L01 2020 words Mud and Stars By Robert Spicer Ash walked into an onslaught when he arrived at the hospital for his next session with Dr Love. Myra had him captive instantly. `You are not going to believe this, Jack.' `I promise you, I will. What happened? Did you get someone?' `Someone, someone - Jack, there are four people living in my flat!' `What?' `A brother and a sister and two sisters came about the same time, they were early. I mean, the phone never stopped ringing while they were there even and I liked them all so much we just sat around talking and talking. In the end we took the receiver off the phone to get some peace and someone suggested getting a wine cask while we discussed who was to move in. It was crazy. We did it. At 4 am on Sunday morning we were still all talking.' `So what did you decide?' `Everybody moved in and we're looking for a house for all of us to rent and as soon as we can find one we're going to move in together.' `I don't believe it.' `I told you you wouldn't, didn't I? Jack, I have never had so much fun in my life. We all get on so well. They all want to meet you and I told them it won't be long before they can. You will come and visit, won't you?' `Of course. The quicker the better.' She laughed and then turned and looked out the window. `What do you think of the hair?' She did a pirouette to face him again. She looked five years younger and very pretty. `Sensational,' he said. `God, you're nearly up to my standard.' They both laughed. `All that seems a long time ago, doesn't it?' He nodded and asked, `What about your brother, have you seen him?' `Jack, I couldn't bring myself to ask him over but I did want to do something you know, like you said, clean out all the cobwebs. I called him on the phone, Jack. We talked for a long time. I told him I thought I understood a little now. He said when his love and guilt grew strong enough that was when he stopped. He didn't just forget me or not want me near him anymore. He said when he left home it was because he loved me too much to keep doing things. The only way was to leave home and find someone else but once we were separated he just couldn't talk to me anymore even though he wanted to. I believe him, Jack. I told him what you said, that in a way we were like a divorced couple and it would always hurt us to see each other with other people being close but we should stay good friends. He said he'd like that and from now on that's what we'd be.' She looked down at her feet. `So that's that, case closed, everything fixed.' Ash put out his hand and lifted up her chin and looked into her eyes. `All your own work too. You know, Myra, anybody can give a bit of advice but the trick is for the person themselves to put what they like the sound of into effective action. That's what you did and I'm really proud of you.' He ruffled her hair. `And let me tell you, it did me a lot of good talking with you. I felt really good when I left here last time, so you see it's been a two-way street.' `I guess it has, hasn't it?' She looked at him, smiled and turned away quickly. `Well, he's in,' she said. `I'll see if he wants you yet.' She went to the surgery door, knocked, poked in her head and said, `Jack Ash here to see you, Doctor.' Then she beckoned him to go in. He winked at her and walked into the doctor's surgery. Love leaned back in his chair to face him as he sat down. `Well, what did you think of it?' `What? Think of what?' `The automatic writing I gave you to read.' `Oh, I haven't seen you for such a long time and so much has happened that I wondered what you were talk+ing about. I have read it but only the once and I have to say that I thought you may have been writing in terms that you have been taught or don't remember being taught and may have absorbed just the same. Even stories told to you by aunts or grandparents as a child and in a certain state - you open up a channel to those memo+ries. Possibly even extended genetic memories remem+bered through the generations.' Ash paused and it was to Love's credit that he seemed to be giving serious con+sideration to what he had said. He went on, `That's just my opinion, Doctor, because I can't accept the doctrine of selective reincarnation.' `What do you mean, selective?' `Well, let's say twenty generations ago there were 200 million people on Earth and now we have 4,000 million people and in another five generations, if we haven't destroyed ourselves, there will be 8,000 million. That means to me that there just aren't enough past lives to go around, in a spiritual sense. But there are enough inher+ited memories, perhaps, and certainly enough bedtime stories, so I find it a lot more rational to look in that direction for a solution to the phenomena of Mozart and the others like him, including yourself. I don't see how that detracts from the law of Karma anymore that it detracts from the law of averages. I don't see how the supernatural need necessarily be involved but that's not to say it isn't.' Love sat very still for what seemed like a long time. `So you think it would have to be selective?' he asked. `A God-being, allocating past lives to suitable human vessels to carry on the self-improvement process. That is, if it has any basis in reality.' `Yes, if it has any basis in reality I believe that would follow.' `I intend to give what you've said a great deal of thought, Jack, and thanks for being honest with me. I rather expected you would be a little more impressed.' `Whatever the source, it is certainly intriguing.' `Where do you think your drive for self-improvement emanates from if it has no spiritual imperative?' `I don't know. Maybe the load of guilt instilled in my early Christian moral training became too heavy as life went by until I had to set the account straight or die in the crossfire, or maybe it was just a rational process. Does it matter?' `Perhaps it doesn't. But if it doesn't, aren't we just trying to treat the symptoms here? You know, the mani+festations of the condition with external psychological ointments rather than finding the root of the crisis and treating that with the drug of reality.' `No, I believe what we are doing is a sort of sort+ing process, psychological data processing. Helping the computer get the encyclopedia of personal data into prop+er perspective, something like that. I mean, that would have to be the basis of most neurotic and stress problems surely, taking things out of perspective?' `Yes, that is true to a great extent but subconscious suppression of certain aspects of data can also throw the wheels of personality out of balance. A little like the Vietnam War. The Americans could have won the war by obliterating Vietnam from the face of the Earth. Due to other considerations, however, they chose to fight with one hand tied behind their back so to speak, al+most on the other fellow's terms. Now, if the positive psychological forces in a person's personality are simi+larly disadvantaged by subconsciously sabotaging the in+formation with which they have to deal, they have a great deal more daunting a task in overcoming negative ten+dencies in respect of inner conflicts, between guilt and self-respect, duty and self-interest, self-appraisal and self-assurance, proper responsibility and the right to pleasure and gratification. This, I believe, is a factor in your own stress and tension and its physical manifesta+tions in the form of welts, hives, head bumps, itching and rashes.' `In what way? I don't think I understand you.' That particular example annoyed Ash. `The Americans would have liked to obliterate Vietnam as they did Hiroshima but this time they had the problem of not getting the Soviet Union involved so they were restricted to conven+tional warfare. They knew why they had to fight under a disadvantage.' Dr Love looked unconvinced. `You may analyse the position in that way but others may say that America's sentimental love of fair play or immature concern over what the world may think of her was, in fact, the Achilles heel. In your case, for example, I believe you deliberately underemphasize the role your first wife played in the destruction of your marriage and overemphasize the negative role you played because you're the only one who is best equipped to take the blame and handle it. In fact, I think this type of tendency is prevalent in your way of dealing with many conflict situations. Because of this you give your own mental processes an almost impossible job in repairing psycho+logical damage. For example, most people after a mar+riage break-up blame the other party almost entirely for the whole shemozzle. There is a very good reason for this. By doing so, they themselves survive emotionally. After some time, when they have well and truly put themselves back together they will gradually make cer+tain allowances for the other partner until, in the fullness of time, they can often become quite good friends. If, however, someone says, "I am so superior, or I believe I should be so superior, that the frailty or venality of the partner is irrelevant", and therefore leaves himself no alternative but to take all the blame on his far superior shoulders, then, depending on how superior those shoul+ders really are and depending on how often he plays the scenario this way, one can have no real difficulty in surmising, when his body fails to match strength with his determination and his will to take the rap himself for all failed relationships and enterprises, that it capitulates into a sea of hives and rashes. It is really just screaming out, I surrender, I've had enough. Can you see that?' `Yes, but only to a degree. I'm always aware of the contribution other people have made to those failures.' Ash hardly felt himself completely naive. `Of course, but can't you see that that information is usually filed in the irrelevant basket? What does it matter what they did or didn't do? To all intents and purposes they were irrelevant. You think you should have been able to manipulate them more effectively so that they did not act in a negative or damaging way. The fact that they did is just further proof of a failure on your part to do a proper job on them. The conclusion, therefore, is that you are to blame for their failings as much as your own. Most people throw all the blame on to others to ensure they will survive. Your personality prefers to take full responsibility for the lot, often quite unfairly I'd suspect, and very egotistically. You are now carrying a super+human load of this type of rationalization and each new load of data could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Your self-concept is such, that to change your willingness to shoulder the blame could be seen as just another failure, almost the daddy of them all. For that reason, the cure could be as damaging as the neurosis.' `Hardly a neurosis.' `Losing perspective in any area is neurotic. I would like to hear, for example, what you believe your first wife did to destabilize the marriage without any ration+alization on your part.' `I think her actions were really only reactions and the kind of neurosis you have described could only apply to much later in my life, not these early events.' L05 2008 words Cassidy By Morris West The return flight to Sydney landed at twenty minutes to six. Arthur Rebus and I took a cab back to the city. Rebus wanted half an hour with me at the hotel before he went home. Ever since we had left the Commissioner's office, he had been preoccu+pied and taciturn. I was bone-tired, so I didn't mind the silences. In spite of the abrasions of our day's discussions, I felt at the end curiously reassured. As from the following day, I should be shadowed day and night by guardian angels and stayed up by the presence of a police expert who would help me to make sense of Cassidy's documents. I had a pistol licence in my pocket and the name of a reliable gunsmith. At least I was no longer alone, a floating particle in a hostile atmosphere. Rebus, however, took a different view. Sitting in my room at the Town House with a large whiskey clamped in his fist, he told me, moodily: `...I'm more worried now than I was this morning. You don't see it, Martin, but I do. These are war-games. You're important because you're sitting on Cassidy's files; but for the rest, you're an expendable element. The Commissioner will sacrifice you with as little compunction as he would a decoy platoon in a field operation ...' `I can't blame him for that, Arthur. He made it very clear. My options are still open - most of them, anyway.' `No, Martin! Listen to me and try to understand. This whole melodrama of rogue unions, rogue cops, rogue politicians, drug runners and their ilk is about one thing - power! If a maritime union controls the waterfront, it controls the trade of the nation. If a building union can hold up the construction of silos, the wheat rots and the rats eat it. So deals have to be made - big deals, legal and illegal: an investigation dropped, a claim settled, a felon given an early release ... The real problem of drugs is not the casualties, tragic and all as they are, but the fact that narcotics have become a world currency, a black-market coinage which will buy anything anywhere, whose value is increased by shortage, whose movement is impossible to monitor ... Look at the coastline of this continent. How the hell do you patrol it? Impossible. You could land a goddamn army anywhere from Normanton to Derby and the only ones who'd know about it would be the kangaroos! ... The Commissioner's right. You're valuable to him because you can key him in to a new grid in the underground system. But once he's in, you're no longer important to him, because you have no political or executive power. He won't be indifferent to what happens to you. He's too moral a man for that; but he won't give all his blood to keep you alive - and he won't weep too long at your grave ...' He sipped meditatively at his liquor. `I guess what I'm really trying to say is that