Friday 30 October 2009

PORT BROKEFERRY - MONDAY MORNING


(a panorama of Port Brokeferry at the start of the week... provides snatched glimpses of some of the characters that inhabit the town)

PORT BROKEFERRY – MONDAY EARLY
Slowly things come to life in Port Brokeferry on a Monday morning. Lights in the houses turn on. The curtains pull back on some of the windows. Smoke rises from some of the chimneys. There are no clouds in the sky. It promises to be a bright start to things. It augers well for the season ahead.
Kyle wakes Susan. Says her name. Calls her back from sleep. She asks him what time it is. He tells her. She smiles. Just five more minutes, she says. The house at his back is quiet. Corinne is still sleeping. Just five minutes then, he says. He lays his hand on her waist. Like they could be dancing, there in the bed, except her back is to him.
Martin empties his pockets on the sand. Just crumbs. He collects his shoes from high up on the beach. Does not put them on. He looks over his shoulder. Checking to see if Col might be there. He climbs the stone steps up to the road and looks along the main street. He sees Callum throw the stub of his cigarette in the gutter. Martin watches where it lands.
Dodie Bredwell is up and about. He runs his fingers through his hair. Catches himself in the mirror. Sticks out his tongue. Then he laughs. Shakes the weekend from his head and sets the kettle on to boil. He clears the table of dirty dishes and stacks them beside the sink. He sits. There are school books still to mark. He takes up his pen. Not red but green. He opens the first book and begins reading.
Sinnie is making tea. Now she has written her dreams down, she can set about her day. There were owls in her dreams last night. Faces like flowers, claws like thorns. One was wearing a waistcoat, all silver buttons with a watch and chain. She has written a comment on her dream. Something about wisdom and time. She is old and thinks the dream has something to do with that. It hasn’t, but that’s what Sinnie thinks. She is singing.
Helen has been up since six. The baby woke her. It woke Edwin too, but he turned over and fell back into sleep. There was a time when it was the other way around. When Edwin got up and Helen turned over and reclaimed sleep. Years and years back. The time ‘The Silver Herring’ was still a working boat. Now the working hours are a little easier. He opens things at nine. The small ticket booth on the pier. First tour at eleven. Helen wakes her daughter Grace and tells her the baby needs feeding.
Callum is back serving in the shop. The air is so warm there, he has his shirt sleeves rolled up and his face is red. Kerry pays for six rolls. She is smiling. She says it is a fine day for it, though she never says what ‘it’ is. Lillian too brings a smile with her into the shop. And Callum says it is good to see her up and about. Blair does not say anything. He drops his money on the counter and picks up a bag of scones and bread. The bag has his name written on it. He does not look at Callum or Lillian or Kerry. Maybe he says something as he leaves. You can never be sure that he isn’t just clearing his throat.

