Foretelling of a Death, by Pauline Fisk

On the day he was to die, Robert the Canadian told the truth once, though not to himself, lied five times, as discovered afterwards, bought a swim, took a shave and shampooed his hair.

It was in the Quarry Pool, on his sixteenth lap, that he joked aloud about his dicky heart.  That was his truth, not that he recognized it as such. Later, in the castle garden, he told the old lie about the sea-going yacht.  He had a nautical air. The dog woman, whom he often talked to, never questioned him.  Neither did the beggar on Pride Hill who was used to Robert striding past, crisp in plaid shirt, polished boots, woollen walking socks and combed-back thick white hair, dispensing coins because a rich man like him, with a house on leafy Kingsland Road – lie number two – liked to give to those less fortunate than himself

Lie number three had its moment in the Loggerheads that night, sitting in Poets’ Corner watching Pete the Painter sketching. He was off to Manchester next day, Robert said. Lecturing. Pete - who often disappeared himself - never thought to question the Canadian’s movements. The man came and went.  He had a farm in the Scottish Lowlands, which he talked about with fondness, and did so again tonight, lie number four.  Sometime he’d take Pete up there, he said, though Pete - who knew the Canadian as a man of his word - knew too [by what reason he couldn’t explain] that he wouldn’t do it.  It took one to know one when it came to the fantastical. Perhaps that was it.

Pete went home, door locked, ‘Do Not Disturb’ note sellotaped to knocker on the off-chance that nocturnal friends came visiting.  The Loggerheads closed its curtains. Its last drinkers took the hint, leaving only ghosts to haunt the staircases, or so the Landlady said, drinks in hands, hopes jangling in their pockets, a remembrance of bygone days when the pub had housed a brothel. 

The streets of Shrewsbury after midnight are like a millpond sea without boats.  Only the latest of night prowlers would have witnessed the last walk of Robert the Canadian down St Mary’s Water Lane and under the English Bridge, following the river, though not home to Kingsland Road as was his proud boast.

It was in the Quarry Park that he was found. Who knows why a man would choose one particular bench to die on over any other?  In the morning his body was stone cold.  A rough sleeper with polished boots - and nobody had known it.  The dog lady hadn’t had a clue. The Loggerheads lady, so attuned to lost souls, never caught a whiff of his. The swimming pool attendant – where, as often as he could, he went to keep himself neat and tidy - never would have put him in the category of the man who begged on the street. It came as a shock.

Robert the Canadian kept his secret to the end. It was his only treasure in this sad old world. He wasn’t even Canadian.  That was his fifth lie.  This is a true story. I have not made it up.

The Fairy Cow of Mitchell's Fold, by Pauline Fisk

www.mythstories.com

Rural poverty it’s called. When you’ve got no work, bread or money for rent and the job-seeker’s allowance has been removed. There are folk up Mitchell’s Fold who don’t have fare money for the town bus, so God knows how they’re supposed to find work.  Things are desperate up there. If a fairy cow came along, begging to be milked, anybody could be forgiven for giving it a try.

That’s what happened to Angela.  Her cottage backs the wind and faces the standing stones of Mitchell’s Fold. She drew back her curtains one morning to find a cow between the stones, calling out to be milked. Now, Angela knew the legend of the fairy cow, but was a proud woman who’d never milked as much as the State in her life, so she ignored it. Every day the fairy cow called out; every day it sounded more desperately. And Angela was desperate too. She had mouths to feed, so in the end she decided needs must.

Angela placed a pot under the cow, hoping nobody would report her to the DSS. As in the legend, the milk came easily.  She filled her pot and every day afterwards, whatever its size, that got filled too.  Word got round and friends on benefit starting turning up. Ex-friends on benefit turned up too, and people whose benefits had been stopped.

Every day saw bigger containers placed under the cow.  Whatever the size, there was milk for all.  Pails to pots, couldrons to stone sinks, water tanks to Angela’s enamel bath that she yanked out without regret because she couldn’t afford to heat water anyway.

