Licensed Premises, page 11
Is there? Like what?
I’m just suggesting that perhaps an adaptation is in order, on your behalf. An adaptation to this unfortunate turn of events, rather than just going on some tirade at any unfortunate chap who is just trying to create a semblance of harmony in the workplace.
Go and play chicken on the motorway, lad, she says, going outside to sit in the smoking shelter.
Might as well give up, save a few quid, she mutters. Be better for the C.O.P.D.
It’s only later she starts thinking about what Sebastian said. What were the other senses? Sight, touch, and hearing. Least she isn’t fucking mutton jeff.
She’s trying to remember them, and some of them are coming back to her, she doesn’t need any petite fucking Proust cake either, and once they come the memories keep flooding in like what they called the Kingsway Stink from the glue factory where they boiled the bones of old horses, and then there was the sewage plant with the metal arm going round in a circle and all the little birds eating bits of shit, and cut grass smells from watching her brothers play cricket and all kind of cricket smells because when she remembers one thing it links in with another, triggers another one off so once she starts thinking about cricket there’s the leather smell of the cricket balls where the lads licked their fingers and shined one side of the ball with spit, and then the smell of the cricket bats, the smell of that willow, and then the smell of the linseed oil that they had to oil the bats with in those days, and then the smell of whitener which was like white paint that the older players put on their boots and pads and whatever else needed whitening, she even remembers the smell of sandwiches the players had for their tea halfway through the game, and lemon drizzle cake and tea, and then the beer smells on their breath from the night before and the beer smell from the bar, and the beer smell from every gig smelling of beer and every gig smelling of the sweat of them on stage and the sweat of them in the audience, a mix of sweat and perfume and fag smoke and beer and weed and spirits, then there was the smell of chips from the chippy, the pine smell of new furniture out of a box and needing to be put together, flowers in the garden, lupins, shit like that, washing in a washing machine, that clean smell of clothes when you take them out, the fabric softener smell all over the house, toast and coffee every morning, garlic from the next door neighbour who seemed to cook with it every day so that her whole gaff smelled of it, the print smell on magazines that you don’t seem to get so much anymore, that print smell that made her stick her nose in the pages and turn the pages and waft the pages, and then the salty, cheesy smell of old socks, the salty, cheesy smell of men after sex, that fishy smell of sex and salty crown jewels, stinking gonads, and then back to grass, the smell of mud on grass, the smell of puddles on grass, the smell of canals, the smell of the sea, the smell of dog shit on muddy fields, the damp fur smell of cats and dogs, the smell of chocolate when you opened a chocolate bar, the smell of fresh baking bread from the bakery that wafted in on the wind, the smell in another flat when you opened the windows, the smell of the brewery, the beer smell of the brewery, and in another flat the smell of the chocolate from the McVitie’s factory churning out Jaffa cakes, and these are all things she remembers, and she gives herself a hard time for not appreciating those smells, and she thinks of the smells that other people have, that pheromone thing and she knows nothing about that now and she remembers how she liked the way her Colin smelled, which was just really the smell of weed mixed with a bit of sweat and she remembers now how that smell on the street always made her think for a split second Colin was back, and she remembers the way her babies seemed to smell like chocolate somehow.
There are more donations than ever, but something is going to have to change. The online sales don’t even cover the wages of the two of them. It’s fucking bitter too, sometimes the containers and the shop feel colder that it is outside, the containers can stay cold for months and months. She has the little oil heater on under the counter to keep her legs warm, and there’s the two-bar fire behind her. Fucking great them two bar fires, give off some serious heat, and she remembers how they used to have one when she was a kid and her mum would light fags on it, a little burn mark briefly on the bar and then the stench of the B & H filling the air. She knows they cost a mint but on days like these when she’s just sat behind the counter and there’s a massive draft coming in through the shutters, she needs it on. She’s sat there wearing thermals, a fleece, a woolly hat, and she still needs the leccy fire and the oil heater on or else she gets fucking brassic.
Sebastian asks her if she wants a coffee, he’s got some proper coffee if she wants to try some. She says she will, though it’s futile. Coffee, like everything else, doesn’t really taste of anything anymore. But after a few minutes, she looks up from the book she’s reading, then shouts, as loud as she can, I can smell it! I can smell it! It fucking reeks you knobhead!
Ghosteen
When Winnie said she’d lost a child in the house in which I lived it seemed to confirm a feeling about the place I’d previously tried to dismiss. Like the lake by the sawmill and the wreckage of old houses on the hills, I felt, in both the landscape and the buildings, something lingering, some remnant of the life passed still clinging to the wind blasted surrounds.
Once I’d been in a marriage. If we’d had another child maybe that would have changed everything, maybe we would have mellowed, stopped sniping, grown together in the glow of our new offspring. At least Winnie had her other children, her husband, her job, a whole routine of life shaped around her shifts at the petrol station.
