water in his trough and knelt down to him. She ran her hand over his back, muscle trembling under her fingers. The blood was still wet on his brisk hair. He gave a kick.

'It's okay,' she said, resting her head against him. 'It's okay.'

Abigail Inglis

abi.inglis@btinternet.com

I am a third year Creative Writing and Drama Student at Liverpool John Moores and 'Lee' is my first novel.

Lee

Lee is based on the events in the life of Aileen Wuornos, the hitchhiking prostitute of Florida's Interstate Highway 75 who shot and killed 7 men between December 1989 and November 1990. The novel also explores the intense relationship between Lee and her girlfriend Tyria Moore.

Lee

7pm

December 15 1989

Last Resort Biker Bar

Daytona Beach, Florida

'Born under a bad sign, I've been down ever since I began to crawl. If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. Hard luck and trouble's my only friend, I've been down ever since I was ten.'

They've got that one right. Cream whined out of the jukebox in the corner of the bar as I drained the dregs of my beer.

'CB, two Buds and two Jacks.'

'Ah, come on Lee, you know Danny said I can't put any more drinks on your tab.'

'Cannonball, how long have I been a fucking regular? You know I'm good for it. Two buds and two Jacks before I light a match to your ass and fire you out the fucking door.'

'Alright, alright. Cool it. This is the last time though Lee.'

Ty's hand is on my knee,

'Lee, when are you gonna pay the tab? We got rent due on Sunday too, how are we gonna pay that?'

'Ah Jesus Ty, give it a rest. When have I ever let you down? I'll get the cash don't you worry about that. I look after you, don't I?'

'Lee, I haven't eaten since yesterday morning. Man, I'm wasting away here.'

'Go order some fucking food then, and if cook's got a problem with that, tell him to come here and talk to me about it. Alright?'

Tyria sighed and slid off the bar stool. I watched her walk away, her small frame carrying a huge ass clad in pale denim. My black biker jacket swamped her. Her short mousy hair was sticking up all over the place and she swayed slightly as walked. She was right though, I needed to pay the tab and the fucking rent on Sunday. I had 10 bucks in my purse, 6 smokes and this beer.

There was only one thing for it. Find myself a new John.

The bar was starting to fill up, the evening crowd staggering in. Leather clad bikers greasing their Harleys in the front porch, truckers swigging pitchers in the red vinyl booths and the local skanks hanging about the pool table, ready to drop their panties for any man that'll buy them a beer. At least I fucking charge my Johns, and I'm clean. Cleaner than those bitches - they've got more fucking crabs than a seafood platter.

Now, I like to call myself a 'Professional Call Girl'. I've been hooking since I was 16. Huh, don't need no college degree for a job like mine. The money can be pretty sweet. I can make 200 bucks in one night - what other job is out there where you can make that in a few hours? Yeah, right. Exactly. But the money don't tend to last too long with Ty around.

Up until six months ago, I had steady regulars you know, a good group of Johns that I saw every week. But what with the situation in Kuwait and this damn 'Desert Storm', well, Johns are a little scarce around here, or they're coming back with no god damn arms or legs. Man no one wants that shit. Ty told me to start going to see strangers you know, to make more money. So that's what I've been doing, going out on the I-75, hitching and hooking. It ain't so bad most of the time. I've had a few hairy situations but what fucking hooker hasn't right? And I've got to keep the 'wife' happy in the lifestyle she's become accustomed to.

I had a bad time the other week. Shit got real bad, real fast, but it's all under control now. I've got everything all sorted out.

11.50pm

November 30 1989

Interstate 75, Volusia County, Florida

The I-75 passes through six different states. Its 1,786 miles long, which makes it the seventh longest Interstate Highway in the whole of the United States. For the past few months my life has been traipsing up and down this road with my thumb stuck out. The woods wrap alongside the highway, hugging its curves all the way through Florida, through Dixie, Marion, Pasco, Citrus. In Florida the trees are always green. That's one thing I've noticed about here. How different the trees are from back home; the woods in Troy have trees whose branches will rip you into ribbons they're so bare. Not a single fucking green thing grows in Michigan. In fact, I don't think anything grows there. I've always felt pretty at home in the woods though, I suppose you might have if you'd lived in your car in the middle of them for two fucking years but there you go. Something about the tallness of the trees protecting you, and the isolation of them. It's just you and those trees in the woods, you don't got to worry about people. God knows they just get in the way.

The headlights coming towards me are blinding. I lower my head and stick out my thumb. A car stops just past me. Hit. A quick glance at the license plate tells me this dud is Florida home-grown. His ride is a dark blue heap of junk, wrecked with dents and dings and with a trunk full of saddles and leathers. A damn cowboy. The door opens and I climb in.

'Where you headed?'

'Wherever you can take me man.'

'Sure thing.'

He pulls off and speeds down the highway. He has a full head of dark hair and a prickly little moustache. His blue jeans are covered in dirt and dust, and the air inside the cab cloys with old sweat. Just my fucking luck, a stinking dude to start my night.

'So where about you going to girl?'

'Oh I'm just trying to get down to Miami, my kids are down there you see, so I'm just going to get them.'

This is my hook. I pull a crumbled photograph out of the front pocket of my bag and show it to him. A photo of two angelic looking kids about 6 and 9, a boy and a girl. I got it off Ty - it's her cousins or nieces and nephews. Whatever. Usually works a treat.

'Cute kids'

'Yeah, I gotta go and see them, but I'm just real broke at the moment you know, so if there's any way you could help me out, I'd be real grateful.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Or maybe I could help you out with a thing or two, y'know?'

He looks sideways at me and I smile up at him. I do my best coy smile, but when you're a slightly overweight, flatcracker biker chick it's a pretty tough hustle.

This is the key point in hooking, either the dude can tell you to fuck off and kick you the hell out of his ride or he'll nod and start looking for a 'secluded' place to pull over while undoing his belt buckle. My John looks at me, a quick glance over and then he nods.

'Sweet dude. If you just carry on past this next junction, I know a quiet place where we can help each other out.'

We drive about five miles down the highway and I point him in the direction of a sheltered spot of forest where the tall scrub pine trees hide us from the headlights of the cars on the highway. He cuts the engine and turns to look at me. I look straight ahead into the dense black of the forest that surrounds us.

'So how about it man. 25 bucks straight up.'

'Sure'

He smiles goofily at me. Fucking hell, what a queer.

'So lemme see it.'

'His hand moves towards his belt buckle.

'Ah man, not your fucking cock. Lemme see the cash first, don't want you ripping me off now, do we?'

'Oh right.'

He smiles awkwardly at his fucking hilarious joke - as if I haven't seen that one a-hundred fucking times before - and fumbles in the front pocket of his jeans for the crumpled up bills. He hands them to me and I shove them down my top.

'Safe keeping? What if I wanna grab a handful of those babies?'

'Nah uh. Not part of the deal man. Straight up like I said. Let's get started.'

I take off my jacket and unbutton my pants. I look up at him but he still isn't moving. Jesus dude, a stinking fucking John and a total loser. Maybe he needs a softer approach.

'Come on man, you too. Take your pants off, I wanna see that big, hard cock of yours.'

He begins to unbutton his belt buckle before looking over to me. I can see, he's on the edge of saying something. His mouth is half open, gaping like a fucking fish.

'Can I. Can I. Can I fuck you really hard?'

Jesus fucking Christ, here we go.

'Yeah baby, you can pound me really hard. Make me scream.'

'I want to pull your hair.'

I can see the outline of his dick growing inside the tight denim of his crotch. Fucking would be my luck to get the dominant ass.

'Yeah, you can pull my hair. You can ride me like a prize stallion baby. It's making me wet just thinking about it. Come on, come over here.'

'Hang on a minute.'

He turns away from me towards the door and I see his hand push down the interior lock button.

'Can you call me Daddy?' he says.

And then I'm fucking gone. His face has changed. The shape has changed. It's all older, it's hairier, it's fucking fatter and different. It's a different fucking face. All I can see in front of me is different fucking faces. I see his face close to mine. He saying he wants me to call him Daddy. Daddy, fucking Daddy. There's bits of rope and leather, and cleaning fluid and fucking needles and injection packets strewn around the cab. The stench of Ajax hits the back of my throat, makes my eyes water and cough splutter in my chest.

