E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Darby / Taylor-Rowan / James Five by Five
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-909208-59-9
Verlag: Arachne Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
Short Stories
E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-909208-59-9
Verlag: Arachne Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
Katy Darby co-runs Liars' League (www.liarsleague.com) and teaches Short Story Writing and Novel Writing at City University, London. Her first novel, The Whores' Asylum, was published by Penguin in February 2012. Her personal website is www.katydarby.com. Katy is the co-editor of our Liars' League anthologies, London Lies, Lovers' Lies, (award winning) Weird Lies and We/She
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Maya didn’t want to leave Blackheath at all. She loved their little flat on the ‘Blackheath borders’. She loved Blackheath village with its cafés and gift shops, and the church sitting on the heath like something from a Christmas card. She loved that it was called a village even though it was minutes from central London. Their flat wasn’t in the best end of the street, but there were rumours that a Waitrose Local was coming. They already had an artisan bakery and a microbrewery. Just when they had actually managed to buy somewhere in a good area Robbie had this urge to move closer to his dad.
‘Let’s see the pictures then,’ Maya’s mum said. Maya dropped the estate agent’s printout on the plastic tablecloth.
‘I hear St Leonards is up and coming,’ her mum added, in a too-bright voice. ‘The arty younger brother to Hastings’ old seadog.’
Maya rolled her eyes. ‘Where did you read that?’
‘I went online. It looks like the prices are on the rise down there. Gentrification, it’s happening everywhere – even in Catford, although probably not on this estate. The rail link to London helps. Of course you’ll be pricing the locals out.’
‘I don’t know what your mum’s been reading,’ her dad said, loosening his work-boots. ‘I’ve heard it’s still a shithole, drugs, alcohol, the lot. Have you looked at Broadstairs or Margate? I used to go to Margate as a kid, buckets and spades, jellied eels, candy floss. Loved it.’
‘Hmm,’ her mum said. ‘There’s a lot of talk about Margate, that’s where that artist is from, the one who is always sharing her dirty linen in public.’ She grimaced.
‘You mean Tracey Emin.’ Maya sighed, ‘Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.’
Her mum hurrumphed. ‘Well if you call that drawing.’
‘I know, ‘Maya said, ‘your special needs kids draw better than that.’
‘And don’t charge as much,’ her dad said.
She and Robbie had taken a look at Margate a few months back. Maya had read that it was becoming Shoreditch-on-Sea but with more edge. She’d seen three young pregnant women smoking in the shopping centre. If that was edge, then you could keep it. The creative quarter was an eighth and felt like a gated community. She could imagine the mob massing at the border, brandishing their pitchforks.
Robbie was a graphic designer so he could work anywhere as long as he could access London when he needed to, and he knew that she hated her job. The interns at the fine art auction house had sniffed out that despite her careful clothes and good grooming she wasn’t one of them. She had a degree in Art History and some of them were barely literate but that didn’t matter if your parents were titled. Entitled, that’s what they were.
Her mum had been thrilled when she got the job. ‘How marvellous,’ she’d said, her eyes shining.
‘I’m only a dogsbody,’ Maya had laughed. ‘I’m not writing fancy catalogues or anything – yet.’ But now she was moving to St Leonards any hopes of scrabbling up the hierarchy were out the window. Her mum was trying to put a good spin on it, but Maya knew she was disappointed.
Robbie had loved St Leonards as soon as he got off the train. Maya had not been convinced. Down on the London Road, the charity shops were separated by empty storefronts pasted with leaflets and posters. Outside a newsagent and under the ATM that she’d wanted to use was a man lying asleep full-length on the pavement, his trousers wet around the crotch.
A teenage girl came alongside them.
‘Excuse me,’ she said in a wheedling voice. Maya turned.
‘Could you spare a couple of pounds?’
Maya noticed with horror that she had no front teeth, just two incisors that made her look like a vampire. She recoiled shaking her head.
‘Bloody hell,’ Maya said as they took refuge from the rain in a greasy spoon. ‘It’s worse than Catford.’
‘They’re only people,’ Robbie said.
‘Barely,’ she’d murmured and she’d caught that sideways thing he did with his eyes.
