Trying to organise my sheaves of scribbles into some sort of order, I came across some early poems which hopefully I haven't subjected you to before.
"My twenties" was a dark decade.....
And this poem was a response to a photograph of me as a disgruntled 20 something.
Framed
You sit at a picnic bench
in summer at Annamoe
Light not touching you
You smoke
but do not inhale
You are peeved
and you show it
Denim clad dungarees and check- work-shirt
Who are you trying to please?
Him, behind the lens
who sees you peeved
and revels in it?
Him, for whom you loosened and loosened until
you gave way?
No Blood, he said
No sheet red-stained to hang
in a marble-floored hall.
And you did not know why
Or what answer might hold
And so, you gave none.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Monday 31 July 2017
Saturday 29 July 2017
On the Brink
I am currently trying to recall my cupla focal of Gaelic, so when I read Manchan Magan's article in The Irish Times, Can you bring a language back from the dead?
I was moved to write something.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/can-you-bring-a-language-back-from-the-dead-1.3159014
They are on the brink
Mandaic, Champorro, Kashubian, Bukhari
Half of the world's languages
Stranded in a rock pool
Tongues culled
for the sake of:
Imperialism
Colonialism
Market Expansion
Monocultures
UNLESS
They are rescued by some language activist
Some Jessie Little Doe Baird
who revived Wampanoag from documents that survived its extinction
giving it an after life.
"It's a matter of justice," he says
This global salvaging:
of Diversity
of Folklore
of History
of Memory
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
I was moved to write something.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/can-you-bring-a-language-back-from-the-dead-1.3159014
They are on the brink
Mandaic, Champorro, Kashubian, Bukhari
Half of the world's languages
Stranded in a rock pool
Tongues culled
for the sake of:
Imperialism
Colonialism
Market Expansion
Monocultures
UNLESS
They are rescued by some language activist
Some Jessie Little Doe Baird
who revived Wampanoag from documents that survived its extinction
giving it an after life.
"It's a matter of justice," he says
This global salvaging:
of Diversity
of Folklore
of History
of Memory
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Wednesday 26 July 2017
Meet the villain of the piece. Final part!... Promise....
MEET GUSSY
GULL
As Gussy
soared over Merrion Strand he almost dropped the wriggling duckling into the
malodorous sea weed that lay strewn up on the beach. The stench was offensive,
even to a gull with a high tolerance of stench. And to think that he and his
clan were being heaped with the blame for this polluted eyesore!
Gulls have lost the run of themselves,
ran a recent newspaper headline. And when the twitterers got going the cry and
hue for revenge reached fever pitch!
He and his
fellow creatures were accused of pollution, of dispossessing children of their
lollipops, of dispossessing adults of their sleep, bringing about sleep
depravation in the whole of Dublin
4. And then, if they were not pariah
enough, there was a Special on the Late Late where Ryan Tubridy
entertained that little precocious upstart Sally Holmes to a VIP slot! Her and
her stats!
Gull droppings were 10 times more concentrated
than human waste, making 40 million Ecoli per gull, she quipped, and then added a dozen other
erroneous facts in condemnation of the whole gull species.
Ryan tried
weakly to protest, quoting from Jonathon Livingston Seagull. But it’s penguins
that are the whole rage these days and the little arrogant meddler, wearing a
replica of her granda’s deerstalker cap and frock coat, just talked him down.
The stats
were rigged; FAKE NEWS!!! He’d have to take it up with the Department of
Truth. And meanwhile Sally Holmes’ online campaign, a veritable gull hunt, had
to be stopped.
That was
why he and his comrades had taken to the roof of Hawkins House, headquarters of
the Department of Health.
Not to nest---
but to protest!!
Free
speech for Gulls!
Equality
for the avian species!
Justice for migrant birds!
And what
happened then?
The wheels
of government began to turn distinctly against them. There were calls for walls,
nets, pest control measures. Calls for culling. Extermination of their race!
Eradication. Genocide.
That’s when
Gussy hit upon a plan.
Much as
he’d like to discredit the penguin community, it was a long way to Dublin Zoo.
And if the wind was westerly and gale force, he’d never make it. Seals were the
nearest cousin to penguins that he could think of, and a colony of them was
easily located within easy flying distance of Herbert Park.