Every other sick fucker who has ever violated me, abused me, stuck their fucking dick up my ass or pulled out my hair is in front of me. The slick sweaty faces of a dozen men float in front of my eyes. Chief from Michigan, that cross-dressing pervert from San-Francisco, the school-yard kids pulling my hair, me down on my knees sucking them off in the woods, old rich dudes wanting a bit of 'rough' in the strip clubs in the city, my brother, my poor fucking sick brother running his chubby fucking fingers under the lacy hem of my school dress and Daddy. Daddy, fucking Daddy. His face is all I can see looming in front of me. The world goes blurry around me and I'm locked in. I don't know anything else, except I'm locked in this world, in this car, in this moment with another sick fucker.

And before I know it, my hand is down by my side, in my bag, on the metal. One. Two. Three...Jesus fucking Christ. It's happened. I've done it again. Aileen, what the fuck have you done?

9pm

December 15 1989

Daytona Beach, Florida

The Volusia County 'Wandering Star' Motel where we've been 'living' or just fucking surviving for the last few weeks, glows fluorescent blue with the shitty neon signs the owner has plastered all over the roof. It's just a half mile walk from the bar to the motel but it takes a fucking decade walking with Ty. She's falling and staggering all about so I've got my hands round her waist and her arms around my shoulders practically dragging her along the sidewalk. I mean, I'm pretty pissed but Ty is royal drunk.

Cars beep and guys shout as they drive past us, fucking douches. I flip them the bird. What a pair we must look; a 6ft brick shithouse biker chick and a 5ft nothing big assed drunken dyke. Ty's slurring her words and I can feel her hot whisky breath in my ear. But man, even when she's trashed I still don't wanna take my hands off her.

'Lee, I wanna go back to the bar, let's go get some more beer and have a party. Come on.'

'We're out of money. Jesus, Ty, you were the one telling me to pay the fucking tab! We're going home.'

'I don't want to go back to that fucking dive. When the heck are we going to get our own place?'

'Gee, I don't know Tyra, how about when we have some fucking money and you stop pouring it down your throat and sticking it up your nose.'

The venom in my voice makes her step backwards and she focuses her unsteady gaze on me. She unhooks herself from my arms, turns around and storms off down the road.

'Fuck's sake Ty, wait up. I didn't mean it like that, come back here a second baby.'

But she's gone. Her tottering silhouette disappears into the distance towards the neon fucking palace. I sit down on the kerb and light a cigarette.

'Fucking chicks.'

Back at the motel Ty is laid out on the bed. The way her chin is lifted up with her nose slightly wrinkled means she's pissed at me. I fucking hate it when she does that shit, like she thinks she's better than all this. Just because she comes from some happy-fucking-clappy family up in Ohio and has never had to want for a single fucking thing. That don't mean she is better than me. I mean, she's here with me now isn't she? But I still can't stand it when we fight. That girl is the only good thing I got going on.

'Ty, I'm sorry baby. You know I didn't really mean what I said?'

'Fuck off Lee.'

'Come on baby, can't we just forget about it, Please?'

She stands up from the bed and comes towards me. Her eyes are red rimmed but not glazed over anymore. The walk must have sobered her up.

'No Lee, we cannot forget about it. I am fucking sick of this goddamn place. I am sick of being stuck in this motel room looking at the same goddamn four walls for weeks at a time when the fucking money runs out. This is not my plan, this is not how I thought my life would turn out. You said you'd look after me. You're a goddamn liar Lee!'

A fresh set of tears stream down her face and she comes towards me punching wildly in my direction. Her tiny hands balled up into fists punch at my arms, my chest and my stomach. She's so small that I can barely feel a thing. I take her into my arms. My chin rests on top of her head and her tears fall into my chest. She's snotting and dribbling all over the place but I hold her tight and stroke her hair. It's the only thing I can do.

'Ah, shh baby, please stop crying. I'm sorry about what I said and I'm sorry we got to live here. But I will look after you, I promised you that when you left your Momma didn't I? I will baby. I promise - everything's gonna be alright.'

She looks up at me, her face is soaked with tears.

'How do you know it Lee? How can say that?'

And I don't fucking know it. I don't. I don't know that everything is gonna be alright, I don't know how I'm gonna pay the fucking rent on Sunday, I don't know how we're gonna afford to eat. How we're gonna afford to live. But I still tell her that everything is gonna be alright. Cos if Ty thinks that, then it will be. As long as I've got her, then everything will be alright.

'I just do baby. You gotta believe me. I'll sort this out. Now listen to me.'

I take her head between my hands and stoop down to look at her straight in the eyes.

'I am gonna clean myself up, get myself looking real good and then I'm gonna go and find us a new John. I'm gonna make us lots of cash, then tomorrow we can pay the rent, give Danny the money for the tab and go buy you something real pretty. How about that?'

She nods and smiles a little.

'Good girl,' I say. 'Now I'm gonna go get a shower so I can get us a man with deep pockets.'

That is all she wanted to hear. I guess that's all anyone wants to hear, a little bit of reassurance that everything is gonna be alright.

But tell me something, who the fuck is gonna be there for me?

Nicola Copeland

nicolacopeland87@hotmail.com

I am an English graduate about to finish a Masters in Writing at Liverpool John Moores University. I write poetry and prose to find peace in this frantic world. I love to learn as I write and draw on life's experiences.

Cormorano

Wartime Liverpool with a twist. 10yr old Joseph Ventre is separated from his mother during the May blitz. With the Liver Birds watching over him, we scour the streets of the devastated city with Joseph as he searches for his mother.

Cormorano

They look strong. They're still here, still watching over the city, protecting us. Each day I walk down to the docks to check that the Birds haven't been bombed. I panic at the thought that soon they'll be gone and just a pile of rubble will lie in their place. A crowd of people gather at the dock wall to see a ship that was bombed last night. It's stuck on its side, half sunk, the spring sun reflected in the grey paint.

'Joseph, hurry up! I've got to get up to Lord Street to see Marie.' That's my mam, Rosalia, but everyone calls her Rosa. She's Italian. I suppose I am too, but I reckon maybe just a quarter. Turning towards her voice, I realise she's already walked far ahead while I've been gazing up at the mighty Liver Birds. Mam sews people's clothes to earn a few bob. Her customers used to come to her but nowadays, with the war and everything, we have to trail across town, dropping off and picking up orders. I run to catch up with Mam and take a heavy parcel of clothes from her. It's a long walk home to Lionel Street and the parcel string has made a deep red mark across her fingers.

'Thanks love,' she whispers. 'Me hands are killin'.'

I hug the brown package to my chest before the shredded string gives way and Marie's dresses scatter the filthy pavement. Mam stops to cram another parcel into her shoulder bag. It's stuffed with four rolls of black and white cotton that we've just picked up at the docks. Mam knows a fella who does them cheaper than everywhere else, but he always stays out the way, down on the docking port. She tells me never to say to anyone where her stuff comes from. She straightens up and slings the bag over her shoulder. On the other arm her gas mask box slips off and falls to the ground.

'Ah merda!'

I quickly pick it up. I forgot mine today and she's already clipped me round the ear for it. 'God forgive me. I am sick of carrying this bleedin' thing around!' She swings it back over her arm in temper.

I gaze across The Strand at the aftermath of last night's air raid. The breeze from the waterfront blows dust into my eyes. No cars are getting down this road today. It's blocked with huge mounds of rubble, making it hard to even walk. I wonder how the Liver Birds have managed to stay standing. The myth really must be true. We walk past a group of fire wardens hanging around a mobile canteen at the front of the smouldering Cunard building. They're chatting with air raid wardens while drinking their tea made by the smart and smiley ladies of the WVS, who Mam says are the real heroes of this war. One of the wardens takes off his tin hat, rubs his head and points down the road.

'They've even managed to get the Docker's Umbrella. Bloody thing's ruined.'

His mate turns to look in the direction of the overhead railway. 'Bloody hell. The bastards!' He wipes his black-tinged face with the back of his jacket sleeve. 'These poor docks are in for it. They won't stop till they're wiped out.'

They are the Jerries. They've battered us the past two nights, determined to flatten us. But I know this place, this city, and the people... I know we'll win.

We walk past the Queen Victoria monument where girls are playing nearby in the rubble of flattened shops, their white socks black with dirt. They are pointing up and laughing at Queen Vic.

'Ar 'ey, look at her todger, 'orrible tha'!' one girl shouts as the rest laugh along with her. Mam says whoever made that statue must've been a soft arse. I still chuckle under my breath as the girls start to throw stones and broken pieces of brick into a pan, ten points per goal. A little one, about five, sits by herself on the steps of the monument, fiddling with shrapnel and unaware of the joking behind her. She's not wearing socks; her cardigan has a big hole in the elbow and snot streams from her nose. An older girl appears and smacks her wrist, the shrapnel falling from her little hands. She begins to sob as she's pulled away towards the flat surface of Lord Street. Mam goes mad at me when I come home with shrapnel in my pockets, says it puts holes in my clothes.

