Alice shuddered. ‘No. I mean, I doubt I could see that far across the waters but… no, nothing moving as far as I could tell.’ It was every village member’s job to be vigilant.
‘Good-O!’ said the vicar, beaming once again. ‘Will we be seeing you and your lovely family at the bonfire night fete this evening?’ He placed a sweaty hand on the child’s head.
‘Of course, Reverend. I’m just deciding what to donate to the drive.’ Alice shuffled the infant carrier out of his reach.
‘Capital. I’m sure you can get your hands on something.’ He gave her a conspiratorial wink then looked past her to the tranquil waters beyond the green.
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ he murmured.
As the reverend trotted off, Alice decided to change direction. There was too much to think about. She needed Mark. Leaving the green behind her, she headed towards the stone-flagged market square. The firm’s Agile Space was housed in a double fronted Georgian building with a brass plate and hanging baskets. She found Mark at his desk, deep in conversation with a disembodied face on one of his three screens. Seeing her, he graciously ended the call and removed his earpiece.
He smiled up at her. ‘Hello my darling,’ he said.
She ignored his outstretched arm.
‘I’m having the shittest day Mark. I mean, where is the fucking nanny? You were supposed to sort this. I’ve got the donation to organise, the kid keeps surfacing, the car is a bloody nightmare and all without any sort of help. You know I wouldn’t normally bother you at work but I need this handled!’
Mark stood up and closed the office door. He looked sheepish.
‘Yes, darling, well the thing is, I haven’t wanted to bother the agency.’
‘What the fuck Mark?’
He loosened his tie. ‘Look, it was Wednesday I think,’ he turned back to the screen and scrolled up through his diary.
‘She got a bit… reluctant. I could have handled it a bit better I suppose but yes, look…’ He pointed at a meeting entry.
‘We’d had a bad outcome on the Paradiso account and I needed something to distract me at the end of an awful day. Please don’t be cross. I wasn’t asking her to do anything out of the ordinary. She’s for all our use after all isn’t she?’ He looked to Alice like a sad little boy. She started to soften.
He went on, ‘Anyway, she starts refusing at the first fence and I… well… I sort of lost my temper. I cleared away afterwards and I’ve been meaning to deal with it since.’ He looked extremely sheepish now. Alice felt her indignation give way to irritation.
‘For God’s sake Mark. Is that what the clutter is about in the garage? All those boxes stacked up so that no-one can get into the chillers?’ She dropped her voice slightly but hissed, ‘You should have just told me you silly fool.’
She left the office feeling disgruntled. She had a reasonable explanation now but it irked her that she had had to draw it out of him. She knew it was because he was embarrassed. There was a reason outsourced workers were so expensive; Village papers and vetting cost a great deal, deposits were astronomical. He was always getting at her for over-spending yet here he was, wasting money and resources like this.
But slowly, the intense feeling of righteousness started to lift her mood. As she drew near the car, she began to wonder if there might not be a silver lining to this whole debacle after all.
That night, the village green was alive with the yellow glare of at least 30 elevated, lawn-safe bonfires. The aroma of popcorn and toffee apples hung on the air. It was artificially intensified to mask the more offensive smells but it always gave Alice a lovely warm feeling inside.
She looked about her at the crowd. The whole village was there. Everyone seemed genuinely happy on these occasions and Alice felt a spontaneous surge of contentment. Such unmedicated feelings were rare. At that moment she noticed the skeletal hypnofaster stalking towards her, a satisfied grin stretched over her taut skull-face.
‘Gosh Alice, twice in one day! The girls and I were just saying that we don’t see enough of you. Did you manage to find anything to donate to the Fires? I know it’s hard babe.’ She pulled a grotesque baby-face in commiseration at Alice’s presumed failure. She carried on, no interest in a reply. ‘So Angus caught a rat on Sunday’s Hunt. Perfect timing for tonight. It had crawled into the Protected Zone from one of the estates.’ She mouthed the last word as if it was some sort of expletive. ‘They all do. They’ll soon learn to just stay there.’
She rolled her eyes, lurched in to touch Alice’s cheek with her own then picked her way back into the throng of villagers.
The woman would hear about Alice’s largesse soon enough. Alice and Mark were not Hunt people yet and normally this sort of exchange would have sent her hurtling into a pit of social anxiety and envy. But not tonight. She’d nothing to feel inadequate about tonight, at least.
Mark moved close beside her. The child in his arms was transfixed by the flames, large eyes dilated and unmoving as it sucked rhythmically on its dummy. The loud screams and cries for help coming from the rats on the far bonfires didn’t seem to faze it. Alice could never understand what they were saying anyway, she supposed it was English of a sort. She felt exquisite pride as she thought how perfectly silent her own expensive donation had been compared to the raucous and, let’s face it, utterly disposable offerings of her neighbours. A rat was ordinary and uninspired. Her donation showed class. And after all, a well-chilled body burns for a bit longer, the pretty face a much more pleasant sight as it melts off the bone.
She glanced across at Mark, his face shining in the firelight with admiration and gratitude. She might get that new car after all.
the end About the author
This author’s dreams of being either an astronaut or a spy were squashed by the reality of being too short and too talkative. Happily, R.L Kerrigan still manages to satisfy the desire to explore and tell preposterous lies through short story telling. It is a much safer endeavour, and one which can be done in a dressing gown with cup of tea.
A Worm in the Toffee Apple won 3rd prize in the Fire and Ice competition.
OUT OF HER MIND
Danuta Reah
Words on a page, black print on white. Words on a screen, black print on a flickering monitor, safe, contained. He’s the shadow in the night, the soft footsteps that follow in the darkness, sealed away as the book is closed, fragmenting into nothing as the screen shuts down into blackness.
But now he’s seeping around the sides of the screen, bleeding off the edges of the paper…
The room is empty. The light reflects from the walls, glints on the metal of the lamp. The screensaver dances, flowers and butterflies, over and over.
The summer heat is oppressive. Laura looks out of her window. The small patch of ground behind the house is scorched and wilting, and over the fence, the buddleia that grows in the alleyway droops, its purple flowers brown at the tips.
The air is still and dry. The louvres are open, but the wind chimes she put there at the beginning of the summer hang motionless. She taps them with her finger, the gentle reverberation giving her the illusion of coolness.