Links to “THE BOMB IN THE SHED…” - CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3 - CHAPTER 4 - CHAPTER 5 - CHAPTER 6 - Chapter 7 - CHAPTER 8 - CHAPTER 9 - CHAPTER 10
Hi Everyone
Quick update from me on these Tuesday posts. I’ve decided to make this an irregular thing - based on whether I have some content to share or not. So don’t expect an email every Tuesday from now on. I’m sure you’ll live. Chapters of ‘The bomb in the shed…’ will continue to come out every Friday as before.
In the meantime here’s another short story, “THE NIGHT LARKS.” If there are any fans of mud larking out there you might like this one…
The Night Larks
Emma was hit with a sudden taste of seawater, and the smell too, like the Cornish beach of her childhood holidays. Which was strange, as she was sitting in a pizza restaurant in the middle of London and they didn’t even serve seafood.
“They’ve run out of croutons, typical,” said Tim.
He was back from the salad bar with a small bowl piled high with everything it had to offer, cucumbers extending the sides so he could fit more in. The free salad and 2 for 1 pizza coupons in his pocket were the reason he’d chosen this sad little place for their Friday date-night. Why was he still acting like an impoverished student even though they’d both been working for a couple of years?
From the moment he’d arrived Tim had looked nervous. Fidgeting, distracted, picking at the label of his beer bottle. It was obvious what the evening was really about. Their relationship had been a bright thing once, but it had faded slowly after they’d left Uni and started their careers. There was no dramatic event or telling flashpoint, just a painfully slow decline, and that made it difficult for either of them to end things. Tonight Tim was clearly finally going to bite the bullet and do something about it.
Good for him.
He said, “Emma, I’ve been thinking.”
This was it.
“Ok”
“We should move in together… I think might be The One.”
Emma laughed, she couldn’t help it. One of those nervous laughs that come out when you’re not sure how else to react. He was so wrong. She wasn’t The One. What did that even mean?
There it was again, another hit of saltwater, stronger than before. This time accompanied by the sound of waves crashing against the shore.
“Did you hear that?” asked Emma.
Tim looked dejected, and a little confused. “Hear what?”
“You don’t smell anything weird?”
“Are you ok?”
Maybe she wasn’t.
“Excuse me.”
Emma fled to the bathroom and studied herself in the mirror. The person looking back at her certainly looked sane. She’d spent ages getting ready, even though it was for a break up meal in a shitty restaurant. How perverse what that? She looked ridiculous: too much make-up and a brand new dress. None of that was the real her, was it? She wet her hands and ran them roughly through her long dark hair until the carefully styled waves reverted to an unmanageable frizz. Then grabbed a couple of paper towels, wet them and scrubbed at her face until all her make-up was gone. Better. The girl from the beach in Cornwall was almost back.
A toilet flushed and a woman emerged from one of the stalls, gave Emma a concerned look then left as quickly as she could, barely pausing to wash her hands. Best go back and tell Tim she didn’t feel well. Then go home. She wasn’t in the right state of mind to deal with all this now. On the way back to the table she passed an emergency exit. It was open and the smell of the sea was even stronger outside. Before she knew it Emma was heading down the street, as if pulled by an invisible force. She couldn’t walk fast enough in her heels so she kicked them off and started running in her bare feet. The absurdity of this wasn’t lost on her, or the risk of injury, but she didn’t care.
The streets of Borough Market were narrow and busy with evening revellers. Emma weaved through the crowds, attracting bemused stares in her wake and caring not a bit about them. As soon as she reached the riverbank she leant over the wall and looked out across the Thames. It was an extremely low tide, the water a narrow river of black in the moonlight with wide banks of riverbed either side. She turned to follow the path east, London Bridge rising up ahead of her. There were fewer people here and the urgency she’d felt when she first left the restaurant eased. A sense of peace settled and she took the time to breathe in the dank river air which mingled with the salt water smell of the sea which had never quite left her.