There was milk for everyone, and milk to spare. The spare became butter.  Churns were dug out. Cheeses were made the old-fashioned way. People milked all day and churned all night. Everybody was happy. There was a smile on every fat-filled, milky face.

But you know what it’s like.  Always someone begrudges someone else’s good fortune - in this case, the farmer who owned Mitchell’s Fold. He complained about riff-raff breaking down fences, leaving gates open and letting dogs run wild.  They’d worn a six-lane highway across his land, he said, taking home tanks of milk they’d got for free. And if there was one thing above all others that our good farmer friend couldn’t abide, it was the ‘something for nothing’ mentality.

Farmer Friend phoned the DSS. When he learned no rules prohibited magic cows from yielding milk to whomever they pleased, he decided to act.  In the wee hours before sun-up, he entered the stone circle with a three-legged stool. Before automated farming, he’d been good at milking.  Now, his crabby fingers remembered the knack.   

By nightfall, the fairy cow was dead, milked dry into a sieve which she could never fill, her river of wasted milk bled into the soil. Only then did the farmer stop. He walked away, and no one touched him.  No one needed to.  They left that to the avenging Angela of Mitchell’s Fold.

Within days the hill was empty, everybody down at the Job Centre accepting work at below minimum wage.  The farmer was delighted. He decided to abandon farming and go into politics.  But he never got the chance.      

There’s an extra stone at Mitchell’s Fold, in the centre where the cow once stood.  How Angela did it no one knows. No one was murdered there. The law couldn’t touch her. There’s no rule against turning fledgling politicians into stone.  

TWO GARDENS, by Pauline Fisk

She cried across the water and her voice was haunting. These were the words spoken by the mother of a murdered girl, reported in the Canadian press. I heard about it over lunch.  Outside there was not a cloud in the sky.  We left the golf club, the three of us, and drove in silence to the cemetery where we found the gate and let ourselves in. 

The graves sloped white against the green lawn, down through woodland to the creek. Here a man who’d been a friend to everyone; there a woman who’d served her country; here a son on whom the sun went down, yet it was still day. 

What struck me, strangely, was how big the headstones were.  Ever since arriving in Canada I’d been noticing size.  Death is but a covered way which opens into life I read on a grave fashioned into a massive stone seat. But facing northwards into shadows - where was life in that?  

Below the seat we found a gravel path between graves. Here William and Johan from Scotland - he the Highlands, she Orkney. There the McDonalds, dating back to the Highland Clearances. Irish Doyles, Calhounes, Hallorans from Cork.  I scribbled down the name Parnaby, thinking I might use it one day. We surveyed Ivor’s plot and thumbs-upped its view, making his day.

As we walked away, I heard a sniff, followed by a distinct and highly unexpected sneeze. They say that death is cold, and I turned cold, because nobody but us was there. I looked around. Sparrows wallowed in the dust. A distant chipmunk did a circus circuit.  Between a screen of perfect trees, Sixteen Mile Creek flowed into Lake Ontario.  

Where that creek came from, I’d no idea, nor what became of it after hitting the lake.  But it was bright, fast and in the here and now and, looking at it, I thought of all those white bones in their graves and hoped the place they’d end up was as bright as Lake Ontario on a day like this.

We left the cemetery by the same gate.  It was good to be back on the street, kicking up dust, sun on our faces. On the way to our hire car we passed what we British call allotments, but Canadians call garden plots. The soil was dryer than back home. Even so, it yielded sunflowers in rows, pumpkins and tomatoes, growing wild, peppers, carrots, peas and beans, dots of marigolds. 