I followed the path where the railway had been, cut through the campsite and saw a large crowd of people drinking beer behind a circle of wind breaks. They threw empty cans onto a blazing bonfire, and they laughed, the men scratching bare chests and roaring at each other’s jokes. When I passed them their talk subsided somewhat, then went quiet altogether, like I’d walked into a country pub as a stranger. One of them shouted that I should come over and have a beer, but when I politely declined, thinking I needed to get back home, there was a grumbling, and the same voice said, well fuck you then, and there was laughter, and the noise of talking rose back up, and I was glad to pass through the campsite and be on my way.
Approaching a crossroads, I turned and saw two men behind me in the darkness. They sensed my fright and laughed. They took a left along the road heading back to the campsite. I’d been planning to take the path, but I stayed on the road and followed the chevrons in the moonlight, looking behind me all the while, jumping when a pheasant leapt from a bush. I passed beyond the turn off and the lake. I heard the low rumble of traffic and looked across the valley towards the sparkling headlights on the A road. I passed the big hall and the farm there, returning to where my rented house sat quiet and still, the dark living room window reflecting the solitary street light above the post box.
One afternoon I crossed a wobbly wooden stile and looked out across the slanted ground. At first there seemed to be nothing there. But as I walked diagonally across the field, from one stile to another, I almost trod on something fragile. I walked on carefully, observantly, especially around tussocks and tufts. I looked down and saw a little circle of straw and a bundle of beige eggs with darker blotches on. When I crouched over the eggs the lapwings wheeled hysterically.
As I walked slowly away, I took the binoculars out of my rucksack and scanned the field to capture in the glasses the birds whose calls rang across the air. Looking towards the burn at the bottom of the field I saw two curlews gliding one way then another, all the time filling a space in the sky with their calls; calls that seemed to echo back and forth as though from inside a great chamber.
When I got home from the pub, I went into the bedroom I’d decorated. I ripped down the curtains and scratched at the walls, tipped over a wardrobe and wrenched up the corners of the carpet. I woke the following morning on the floor, hugging a small pillow, with a pile of vomit beside the bed.
I puked again until I thought I would rip my own stomach out. Eventually it subsided. I walked very slowly across the room, trying to keep my head at the same level, then lowered myself onto the bed and lay back. Lying there I concentrated on not vomiting again. I couldn’t move without feeling awful, so I lay as motionless as possible and when it eventually started to get dark, got up, dressed myself and went down to the kitchen for coffee.
I stood on the front doorstep for some air. It was totally dark apart from the street light above the post box. All was silent save the occasional vehicle along the A road. I looked up at the common and it was covered in low mist, a mist that mingled with the smoke pouring from the chimneys of the other houses. I looked up at the moon and it seemed yellowed by the smoke. I walked into the yard and could see into the front room of my neighbour. Winnie sat watching TV with her husband Richard, a shepherd on the estate.
I was lying in bed, under all the covers I needed to keep me warm, listening to the dull hammering that seemed to come from underground that I guessed was machinery at the nearby container plant. The moonlight shone through the thin brown curtains that were inadequate for keeping out light and keeping in warmth. As the beams of moonlight shone on the long lumps of my legs, I heard the crying of a child; desperate crying for attention, or crying caused by pain, I couldn’t tell which. It subsided into a consistent, steady crying, lower in volume. This quiet crying went on and on, muffled by the walls, accompanied by the moonlight and the silence of the moorland outside. I scratched my nose but it was ice cold and I put my hand quickly back under the covers. A strange shadow had formed behind the curtains in the moonlight. I got up and reached between the curtains. I didn’t have my glasses on, so it was a moonlit blur. I touched the window and there was something there; something growing, something cold. I ran my hand along its forming ridges and the cold ran up my arm. The child was still quietly crying. I snatched my hand back through the curtains and went to the toilet and, as I stood there, looked at the bathroom window which also had something growing on it. I reached out with my free hand to touch it and again it was ice cold. I turned on the tap in the sink to wash my hands and no water came out and still the child was quietly crying. There was a sudden and all-pervading smell of coal-tar soap. I felt my way along the walls of the corridor and then got back into bed, pulling the heavy covers over me, my body shivering beneath them.
Talking to Winnie one morning before she drove off for her shift at the petrol station, I asked her about the campsite in the hills.
You know what, I’ve never been along the road that way, she said.
So, in all the time you’ve lived here you’ve never been up there?
No. I’ve known people who go fishing up there. Have you been to the lake?
Yeah, it is lovely up there. You should go for a walk. But I don’t recommend the campsite.
Why do you need to camp?
I don’t, I’m just talking about the campsite. Have you never heard of it?
I think my Richard knows them up there. But I’d never go camping. I don’t like confined spaces.
Seems a strange place.
I’ve never been up there so I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know anything about it. I will tell you something though. I won’t walk my dog in that field, she said, pointing across the car park towards a field that led to a forest. I had a dog once that got poisoned from taking it into that field. He’s the man who owns the house you’re living in. Owns all the houses in the village. They’ve owned the land for years and years. You know the big hall? Have you seen it? Well, they use half of that for conferences and things now, but he lives there. People say he lets jackdaws in through the windows. My Richard works for him on the farm. George doesn’t do anything, just takes the rent.