With Tower Bridge now way behind her and out of sight she was alone. The aching of her legs began to overwhelm the overriding sense of purpose that had driven her on this strange odyssey. She stopped and sat on the seawall, trying to massage some feeling back into her feet which were covered in cuts and bruises. She’d left her coat at the restaurant she realised, and she was cold and hungry. What on Earth had come over her? Maybe she should call an Uber and go home. But then she heard voices, coming from the large area of exposed riverbed.
Was it her imagination playing tricks on her again? Maybe not. There were unexpected shapes in the darkness, some of which were moving. There was an old metal ladder nearby, running down to a small sandy beach area. It took Emma a while to descend as the ladder was rusty and felt like it could break away from the wall at any moment.
Thankfully it didn’t.
“You made it, how wonderful…”
What Emma had taken to be a rock from above turned out to be an old woman sitting in a deck chair with an empty one beside her. She was thick set, had a big smile and a mess of grey hair on her head. In one hand she held a thermos and in the other sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. She looked for all the world like someone on a lovely day out at the seaside.
“… Why don’t you sit yourself down and have somethin’ to eat and drink with me? Everyone calls me Nana.”
Emma wasn’t in the habit of taking food and drink from strangers, even if they were friendly and called Nana. But she was tired and ravenous, so why not. She took the empty seat and accepted a mug and a sandwich gratefully. It was tea so milky most you had to wonder if there was any tea in it, just how Emma liked it. And the sandwich was cheese, marmite and grated carrot, her favourite.
“Thanks for this.” she said with a sigh. “You wouldn’t believe the night I’ve had.”
The old woman nodded as if she was prepared to believe just about anything. Then again, why not? She was sat on a beach in the heart of London in the middle of the night. What would seem strange to her?
“I’m Emma by the way.” Emma had been so caught up in accepting Nana’s hospitality she’d rudely forgotten to introduce herself.
“Yes you are, Dear,” replied Nana.
While the old woman rummaged around in an enormous multicoloured crochet bag, Emma carried on drinking her tea and eating her sandwich. It didn’t take long for her to finish both.
Nana finally surfaced. “Here, put these on. You’ll catch a death dressed like that.”
She handed Emma some thick denim overalls, a pair of woolly socks and some sturdy work boots, similar to her own outfit. They fit Emma perfectly.
“Were you expecting me?” asked Emma.
She was only half joking but Nana considered this carefully, like it was a perfectly sensible question.
“Expecting is strong word,” she replied. “Hoping for is maybe more how it is.”
What did that mean? Emma didn’t get a chance to find out.
“Here come with me,” said Nana.
She lifted herself out of her seat slowly and with plenty of groans. But once she was on her feet she disappeared towards the river with surprising speed and agility. Emma struggled to keep up, barely able to see by the feeble light of the moon. They were headed towards the figures she’d seen from the river wall. They were poking around the stony ground newly exposed by the receded river. Occasionally there would be the bright burst of torchlight from one of the shadowy forms, for just a few moments before everything went dark again.
“What are you all doing here?” asked Emma.
“Night Larkin’,” replied Nana, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “It’s a kind of Mud Larkin’,” she explained.
That sounded familiar. A couple of people at Uni had talked about doing that. Digging around the riverbed picking up all bits of old rubbish is what it sounded like. She’d thought it rather mad.
“Except you do it at night?” she ventured.
“You’re a smart one,” replied Nana not unkindly. “That’s part of it for sure.”
They stopped in an area that Nana seemed more than satisfied with but looked no different to everywhere else to Emma. It was near the river though, so probably only exposed when the tide was right out like tonight.
“What are we looking for?” Emma copied Nana by poking around and lifting up the odd loose stone. “Treasure?”
“Of a kind.”
“What’s this?” Emma held up something she’d found that looked manmade.
“Bit of clay pipe,” replied nana without appearing to look up. “Keep it if you like, there’s thousands of ‘em.”
The whole thing seemed a rather pointless exercise at first, rooting though rubbish abandoned decades or even centuries ago. But the longer Emma was there the more relaxing she found it. And with each new discovery she started to speculate about the origins of what she found, be it pipe, fragment of plate or coin. Who had it belonged to and how did it end up at the bottom of the river?
“Why do you do this at night?” asked Emma. “Doesn’t it makes things harder?”
“Nothing worth doing comes easy,” replied Nana. “Larkin’ aint no different.”
