(This summer I had a catastrophic computer crash. The day of the meltdown was the end of a very productive week - I had just completed the writing of three stories. I was confident that one of them was extremely good and one very very good, and one just ok... and they were lost as soon as they were written... and no notes to guide me.
When I picked myself up from this disaster three weeks later, I sat down and redid two of the stories. One I think is better than the original. But the extremely good one, though I managed to rewrite it, just did not feel quite as magical... good but not quite what it had been. Well this not quite so good as the original story has just been placed high in a competition... so that feels quite nice. It was inspired by an old black and white photograph.
Below is the last flash for the Monday in Port Brokeferry. Many of the important characters have now been introduced - many but not all. I shall take a short break from this project until I have shaped Tuesday into something, then I will be posting again. Enjoy this one which is a sort of summary for some of the interesting characters at the end of the day.)
A PORT BROKEFERRY MONDAY EVENING
Callum shuts his shop. He is tired. He has a bag of bread that has not sold, or rather bread he has not tried to sell. On his way home he stops at old Tom’s. Not to listen to his sleep-talking now, but to drop off bread. He knows Tom has not left the house. He gifts bread to Mad Martin, too, though it is Athol Stuart who answers the door and gives Callum thanks. He stops at the gate to his own garden and smokes a last cigarette before going inside.
In the police station Grace is busy with the duster and the polish, making everything like new. She has the keys so she can lock up when she is finished. She sneaks a look in the book, just to see what’s what in Port Brokeferry. She searches for something in particular. It is as she expected.
In The Ship Guthrie waits for Magnus to close up the bank. He stares at a chessboard all set for play. In his head he is rehearsing his opening moves. He has a book that he has been studying. It is a book about a famous Russian chess player. Lachlan Davie is there too, in The Ship. Nursing his first pint and grinning like a cat that’s got the cream. His hair is short and over the back of his hand, written in black, are the words of a children’s nursery rhyme.
Christine is naked in her bedroom, trying by the tilt of two mirrors to read everything that Lachlan has written across her back and her shoulders. There are some words she will never see, scrawled into the hair at the back of her neck. ‘Lachlan lies with Christine and wishes the new day would never come.’ Written so small that it is difficult to read even if Christine’s mirror could show that he had been there.
Corinne watches from her bedroom window as Mr Dodie Bredwell cycles home with a bag of books on his back. He is laughing at something, his red scarf flying behind him and the squeak squeak of his bicycle turning heads in the street.
Eileen sees the lights on in the bank still. She knows he will be there past closing. She checks her watch. He is later tonight, she thinks. She looks right and left in case she is seen. She waits, hoping for his ‘Hello, Eileen.’ Just so she can give him back, ‘Hello, Magnus’. She wonders if he remembers. That night. Under the streetlights. She thinks maybe he was too drunk and that he woke without any memory of what had been.
Edwin checks the ropes. Makes sure Finn’s boat is secure. He listens to the movement of the water against the hull, the soft slap-slap of it. The air though is still. Seagulls float like grey ghosts in the darkening sky above him. ‘They say that all those fishermen that drown do rise again in the seabirds that are hatched. If I was ever to come back, that would be the way. Not of the sea or of the land, but of both at the same time. Look into their eyes and you see something like wisdom there.’ That was what Finn said to Edwin once.
Alice Greyling sits in her kitchen. She has set the table for two. There is a light on in her window. Like she is expecting someone. She is singing in a small voice.
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