The heat prickles the skin under my jumper. Carefully holding the parcel under one arm, I roll my sleeves up as far as they'll go. The jumper's too small now and they don't reach my wrists. Mam says I've shot up these past few months. A haze drifts in between the buildings that are still standing. It's the first week of May and the air is muggy and heavy. We try to cross Derby Square. A mass of bricks and a burnt-out car, nearly cut in half by a fallen lamppost, blocks the path onto Lord Street. Someone has used a Fry's shop sign as a walkway to help people scramble over the rubble.

'Look at this, Joseph.' Mam looks down at broken teacups and the bent wheel of a pram. 'Tsk. People's lives in ruins.' She wipes her brow with an old handkerchief before stuffing it back up her sleeve.

'Ere, give us your hand, Mam.'

She places her hand in mine as I guide her over the pieces of family life.

'Oh...can you smell that, Joseph? Horrible isn't it?' Mam uses her free hand to protect her nose from the stench of dust and hot rubber.

'Course yeah, smells like me da's feet did after a day's work.'

Mam let out a muffled shriek. I like it when she laughs, makes me forget pretty much everything. I manage to lead her safely onto the flat ground.

Every way you turn sad faces are smeared with dust, a black tinge covering any expression. We pass a crowd of men searching in the remains of Jimmy's Bakery. They look tired, coughing together and beaten by the afternoon heat. I dread to think who or what they're searching for. I went to the bakery with Uncle Fran a few months back. Jimmy's wife let me have a piece of leftover sponge cake and it was the best thing I'd ever tasted. My mouth starts to water as I remember the jam filling. Fran knew Jimmy from school and always bagged some free bread or a cake from under the counter if he was lucky. He'd bring it home for Mam. Fran looks after us like that. He has done ever since Dad died.

Remembering my dad, I look across to Mam. She's thinking hard about something as she shuffles along and I try not to walk too quickly. She seems worried and I hate that because I need to look out for her.

'Eh Mam, tell me the story about the Liver Birds.'

She sighs and her green eyes look across to meet mine. 'What, about the myth and legend?'

'That one yeah. You haven't told me it for ages.' I nudge her with my elbow and shift the weight of Marie's parcel.

'You're jokin' me aren't you. I tell you it at least twice a bleedin' month.'

Laughing together we cross the road and Mam clears her throat.

'Your nonno called them the Cormorano and he loved them, just like you do.' I like it when Mam speaks about her memories. She carries on, hand gestures and all.

'It was the very first thing he saw when he and Nonna came into Liverpool on the boat, all those years ago.' She stops and turns to face the waterfront. We see the Birds peering over the top of the buildings. Mam uses her hand to shield her eyes from the sun's evening glow, taking deep breaths to continue.

'He couldn't believe the stone work in the building and how majestic they looked, so as soon as he could he went to have a closer look.'

'But Mam, how did Nonno know the myth? I mean, who told him if he couldn't speak any English?'

'Believe it or not, a bobby told him.'

I laugh aloud because usually bobbies don't have much to do with people from our area.

'Come to think of it, I laughed too when he first told me. His English was always terrible, bless him, no matter how much I tried to teach him.'

Mam falls silent, deep in her thoughts. I never met them, my grandparents. They died two months apart while Mam was pregnant with me. Nonno went first after a lung infection and Nonna followed; Mam always says she died of a broken heart. We still live in their house and Mam's kept a few bits and bobs around the place so we'll always remember them. She let me keep Nonna's gold cigarette case that she brought with her all the way from Piscinisco. It has the letters FG engraved in the corner: Fiorilla Granelli. I keep it under my bed. Nonno worked for the churches making mosaics but Mam says that his fingers couldn't manage the delicate work so he started to help Dad in stonemasonry. The only two plates we have in our kitchen are lined with a mosaic pattern that Nonno designed for Mam and Dad's wedding day. She says she could never part with them.

We're nearing the crossing of Whitechapel and Paradise Street where Marie has her stall when Mam moves on to the last part of her story.

'Anyways, the Cormorano. One bird faces the river to watch the ships and make sure they come in safely. That's the female one.'

'Really?' I raise my eyebrows.

'Eh, don't sound so surprised, you.' Mam always says women are the backbone of the home. I look to the ground to avoid another clip round the ear.

'The other one, the male bird, looks out over the city and protects the people of Liverpool. The myth is that a great tragedy would fall upon the city if the birds were to ever fly away...' Her voice trails off as she takes in the devastation around us.

'The mighty Birds ain't down yet!' I shout and point my finger to the sky, showing the Luftwaffe that we are still here, fighting for our city. I want to sound brave for Mam. I step over a teddy bear with one arm and no eyes, and a shiver runs down my back.

Ashleigh Nugent

shaktiash@hotmail.com

Locks recently won two awards at Manchester Literature festival. I've been published in an academic journal and written articles for magazines on the rap and classical music workshops I deliver in hospitals. I have a first class BA in English Literature.

Locks

Aeon seeks roots and belonging. He travels from the parochial English village, in which he grew up, to Jamaica. There he is attacked, imprisoned and forced to flee the country. In this semi-autobiographical saga, Aeon must face his mortality, question his sexuality and redefine his racial identity.

Locks

Gifts

Even at the time I knew that I'd created the situation. In fact, it was that thought that kept me going. That and looking forward to the visits from my cousin. I never told Increase that I invented the whole story out of pure thought power. No point. He probably blamed me anyway.

'Do you have any gifts?' said the customs inspector. He rifled through my clothes with just his thumbs and forefinger tips, sprinkling off imaginary dirt after each item. His voice was a monotone drone. 'Gifts,' he said again, without even moving his lips. I looked over to Increase. He was leaning over the next desk and touching the elbow of another inspector, saying something, and his inspector laughed and gripped Increase's elbow.

The clothes in his suitcase symbolised the opposite identity to mine; different costumes for a different role. Increase was big on tweedy patterns and plaid and he even had a feather in his hat. My stuff was either bright: orange and green hooded mesh top, red, yellow and green string vest, bright bandannas, red Ellesse boots: or stark: black pants, black bandannas and black t-shirts bearing images of black people doing black things.

Most of these trappings had been acquired over the past twelve months, since Increase came back to Searbank a different person. Since then I'd seen Shabba Ranks on Channel 4's The Word, insisting that gay people ought to be crucified; I'd sat on the back row of the cinema smoking weed and watching Spike Lee's Malcolm X; I'd driven into Huyton to play offending rap music with my windows down, snarling every gang of white lads I passed, the day after Stephen Lawrence was stabbed for being black.

I'd even done something radical with my hair.

'DO-YOU-AV-EN-E-GIFTS?' He said, spitting out the sounds as if I spoke a foreign language.'

'Er, na, na, j, just er clothes and that like.'

The inspector glared into the back of his own eyelids and sucked his teeth, 'Pttts. Will you be visiting people in Jamaica?' he said. 'Family?'

'Er, y, ye, yeah, yeah like,' I stammered.

Stop saying like, I thought.

The inspector seemed suddenly more upbeat. 'So, what gifts do you have, for your faaamily?'

I stammered.

You see, when I was fourteen, David Bennington had a number of things I wanted: he had his reputation, he had his tough upbringing, he had a leather jacket. But about that same time, he seemed to deliberately try to give up his tough guy reputation. He just refused to fight. He was always reading books. That was when I first noticed his funny little twitch. He used to blink, flickeringly, as if he couldn't control it. I asked him about it and it didn't seem to bother him. He quite liked it. I found his twitch was appealing. So I copied it. At some point this borrowed inflection must have migrated down my face and into my tongue.

'Er, na, na, na, na, na nuttin' like.'

The inspector sucked his teeth again an extra-long, loud time. He dropped a black t-shirt back into the suitcase. It had the group name N.W.A. slashed red across the top like fresh wounds hanging over a photograph of a shrouded body at a murder scene.

I recently came across a photograph of me wearing the N.W.A. t-shirt outside the Slavery Museum in Liverpool with members of Dad's family. That was about the sum of my knowledge on black history and culture. Something about slavery, some rappers and a few relatives. And I can't even remember their names.

That's why I went to Jamaica.