Back in our car we did a u-turn, taking in the cemetery in a single sweep. I hoped that justice would be done and the crying that haunted mother heard across the waters would one day cease. It was my birthday, my sixty-fourth – a point I share because it matters to me, though it’ll be of little significance to anybody else. On the highway, great trucks roared by.

copyright©Pauline Fisk 2014 

LIKE A JEWEL, by Pauline Fisk

The rocket man said no way.  There were some things he wouldn’t stoop to, and bagging moon dust for sale on earth fitted into that category, especially sale by some company operating out of Jersey, calling itself Planet Earth Holdings. 

The company texted, phoned and emailed him, not only at Space Control UK, but at home. He declined to reply.  Even after he’d been launched, they were still trying to make contact. It was as if they imagined mobile phone masts up in space. All they got back, however, were engaged beeps that went on and on.

After this, Planet Holdings’ PR people started a grass-roots campaign raising public awareness to the value of moon dust, cosying up to the right journalists and paying hard cash to a couple of useful blogsite. The idea was taken up too fast for a tipping point. It caught like wildfire. 

Suddenly everybody was blogging about the properties of moon dust and what they called its ‘distribution crisis’.  Pride in the achievements of the UK Space industry turned to discontent. All this messing around with rockets, paid for out of the public purse - pound for pound that moon dust belonged to the man and woman in the street.  Their rocket man, funded by their taxes, had a public duty to bring it back.

People started phoning Space Control UK.  God alone knows how they found the number. The story made it onto the radio, and then TV.  Phonelines filled up with indignant callers demanding moon dust as their human right. Some wanted it sold to raise money for good causes. Others reckoned it should be administered directly to those causes, others that it should be divvied up by Lottery.  There were arguments about what would happen if the EU laid claim to it. Some subtle voices whispered that the safest hands were the good folk at Planet Earth Holdings – a company nobody had heard of before, but whose shares[on the subject of sky rocketing] were now aiming for the stars.  

Questions were asked in Parliament.  The government had crippled itself, accused the Labour front bench, attempting to prove its position on the world stage.  Its ridiculous space programme had brought the country to its knees - and were they now denying its citizens access to what effectively was their own moon dust?  A nationalized industry needed setting up, making it available on a basis of need. No way, announced the Tory front bench.  Moon dust should be privatized. Already discussions with Planet Earth Holdings were under way.

At this, a mob took to the capital’s streets. The matter was discussed in Cabinet.  Riots kicked off around the country and a COBRA meeting was convened. Rumours abounded about moon dust’s properties. The Government’s Chief Scientist was called in. Air Force chiefs advised. The people from the UK Space Industry were called in.  The Americans had something to say. So did the Russians and Chinese. The Pope issued an edict. So did Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. All three agreed that it wasn’t ethical to remove dust by rocket-load from the moon.

Everybody had an opinion, but no agreement could be found as tis often the way.  The Cabinet was split.  The Prime Minister was prevaricating. The Deputy Prime Minister was no fool.  He appraised the situation and seized his chance.

Up on the moon, the blackness of infinity was so intense that the rocket man could not just hear it, but actually see it sing.  Dust lay like fallen stars beneath his feet.  The earth shone like a jewel. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

[copyright©Pauline Fisk 2013]

THE ONLY PEBBLE ON THE BEACH, by Pauline Fisk

Nothing prepared me for it.  It was not an exceptional day. We were on my favourite beach - that’s as special as it got - me and my friends having a good time. 

They were the ones who saw her first - a woman down at the water’s edge who looked just like me.  I became aware of the nudging, and glanced where they were pointing. Dear God, it was like looking at myself. The shock broke over me like a wave. It wasn’t only the clothes that did it – the black t-shirt and sawn-off jeans that were just like mine. It wasn’t even the hair turned white prematurely like mine, or cut like mine, or the jutting chin or cheekbones. 

No, it was the way that other person carried herself.  It went through me like a knife, separating blood from bone. If that ever happens to you, you’ll know what I mean. She came slowly up the beach, fishing for pebbles with her eyes, picking up her choices, pocketing the special ones, throwing away the rest. She was lost in a world of her own. Except that it wasn’t her world.  It was mine.  