In the evening I walked down the road in the darkness. Highland cattle were motionless in the field. Light from the hall windows spread across the grounds, illuminating tumbled stonework. I could hear the river close by. Pine plantations on the hillsides were silhouettes on the night sky. I walked around the curve of the road past the forest that gave the hall shelter from the wind. I could hear my own footsteps on the tarmac. Half of the house was in darkness. I saw gargoyles staring from the rooftops. There was a tipped over trampoline in the grounds before the window, a moonlit tennis court with a collapsed net and a solitary ball in the corner. Some of the unlit windows I could see had cracks in them, others were boarded up entirely. Bats spiralled past me in the darkness. In the white light beyond the windows, I saw something black and flying and an old man with his arms in the air who looked like he was preaching. Then the bird landed on the arm of the old man and he put it into a tall cylindrical cage. I watched as the old man shuffled from one brightly lit room to another. In the living room he went to a glass cabinet and poured himself a glass of something before returning to sit in a chair by the birdcage. I heard a solitary sheep in a distant field, the brief sharp disturbance of an oystercatcher from the riverbank, pheasants in the field closer. As I walked back past the highland cattle, the two of them were just hulks in the field, motionless either side of the feeder. I looked back towards the hall and saw shifting shadows across the light on the lawn, as though there were people in one part of the hall enjoying each other’s company while George sat alone in another. I left the shadows on the lawn behind and carried on back up the road in the darkness. Dark blue stretches of night sky were filled with black clouds.
That night I was woken by barking. I jumped out of bed to look through the curtains, but all was darkness outside. I looked at my watch and it was ten past two. I went back to sleep, and the barking came again. I checked the time, and it was ten past three. Again, there was nobody to be seen outside. This second barking was a little more disturbing but after what must have been an hour I went back to sleep. Within five minutes another loud barking woke me up. It was ten past four. I still couldn’t see anything outside the window and this time around my heart was racing. I dressed and went downstairs and walked out of the front door to stand in the yard and look around but there was nothing there.
In the morning I waited for Winnie before she got in her car to go to the petrol station.
Hi, Winnie, I said, did you hear any barking last night?
Barking? What time? No, I didn’t hear any barking.
You didn’t hear any barking?
No, I didn’t. Anyway, I’ve got to get to work, she said, closing her car door.
For the next week, my sleep remained undisturbed, and the barking went from my mind. But a week to the day it resumed. This time the first barking came at a quarter past eleven, not long after I’d gone to bed. I leapt from the bed and darted to the window but as usual I couldn’t see anything outside. I kept myself awake for the next hour, peeping through the curtains. Twelve fifteen came and there was no barking, by twelve thirty still nothing. I drifted off to sleep and within a few minutes there was a loud barking again.
The barking started to happen almost every night. I went out walking in the afternoons and it felt like I was sleepwalking across the fields. It was on the last of these walks that I came down off the hillside above the hall and paused to see Winnie staring into my windows. I asked her what she was doing but she just walked away.
On my last morning the house was surrounded by mist. I opened the front door and looked down to see what seemed like paw prints beginning on the doorstep and continuing across the car park. I walked over to the field where the paw prints became indentations on the grass and followed them through the mist into the forest, where I glanced up and saw a child hanging from the trees.
Acknowledgements
Some of these stories first appeared (in slightly different form, some with different titles) in Cōnfingō, The Manchester Fiction Prize Shortlist 2020, Murmurations, Nightjar Press, Outsideleft, Short Fiction Journal, The Lonely Crowd and Unthology 6. My thanks to the editors. Thanks are also long overdue to the Society of Authors for their Authors’ Foundation award. This grant, the only one I’ve ever received in twenty years as a writer, came at a time of financial insecurity, and was a great help in the completion of this book.
This book has been typeset by
salt publishing limited
using Granjon, a font designed by George W. Jones for the British branch of the Linotype company in the United Kingdom. It is manufactured using Holmen Bulky News 52gsm, a Forest Stewardship Council™ certified paper from the Hallsta Paper Mill in Sweden. It was printed and bound by Clays Limited in Bungay, Suffolk, Great Britain.
cromer
great britain
mmxxii
About the Author
Neil Campbell is from Manchester. He has appeared four times in Best British Short Stories, and his debut novel Sky Hooks was published in 2016. He has four collections of short stories published, and two poetry chapbooks.
ALSO BY NEIL CAMPBELL
NOVELS
Sky Hooks (2016)
Zero Hours (2018)
Lanyards (2019)
SHORT STORIES
Broken Doll (2007)
Pictures from Hopper (2011)
Fog Lane (2017)
POETRY
Birds (2010)
Bugsworth Diary (2011)
In the Gemini Café (2019)
PAMPHLETS
Ekphrasis (2014)
Jackdaws (2016)
Copyright
