Sowing Seeds by Keith David Robert McKibbin, Ice cold tea

We only saw the Malcomsons twice a year and I dreaded each visit. There was Boxing Day at ours with my presents on display, then the return visit to their detached house with the big back garden on the far side of Belfast. Our visit was always in early August, when they would regale us about the splendours of their recent continental holiday. Only two days out of three hundred and sixty-five. 
It felt like a lot more.
The summer one was the easier of the two. Dad’s dislike of driving through the city in the dark meant that there was a blessed time limit and you could keep your eye on the magic eight. Easier also because our dismal little caravan week in Portrush couldn’t in any way compete with the icing sugar sands of the Seychelles or wherever else they had been (Wendy’s husband Eric had a great job in the Civil Service). No comparison – so it was just a simple case of listening and nodding in all the right places and not spilling your lemonade on the new suite. Their living room was spacious, and when they visited us their elbows were always tight to their sides, a slightly concerned look, as if they feared our pokey little house was about to swallow them. 
Mum had known Wendy Malcomson for thirty years. They had danced round the lampposts, played squash to a high county level, then gone to teaching college together. It was Mum’s slight edge on the squash court that had sown the seeds of competition in their relationship down through the years. Mum got engaged to Dad two whole years before Eric dropped to his knee – and there’s a candid photo of Wendy at the engagement party looking like she’s chewing on a slug. Wendy’s ring, when it eventually arrived, was twice the size of Mum’s and had so many carats that Dad used to say, “What’s up, Doc?” every time the thing was mentioned.
I suppose it was inevitable that Julian, her son, should inherit some of her competitive fervour.
Losing a game of any sort was something beyond Julian’s realm. He simply could not contemplate it, and so he would blatantly cheat. I remember a board game called Operations where you have to extract parts of the body with metal tweezers without touching the sides and activating the buzz. It would be his turn, and there he’d be with his tongue between his teeth, and it would be – zzzz…zzzz…zzzz – and not a flicker of shame on the bastard’s face.
Dad knew the score and the devil in him bought two identical 500 piece Disney jigsaws which he revealed for the first time an hour after one of their visits. I can remember it in vivid detail. Mickey front and centre with his eight fingers in pristine white gloves, Minnie all coy by his side, Donald looking exasperated as others clambered into the frame. I had practised on it for so long on Christmas Day I could have done it handcuffed and blindfolded. I started slow, making a big show of not being able to find the corners, watching the twinkle of glee on Julian’s face as he streaked ahead. I let him click Goofy’s gormless grin into place before I made my charge. Oh, the thrill and pleasure of it! But what really sold it – what really pissed him off – was Dad, seemingly oblivious to the drama, making intermittent quacking noises from the far side of the room. 
After that there was no direct hand to hand combat. Instead, Julian would take delight in playing with my presents and then (subtlety, I’ll give him that, he had been brought up genteelly) denouncing them in favour of his own. Yet, oddly, my toys – albeit superior versions – would often feature in his birthday celebrations in early February. Dad would wink at me when Mum gave us the rundown after one of their phone calls.
“I’ve no doubt he’ll one day win the Nobel Prize to go along with his Oscar,” Dad chuckled. “But our boy’s the puppeteer, is he not?” and he made us laugh with a Pinocchio style walk, whilst yodelling, “High on a hill was a lonely goat, olayee olayee olayee – ee ee!” My dad could be a funny bugger sometimes. 
The two thousand piece domino set I received one Christmas caused him considerable consternation. The obvious response was to giggle at his dad’s banter about cloth caps and beer soaked tables. But there was a method in my own Dad’s madness. We had recently seen an episode of Record Breakers that was dedicated to domino toppling – hundreds of thousands of the things. These beardy types had spent ages meticulously setting them up in a huge sports hall – big ones, small ones, multicolours, up and down and round and round, dozens of different designs and patterns. It was strangely impressive in a dorky, milk bottle glasses kind of way. Norris McWhirter was there with his clipboard and stop-watch. Roy Castle sang a song about it with his trumpet. Pompity pomp.
I knew Julian wouldn’t have the patience for any kind of set-up, so after they had had their little giggle we took them up to my room to show them the lay-out. The whole floor had been cleared of toys and clothes and me and Dad had spent hours positioning them and praying that the province wouldn’t suffer a freak earthquake. 
I’ll never forget the shadow that crossed Julian’s face when he looked down upon the display. It was weird. Like he thought he’d been hoodwinked.
