The Wishing Pool by Daniel Day, white wine

I was thirteen years old. It was the kind of sickly summer when the air is thick and the sky is the hottest shade of blue.

We were staying in a Victorian hotel which my uncle had bought the year previous but had only recently given his attention to when a large segment of gutter fell from the roof into the road. The local council had written to him to make it safe and that’s when he called my dad who was a roofer by trade.

We arrived in our hatchback, pulled up onto the gravel and my dad pulled the handbrake till it clicked, almost perpendicular to the ground. He left it in gear just to be sure. Mum craned her neck back, removed her oversized sunglasses and peered up at the roof while dad searched for the specific plant pot which his brother had left the key under.

‘Got it!’ he said, clutching a brown envelope. He pulled out a large brass key, and a slip of paper. Wrinkles spread from the corners of his eyes. ‘Five Hundred Pounds!’

‘From Uncle Andrew?’ I said. Dad nodded.

‘A cheque?’ said Mum, screwing her face up.

‘What?’ said Dad. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted to leave cash – not safe.’

‘But we’ll have to find a bank and all that palaver!’ Palaver was one of Mum’s favourite words though I’m not certain she knew what it meant –I certainly didn’t.

‘Can’t you be grateful?’ said Dad.

‘Don’t start arguing,’ said Jess who was now awake and uncoiling her long limbs like a spider from the back of the car. ‘We’re supposed to be on holiday, having fun or whatever…’ She yawned. I wondered if she’d have come with us if she’d been allowed to stay home – she wasn’t quite old enough yet.

Dad fit the key and unlocked the large front door. We pushed through a thin sheet of white plasticky stuff which hung over the entrance, then found the whole of the ground floor covered in the same stuff.

‘Never mind this bit,’ said Dad, leading us up the central staircase. The next floor was just as empty, but without the plastic sheets. We went up one more floor; mum stopped breathless, clutching the banister.

‘I hope this is it?’

‘It’s only two flights!’ said Dad, just as breathless but putting on a braver attempt at disguising it. Jess was the only one who seemed not to have struggled with the stairs.

‘Come on,’ she said to me. ‘Don’t let me find the best room before you – cos we’re not swapping once we’ve claimed them.’ She said this evenly, not as a threat, just a statement of the rules which seemed fair to me. She strode down the hall; I followed. She flung open the first door she came to then folded her arms.

‘You take this one if you want.’ She turned aside and continued down the hall. I peered into what seemed like a decent enough room. It was mostly empty, dense sunlight flooded the bare wooden floorboards. It had a bed and a slim pine wardrobe in the corner. I was drawn to the window and for the first time saw the views the hotel had to offer. Our car sat on the gravel drive but beyond this, a short stone wall ran along a dirt path lined with trees and shrubs on the far side. The path dipped out of sight but undoubtedly led to the beach which could be seen gloriously blazing in a thin strip along an ocean bluer than anything I’d seen in my life. Bluer even than the eyes of Stephanie Simmons who I’d once sat next to on a school trip. We shared a bag of sweets and something else unspoken.

‘Steph look!’ I said, then ‘Jess – I mean.’ But she was away in another part of the hotel and I was glad she hadn’t heard me slip up. I found her a few rooms down, in a darker room where the window stood in shadow, facing the neighbouring farm. ‘Jess? You’re picking this room?’ 

She nodded and continued taking things from her backpack. ‘But don’t you want a view of the sea?’

‘No thanks,’ she smirked. ‘I’ll be quite happy here.’ 

I gave her a puzzled look. 

She shook her head. ‘I’ll stay perfectly cool in here out of the sun while you bake in your oven over there!’ 

She was probably right but didn’t want to change my mind now.

‘Well at least I’ll get to watch the tide come in at night,’ I said.

‘You enjoy that.’ She patted my head. My cheeks warmed a little but not from the heat. I left without another word then heard Mum call my name.

I followed her voice into a room on the same floor which might have once been a study or library. There was a long counter on which sat a kettle, a microwave and a little camping stove hooked up to a gas bottle. On the side, steam rose from a small pan and bread rolls spilled from an open pack.