His plan
was to drop a duckling within bait stroke of a seal and then dive to the
rescue. That should make the Six O’clock news. Sharon or Dobbo might even put
in a personal appearance at the Forty Foot to interview witnesses. Seals would
become the new scapegoats; gulls would be off the hook.
The problem
was stealing a duckling first without attracting attention! And Sally Holmes
had made gull-meat of that!
FINALE---THE SIX O’CLOCK NEWS
And now from our reporter in Dunlaoghaire
Yes, Brian, it seems that Ma Doyle was sea bathing with her black flat coated retriever Molly when a duckling fell out of the sky within a snout’s distance of Molly’s bopping black head. Molly, being a retriever, went straight to the rescue but was intercepted by a gull that tried to wrestle the duckling from its rescuer. The dog was viciously attacked, but managed to hold on to the baby duck. The attempted abduction is the latest in a series of crimes committed by marauding gulls and has prompted the Minister for the Environment to call on The Taoiseach to call on the government to reconvene at the earliest opportunity to discuss the matter.
I believe that Sally Holmes was on the scene within minutes and is currently in pursuit of the offender?
Yes, Brian, Sally and Dr Whatsit in their drone balloon are now pursuing the suspect. I believe they are currently heading in the direction of the equator.
Thanks Sharon . We’ll have footage of the event and news on any further developments on the 9 O’clock news. The latest bulletin is that Molly, a setter-cross in fact, is to be awarded freedom of Dunlaoghaire. She is currently in St Michael’s A& E receiving treatment for her wounds which are not life threatening.
If anyone has found this report disturbing we would ask you to get in touch with the help-line 180020202020.
That’s all for now. Have a good evening and remember you can keep up to date with the news on RTE News Now and RTE news app.
Copyright 2017 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved
Tuesday 25 July 2017
Follow That Gull...cont
MEET MOLLY AND MA
Molly Doyle
curled her black tail and settled for a bumpy ride in the back of Ma’s Toyota Starlet,
aka TS: The Skateboard. Everyone told
Ma Doyle it was time to change that car. Every bump, ramp, chicane and pothole
on the road really did rise to meet them and all the occupants, especially
canine ones, were jolted and shook till their molars chattered. But she just
replied that the only other model she fancied was a Citroen Diane, Granny-
smith- apple -green colour with a sun roof, or a red pick up truck, and since the
former were almost an extinct species and the latter beyond her means she’d
have to stick with the Toyota .
At least
today Ma hadn’t flattened the back seat and availed of the hatchback potential
of the TS. For when she did Molly found herself squeezed between the spare
wheel and Ma’s emergency kit bag containing:
Torch
Emergency
triangle
Flask of
tea -cold
Penknife-blunt
Bottle
opener
Stale
biscuits
Wellies for
Sandymount Strand
Knitted Connemara socks to go inside them
Rain jacket
and umbrella, neither of which she ever used as Ma always travelled dressed in
multi-layers anyway.
Basket of
bottles for the bottle bank- reeking of stale Shiraz
Bag of Ma’s
undersized clothes for Oxfam
The Forty
Foot kit which comprised of:
Beach towel
Flip flops
Goggles
Swim cap
and togs, circa 1950
Plastic bag
to place clothes in if it rained
Rock to
place on plastic bag if it galed
A net to
retrieve expiring crabs/jellyfish or whatever creatures that happened to find
themselves beached beneath the James
Joyce Tower .
And if
there really was an emergency, like a flat tyre or an empty petrol tank, Ma
always called the AA and acted stupid.
And besides
the issue of all the clutter that lived in the boot of TS, that hatchback floor
rose at a 25 degree angle, which meant that Moll had to hang on for dear life
with her Newfie claws.
Now Molly
was part Newfie, part Bernese and part Red Setter
and was
tired of being hailed as a black flat- coated Retriever, even if one of this
breed had won the Croft’s show as overall winner in recent times.
Overall winner-
what did that mean anyway?
Today,
before coaxing her into the back seat of TS, Ma had muttered something about
“Chasing birds” and “Poor dears!” and “Time to put a stop to it!” and dragged
her Forty Foot kit to the fore. She’d also been chatting on her granny phone
with Sally, which always meant trouble.