“Who would like to do the honours?” I asked, and all the grown-ups laughed at my pronouncement, but it was kind laughter and I didn’t mind. I think I must have remembered the phrase from Upstairs, Downstairs. Then, the coup de grâce. “Julian, would you like to? Just a gentle little prod …” 
And then to see them all topple and splay out exactly in the fashion me and Dad had designed. That wonderful whirring, rippling effect. The feeling was electric. Every single one of them flattened. They all burst into spontaneous applause – even Julian, but only because he knew how churlish it would look if he didn’t.
Shortly after his next birthday, Wendy breathlessly reported that him and his Dad had successfully toppled all six thousand dominoes (three boxes of them) stretching from his room, all the way down the stairs, and into the new kitchen with the mahogany centre island with the special built in storage. 
Boxing Day 1980 marked the last ever visit. After that it was just Christmas and birthday cards and the occasional phone-call. Families can grow apart like that sometimes. 
It was my best present ever: the Evel Knievel stunt bike.
Mum had been warned not to leak anything down the phone in the weeks before Christmas. I might add, in case you have never heard of him, that Evel Knievel was an iconic America stunt rider of the 1970s. Rock star crowds gathered to watch him fly his Harley Davidson over London double decker buses. They’d run the tape in slow motion and you’d see his stars and stripes cape fly behind him like a super hero. Julian and his dad were heavily into motorbikes. He was always yammering on about a Kawasaki Z1000 he was going to get when he was older. If you showed the slightest interest, and even if you didn’t, he would start on about its air-cooled four-cylinder engine and the horsepower it could produce. Apparently, it could reach speeds of up to 130mph.
They arrived around noon baring wine, selection boxes and Wendy’s famous Christmas pudding – which to be fair was delicious. Julian was annoyed because he had wanted to bring his brand new Grifter bike to show us. A Raleigh Grifter was a bike to be coveted. They had proper mud guards and three speed gears that were controlled by a handlebar mounted twist grip. They were as close to an actual motorbike as you could get. I would have killed for one, but knowing Mum and Dad’s financial situation I hadn’t even bothered to ask.  
Julian clearly wasn’t overawed by the Evel Knievel stunt cycle toy. He did at least show a polite interest in the box which promised Top Speed Jumps, Wheelies, Crashes, and Much More – and so there was nothing else for it. I set up the jumping and landing ramps – Blue Peter and Grange Hill annuals – and attached him to the plastic red energiser. Then it was just a matter of turning the crank to wind up the back wheel and letting him rip.
“Very impressive!” Eric said, sounding not very impressed at all. But then another thought occurred to him and he perked up. “I wonder what percentage the man himself gets for each unit, you know, for each doll.”
Everyone pretended to think about this for a moment before moving back to the living-room. Everyone except me. I didn’t care how much he made on each one. The way I looked at it, if you broke every bone in your body jumping over buses and cars you deserved a few fringe benefits. What I did think about, quite a lot, was the shared smile that had passed between Eric and Julian at the mention of the word doll.
“You’re so lucky where you live,” I said to Julian in the back garden, far out of earshot of any adults.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, because of the hills; it’s flat as anything around here. When I get my Grifter, you know what I’m gonna do?” I gestured for him to lean forward and whispered fervently into his ear. “I’m gonna be the first to do it. What do you think of that?”
He threw back a shrug; but I noticed that his eyes were bright and eager.
About a month later Mum took a phone-call in the hallway and Dad held his hand up for silence when he heard the strange pitch in her voice. We both scrutinised her through the obscure glass, unnaturally hunched over, cradling the receiver to her face with both hands as if she was listening for its heartbeat. 
Julian had broken his neck.
Apparently, he had taken the Grifter up to the top of the Cavehill Road and then flown down it as fast as he could. It was as if he was trying to set some kind of speed record. Eric later tried unsuccessfully to sue Raleigh but the brakes were found to be in perfect working order and it all came to nothing. The problem had been at the bottom of the hill when he had run over a rotten old plank – a sort of a ramp I suppose – lost control and landed on his head. These were in the days before cyclists wore helmets.
Mum and Dad visited him in the Royal Victoria Hospital but I never saw him again. Our pokey little house, with its narrow hallway and bulky electrical sockets, wasn’t wheelchair friendly, and there was therefore no reason for the reciprocal visit. 
That was a long time ago. If he’s still alive, I wish him well. 
Sometimes I think of the Grifter I never had as a boy – but I have no regrets. 
Last month I treated myself to a present that had my teenage daughters in fits of laughter – cracking midlife crisis jokes and making Easy Rider references. It’s a vintage Kawasaki Z1000. A beautiful machine. Apparently, it can reach speeds of up to 130 mph! 
Not that I’ll ever know. I’m always very careful on her.