I was actually looking for the pictures that Increase and I had taken of each other on the balcony of the hotel room. In the ones we took on the first day we were both pumped up. We looked fresh, young and confident. I'd sneaked into the bathroom to do a few press-ups beforehand. Increase probably wished that he'd thought of that. But it was the pictures taken three weeks later, the comparison between the two sets that really told the story.

Those pictures are lost. But I did find one of a six year old me sat, barely distinguishable, in a circle of other Searbank kids in our back garden, every one of us wearing horribly coloured short shorts. There's a ten year old me, jumping into shot, flashing a toothy smile and waving camp jazz hands for the camera, Increase glancing out of shot with a look that says – 'What a twat!' There's me age twelve dressed up in my sister's shiny black leggings and pink stilettos, gargantuan eighties belt, red lipstick and pink hairclip. And there's even a me at thirteen, in a white shirt and a black tie in the back line of a brass band with a trombone at some formal concert, with the Latin TERRA LUCEM (Google it) hanging over me.

Then there's me in my teens; in a boxers' stance, tensing every muscle; sat on the bonnet of a car waving a threatening finger at some make-believe transgressor; me sat in a flat looking dangerously detached with a gun sat on my lap \- it had a blocked barrel.

The inspector scowled down at the suitcase, with the face of one who's sniffed a sack of shit. 'You have no gifts,' he said, and then he looked at me.

Enjoy Jamaica

'Enjoy Jamaica. Irie Man.'

A huge guy came bouncing over in a massive smile and a threadbare waistcoat. 'My name Jeremy, Jeremy my name.' You can't rush under the weight of a Jamaican midday sun, so this guy just waved off his rivals. The floppy motion of his limp wrists looked wrong on the end of his muscle-bound arms. 'You are from, you are from. Wait, wait I can guess, I can guess. Erm Canada, no, no Canada, erm, wait, wait, Holland no, no Holland. England. London. London, England.'

Jeremy would have made a good medium. Searbank is nowhere near London. Searbank sits exactly in between Liverpool and Manchester. The fields at Searbanks borders seep into three Lancashire towns. Searbank wouldn't have guessed itself. London was close enough, considering.

Jeremy insisted that he push our trolley to the row of awaiting cars. He insisted that we ignore all the other cars, however appealing they and their drivers, for this particular paint free 1950s Hillman Hunter bucket was the perfect carriage for us 'England boys'. His friendly patter was splashed with repetitions of, 'Irie, irie, come now, me show you, come now...'

As the smiling driver lifted the suitcases into the boot of the taxi, Jeremy held out his hand for payment. Increase smirked off to the front of the cab.

The exchange rate then, in 1993, was forty-three Jamaican dollars to one English pound. So that makes the largish coin, which now lay glared upon in the palm of Jeremy's big hand, 'worthless.' I couldn't admit that I didn't know what Jamaican money was worth. And I couldn't get into an argument with him; I didn't understand haggling, and I didn't understand half of the words he was now using.

As I scuttled off toward the back door of the taxi I heard Jeremy half whisper something: 'Bumberclot'. I glanced back to see him turn and slump off shaking his head. What choice did he have? I suppose he just lifted his head and sank back into character. The sycophantic clown. It smiles. It waves its hands about. It helps wealthy people with their luggage – Enjoy Jamaica! Irie Man! Bumberclot!

'Enjoy Jamaica. Irie,' said the taxi driver. Increase always sat in the front seat, even in taxis, and it always made me feel inferior.

'Where to?' asked the driver.

'Peach's Paradise Hotel please,' said Increase.

'Peach's Paradise Hotel.' The driver lilted it up and down like a lyric, 'No problem.'

I registered the driver's musical voice, the disappointed look on Jeremy's face, the customs man's mean fingers. I was taking it all in, making a mental note of everything.

'Enjoy Jamaica,' said the driver as he pulled a fat little conical spliff from his shirt pocket. 'Local produce.' He offered the spliff to Increase first, who refused and slipped in one of his favourite quips about the 'devil's weed'.

'No true,' said the driver. 'The herb is a gift from God,' he said as he offered the spliff to me. This was my chance to connect with a Jamaican in a way that Increase would not and I wanted to get it right. I said 'Yeah man', slowly, as Increase had taught me. But my voice cracked and the words came out all high pitched and self-consciously wobbly.

Fuck.

The driver passed me a packet of Peach's Paradise matches clearly enjoying the coincidence. Then, as I struck up a match he must've been inspired by the smell of sulphur, because he started quoting the bible:

'Make clear heat upon the herbs them. Irie man. Behold,' his voice had a lazy authority about it, like a stoned and enthusiastic weatherman. 'In the words of God.' His voice went up in pitch on the word 'God'. 'I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth. And God saw the tings him hath made, and behold, it was good. Mm mm, true.'

I could sense Increase searching for a biblical counter-phrase. 'I prefer to be sober, be vigilant,' he said. The driver shrugged his shoulders. I lit up the spliff and made a note of the taste – earth, leaves, sunshine.

I sucked, inhaled and eased the smoke out through my nose.

The radio rattled the plastic dashboard with a booming baseline that shook right through to your heart:

BOOM - dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM

dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM

I sucked and inhaled and eased the smoke out through my nose, just in time to suck and inhale. I passed the joint to the driver as I eased the smoke out through my nose but he waved me off saying, 'Irie man. No problem. Enjoy Jamaica.'

I sucked, inhaled and eased the smoke out through my nose just in time to suck, inhale and ease the smoke out again, then again. The radio rattled on:

BOOM - dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM

dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM...

Then a sweet falsetto voice waved over the top of the tune:

The weak don't follow the water

The weak don't follow the water

The weak don't follow the water

The weak don't follow the signs

dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum dum, BOOM, BOOM

'Jamaica is internationally renowned for its marijuana, political violence and strangely cadenced musical compositions,' Increase said.

What?

'It is,' the driver agreed.

'But I have an infallible plan to make Jamaica an even more affluent island,' he said. 'My plan would reduce the crime rate, boost trade, manufacturing and employment and raise life expectancy.' See how he catches the attention of his audience.

'Ha. How is that?' said the driver.

'You take half of the population of Jamaica and move them to Japan.' The he smiles widely to reassure his victim. 'Then you replace those people with a million Japanese people.' At this point he would always draw me in by saying, 'isn't that right, Aeon,' maybe even prodding me if I didn't respond, and I would smile or laugh as if I've never even heard this one before.

'Mm. I think you is right you know,' said the driver. 'That there plan would probably work.' He giggled.

'Of course, the Japanese would suffer an exponential rise in the rate of crime, coupled with a plunge in average life expectancy.'

The driver laughed. 'Yeah man, that is also true bredrin. The Japan man would be in for a shock.'

'And the Japan woman too, brother.'

'True, true brother, the Japan woman would get a good old shock from the yard man, eh eh.' The driver grabbed Increase's thigh and rocked back and forth as he guffawed, 'True, true.'

I sucked and inhaled and, irritated, wondered how Increase always managed to charm people while insulting them at the same time.

Forget about Increase.

I eased smoke out through my nose then sucked in again.

Saturn said, 'Life's just a series of stories.' This one was mine. Not Increase's.

I tried to absorb the tune.

BOOM - dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM,

dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum – dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM...

Remember everything.

I made a note of the heat –harsher than any heat I had known before, and the plants along the roadside - greener than any I'd ever seen.

Remember: the sounds of the wagons old bones: rumbling, rattling and rolling in rhythm with the unkempt road and the guitar clanged off beat - Ka-Ka-Ka. Sweat saturated my t-shirt and my mind honed in on the points where the springs of the seat chaffed at my back.

Suck, inhale and ease the smoke out. The falsetto swelled, remorsefully rolling over the airwaves, then rang out to make way for a new voice; the voice of an adolescent lion, chanting, beautiful and aggressive in rhythm. The words went by me at the time but I soon learnt what he was saying.

The weak never follow the water or the signs

Johnny never know what him got, until him cry

The weak never follow the water or the signs

Johnny didn't do it love but for his life

I started to fade from the world of senses. The air closed in on me like a bubble. My head hung slightly to one side and I could hear the flow of blood as it pulsed past my ear. I was well on my way. As I took another drag we arrived.

'Peach's Paradise Hotel.'

What?

I clambered back into the material world. The doors of this taxi had no handles, knobs, window-winders; nothing. I was trapped on the back seat with a big spliff in my hand.

The driver lifted a little latch out of its loop, slid his fingers into the space where there would be a window, grabbed his door with both hands, lifted it slightly, shook it back and forth sucking his teeth and whispering insults to the door: 'blood' and 'raas': until, clunk, the door dropped open, 'Pttts cha'.