Moll decided to get some shut-eye, since Ma
Doyle was clearly off on one of her missions with her darling grand daughter
Sally Holmes, and anything might happen! Moll for sure would be called upon to perform
daring feats of bravery and agility and sheer lunacy.
And besides,
everyone knew that Gussy was at it again, and there was nothing Moll liked
better for dinner than gull; rare or bleu.
Copyright 2017 Cathy Leonard. All rights reserved
Monday 24 July 2017
For Kid-ults
This week is for the Adult -kid...because I have written a short story which really wouldn't appeal to children, but isn't really for adults either. A kid-ult story...See what you think...
MEET SALLY and WHATSIT.
FOLLOW
THAT GULL!
MEET SALLY and WHATSIT.
Fuchsia lived
in a hot air balloon- a very odd address for an elf you might think- but Fuchsia’s
job was to cheer up unhappy children. A jaunt up Dunlaoghaire pier dropping free-range
eggs on Lycra legged joggers, chill-axed skateboarders and bespectacled
grannies usually did the trick. Fuchsia got no petrol allowance, but he did get
mischief mileage expenses. So when he saw the red haired girl scowling in the
middle of Herbert Park Fuchsia started thinking about mileage.
He was
saving up for a trip Down Under to visit his cousin Eucalyptus. But what with the
new baggage charges with Elfan Air, he was struggling to come up with the fare.
He’d need flippers, snorkel, wetsuits, a ton of factor 50 sun cream, a designer
collection of togs, fly swats and anti mosquito spray. 10 elf kilos just
wouldn’t suffice. He’d almost have to charter an Elfan Boeing for himself the more
he read about the Australian outback. He could, of course, take a chance and
fly himself in his hot air balloon. But there were some dangerous winds to
consider on route, the hot dry Sirocco and the strong cold Mistral. And besides,
his pilot licence wasn’t valid south of the equator. Daring as Fuchsia was, he
didn’t want to risk penalty points.
Beneath him
now a small crowd was gathering beside the red headed girl. Gussy Gull was at
it again. Spring time in Herbert Park meant Gussy’s chance to make front page
in The Irish Times. The seagull’s wings rose on a level with the balloon and Fuchsia
saw the fledgling duckling hanging from Gussy’s beak. You had to admire Gus. He
never missed a photo shoot opportunity. Below him pocket cameras, iphones and
smart phones flashed in tandem.
“Follow that gull!” ordered Sally Holmes as
she jumped on board the hot air balloon, even before it landed.
“I’m
not a taxi, Sally Holmes. And if I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have landed!”
“You’ve just wasted five seconds, Whatsit.”
“It’s Fuchsia.”
“Fuchsias are either plants or colours. The
plant is a shrub, mostly native to South America ,
0.2-4 metres tall. The colour fuchsia was first recorded as a colour name in
English in 1892.You, if I may point out, Whatsit, are an elf. Now do you really
want to be responsible for that serial killer’s next offence? We have just lost
another twenty three seconds. Gus took three right turns and four lefts so he’s
probably headed for James Joyce’s Tower in Sandycove.”
“How did you see that?”
“Just trust me, Whatsit, and get going! We
can still save the day and the fledgling.”
“That fledgling’s already dead meat. We’re
on a wild gull chase.”
“From the traces of black eel on his front
fore-claw I’d say our Gussy has already dined. He’s keeping fledgling for his
break-time snack, which he imbibes at exactly eleven am.”
“How do you know that? From the
configuration of his wings?”
“No, Whatsit. Because he said, “Roll on
elevenses...” just before he struck.”
There was no point in arguing with Sally
Holmes. She missed nothing. It was all the fault of her great, great
grandfather Sherlock, who had taught her to be a right little meddler.”
Fuchsia reluctantly turned to his controls.
“Three lefts and four rights did you say?”
“Whatsit, you never listen! You operate from
a fraction of your brain cell potential. It’s the opposite, exactly the
opposite.”
Here she was off again. No lines full of
washing would disappear today, no perfectly directed water bombs would explode
on unsuspecting heads. No fun at all, just plonking police work.
To be continued....
