SHELLS

They started appearing all over the place, the eggshells.  Growing up the walls of my house like indoor ivy and covering the window ledges.  They weren’t like boring brown supermarket eggs; they were all different colours, bright white, greenish blue, pink, cream and speckled beige, deceptively pretty.

Any attempt at moving the eggshells resulted in breakage, so I crept carefully around the house without touching them.  I avoided the walls where they grew and didn’t open windows in case the breeze blew them off the ledges.  My friends, when they visited did the same, sitting in the furthest points of the room from the egg shells, glancing at them furtively, but never mentioning them.

I had to adapt to further restrictions when they started growing on the furniture.  I could no longer sit in my favourite armchair and the presence of shells in the kitchen cupboards made the removal of pans for cooking impossible.  I ate microwave meals.  When the first shells appeared in the tub, those long relaxing baths I loved became out of the question, I had to take showers instead.

My sister arrived one day, squeezing through the front door which I could only partially open due to the presence of shells on the hinges.  She walked carefully along the hall and sat gingerly on the arm of the sofa.  She stared at the egg shells on top of the television, on the closed curtains that I could no longer draw to let light in, on the music system.  We chatted about her neighbour’s new baby, our father’s illness, her husband’s job and of our mother.  Then suddenly, she whispered; “You can’t live like this.”

I shook my head at her, but it was too late, the shells on the wall in front of us juddered and one fell onto the carpet, breaking in two.  We stared transfixed at the gap in the wall it left.  Eyes glared through and there was a low menacing snarl.
“You can’t come around here again,” I told her sadly.

We kissed goodbye in the hall.  The door opened enough to let her out, but when I closed it, shells spread across the aperture and I knew I would never open it again.  I sat on the floor of the living room, holding the broken eggshell in my hand, weeping.

SPARROWS

“What do you mean the system’s down?” yelled Roger Stamp, “the Market is about to go live and we’re for it if our client’s can’t trade!  I don’t care how you do it, Williams, I want it up and running in five minutes!” He slammed the phone down.

His PA put his head round the door; “Tea?”
“Not now, Stefan!”
Stefan retreated.
Roger scowled at the window, looking in as it pecked the lattice was a sparrow.  He smacked the glass and the bird flew away.
“Stefan,” he called.
“Yes, Mr Stamp.”
“Wretched sparrow looking in.  Call pest control, see to it they’re not nesting in the roof.”
“We’re in the country, Mr Stamp.”
“Yes, so I don’t have to pay you London allowance.  Do it now, will you?”
“Yes, Mr Stamp.”

Stefan returned to his desk to hear Mr Stamp yelling at Williams, toadying to City clients and harassing the sales team.  It seemed like a perpetual phone call because Mr Stamp didn’t do pleasantries like hellos and goodbyes.  Every now and then there was the sound of the window being thumped.  After the sixth time, Stefan was summoned through.

“Stefan, there were seven sparrows at the window.  Why haven’t pest control dealt with them?”
“Sparrows are protected, Mr Stamp.  Their numbers are falling.”  Stefan looked curiously at the diamond patterned window lattice, but he couldn’t see any birds.
“Don’t you doubt me, Stefan.  Those birds have been pecking the window, staring in and I don’t like the way they look at me.  What are you going to do about it?”
“Me, Mr Stamp?”
“Pest control won’t act and you’re my PA.  Are you too stupid to act on your own initiative?  Get through there and start researching poisons!”

At lunchtime, Roger Stamp left for the pub.  Stefan tried to work, but was distracted by a tapping noise coming from Mr Stamp’s office.  He put his headphones on.  Later, Mr Stamp returned, face flushed from drink.

“The system’s down again,” reported Stefan quietly.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Mr Stamp replied and entered his office.
Stefan heard the phone call, Mr Stamp told Williams he’d been a fool to hire her, women and computers didn’t mix.  He’d see to it she never worked in the industry again.  In the middle of the call was another thump on glass; “Stop staring!”  Then the icing on the cake for Williams - she would be sued for incompetence.
The phone call ended abruptly, then another thumping sound and Mr Stamp shouting; “Right!  If my incompetent PA can’t deal with it, I will!”
Stefan would have assisted, but his phone rang, it was a client.  “I’m sorry, but Mr Stamp is busy ... technical support are working on the system ... I understand your frustration ... OK, I’ll try and put you through.”
Mr Stamp didn’t answer.  Alarmed, Stefan placated the client and went into his office.  It was empty, he rushed to the open window.  The body of Roger Stamp lay surrounded by staff, on the patio two floors below, blood seeping from his head.
“Did you see what happened?” the security officer asked, looking up at Stefan.
“I think Mr Stamp has been under a lot of pressure,” Stefan replied.
“I’ll call the emergency services, but he’s a goner I’m afraid.  ‘Ere, he’s got something in his hand; a bird feather.”

Stefan closed the window and turned to call the client with the news.  The soft sound of fluttering caused him to turn; a sparrow clung to the window lattice and peered in at him with hard, bright eyes.

WAR CRIMES

Serena arrived at the party, step light, carefree and effervescent.  The eyes of men followed her and her stories caused laughter.  I stood in her shadow as she discussed art, academia and politics; I was trying to forget the danger.
Our mother touched my arm; “Amelia, check outside will you?”
I slipped out the back door and swore.  Birdsong had stopped, I could see the dark clouds rushing in and great black shadows falling across the summer garden.  One by one the fairy lights went out and the air turned icy.

