Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > Not Stevie Smith
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1733 guests online and 2 members online |
Shorts
| print friendly version | |
| Not Stevie Smith | |
| By zmbbw | ||||||||||||||
| 26 June 2008 | ||||||||||||||
|
Donna was bored so she decided not to be her. She kissed husband Ben goodbye and then dressed in his clothes: a baggy pair of jeans; a navy smock similar to one she’d seen Orson Wells wear on Parkinson in the seventies; and a corduroy jacket with the sleeves rolled up so that the lining showed at the cuff.
At the railway station she crossed the pedestrian bridge and stared across the tracks at the passengers who, on any other day, would be her travelling companions into the city. They stared back. Wouldn’t you like to know, she thought. Knutswood was more continental than her own town even though by train, it was a good ten minutes further from the continent. There were trees in the high street with broad green leaves that looked ironed and the sun was altogether more favourably disposed. Donna stepped into a café with a Spanish name opposite a boutique with a French name and said good morning over the steam and the tat-tat-tatting of Latino music. “Buon giorno,” the waitress replied. The only vacant table was a four-seater but that was ok; she could spread herself out. She laid her satchel across the table and removed from it a Dictaphone, a note book and pen, a pad of writing paper and the novel she was reading at the moment about a girl who thought she was a boy. The waitress came across and Donna ordered a cappuccino and mineral water. “Can I squeeze in here? Do you mind?” He was a Hugh Grant type; floppy curls, a pink shirt unbuttoned revealing a hairless chest and a jacket hooked from a finger over his shoulder. A pound-to-a-penny he goes without socks, she thought but she resisted the temptation to look. She did notice however, that the café had thinned out a little and a couple of tables were now vacant. She took her satchel off the table and collected her papers together. “You’ll have to excuse me if I dribble coffee down myself,” he said. “I’m not long back from the dentist and my mouth isn’t working properly.” “Yes. Well, I’m sure you’ll try your best.” Donna went back to writing; she was working on a short story about a boy whose imaginary friend led him to evil acts. “What are you doing?” “I’m working,” she said without looking up. “Right. Are you a teacher?” Donna looked up. He’d twisted in his seat and was trying to read what she’d written. She turned the pad over. “I’m sorry. I’m too nosy by half, I know I am. I’m Daniel.” He held out a hand which Donna, after a moments pause, shook. “So are you? A teacher I mean.” “No. I’m a writer.” “Really! Do I know you? I mean, would I know your name?” “I’ve been published so, yes you might.” “Not Stevie Smith?” “Yes, that’s right, not Stevie Smith and not Sylvia Plath and not any other writer long since dead.” “Ah. Sorry. Literature’s not really my line.” The question hung, jerking violently between them but only Donna knew that she wasn’t going to be the one to cut it down. “Music’s my line,” Daniel said at last. “I’m a song writer.” “Yes.” “Yes. In fact, I finished a new song this morning. I’d love to play it to you. My apartment’s just around the corner.” He placed his hand on the table as close to Donna’s as it was possible to be without touching it. She held his gaze and savoured the knowledge that she was neither going to look away nor allow her hand to touch his. “I’ll need to eat,” she said. “I can’t possibly listen to songs on an empty stomach.” Daniel’s apartment was white with no walls separating the bedroom, living area and kitchen. He said the whole apartment was en suite. There was a guitar standing in a cradle and a reel-to-reel tape recorder on a glass table. Donna threw her satchel on the floor and flopped onto the sofa. Daniel took the guitar and sat on the carpet at her feet. After a few moments during which he tuned the guitar, stretched his fingers and coughed a little, he played a song about a girl who fell asleep on a rowing boat and woke up on the Thames below Tower Bridge. When he’d finished he placed the guitar back in it’s cradle and removed Donna’s shoe. Daniel had a birth mark at the top of his buttocks, a bloody-looking thing in the shape of South America, and when he came he cried good golly miss molly as if his body was breaking. “Will you let me have your number?” he asked as he watched her dress. “No. I can’t do that. If you scribble yours down, I’ll ring you.” Ben was surprised to find Donna home before him when he returned from work. He smelt sweet from the bakery. “Hello, what’s this?” he asked throwing his keys on to the table and removing his jacket. “I had a headache so I came home early.” “You’re ok now though? We’re still going to the pub?” “Yes I’ll be fine. I took some tablets.” As she sat at her dresser applying make-up, Donna could feel a warmth pulsing gently through her like morphine. You are who you want to be when you’re a stranger, she thought. You’re free. If you want to be you are. “Cum ba, Donna,” Ben shouted from the foot of the stairs. “We haven’t got all night. The quiz starts in ten minutes.” At the railway station the following day, Donna felt like she’d been on holiday and half expected her travel companions to welcome her back with hugs and kisses. She knew them, she realised. In a way she did; by the way they dressed and by the newspapers and magazines they bought. The lady with the tartan shopping trolley had appeared on Opportunity Knocks as a girl impersonating Shirley Temple, and her friend – who invariably arrived as the train was pulling in, her heels clacking urgently along the platform – lived alone and had recently been to court to take out an injunction against an alcoholic neighbour. How much of a stranger can a person really be, she wondered. She decided not to call Daniel. She decided to shred his scrap of paper when she got to the office. By mid-morning, controlling credit was boiling Donna’s brain. It was whilst she stood in the kitchenette area of the office flapping a sachet of cappuccino powder, waiting for the kettle to boil, that she remembered Daniel’s number. She could ring him. From a works phone he wouldn’t be able to trace her call. He really didn’t know the first thing about her. “Daniel it’s Donna.” “Donna! Heck. I didn’t think you’d call.” “Well. I wasn’t sure that I would.” She was aware of muffled activity in the background and without knowing why, imagined him to be in a waiting room or toilet at a railway station. “Well, er, I’m glad you did. I could … I mean, when can I see you?” Suddenly Donna heard a door creak and there was a sudden clamour of clanging metal on metal. “Cum ba Dan, there’s work to do you know! What are you doing?” Donna started to choke and slammed down the phone. She stood, aware of her work colleagues turned towards her, her lungs flattened by panic; unable to breath.
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|