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Friday 21 July 2017
Dirge for a Lost cat
I wrote this when I was suffering the loss of kitty. Thankfully, as posted last week, he has been returned.
But writing out the fears and apprehensions has always helped me to deal with challenging stuff.
Maybe
He thought he had two eyes
as he sat in the window-sill
on long summer evenings
longing to get out.
Maybe to scale those walls,
leap fences, chase prey,
dodge foxes,
do what cats do at night.
And since they'd gone there was no
creak of porch door, tail strokes, hourly treats,
No "Aren't you the clever little man!"
when he returned from his neighbourhood watch patrol.
Now there was just, maybe, a twice daily feed.
No chat, no strokes,
and no outdoors, ever.
He'd have to take the first glitch of an opening and scram...
He didn't know it was just
a four day trip to the seaside.
He thought it was forever;
That they would never come back.
He didn't know there was a fox
waiting for him.
Or maybe it wasn't a fox.
Maybe it was a car tyre.
Or, hopefully, maybe,
a little old lay with a tin of tuna.
We'll never know, ever, maybe....
He thought he had two eyes.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
But writing out the fears and apprehensions has always helped me to deal with challenging stuff.
Maybe
He thought he had two eyes
as he sat in the window-sill
on long summer evenings
longing to get out.
Maybe to scale those walls,
leap fences, chase prey,
dodge foxes,
do what cats do at night.
And since they'd gone there was no
creak of porch door, tail strokes, hourly treats,
No "Aren't you the clever little man!"
when he returned from his neighbourhood watch patrol.
Now there was just, maybe, a twice daily feed.
No chat, no strokes,
and no outdoors, ever.
He'd have to take the first glitch of an opening and scram...
He didn't know it was just
a four day trip to the seaside.
He thought it was forever;
That they would never come back.
He didn't know there was a fox
waiting for him.
Or maybe it wasn't a fox.
Maybe it was a car tyre.
Or, hopefully, maybe,
a little old lay with a tin of tuna.
We'll never know, ever, maybe....
He thought he had two eyes.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Thursday 20 July 2017
Writing Competitions again....
This is a feel-good, predictable little piece of flash written for a competition. Whiskey of a particular brand had to come into it!
HORSE POWER
HORSE POWER
Rory googled jobsearch again. He had finished his course in marketing
eight weeks ago, and so far no luck. Some of his pals were already planning to
join a friend in Canada or Australia. Working in the mines in Western
Australia was becoming a popular destination for new
Irish graduates.
“Gran, what do you think of Australia ?”
he said over his shoulder to Granny Maire who was now pouring over
the jobs vacancy pages in the newspaper.
“What do you love to do? That’s
the question.”
“What does that matter? What keyword should I
enter in this job search, Gran?”
“Horses? You used to love horses.”
“Gran. I’m serious.”
But Rory entered horses and
found himself staring at a complex array of jobs for a betting company.
“I have to select a department
now. What do you think? Dial-a-bet, Quantitative analysis, Risk?”
“Are you sure you’re on the
right site, son? What about equine management? Isn’t that the grand title they
give to it now?
“I think we’re on different
pages, Gran.”
“I’m seventy five and I’m telling
you now, Rory O’Hare, you’re a born genius with horses and if you don’t follow
your talent you will end up in a mine somewhere of your own making. Now it’s
getting late and I’m having a night cap. Will you join me?”
“You should be drinking hot
chocolate at your age.”
“There’s nothing that a drop of
whiskey won’t solve.”
“Get off my case will you, or
I’ll end up in a paddock up to my knees in muck.”
“Worse places to be. You never
minded when you were a lad. You had a sparkle in your eyes then. Did you apply
for that course?”
“Goodnight, Gran.”
Gran walked sprightly out
through the door and into the kitchen where she would settle into her nightcap
and the daily crossword. Rory’s eyelids were already drooping over the webpage.
He read the long list of job titles ; business analyst, business intelligence
analyst, E-commerce project manager. How did you get qualified for all of these
posts? And who was getting the jobs these days? Nobody he knew.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he
should just check his emails for word about that place on the stable management
course she’d coaxed him to apply for three weeks before. His friends had laughed, but something inside him had held firm through all the teasing and taunting.