‘Here.’ She thrust a hotdog into a bun, then into my hand. ‘Sauce is over there.’

‘Is this the kitchen?’ I said, squeezing ketchup from the bottle.

‘It is for now – for us, this week at least…’ she said then muttered ‘What a palaver,’ as she scanned the room for plates, or cutlery or something. Seeing that lunch today would hold to no particular ceremony, I took my hotdog outside.

There was a sloping patch of overgrown lawn and a picnic bench which faced towards the sea. I had just sat down when Jess came, curling her long legs under the bench next to me holding a hotdog of her own.

‘Fancied some fresh air too?’ I said. She chewed a while, ignoring my question before saying:

‘You know why I’m so tall and you’re not?’

‘Because you’re older?’ 

She shook her head. ‘It’s because I had breast milk and you were given formula. She took another bite. ‘Gross but true.’

‘Why?’ I said, though I didn’t really want to discuss it.

‘Something to do with Mum’s hormones. I dunno.’

‘Shall we go to the beach?’ I said, determined to change the subject.

‘Sure.’ she wiped her mouth.

‘Shall we tell Mum and Dad we’re going?’ 

But she was already halfway down the path.

Our footsteps crunched the gravel. There was a buzz of heat in the air and the soft shush of the sea in the distance. When the slope steepened then rounded a sharp bend, the path gave way to wide open blueness – the spotless sky and the crystalline sea.

There were families dotted here and there, some with dogs chasing frisbies, some visitors huddled in beach towel camps which they had claimed as their own sovereign states for the day. We walked on with sinking steps, looking, I supposed, for a clear spot.

‘What about here?’ I said, pointing to an empty patch.

‘Want to sunbathe, do you?’ Jess smirked.

‘Well, not really…’

‘Look!’ she pointed away down the beach at an arching rock, speckled in deep black shadows and sandy bright ridges where the sunlight caught the raised surfaces. When we came near, we found ourselves in cool shade on wet sand. The air was damp and refreshing after the stark heat.

‘Ah!’ said Jess. ‘I thought it might be!’

‘Might be what?’

‘A cave, look!’

In one of the deeper shadows, a narrow slit shaped like a dagger breathed out a cold draught. She bent low and crawled like a crab into the crack.

‘You coming?’ her voice echoed. 

I hesitated, stepped onto the smoothed stone and steadied myself with hands on the craggy walls. The draught was fierce inside the cave. It rushed violently into my eyes and nostrils.

‘It’s a bit windy!’ My voice was caught by the current and tossed behind me.

‘Brilliant isn’t it!’ she answered then whooped loudly. 

It was pitch black and seemed far longer than I imagined it would be. Just at the point which I had decided I would turn back, a brilliant white light wrapped Jess’s silhouette in front of me, catching the wind-thrown strands of her hair.

Suddenly we were out on the other side of the cave. Daylight blinded us for a moment before we could take in where we'd ended up. We stood on a rocky ledge above a circular pool. It glistened like a crescent moon at one edge where the sun peered over the high wall at our back, the rest of it in shadow like the deep blue of night. Ledges of rock climbed in circles like an amphitheatre. It was quiet. The rush of mighty waves outside could not be heard over the gentle lap of the softly swaying pool.

It’s magical! I wanted to say, but Jess would have laughed, though I read a similar thought in her expression.

‘Awesome!’ she said, finding an appropriate word.

We skirted the ledge, hands brushing on stone walls, sometimes finding a ledge to grip, sometimes leaning in close to feel the cool of the rock on our cheeks. When we had done a half circle and were looking across the pool at the entrance, we saw the sign. It was inscribed on a worn wooden plaque which sat above the cave and simply said:

The Wishing Pool

‘The wishing pool?’ I said, ‘What does it mean?’

‘What do you think it means?’ said Jess. ‘You throw in a coin or something and make a wish.’

‘Have you got any coins?’

‘No, have you?’ 

I didn’t, though at that moment my eye landed on the broken half of a brilliant blue shell.