No one seemed to care what I did with the spliff but my gut was saying – Get rid. I tried to finish it before the driver opened my door. Suck – Inhale - Ease - Stop. Don't get paranoid Aeon. This isn't Searbank. No one cares about a spliff here, just get out the car, finish the spliff and act normal. It's normal here. Weed's not even illegal here.

DUM - dum, dum, dum - dum, dum, dum, dum – BOOM

I soaked my forefinger and thumb-tip in spit, crushed the end of the spliff and put it into the pocket of my favourite baggy black corduroy pants, unfinished.

The driver shook the back door open. It was even hotter outside the car than in and with less air to breathe. The heat scorched my fingertips and lips right down to the nerves.

Increase paid the driver for the ride and strode off without his suitcase. Now the driver held his hand out to me and said 'Five dollar.' He wants paying again? He wanted paying for the spliff. A fiver? A fiver for one spliff? Increase headed off toward the reception area grinning back at me as if to say – 'You want to deal with niggers, boy? Deal with that, Nigger.'

Unseen creatures chattered and rattled in the bushes behind me.

I rustled another large coin out of my pocket and pressed it into the driver's palm, applying too much pressure. I grabbed the suitcases from the road and tried to make haste after Increase. Puzzlingly, the driver didn't go after me. He just stood at the side of his Hillman Hunter and shouted strange words:

'Bumbaclot teef! Hotfoot. Ras-clat. Bumba-ras. Teef. Hotfoot...'

Increase stepped it up to a light jog and I followed, 'Hotfoot.' The cases were heavier than before. I wobbled towards reception, each step getting precariously lighter. With each step the sound of the step got deeper. My heart heaved oxygen from my hot lungs and thumped blood to my bulging eye balls. The radio boomed behind me:

dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, BOOM, BOOM.

Increase stood at the top of the steps to reception both hands on his belly, doubled up in delight. I frowned, head itchy under the matted hair, sweat dripping off the end of my nose, blinking.

A final heavy step landed me at the steps of reception. '"Hotfoot"' Increase laughed, imitating the driver. 'Fucking hotfoot?' I squinted up at him, my briny eyeballs blurred and popping out my head like a cartoon character. He stepped down to give me a hand up the steps. I shrugged him off angrily but he placed a hand on my saturated back and laughed as I slumped forward.

"Hotfoot. Bumberclot hotfoot." He was shaking with laughter as I slumped further forward and my body started to shudder against my will as we both collapsed onto the steps of reception crying with laughter, as the taxi rattled off downhill - da-da-da-da-da-da...BOOM, BOOM.

An older man with a big shiny forehead laughed silently along with us from a white plastic garden chair at the far side of the car park. He stopped laughing, only when we stopped, nodded in our direction, said, 'Rude Boys,' then stopped smiling, shook his head and said, 'Enjoy Jamaica.'

Paul McGuire

paul.mcguire@virgin.net

I started writing for the influential JustLiverpool Magazine. Since then my plays have been broadcast and performed on stage. I've also won a number of writing competitions for my short stories and flash fiction, many of which have been published in anthologies. I have an M.A. in Creative Writing.

The Concert

SAS soldiers Doyle & Seamus infiltrate the IRA. They make a pact: nothing's more important than the mission. This is tested when Seamus is discovered and Doyle is chosen by the IRA to execute him. Three men, an old Metro car. One returns.

The Concert

Doyle could feel the cold penetrating like fingers through the steel and glass of the old Austin Metro as it made its way out of Belfast. It was late evening, and from the back seat of the car he watched the light from the street lamps dance on the side of the driver's face.

Fergal was like a graceful dancer as he leaned his body into each corner and bend, but his grace was that of a predator; it was engaging, enticing because killing was what he did. He enjoyed it. For Doyle, Fergal's excitement at getting near the business end of this trip was just as palpable as the cold that cut through him. The only difference between Fergal and any other fruitcake psychopath was that Fergal had found the IRA. For him it wasn't so much a cause, but more an excuse to legitimise what he'd do anyway - killing was in his nature and he moved through life in the same way as he drove the car - that's how he'd survived.

Seamus sat forward to accommodate his hands which were tied tightly behind his back. The thin nylon rope cut further into his wrists and with each bump he sat more and more upright. Fergal adjusted his mirror to catch a better glimpse of his prey. Doyle thought that Seamus looked like a schoolboy sitting upright like that. He looked as if he was on his best behaviour, but no amount of good deeds would let him off, Fergal would make sure of that.

The car turned right and the houses became sparse. A dense blackness filled the gaps in between them making them look like a bad set of teeth. The sharp bumps of the previous road now became rises and dips in the mud, and Doyle could feel the water from these puddle-filled hollows slosh around the bare metal of the wheel arch.

Seamus looked down and spoke quietly across the narrow gap between him and Doyle. 'Can you help me mate?' The Belfast accent, which he'd had for the past three years, gave way to his own softer more lilting Liverpool one.

Doyle closed his eyes for a second trying to stop the memories that came with the accent. He needed to be strong. He opened his eyes and stared over the vacant passenger seat in front of him, watching the rain batter the wind screen and distort his view of the road ahead. He watched it being pulled into sweeping lines by the squeal and rub of the wipers he should have changed months ago.

Seamus kept his head down, he spoke softer this time. 'C'mon Kev you can do something...'

Doyle answered slowly and quietly, maintaining his Irish accent. Letting it go would have brought the two men too close. 'Doyle, my names Doyle, call me anything else and I'll finish you right here. Where's your training gone?' He said the last four words as much to bolster himself as to focus his friend. He lowered his head. 'I've still got work to do here. You know what the deal was.'

The quieter roads meant that Fergal didn't have to worry so much about the British Army or the police and the checkpoints. He seemed more relaxed and excited at getting closer to the business end of their journey. But there was still his normal edginess. 'What are you two lovers talkin' about?

Doyle laughed as convincingly as he could. 'No lover of mine this English bastard.'

Unlike Seamus who always struggled with his accent, Doyle didn't have to think about his, it came easy, as if it was already in his genes ready and waiting, relishing the next moment he spoke.

Fergal started to look agitated again and tried a bit harder to see their faces. Doyle slowly reached into the space inside his overcoat and put his fingers around the grip of the Webley 455. He missed his Beretta, his weapon of choice. But this heavy chunk of metal he now gripped ready was what the IRA gave him when he signed up. The Beretta would have been a dead giveaway. Where would he have got that from? It would have been yet another story to remember. 'Seamus here wanted to know if I can do anything for him.'

'Tell him you're going to blow his fuckin' head off in a few minutes.' Fergal laughed and turned a bit more to look at them. 'What do you think of that Seamus? Is that what you wanted him to do for you?' Doyle pulled the hammer back and lifted the gun up a few inches from his inside pocket to make sure it wasn't going to snag on his tee shirt or the lining of his overcoat. Take out Fergal now and save his friend? Take out Fergal and jeopardise the operation? He didn't want this decision, but he reminded himself again of the deal he'd made with Seamus; he'd expect no less from him if it was the other way around.

Fergal turned back quickly and tugged at the heavy steering forcing the car away from the gulley it was heading for.

'Keep your eye on the road, you're going to get us noticed.' But Doyle half wished they would be noticed or even disappear down a ditch. The decision wouldn't have to be his. He replaced the hammer of his gun. Fergal would have to wait for another day.

Seamus had moved slightly and Fergal adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could still see his face. 'Thought you were kiddin' us didn't you Seamus? We knew all the time you were British army; we were just waitin' to see if we could find out who the other guy was. There are two of you? You wouldn't like to tell us who now would you?' Fergal moved to frame Doyle in the mirror. 'What do you think Doyle, three in one night?'

Doyle found himself staring into the reflection of Fergal's eyes. Why three? Who would they be?

Fergal didn't wait for an answer, instead he moved back to Seamus. 'Listen to me Seamus, there's fuckers on all sides here willing to give the nod to anyone if the price is right. Look after yourself.'

Seamus slouched forward and stared at the darkness in the well of the car. Somewhere in that blackness there was an answer, a solution which would make all of this go away. Who Dares Wins – but dare to do what? He couldn't find it; things were happening too fast. His head buzzed. He breathed deeply, slowly releasing the tension on the out breath, centring himself the way he'd been trained to do. But all he got back from the darkness was the certainty that he was going to be dead in a few minutes. He saw images of the men he'd driven to their execution. He saw hot, sticky rooms in foreign countries a man's hand raised against the torch light which found him crouched in a corner. The same hand now raised against the bullet which they knew would certainly follow, because that's what the SAS did, what he did. As if he was there again he watched in slow motion as fingers were blown off, the bullet passing through their hands and into their face. He wanted them to be there in that darkness in the well of the car, maybe they were. He said sorry anyway.