this, at root, is a moral matter. It involves a moral commitment, which I believe the Commissioner has. He really hates the corruptors and the intimidators. Between him and them it's war to the knife. All through today he was looking for the same commitment from you. He didn't get it. Neither did I, for that matter. Maybe we're both misreading you, but it seems to me you're still doing a teeter-totter act on the tightrope. Which being said, you're welcome to spit in my eye ...' There was a knock at the door - a bellboy with a large manila envelope. I borrowed a two-dollar bill from Rebus, to tip him. The envelope carried the sender's name: Standish and Waring, Solicitors. Inside was a letter and a sheaf of documents. The letter read: Dear Mr. Gregory, We act for the Macupan Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. of Manila. We understand that you are the executor of the late Charles Cassidy's will and that you have taken legal custody of his estate. In October last year, Miss Pornsri Rhana, of the Chao Phraya Trading Company, Bangkok, applied to purchase at par one million five hundred thousand one dollar shares of Macupan Pharmaceutical, promising to pay upon issue of the shares. A copy of the share application and a photostat of the share certificate is enclosed. Also enclosed is our client's agreement to accept payment in any country of the world, such payment to be made in a mixture of currencies, a consignment of precious stones of agreed and certified value and a consignment of pharmaceutical products whose value is similarly certified. Copies of the certifications are attached. Miss Rhana informs us the currency and other items required for the settlement had been held for her by the late Charles Cassidy and that they would probably now be in your possession as executor. We would point out that the payments do not attract tax or require tax clearance, since they are considerations passing between two foreign entities, using an Australian entity only as the medium of exchange. Neither is there any probate problem, since the items in question are not part of the estate of the late Charles Cassidy. May we ask you, therefore, to communicate with us as soon as possible, so that a date and time may be set for the payment of the consideration and the delivery of the share certificate? Sincerely yours, Gordon Standish I flipped through the documents and handed them without comment to Arthur Rebus. He read them slowly, nodding his head like one of those old-fashioned porcelain Buddhas. Finally, he looked up and said, `Now that's what I call real style! No threats. A nice, courtly letter from one legal colleague to another! I wonder what the Commissioner will make of this one.' `Standish and Waring ... The Premier recommended I use them for Cassidy's probate.' `You could have done a lot worse. They're old line, stuffy, desperately slow - and completely reliable.' `So why would Erhardt Moller use them as his collectors?' `Precisely for that reason. Given these documents, they wouldn't think of questioning the instructions of their client. If the client tells them that a kilo of heroin is a pharmaceutical product or a new line of baking powder, they'll accept it as fact. Why should they do otherwise? They'll expect a similarly courteous and uncomplicated response from you. If they get it, the matter's closed. But I'd like to hear first from Miss Pornsri Rhana. Either she's been set up, or she's setting you up for Mr. Erhardt Moller, or this is standard pattern for transactions between Cassidy and the boys in Manila.' `I'd like to hear what the Commissioner advises.' `Why don't you leave the lady and the Commissioner to me? I have your power of attorney. No sense to keep a dog and bark yourself. I'll drop in to see the lady on my way home and phone the Commissioner tonight. In the morning, I'll call Standish and Waring and let them know I'll be handling the matter under your power of attorney. We'll meet at the bank in the morning.' I was glad when he left. He could be a diverting character, but he had all sorts of unexpected edges to bruise one's self-esteem. I needed some balm for my wounded feelings. So, good and faithful husband, I telephoned my wife in Klosters. It was Clare who answered the phone. She told me Pat and the children were already out on the slopes. Pat had found this marvellous ski instructor who was bringing them along at an enormous rate. `... They're having a wonderful time, Martin. It would do your heart good to see them.' `I'm delighted. And what about you, Clare? How's the big romance?' `Coming along very nicely. He's kind and considerate. Terribly absentminded, but I can cope with that. He's working on his book. I'm working on him. It's a very comfortable situation. How are you holding up, Martin?' `I'm holding up. Your old man left a tidy estate to the family - and a bloody minefield for me. I'm picking my way through the middle of it now.' `Pat told me about the Thai mistress and the daughter she bore to Charlie.' `That's only the half of it. I've spent today in Canberra with the Federal Police. I have to go up to Bangkok in three days' time. Also, for security reasons, I'm changing hotels. I'm moving tonight to the Melmar Marquis. Write it down - the Melmar Marquis. In Bangkok, I'll be at the Oriental.' `I know, dear.' `How do you know?' `Mr. Melville called last night to say he'd be meeting you there. He kindly offered to carry any letters or messages. Would you like me to have Pat call you when she gets back?' `What time will that be?' `It's normally quite late - three, four in the afternoon. They're doing the long runs now, stopping at the halfway hut for lunch, then skiing the last leg to be home before dark. But I guess that'll be the wee, small hours for you.' `It will indeed. Just give her my love and kiss the kids for me. I'll call as soon as I'm installed in the Melmar. Lots of love, Clare. And good luck with your scholar. By the way, what's his name?' `Leonidas Farkis ... and if you say it's a funny name, I'll kill you! He's a Greek-American, a great scholar who ...' `Hey, hey, hey, relax, Clare! This is son-in-law Martin, remem+ber? I'm on your side. Always have been.' `I know!' She gave a little, unsteady laugh. `It's just that I'm very, very fond of him and Pat and the children don't always understand his funny ways ... I'm sorry you're having such a bad time with Charles' affairs. Do be careful. He could be such a monster; he probably left booby traps everywhere. Try to come home soon. The children miss you terribly and Pat gets very restless without you ... Goodbye, my dear!' When I put down the receiver I felt a sudden pang of jealousy and resentment. Pat was restless! Pat had found a new ski instructor who kept her out on the slopes until dark. Splendid! This is the day the Lord hath made, Alleluia! Meantime, dutiful husband, I, Martin Gregory the Righteous, had just been licensed to carry a firearm, warned that he was an expendable element in a war-game and that people didn't trust him because he had lust and greed written all over his face! I called the Melmar Marquis and asked to speak to Laura Larsen. This time they found her within thirty seconds. I told her that if she still had room I'd love to come and stay at her place. She said, `Good! I think it's wise ... and I'll be glad to have you near anyway. When you arrive, ask for Peters at reception. He'll take you up to the suite, register you there and explain the house procedures to maintain your privacy and at the same time keep your communications open. I won't see you tonight, because I'm hostess to a group of travel agents who are very important to us. But I'll come and have breakfast with you at eight in the morning. How was Canberra?' `Busy.' `And your new probate lawyers?' `I'm impressed. They're very efficient. I'll tell you about them when I see you. Ciao.' That made me feel a little better and if it added a line or two of lechery to my public face, then too bad. I shaved, showered, put on fresh linen and a fresh summer suit and poured myself a drink to farewell the Town House. I was just beginning to enjoy it when the telehone rang. Mr. Erhardt Moller was on the line from Manila. `Good evening, Mr Gregory. You should by now have received a set of documents from our solicitors, Standish and Waring.' L07 2019 words All possible avenues By Tom Howard "Would you like to lie in bed with her?" asked Mr. Gorham. I flushed. "Yes," I answered. "Did you hear that?" yelled Mr. Booker. "The Coat's just admitted he'd like to lie in bed with Jean Ferguson!" "I hope you use a french letter, Coat," said Mr. Street. "There's enough bastards around already," agreed Louis Jessup. "You can say that again!" exclaimed Mr. Bear. "You oughtta know, Teddy," said Zach McLaurence. "I wouldn't mind sleeping with her myself," leered Mr. Gorham. "Is she good in bed, Coat?" asked Mr. Street. "Tell you what, Coat," said Bob Booker. "I've got a french letter in my desk I can lend you." "Second-hand, of course," said Sporrie. "Erk!" grimaced Mr. Gorham. "Full of colly-wobbles is it, Bob?" asked Louis Jessup. "I've only used it once!" "Erk!" "Have you popped the question yet, Coat?" continued Booker. "Well, no, I haven't." "Tell you what, Coat! I'll pop round and tell her." "Don't do that!" But ignoring my protestation, Booker sailed out the door. The laughter had scarcely abated, when Mr. Kennel walked in. A little man with horn-rimmed spectacles, Mr. Kennel was Chief Teller in Accounts Section. "Where's the boss?" he asked. "Gone to see about a broken clock," said Sporrie, picking his nails. Kennel surveyed the damage. "How did that happen?" he asked. "Fell down, I guess," replied Sporrie, again without looking up. "Anything we can do you for, Jed?" asked Mr. Rochester. "I think I'll just wait till he comes back." So saying, Kennel strolled to the top of the room and calmly sat down in Witcharde's chair. A few minutes later, Horrie Waterman came in and began distributing an Information Circular from the Association. "Getting a bit sensational, aren't we, Horrie?" commented Mr. Gorham. And indeed we were! The circular was headed CRITICISM OF POLICE METHODS and ran as follows:- SEARCH WITHOUT WARRANT The methods of the Commonwealth Investigation Service in the Sales Tax Office have been bitterly criticised by incensed members following the recent search of an officer's private home. After undergoing a sustained ordeal of handwriting tests and interro+gation the officer was bundled into a car and driven away by three powerful-looking well-built investigators. Only when the car had travelled some distance was the officer told the investigators were going to his home. On arrival the investigators "in+vited" the officer to let them search the premises without a warrant. The officer, who maintains his innocence of any malpractice, was subjected to humiliating questioning without being told the nature of the offence he was suspected of committing. His wife was ill and expecting a child at the time and he was reduced to a state of extreme nervous tension. Later he was sent back to his desk and left without any indication of what was going to happen to him next. The methods of enquiry and search were so unusual that citizens generally may well wonder what the Commonwealth investigators will be capable of doing when they start full-scale operations under the new Federal Police legislation. INVESTIGATOR TALKS OF "MURDER" Having found no evidence of wrong-doing by the officer, the investi+gators, with apparent relish, took possession of a war-time souvenir pistol found abandoned in the bottom of a wardrobe. When an Association official enquired what the investigators were going to do with the pistol, he was told it would be treated as an "un+licensed revolver". It was explained to the investigators that the pistol was given to the officer during the war by an Air Force mate who was later killed in action. The gun had not been used since and when the officer returned from the war it was thrown aside and forgotten. With something like the melodrama of a fifth rate detective novel one of the investigators quite seriously told the Association official that the revolver might be a "missing murder weapon." The pistol was rusted, broken, old and useless. It was about as in+capable of being fired as the Commonwealth Investigation Service apparently is of solving the "extra man mystery." "I don't know that you had any right to print all that, Horrie," complained Mr. Gorham. "Who was it, Horrie?" asked Mr. Street. "Wasn't me - that's for bloody sure!" said Wakington-Snell. "What's all this `extra man' crap?" asked Mr. Street. "Well, I told her, Coat," said Booker, breezing back. "She said she'd be happy to sleep with you any time." I knew she had not said anything of the sort, but I raced around to Records all the same. "Has Booker been speaking to you about me?" I asked. "Yes; he has." "I hope you didn't take any notice of what he said." "No; I didn't." "That's all right, then." Just as I returned, Witcharde came in the other way. For+tunately, his attention was distracted by Kennel. "There you are!" exclaimed that worthy. "I see you've got a broken clock." "Did you fix that chair?" "Yes," replied Southey. "Everything under control." Witcharde tore up two forms he was carrying, and sat down beside Rochester. "Don't worry about me," said Kennel. "I've got all day." "Get stuffed," answered Witcharde. Kennel made no attempt to execute this order, and Witcharde went on talking to Rochester. They were discuss+ing Waterman's Circular. This stalemate seemed set to continue indefinitely, when there was a sudden commotion in the direction of Accounts Section. "Man overboard!" It was old Gruber's voice. There was the sound of running feet in the corridor outside. Then tumult. "Mann the lifeboats!" Gruber was screaming. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" - "Fire!" some-one shouted. "Fire!" - "Fire!" We sat at our desks like statues of ice. Witcharde dived for the door. The corridor was choked with pandemonium. Females were screaming, wielding their purses like clubs, their bodies for battering rams. "Fire!", "Fire!" It was every woman for herself; clawing frantically at those in front; being clawed by those behind. "Fire!", "Fire!" Using the heels of their shoes like spurs to a horse, the gentler sex battled their way down the stairs. "Fire!", "Fire!" The call re-echoed from floor to floor. At last we were in the street. "Some-one stop the traffic!" But there was no need. An im+penetrable barrier of human flesh spilled across the road-way. The pressure was increasing. I slipped down King Street and caught a tram to the Uni. "Where did you get to, yesterday, Mr. Howard?" Spindel's tone was cold and sarcastic. "I took myself out to the University, if it's any business of yours." I could see Carrier's jaw drop, out of sympathy I suppose. "I think it is our business, Mr. Howard, when you take yourself off, without permission," continued Spindel. "I think I acted rather wisely, considering the circumstances." "You'll have to fill in a leave form, and you'll be docked for the time you were absent. That's all, Mr. Howard." "I refuse to fill in the form." "In that case, I have no alternative, but to report your con+duct to the D.C." "I would welcome the opportunity. And I shall seek an in+terview for myself." I thought better of it, however, and returned to I.E.s. "Spindel reckons he's going to dock the time from my pay," I explained to the room at large. "He can't do that, Coat," said Booker. "We were all in the pub, and he's not doing anything about that." "He'd better not!" exclaimed Wakington-Snell with surpris+ing vehemence. "No. I should say not," agreed Rochester. "What will I do about it?" I asked. "You want to write a letter to the D.C.," suggested Sporrie. "That's a good idea," I said. Witcharde came in. Under his beady eye, I removed all the files from the top of my desk, took out a sheet of ruled foolscap, and wrote the following memo:- Internal Examinations Yesterday afternoon, as you are doubtless aware, in Accounts section, while Mr. Kennel was out of the room, a gust of wind blew a large number of cheques that were on his desk out of the window. I only learnt of this occurrence this morning. Yesterday afternoon, due to the careless+ness of Mr. Kennel and the irresponsibility of Mr. Gruber, I, along with most of the staff, and half the building in fact, was made to feel that a fire had broken out. I flatter myself that I am not a person to whom the spectacle of a fire fulfills some vicarious amusement - chasing fire engines is a habit I have long outgrown - and I therefore took myself away from the scene so as not to hamper the efforts of such gallant fire-fighters as would presently appear - or so I assumed. Mr Spindel has stated that I will be required to take the leave without pay. It is submitted that, in view of the extraordinary circumstances out+lined above, Special Leave be granted. Thomas Howard The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation. I was tempted to add a proviso that, failing the grant of the Special Leave, the pay be deducted form Gruber's salary, but I thought better of it. Witcharde was still watching me. With an elaborate gesture, I placed the memo in Rocky's In-tray. Later that morning, Rocky called me over. "I take it, you're not planning to spend very long in this department?" he asked. "Why's that, Rocky?" "This memo. If you put this through, you'll be finished for life." "It's true, isn't it?" "That's not the point. It doesn't always pay to be truthful in this place. Especially when you attack old Gruber. He's the white-haired boy." "What's the matter with everyone? The man's a raving lunatic. Surely they realise that, even from yesterday's incident." "He just gets a bit excited, that's all. I suggest you tear up this memo, if you want to stay here for any time." Like a coward, I took his advice. But having thrown Witcharde off his guard, I thought it would be a good idea to pen a note to Jean Ferguson. Due to the supervisory activities of Mr. King, our correspondence had rather decreased of late. Most of my letters were made up of the most atrocious puns and all manner of terribly juvenile devices. Her letters to me were much more interesting: Tom Howard Q.C. The caption above looks impressive but don't be misled by it, for I think the following parenthesis (brag, brag, brag) suits you better - You certainly were not behind the door when the gab was handed out. So I am ignorant am I? Well, I am pleased to say I am not a walking dictionary like yourself. Sarcastic aren't I? Well, you ask for it sometimes, always pointing out my ignorance on not knowing the literary characters that you have so painstakingly looked up in the encyclopedia (never could spell that word seeing that I do not possess one) but, undoubtedly, you possess stacks of them, and I bet you wouldn't have to dust them either. Who is Descartes? Hiprophesis? Or, how long is the Suez canal? Or, maybe I could ask you a few points on sport, a subject you know comparatively little about. Then I could also say "Oh! you are so ignorant." As for reading the `Water Babies' in kindergarten I am afraid I was far too much advanced for my years, for I fancied literary works of Kathleen Windsor much better. Never mind Tom, I loved the ending of your letter. I might be dumb and ignorant but I have blue eyes, beautiful physiog+nomy and a nice personality. Oh! my, I simply curled up on the mat when I read that. Don't upset me like that. Yours Truly, Jeannie Sir Charles Freeman, I appear to be getting more like you every day, what with colloquial expressions and pseudonyms. (look that one up in the dictionary). Do you know what `Sidere mens eadem mutato' means? Well! I found out, it means `Tempus fugit but the mind remains the same.' (Impressive, isn't it?) Sitting at my desk yesterday, I was startled to find a masculine head (combined with a husky voice) so intimately close to mine, and do you know who the possessor of the head was? L08 2005 words The last generation By Tom Howard Bone "You doan' hafta worry 'bout me no more, Mr. Howard!" Bone's white teeth semaphored a dazzling smile. "I'm cured, man!" Didn't believe it of course. I waited patiently for the sting. "You doan' believe me, Mr. Howard?" Eyes bright, ebony skin shining with innocence. I shook my head. Emphatically. Bone is an instinct-for- survival troublemaker. Had to be. A negro in whitey's paradise. On the edge of every street-kid clique and clan. Tolerated as a mascot, a novelty, he had to keep fresh. Nothing real bad of course. Not so much law-bending as bouncing. Steal a dozen tooth-picks while returning a diamond ring. Give me a sold-out crim any day. Know where you stand with him. Catch him breaking your foot, you can send him away for a year. Let Bone dance on your toes, he'll be back tomorrow with a jugful of fleas! "It's real true, Mr. Howard. I'm not gonna trouble nobody no more - not you, not the cops, nobody." You had to admire his ingenuity. I smiled. "Trying to throw me off-guard, Bone? You're making me even more suspicious." "Suspicious of what, Mr. Howard?" Bone didn't try to put on an innocent face. That was the trouble: - his face always looked baby bovine. His cow-like eyes were alight with eagerness to please, his lips pouting with friendliness. "I'm givin' it to you straight, man. I don't need that shit no more!" I stood up. "I'll believe this miracle when I see it, Bone. Now if you're through wasting my time, there's a girl outside who'd like me to find her a job. That's what I'm here for - genuine kids - real advice - not squaring mischief-makers with the cops!" He remained seated. "I mean it, Mr. Howard," he blurted desperately. "I done reformed. I joined Beachies For Christ." I sat down. This was a new development. Bone never ran out of surprises. "So what do you want me to do? Voice it from the clouds?" "Why doan' you come along, Mr. Howard?" I stood up. "It never fails. Get religion, drink, gambling, you-name-it, sign the pledge, and you want everyone else to join up too! No, thanks!" Unperturbed, he continued to gaze up at me with those unruffled, wide-open eyes. "You doan' fool me, Mr. Howard. No more. Took me a long time to figure you out, man. But I reckon I got you pegged." I sat down. A jack-in-the box. "Let's have the wisdom, and then bye-bye!" I made a fluttering motion with my hand. "Got a girl waiting." "An angle, right?" he asked eagerly. I resisted the impulse to stand up. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Everyone's got an angle." "What's yours, Jack?" Bone asked quickly. I smiled. Effusively. Warily. "Just here to help you kids." "Why, man?" I continued to smile, my lips straining with the effort. "Just a natural do-gooder." Bone pursed his thick lips, shook his head slightly. "It ain't for the money," he said slowly. "What money? I'm a bloody volunteer!" I was beginning to lose patience. "Power?" Bone suggested quietly, as if talking to himself. "There's many of us like power." "What bloody power?" I screamed. "Advice. Big man. Make or break. Kow-towin', wheelin', makin' waves?" I smiled. "Yeah, maybe that's it, Bone." I stood up. "Now if you'll bloody excuse me, got a nice girl waitin'." I was picking up his damn elisions. "Seen Nicola lately?" I sat down. Fast. "Not lately," I said carefully. He shook his head. "Thought maybe that was it. You know." He smacked his lips in a kiss. I laughed. He laughed too. Merrily. Two big boys enjoying a joke. A very dirty joke. "You know the score, Bone," I said. I snapped my fingers. "Muchee promisee, no delivery. I've only ever seen Nicola the once." Bone stared at me in surprise. "Like five, man." (I read pity in his face). "She talks, Jack." "Okay, five." Bone shook his head. Elaborately. "No, that ain't it either. Reckon a man can do better places than Paradise." I stood up. "Money, power, girls - you've gone through the bloody lot - and I'm through being needled -" "Religion?" he asked hopefully. "Hah!" "God?" I wasn't about to mock God. I held my mouth shut and walked around Bone to open the door. Bone shook his head. Exaggerated dubiety. "Ever'one's got an angle." "Maybe I don't have an angle." I held the door open. "Maybe I'm just a natural, genuine-born eccentric," I proclaimed triumphantly. "Okay, Jack." Bone rose from his seat. "Thought I'd just tell you, Jack. Like I done reformed. Beachies for Christ." He was gripping my lapel, gazing into my face earnestly. "Jack?" I tried to shake him off. "Stop bloody calling me Jack!" His liquid eyes assumed a look of transparent surprise. "Why not, Jack?" he asked quietly, an urgent earnestness in his voice, face, manner that lent him an overwhelming dignity. I closed the door, walked back to my desk, tossing up what question to ask first: How long have you known? Who else have you told? How did you find out? I asked the last. "Puzzled me, Mr. Howard. Not like the other guys. You know, the big `P', watermelon, sniggers - I seen 'em all. You treat me just like the rest." I stared at him, not understanding. "I doan' want the talkin' down. You know, that Bone, he's jus' a ignorant nigger, he ain't very bright, he's rode with half-weights. You treat me like all the rest. I didn't tell no- one, Mr. Howard." "How did you find out?" I asked again. Bone smiled broadly. "I was in the library. Saw one of your books" "You must be the only kid in Paradise. How did you know it was me? No photo in the book." "A hunch, Mr. Howard. It was months ago, man. Easter!" "You've known all this time? and you haven't told a soul?" Bone shook his head, smiled. "You're not prejudiced, Mr. Howard - the only whitey I know!" I looked him up and down. "I'm not prejudiced by the color of a man's skin. Or the length of his power. I'm prejudiced against other things," I started to pretend. "Poverty, disease?" he suggested quickly, his eyes mischievous, mocking. I shook my head. "Just cripples and catholics." He smiled. "Yeah? Me too." I had to defend myself. "Zombies - that's what I'm against. Used to be a catholic. Know what a soul-destroying, first-hand .. " I shrugged. "Crippled minds, crippled bodies ... Ever hear of a priest with one hand or half a toe, a hare lip, or a yellow eye?" I shook my head. "Unblemished. I'm against all religions. You really join Beachies for Christ?" Bone smiled. "Why doan' you come along, Mr. Howard?" "It's not a religion, more a way a life," I misquoted. "Yo' not agin Christ?" "No," I answered carefully, "I'm not against Christ." I wasn't so sure of David Lundin though. Maybe he wasn't against Christ either. He was certainly for Reverend David Lundin. Beachies for Christ, but it was Lundin's face and photo on all the leaflets, Lundin's name on all the banners around the church. This was in Southport of course. Churches are not allowed in Paradise. Southport has a railway station, but no railway line to go with it. North from the station in a triangle formed by High Street and Scarborough, is the headquarters of Beachies for Christ. You never heard such cheering and stomping. The place was packed with exuberant old men and chorusing young kids - all yelling, shouting, screaming: If you cannot preach like Peter, If you cannot pray like Paul, You can cry the love of Jesus, And shout, "He died for all!" Finally, Reverend Lundin bounces up the pulpit, says a few words repeated with minor variations for fifteen minutes, and then to my surprise, Bone comes out from behind somewhere and grabs hold of the mike. A renewed burst of cheering and stamping. When it is half-quiet, Bone says, opening his eyes and mouth real wide - swimming brown eyes, sail-cloth teeth - "Glory be! Is all that stompin' and caterwaulin' for me?" And some wag calls out, "Well it sure ain't for Father Christmas, brother!" This gets a big laugh, but Bone smiles and says, "I reckon some of youse out there know me. To those that don't, you can call me `Brother Bone'. Matter of fact this here nigger don't bring a mind what you call him - so long as it's in the bounds of the Lord! I been called a lot o' names in my time. My friends call me Bone, my mammy called me a no-good, no- account, lazy nigger, my pappy call me a sassy skinbag and mah brothers all call me man - `Hey man!' I'm the man with the bones, the man with the skins! And the eyes and the hair - But the name I like best is the name the Lord Jesus done give me - king! prince! duke! He takes one look at me and He says, `Hail king!' And I says, `Hail to you, Lord Jesus!' And He says, `Hail to you, Lord Bone!' And I says, `Hail to you, King Jesus - top that one if you can!' And He says, `You got it all backwards, brother! You're the king in this here heavenly army. And the duke and the general and the captain, too.' So I said, `You better go easy there, Lord Jesus, and leave some room for some of these other niggers. They might want to be top sergeants or privates first class.' And Jesus says, `They's all here generals in this here army, brother. They's all chiefs and no indians!' Glory be! `We don't need no indians,' He says, `We all march to one banner, we all sing to one song!' Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen?" "Amen!" shouted the crowd. Amen! This nigger's been called a lot of names in his time. I was born in Basin Street. You all know where Basin Street is? That's right. In New Orleans. Man, there's a place that knows its niggers. And this here nigger was right down the bottom of the heap. You know, niggers in Basin Street are rated lower than a dead Eskimo. I was so far down I thought I was livin' in a crack like a weavil or a bug. Right at the top of the heap was the high yallers. You know, the niggers that had up and married with the French. The offspring*offsping. They didn't mix with us no-account niggers. They'd spit out their tongues as they brushed by us on the street and they'd cry out, "Get out of mah way, you filthy low-down nigger!" And they'd teach their children to jeer at our kids at school. Man, you think you got prejudice! Ain't no-one more hide-bound than a high yaller. It was like livin' in enemy country, in occupied territory, man! You had to keep an eye peeled over your neck all the time, for if one of them skulkin' high yallers caught you 'lone in some alley, it was goodbye teeth, hello crutches! Many's the time I been beat up. Was mah own fault for gettin' distracted. One time I 'member I was chasin' a blue-tongue, 'nother time I was beatin' a stomp in mah head. Man, mah head was sure stomped! And so we all went, all in our own little ghettos where you don't cross no lines till you get up to that big ghetto in the sky. Oh yeah, that's some ghetto, brothers and sisters! There'll be no crossin' the tracks up there 'tween the lost and the saved. There'll be no earnin' the right to move from one side t'other! No sir! Anyway, I fell in with some real smart niggers. They had plans to change the whole thievin' system - they said! L10 2006 words The two-ten conspiracy By Leon le Grand Bodai was completing some mathematical calculations to establish the Yume no kuni's latitude and longitude. He put down his quill and beckoned Robinson towards him. When Robinson was close by Bodai spoke softly in Portuguese. `Aren San, you be careful of Toju. He has always disliked you and consequently you'll never be safe while he's around. For heaven's sake don't upset him. I feel it is inadvisable for me to push in and go ashore; I'll stay on the ship. So unfortunately I won't be with you to offer any protection, so be careful ... Give him his head, don't argue.' Robinson nodded. `Thank you, Bodai San. I appreciate your advice and I feel it's well-founded.' The small bay was about five miles long by two miles wide. The ship was anchored five hundred yards from the shore and about two and a half miles from what appeared to be the entrance to a river. Toju directed the men to row towards the mouth. The water was calm. Robinson could not remember having experienced such heat and humidity. It was very unpleasant. The skies were alive with waterfowl and birdlife. A flock of ducks took off from the edge of the bay, swept along the horizon in an arc, and resettled further down the shoreline. Robinson noticed some other strange birds, bright red, green and yellow which flew past them screeching noisily. Most of the shoreline was heavily wooded. A few small clearings indicated that the land rose steeply in the background. Robinson counted four faint wisps of smoke slowly ascending into the cloudless sky. Toju ordered the men ashore on the small sandy spit ahead. The boat went aground a few feet short of the waterline. Toju didn't remove his sandals. He stepped out of the boat into about eighteen inches of water and walked proudly up the beach. He beckoned the men to follow him and to pull the boat securely onto the beach. From inside his jacket Toju withdrew the scroll and read the formal proclamation. `You,' he said, pointing to one of the Samurai. `Bring the mon from the boat.' The Samurai returned with a flag bearing the Tokugawa insignia. At Toju's signal he drove the stake into the ground, at a spot well above the watermark. The bottom part of the cane broke off, much to Toju's annoyance. He instructed the Samurai to sharpen the end with his knife and to try again. `I shall call this bay Kunike-Wan, after the broken flagstick incident,' Toju declared solemnly. `You,' he contiued, pointing to another Samurai. `Bring the plaque from the boat.' The golden piece of timber was some three feet long and about a foot wide. It was sheathed in gold metal, with the Japanese inscription beaten into it. Toju instructed the man to hammer the plaque onto a large tree growing on the slope. The long sharp nails fixed the plaque firmly to the ancient wood. At Toju's instruction all the Samurai gave a loud cheer. It was Robinson who first caught the glint of white teeth through the dense undergrowth. He reached for his pistols, and at the same time alerted Toju. `Toju San, look. Natives, they're armed!' he hissed quietly, alarm in his voice. In a split second, three of the dark faces had edged forward. The Samurai archers simultaneously drew arrows from their quivers and stood ready. `Wait!' Toju yelled to his men in a short, gruff command. The two groups stood staring at each other. Toju beckoned the three natives towards him. `Come, come,' he said softly, gesturing with his hand towards himself. The three men, black as charcoal, stood rooted to the spot. Several more faces emerged from the undergrowth. None of them wore a stitch of clothing. Two of them had a small bone, several inches long, pierced through their nose just above the lip. Without warning, the first three spontaneously launched sharp pointed spears towards the Japanese. The Samurai archers responded quickly. The arrows whisked through the air. The three natives dropped to the ground, their arms and feet thrashing. Their screams subsided to deep grunts as they reached their last agonizing moments; then they lay still. As the Samurai advanced they could hear the rest of the group crashing through the scrub as they ran to safety. The first Samurai to reach the three bodies decapitated them. Toju ordered that stakes be cut and driven into the sand. The Samurai complied immediately. The three heads were left hanging from the top of the stakes as a warning to the other natives. The savagery revolted Robinson, who found some difficulty in stopping himself from vomiting. `Come on men,' Toju ordered. `Back to the boat.' Six Samurai set to the oars, while the others kept their muskets cocked, prepared to fire at an instant's notice. But none of the spears thrown by the natives succeeded in reaching them. Toju stood at the bow of the boat, giving orders to the crew. The lush green foliage grew profusely along the swampy river bank. The rocky valley was deeply faulted, its V-shaped floor bedded down on huge granite blocks, which had eventually formed a waterfall. Torrents of water cascaded down some thirty feet into the crystal clear rock pools below. Toju pointed to a pebbly beach. Toju ordered half the men to bathe in turn, while the others kept watch. `You and I will go in when they come out,' he said to Robinson. Robinson tasted the water. It was fresh and sweet, and would be ideal to fill the ship's barrels. `Come, Aren San. We will rest out of the sun under these trees,' Toju said as he pointed to two enormous trees towering over the edge of the river. Robinson felt uneasy. It was the way Toju kept looking at him. He took off his shirt and washed it in the river. Why did he have to wait to have a swim? He knew Toju only too well. I won't give him the reason or the opportunity, he thought. Hanging his shirt over a low branch of the tree, he suddenly froze in total shock. There was no time to move, or even flinch. Toju's deadly two-handed sword cut through the air, the blade flashing in the sun. Robinson's eyes closed automatically, resigned to death. Before the blade had completed its arc Toju emitted a battle cry. His armed Samurai ran towards him. Robinson staggered back in suspended animation, the shock deep, instantaneous. The blood had drained from his face. After Toju returned his sword to the scabbard, he stood hands on hips triumphantly claiming victory. The head of a monster snake as thick as a man's arm lay on the ground, the seven-foot headless body lashing about in uncoordinated sweeps. Robinson staggered backwards. His eyes were fixed as if in a trance. He tripped on a small rock and fell into the shallows of the river. He sat up in swirling water and began to laugh in nervous release as the terror subsided. `Come on, Aren San,' Toju said enthusiastically. `I'll get my men out of the water and you and I can have a swim. You look like you need it.' After swimming around for a few moments Toju pointed to a ledge halfway between the waterfall and the river. He climbed up the rockface carefully, then balanced on his toes and perfected a neat dive into the water, barely making a splash behind him. The twelve Samurai cheered him on, encouraging him to dive again. Toju bowed to them politely and executed another dive, this time including a forward somersault. Robinson had never seen such precision diving before. As the men's cheers rang through the trees in the narrow rocky valley, white birds with pink plumes squawked loudly as they took off and circled overhead. Toju swam over to Robinson. `I've never seen such beautiful birds,' he said. `Such variety.' `You seem very happy, Toju,' Robinson replied. `I felt there was some hostility between us,' he added, cautiously. Toju's expression changed to a frown. `Well, there was. I'm not sure that you understand our ways. When you saved my life I owed you a debt, a debt I couldn't repay. One must always reciprocate with a gift of equal value. In saving your life today, I managed to accomplish that. So you see, your life can be spared.' Robinson was astonished. It had been a day of terror and tribulation. He felt a mixture of emotions emerging. As he left the water Toju gave instructions to his men. `Now you six can go in. I want you to get the casks out of the longboat and fill them with water. Give them a rinse first. You,' he continued, pointing to the Samurai nearest him. `Don't start undressing yet, wait until the others have put on their clothes and armed themselves.' `Hai, Toju San,' the man said respectfully, bowing towards him. `Come Aren San, I have a small surprise. I've brought along a small cask of sake. I didn't feel like celebrating when we needed to kill the natives. I do not enjoy killing, but it was essential to establish order from the outset,' Toju said, his voice indicating a strong sense of duty and responsibility. He went to the beached boat, collected a small cane cask with a wooden stopper and two small handleless cups. `We'll go under those trees over there,' he declared. `You check for snakes and animals.' Robinson laughed. `You'd have to be kidding, I won't even squat on the ship's deck without looking behind me. I'm sure I'll be like that for the rest of my life.' Toju gave a short gruff laugh and strutted towards some gnarled gum trees, out of sight of the dead snake. It took some time to fill the wooden casks. The crew rolled the casks over to the longboat, methodically placing them so as not to put the boat out of balance, and then returned to the water. Toju and Robinson sat in the shade of the trees. `Here, Aren San, have some sake.' `Here's to the new Japan - the country of "Tokugawa",' Robinson said ceremoniously. `It's an old English custom to propose such toasts and drink to them.' `Oh well, let's drink to it then,' Toju replied, downing the sake in one gulp. He then proceeded. `No doubt Aren San, this is the land of plenty. I've never seen such excellent fishing waters, so many varieties, including the giant prawns. I have no doubt this land will produce good crops; it is also ideal for rice. The temperature is excellent. From the foliage we've seen growing along the coast, the soil must be very fertile.' `Perhaps we'll take a party inland soon Toju San?' `Yes, that's an excellent idea. We could climb up to a high spot and get a better overall view.' `I was thinking about that ...' A terrifying scream brought the laughter and idle chatter from Toju's men to a halt. Robinson and Toju stood up, endeavouring to see what had caused it. Toju's gruff commanding voice bellowed over the water. `Who screamed? What's happening?' Five Samurai battled their way across the water towards the beach near Toju and Robinson. Breathless, the first two clambered over the stones in Toju's direction and stopped in front of him shaking in terror. `Toju San, it was awful. It was a huge dragon, and it's taken Toba San in its jaws.' `How big was this monster?' Toju asked disbelievingly. `I'd say it was three times my height,' one of