‘What about this?’ I said, then in one motion swept it up from the floor and tossed it into the centre of the pool. It glugged then sank beneath the surface in reeling arcs.

‘Well?’ said Jess.

‘Well, what?’

‘What did you wish for?’

‘Oh pants! I forgot about that!’

‘Well wish for something quick then.’

I screwed up my face and immediately thought of Stephanie Simmons and her gorgeous blue eyes.

‘Well?’ said Jess.

‘What?’

‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

‘It might not work if I tell you.’

‘Ugh, whatever.’

‘Aren’t you going to wish for something?’

‘Don’t be silly.’ she laughed.

*

Mum and Dad hardly seemed to have noticed that we’d been gone. The room which was pretending to be a kitchen actually looked like one now. There was a table covered with a white linen cloth, plates and cutlery were set out and a bottle of white wine sat in a bucket of ice in the centre. Mum already had a glass in her hand and smiled with rosy cheeks as we came through.

            ‘Hello my darlings!’ she beamed, kissing us both in turn. 

             Jess eyed the bottle, lifted it from the ice – it sloshed half empty. 

            ‘Dinners almost ready,’ Mum went on. ‘Your father went and bought us some fish, didn’t you sweetheart?’ As Dad walked in, she cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed him longer than was comfortable for any of us.

            We ate and talked and laughed and said how we ought to play a game like we used to. When no one could agree what to play, we walked down to the sea and let the waves chase our bare feet further and further up the beach. When there was hardly any beach left, we called it a night, though daylight still lingered on the horizon.

            Hours later, I woke in a sticky sweat. When I peered through the curtains and saw the crescent moon glinting against a deep blue, I remembered the wishing pool. At that moment, two yellow beams sliced the thin night air outside. I pressed my face to the glass to see the shadow of a car chasing its headlights down the narrow lane. My heart stopped when the brakes screeched just as it passed from my sight, a wash of red spilling into the road from the brake lights.

            It wasn’t fear that I felt so much as excitement – expectation rather. I climbed back into bed and fell endlessly into deep wells of blue. After some time, it wasn’t Stephanie's eyes that I was thinking of but her soft pink lips. My dreams were warm, her lips were warm – warm and wet…

            When I woke, my thin sheets clung to my skin, though not from sweat.

            ‘Pants!’ I said, then bundled my underpants and the sheets together ready for the washing machine. I dressed quickly in a white T-shirt and khaki shorts then ran to find mum. ‘Where’s the washing machine?’

            ‘Oh don’t tell me!’ she began, and I knew that the merry mother I’d had last night was back to her usual self. ‘Whatever mess you’ve made, you’ll just have to make do! There’s no washing machine here.’ I didn’t stop to argue; I’d rather die than explain.

I thought of Jess. She would know about this stuff and whilst she would think it was absolutely gross, she’d know what to do at least…?

No way! – this was one of those situations I had to deal with myself which I did by running back to my room, stuffing the sheets and my pants deep under the bed and erasing both them and the whole episode from my memory.

            ‘Beach again today? I asked Jess at breakfast. She answered me with a groan.

            ‘Jess didn’t sleep too well last night.’ said Dad. ‘Apparently some folks arrived late at the farmhouse, making quite a racket by the sounds of it!’ 

            Jess groaned again and I knew I would be going solo perhaps until the afternoon.

            The beach was emptier than the day before. There were feathers of cloud and a silent breeze which nudged me to the left, the same way we’d walked yesterday towards the wishing pool.

That’s when I saw her – Stephanie Simmons, wrapped in sunlight, her reddish hair tied back, a few loose strands blown about her face. Her T-shirt clung to her gentle curves and stopped short of her naked abdomen. I stared, hesitating as my feet sank deeper into warm sand.

