The Irrational Kettle

It began with short, unsolicited peeps, little more than the squeak of a mouse. But then it seemed to become braver, like an unruly parrot. Once or twice he caught it whistling at passers-by before the water had boiled - he went to the open window on one of these occasions just as a pretty blonde with a bob and a very short skirt looked up and shook her head in disgust.

It began to whistle whenever he and Ellie fucked - three short bursts, tugboat-like, just as he was about to come, or she was. But it only became truly unbearable when it began to trill in the night, just after he had turned the light off, or was turning over in bed, or had just got to sleep, and he would have to get up and see to it, and make himself a strong coffee.

The Polish Shop

In the Polish shop you can buy Polish beer. Polish beer gets you drunk in a Polish way - a way that makes you want to shout, embrace, pump your fist into the cold night air.

But Polish beer also gives you a Polish hangover, a hangover that barely shelters human life. It is the flip side: with the ecstasy of the unknown comes the fear of the unknown. Polish beer is like the Polish flag: it has its red half and its white half.

Sometimes, when I have one of these hangovers, I speculate as to what other terrible secrets of science and the occult are trapped inside the Polish shop. I wonder if all of their produce has this dualistic, red-and-white effect. If the slices of cold beef come from some cloven-hoofed cow whose task it is to tempt salivating Englishmen with the deep mushroomy flavours of central Europe then impregnate their arteries with eye-popping levels of fat. And I wonder if, out the back of the shop, behind the little lady with giant glasses, there is a laboratory or a den of alchemists working round the clock to keep red separate from white, praying that no-one invents a cure for the hangover.

The Hunger Strikers

Mr Ham's cell was close to Mr Corn's, so although both of them had taken a vow of silence to complement their hunger strikes, it was easy enough for each to keep abreast of how the other was doing.

Mr Ham heard the rats cavorting in the night, he heard them eating Mr Corn's unwanted food, and his own.

Mr Ham heard Mr Corn die. It was a soft sound, like a rat leaving through a window.

When Mr Corn died, Mr Ham broke his vow of silence.

'Well,' said Mr Ham to the guard, 'There goes another one.' And he shook his head sadly, and ordered a plate of food.

The North

My friends from the North came to visit; each one of them was wearing clothes. They all had heads, and each head was either a little bigger or a little smaller than the other heads. I shan't tell you about their legs, you wouldn't believe me.

The Ballad of Pelé, Dan and the Writer

Pelé is the greatest footballer who has ever existed, and he has trouble getting an erection. An old friend of mine, let's call him Dan, was a pretty good footballer but now he has no money. He managed to get three girls pregnant before he hit twenty.

If there was a way of measuring happiness - by attaching electrodes to Pelé's temples, by psychologically analysing Dan - it would be interesting to get the two together and conduct a comparative study. Maybe take them both out to Nando's. Publish the results in the Lancet, or whatever. But there isn't a way. And in any case I think they'd come out of it about equal.

The sun is booming down on Pelé and his family (I'm sure he lives in California or somewhere like that). Dan still plays five-a-side. I can tell you which one is happier because I'm a writer, but I won't tell you because I don't know.

Heads

In 1743 in a farm to the north of the parish a lamb was born with two heads. It was rejected by its mother but Elizabeth, the 15-year-old daughter of the farmer, took care of it, coaxing milk into each of its heads. An invisible defect, complementary to the obvious visible mutation, resulted in the closure of one of the windpipes, and consequently the death of one of the heads. Elizabeth frequently visited the nearest village and was of great interest to the local males, unintentionally turning their heads. The lamb, with difficulty, was reared to adulthood, but Elizabeth had quickly lost interest in it now that it no longer had two living heads. In 1744 Elizabeth gave birth to a baby with two heads. An elderly man arrived on a horse and, in the next room, severed both of the heads.

Notes on a Failed Short Story Workshopped in a Creative Writing Class

The short story that became known as 'Home Help' went through a long and at times uncomfortable gestation period (not unlike Ellie's pregnancy in the story). The birth itself, however, was relatively painless. This is due in no small part to the workshopping process.

I had all but given up on the idea entirely before the story was workshopped, but some good advice saved it, and the resulting changes were made quite easily. It seems that there was always a story in there somewhere, it just needed a bit of a yank to come out. One important change was the removal of the opening flashback, which was rightly criticised for being a bit 'stuck-on'. Some of the stronger images resurfaced in a different part of the story and on the whole the balance of the piece was improved.