By now, our entire party was riveted, looking from her looking like me to me looking, I guess, exactly the way I felt - which was overwhelmingly embarrassed. This was worse than any possible public dress malfunction. If my soul had been revealed to the world's gaze, I couldn’t have felt more exposed. Never have I felt so vulnerable.

Only when that other person drew level did she raise her eyes. Instinctively I turned away, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. I could have asked who she was, but I wasn’t curious.  I hoped she’d walk on. I didn’t want her asking who I was. Didn’t want to find I had a secret twin. Didn’t want to wonder what my mother, all these years, had kept hidden from me. Dear God, hidden from us.

That other person saw, of course. I didn’t have to see her seeing me to know she saw her replica.  Her shock broke over me like another wave. I swear I felt the two of us being sucked down the beach like pebbles running for the sea. Each had thought she was the only pebble on the beach, special and unique.  Now here I was, making less of her whilst she made something ordinary of me.

So, there you have it. Not much of a story you might think.  Just some person looking for pebbles but finding me, skirting round the subject whilst I hid my face, then sauntering on, emptying her pockets as if something had been spoiled. 

But there are secrets here that will never be revealed. A hidden truth set in cheekbones, chin and hair. A name I’ll never know because I didn’t ask, enthroned on my beach, surrounded by my friends, missing my chance, whilst my other self walked away, wearing her solitude like a crown.

Copyright © Pauline Fisk 2013 

www.paulinefisk.co.uk

WHO'S CRAZY? by Pauline Fisk

We found the hand on the cliff-path at four o clock in the morning. We’d been up all night looking for Abe. The sky had turned from black to blue. Stars had melted, taking with them the night shadows. The sun had risen - and there it was. 

          We knew it was Abe’s because of the ring. Julia had the other half.  They were, in all senses, the perfect pair.  We found Abe’s other hand on the beach, and a foot on the shoreline as if thrown out to sea but washed back in.  Other bits appeared. We even found blood.  You don’t expect to encounter blood on a beach as beautiful as that one, the sea a strip of silver, not a sound but breaking waves.

 As in all detective fiction, there were coincidences. Huw happened to be a forensic scientist, able to date Abe’s death from fingernails and gums [yes, we found his head]. Pete was a retired detective inspector.  Bluntly he announced what we all knew – that the evidence pointed to one of us. 

 This beach was private, he said, impossible to access except by boat.  The entrance through rocks was known only to the beach’s owner, and his special friends.

 Well, it couldn’t have been Pete. He was the one who’d raised the alarm. Besides, policemen are upholders of the law - and you can’t dismember your own brother without breaking the law.

 But it couldn’t have been Huw.  Noble Huw, whose life was built around the truth - the dedicated scientist people trusted to a fault. Life was his subject. He’d too much respect to ever take it away [though according to rumour he had a thing for Julia].

 And that brings us to the gorgeous Julia. It couldn’t have been .  Not Abe’s wife.  His right hand gal, he always called her, and she’d always mock-sigh and answer, ‘Yup, that’s me.’

 So that leaves yours truly.  Could it have been me? Stalking through the night, cleaver in hand, chopping up and disposing of my best friend? We’d been through school together, everything. He knew my secrets and I knew his.  Could I once have sworn to get him, and now I had?

 As it turned out, police work solved the crime in record time.  The murderer was a man of foreign accent discovered sleeping rough down the beach.  He protested his innocence, but Huw said forensic evidence pointed to him, Pete said that murderers always gave themselves away and Julia said she’d disturbed him shortly before the first hand. There’d been a moment when their eyes had met. ‘I thought then that he was crazy,’ she said.

              And what do I say? What do I care? Abe was a beast. We three know that. One of us killed him. One of us lied – and to expect murder to be solved in just five hundred words makes this author crazy too.  The truth lies unrevealed, and I've just hit five-one-two. Which means it’s over to you.

Copyright © Pauline Fisk 2013

www.paulinefisk.co.uk