Friday 23 October 2009

NEWS AND A PORT BROKEFERRY PIECE


(Busy week this week - for a holiday week! Signing books for shops. Lots of writing. Meeting writing related contacts. And the usual domestics. Competition news: was on the first shortlist for HISSAC, Highly Commended in Yeovil (novel), and placed 2nd in Trowell and District Short Story Competition. Am 19,ooo words into writing a new children's novel and 42,ooo words into an adult thing. And below, another Port Brokeferry piece that follows on from the one beneath it.)
THE BOBBING BOAT OPEN FOR BUSINESS
The lights are on in the cafĂ©. The shutters fixed open and music playing. Outside a sign announces that The Bobbing Boat is open for business. Guthrie works a shine onto the windows. Uses vinegar and newspaper. That way there won’t be any smears left on the glass. That’s what his father before him did.
Guthrie has set two tables onto the pavement and three chairs to each. It is the first time this year that he has done so. He expects that today there might be the need. The hotel Victoria has several weekend holidaymakers. He saw them arrive. Three families. Leather suitcases. Boys with rucksacks, and sunhats on the heads of small girls. There was a woman too, not part of anything else. Fox fur stole and high shoes.
He wipes the tops of the tables and pulls down the striped awning. There’s a metal handle that he turns and the yellow and green stripes unfurl above the two plate glass windows. It makes a noise as he does it.
Inside Guthrie fills the coffee machine with water and pours fresh milk into the jugs and spoons coffee into the filter papers. The radio is on. He is singing along to the song. Not singing the words, but humming to the music. He sets small glass vases on all the tables, and fabric flowers in all the vases. Not on the tables outside.
On a cleared blackboard behind the counter he chalks up the day’s menu. His writing is neat, the letters running slow across the wall. Breakfast rolls with bacon or sausages. Toasted sandwiches. Soup and fresh bread. Baked potatoes with a choice of fillings. Fish and chips. A selection of fresh baked cakes and scones from Callum’s Bakery. Coffee and tea and fruit juices. Bottled water or canned soft drinks.
Guthrie checks the till. Makes sure there is enough small silver and pound coins. He pushes the drawer shut. He straightens one of the pictures on the wall. An oil painting of Port Brokeferry. Just the harbour, with ‘The Silver Herring’ in the centre. A small yellow card next to the picture has the artist’s name and the price.
Guthrie adjusts the bell above the door. Tests it so that every opening or closing of the door makes a tinny jangle in the air.
Then he stands at the door and looks out across the sand. The tide is on its way out. He sees Mad Martin dropping a trail of bread behind him and the gulls following him up the beach. Guthrie looks down at his watch and wonders if Eileen will be on time today. He is impatient, too, for the first customer. 

Tuesday 20 October 2009

MORE FROM PORT BROKEFERRY


EILEEN WAKES SWEARING
‘Shit!’
She throws back the covers and leaps from the bed. She checks the alarm clock. Looks at it sternly. Stares it in the face as if it has done something wrong. As if it is the clock to blame for her being late. She holds it to her ear, long enough she knows it is still ticking. She doesn’t understand. She drops the clock on the bed and rushes through to the bathroom.
‘Shit!’
It’s the third time she’s been late since he spoke to her. For she will be late. He will have done everything by the time she gets there. All the things she has to do. All the big and little things. The things he pays her for. He won’t say anything at first. There’ll just be this thing between them. In the air. A stiffness.
She fills the sink with water. Doesn’t let the tap run first so the water is still cold. No matter. Time is behind her. That’s what her mother used to say. ‘See our Eileen, the time is always behind her!’ She washes the sleep from her face. Brushes her teeth. Sits down to pee. Already in her head she is inventing excuses for this time. Different things to say from what she has said before.
She dresses quickly. Yesterday’s underwear. A clean blouse and skirt that she’d ironed specially the night before. They were going to be busy today. That’s what he’d said. ‘So dress to make an impression. No jeans.’ She runs a brush through her hair, untangling it into something neater. She thinks about make-up and decides she can do that later, in the toilet at work. When she gets a minute. She throws things into a small bag, grabs her coat and hurries out the door.
‘Late this morning, Eileen,’ says Callum.
He does not say ‘again’. She is grateful for that. She smiles weakly and shrugs her shoulders and does not stop to share his cigarette. Not today. She pulls her coat on and quickens her step, as though Callum’s observation is the first she has noticed that she’s late. She feels him watching her back as she moves along the street.
Mr Struan Courtald stands outside the Victoria Hotel. His hands behind his back. Standing straight. His jacket buttons all done up. He nods to Eileen. He checks his watch, tucks his arm behind his back again and then says nothing. Eileen looks up at the clock on the front of the hotel. Under her breath she swears again. Not so Mr Struan Courtald hears.