Rory tapped in his password.
Five minutes later he was flinging open the kitchen door.
“Have you any of that hard
stuff left Gran, because I think we have something to celebrate that really
matters.”
Granny Maire noticed that his eyes were sparkling.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Granny Maire noticed that his eyes were sparkling.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Monday 17 July 2017
The Frenchman
This story was shortlisted in The Brian Moore short story competition and the Fish short story competition.
http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/literature/brian-moore-short-story-awards
http://www.fishpublishing.com/competition/short-story-contest/
Competitions are great motivators!!!
The Frenchman
She would
close his eyes in death; that was all she knew about him.
***
The
Frenchman who sold her the cottage made a living from his vegetables. Set on
the edge of Clare Galway the stone cottage with its Stanley range and converted hayloft seemed
suspended in a time warp. Oil fired central heating was a promise and, for the
moment, Sarah spent her days lugging buckets of turf and logs from the out
house, feeding them to the black iron Stanley that choked and spluttered and
spewed out wood smoke. She saw little of the Frenchman.
***
“She
sallies about that cottage naked in the dead of night,” said the farmer.
“I’ve seen
her in satins and bows and high-heeled shoes wavering in and out of the cow
shed,” said his neighbour.
“She only got
two letters all summer long and them nude postcards from abroad written in
Italian,” offered the postman.
“Sure I’d
hate to live near any of yous,” said Ruth the barmaid.
“She crumbled
out of the car last week,” began the Frenchman.
“You mean
clambered,” said the postman.
“No, I mean
she was tired, or arthritic.”
“Ugly and
arthritic too,” said the farmer into the bottom of his pint.
“She keeps
herself to herself is all you can hold on her,” replied the Frenchman as he
smoothed the plastic tablecloth with his fingers. He seemed to be patting down
some imaginary fold with long sweep strokes; thirty years speaking English in
this rural backwater and still his hands fumbled with something he couldn’t
quite fathom.
“Hold on
her? Would ye listen to yer man!”
***
“How do
people die if they die with their eyes wide open?” she asked her friends in the
city.
“A knife in
the gut.”
“A jealous
lover.”
“A shock to
the system!”
All
predicted sudden and violent deaths.
***
She watched
him from her deep recessed cottage window; a tall lithe man pushing fifty, his
spade sliding easily into the caked earth as he cut beds for winter seeding.
Swallows
dipped in and out of the turf shed, wild pheasants ate the grass seeds she’d
planted in late summer. The russeting oak cradled the blossoming holly and she
nearly trod underfoot fungi bright as hot coals. Winter was coming.
She’d best
stay away from the Frenchman, for how could she close his eyes in death if she
never went near him; it was the intimacy implied in that gesture that bothered
her.
***
She howls
by the light of the moon.
She walks
naked at sunset.
She has
teeth like fangs.
She pees in
the turf shed.
She’s a
queer one for sure.
She works hard…
He means for a
blow-in!
***
There was a
light tapping at her door, playful like a tune. Sarah was stacking woodpile in
the corner of the alcove where the black Stanley
squatted, and through the half-door windowpane she saw the tall man standing.
She looked into eyes that were black as the Stanley ; his skin was rain beaten, and he held
himself straighter than any man she could remember.
“It’s you
so,” she muttered opening the door.
“No, a life-size
model! The Irish! They love to state the obvious or talk in riddle. “I’ll do it
now, in a minute,”” and he laughed, his black eyes twinkling.
“Have you
something to tell me or not?” asked Sarah bristling.
“You’re a
sour woman, or is it dour? I’ve come about the system,” and he waved his hands
towards the Stanley .
“I notice smoke from your chimney and I see you have it fired.”
“You’re an
observant man,” she quipped back.
“What I
mean is the electricity is cutting and the pump is not functioning and the system…”
Words fluttered and danced. She could see him tilt and turn the spade this way
and that, testing; words sliding across the blade, settling only when he had
done explaining.
“You didn’t
interrupt me!”
“Sure why
should I? Thank you. I understand; about the system. And it’s dour, but sour
works too.” And she closed the door on a bemused expression.
***
They say
she has a hoard of illegitmates in the city.
They say
she killed a man by simply sitting on him.