            ‘Oh my days!’ she squealed, seeing me. She stretched out her bare freckled arms and trotted across the sand. ‘I can’t believe it! We just arrived last night.’ Then without warning, she pulled me in for a hug. She smelled of sun-cream and shampoo and it made my veins rush with something agonisingly wonderful.  A strand of her hair clung to my cheek as she pulled back. She tucked in neatly behind her ear and smiled, waiting for me to say something. But I was dumbstruck, chiefly because of a problem down below. My shorts had a small bulge at the front which I was desperate for her not to see.

            ‘Come on!’ I said, turning side on, heading up the beach towards the wishing pool. ‘We found something really cool yesterday.’ 

            She gave me a curious look then skipped to catch up. ‘We’re in the farmhouse just up the lane, .’ she said as we walked.

            ‘So that was you last night?’

            ‘Hmm?’

            ‘Oh, I saw the car.’ My cheeks flushed, I tried not think of the bundled sheets under my bed. ‘We’re in the old hotel.’ I explained.

            ‘Really? Oh gosh, sorry if we woke you up.’

            ‘No worries.’ I thought of Jess’s broken sleep and smirked a little. ‘Just up here.’ I pointed.

            ‘What is it?’ she said as the shade fell on us. ‘You’re not going to show me a dead body, are you?’

            ‘I wish!’ I said, then realised how weird that made me sound. I checked her expression: still smiling, if a little confused.

I climbed into the gap, felt the wind whip my face and neck. Taking a glance over my shoulder, I asked her if she was OK.

            ‘Yeah!’ she shouted then whooped the same way as Jess had done.

The way seemed shorter this time. we stood at the pool's edge. I glanced at Steph whose expression was that of wonder and excitement. My fingers tingled as I dared myself to grab her hand.

            ‘Round this side.’ I said. 

             She let her hand remain in mine. Our arms sometimes touched as we skirted the edge, then once our legs – the bulge returned.

            ‘The wishing pool!’ She whispered, reading the sign. ‘Cool!’

            I found a shell, smoothed the wet sand from it with my thumb then placed it in her hand.

            ‘Make a wish.’ I said. She giggled, then keeping her eyes locked onto mine, tossed the shell over her shoulder. When it landed unseen with a plop, I leaned in close, I could smell her skin. She closed her eyes. Our lips touched then everything became hot and dizzy.

            A moment later, I pulled back and looked into her blue eyes.

            ‘It came true.’ she said. 

About the author

 Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit, East of the Web and Fiction on the Web. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Between Sky and Sea by Daniel Day, passion fruit lemonade

 We stand on the pier. I’m holding her. My chin rest on her head. I breath the scent of her shampoo. I can’t describe the smell, but an image comes to my mind of the cream-coloured bottle sat on the bathroom shelf of our little holiday lodge.

            The seagulls caw, the ocean swells, salt fills the air; the moment is everything it should be.

            ‘Don’t you just love it?’ she breathes. I feel her chest rise in my arms.

            ‘The holiday?’ I ask. ‘Yes, everything is perfect.’

            ‘But what about that?’ she points to the horizon. ‘Doesn’t it just fill you with a sense of excitement and longing?’

            I pause. Her body tenses as she awaits my answer.

            ‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘I bet this place is gorgeous in the summer.’ It felt like the right thing to say. She doesn’t say anything. The silence is heavy.

            I kiss her cheek. Her skin is cold.

            ‘I’ve always thought it was magical,’ she tries again. ‘That unreachable line in the distance where the sky bends down to touch the sea and the two become one.’ She pulls my hand into her waist and holds it there.

            ‘Magical,’ I say. I feel her smile.

            ‘Do you mean it? You’re not just agreeing to make me happy?’

            ‘Yeah, totally. I mean…’

            ‘What?’ she twists to see my face.

            ‘Well, technically…’ Too many of my responses begin with these words and too often they lead to an argument. ‘I mean the sky doesn’t actually touch the sea does it?’ Her face tells me everything. I attempt a rescue. ‘I suppose they both just go on and on forever but never actually meet…’ In desperation I add: ‘It really bends your mind, doesn’t it?’

            She pulls my hand away and leans on the railing. I have been emptied of her and am cold. I picture the tiny spare bedroom in our little holiday lodge, the bed still made, untouched.

