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There, that was the last of it. She poured the bleach down the sink, the bottle giving a few asthmatic wheezes as she emptied it. She hoped that would do it, but it had been a couple of weeks since moving in and she still couldn’t get rid of the smell.
It had intruded on her notice by degrees, the olfactory equivalent of seeing something in the corner of the eye. Just a whiff every now and then as she walked past the kitchen door, or in the hall, or the bathroom. The suggestion of overripe cabbage, or a piece of fish left too long or spoiled meat. She had tried white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, down the plugholes but that didn’t do anything. She graduated to bleach which seemed to work, at least at first. She had checked the kitchen, the fridge, the most obvious culprits for rotting food, then the oven, which she scrubbed so thoroughly she broke through the baked-on crust to the shine of metal. She thought that had solved it, but over the next few days, the smell had grown more persistent, evolving from a faint hint to a definite statement. The smell evoked childhood memories – the dead mouse found under the stairs; a bird, lying broken among its scattered feathers; a sheep in the fields near the house, that announced its presence on the wind long before the encounter with its wretched woollen carcass, the cavernous stomach putrid with ooze…
When the dust of the universe finally settled, Father Vincente Mariani looked back at this day and realised he was mistaken. What mattered to him at the time would prove trivial, and what seemed trivial would in fact be a harbinger of peractum est. And the events of the day, as devastating as they seemed, were just the beginning of a long trail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The day began brightly enough, with sun and fried eggs on the small patio at the rear of his cottage, a bracing walk around the shops; chatting and blessing as he wove through the women in their faded best, laughing with the men and artists in frock coats and football shirts; and penultimately, but gloriously, a celebration of Mass in his small church high in the Italian hills, just fifty kilometres north of Rome.
These first two extra scenes will be inserted into the story at the ends of chapters 1: Megan and 5: the Clock Shop. The aim with these scenes is to establish the Sirens a little earlier – I do reference them in other scenes but it feels like they are plonked in out of nowhere with the “Aunty Carol” chapter and I wanted to show them as part of the story sooner. The last bit “Tea and Biscuits” is a new scene that will come much later in the story but I had the idea to write it this week and couldn’t resist it! J x
Some of this is previous work and the middle piece is new. This is the rough order, but with other chapters to be added.
Pages 1-3 are previous work some of you will have seen.
Pages 4- 7.5 are New
The part ‘A later chapter’ is also previous work.
The Attic
‘Are you going to be ok?’ Joe put his arm around Mags’s shoulder and squeezed.
Mags nodded, her eyes on the floor, whispering ‘I’m fine’. The sleeves of her jumper were frayed where she’d plucked at them. If she told him what she was thinking, he’d get worried she was unravelling again. Nevertheless, wasn’t there an inevitability about this flat? She felt Death had been close to her, all her life. Not close like a friend, because who was friends with Death? No one living, anyway. Death was nearby, then, like she could put out her hand and touch it and here yet again, death had been present when the previous tenant had killed himself.
‘Well, I’m not sure I am’. Joe turned to Mrs Hardy, the estate agent, ‘Bit of a climb that, wasn’t it?’ he laughed, and Mags felt a rush of affection for him, always stepping in to lighten the mood.
Lucy is haunted by her dreams. They were fleeting images of people and places at first, but as the months pass, images are replaced by increasingly more detailed and graphic scenes. It’s as if she is watching a film playing in her head. None of the things she sees are familiar and they scare her, she’s afraid to fall asleep. The psychiatrist isn’t unduly worried. It’s normal, she reassures. While the brain is building connections with the transplant it is bound to get some things wrong, but with time, things will sort themselves out. You just have to be patient, she says.
As Lucy sleeps, my memories emerge.
My sixth birthday and my small body is fizzing with excitement. There’s an enormous cake with pink frosting, just for me. One big puff and the candles are out. I can’t wait for a taste of its delicious sugariness. The apartment door slams open. Cussing and angry, my father, drunkenly stumbles in, demanding his dinner. Eyeing the cake, he flips and in a blind rage picks it up and throws it at the wall. I scream. My mother yells, then crumples to the floor crying, the red imprint of his hand on her cheek. Warm pee trickles down my legs. The baby’s pissed herself, he jeers. My birthday is forgotten. I hate him.
Sarah wakes with a start. Something has disturbed her sleep, something alien, a noise that shouldn’t be there.
The woodlands of the surface were not dissimilar to their own Forest of Generation, pillars of wood marking the land and parting the sky in a way that was reminiscent of the energy fissures of home.
Where their Forest produced more and more of their kind by the day, this one produced ephemeral bodies of living matter, and though they could not be more different beings, the lands shared a recognisably similar function.
As far as Trilorn was concerned, that was where the similarities stopped. The mortal realm, with its rudimentary emphasis on the tangible, its restrictive need for physical constraints, could never compare to their ever-shifting hollow in the space below reality.
Still, they supposed they could appreciate the rich green leaves and the sharp tang of wet earth on their senses. The simplicity of it all was oddly refreshing, not that they’d ever admit it.
“Like fuck you will!” the tall woman cracked the knuckles on both her hands and looked directly at the being in front of her.
“Aunty Carol, please,” Emyr stepped in front of the Herald. “It’s the only way.”
“Sweetheart,” Aunty Carol’s lips curled into a smile but her gaze retained its cold steeliness. She held Emyr’s shoulders in a firm grip and looked him squarely in the eye. “This twat has been a thorn in my side since before you were born love. As far as I’m concerned, he can do one!”
“If I may explain,” as the Herald started to speak the line of women standing behind Aunty Carol bristled and a chill wind moaned and rattled the warehouse windows. The Herald held up its hands and took a step backward.
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