They say
she has the evil eye and can cast a spell.
They say
she stacks money in the chimney.
“She
listens,” said the Frenchman.
***
She had
never been wrong before; her intimations she always trusted.
But he
appeared more often now.
Did the
flue need cleaning?
A tile had
fallen off the roof.
The hedge needed
trimming?
And so he
came, feeding her stove and her emptiness with hands that smoothed and folded
imaginary contours on her cotton tablecloth and, stroking it, he told her his
story. And once in the telling his eyes rolled upwards in their sockets and her
heart stopped; she leaned towards him fumbling.
***
Swallows
dipped in and out of the loft that night and the lovers flew with them. They
flew out through the roof and waltzed on the Milky Way; followed the quest of
the plough and ended up in the Northern Star. Then they fell into a deep, deep
sleep.
“La petite
mort, we call it.”
“Little
death?”
“And la
grande mort, that’s death; the end or the beginning.”
Sarah began
to laugh; her rolling laughter scattering the swallows that nested under the
eaves. And then the tears came, and the falling of the ache she had been
holding.
“So you’re
not dead yet,” she said placing her palms over his eyes.
“The Irish!”
“I know! We
always state the obvious…”
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Friday 14 July 2017
Sherlock's Back
Happy to report that Sherlock, our one-eyed Moggy, is safe and sound and back home again.
He was found by scouts a few days ago at their camp in the Dublin mountains near Ticknock. We don't quite know how he got there, as it's a 10k trek, or what he has been up to for the past 3 weeks!
But the scouts looked after him well until the scout master brought him to the SPCA yesterday.
And thanks to the microchip I got the call.
Thanks Everybody at Larch Hill Camp!!
We hope he earned his Badger Adventure Badge.
Tuesday 11 July 2017
Shadow Dancers
Wrote this story a good while back and it was short listed in a Cootehill Arts Festival writing competition.
SHADOW DANCERS
She loved trees in winter. The gnarled blackened barks split down the middle. Siamese twins warring with each other. She saw dancers, warriors, tai-chi masters; gathering the stars, bowing to the moon. Shadow boxers, shadow puppets.
She
photographed these, dozens of them and hung them in her hallway. She painted
the walls in coconut twist- pale cream with a tinge of pink- and gave them up
to her shadow dancers.
Then
Michael asked her to give up her coconut twist bungalow and move into his
spacious flat overlooking the bay.
“It doesn’t
make sense. You’re always here anyway!” he argued.
“That’s not
true.”
“Mostly true?
“Sometimes
true.”
She liked
his huge bay window pouring sea light on his bed every morning. She liked his
high corniced ceiling, his cast iron fireplace with the Victorian tile inset.
She liked his steel sprung sofas and marble topped tables with carved mahogany
legs, his stone hot water bottle and his silver hand grinder. She revelled in
the wine- reds and night-sky blues of his Kashmir
rugs and the smell of dust that clung to his heavy window drapes. But most of
all she loved his frayed wallpaper where cupids and shepherdesses disported
themselves recklessly on some Elysian plain.
Her shadow
dancers could not compete with these Grecian foibles. They needed a blank space
on which to sketch their stark poses. She wondered how long Michael would allow
this glorious revelry to continue. He didn’t seem to notice their state of
disrepair and disarray. And that was the problem. Michael didn’t seem to notice
anything.
He would happily
hang her shadow dancers on these walls and not see how ugly their choreographed
limbs would look set against the pastoral anarchy that reigned here. Michael
did not notice such things.
He did not
know when her stillness needed to be stirred. He caught none of her shifts in
mood and she could find none in him. She found his will to complacency a lump
of unleavened dough between her fingers, and knead as she would, she was unable
to make it yield to her touch. There was no yeast in it. She decided to cover
the dough and leave it and hope that it might prove.
And still
he asked her to give up her coconut twist walls and still she could not explain
and then it happened.
She
returned home one day to find a gin bottle in the middle of the floor and the DVD
player pulled out of its niche. Her wardrobe had been ransacked. Her favourite
coat, a shabby Avoca tweed, her beloved Canon camera and her shadow dancers
were gone. In disbelief she scoured the hedges, gardens and laneways in search
of them.