the men replied. `It's eyes were two feet apart, its mouth and enormous teeth like nothing I've ever seen.' `I don't believe such monsters exist,' Toju said to Robinson. `We're in a very strange country. May I ask some questions Toju San?' `Yes of course, if you can get to the bottom of this mystery.' `What colour was its skin? Describe it to me in detail please.' L11 2001 words Light and Shade:Selected Shorter Prose Angostura bitters By Anthony Turner Marcus Brockwell hadn't heard from his friend for close on twenty years. So it was with a mixture of surprise, delight and an unnerving sense of time folding back on itself that he had taken the person-to-person call from Glenn Adalian who was now living in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. So unprepared had Brockwell been for such a phone call that as he reflected about it afterwards he came to the conclusion that he had responded to his good friend's excitement and vitality with gibbering incoherence. Alternately spellbound and speechless, his replies were like aimless flintlock rifle shots in a barrage of rapid machine-gun fire. `Yes.' `Sure.' `Fine.' `Of course!' `I'd be delighted to.' Such incon+sequential phrases; and yet, the outcome was he'd committed himself to flying to Trinidad to renew a friendship with a man who in his youth had been his closest friend but who now was no more than a stranger. He'd agreed, instinctively, impetuously, in much the same way as he'd accepted the crazy dares and challenges from Glenn Adalian in London all those years ago. He wandered around the living-room of his flat in Onslow Square, dazed and pensive. How did Glenn know where he lived? What was he doing in Trinidad? Would they still have anything in common? Indeed, would he even recognise him? These were just some of the questions that rattled through his mind, demanding answers that only a trip to Trinidad could provide. The international airport at Port of Spain had about it all the colour and frenetic activity of the United Nations Secretariat before a crucial vote. Men, women and children from a hundred races arrived, departed, scurried, greeted, hugged, wept, collected luggage, queued at customs and bundled into taxis. It made one feel that the whole world was on holiday - a universal mardi gras bobbing and weaving to the rhythmic beat of a Calypso band. And hugger-mugger somewhere in the surge of bodies stood Marcus Brockwell, fully stretched to the tip-toe limit of his short frame, searching for the welcoming smile of the man who only the day before had changed the whole direction of his life with a single phone call. As the crowd cleared and there was still no sign of his friend he was gripped by a sudden sense of unease. There had been no discussion of the urgency of his visit, nor of its duration. He didn't even know Glenn's address. The arrangement was that they would meet at the airport on the arrival of British West Indies Airline flight 274, the linking flight between London, Barbados and Port of Spain. He sat down on his small overnight bag outside the main entrance and watched the seemingly endless flow of taxis collect and discharge their passengers. He shouldn't have come. He should have made some excuse. Pressure of work. G.C.E. exam papers to mark. An imminent trip with the faculty of anthropology to some stone age tribes in Papua or Borneo. But the university had broken for the summer recess and he was at a loose end, without family ties or firm commitments. That, combined with a natural curiosity and an almost quaint sense of loyalty, was the reason he had flown halfway around the world. Besides, one must owe something to a man who through college, National Service, and those halcyon years in London and Paris, had shown him how the intellect alone has power to lift the emotional intensity of one's reactions to life, and yet subsume them in a consciousness that is both silent and sublime. The years rolled back, like the pages of a forgotten diary caught by a gust of air. Then, suddenly, the past and present locked together in a strange pluperfect, for there was no doubting the broad grin, raucous laugh and sweeping gestures of the man leaning out of the E-type Jaguar. It was Glenn Adalian. Puffier in the cheeks and thinner around the hairline, but certainly him. As the effusive greetings subsided and they drove through the centre of Port of Spain Adalian kept up a tirade of tourist- guide chatter about the island's geography, history and main attractions. `This is Independence Square, formerly Marine Square, which isn't a square at all.' `We're now in Frederick Street with the famous Queen's Park Savannah on your right; I've watched many a great Test Match there, and just near the entrance you'll see Columbus's anchor. It was reclaimed from the bottom of the sea at Point Icacos after four hundred years.' The commentary continued to flow in and out of Marcus Brockwell's mind. From time to time fragments of disconnected phrases seemed to cling and then disperse: `purple eggplant and blushing mangoes', `toucans and tufted coquettes', `rendezvous of races', `third largest exporter of oil', `secret formula of the Angostura Bitters factory', and a half-caught snippet about the apparitions of somebody Fatima. But all Brockwell could actually see was a succession of Hindu temples, Benedictine monasteries, Jewish synagogues and Moslem mosques, interspersed with the occasional unremarkable shop and huge close-ups of the shiny sides of vast tourist coaches. He had an uncomfortable feeling of being talked at rather than spoken to. Soon they were clear of the city, taking the winding coast road that arcs around Las Cuevas Bay. Lush green valleys and dense plantations on one side vied with white beaches gently washed by the clear blue waters of the Caribbean Sea on the other. A few miles from Blanchisseuse Glenn Adalian took the narrow mountain pass leading high into the hinterland of the island. There, at the end of a long dirt track a thousand metres above sea level, he drew the car to a halt outside a large, rambling, timber house. With its high stockade fence in front and sheer cliff face behind one was almost encouraged to search for gunpowder kegs, lookout towers and musket emplacements. `Roger!' Bellowed Glenn Adalian through a small peep-hole in the solid oak gate. There was a crunch of heavy boots on a short gravel path followed by the sound of ponderous iron chains being tugged against a counter-weight. The gate yawned open to reveal a towering figure with a bushy black beard. His powerful arms and baggy overalls took Brockwell's mind back to the village blacksmith of his childhood in Kent. The introductions were brief, but cordial enough, and Roger Lockyer led the way up to the house which Brockwell now could see was set in about 12 hectares of fruit trees and vegetable allotments. The house was expansive, lavishly furnished and professionally decorated. Its eastern side was a wall of picture windows and sliding glass doors that gave access to a wide quarry-tiled sundeck. `Take a seat outside while I fix us a drink,' said Glenn Adalian as Roger took his bag up an imposing marble staircase. Brockwell walked out onto the sundeck and sat down on one of the reclining canvas chairs. The view across the Sangre Grande to the Atlantic Ocean was truly magnificent. At this altitude the air was clean, cool and invigorating. To the north-east the coastline of Tobago was clearly visible beneath a thin atmospheric mist. `Fantastic view, isn't it!' enthused Glenn Adalian as he and Roger Lockyer brought out trays of cocktails and canapes. `You can almost see the medals on Simon Bolivar's battledress reflecting in the Orinoco from here,' he chuckled. `With a little help from a retroactive telescope!' Roger added dryly. Brockwell sipped his very tall cocktail adorned with pawpaw, muskmelon and guava and winced a little as the sharp taste struck his palate. `How's your drink?' asked Roger with a wry smile. `Oh fine, just fine!' Marcus replied, then his curiosity got the better of him. `What on earth do you put in this concoction?' `We call it an Angostura Libation,' explained Glenn Adalian. `It's made from the thirty secret ingredients of Angostura Bitters laced with a liberal quantity of Old Oak rum. It's an acquired taste, I'm afraid. Would you prefer a Martini?' `No, no! I'm getting used to the subtle flavour now,' he lied. `Oh, before I forget, here's something to cover the expenses of your trip,' said his host, almost in a whisper, as he took a folded slip of paper from his pocket and pressed it into Brockwell's hand, under the table. Looking down, Brockwell could see that it was a cheque for £10,000, to be drawn from a branch of Lloyd's Bank in Westminster. He started to remonstrate that this was far in excess of any costs he'd incurred and that he certainly hadn't expected to be reimbursed, anyway. But there was something so vehement in his friend's insistence, and such an inexplicable look of pleading in his eyes, that Brockwell decided to let the matter rest and simply leave the cheque behind when he returned to London. It wasn't until they gathered for dinner that night that Marcus Brockwell began to piece together the strange lives of the two residents of this mountainside fortress. Apparently, they'd met in a Turkish bath in Goodge Street about eighteen years ago. They struck up a friendship which over a period of time developed into what Roger Lockyer delicately described as `a neo-platonic love affair'. On a whim one day, when a particularly harsh winter had reduced this work-shy, homeless couple to little more than starving tramps, they decided to invest their last £2 on a Soccer Pools coupon. If they won a few pounds they'd rent a flat. If they lost they'd slit their wrists. Improbable though it may seem, they won. Not a few pounds but the first prize payout of £2,105,000. With it they travelled the world for ten years. From Thessaloniki to Aleppo, Shiraz and Kandahar then back and forwards across the earth; from the mouth of the Indus to the Ganges Delta, through the length and breadth of Burma and Thailand to Indonesia, west across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and Mozambique and north to Cairo. They explored the highlands and rainforests of South America like misplaced Living+stones then bobbed and weaved their way through the war-torn republics of Latin America till they reached the Gulf of Mexico. After a year in the United States they searched around for a permanent home. For several months they scoured the islands of the Caribbean before eventually finding the block of land on which they built this house. It combined all the qualities of remoteness and inaccessibility with clean air and scenic beauty. The soil was fertile and the land large enough to provide for all their needs. Apart from the fruit trees and vegetable allotments that Brockwell had already seen they had a cow that grazed on the grassy slopes and a goat that thrived on tit-bits and left- overs from the kitchen garden. Between them they produced more than enough milk to make all the fresh butter, cheese and yoghurt that the two men so enjoyed. `How long have you lived here?' asked Brockwell, his curiosity aroused. `Going on for six years isn't it, Roger?' `Yes, six years on the 20th April.' `But you get out pretty frequently, I presume!' `No, not at all,' Adalian replied. `I've been outside the grounds only twice since we moved in. Once to phone you, and once to pick you up at the airport. Roger hasn't even set foot on the other side of the fence.' `We don't need to,' affirmed Lockyer, then feeling that some sort of explanation was required, added `We saw enough of the world's foibles and absurdities on our travels to last us a lifetime. You'll have seen that we have no telephone, television or radio here. We receive no newspapers or magazines, know nobody else on the island and, apart from yourself, have had no visitors. We haven't any idea what's going on in the outside world and frankly aren't the least bit interested.' `But doesn't that make your house a kind of prison?' Brockwell ventured. L12 2001 words Unsettled Areas The golden triangle By Andrew Taylor Phyllergry Maurice had eaten a hard-boiled egg for breakfast and spent the rest of the day carrying a particularly unpleasant umbrella around Rome. The egg was a farewell present from his former hostess in Zurich, to whom he had said goodbye the morning before. She was convinced there was nothing to be eaten south of the Alps, and had provided him with two hard-boiled eggs, two ham sandwiches, two carrots, two packets of fruit juice, but only one slice of cake and only one packet of salt. These latter puzzled Phyllergry. Was he meant to have one meal with cake and the other with salt? Or was he meant to be accompanied on his mission by someone else - someone who ate cake while he ate salt, or vice versa? The umbrella had been pressed upon him by his wife as she said goodbye to him at Melbourne Airport. She had been given it by her mother, who had picked it up - as the saying goes - somewhere in the East: Bangkok, Singapore, Vientiane. Descending to him by the female line like hereditary syphilis. `It's sure to be raining in Europe,' his wife had whispered in his ear, pretending to kiss him. And while biting the lobe of his left ear so hard that both his heels left the air terminal's Pirelli rubber flooring simultaneously, she closed his fingers over the umbrella. By the time he'd come back to earth, she had vanished. As luck would have it, it actually was raining when he arrived at Roma Termini and it continued all next day. Phyllergry's umbrella was a loud but uninvigorating red, with a pattern of purple and green dragons rampaging around it, snapping at each other's tails and at anyone who happened to be near. Phyllergry himself, after a day of it, was deafened by the oriental riot he'd been carrying around Rome, and was looking for a rubbish bin to shove it