Saturday 17 October 2009

WELCOME TO PORT BROKEFERRY


The invented place has a name and another set of characters. Welcome to Callum, the baker:  CALLUM BAKES BREAD
He stands at the door of the shop. The street is empty, the street lights still orange though the day is up. He leans against the wall and smokes a cigarette. Not his first of the day for he has been up since early doors. Callum rising in the curse-dark of still night and creeping through the Brokeferry streets to light the ovens at the back of the shop. Six days a week through all the weeks of the year.
His wife turns in the bed. When he rises. Callum holds his breath in case she wakes. Then he tip-toes through to the front room and dresses without putting the light on. In the winter he rakes the ash and sets the fire going so it’ll be warm when Margaret wakes. No need for a fire now. The air is warmer. He can feel that.
He closes the front door using his key so there is no click of the snib to break the quiet. Then he slips his shoes on and lights his first cigarette. The struck match like a signal lights up the dark, then doesn’t. He does not move. Not straight away. Looks left and right. Listens. Then he leaps the fence into the garden next door. He makes no sound. Or if sound then small: the sucking of his cigarette, his feet soft on grass, his exhaled breath, the beating of blood in his veins. Behind him telltale footprints across the lawns. Callum knows they will be gone by the time anyone is awake. He presses his face against the glass of windows, trying to see through the gap in the curtains if Susan still sleeps with Kyle, in the same bed.
Then through the next window sneaking a look at the girl Corinne, her hair spilled across her pillow and one bare arm like something thrown across the top blanket. Over the fence and spying on old Tom. Talks in his sleep sometimes does Tom. Callum presses his ear to the glass and hears. Not the words but if words could be in a bag and then tipped out in a jumble, then that would be the sound of Tom in his sleep.
Callum, stopping at almost all the houses in the street, the houses between his and the shop. Onto his second cigarette by the end. Missing out Sinnie’s window. The light is already on in her room and he knows she is up. Writing in a small book. A record of her dreams. You have to write them down as soon as you wake, otherwise they thin to nothing in your head and are quickly forgotten. That’s what Sinnie told him once.
The punched and punched dough in tins by seven and the heat of the oven turning them into small loaves, or rolls. Currants and cinnamon and sugar folded in for the fruit breads and scones. Callum stands at the open door of the shop. Smoking his fourth cigarette, listening to the sound of Brokeferry dreaming, and Sinnie singing, and Mad Martin calling for Col. And the day is up.  

Saturday 10 October 2009

Some Light Reading


Just because I am not allowed to play on a certain collaborative site, doesn't mean that I cannot create characters for my own invented place, and post them here. So, meet Struan and Sharon:
STRUAN, NIGHT PORTER
He yawns and stretches. Checks the clock. He rises from the chair where he has slept for some small number of hours – though he will tell you he wasn’t sleeping. Only resting his eyes. Listening to the old building shifting in her sleep, the stiff creaks and cracks. He pulls on his blue uniform jacket. Fastens all the silver buttons. Picks a thread from his sleeve. Flattens his hair with a lick of spit on the palm of his hand. Then he checks the register on the front desk, runs the point of one finger down the list of names. Those who have spent the night there and those due to arrive later that day.
He picks up the phone and rings through to the kitchen. Just checking that Dugald McVey is there for the breakfast shift. And Sharon too, in her black skirt and white blouse. At her waist a pinnie that has been pressed and starched by her mother. He asks for a cup of tea to be brought up. Not because he is thirsty, or because it is a habit of many years, but because he wants to make sure that Sharon is really there as Dugald says that she is.
‘Morning Mr Courtald,’ she says.
He takes the tea from her. Nods thanks and sets the cup down behind the desk where no one but himself can see.
‘And how’s your mother, Sharon? Is she well this morning?’
Sharon stands with her hands clasped in front of her. Stands with her back straight and her feet together. Just as Struan Courtald had taught her. No make-up and no jewellery, except the thin strap of a watch at her wrist. Her hair is tied back from her face with a black velvet headband. She is pretty in an awkward way. All sharp angles. Her arms and legs as thin as sticks. Her eyes wide and her mouth a little crooked when she smiles.
‘Mother says to tell you she is fine, Mr Courtald. A little better this morning, thankyou. She slept well. She wonders if you will call for tea later. On your way home. If you have the time. That’s what she said I was to say.’
Struan nods again and smiles. Everything is formal and strictly controlled. Like something they have rehearsed.
He watches Sharon move away from him. She is the image of her mother when she was a girl at work in the hotel. That’s what Struan thinks. He remembers. How he watched the mother then, like he watches Sharon now. The flick of her hair, the swirl of her skirt, and Struan listening to the click of her shoes on the wooden floor.
He checks the register again. Looks for the early alarm calls he has to make. Glances up at the clock. He wonders, briefly, at the passing of time, wishes the spent years back again, and in the same moment wishes for the end of his shift and a cup of tea in Sharon's mother's kitchen.