Some would say this was karma, what goes around comes around. But there was something simple, something basic about the phrase, 'shit happens'. He'd settle for that one. He felt sick, his bowls heaved, but there was no way he was going to give Fergal the satisfaction of seeing him puke, or shit himself. No way was he going to let his friend or the regiment down.

He took another deep breath allowed one last thought of his girlfriend Aifric and their daughter Abigail to wash through his brain. Then he let it all go.

With his head now hidden from Fergal's view he nodded to himself and looked across to Kevin; it was safe to call him that quietly, to himself. 'It's okay mate, I understand.' He leaned forward and turned so that Kevin could see his five fingers spread out behind him. That was their sign when they wanted a safe killing, by the fifth bullet the victim hadn't had a chance to feel a thing.

Kevin looked out of the side window. It didn't seem so long ago that they were in the safe house in Liverpool trying to sound like they were born and bred Belfast men. He remembered looking out of the window onto Sefton Park, carefully shaping their words and sending them out to the world before being shipped over to Ireland to do it for real. He was becoming Doyle, his accent softer because he'd used a Van Morrison track, Coney Island. Seamus had used recordings of the long aggressive rants of Ian Paisley's speeches.

Fergal pulled the car off the road onto a grass verge. 'What the fuck, this'll do.' He pushed the passenger seat forward. 'Doyle, you get him out; take him into those trees over there and put this on him.' He pushed something into Doyle's pocket. 'My missus'll go mad when she finds out, it's her best pillow case. I'd like to see his face though, what do you think?' Fergal's voice trailed off for a moment. 'Makes such a mess though - smells too.'

'She'll be fine when she knows what it's been used for.' The last thing Kevin wanted was to see his friend's head shatter as his bullets tore it apart.

As Seamus moved forward he searched the side of Fergal's face for a hint of compassion, a reason he could use to get himself out of this, to take it all away.

'Look Fergal,' he said, 'I can disappear, this doesn't have to happen.'

'Oh doesn't it? You wanna spoil my evening?' Fergal snorted up the worst filth he could find in the depths of his lungs and spat it into Seamus's face. 'Yes it does Seamus, or whatever your name is. I wouldn't miss it for the world. And that bitch of a girlfriend of yours, she's next. They say she's got a kid. That yours? Well that can go too, hey.'

As Kevin reached over and dragged his friend out of the car he did sums. He now knew who the three people Fergal wanted kill were. He dragged Seamus over the boggy ground towards the clump of trees. He could see the feint outline of Fergal getting his gun from the boot and the flash of gold from its stock. Kevin took out his handkerchief and cleaned his friend's face. 'How the fuck does he know about the kid? I warned you about this when you took up with Aifric, no kids, nothing you can't walk away from.'

'He won't kill them, will he? But both of them already knew the answer. 'Look after them for me Kev! Look after them like they're your own. Will you do that?'

Doyle turned his face away to the orange of the car head lights. He heard the sound of the boot closing. 'I can't do this, I can't kill you.'

'You've got to Kev. Like you said, that was the deal.'

'Well I've changed my mind, this is the new deal.' He took his friends head in his hands. 'Good luck mate.' Kevin pulled Seamus's head as hard as he could towards his own face. He felt something crack inside his own nose, the metallic heat of his blood on his lip. 'Now run like fuck.'

Kevin allowed himself to fall to the ground. Seamus's feet slid in the mud as he tried to run. A bullet whistled past and Kevin heard the dull wet thud as it hit Seamus. He knew the sound well. The force of it spun Seamus around and he now ran backwards trying desperately to get away.

Another shot from Fergal and Seamus fell to the ground. Kevin saw the look of his friend's face \- defeated, bewildered, confused. This was the point that no matter how much you hated the person a kind of compassion kicks in, the point where he always felt he was doing the victim a favour by finishing the job. He drew his gun, remembered Seamus's five fingers.

Fergal's foot squelched in the mud to Kevin's left. 'Still some life in him then.' Fergal smiled, this is what he'd been waiting for. 'Let's do it. Get that hood on him.'

As he pulled the pillowcase onto Seamus's head, Kevin noticed that his friend's eyes were lost somewhere, desperately trying to focus on something in this world, anything to stay alive. 'Seamus,' Kevin spoke quietly up against his friend's ear, 'Listen to me, I can take him out. We can get you to a hospital.'

'Too late, I'm dying here mate. Just look after them, like they're yours? Tell Aifric I love her and Abigail too.'

Fergal was now with them, the gold of his gun hanging in his right hand. Seamus still stared but now into some other place. 'C'mon Kev, like... like they're your own.'

'Put his hat on.' Fergal looked up at the night sky through the trees. 'Nice night for it. Not too dark.'

One gunshot wouldn't normally move the residents away from their televisions, but six sounded more like a massacre and the curtains moved in the two isolated houses over the road. Both men lowered their heads as they ran for the car.

Kevin could normally occupy his head with only the basic physics of the act. The way he made himself see it was that when a person's background, the essence of their life, is taken out of the equation, you're left with pure mechanics. A projectile shatters a skull causing catastrophic injury to the victim's brain resulting in death. That's it, as simple as that. He'd normally get back to HQ, debrief, a session with the psycho and a few days or weeks at the most, the whole thing had faded away. But this was too personal, he'd done his basic training with Seamus, slept with him under the stars. They'd lived and worked together in that flat in Liverpool while the powers that be readied things in Ireland. He was glad it was raining. The taste of his blood had now mixed with the saltiness of his tears.

Kevin turned his face up to the rain. 'Fuck!' he shouted. Was it to God or to the system that had convinced him all these years that this was okay?

'Hey, keep your voice down, you drive.' Fergal slammed the door of the passenger side.

Kevin felt good to be back in the driver's seat of his own car. His wet overcoat carried the sweet acrid smell of burned gunpowder, and as if he might forget what he'd done the smell rose up in the warmth of his body to remind him.

'Five bullets...' Fergal cocked his head to one side, as if he'd found a friend, some hidden enthusiasm for death that they could both share. 'You were a bit enthusiastic there.'

Kevin couldn't answer, couldn't go along with the charade. The massive mistake of all this made pretence impossible. The best he could do was to stay quiet. But Fergal was still picking over the detail that would keep him going for days and tried again. 'His head must be like mincemeat in that pillow case.'

The tyres spun a little on the wet road before gaining traction. Doyle did a u-turn and they headed back down the quiet lane towards Belfast. 'Five bullets,' Fergal laughed again. 'Wait till I tell the lads about that. You fancy a jar?'

'No I'll head back.'

'No problem I just thought we could have a few before the next one.'

The comment hung in the air like something unexplored. Kevin immediately remembered Fergal's statement about doing three in one night. Although he knew who they were was going to be he still found himself asking the question. 'The next one?'

'Sorry, the next two.' Fergal looked surprised. 'The bitch Aifric and that kid of hers, what d'ya think?'

'Can't we leave her till tomorrow?' Kevin tried to imitate the nonchalance of the psychopath sitting next to him. Like Seamus he stared into some dark place trying with only a short time left to pull out the answer. 'I can do her, it's not like I've got far to travel. I'm only in the next room.' Kevin attempted a laugh. 'Anyway, you've got to tell your missus about the pillow case.' Kevin adjusted the rear view mirror. A car followed a short distance behind; its lights dipped and hazy from the misted water on the road reminded him of Seamus's eyes.

'No, I wouldn't miss Aifric for anything. I'll keep her quiet while you get your stuff together. We have to find a place for you to stay. The Army will be all over you when they find Seamus.' Fergal cleared a circle of condensation from the side window and then smelled his hand. 'You know, no matter how much you cover them up you can still smell their blood, it gets onto you someway doesn't it?'

Robert Batty

Robert.Batty@wmc.ac.uk

I've done Basic Education, creative writing with The Wirral based Spider Project and with the Wirral Met. My hobbies are bouncing off lampposts, falling of curbs, upsetting the wildlife tapping my cane in Birkenhead Park.

The Boy Man

Young, unusual boy becomes successful grown man after joining merchant navy. Smuggling, quiet underworld leader, no one understanding his wealth or power. Tries to go legit but is drawn back after his true love is murdered. Wants revenge.