into. He wasn't looking too carefully because he was prey to several worries. First, Shielby Wright hadn't made contact. Ever since eating the hard-boiled egg Phyllergry'd been on his feet, from Campo de' Fiori to the Campidoglio, up Via del Corso to Piazza Colonna, from which he'd cut across to the top of Via Veneto by way of the Pincio and a suspiciously long loiter in the park of the Villa Borghese before embarking on a leisurely zigzag with the crowd all the way south from Via della Croce to Via Frattina, showing a particularly protracted interest in Gucci shirts and Pollini footware around Via Condotti and Via Borgognona, with even a step or two into Bocca di Leone. Not a bite. His umbrella should have attracted the whole of the Italian Air Force, probably had, but nothing from Shielby. And that was his second worry. Did all this inattention mean that his wife, despite or maybe because of all his precautions, wasn't in on it after all? Did her pressing the umbrella into his hands, just two metres and seven seconds from the Overseas Passengers Only door at Melbourne Airport mean simply that she was worried about him getting wet? Or was there still, as he'd begun in the last seven or eight months to suspect, even hope, a leak in his security, a leak towards her, so that she too was protecting him, and the rotten weather and the unsightly umbrella were the first two parts of a triangle, the third part of which ought to have been contact with Shielby? But he'd tramped the lengths and depths of Rome in rain and Shielby hadn't made contact. It was dark, and it had stopped raining. Walking down Via Veneto with that umbrella up was as conspicious as riding down it naked on a giraffe. Phyllergry crept into a side street, folded it as inconspicuously as he could (it was one of those handbag umbrellas where the spokes folded in two, so that the whole affair had to be brandished aloft to get it to collapse at all) and pushed it into the brass letterbox of the Hotel Adriatico. Breathing deep gulps of relief he strode back toward Via Veneto where a woman he'd never seen before looked at him from a table where she was sitting alone. `So you've made it at last,' she murmured sideways, as he sat down. `The umbrella, was it a disguise?' He spent the evening and some of the next morning trying to piece her into the situation. Over dinner it seemed particularly sinister that his Calamari Fritti had fishbones in it and this bad omen cast a shadow on all that followed. No matter how he juggled the pieces, something was always not quite in place. She had been born in the carpark of a Macdonald's takeaway in Westchester County, N.Y., one particularly nasty February night in 1956 after a lorry loaded with early models of transistor radios had skidded on the ice and wiped out three traffic signals and a couple of important powerlines, tying up traffic all round the district and beyond for seven hours. Her mother, who was always hopeless at getting anywhere on time, hadn't got through even half her Royal Chesseburger before Candice, always on time if not ahead of it, arrived. From the moment of her birth she's had an aversion to fast food, as she revealed to Phyllergry on finishing an entree of mussels and waiting for her Saltimbocca alla Romana with accompanying insalata mista. Nonetheless, she had undergone the usual grisly American education until, on graduating from college, she was awarded a scholarship to study umbrella design and marketing at Mme. Lisenka Misticek's Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria. Arriving in Sofia with a pocketbook full of healthy American dollars, a phone number and no knowledge of the language whatever, it had taken her several months to discover that Mme. Misticek's Academy had passed from this earth in 1934. Having gone, finally, to the police for help, it was soon discovered that she had culpably overstayed her ten-day visa and only the last of the American dollars and a mythical virginity saved her from probably permanent residency in the Sofia lockup. She escaped to Dublin disguised as the non-speaking part of a package tour, and worked for three years at the famous Watershed, designing Wellingtons and sou'westers and trying to perfect the mechanism which would enable an umbrella to go both up and down automatically. Her design was based on a gas pressure principle not unlike that employed in recoilless automatic rifles. Under normal operating conditions an umbrella is subject to battering by high velocity winds which not infrequently turn it inside out - you may have seen one which has suffered this unfortunate fate, discarded in the street and looking like a vampire who has failed to make it home to the tomb before daybreak. Candice's idea was to use the canopy of the umbrella to harness this windpower in somewhat the way that a windmill does; though instead of it revolving, an intricate array of springs and rods was activated by its flapping and buffeting so as to compress air in a cylinder concealed in the handle. When a button on the handle was pressed, the air which had thus been gradually compressed in this cylinder would drive a tiny piston within the shaft and draw the umbrella closed, even if the handle were pointing up and the point down. Unfortunately the Irish police stepped in when she filed the plans at the Patents Office. Not only was such an umbrella the ideal tool for shoplifters, who could sweep whole trayloads of unpaid-for goods into the open umbrella and then, at the touch of a button, furl it all up; but also the principle was capable of transforming Ireland's most essential and hence most common personal accompaniment into a dangerous clandestine weapon ideal for terrorists across the border. Heartbroken, Candice tried to explain that as she had developed it so far the umbrella wouldn't furl, but simply close. No use arguing. She left Watershed under a cloud and returned to Westchester, N.Y. Now she was working as deputy manager of a sporting goods store with an interesting line in whips, cattle goads and handcuffs, as well as the usual water proof paraphernalia. And there she probably would have stayed, instead of prowling aimlessly around Phyllergry's hotel room in the morning wishing there were some way she could make coffee. But two weeks ago an Irishman called Kaye or O'Kaye came into the shop, looking for an umbrella to give his wife. `Somethin' broight!' he'd said, in an unconvincing accent. `Say now, would you be havin' somethin' oriental?' Well, she'd had a tray of particularly sharp backscratchers from Bangkok, but nothing in an oriental line of umbrellas. Kaye, or it might have been O'Kaye, talked then at length about the umbrellas of Cherbourg, a city he had obviously never visited. `It means dear, or rich, city, ye know. In Europe. What city in the orient today, considerin' inflation and the cost of labour, could afford to build the Coliseum, let alone run its show?' As he left her shop, after buying a pair of green hip boots and a roll of barbed wire, he handed her his card. It read Shielby Kaye, or it might have been O'Kaye, 56 The Lower End, somewhere in Ireland. She had been using the card as a bookmark in her copy of The Winds of War so as to have it constantly handy when she lost it, and the book, to a quick-fingered Canadian at Heathrow two days before. It may have been because he was having a shower during the last part of her story that Phyllergry found it hard to piece it all together. But no matter how he looked at it, it still didn't work: Wright didn't come into it. Though so many other things did. The shoplifting, for instance, was merely a front for something more deadly: a terrorist's dream, an umbrella with a cylinder of compressed air concealed in the handle, simply waiting for the touch of a button to transform it into a deadly weapon. And the hip boots, he realised, looking miserably at the pair of light shoes he'd ruined by tramping through every puddle in Rome the day before. As for the barbed wire - and suddenly his heart somersaulted! Barbed wire, for tying up hostages! `Excuse me,' he mumbled, `I have to call my wife in Australia.' His two-year-old daughter answered. `Hello Daddy,' she said. `Is Mummy there?' he bawled into the phone again and again, and she'd reply `Hello Daddy,' or `Daddy,' or simply nothing at all. He was about to hang up in despair when his daughter, for a change, said `Hello Mummy.' `Oh, it's you is it?' his wife's voice came via satellite. `I thought it was that beastly Irishman again.' `That beastly Irishman again', via satellite, came the echo. She sounded like a poorly rehearsed two-part choir. `Shielby Wright?' he shouted into the mouthpiece. `Well, we're missing you, but we're managing okay. Do take care of yourself. I'd hate to think what this phone call's costing you. Darling, do take care,' she said and hung up. `Darling, do take care,' came the little electronic echo and he was hung up too. He found Candice in the hotel restaurant sipping a thoughtful grapefruit juice. She had ordered blackcurrant yoghurt, smoked salmon with whipped sour cream and capers, croissants and caffelatte for breakfast. Still trembling, he absently asked for a cappucino and wished that he smoked so that he could start breaking matches into little bits and making a mess all around him. If there was a mess all around him, at present he was the person who didn't know just what it was. Which meant that right now the mess was all inside him too, like a traveller's gastric ailment, biding its time, just waiting to get out. L13 2002 words Unsettled Areas Gardens of delight By Vivienne Causby I am the child who lived next door and saw. I did not understand. Grandma insisted that I did not understand. `She is far too young and innocent. No doubt we shelter her too much, but she is precious to us, especially now. So fortunate she does not realise the truth. It would be too dreadful'. I understood. I knew where power lay. I had been aware of the garden next door for several months, even before I encountered the stray cat or discovered how interesting and useful the front street could be. Our own garden was large and full of interest. Grandma had bought the house intending to take in what she called `paying guests', Grandpa being an indolent man. Then Father did something clever with a twist of copper pipe and created a remarkable lawn sprinkler as well as a new method of irrigating farm land - I have a retentive memory even for that which I do not understand - and suddenly we were rich and Father much esteemed in his field. Our garden, always a pleasant wilderness, became as green as a rain forest because of the new sprinklers. However I quickly discovered they were not perfect. A few grains of sand down the pipe and the water sprayed erratically which made it more interesting. Three pieces of fine gravel and the sprinklers tended to disintegrate violently. I kept this knowledge to myself as I did not wish to injure Father's feelings. He was so proud of having provided handsomely for us all. We had no difficulty in occupying the many rooms even though there were only five of us, Grandma, Grandpa, my parents and me. We enjoyed having adequate space for private study, for books and curios and somewhere secluded for the billiard table and harps. If our house was spacious, the place next door was immense. `I wonder how many rooms,' said Mother. She never did know. I do now, but I keep forgetting. Grandma said the garden next door was a jungle. `I like a controlled wilderness'. She really did try to control everything. Mother said the house must be deserted. Grandma insisted she had seen movements through the front gates. Vague movements. It was at about this time we had particularly heavy rains and a portion of the limestone wall separating the two gardens subsided into a heap of sodden limestone rubble and sand. Grandma spoke of consulting our neighbour, if we actually had one, about repairs. Uncharacteristically she kept putting it off. Morning glory grew over the wall and I was forbidden to walk through the invitingly hidden gap in the wall. `Heaven only knows what might be lurking there'. Mother's voice dropped dramatically. `Or who. Some dreadful old man'. I walked through the gap in the wall and saw the statue. I saw the woman, albeit from a distance and I knew. I have this ability still of sometimes seeing and knowing what has gone before. Sometimes I make bold, inventive guesses. This is often more successful than sensing the truth. However, when I saw the woman I was certain that there had been much done in that house that was amiss. I smiled at the thought of Mother's warning. What need to fear old men! I did not mention the woman to anyone at home or my excursions beyond our boundaries. I am sure neither the statue nor the woman knew of my venturings either. Next day, while pursuing the stray cat, I decided to fully test my ability to elude Mother's vigilant eye. I followed the animal through our front gate and discovered the street, Cremorne Terrace. We live in a nice part of the city. The magnitude of the outside world surprised me. I was so impressed by the distance I had to walk before reaching the gates of the house next door that I quite forgot the cat. But cats are merely cats and these gates were taller than any gate I could have imagined. They consisted of ornate interlocking scrolls of iron, sadly rusted, and were firmly secured by heavy iron chains. Beyond the gates I could see the overgrown garden densely green and waiting, looking more dangerous than when seen from the gap in the wall. I stood to one side of the gates. Within nothing moved. The wind stirred my curls, but did not trouble the foliage within the gates. I waited too. Presently a large girl came stumping along carrying a school satchel. A sturdy girl with abundant mud-coloured hair. I took a step towards the high gates and peered intently through them. The girl stopped and asked, `What d'you think you're gawking