            Idiot, I say to myself as a cold wind fills the silence between us.

The hot scent of cooking oil, seasoned with salt and vinegar, wafts past my nose. Food will fix everything, we’re on holiday after all.

            ‘Hey,’ I touch her shoulder. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m starving, why don’t we…’

            ‘No, you don’t know about me.’ she sulks.

            ‘Sweetheart, come on…’

            ‘To you, this holiday is all about food and sex.’ she says. ‘I wonder sometimes if that’s all I am to you too.’

            ‘Well not the food part; I’m not into cannibalism!’ The joke evaporates.

            ‘I just don’t feel like you really understand me.’ She stares at the ground.

            ‘Because I didn’t agree with that poetic nonsense about the horizon?’

            ‘It’s not just that, I feel like we’re on two different frequencies, like we’re running parallel to each other but we’re never quite together.’

            ‘Like the sky and the sea?’ I say sarcastically. She frowns, her lip wobbles, she turns her back.

             

            We lean on the railing side by side. The tide laps at the steel girders stretching beneath us, suspending us between sky and sea.

            ‘So, fish and chips?’ she mutters at last. ‘You’re starving right? That’s what you fancy?’ 

              I’ve somehow lost my appetite. ‘Dunno. Why don’t we walk around a bit first – see what’s here?’ 

               She shrugs and dawdles behind me as I choose a direction at random.

            We leave the sea behind, navigating a maze of cobbled streets. I point out interesting things in the town’s architecture: ancient corner stones engraved with a date and the name of the dignitary who laid it, faded brass brackets that once housed shop bells. She smiles and hums but says nothing. We pass a jewellers and I pull towards the window with obvious interest. She swerves away, looking instead at a gallery window where the story of the coast land is told in vivid blues and greens across many large canvasses.

            I sidle up to her. I follow her gaze to a simple little canvas on which is painted three blocks of colour, blue, then white, then turquoise from top to bottom.

            ‘Which country does that flag belong to?’ I say with a wry smile. She rolls her eyes and tuts but there’s a hint of laughter in it. Seeing her thaw a little, I take a chance. ‘Do you like it?’ I ask.

            ‘Do you?’ she returns the shot masterfully. I chew over my next words.

            ‘I like the colours.’ I say, checking her response. ‘Reminds me of the sea.’ A smile breaks in the corner of her mouth, then a giggle.

            ‘You could be an art critic!’ she laughs.

            ‘Do you want it?’ I say. Her eyes widen.

            ‘It’s two hundred and fifty pounds!’

            ‘So?’ I stifle a choke. ‘If you really like it, I’ll get it for you.’ My heartbeat quickens as I await her response. She waits to give it, I can tell she’s enjoying the moment. She takes out her phone and snaps a quick picture of the painting.

            ‘I’ll make do with this.’ she grins. ‘You can save your money for something else.’

            ‘I’ll do you one better.’ I dash into the shop before she can reply. I come out minutes later with the print I’ve bought. It’s only the size of a postcard and cost much less than the original but it’s the same picture and it makes her smile and that makes me smile.

            ‘Thank you,’ she whispers then kisses my cheek.

            We wind up the hill arm in arm. A gust blows her hair across my face; I breathe her in once more. We puff and pant, ascending stone steps cut into the hill. The lighthouse stands at the cliff edge, dwarfing a flat roofed modern restaurant of the same name.

            ‘What about that place?’ I suggest.

            ‘Looks cosy.’

We can’t get near the menu displayed in the window. There’s a crowd of about ten huddled round it, their faces yellow in the glow.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s get inside before this lot.’

‘We haven’t seen the menu?’

‘Let’s just risk it.’

She follows me in. I feel her thaw in the warmth of the low-ceilinged bistro.

‘Table for two?’ The girl in the black shirt with The Lighthouse embroidered in gold letters says.

She weaves us through the crowd to a table at the back. The entire wall is made of enormous glass panels framed in steel. The seaside town spills down the hillside to the harbour under a burning sky. I think I spot the pier where we started our walk.