 Keith McKibbin is an English teacher working in Glasgow. He is married with four daughters and two beautiful granddaughters. His favourite short story writers are O. Henry and Raymond Carver. He has been published in both the Bath and Edinburgh short story competitions.

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Beside the Sea by Keith Mckibbin, ice cold tea

Beside the Sea

 

It was the third day of blistering heat and Gordon McGloughlin was wondering if the whole of County Down had poured into the seaside town of Newcastle. Bobbing heads and grinning sun-kissed features as far as the eye could see. His own hollow cheeked reflection looking back at him from a hundred shop windows and oncoming Ray-Bans – the sad little man who had come to the seaside on his own.

 

To the left lay the huge expanse of sandy beach. Hundreds of sunbathers complete with all the paraphernalia he remembered from his boyhood –flip-flops, inflatable sharks, floppy hats. In the distance he could make out the fizz of the wave foam and the fluttering reds and blues of high flying kites. Dogs of all sizes frolicking in and out, pink tongues lolling, unbelieving of their luck. There would be music and laughter as well, the gay sound of girls shrieking. He could hear none of this and he was glad.

 

On the other side of the one-way street could be found the dinging and clatter of the amusement arcades, where you could be the saviour in a zombie apocalypse (two pounds for two minutes) or try out the dodgems at the back, now slowed to a virtual crawl after some wimp had sued over a broken shoulder.

 

All in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains, clothed in green forest and, almost unbelievably, boasting a white cap of snow at the very top.

 

Gordon wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at all the gaiety, so he did neither and slurped at his cappuccino. It was at the perfect temperature now and tasted rather good. Not quite as delicious as the one he had enjoyed with Sophie last year in Aix en Provence. A dark, delicious roast so flavoursome and aromatic. Sophie’s slim elegant fingers around the cup, her manicure showcasing the solitaire twist he’d placed there moments before.

But what was the point in thinking about that?

 

He wondered where she was right now and if she was still with him.

 

Wherever they were he hoped it was raining.

 

A grandmother and granddaughter on the bench ahead, both devouring an ice-cream, the old woman deftly wiping the child’s hands and licking the drips from the cone – the little girl appalled at this blatant theft. Then a trio of young teenagers in tiny denim shorts and halter tops, two pasty midriffs flanking a bronze – proud and superior on her return from the continent. He managed not to stare at their braless joggle. It would be just like the thing for one of these anonymous faces around him to suddenly dissolve into a parent or student and witness Mr McGloughlin ogling an eyeful. Dirty old man. Teacher lech.

 

And then, the two teenage boys. Standing outside the Pizza Hut.

 

The tall one was puffing out his cheeks to simulate obesity, the other one doubled over in paroxysms of barely suppressed mirth. They were looking towards the beach and Gordon saw there a family who were large in every sense of the word, headed by a matronly figure who must have tipped the scales at twenty stones.

 

Scummy little bastards.

 

They weren’t from his school; but he recognised them for all that. These were the boys who clung to the radiators and whispered furtively as teachers walked by. The boys on hand to witness and report the pretty girl slipping on the patch of ice in the depth of winter. They were dressed almost identically in an all-white ensemble of ripped jeans and Jordan t-shirts. The taller of the two had a reversed baseball cap offset bizarrely by John Lennon style sunglasses; his shorter companion had forgotten the sunglasses, but as Gordon drew closer he (tragically) reversed his own baseball cap in imitation of his hero.

 

Tall and skinny was expounding in short little staccato bursts, his nonsensical dialogue peppered with profanity. The other was grinning in all the right places, eyes alight, desperate for some acknowledgement of his presence, a nod of approbation.

 

And in a sudden jolt of razor-sharp insight, Gordon knew that this second boy was doomed.

 

And he was right, of course.

