Selected Stories and Poetry

Selected Stories and Poetry

Robert James Tootell

©2011 Robert James Tootell

All rights reserved

Published in 2011 by Robert James Tootell

at Smashwords

The author can be contacted at:

[email protected]

CONTENTS

SELECTED STORIES AND POETRY

A Little Street Theatre

A Winter's Tale

Being

Luke

All Souls' Eve

Sleeping Moths

Remembering Isabel

The Forest

Incoming Days

Black Horses

Stranger Things Than This

Fides Before Tea

Party

Two Hands

Fairy Child

A Little Street Theatre

It was a bad omen, such a fine, cloudless morning on the first day of a new show!

He drove noisily in his baby fiat through the picturesque Spanish town and arrived at the riverbank with time to spare. But where were the usual crowds of onlookers and children? Where the flute-music, the stalls? He parked and walked across the bridge. Taped to the old stone wall was a poster, 'Show Canseled'. Cancelled! For what reason? He looked up at the blue sky, dropped his arms. Well, and what now? He looked around absently, smiling bitterly, and came to the only sensible conclusion, the antidote to disappointment - he would take a long walk, as he always did when life frustrated him, which was often. It mattered not in which direction...

After walking along the bank for an hour or so he noticed on the other side of the river a small, pleasant-looking cafe with a couple of tables outside. Yes! Iced lemonade - that was just what he needed... He looked behind him... no bridge! He didn't remember passing one... but he couldn't see one further up either... Just then, a young girl came out of the cafe and began wiping the tables. She stopped and looked up. He could see her quite clearly. She was lovely! He waved to her. She waved back. He jumped comically, in mock surprise. She began laughing. She had never seen such a thing! She put her hands to her head, waved again... He made a gesture of agony, pointed to the right, to the left, raised his arms to the merciless heavens. And though it was too far to hear the song of her laughter, it was nevertheless close enough to imagine its lightness, its sweetness... Oh, but she is pointing - ahead of him. There must be a bridge ahead of him! She seemed to be calling, inviting him, beckoning...

He set off at a cracking pace, as best he could with his enormous feet. He became hot, took off his long coat, his shoes, which were 15 inches long and curled at the toe... In the distance was the bridge! His heart was pounding. Here it was! Such a marvellous bridge, laden with the promises of romance, of sweet nostalgia... and his thoughts took him back ten years, to a police station in smoky Padua, and a stolen kiss. He crossed that beautiful bridge, full of the pleasures of longing, of unexpected company... and he remembered a hundred years before, the castle walls of Avignon, and the touch of a gypsy-girl's hand. He reached the far bank and continued on towards that wonderful vision, the cafe with the lovely Signorina... and he recalled from a thousand years before, Vienna at midnight, sitting on top of a huge Ferris wheel, his arm around the waist of a starry-eyed Princess...

On he walked, almost bursting with anticipation... so close, getting so close now... when, suddenly... something touched his forehead, his ear, his face. Breathing hard, he stopped, wiped it away, studied his hands... so this was why the show was cancelled... He pushed himself on... he was exhausted... but the drips turned to hard rain, to a terrible downpour... it was too late, his face was awash with red and white paint, his feet became sodden... he faltered...

When he arrived at the cafe he didn't enter. He only stood by the window and gazed in at her loveliness, at her youth. She saw him... dropped her arms, stared with wide eyes... What she saw was not a man reduced to a clown, but a clown reduced merely to a man, a very old man, standing in the pouring rain, pleading with the gods...

A Winter's Tale

Their brilliant, rather touchy son had recently taken to reading astronomy. It was almost Wigilia, Christmas time. Children were excited, their parents tired. The streets were filled with traffic, the snow never let up for a moment and as usual at this festive time, everyone looked miserable and behaved as though the holidays were nothing but a pain. They were almost done in town and were approaching the place where they had managed to park the car.

'She's coming! Aurora is coming,' the boy cried, breaking free from his mother's clutches.

'What are we going to do with him?' she said coldly, wiping her face.

'Get him Latin classes I guess,' laughed the father, 'or is that Greek?'

The boy was galloping towards the street corner just as a tram was approaching. Mother jumped after him, grabbed his coat and smacked his arm. The boy turned and stared at her.

'What have I told you?' she said sharply.

'My real mother,' he replied, almost in tears, 'never hits people.'

Father had caught up, carrying all the shopping bags. 'No. I've got it - it's definitely Greek, er, I think, Aurora, goddess of the morning, or the dawn. Whatever! She crosses the sky every night in a chariot riding three horses. Isn't that right?'

'Don't you talk to me like that! What have I told you about running in the street? What time is it?'

'Two,' said the boy, looking up to his father.

'It can't be two,' she said, 'it must be at least three-thirty. We have to get to Carrefour and home before my guests arrive.'

'Two,' said the boy again.

'We need toilet roll and air freshener, do you hear?'

'Two horses!' shouted the boy, 'and I am the first! I'm going to take my real mother somewhere nice and quiet, a long way away. I am!'

'Do you have a licence for a chariot?' laughed the father. 'Besides, where are you taking her?'

'I have to ask my brother.'

'What brother?' cried the father.

'The other horse, silly! Anyway, it doesn't matter where we go, as long as...' – and he sighed heavily as he repeated word for word from his book - '...the night is behind her and we are ahead.'

'Aha,' mumbled the father agreeably, 'if that's what your book says... Well then, I'm coming along too - I'd quite fancy navigating the stars...'

'No.'

After shopping at Carrefour they returned home and prepared the table and seating arrangements for their guests. The boy wanted to go out into the garden to watch the sky. Mother, already quite in a state, wouldn't allow this and told him to look from the window in the spare room. And anyway, there were no stars to be seen. The snow had turned the whole garden into a frozen collage of the Elysian Fields, or perhaps it was the other way round. When the guests arrived, mother miraculously transmuted into a captivating and charming hostess, while father took the coats, opened the wine, and spoke pleasantly and resignedly about everything, as was his way. The boy behaved all evening as though he were sitting on a great secret, whispering things like 'you'll miss me, you will!' and 'these nights are so slow...' At half past eight they said their goodnights, and he trudged up the stairs with his head down. Later on, his father found him asleep on the bed, wrapped in blanket, his longish black hair cart-wheeling all over the pillow. He left the door slightly ajar, and the landing light on.

In the morning father was woken by the sound of ranting, followed by screeching. They searched the house, the gardens, which were full of fresh snow, but there was no sign. They called on the neighbours, and then the police, who idled over in their own time and acted as though this sort of thing happened every day of the week.

He was found a little later, about half a kilometre away, lying in a field, wrapped in blanket. Beside him, a beautiful black foal with wide and fearful eyes shook its head and shivered on unsteady legs.

The local doctor was called and ordered him straight to bed. He didn't remember very much. Mother couldn't take any more and went off to the salon to recover. He lay in bed all day, staring at nothing through narrowed eyes. Father stayed home to look after him. He had some soup for lunch and in the afternoon studied with a frown his great book with its heavenly bodies and illustrated legends.

In the evening father brought him some tea and his favourite sandwiches.

'Are you defrosted now?' he asked, feeling his son's forehead.

'Mother doesn't love me,' said the boy.

Being

first

in your ears

and neck

it itches

feel it?

then

if you shrug your shoulders

like this

it feels nice

ha ha yes?

after a little while

you feel that restless rubber ball

kicking in your chest

your eyes start working, and watering

and in your ears little people

with hairy legs

race around

but make no sound

though you do

everything comes to life

everything

and when their summer giggles

have settled like hens

in the lemon grass

I can sense without question