The most significant alteration, however, came when I was persuaded to drop the incestuous elements. It was a difficult decision, but necessary to make the story palatable. I am convinced that the change did not lessen the impact of the story, but it did result in a change of title, which is a shame because I liked 'Hoovering for Granddad'.

Blind-Man's Etymology

We normally see it in the word 'immaculate': macula - Latin for spot or stain. But we don't often think of the obverse: 'maculate', spotted or stained, or more rarely, sexually defiled.

He reads that maculate can also be a verb, to speckle. He thinks of the spots that appear on his walls, and in front of his eyes.

He reads quickly, thinking of his children and his grandchildren, thinking that time is short. He is reminded as he reads of the words 'conception' and 'degeneration'.

The Door

She knocked on his door four times (it's a pretty front door, she thought: two hanging baskets suspended like ostentatious earrings) and tried to think of what she would say when he opened it. Maybe something like 'Here I am,' but not that. That wouldn't sound right, and it might not even be true. If you think about it, she thought, am I really here? If it's true then it's self-evident and therefore doesn't need to be said, and if it's not true then it opens up a whole new can of Cartesian worms, like what is here? And does the fact that she assumes that she is here qualify as an actual thought, a thought that would confirm her existence here? This is what she thought. And then she thought that he would be inside, writing a story about what she is thinking as she stands on his doorstep dumbly looking at the hanging baskets. What she is actually thinking now is that she should write a story about waiting for him to open the door and about how her story and his story would, or should, be basically identical. And all this before he has even opened the door.

The Inadequate Husband is a Shit Washing Machine

I was actually on a couch when I said this to the doctor. A real, bona fide psychiatrist-style couch. I'm sure if I hadn't been it wouldn't have sounded so nuts. But there you go. I began by telling him how I had been feeling inadequate recently, how my wife had taken on a greater professional workload with more responsibility as my own career stagnated. How she still did practically all the housework, and all the practical stuff like paying bills. I just couldn't find a way to help and she didn't seem to want to let me help. And then the washing machine broke, and after we had taken it to the tip I decided that I would be the washing machine. I nestled quite neatly under the formica, and when the oven next to me was turned on I was genuinely cosy. My wife seemed pleased or at least unaffected by my new specialisation. She fed socks, jogging bottoms, pillow cases and knickers into my mouth, tipped my head up and poured powder into my left nostril and fabric softener into my right. I juddered into action, glad to finally be of use. But when my cycle had finished all the clothes were filthy. If anything, they were worse than when they went in. You can imagine how that made me feel, I said to the doctor. I just don't know what to do any more. I thought of trying to replace the kettle, but I don't think I could deal with the hard water.

Two Jobs

No.1: The Factory Workers

The factory employed about 200 workers. It was the job of half of these to make plates, and of the other, better-paid half to break those very same plates. If a newly-made plate had any kind of defect - a warp, say, or a missing patch of glaze - it was never allowed to be broken. Many of these defective plates were given to the poor, others were stacked in old aircraft hangars.



No.2: The Veterinary Nurse

A man bought a sick dog into the vet's surgery. The vet sat on his haunches and howled. The dog howled back. The man looked at the nurse quizzically, and the nurse said, 'It's alright, he knows his stuff. He's just making the dog feel more comfortable.'

Later that day, a man came to the vet with a beautiful golden carp dying in a small tank. The vet sat on his haunches and howled.

The Second-Oldest Bridge

The country in question is small and only has one major river running through it, so it is no surprise that the second-oldest bridge stands right next to the oldest bridge in the country. The second-oldest bridge is not jealous of her renowned sister. After all, there are many bridges younger than her - it is a comparatively illustrious thing to be the second-oldest bridge in the country. From where she rests she can see the pretty skirts and shapely legs of the oldest bridge - she has kept her looks, and even the most ornate architectural flourishes are still crisply defined in the pink sunlight. If the second-oldest bridge were the type to hold a grudge... But no.

Surprisingly few people walk across the oldest bridge - she sees the odd young couple, even the occasional suicide - but hundreds of people use the second-oldest bridge every day. Maybe thousands. From here you can see the oldest bridge in all her glory. People stop and look over the short stretch of muddy river, and rest their arms on the broad shoulders of the second-oldest bridge in the country, and she is content.