at?' `Something moved. I think it was a cat.' She threw down her satchel. `Dopey kid, why don't you go home?' she replied as she squinted through the gate. `My friend who lives there does not have a cat.' She replied by poking out her tongue. I quietly threw sand on her satchel. `Some people say the house is haunted.' `How would you like a smack under the ear?' Then she stiffened and I know the statue had allowed itself to be seen. `Who does live there?' `My friend,' I said. `Did he wave?' She ignored me and began clambering up the gate. With a shameful display of soiled knickers she flung a leg over the gate and slithered down the other side. `You watch my bag or I'll thump you,' she directed and, turning, ran deep into the garden. I carefully thrust small stones into her satchel. Then I went to the small side gate and with considerable difficulty managed to open it wide. Then I stood beside the satchel as though guarding it. I enjoyed every silent moment for I knew that Mother must have already discovered my absence. Several moments later I heard a sound which I knew was not Mother. It was a muffled cry followed by a great threshing about and in another instant the girl came racing, tumbling and tripping, as she fled the garden. Through the small gate she ran, her mouth agape and her eyes wide. She did not pause to thank me for opening the gate, but ran straight across the footpath and onto the road. As I learned later, parkland-bounded Cremorne Terrace usually carries very little traffic, but on that day at that precise moment the girl managed to run directly into the path of a speeding car. In almost the same instant I found myself seized by gentle hands. Mother had found me. `She might have been killed.' Mother sobbed as Grandma calmed her with brandy and water while Father fed me warm milk. `That poor girl. It was awful.' The sturdy girl was of course dead. It must have been fate. I do not know what became of her satchel. For some time I had extreme difficulty escaping the watchful eyes of my loved ones. I occupied a part of my time in starting a splended collection of pebbles and Father bought me a white rabbit which appeared to be retarded. Alone in my upstairs bedroom I often stood on the window sill but to no avail. All I could see of the next garden was the tops of trees. One might have concluded there was no house at all next door, not even the tower was visible. At last Mother's extreme vigilance abated and I was able to slip through the gap in the wall. The statue stood in its accustomed place, its arm upraised triumphantly. Or was it merely indicating invitation? I said, `I sent you the girl. Now I will speak to the woman.' The statue remained unmoving. There was no sound but the sighing of wind beyond the garden wall. I took a small stone and threw it gently at the statue's left foot. I said, `I could have used a large rock.' Then I turned and walked towards the hidden house. I am not large now. In those distant days I was tiny. I could hide myself in the smallest space. And I am a very still person when I choose. Now I walked quietly, tidily, so as not to disturb too many leaves - I prefer not to make enemies. I walked until I reached the edge of the shrubbery. I stood at the edge of a vast ragged patch of grass. Once it had been a lawn, but now it was sadly neglected. Sadly. My eyesight is still exceptional and I could see right to the other side of the grass and beyond to a ruined conservatory, but I had never walked past the spot where I now stood. I knew the woman would be there among the strange rank creepers with their fleshy reaching leaves. I walked across the rough grass and stood in the shelter of lofty dying dahlias. I could not be seen, yet I saw the woman. She was about my mother's age, but a world apart in evey other way. Now she sat on a stone bench as she chatted to the statue which had apparently strolled across to her. `I shall have the conservatory reglazed.' The statue smiled and I sensed she said this often. She said, `Now that I have control I can attend to many matters too long neglected.' The statue had become a boy some years older than me. He carried himself with style and poise. He smiled yet even so I sensed a deep terror within him. He said `You should remember that our elder sister thought she saw me within the conservatory. That is why she smashed the glass; why you have control. Has she really gone?' She said, `Go back.' And he was gone. Back to being a statue. I stepped from the shelter of the dahlias. `Why did you send him away?' She raised her lorgnette to study me. `There are matters I do not care to discuss before Darian,' she said calmly. `He might become upset.' I sensed a calm watchfulness in her. `He might learn the truth.' She smiled. `So tiny and yet so knowing. Did I think of you?' I looked into her opaque eyes and knew it was time to guess. I said, `Saw it all. I saw you thrust him through the window.' We both looked up to the tower, slated and gothic. I said, `Why?' `He took the diamonds from my sister's room and hid them.' I could understand both their actions, but - `What are diamonds?' `Stones.' `Like pebbles?' I had sensed we had much in common. She laughed. A cool sound. `Pebbles which sparkle and are of great worth.' I gazed up in my innocent incomprehension. She explained. `Stones which glitter more briliantly than any crystal. They are enduring and worth a fortune.' So there was a mysterious power in stones. As usual, my instinct had been correct. `Where did the boy, Darian, hide them?' She shook her head. `He would never tell me. Now he has forgotten, I think.' She frowned at me, suddenly uneasy. `Am I able to make you disappear as I can Darian?' I nodded, hiding my new-found strength. `What plants are they?' I pointed to the rampant creepers and as she turned to look at them I slipped away. Let her think what she would. I walked around the edge of the rough grass, hiding from sight until I reached the statue. On the pedestal was carved an inscription already flaking away. I feared it would be gone before I learned to read. This time I did not toss a pebble. Instead I quickly plucked the tips of nearby plants and flowers and placed them beside the statue's feet. They were mostly weeds, but this merely emphasized my childish ignorance. `I shall be back,' I assured the statue prettily. I climbed through the gap in the wall, picked some morning glory flowers and selected a few of the minutest pebbles. L14 2008 words Unsettled Areas Daisy By Sally Bennett It was Thursday. I didn't want to go home. I walked slowly and dangled my school bag so that it gently scraped against the surface of the footpath. Then I saw them. The woman, tall and walking with a spring in her step. She was pushing a pram, a high-riding one with large wheels like you see in English movies. A little girl with blonde curls hugging her pretty face danced beside her. Seeing them made me feel kind of strange and helpless. I don't, even now, know why because normally I can handle anything. Anything, that is, except Thursday afternoons. On Thursday there is nothing to hurry home for. Mum works late at the shop and Glen goes to the pub after he finishes at the factory. More often than not he comes home drunk. He yells at me or cuffs me around the ears and calls me names. I get him something to eat - usually a fried egg sandwich which is my speciality. Sometimes he says it smells like sheep's piss and throws it at me. Other times he eats it sullenly, changes his clothes and goes out again. `I'm goin' ta get laid, creep features,' he will say with an ugly laugh which shows his tarnished broken teeth. `You can tell ya Mum if ya like.' But he knows I won't. Nothing has been right since Glen came to live with us. I've got to be careful what I say about him to Mum though. Glen has been poisoning her against me and she thinks I'm making things up about him just to get him out of the place. She knows I hate him. I think it makes her feel guilty because she doesn't look at me anymore. Glen has been poisoning her about my face too. `The kid gives me the creeps with that bloody eye of hers,' he often says to her. He says nobody in his right mind would want me around. Sometimes Mum looks like she wants to tell him to stop. Her mouth opens and closes like a goldfish in a bowl. Nothing comes out though. I suppose she is frightened of losing him. I went as close as I could to the little family. I could hear the woman's voice. It was clear and light. She seemed to come from a world quite different from mine. She smiled at her little girl and looked adoringly into the pram from time to time. I wished I could have been in that pram. Eventually she stopped outside a neat white house and I knew that I would have to make my move or lose them forever. `Hello,' I said brightly, running up to them. I turned the good side of my face towards the woman. She spun around and smiled. Her face was so gentle it hurt me. The afternoon sun shone through her chestnut hair like a fiery halo. `Your little girl is very pretty. How old is she?' I really wasn't interested in the child though. `She's nearly three. And you?' `I'm ten. Can I come and play with her?' The woman looked startled and I could have kicked myself for being so forward. I knew it put people off me. `What's your name?' she asked. `Amanda. Amanda de Vere,' I lied. `That's a pretty name,' she said. She didn't smirk or look suspiciously at me. Maybe she even thought it suited me. I loved her for that. `Well, Amanda, won't your mother be expecting you home?' `She doesn't get home till after nine - she works in a shoe shop. I'm alone till then. But she doesn't mind if I play with friends after school.' The woman was silent. I could tell she felt uneasy. I turned my bad side towards her. I suppose I was hoping that it would make her feel sorry for me. She didn't flinch - sometimes people do. As Glen would say, it's not a pretty sight. My left eye is blind. The muscles are useless and pull the dead eye in so that it stares at the bridge of my nose. The cheekbone underneath is a mess as well; sort of sunken in like someone gave me a bunch of fives. Mum says I was born like that. She says it wouldn't have happened if my father hadn't beaten her up when she was pregnant. `You can come in for a few minutes then,' she said, but the lightness had gone from her voice. Her house was clean and brightly coloured. It was a warm and happy place and right away I felt I belonged there, I felt I'd come home at last. I ran my hand over the furniture. The woman smiled at me kindly. `Would you like a drink?' she asked. The little girl was a real pest. She kept tugging at my legs, pulling my dress and wanting me to play. All I wanted to do was sit on the stool at the breakfast bar and drink my lemonade and pretend I lived there. We chatted awhile. The woman kept asking me about my mother, about her work and my being alone. I told her about my parents splitting and that really cut her up. But I didn't say anything about Glen. I couldn't bring myself to mention his name. It would have spoiled the whole afternoon. The baby woke up. The woman leant over the pram and lovingly scooped up the tiny thing. Its head was covered with chestnut down. It looked like a baby squirrel squirming in her arms. `Can I hold it? What's its name?' I asked. She looked at me apprehensively. `Daisy,' she said at last. `She wants feeding but you can nurse her for a few minutes. Wash your hands first thought.' I looked at my hands. They looked clean to me. I sniffed them. `I make everyone wash their hands first,' she explained. `I'm a bit of a fusspot, I suppose.' All the same it made me feel dirty and I was ashamed of my dusty shoes and the grass-stained uniform I'd worn for several days. It made me feel unwelcome too, as surely as if she had picked me up and hurled me out of the back door. The baby felt like a helpless animal in my arms. It burrowed its little head into my chest and made snuffling noises. The woman stood over me, ready to pounce, I thought, if I dropped the baby. Her face looked tired and tight suddenly. `I shall feed her now,' she said and made to take her away. `Can't I give her a bottle?' I asked. I really didn't want to give the baby back. I was sure she would never let me nurse Daisy again. `She doesn't have bottles. She's breast fed.' The woman sat in a chair and opened her blouse. The baby took the huge brown nipple in her tiny rosebud mouth. To tell the truth, it repelled me. I half-heartedly played with the little girl. What an annoying kid she was. She wanted my attention all the time when it was the baby I wanted to play with. The woman held Daisy close to her and I knew there was no room for anyone else. I feld sad and heavy and ugly. `I'll come back tomorrow,' I said as I left. The woman looked up. She murmured something but I could tell she was not too thrilled with the idea. The house smelled of old burnt toast from breakfast and Glen's strong and spicy aftershave. I was glad he was going out. I tried to creep into my room but he heard the back door close. `Is that you, kid?' he shouted. `Get me somethin' ta eat. Real quick.' I put the package under my bed and went into the kitchen to make him a sandwich. Dishes from that morning sprawled over the sink. It was an ugly sight. `Hey kid, answer me,' he said and came into the kitchen half-dressed. He was no beauty, I can tell you. He had a mean little face with small pale eyes which became microscopic behind the thick lenses of his glasses. I can't understand why Mum is frightened of losing him. `Answer me, you ugly bitch,' he snarled and kicked my bottom with his foot. I ignored him and put the sandwich on the table. It was one of those old mottled green laminex tables with a chrome edging and plenty of stale food caught in between. `Who ya bin scarin' today?' He laughed and sunk his filthy teeth into the bread. I went to my room and closed the door. I could hear him shouting abuse at me and I sang to myself