‘We’ve come quite a distance,’ I remark. The waitress places a glass bottle of water on the table and asks if we would like to order drinks.

‘I’ll just have a cola. Do you have anything with passion fruit?’ I glance across the table.

She smiles. Her hand touches mine, her skin still cool but warming. She makes her choice from the waitress’s suggestions. We watch the sky move slowly.

Our drinks arrive. She sips through a tiny straw.

‘My favourite.’ She smiles and gives my hand a squeeze.

We browse the menu.

‘They have muscles in white wine,’ she says.

‘Yes, I spotted that. I wondered if you might like to try the crab?’

The romance is returning. I can taste the food already, and the wine and her kisses that will come later. I picture the double bed in our little holiday lodge, the book on the dressing table at her side, the glasses case and phone charger on mine.

The sky blushes pink outside; it paints her cheek. A tiny speck flashes in the corner of my eye. I turn just in time to see a distant grey shape with a tiny, yet unmistakable, dorsal fin. It leaps out of the waves.

‘Look!’ I gasp.

‘What?’ She turns. .

We watch in silence, hand in hand. When it happens again, we see it together.

There are two of them playing together just under the horizon, where the sky bends down to touch the sea.

‘It’s magical.’ I whisper.

‘I love you.’ she says.

About the author

Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit and East of the Web. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Cola and Broken Eggs by Daniel Day, sweet ginger tea

 I sit in the garden, kissed by dappled sunlight. It spills through high branches and pools on the grass, still wet and fragrant from last night’s rain. 

A lush African green sits under a high blue sky.

Countless birds chatter, click, caw and whistle - the song of the morning.

Hot black tea with lemon serves as a sufficient breakfast. Nothing more is needed; already the heat has done its work on my appetite.

I slip through a side door and flick a switch on the wall. The electric gate whirs into action and slowly reveals the world outside the compound. 

While I wait, a dusty grey creature with a red breast flutters by my feet. It is not unlike a robin, though less plump and keener in its movement. I wish I knew its name. 

The gate clunks to a stop and I step outside. Turning left as I’ve been told, I head downhill towards the small cluster of buildings about a mile away. The distant hum of a motorbike engine and the singsong shouts of farm workers tell me the world is awake.

I’ve been told that a man named Lerato keeps hens and will sell me some eggs. The soles of my shoes slap at the steaming tarmac. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

The motorbike engine grows suddenly louder then it whips past me carrying two men in overalls. I step off the road and walk for a while in the red dust, leafy crops brushing my arm as I skim the edge of the field. 

The ground levels out. Above the crops to my left, low, flat rooftops rise. A dog barks a warning up ahead. As I approach the property, the dog is already throwing itself at the metal fence, sending it rippling and jangling.

‘Cola!’ A deep voice calls. ‘Cola, woza girl!’

The dog is well named, for its coat is a deep brown, flecked with a frothy white. It comes to its masters call. 

A man in a peaked hat and dusty blue overalls holds a broom in a large fist. The short stubble on his face is silver against his dark skin. He eyes me beneath the shielding hand on his brow. 

‘Dumela.’ I attempt a greeting. He mutters something I can’t understand. He calls to an unseen companion who answers in a language they share but I do not. At last he grins and opens the gate. 

‘You are from up the road, isn’t it?’ he says, shaking my hand.

‘Yes,’ I say, our hands still clasped. ‘I came to buy eggs?’ 

He nods and grins. ‘Woza,’ he says. ‘Come,’ he repeats in English, then closes the gate behind us.

I follow him around the first building and past an old truck. Cola sniffs at my heels. 

Around the corner men are sat in white plastic chairs, stained dusty red at the legs. 

A conversation happens around me. It ends with a younger man leaving his chair to sit on an upturned crate. Cola pads over to him to receive strokes and pats.

‘Sit.’ The men point to the vacant chair. I look to the man who met me at the gate. 

‘Sit,’ he grins, nodding as he points to the chair.