The Boy Man

The silver Jaguar screeched into the hospital car park, halting a mere three feet from two shocked nurses who instinctively clutched at each other. Wide eyes stared as the driver's door opened and a darkly dressed man emerged.

You can't park, one young nurse began. However the stern expression on the man's face quickly silenced her.

Where's intensive care? He asked, his voice a low strained growl.

A trembling uniformed arm pointed towards the hospital's sparsely lit entrance. He gave a short nod, slammed the car door and strode towards the building.

Electric doors hissed open and he hurried towards a small desk at the receptions centre and asked a tired looking middle aged woman for Joyce Walker's room number.

Are you family? Her eyes were piercing over her half-moon glasses, though her voice was a caressing Southern Irish.

Brother, he lied.

Her eyes lowered as she depressed a few keys and checked the screen of her computer.

Miss Walker's next of kin is her son, her only family, she added quietly, suspicious eyes rising.

His face reddened as he stuttered an apology, caught in a pointless lie. I'm sorry, he continued to stammer but I just need to see her, please. His voice remained low though now slightly contrite.

A pen clicked between bright even teeth as she gazed unwaveringly. She knew Joyce Walker's attacker was safely stowed two floors below in a mortuary freezer; well, what was left of him. It's not really my decision sir, she added, lifting a nearby phone. Extension 328 please. Hello, this is the main reception desk, she spoke quietly. There's a gentleman asking to see Joyce Walker. She paused, listened, passed a form and pen to the man before her. Fill that in she mouthed.

He accepted the proffered items, nodded with gratitude, began writing.

Yes, yes, he heard, over the scratching pen. Yes, yes, she repeated, he's completing one as we speak. Of course, yes, good morning officer, she replaced the receiver. Third floor, room twenty-eight, she finished, after checking the completed form and retrieving her addictive pen.

The man thanked her, turned and headed towards a flight of nearby stairs.

A few minutes later the uniformed policeman warily eyed the well-dressed man before him. Visiting hours were over, he explained.

I've just left a charity function, a guest of your Chief Constable, Roger Thornton.

The authority in the man's voice caused the young officer to hesitate.

Your name sir? He asked, guardedly.

James, Anthony James. Look son, I just want to see her, make sure she's okay. Anyway, you'll be here.

The young constable, still wavering, glanced at the gold Rolex, comfortable on the man's left wrist, and the black Onyx-backed ring on the middle finger of the same hand with what looked like a golden D entwined inside the letter E.

I'll have to check sir, he swallowed heavily, nervousness obvious. Please take a seat. He nodded towards a nearby settee.

Anthony held the constable's gaze for a long moment before turning and walking away. He spent the next 10 minutes deep in thought, controlling inane frustration while watching the young officer. However he failed to hear any of the conversation transpiring from his radio.

The policeman finally approached, five minutes, he said, no more!

I'll make sure your boss knows how helpful you've been, his smile was forced as he entered the room, leaving the confused constable behind.

Anthony leaned on the metal frame of the bed; stared down dispassionately at Joyce's battered face; eyes blackened and swollen, lips cut and puffed to twice their normal size, nose covered with blood-spattered white tape. She'd taken a hell of a beating, he thought.

She began to move restlessly, as if sensing his presence. Impulsively he reached out and gently held a bandaged hand as her eyes opened. They stared around vacantly until settling on him. Confusion consumed them, then panic, then finally a relieved recognition.

Anthony you've got to help him, she babbled. It wasn't his fault. I was hiding in the bathroom. He saw me and all hell broke loose. It was awful Anthony, awful, she repeated, and then began to explain.

He'd known Joyce and her family since he'd taken up boxing at the age of 12. Her older brother Graham had owned and run the local club. But one morning he'd been found stabbed to death. No one ever discovered why and no one was ever charged. The rumour mill that naturally shadowed such crimes reckoned it was drug related. Anthony doubted that, but maybe he was biased, having always looked up to Graham.

She'd been a beauty in her day had Joyce, never a problem catching a man's eye. Until she'd hit the bottle. They'd actually been friends, even went out when older, just a few parties, a couple of drunken dates, nothing serious, after all Joyce wasn't the type you took home for tea. A couple of years later he discovered just how wrong he'd been.

On one of his rare furloughs from the Merchant Navy, about to leave a casino where he was a major shareholder, he'd spotted her in the bar sitting opposite a well-dressed middle aged black man. Pleased to see a familiar face Anthony approached her, asking a passing waiter for a bottle of Champagne along the way.

But he'd failed to keep the surprise off his face when, in a slurred voice, she'd introduced him as an ex-boyfriend.

He shook hands with her guest, Dom, she'd mumbled, a hand waving indifferently and they'd all sat quietly allowing the waiter to top up their three glasses.

Ex-boyfriend, he'd whispered, as the waiter left. Exactly when was that Joyce?

He'd smiled trying to take the edge off his words, but it hadn't worked. She'd glared defiantly, teary eyes consumed with either hurt or hate, may be a little of both.

When was that? She mimicked, her voice rising. How about when you were screwing me; how about then Anthony James?

Her guest had quickly stood and excused himself. Anthony's head had shook in bewilderment. People were noticing and he felt his face flush with both embarrassment and anger.

Screwing you? He answered his voice barely audible. Screwing you? If I remember correctly, Joyce, you did most of the screwing and it wasn't just with me.

You had your fun Anthony James, she'd cried hoarsely. Like all men, you had your fun then fucked off, just like that. She flicked her thumb and forefinger. Prick, she mumbled.

Lower your voice, he hissed. Lower it now.

Joyce glared, tears now streaming down both cheeks. Fuck you, she whispered, then stood and walked out without another word.

He came back to the present as she continued speaking.

Anthony please help him, she begged. Please?

Be quiet, he told her sharply. Let me think.

Thirty seconds passed then a minute, then two; Joyce's heavy breathing through blocked nostrils and a ticking wall clock the only noticeable sounds.

Have you spoken to anyone, anyone Joyce? Anthony asked, stressing his words, knowing her penchant for gossip.

Of course not, she answered, indignant. She shook her head but stopped immediately, pain coursing through her. I'm not stupid, and anyway the doctor wouldn't even let the police see me.

Well don't speak to anyone, he warned. Not until you see John Kelly. He's one of my solicitors. I'll send him over. Where's he being held?

I have no idea - no one will tell me anything. What's going to happen? She wailed. It wasn't his fault.

Shut up Joyce, he growled, letting go of her hand. You fucking caused all this. Billy had been fine, now he has this to contend with. Anthony shook his head in exasperation. I hope you're proud of yourself; the only decent thing you did for the lad was give birth to him!

Joyce winced as if slapped by the words.

Keep your mouth shut, he repeated, before turning and leaving the room, ignoring her muffled sobs.

Clare Doran

clare12doran@yahoo.co.uk

I've had short stories and articles published in various outlets, and have just finished a Masters Degree in creative writing. My work deals with loss, relationships and emotional abuse.

The Dictionary of Departures

No one believes that a young woman has been kidnapped, except for her estranged sister. Fighting past mistakes and present dangers, Charley must use her sister Gina's dictionary definitions to find her, before it is too late.

The Dictionary of Departures

THE WATERFRONT

20.00 Friday 30th August 2013

The pounding in her head subsided and she gradually became aware of her dark, claustrophobic surroundings. Gina realised that she was not just having a nightmare.

Her hands were roughly tied in roped knots. The metallic taste of blood rolled around her mouth. She found herself unable to open it as a thick, tight band of something sealed her lips shut and pinched at her face. She tilted her head to the side. Another burst of agony hit her. Bits of plaster scratched at her throat and pulled at her tongue. Each breath was too rapid, too irregular and she could hear the panicked air racing in and out of her body.

He was in the seat next to her, eyes on the road, silent and calm. Each jolt of the car caused her aching bones to shudder. He drove on without noticing. Her arm throbbed like a straining heart from where he'd grabbed it. Her mouth ached and the pain spread across her cheeks, peaking at the jaw. Her mind was blank. Shock and agony caused it to shut down.

'Keep still, you fucking stupid bitch.' He pushed her back against the seat, keeping one arm on the steering wheel. The car jerked to one side. This woke her up, though the grogginess still made it difficult to concentrate. She looked outside for help, turning her head lightly and carefully. There was just a series of distorted flashes as buildings flew past. The occasional person-shaped shadow showed up under street lights or against the warmth of a home or pub, but the Audi's tinted windows kept her hidden from view. No-one would notice. No-one could help. The car's engine made a low droning sound, like an angry wasp readying its sting.