Emma had given up seeking straight answers, but that was part of the old woman’s charm.
“Here, quick girl, take a look at this,” Nana waved her over.
She held a small porcelain hairbrush in one hand, lit briefly by a torch held in the other. She was wiping away mud on her overalls to reveal a colourful painted design on the back.
Emma said, “It’s beautiful.”
Amazing to think it had been buried all these years. But even as she watched the colours started to fade until they had disappeared altogether a few moments later.
“What happened?” asked Emma.
“The silt preserves everythin’ as if it were the day it were dropped in the river. Soon as it’s exposed to the air it decays, decades in minutes.”
How sad. Something so beautiful that had been lost for so long. Yet by liberating it from the mud its destruction inevitably followed.
“Don’t look so glum,” said Nana. “These moments is special. It’s what makes Larkin’ worth it.”
“Over here!”
One of the shadowy figures was calling out, the only sound Emma had heard from their companions all night.
“Quickly girl,” said Nana. “We can’t miss this.”
She was practically running across the broken rocky ground now. Emma tried her best to follow but had to be careful not to turn an ankle. When she caught up there were six of them huddled in a group, holding hands in a circle. Some kind of weird ritual.
“Grab my hand,” urged Nana.
She waved it for Emma to find. A woman took Emma’s other hand and the circle was complete once more. It should have felt strange to be standing there on the riverbed in the middle of the night, holding hands with strangers whose faces she couldn’t see clearly in the darkness. But for some reason it didn’t. Sitting in the restaurant with Tim waiting for him to dump her was far stranger in a way. Weird, she hadn’t given Tim a moment’s thought since she’d left. Was that awful of her?
Something was making its way around the circle like a strange and silent game of pass the parcel. Emma couldn’t see what it was, just saw the movement. Each person in the group would take this mysterious item in their hand as it was passed to them, link hands again so the circle was complete once more, then stand there swaying silently. What could it possibly be? And why that strange reaction. What would happen to her when it was her turn? Something awful? Nothing at all?
Emma felt a sudden urge to run, across the stone ground to the sandy beach, up the metal ladder and back to the safety of the busy London streets. Back to Tim even. If she hadn’t been connected to these strangers through the touch of their hands she would have done so. When her turn came she felt cold metal pressed into her hand by Nana.
“Stay safe, Dear,” whispered the old woman.
It was a locket. Emma could make that out from the feel of thing and from the little she could see when she held it up close. It felt cold and slimy from the mud. Hands reached for hers and she was reconnected to the circle.
And then she wasn’t on the riverbed anymore.
It was daytime, and Emma was standing on the edge of a wooden platform that extended beyond the river bank, the murky water of the Thames flowing slowly beneath her. Her arms and legs were tightly bound and laden with heavy weights. Strong arms held her still. On the far bank she could see London, but it was not the one she knew. There was a densely packed skyline of low-rise wooden houses crammed together, teaming with people, carts and animals. She could see the far bank clearly, but she couldn’t hear it, any sound was drowned out by the loud baying of an angry crowd behind her. In her hand she could feel the cold metal of the locket still. But it felt clean and new.
The urge to turn round to witness her tormentors would have been outweighed by the fear of what she might see, even if she could have broken free of the hands that held her. As it was all Emma could do was stand still and listen. Then she felt a heavy shove from behind and she was falling. The bayong of the crowd turned to loud cheers just before she crashed through the surface of the freezing cold water. The only sound in her ears now was her own muffled screams as she sank into a thick dirty soup of river water that poured down her throat and filled her lungs with fire. The weights dragged her down deeper and deeper and she sank faster and faster, struggling in vain. The last thing she felt was the locket falling from her grasp.
---
Emma was back on the riverbed, at night, lying on the rocks and looking up at the moon and stars above, gasping desperately for air, the indistinguishable shapes of seven strangers faces looking down at her.
“Are you ok there, Dear?”
It was Nana’s voice.
“I think so,” Emma managed between breaths.
“You know what,” said Nana. “I think Tim was right, you really are The One.”
That’s it, hope that was interesting. Any comments or questions let me know.
Jonathan
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