“They
must have been disturbed,” pronounced Sergeant Doyle. “They usually take the
electricals. A tweed coat? That’ll be to wrap up the booty. And were the pictures
valuable?”
Valuable?
Margaret thought about the word. Latin in origin? Valuare, valuatum. She
couldn’t remember.
“No. Yes. I
mean to me.”
“Are you
sure they didn’t take cheques from your cheque book? They remove them from the
back so that you won’t notice.”
“No.
They’re all there.”
“And the
camera?”
“I liked it
a lot. It takes time to get to know a camera. Like a relationship.” On seeing his
blank expression she added, “It was a Canon. I’d have to look up the model
number.”
“And its
value?”
“I’ve had
it a while.”
“The
insurance company will need a statement with figures and model numbers.
You wouldn’t
think of getting an alarm system?”
Alarm bells
punctuating the night silence, disturbed by a breeze or a wrong sequence
entered after a late night out. No she wouldn’t consider it.
She wrote poems about the burglary and read
them to her creative writing group. The words looted , plundered and violated
figured a lot. Someone asked her if she’d been raped. Margaret was stunned into
a silence that could not be stirred.
She sat on her haunches in corners of the
house and never went out. She took sick leave from work. She dreamt of a house
with no doors, an open skied cylinder leaking rain on its heirlooms. She woke up
sobbing, her whole body aching with the pain of something that felt like loss.
She developed a chest infection that would not clear.
Michael
bought her a new camera which she wrapped in a woollen jumper and stowed under the bed for safe keeping. He watched her
lying inert for hours, unresponsive and silent. He lay beside her at night
waiting for the moment when she would waken, choking on her dreams. He watched
the silent tears that streaked her hair grey overnight.
She threw
away her bohemian attire, her scalloped edged jumpers, her sequinced cottons
reeking of sandalwood. She wore polo neck acrylics and polyester trousers in
shades of grey and brown. Michael gave up his sunlit-frayed shepherdesses and
moved into the coconut twist bungalow in suburbia. Margaret went back to work.
She stood
in front of a group of Second Years, every muscle in her body taut, her teeth
clenched, trying to hold their concentration in this jug that was the class
room; knowing that at any moment the jug would spill over or even crack.
“Miss, Can
somebody open a window, I’m roastin’!”
“But it’s
freezin’ Miss!”
“There’s a
wasp in your hair, Sarah Casey!”
“Oh Miss!”
And she
watched the liquid rise in the jug and dribble all over the floor.
She was
aware of the profile of the Deputy Principal in the glass panel on her left,
always patrolling the corridor for just such leaks. The thought of shadow
dancers flitted and vanished.
“Now that’s
enough girls,” she said quietly, too quietly.
If she was
lucky the bell would ring. Books would shut, catapult into desks. Lids would
slam, desks scrape and a flurry of girls would squeeze themselves through the
doorway and expand into the corridor.
The
Principal was glad to get rid of her.
Michael now
did all the cooking and cleaning and washing. He weeded the garden and planted
spring bulbs. All winter the new camera lay in its nest of wool beneath the bed
and still Margaret mourned. She watched triangles of light brighten at
intervals the neighbour’s gable wall. She watched the dying fuchsia boxing with
the wind and thought to write a poem. She watched Michael come and go. It was
like the time she had broken her arm and was untouchable. They watched each
other now through this barrier of a broken arm’s length and waited.
A kitten
circling the tall stalks of spring daffodils caught her unawares. It may have
been his shade of tortoise shell or the pose in with which he gathered himself
for pounce. She reached for the camera, fumbled with the unfamiliar dials, her
mind dazed with the possibilities. She pressed a button and the thing sprang
into action.
“There’s a
handbook to go with it,” he said from the doorway. And looking at his face a
knowing stirred in her.
She knew
that the dough had been left to prove for long enough and she stretched out her
arm towards him.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017
Sunday 9 July 2017
Crystals
It was one of those jobs that didn't quite fit in with my CV, but was somehow part of the journey. A stint in a shop that sold alternative books, remedies, crystals, salt ionisers.....