But they’d done it now – sold the Blackheath flat (it’s in Lee, Robbie always insisted on correcting her), and bought in St Leonards, a short drive from Bexhill where his dad was now settled in a home for the demented.
‘Don’t call it that,’ Robbie said. ‘I know you’re trying to be post-modern or ironic or something, but it’s my dad and he’s got dementia.’
She’d looked away, stung. It’s not like he and his dad were super-buddies or anything. They’d only visited a handful of times before Robbie’s mum died.
‘He’s all the family I’ve got now,’ Robbie said. ‘Soon he won’t even know me and that’ll be it.’
She could have said no and dug her heels in but she always felt it was Robbie’s flat even though both their names were on the deeds. He’d put down the deposit and he paid most of the mortgage. Her job barely paid a living wage.
‘No rush to find work,’ Robbie said, when he saw her staring into the employment agency’s window later that afternoon. ‘We’ve made a bit on the flat. You don’t have to jump at anything.’ Chance would be a fine thing, she thought, scanning the window.
‘Maybe you can chill for a while, stop trying to be liked by those rich freaks.’
She’d bristled at that. ‘I do not try and be liked.’ But she did, and the knowledge filled her with a burning self-loathing. Her brains had got her a place at Blackheath High and by year 10 her parents could finally afford to buy her the brands that she craved, but it had come too late. The invisible sign on her head called out to those who were born to see it – second class. She tried to talk to Robbie about it, but he was mystified. ‘People like that are just a bunch of tossers. Why would you want to be around them if they make you feel bad?’ She had no answer that she could put into words.
The house in St Leonards was big. They could have fitted their flat in it twice over. It had an enormous lounge and a spare room that Robbie said could be her studio when she took up painting again. French doors opened onto a garden.
‘You can have parties out there in the summer,’ Robbie said as they moved in their furniture.
She nodded. Saffron and Soo-nee might come but she would never invite anyone from work. She could imagine their patronising wows and goshes and how charmings, the way they’d shake their pretty heads back in the office and say how brave she’d been to make the move. It might as well have been Syria as far as they were concerned.
Their move coincided with a busy time for Robbie, so Maya spent her days unpacking and trying to put their old life into this new place. At the weekend they visited his dad. The nursing home was well maintained, with friendly but preoccupied staff. His dad sat in a sitting room with the TV on. It smelled of plug-in Fresh Air and school dinners. The staff spoke loudly and their peals of artificial laughter grated on Maya.
‘Lovely to see you, son,’ his dad said. ‘When are we going home?
‘This is your home for now dad, remember? We’re only round the corner.’
‘You’ll have to bring that girlfriend of yours next time, the one who looks like Lena Horne.’
‘She’s here dad,’ he pulled Maya forward.
‘Is that you? You look different. Your hair’s gone all short.’
Maya laughed. When she’d started at Barstow and Jolyon, she’d had her hair straightened, but she’d given up on perms and relaxers. She’d cut it short and let it grow naturally. She kept its dark halo in place with a vintage scarf – it had become her look. ‘Very ‘Bohemian’,’ her boss had said, running his finger around his tight white collar.
Robbie had taken out a deck of cards. ‘Fancy a game, dad?’ But his dad’s eyes had begun to close.
They’d taken a walk to St Leonards Park in the afternoon.
‘Well this is just like Blackheath,’ Robbie said. ‘Look at these houses. They’re massive and only one doorbell each.’
Maya turned her nose up as she side-stepped some dog mess on the pavement.
At the top of the park Robbie stopped. ‘Wow. Look at that view.’ A verdigris sea nipped at an aluminium sky. He took her hand. ‘You should paint this, Maya.’
Everyone knew what she should do, except her.
At the beach she turned to sit down. ‘Eww! Gross,’ she said. Numerous beer cans had been squashed into the slats between the benches which reeked of piss.
‘Swanky buildings and then these scruffy, stinky benches; they could at least paint them. And why is there so much dog shit?’ It was the thing her mother had obsessed about when she first came to England. ‘Dog mess all over the place. And they had the nerve to call us dirty.’
‘I think it’s nice that old men like my dad can sit on a bench and have a drink and look out at the sea,’ Robbie said. ‘That’s not a bad way to pass your days....