I rushed indoors, but it was too late.  The band ceased, the dancing stopped and people fell silent.  The Occupiers were among us.  Their Leader pounced on the bar, sticking his head into the punch bowl, slurping up the liquid and spilling the rest, another smashed the buffet table over with his tail and the last trod birthday cake into the carpet with his paws.  The Leader raised his head; his red eyes had fallen on Serena.  She faced him in her white party dress, the polite smile a mask to hide her anger.  I reached her before he did and ushered her into the bathroom.  I helped her out of the dress and into sack-cloth, I daubed ashes on her face and tied her long hair back.

“It’s not your fault,” I repeated.
“But it is,” she said, a grey drab thing now, fit for the Leader’s eyes.
In he stalked, sneering at us; “Did you think I’d miss the party?  Was there talk of rebellion?  Are they taking my Serena away?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she replied boldly.
“They couldn’t!” I added hastily, “Serena will never leave you.”
The Leader looked at me suspiciously; “Bring her to the Adjustment Room,” he ordered and returned to the bar to stick his head into the basin of wine that had no doubt been poured for him, in the hope it would improve his mood.
“Amelia, please try and persuade him to come with us now,” Serena begged, “do not let him drink!”
My efforts were rejected with vicious irritation.  He was with the other Occupiers and they were surrounded by an ingratiating crowd of reassurers.  He wanted to hear them.  Serena and I walked alone down the dark lane; at the end was the rusty railway line from older days.  On it was the disused carriage – the Adjustment Room.  We waited in the freezing night air until we heard him shambling along the lane towards us, then Serena went inside.

 

I sat outside listening to his raised voice, her placations and her cries.  I remembered the time before the Terrible Change when we had all been friends, before the sickness that had swept across the land and made them strong and us weak.  I thought of the innocence of our family celebration, about how the contrast between then and what Serena was going through now could break her mind.  I cried the tears of a collaborator.  I had to take my sister to him, she was the price we paid for food, wine and protection.

 

Eventually he crawled out, looking almost human – for he had been human once; “I hate this war,” he said, “I liked seeing her as she used to be, but I couldn’t ... I couldn’t allow it.”  He lay down to sleep beside the rusty rail.  I could hear Serena sobbing.  He didn’t stop me when I slipped past him to enter the Adjustment Room.  I lay next to Serena and held her tightly; “Each visit and I diminish more,” she whispered, but we did not discuss it.  We never thought, never questioned; we did what was necessary.

EVA

I first heard Eva’s low musical laugh as she passed by to pick up her kids from school.  I went to the window to see her sashaying down the road in her mini skirt - the image endured.  I asked about our new neighbour, but Eva’s private life was a mystery.  I started lying awake on Saturday nights, listening for the clip clop of her heels as she returned with some man, her laugh, her voice; my erection was pressed firmly into the bed, while my wife slept angelically beside me.

 

Eva needed help moving some furniture and my sweet darling wife sent me. The rest is history.  Over those summer lunch times, when Eva’s kids were at school, we’d meet and lie in sweat tangled sheets, gloriously fucking.  I dreamed of running away with her, but she wouldn’t introduce me to her children or even tell me what music she liked.  I knew as little about her at the start as I did at the end.

 

That dreadful day in September, I sought her in desperation; “My wife’s found out!”

“Well, it was always a risk wasn’t it?” Eva shrugged, her expression closed.
“What do I do?” I asked, tears springing to my eyes.
“I don’t know,” she replied dispassionately, as if we were talking about a financial dilemma or work problem.  Then she shut the door in my face.
 

Even when the summer had long gone, my wife’s health declined.  She told no-one about the affair and her silence weighed heavy.  That capable, bustling darling who ran my life became a shadow, because of Eva.  Eva who walked away like it meant nothing, who took no responsibility for the suffering she caused.  I began to ask myself what possible use to society was Eva?  The grapevine told me how she’d cast aside men that had fallen in love with her because she didn’t want anyone to get too close, how she’d deliberately target married men because they would return to their wives. Also, how did she make her money?  There was lots of speculation.

 

I still heard her laugh Saturday nights as she returned with some man.   I kept recalling those summer lunch breaks and the feel of her flesh against mine.  I called her and asked to meet.  I did not do this for my sake, but my wife’s and the neighbourhood’s.  Eva was a parasite living off the misery of others.  I drove her to the fields I’d played in as a boy.  I led her out of the car and into a copse of trees.  I kissed her passionately, then put my hands around her neck and squeezed.  I didn’t expect to feel anything but a sense of grim duty, but as her struggles became desperate, I kept flashing back to those moments we had shared.  When she was dead, I placed her in a shallow grave and drove home, happy in the knowledge I would not see or hear from her again.

 

Eva appeared everywhere, her face on neighbourhood posters and CCTV images of her sashaying through the shopping centre on local television.  If not seen, she was heard - the emotive press conference the father of her children gave, talking about the wonderful hard working mum who’d let him take the kids every Saturday.  The neighbours spoke of the charity she’d set up and run from home and how she’d visited her sick mother every day.  Then on the day they found Eva buried in my boyhood fields, my wife finally broke her silence and that’s when I heard it again, the low musical laugh.