Between Sea And Sky Stories – Heather G Marshall (1)

He earned good marks in his course, gathered a girl by his side. The pair of them drank pints of heavy in the pubs, pointed to places on the map of the world that they might go when she was a fully qualified nurse and he an engineer. Less than a year it took them, to land in separate places, their baby settling with a couple on the other side of the country. Later, he landed a job at Hunterston, on the mainland, at least.

Even that is finished now, and himself tucked back into his dead parents’ house while his daughter has been out in the world, away over Cumbrae and all Scotland’s westernmost isles, right on to America, so her letter said. He’s never known where her mother went. He straightens his spine, there on the bench.

Any moment now, Alison will complete her journey back to him. The village surges. James’ belly rolls. His heart thumps. When was he last this aware? His skin tingles. James presses his hands on his thighs, pulls in his belly. He recalls his own father, decades ago, outside the arcade, a special Saturday when they’d gone the opposite direction of the Glaswegians.

He recalls his father’s callused fingers pressing coins into James’ small, smooth-skinned hand. He recalls the cigarette-rough of the old man’s voice, saying, “That’s all you get.” “Hold your winnings,” he said. “Only fools go in again.” James could rise now, slip away. He smoothes his trousers, presses back his shoulders. He sees her, striding down from the top of the village, auburn hair flowing behind her like a wake.

The village stills. Everything falls away— the girls giggling, the ferry churning, the slot machines twirling. James watches her pass on the opposite side of the street, stands to move to her, the moment suspended. Alison. James steps across the street. Alison has stopped. She turns.

Remember when we rode down the hill beside the primary school, legs stuck out because the pedals on our fixed-wheel bikes turned too fast for us to keep up? Remember the bite of the rain on our cheeks, red and chapped from being out in that harsh winter? Remember coming in? You do, don’t you? We dripped a muddy puddle on the floor, tried to mop it up, the pair of us wiping those hopelessly large sheepskin mittens and woolly scarves across it, trying to make it right and instead smearing mud into the wood and the wool runner.

“Go,” you said, there on your knees, “before he gets here.” I couldn’t. It was my puddle too. Besides, I had nearly an hour until dinnertime. What would I have said if I’d walked in the back door, found my mother standing at the kitchen counter, paper spread open, as usual, reading other people’s horoscopes? That I’d made a mess and then run away, abandoned my friend to his father, the front room, the choosing of a belt.

He came in, curly hair like yours bouncing on top of his head, his white to your blond, and asked what you’d done. The next part, and the next, I’m sure we’d both rather not remember. Was this the beginning? What I remember is being left alone in the room with his father, waiting, straining for a sound of my best friend down the hall. The racket of my own heart banged; my blood swooshed in my ears.

I got hotter and hotter as I stood under the gaze of Craig’s father. It seemed ages before I heard the creak of the hall cupboard door, so faint I might have conjured it for respite. Mr. Sullivan tipped back on his heels, clasped his hands behind him as the slight clink of the belt buckles bumping reached the front room. His face softened. I thought he might smile, plump out his cheeks and show his teeth, yellowed and dull. He rocked a little, heel to toe in his heavy brown lace-ups, striped tie swinging out and back.

I don’t write this—I haven’t come all this way to drag Craig through my experience of his pain—I skip instead to what happened next. Afterward, you told me the trick was to pick one broad and thick enough to satisfy him. Too flimsy and he’d go back and get the worst of the lot.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 443cef9e0f6905de
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,495,669 bytes (1.426 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 137
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 198.97 minutes
• Total Words: 39,794
• Total Characters: 217,168
• Average Words per Page: 290.47
• Average Characters per Page: 1585.17

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