to drown it out. Finally he left. From my window I watched him get into his car and drive off. I had to make sure that I was quite alone. I got down an old airline travel bag from the top of my wardrobe. It was dusty and a bit smelly but it would do. Just the sight of it made me feel sad. The last time I'd used it was when Timmy died. His black hair was still on the crumpled towel which lay in the bottom. I hated doing it but I got rid of the last traces of Timmy and cleaned the bag thoroughly. Then I got out my doll Amanda. It had been ages since I had played with her. She had been given to me when I was really small and I had been frightened of her because she was bigger that I at the time. One side of her face was broken. I had smashed it with a hammer to see what I must look like to others. She fitted snugly into the bag so it would do. I took her out, gave her a hug and threw her aside. I had outgrown dolls. I folded one of my dresses and laid it on the bottom of the bag. Then I put the bag under my bed. It knocked against something and I peered under to see what it was. It gave me quite a start to see the package. For a moment I didn't know what it was or why it was there. It was a strange feeling. One part of me remembered going to the chemist and later shoving the package under the bed while the other part of me knew nothing about it. That sort of thing happened to me quite often. I was restless and kind of depressed. I thought that it was because of the bag and thinking about Timmy again. So I went outside and sat by the rainwater tank and kicked at the dry earth. Somewhere beneath Timmy lay. He was my dog. He and I would go for long walks and I could talk to him endlessly. He knew exactly what I was saying and he didn't mind a bit about my appearance. He would lick my face when I can home from school and the two of us would chase each other around the backyard for hours on end. One morning I found his little body trembling in the gutter. His eyes were open and blood was slowly seeping from his mouth. Mum and Glen were already at work. I didn't know what to do. I ran inside and grabbed Glen's airline bag. I carefully laid Timmy inside it. He jerked violently and then lay still. I knew he was dead. I didn't go to school that day but kept watch over his body as it lay in the bag. Glen was really mad when he came home. He beat me up and blackened my good eye. I buried Timmy under the tank-stand that evening. Glen wouldn't take his bag back. He hated Timmy almost as much as he hated me and he was really spooked by death. The following day I went around to the white house again. L15 2036 words Unsettled Areas Last exit to Laguna Beach By Barry Westburg He wakes up by stages, climbing out of dream within dream. He is surprised to find he's still alive - for in one of his dreams he was blown away - murdered. The Jewish Toy Merchants of San Francisco, losing patience with him for not finishing everything on schedule, had sent a woman. Sure, they knew it was not his fault, but they were losing thousands of dollars every day that production of the COPYCAT was held up. It was time somebody was taught a lesson. She had rubbed him out in a most considerate way. Still, he didn't like having to die. But he wakes up to a bad dream, too, only it's called Reality - which is to say, a bad dream with all the continuity written in. And ... there's a girl beside him. His ex-prizefighter's instincts tell him it's not his wife - she's back in Scarsdale for a few days ... weeks ... months. The pressure on her was getting a bit much. A professor's daughter who did honours classics at Swarthmore could not be expected to thrive in the world of business. That's why Brad had resigned his Vice-Presidency on the East Coast - in a very big concern - and moved to California. If nothing else the climate would do her some good. Anyway, they'd buy a place with a pool and lie in the sun. But the competition on the West Coast was unbelievable. He'd done a bootstraps operation and set up a little engineering concern from scratch. A few of his best boys from the East had been talked - bribed - into following him West. Braintree, the best plastic fabrications man on the East Coast, led the gang who'd made the big shift. They all were a little afraid of California. It was like being at a jungle outpost on the edge of darkness. So they all bought houses on the same street in Laguna Beach. That way they could keep in close touch, day and night. They were going to stay a team. Before they were able to get furniture in their houses, or grass seed down (or chlorine in their pools) they were hard at work. They began by designing assembly lines for small manufacturing concerns and then they got into installation of assembly lines and then they decided, what the hell, they might as well jump into manufacturing one hundred per cent. They knew plastics like nobody else in town. So they started a few product lines on contract from certain retailers. The company name changed from BRANSTETTER ENGINEERING to BRADFAX. At first circumstances conspired to help BRADFAX get off the ground. It so happened that Brad's wife had some old school friends in Southern California. Once debutantes, they were now single professional women, forming a close knit group, into radical politics and heavy feminism. (One day Brad had to pick up Charlotte at Jane Fonda's house, but he had avoided going in - he just waited outside, revving the Pinto. Before his wife came to his rescue, he was hassled by Fonda's security guard.) And then the contracts started rolling in - from Charlotte's friends, in fact. The first ones: bubble packages for motivational cassettes (So You Want to Help: Woman's Guide to Minority and Third World Investment Packages) and plastic buttons printed with slogans (Women who Strive to be Equal with Men lack Ambition). After a time, more fringe groups in Southern California were using BRADFAX for their promotional materials. For instance, the Chicano Community Festival commissioned BRADFAX to make half a million plastic tortillas, stamped with revolutionary slogans, and equipped with the aerodynamic properties of the frisbee. Some of these floated as far as Laguna Beach, to the dismay of the little team, who felt compromised by their new vocation. After all, they were conservative elitists. And then Braintree disappeared, with a hundred fifty thousand bucks, and the heady winking noon wine all turned to vinegar. Brad rolls over and the girl stirs. She's young and ... good God, he recognizes her! She's Braintree's eldest daughter (Midge, Mamie?) He had sent her a Sweet Sixteen present when they still lived in the East. She throws a well-tanned leg over his thigh. California changes your life. Later, after she has gone, the phone rings. It is Brennbaum himself, the Toy Merchant. Brennbaum always means business. A guy named Cozy Cousins vanished last year and the disappearance was laid by almost everyone at Brennbaum's door. Then Cozy's ... uh ... remains were found lashed to a paling on Laguna pier - and they were very untidy. Lots of not-so-nice things had been done to Cozy before he had finally snuffed it. The Coroner's Inquest of course ruled it death by suicide. When Brennbaum's toy business suffers other people got to suffer, too. Okay, so maybe Brad's just being paranoid. Maybe Brennbaum is harmless, just an irascible old bee-jeeper and heaps of malicious folks are talking out of the wrong sides of their mouths. Sure, sure! Brennbaum - a.k.a. `The Philosopher' - reputedly knows the works of Sartre and Camus by heart. Reputedly subscribes to a highly idiosyncratic theory of Reincarnation based on mathematical concepts of Probability. A self-styled authority on what he calls the `Big Picture'. In short, a dangerous man. - Listen, schmuck, how come you always keep on the wrong side of the metaphorical shithouse door, Brennbaum hisses, over the phone. And that's not a question, by the way. And now you make another mistake and you climb into a little blonde shiksa. Not to worry, not to worry - she's clean. She just told me all about it on the phone, in tears. What kind of a man are you? Just because her father crossed you. What is more, she thinks she loves you, even though I paid her to surrender her sweet little tocus to you. So now I take her off the case, send her back to Bryn Mawr to study Business Ethics. May I tell you the story ... - Brennbaum, excuse me but I can't help feeling paranoid, I told you that the girl's father absconded, defaulted on me, left me a hundredfifty K in the hole and I've found no way to finish rewiring the assembly line. I got to scare up some money to cover the short-term costs. Otherwise, they won't even turn on the electricity at the Laguna Plant! How else are we going to get the COPYCATs into production? For chrissakes, Brennbaum, try to see my side for two minutes! - In two minutes I can tell you a story, kid. About how they took the flea-ridden cur which was given unto them and they dressed it and they called upon the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, not any that answered ... - Brennbaum, forgive me but I don't see what you are getting at. Braintree, my best man, has left me, absconded, and I wake up with his daughter this morning and ask myself what she is doing here! I'm a happily married man. - And they leapt upon the altar which was made, Brennbaum said. And it came to pass at noon that the Prophet mocked them, and said cry aloud for he is a god; either he is waiting, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey ... on a journey, my friend! - Brennbaum, it is already the middle of the day. I have bad dreams, and I can't even sleep right anymore. I miss my loving wife in Scarsdale, and if the pressure doesn't ease off soon I can't meet any of my obligations. I have been living on Ricco's pizza Special for six months and I've put on a small but noticeable potbelly and I can't find time for jogging anymore. The neighbours are getting suspicious of my lifestyle, and then somebody sends that young kid over. And then ... and then Ricco puts too many anchovies in his pizza and the salt is raising my blood pressure! - And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them ... The phone goes dead. Brad faces another day of trying to wriggle out of his little spot. He can either get the assembly line cranking or ... or take the long walk. Think about it, though. Isn't it basically a matter of getting the rewiring done real soon? But of course that takes money - in round terms forty thousand bucks! His options are pretty minimal. Like, he could try to rent out his two empty warehouses in Santa Monica. He'd worked on that idea night after night, sitting in Ricco's pizza parlour, soaking up `the Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous'. But Brad will need both warehouses if ever the assembly line does get cranking. Which means that if he rents them out to somebody else right now - in a matter of only a few weeks he will once again be up Old Bullhead Creek. For who would rent a warehouse to him? He'd made exploratory phone calls to other manufacturers but no dice, they said. BRADFAX was crashing a game where they once called the shots. Let the Jewish Toy Merchants help prune the competition. Like Cozy Cousins he would have the wear the suit. That's showbiz, folks! The COPYCATs are already being advertised in the F.A.O. Schwartz Christmas Catalogue and orders are pouring in. But nobody has seen anything yet but the Prototype released for promotions. Braintree himself had made the Prototype by hand so as to determine the assembly line parameters. It was left for safekeeping with Brad. He had gone out one day for his usual run on the beach with his dog Americk (o Americk!). Coming home he found that the Prototype was missing! Howls from Brennbaum. Shock/horror reactions from everybody else in the City. Braintree had preserved a prolonged silence - contemplating his defection no doubt. That was the only Prototype. The key to the assembly process! COPYCAT is, well, the ultimate toy. COPYCAT (whose precise formula is a secret closely guarded by wise Toy Merchants in the City of San Francisco) is light-years ahead of the computer, which merely relays to children the thought-processes of adults. It is basically not much more than a stripped-down three-dimensional solid-copying device, but it has the potential to make kids independent of adults forever - almost. For COPYCAT will not copy itself - and that is where BRADFAX comes into the picture. Small wonder, then, that Brennbaum offered a reward of twenty thousand bucks, no questions asked, on the return of the Prototype, which, if it fell into the wrong hands ... Bear in mind that, technically speaking, BRADFAX is involved only in packaging COPYCAT. The high-tech bubble plastic container is itself a marvel of design, and superficially COPYCAT is all container. The `contents', the active ingredients, are supplied by the wise Toy Merchants at the bottom of the assembly line, and BRADFAX doesn't know how they are made, if they are `made' at all; BRADFAX merely reserves a region within the package for the proprietary AM (`Ark Module' - so named in keeping with the Talmudic interests of its distributors). The missing Prototype was, unfortunately, primed with an AM. Brad drives into Laguna Beach for a midday pizza, racking his brain for solutions. As he pulls up in front of Ricco's Pizza, he notices a kid standing next to the parking meter. He gets out, carefully locks his Porsche, as she approaches him. - Gee mister, that's a nice car. You used to run on the beach, didn't you? With your dog. Then one day he ran away from home, didn't he? I know what happened to him. Do you want to hear? Poor Americk! Wretched mutt! Brad had missed him that day after their jog on the beach, had scoured the neighbourhood (for a few intense hours), but had finally been too busy - hunting for the Prototype, in fact - to continue the search.