He Will Eventually Decide Not To Take His Umbrella

He will walk to her house. Her house, which is not really a house but a flat, or not even that, more of a room, a room in a house, is in the part of town that is considered to be quite rough. That is, he considers it to be rough and it is quite rough compared with some of the better-heeled addresses up the hill, but she grew up there, in the rough part of town, and never had any problems unless you count the guy that used to set light to his front room practically every week, but he was mental rather than rough. Anyway, he will walk to where she lives, and he will take his umbrella - the black one with the metal point at the end - because it looks like rain. In fact, it does not look like rain. He only wants to take the umbrella with its metal point because he feels it offers him some sort of physical protection, so he has convinced himself that it will rain. But just before he leaves he will think, nothing would be as ignominious as being beaten to death with one's own umbrella in the rough part of town, so he decides not to take his umbrella, and because I am the author I know that this has already happened, and it will rain, and he will get wet, but he won't get into any trouble in the rough part of town.

Lessons 1 and 2

Lesson 1: History

If their relationship was a historical conflict, he thought, it would be one of the colonial wars of independence – India, perhaps. There are times when the kitchen is like the siege of Lucknow. But there are times when he feels like a small European nation during the Cold War, or more precisely the Cuban Missile Crisis. He thinks that it will be okay as long as they are never reduced to the lows of Korea.



Lesson 2: Home Economics

When Ellie bakes it almost always feels like a special occasion. She bakes to feel happy. Then she eats until she feels sick. Then sometimes she is sick. Special occasions and sickness are often linked.

How They Are Different

They are different because he has tried to explain to her his theory about popular music hundreds of times - the one that focuses on The Ballad of El Goodo by Big Star - and she has never listened. She has a theory of her own, one that has nothing to do with popular music, one that states that men like racket sports because of an inborn psychological propensity for grasping, grabbing, holding and hitting. She thinks this can explain everything from masturbation to hand-holding to the way he brushes his teeth.

This is how they are different. That is not to say they are incompatible. In fact, it is rare to find a person with a theory at all these days. To find two in one bedroom is remarkable.

Like a Fucking Pirate

Always writing letters, she was. Used to be a real looker, a stunner, but lost her eye in a game of badminton. Walked around with a black eye patch after that. Looked like a fucking pirate. Some guys go for that sort of thing, I know, but it made me feel less close to her. And I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say she developed a one-eyed view of the world. Like that time she wrote me that letter, the one that began, 'My Dearest Tom, do you remember that time in summer, the really hot summer we had, when we were rowing...' and she had no idea that 'rowing' could have meant either propelling a boat or having an argument, and how was I to know which one she meant, I couldn't even finish reading the letter I was so angry. Stupid bitch, how can she be so one-eyed?

Telephone

Nobody has a real telephone these days. I mean a static telephone, one clamped to a wall or sitting on a bedside table. Nobody. But he has a telephone. A grey one on the desk in his study. It gathers dust well. He has a telephone and, like an idiot, he is waiting for it to ring. While he is waiting he realises that the telephone - its physical, light-grey presence - reminds him of a number of other things that aren't telephones or communication devices of any kind. It reminds him of a shell, because you pick up a shell and put it to your ear. It reminds him of his dog, the one that died when it was barely more than a pup, because of the Cockney rhyming slang for phone. It reminds him of a female hand, because of the way that the receiver is held. It reminds him of football matches, because he shouts at football matches. It reminds him of night because he closes his eyes when he talks on the phone.

Swedish Cars

I love Swedish cars. I really really love them. They're safe and cool. Maybe not as safe as an armoured vehicle or as cool as a Lamborghini, but quite safe and quite cool. So I guess that makes me kind of an average person. I even like their average names - Saab, Volvo - and I like other average things, like getting drunk but not too drunk, and making paella but leaving out the saffron. Maybe I don't really really love Swedish cars. Maybe I just like them in an average kind of way. Maybe I don't really really love anything.

My ex-girlfriend's mother had a Saab. Large, slow, a pain in the arse to get round corners, but plenty of space in the back. The car was great though.

See, even my jokes are average.