It was a reminder of reality, things ticking over, the fact that this was only a car, that he was only an ordinary man.

As they were forced to wait behind several other cars at a red light she made a lunge for the door, hitting the handle desperately, using all the power she had in her locked hands. A punch to the ribs put a stop to that. Hot tears ran down her face.

'You do that again and I'll kill you,' he hissed. His eyes returned to the road as the car began picking up speed again. He placed a hand over hers and the rope. 'I'll smash this car into the nearest wall. You know that I don't give a shit what happens to me.'

She knew. They continued in silence. Her head banged against the window as the car took another sudden lurch. She kept repeating an internal mantra: He won't do anything, he won't do anything.

He drove until they almost hit the bollard. There was a careful pull between the iron posts – a practised manoeuvre, and an awareness that this particular bollard was wider and caved-in on one side, just enough to allow a car to sneak through.

They'd been here before, had walked up and down the pavement, under the twinkling lights of the street lamps, and watched the clouds jump and stretch themselves across the sky.

He reached across and ripped the tape from her mouth. It fought to cling to her skin at the sides and sent a fresh rush of pain across her jaw. The engine was still running. Gina tried to suppress a coughing fit as she sucked in deep breaths through her mouth. It was important to be able to speak. She wasn't ready to give in, despite feeling as though the black waters of the River Mersey were waiting to take her down, its waves like watery hands. The sky was streamlining slowly away from daylight, leaving a pink rim over the waterfront as a final act of defiance against the on rushing night.

'Did you really think you'd get away with it?' he said, turning to look at her, eyes burning black. The car shuddered to a stop. He turned off the lights.

Jimmy Stanton

jsjimstan@gmail.com

I was born on Scotland Road, raised in Kirkby. At Maggie's leisure I got into fitness and dived into reading. Met my soul mate. Literature at Uni was followed by an underpaid but rewarding career in 'care'. Endless reading. I joined Philosophy in Pubs in 2001 and now organise a PIPS group and help run a Literature group.

The Stargazer

Coming of age novel, set in 1990, looking back to the Jubilee year of '77. The narrator is 14 and, prompted by older kids, aims to wreck Jubilee celebrations and declare 'war' on the local petite bourgeois. A novel about fun and friendship.

The Stargazer

Framed by the ring of the binoculars Cassiopeia burns bright in the night sky. Shifting to the West is Orion. I imagine the belt as part of the giant hunter illustrated in the pages of a battered school encyclopaedia. My hands are numb with cold but I will trace these stars against the dark for a while yet before I return them deep into the warmth of my pockets.

Danny breaks the spell. He's already slipping into the annoying American accent he usually adopts after a drink.

'Fucking awwwwwesome'.

He's lying down on the turf beside me, shielding his eyes like it's a hot summer's afternoon. Right behind us sit Thommo and Eddie, straight-backed against neighbouring gravestones. Thommo has 'In Sacred Remembrance – Mary Hodson', and Eddie, 'Tommy and Maggie Hart – Re-United in Death'. The burning tip of a spliff hovers back and forth between them – a closer point of light. They're on a roll, riffing on the defects of some TV light entertainer. If I tuned in I know I'd find it funny – this pre-occupation with cultural flotsam and jetsam - especially in these surroundings, but I'm out of touch now. I'm swimming amongst stars and they're so far away.

I feel someone rise, approach and settle near to me, and without looking I sense that it's Thommo. We pass the glasses silently in unspoken communication. I love this easiness; the way we adopt a slower rhythm up here. Words would only break the flow.

I recall the first time Thommo fished the bins from a carrier bag full of Special Brew. He named stars and constellations like he was summoning them into being. He could have been guessing but he made you believe. You just had to buzz off his manic enthusiasm for it all. A nut-case with a passion for stars.

I'd been short-sighted for years, so those first few glimpses of the magnified heavens blew me away. I'd forgotten the beauty of a full moon. I watched stars light up one by one. I learned to watch for satellites plummeting through the sky like shooting stars.

It became a regular thing.

At first I think we all tried not to appear too keen. We'd get down on a few cans before someone would hint at the subject. Then Thommo, grinning and precise, plucking the binoculars from the leather case.

'Care for a squint old boy?'

'Don't mind if I do old boy.'

The other lads had a go, but it was only me and Thommo that really got it. Sometimes Eddie would take an interest, only to turn the glasses towards town to follow a police helicopter or, once, to catch a lonely figure undressing at a window. Sounds from the streets would rise, muffled and distant; a siren, screeching traffic, a drunken roar. It felt like an intrusion into time we were grabbing for ourselves. Once, we followed a noise from the far side of the cemetery and flushed out kids torturing a cat, like some tiny satanic cult. There was a blond kid, a little mouth, giving me shit for taking 'his' cat off him. I gave him a back-hander but caught him too hard across the face. I felt his nose compact and watched the blood spill down his white T-shirt. I never felt bad though. We were here to have a laugh, to forget all that shit, and to feel the peace of the dead.

Sometimes, during the day, I'll walk up here and look at the more decorative gravestones and read the inscriptions. In this part of the graveyard the people mainly died in the late 1800's, so you don't feel so bad about nosing at them. There are great marble slabs, Maltese crosses and angels draped in ivy. There are anchors for those who made their living at sea. I wonder what they will use to decorate our graves – chiselled giros?

My favourite is Happie, 1834 -48 – a young girl buried among her relatives. I imagine she'd make a great friendly ghost in a children's TV movie. You could see her but your parents couldn't, type of thing. Over the far side are the newer graves, some as recent as the seventies, but we tend to steer clear of those. It's funny, but, when you're blitzed, being here does get you to thinking about your own mortality. Sitting there, buzzing off each-other, looking out to the stars and feeling all mellow, the thought of all those bones lying cold in the ground makes you realise just what it is to be here.

I once read a book set in Mexico and there's this fucking great scene, or like a whole backdrop really, of the Day of the Dead. People were on all kinds of shit, trying to alter their consciousness and reach their ancestors. There was something real about those darkened, sweaty cantinas, with their hint of mystery. For us it's a few trays from the strip-lit aisles of a sanitised supermarket – just a little local difference really. Not quite so exotic, but sometimes you can still get your mind into that infinite space. When I mentioned it we decided we'd like to meet them all, every fucking one of them, and we'd throw one great big party for all the local lads and girls who'd ever died, as long as they didn't turn all flesh-eating zombie on us.

They'd have stories to tell. They got around the globe some of these lads – no kidding! Even in my ol' feller's day they popped up everywhere. My Ma still has a cutting from the Liverpool Echo from when my Da was at sea. He'd landed in some South American port, and the nearest town was miles away. Him and his mates decided to make it there, but they ended up falling in with the locals and getting hammered in some local cantina. There was a bit of an outcry because the ship should have been well out of port and there was a reporter who happened to be on board. Out from the horizon come a group of staggering drunkards, my Da sitting astride a donkey he'd helped himself to. The reporter snapped away and framed them – a dishevelled donkey and my Da, bare-chested and tanned; man and beast grinning big cheesy smiles in unison, captured for all eternity.

When my Da told stories he brought them alive, I'll give him that. One minute he'd have you in Dempsey's Bar, New York, in the middle of summer, the next in a little harbour in a Norwegian winter, where the locals would wind down from a little church on a hill, bringing gifts for the crew.

You can glamorise a life I suppose. But I'd like to bet you that in the day to day all the people who've ever lived and died here led lives that weren't that different. Only the details change to add a bit of colour to their story. They all ended up doing the same things, ('the short and simple annals...'), drinking in the same places, having the kids, paying the rent, with a few rare moments of happiness thrown in. It's like that thing Eddie said. We were sitting around one night speculating on intelligent life out there among the stars and Eddie says, 'Even if there was a planet where they had spaceships that could travel at the speed of light, some poor bastard would still have to build them'.

Eddie's at it with Danny now, 'Who's harder, Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck'? 'Is Winnie the Pooh a cross-dresser'? There is a light breeze rising. I lift the glasses again and am instantly transported away, making us all infinitely small, but somehow my head contains it all, every last bit of it. I'm thinking of my Da and Popsy and those times with Cass and our band of young rebels of '77, the endless days of nothing in between. I'm thinking of the stars too, and how the light we see has taken millions of years to cross the soundless universe and imprint itself right here, now, in us - and how, in some sense, when we look, we are always looking back.