The Crystal Gazer
Mildred
Moody opened the shop door slowly, hoping to avoid the tomb-creak that usually
ensued. She dodged the chimes that somebody insisted on hanging at eye level
just inside the doorway. A glance at the notice board told her that somebody
had rearranged it again. First of the month, every month, some insistent body
reorganised the business cards. Mildred would now have to scour through row upon
row of them in search of her own, just in case somebody had decided to shred
her this month.
She closed
her right eye and screwed up her left one. That way she could make out,
eventually, the gold rimmed edges of her own business card, almost obliterated
by a brash rainbow offering of Indian Head Massage, Reiki and cellular healing.
“I left yours
up, Miss Moody,” chirped a voice from
behind the cash register- Tara, the owner’s teenage daughter, headphones in
situ, painting her nails black, tuned to Spin 103, while Terry Oldfield poured
tranquillity around the shop floor.
“You should
move those chimes,” grunted the little woman in the second-hand Mac and down-at-
heel Clarks Springers and clutching a Tesco bag-for-life.
“Magda says
the sound of chimes breaks up stagnant energy, Miss Moody.”
“Your
mother may be right, but somebody will lose an eye!”
That said
Mildred turned towards a shelf arrayed with precious stones and crystals.
Glittering amber, carnelian and obsidian winked at her from glass bowls. A
particular amethyst caught her eye. In its polished face she could just about
make out what might be the head of a hyena God. Anubis weighing hearts at the
time of the passing over. Anubis trapped in a crystal time frame!
Mildred
felt for the coin in her coat pocket. Her fingers swept the expanse of pocket
lining until they encountered an unexpected gap in the seam. Without moving her
head Mildred looked sideways at the girl behind the counter. Tara
was talking with animation on her mobile.
“Bored -
speechless. Two customers- all day. Weirdos! Quess who’s here again?” The voice
dropped. “Yeh, the loop. She’s seeing visions, in stones! Says they talk to
her. Yeh, I know!”
Mildred’s
fingers crooked and burrowed deeper into her coat lining. Just as she reached
the edge of a coin the chimes rang out and Mildred lost contact. A young man in
a business suit and pink tie blustered in.
The
amethyst was winking furiously at her. She turned her back to the counter and
reached for the stone. The business suit was checking out the CDs.
“Temple of the Forest ? It
sounds relaxing, but is there any water sound in it? I hate the sound of
water.”
“No idea,”
the girl replied.
“Perhaps I
could hear a track or two?” the suit persisted.
Mildred
heard Tara ’s sigh.
“Call you
back in a sec,” she said to her friend on the mobile.
“Are these
ionisers any use?” he queried.
The
business suit was going to be a problem.
“I’ll find
you a leaflet.” Tara vacated her perch behind
the cash register.
This was
Mildred’s chance. With a deft move she bagged the amethyst.
High heels
clip clopped behind her.
“Can you
put that stone back on the shelf, Miss Moody!”
“I can’t,
as a matter of fact. It’s probably stuck in the hem of my coat. Besides it was an experiment in energy transfer…..”
“I’ve heard
it all now!”
“If you
attune yourself to the crystal it can be moved along any axis, Tara .”
“Well then,
I’d be grateful if you would attune it back to the shelf.”
“Attunement
uses up a lot of energy, my dear, and, for the moment, I’m zapped.”
The girl’s
painted nails tapped with menace on her hip bones.
“She’ll pay
you next time,” came a voice, apparently from Mildred’s pocket.
The tapping
stopped. The business suit dropped the salt crystal ioniser that rained orange
splinters onto the shop floor.
“You heard
Anubis! I’ll pay you next time.” And Mildred, negotiating her Clark Springers
through the salt crystal shards, headed for the door. Chimes rang out as the
door creaked to a close.
The high
heels headed for the notice board, and the black painted nails prised out a
gold rimmed business card that read:
Mildred Moody
Ventriloquist and
Crystal Gazer
Fortune Teller and
Soothsayer.
Holding the
card ceremoniously between painted thumb and forefinger, Tara
picked her stiletto steps through the glittering glass strewn across the shop
floor. At the back of the shop she opened a door and leaned over a toilet bowl.
The nails released their prey and the card fluttered into a swirl of flushed
foam.
“It’s
called Bull shit, Miss Moody!”
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