I sit beside an older man. He offers me the tin cup he has been sipping from. I raise my palm but he frowns at my refusal, so I take the cup. He smiles with every tooth. I eye the swirling liquid with suspicion. I look to the man.

‘Try,’ he says encouragingly. I take a sip. It is sweeter than my lips are prepared for but it has a burning ginger flavour that only registers after. I smile and make approving noises. The man laughs.

‘More,’ he says. I blink and take another sip then hand the cup back.

The man who greeted me at the gate breaks off from his conversation with the others and turns to me.

‘England?’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I reply. He nods and so do the others.

‘Manchester United?’ One of the others says. I’m not sure if this is a question but I nod in acknowledgement which seems to meet their approval. I find myself wondering if life would be a lot simpler if all small talk went like this. 

‘I came to buy eggs.’ I say, now looking around at the faces, wondering which one is Lerato, if any of them are.

‘Eggs, yes.’ Says the first man. He gives instructions to the younger man who gets up and disappears behind the building. Cola follows.

A silence falls. Only the hum of heat and the clink of tin cups are heard. I wipe my brow and stare at my shoes.

‘Arsenal?’ says the same man as before. ‘The gunners?’ 

‘Yes, yes.’ I nod. He smiles and slaps my hand. 

‘English football.’ He says in punctuation of the matter. 

A box of eggs is handed to me. Cola sniffs at my heels. Is it rude to ask how much they cost? Should I take out my cash in front of these men? 

‘Thank you.’ I say. I scan the faces, looking for a clue. When none presents itself, I pull my wallet from my pocket and raise it in signal. 

‘Here.’ says the first man. He steps over and takes the wallet from my hand. He opens it and pulls the wad of notes from it. The others chuckle as he mutters something. He pulls out a single note from the wad and replaces the rest, closing the wallet then handing it back to me. It goes back into my pocket as I stand. 

I am taken back to the gate where Cola comes back to life, sniffing about my legs and springing up on her forepaws. The man shakes my hand and says something I don’t understand. Whether it isn’t English or it’s just his accent I don’t know, but I say thank you anyway and he grins widely. 

The gate is shut behind me as I leave. Cola shouts her goodbyes and I’m away up the road.

The sun hangs a little higher and burns my neck. I shield my eyes from its glare then trip on a loose stone. The box of eggs smacks onto the tarmac. 

I peel the lid open. All but two are broken. Facing back down the hill, I sigh then shake my head. I hold the two unbroken eggs, one in each hand, resolving to take them home. I’ll poach them for lunch then sit in my garden behind closed gates.

About the author

 

Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit and East of the Web. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Ghost of a Husband by Daniel Day, whisky on the rocks

 

It wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be done – I could see no other way in the end. I had become so sick and tired of the monotony, day after day, week after week, Sunday lunch followed by Monday evening bridge followed by Tuesday afternoon tea and so on and so on, forever and ever. 

And the effort it all took! Retirement was supposed to mean rest from work, but it had turned out to be anything but. 

‘You will get the step ladder out and dust off the curtains before this evening won’t you dear?’ she would say. Heaven forbid that our bridge club guests would look up and notice just how much dust had accumulated on the rail since last week’s visit.

‘You know I can’t do it, not with how I am with heights.’ she would always add.

Then there was the afternoon tea, always at Deborah’s Tea Rooms in town, Tuesdays at precisely two o’clock. 

They knew us by name in there. I hated the condescending tones, the cooing at us like we were infants. The way they would pull chairs out and hold doors open like we were incapable of looking after ourselves.

‘He’ll have the smoked salmon salad,’ she insisted. I hated smoked salmon; I wanted a bacon roll but apparently my cholesterol was very much her business and not my own.

In the end, I just couldn’t stand it. I announced one evening that I was going for a stroll. 

‘You’ll degrease the kitchen backsplash when you get back then?’ she said. ‘You know I can’t bend so far over the counter.’

            I didn’t reply. What would have been the point?

I stepped out into the cold night air and began my sombre march across town. Under the ghostly light of streetlamps, I arrived at the road bridge. It spanned the great river which had flowed through our town since before I was born and would not cease to flow after I was gone. 