 

In less than five minutes his jaw would be broken in several places, and he would never be able to fully close his mouth again. His eye socket would be fractured, his eardrum perforated, and news of the subsequent brain swelling would drain the colour from his grandmother’s face – the way she had looked when first told about the poor little Dunblane children. She would not have recognised this sneering baseball-capped teenager. She knew only the cheerful little chap who helped carry in her shopping on Sunday.

 

The revelation staggered Gordon and he slowed to a halt opposite them, every fibre of his being wanting to reach out and say this:

 

“Lads, I know you’re not really bad. But hanging here is not a good idea. Too much humanity. Too many things for you to react to.”

 

What would their reaction be?

That was easy.

Hooting, braying laughter.

 

They would think him a weirdo or a paedo – look to their ready-made audience and invite them to see him as such as well.

 

No. There was nothing left for it but to leave them to their fate. And so he walked on. On through the heavy throng of sun worshippers, amusement makers, sandcastle builders and ice-cream lickers – these good, decent people, capable of every evil imaginable, but today just happy to be beside the seaside beside the sea.

 

The little girl was charging full pelt down the pavement, pigtails flying, as if her very life depended upon it. Head down, fists pumping. Gregory grinned at the sight of her and the sweet memories she evoked.

 

Running with gay abandon. The sheer joy of having the wind in her face. Slowing to a halt, then running back to her family, turning, and charging back the way she came. People were having to veer to each side to give her space – but her energy in the hot sun was irresistible and there could be heard a smattering of applause from those with hands not otherwise engaged.

 

Something now about the squat figure as the gap between them closed. Pretty but in a distinct way. The nose slightly flattened. Upward slanting eyelids. Tongue protruding slightly.

 

An old woman in a wheelchair reached back and set her hand on her son’s, gesturing for him to stop and acknowledge the child. The old woman was paying her last visit to the beach and both she and her son knew it. The cancer was racing around her body now and by the end of the month even this torturous journey would be beyond them. But oh, was she glad they had made the effort today. The sun on her shoulders was glorious, they still had the tarts from the pastry shop to look forward to, and now – behold this beautiful little girl.

 

“Look, Rupert. How happy she is.”

 

His real name wasn’t Rupert. It was a private joke. As a boy he had cherished a pair of Rupert the Bear chequered trousers and they had always made her smile. Last February, after her diagnosis, he had bought himself a pair from Amazon just to see her smile again. He was looking now at where she pointed, but for a moment couldn’t see beyond the blister pack and the slow release morphine tablets he MUST NOT FORGET to pick up from the chemist. Then the little girl hared back along the pavement and he cracked wide a grin, looked down at his mother, and saw her again in all her vigour and vitality.

 

Here came her family. A harried woman struggling under the burden of a beach bag, an older sister – loving, supportive – but also (she was a teenager) glancing self-consciously here and there, eyes mostly on the gum scarred pavement. There was Dad. Head high, a bear of a man, commanding the centre of the walkway, eyes fixed on the bobbing, flying pigtails.

 

And in a blink, Gregory finds himself in the hospital delivery room, hovering slightly above them, silently observing the last climatic moments.

 

The young midwife slightly concerned now but hiding it well. The mother pink with exertion, streaming mucus. The big bear standing to the side and squeezing her hand, spouting soft gibberish.

 

A purple gush from below, a tangle of little arms and legs – then a great buzzing bell slicing through the air and the little bundle whisked away, no time for him to even cut the cord.

 

Thirty seconds of utter ghastliness. Time enough for Dad to look skyward and say to himself, with a coherence that banishes all other thought: God, here’s the deal. Take me instead of her! I’ll die now this very instant if you let her live!

 

Before God has a chance to consider his offer, their new daughter is borne back in, wrapped in white linen and belatedly announcing her arrival with a chin vibrating screech. The relief they feel is monumental. But it is only fleeting; for now Gordon sees her father noticing something not quite right about her. Not the colour, that will correct itself in a moment; it is the shape of her head …ever so slightly wrong.

 

 About the author

 

Keith Mckibbin is an English teacher working in Glasgow. He is married with four daughters and two beautiful granddaughters. His favourite short story writers are O.Henry and Raymond Carver. He has been published in both the Bath and Edinburgh short story competitions. Paste author bio here

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the author the other half goes to expenses e.g. Maintaining the web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.