Alligator

His dad used to say 'See you later, alligator' like in the old song, so it was no surprise that he said it too, whenever someone left the house, or whenever he left the house and someone else remained. But this was the 1990s, Blair was in No. 10, and everybody had a little bit more imagination than before. So he didn't content himself with 'See you later, alligator'. To his parents he said 'See you later progenators' - a deliberate, humorous mispronunciation of 'progenitors'. To his younger brother and some of his male friends he said 'See you later, masturbator' (although for some reason he never said this to any of his female friends). Later in life, when he moved in with his girlfriend, he began to say, referencing a somewhat tragicomic figure from a popular soap opera, 'See you later, Cat Slater'. Sometimes it was Nigel Slater, the trailblazing celebrity chef. Australian cricketer Michael Slater was less successful. Obviously, there are other things that rhyme with alligator - bear-baiter, cheese grater, pater, traitor. He hasn't used any of these yet, but life is long and occasionally he'd just rather say goodbye.

The Leather Jacket

You know you won't buy the leather jacket. This makes you want it more.

You know the leather jacket won't suit you, that it will make you look like a 1950s loser or a character from Twin Peaks. This makes you want it more.

You know she won't buy you the leather jacket, even though it's your birthday soon - an important one with a zero at the end - and you've stared at it every time you've passed the shop with her. This makes you want it more.

You know she will say, 'Save your money. Don't buy the leather jacket.' This makes you want it more.

You know how many dead cows it takes to make a sofa, but you have no idea about a leather jacket. This makes you want it more.

You buy the leather jacket, and it looks like shit, so you take it back to the shop.

Argument

The London plane is not a native tree, but it is ubiquitous. It is therefore almost certain that the following event has happened before, to some other person.

I was walking briskly through the town centre. There was a strong wind. A seed pod from a London plane tree came away from its parent cluster and lodged itself in the back of my throat. I could not bring it up, so was forced to swallow it.

At first I was worried that the seed pods were poisonous.

London planes are not poisonous, I read later. In fact, some people believe them to be the cleanest of trees: they are apparently able to detoxify pollution. However, another view states that they take pollutants and poisons out of the air only to store them within themselves. Nothing can ever be simple.

The Garden in Munich

I found the public garden by accident - I used to walk for three quarters of an hour a day, at lunch time when everybody else walked. On that day I found myself in a part of town I had not visited before.

An important consideration for the landscapers must have been symmetry. There were echoes, perhaps, of the great Englishman, Lancelot Brown, but aren't there always in municipal gardens?

There were two ponds near the entrance. Pike roamed them in packs, lurking like submarines or exploding like mines under ducklings.

The pansies in the flower beds are planted in such a way that, when seen from above, they represent the shape of that old emblem of our country, that crooked indic cross, at least for the short period of their lives.

Flowers live and die together, like soldiers.

In the Italian sunken gardens two dogs circle and sniff, about to fight or fuck. Children play. At peace.

I walk from bench to bench, reading the dedications, the dates that are all so close to each other.

One bench stands apart.

Start

'On this warm Wednesday lunchtime she is drinking whisky' is the first sentence of a short story. The writer likes to think it draws the reader in - why would she be drinking whisky on a warm Wednesday lunchtime? Has she just come out of a difficult relationship and is struggling to cope? Is she on holiday? (We all know holidays make good settings for short fiction.) Is she a ravishing, lost beauty from the 1920s? The writer also thinks that the sentence works as the first sentence of a short story as it just happens to be the last sentence of a short story that I have already written. It is clever and ironic to do all this self-referencing crap. And on top of that it is the first sentence of this short story, although it fulfils no function of narrative value.

The Story of the Day She Came Back

She came back. He stayed. He went. He came back. She went. He went. They saw each other at various intervals. At the start something happened. Towards the middle a small act of creation occured. At the end it grew dark.

The Difference Between Soup and Whisky

Essentially, both are warming liquids, liquids we swallow to warm us up and therefore make us feel better. But there are subtle differences: soup requires effort to make it into a warm substance, whereas whisky seems to cause warmth by its own effort. So it would seem that whisky would be better for those days when you are physically tired. But this is not always the case. Warmth is a subtle thing. Why, for example, is it better to drink soup whilst feeding the ducks in the park and whisky whilst feeding the pigeons in the town square? Is the difference a difference between the need for physical warmth and the need for emotional warmth. On this warm Wednesday lunchtime she is drinking whisky.

A Success Story

They met where Symonds Yat Rock leers over the River Wye. He was teaching a group of 13- and 14-year-old geography students about ox-bow lakes and alluvial deposits. She had an aunt who was on the way to being unbearably demented but still loved to be taken out in the car. Neither felt the slightest desire to jump off the rock into the hazy, curling ravine.

Together they read the notice board and learned that peregrine falcons have bred here successfully for over twenty years.