I took in a gulp of bitter air like a shot of whisky, climbed trembling up onto the iron railing, and said farewell to the world.

I plunged into pressing darkness. An uneasy weightlessness took me then I knew no more.

That is until I found myself inexplicably standing right back in our kitchen, my soaking wet clothes seeming strangely not to drip on her porcelain floor tiles. 

My skin felt sticky and cold.

There was a newspaper sat on the table. The headline read: Body of Retired Man Found by Fisherman. I reached out to pick it up but found that my hand went straight through both it and the table. 

I quivered in the stark realisation that my plan had been successful. An unnerving dread dripped from a soaked lock of my hair and trickled down to the tip of my nose.

I heard slipper-clad footsteps on the stairs. Hide! The ridiculousness of the thought startled me and I found myself laughing. 

‘Really dear, whatever can be so funny at a time like this?’ 

I was dumbstruck. I spun towards the door to see her standing there, just as she always had been. I stumbled backwards, discovering my legs passed right through the oven door which had been left open. 

‘Do be careful.’ she said. ‘And try not to sit on any of the furniture, you’ll only get it wet.’

‘I won’t.’ I said, indignantly. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t sit on the furniture even if I wanted to.’ 

She sighed. ‘No, I suppose not.’ She looked deeply forlorn. With effort, I contorted the sickening guilt I felt to feel more like pity. 

‘So, you know I’m…’

‘Dead?’ she interrupted, and I felt a jolt in my chest at the word. ‘It would have been difficult not to notice, especially after the police came round.’

I felt sick; this wasn't what I’d wanted at all. I had wanted freedom, release from hard labour, this was so much worse.

‘But you can see me?’ I said. ‘You can hear me, we’re speaking right now aren’t we?’ 

She shuffled forwards, passing right through my body to get to the sink.

‘Yes, I can see you.’ 

‘But how?’ I said, half to myself.

‘Don’t know; suppose you must be haunting me.’ she said. ‘Unfinished business and all that.’

‘But I don’t have any further business, I have nothing more to say.’

‘No.’ she snorted. ‘You said it all when you jumped off that bridge.’ Another jolt in my chest, this time more violent. 

She looked dreadful. Not externally, she was always immaculately put together, but deep in her eyes there lay the cold, bitterness of a woman betrayed.

‘I’m sorry…’ I began, but the empty words withered and died, like the last feeble, flickers of a candle in the overwhelming dark. She finished washing the last of the dishes then passing through my body again, drew out a chair. She picked up the newspaper which covered her face as she read.

‘I suppose you’ll want to know why?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s quite obvious why – you couldn’t stand to live with me any longer.’ Her bluntness was excruciating. ‘Most people would have just had an affair or something.’ she added.

‘I’d have never done anything like that!’ I defended.

‘And this is so much better is it?’ she said. ‘Why couldn’t you have simple talked to me? You never spoke! Whenever we’d go out you’d sit there, silently squirming, I knew something was wrong. I suspected you were unhappy, so I tried to arrange things for us to do, things we enjoyed!’

‘Well I didn’t enjoy them!’ I snapped. ‘I just wanted to rest for once and have a bloody bacon roll if I felt like it!’ I became suddenly aware how much my words sounded like that of a sulking child.

She tutted then turned a crinkly page, the uneasy quiet illuminating my shame.

‘Well…’ she said, crinkling the edges of the newspaper in her fingers. ‘It’s too late now, now that your'e…’ Another jolt in my chest and my entire body trembled.

‘Can you hear me?’ she said. I found that I couldn’t speak, she called my name.

‘Come back!’ she cried. Her sobs were muffled and distant.

The light in the room was suddenly unbearably bright. I raised my hands to feel tubes coming out of my naked flesh.

‘He’s regaining consciousness.’ another voice said.

‘Come back to me!’ she cried.

 

 

About the author 

 Daniel Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in West Yorkshire. He writes about ordinary things with an extraordinary twist. He has had short stories published on East of the Web and Cafe Lit. 

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