the lovely shadows

KING OF THE CASTLE

I stood in the sun, with life laid out in front of me, bright and strong and noisy. I bared my teeth, and my father answered with the same. We circled each other, while he smiled and made small sudden shifts of his feet like a wrestler, and then he dived at me. I was a fish in his hands, my little legs slippery with dew, my eyes quickened by looking at everything as a game about to begin. Then he got me, lifting me into the air by my midriff, and I answered with a bite of his wrist. He shouted and almost dropped me, and I escaped with a gleeful cry. I crouched further off, before I could see that he was hurt, so I came back to him.

"You mustn't use your teeth like that."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"It's alright. Daddy's always OK really."

Then he grabbed me and pinioned me to the floor. I started laughing as he began to tickle me, but it was too rough and after a while I had tears in my eyes. Then he hugged me to him, and I felt the irritation of his stubble on my cheek. I reached down and picked up the miniature toy tiger he had bought me that had slipped from my pocket onto the grass. He took my hand, and his big sad face looked down at me. I would always lose my chatter in the silence that followed him around. I wanted to let him know that it was alright, so I squeezed his hand.

"What do you want to do now, Laura?"

"We could play king of the castle. I'll be king."

"OK. Then what happens?"

"Well ... well ... you can be the monster trying to get me out from the castle."

He jumped into character.

"I'll give you ten seconds."

I squealed and ran to my tree house, which I knew he couldn't climb. I scrambled up the bits of wood nailed into the tree, and looked around and shouted:

"I'm the king of you, monster!"

My voice echoed uncertainly in the empty woods. There was a wide platform beneath my feet, and I couldn't see beneath it. The sun was weak in the forest and dark shapes sprang at the eye everywhere you looked. The grey birches leaned against each other above the blue-black earth, too thin for birds to sing in. Suddenly I was cold.

"Monster?"

The platform surrounded a tree trunk at its centre, and I walked around to the other side, not certain which way he had come. Fallen trunks that had collected dead leaves provided perfect shelter, and the wet soil cushioned every sound. I looked up into the branches of the tree above me, with some fearful notion that he was sitting in them watching me. I got on my knees but could not really make out what was beneath me. I imagined him pacing there, his face suddenly blurred in darkness, the whites of his eyes looking up at me.

"Come out, I can see you!"

My voice died again under the cold light filtering through the pale branches of the trees.

"Daddy, I give up!"

I sat down and my lips began to tremble. I hugged my knees to me and tried to keep from the edges of the platform.

"I want to go in, Daddy, please!"

I was alone, but I didn't feel alone. I imagined him lying injured somewhere and I began to feel scared for him. Tears began running down my cheeks. I went over to the edge, took a shuddering breath and stuck a leg onto the first block of wood. Suddenly the leg was grabbed and I was pulled from the platform. I screamed and screamed. I shut my eyes tight, and even though I heard his voice speaking I imagined it was the monster, tricking me. I only opened them when I felt that stiff hair on my cheeks, and, seeing my father's kind and worried face, blubbered into his arms while he kept on telling me it was alright, and that it was time for tea.

THE MURDER MYSTERY

This madness you call hope befuddles me. I see strong hands bent in small prayer. I see dancing couples with their bright coral clothes like sea creatures weaving in the tide. I see the private tragedy of a meal spent alone. You tell yourself to stop watching, but you can't.

My heart is a joke, a one liner, a gag that repeats itself over and over.

In the morning they'll scrape him off the floor and put a suit on him again. Is anything ever really solved? When you kill a man, a hundred thousand descendents die also. His soul is nothing more than smoke in a jar. Let him lie that way until the detectives find him.

I'll keep repeating myself until these are no longer words, but marks on a wall.

THE DIVORCEE

Your wishing wells have run dry. You count backwards on the journey home to fill the silence in your head. There's nothing else in the house but the simple things that zoos keep for animals: food, medicine, bedding and trinkets. The days and nights fall easily as rain. Time has become this pale white thing, a pillow you can sink into.

You're tormented by postmen, salesmen, call centres - although you're only disturbed a couple of times a week. You become obsessed with your weight, as if it's the only thing pinning you to this place. Lying still across the blue-backed sofas of a time when you were loved, you realise that you have nothing to live for, but no reason to die either.

I breathe some outer air into the empty Dutch painting of your life. As I talk to you I toy with decorations that haven't been touched in months. You love me like an icon: your eyes are weeping candles and your perfumes frankincense in the deep wide space of your days.

Once standing in your kitchen I tell you that unlike normal people you have these edges to you. I haven't the heart to tell you that you're like everyone I know. The fact remains: your wishing wells have run dry. Your dreams begin to pile around you like paper birds - and you have become divorced from reality altogether.

The pub was small and crooked, filling the gaps between more important buildings in Central London. Large ornamental mirrors covered two winding walls that led towards the back, where a blocked-off fireplace was flanked by two fire exits. The angled mirrors meant that as you walked past someone part of them would seem to disappear, until their image was caught by the next mirror. It was my favourite pub to go for a quiet drink with someone, since the hushed clientele seemed absorbed in its dreamlike aura.

"Why've you brought me here, Reg?"

Kane was one of those businessmen who went to boxing clubs for businessmen and spoke like he knew how to fight. I'd been to one once. The heavily padded gloves looked like red lobster claws, and under the high modern ceiling city suits scrapped with rivals like the overgrown children they were. No, I wasn't scared of Kane. I decided to yardstick him, which is what fighters do when they keep an opponent out of reach by waving their glove in his face.

"What's the matter, Kane? Don't you like the place?"
"It's alright if you like fairgrounds an' that."
"I've bin coming 'ere for years. Best beer in London."
"I don't drink bitter, anyway. Dunno how places like this keep going."

If Kane had his way we'd be sitting in a bar with tall metal chairs and fucking salmon-coloured walls. I grinned to hide my dislike, and told him I had to take a call. Kane cracked his big useless knuckles in annoyance and nodded. I rang the boss.

"Awwight, mate."
"Y'alright, boss. I'm 'ere with our new business partner."

A smile and wink at Kane.

"Yeh? Where you at, mate?"
"Red lion."
"Well, I'll meet ya dahn there in five."
"Great."
"Awwight, take care pal."

"Boss?"
"Yes?"
"Why the fuck are we talking like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins?" ....

Here is a very special chess game of mine with brief annotations against a player rated 200 above me.

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