fiction

Another piece of short(ish) fiction; a little bit different this time!  I hope you enjoy it…

“Thank you very much, Dr Welling, that was a fascinating – a fascinating and original – talk on the way in which Jane Austen uses middle-child syndrome in her novels, letters, and, of course, her juvenilia. I’m sure that there will be lots of questions, but we’ll wait until all three panellists have spoken.” The chair glanced quickly at her watch, but needn’t have been so surreptitious; every member of the audience was performing the same action. “Now please join me in welcoming Dr Tove Sivertsen, from the University of Oslo, who will be speaking to us on Jane Austen and William Shakespeare.”

Applause was desultory, and ceased before Dr Sivertsen had made her way to the podium. She was a short woman with tiny glasses and messy white hair. Her head and neck were visible to the audience of tired academics, but no more; she reached a diminutive hand to pull the microphone down an inch, and neatened the edges of the papers in front of her.

“I take as my first premise,” she said, in a heavily-accented voice, “that Jane Austen wrote the works of William Shakespeare. If we –”

“I beg your pardon,” said the chair, aware of the sudden attentiveness in the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Dr Sivertsen, but could you repeat your opening sentence?”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Dr Sivertsen nervously. “I said, ‘Jane Austen wrote the works of William Shakespeare.’”

There was a fraught pause.

“I’m sorry,” said the chair again, “are you really suggesting that Jane Austen wrote the plays which are commonly attributed to William Shakespeare?”

Dr Sivertsen’s tiny eyes grew anxious, and it was in a whisper that she replied that yes, indeed she was.

A German gentleman in the front row stood up. “That is ridiculous!” he cried, and, after a moment, added: “Ridiculous!”

“If we look at the evidence – ” began Dr Sivertsen.

“There is none! There couldn’t be! The idea is preposterous!”

“Perhaps we could – ”

“Ridiculous!”

There was an awkward silence. The chair felt that order ought somehow to be restored, but before she could interject, Annette Steinberg had risen to her feet. This was enough to make other attendees roll their eyes at the best of times; Annette was renowned for her love of conspiracy theories, and belief that neither Austen nor her works were quite all they seemed. Her belief was constant, though its manifestations were subject to much variation.

“My colleague raises an interesting angle,” she began, “And one I am inclined to take seriously – ”

“Oh, shut up Annette!” cried somebody from the back of the room, which was met with rather more applause than Dr Sivertsen had been given.

“A cursory glance at the dates in question – ” one man was asserting, while another loudly and determinedly listed all the arguments in favour of an anti-Stratfordian perspective. Annette, accustomed to being interrupted, boldly continued to support (the now silent) Dr Sivertsen:

“ – and, if we recognise the possibility of the falsification or disposal of documents – which, given Cassandra Austen’s acts in the 1840s, ought to – ”

Suddenly everybody in the room seemed to be speaking at once, except Dr Siversten, and many were shouting as loudly as they could. Though nobody in the room had initially taken the suggestion seriously, the question of the Austenian authorship of Shakespeare’s plays (“the Bard of Chawton!” cried one particularly enthusiastic junior research fellow) drove the room into a frenzy. Unwillingness to consider the theory was seen by some as symptomatic of the arrogantly conservative old school of Austen critics, while a willingness to consider it was seen by others as symptomatic simply of insanity – or, worse, poor scholarship.

It wasn’t clear who threw the first chair; in any case, it missed its target. As did the second. Whoever threw the third – witnesses have suggested it was, ironically, the chair of the panel herself – had a truer aim, and broke the nose of Adrian Bridgeton, a second-year PhD student who had only attended the conference to avoid embarking on his next chapter. After that, more chairs seemed to be in the air than on the ground. Papers flew in every direction, and several people are believed to have hurled copies of Mansfield Park at the professor who had, the day before, given a talk about slavery in that novel that had exceeded the twenty minute time allowance by over quarter of an hour. Those who loved Persuasion attacked those who preferred Northanger Abbey; two academics who had edited Pride and Prejudice for rival publishing houses dropped the silence of a decade, and replaced it with voluble insults. A gentleman who had travelled from New Zealand to present a paper on the influence of Frances Burney found himself being pushed through an open window, though thankfully the panel had been held on the ground floor.

At some point in the furore, security guards guided Dr Tove Sivertsen out of the room and through a fire exit. In one hand she clutched her lecture papers; in the other, her briefcase. Few people noticed her bewildered face as she left the building.

Although the first to be escorted from the room, she was not the last. Paramedics arrived at 2pm to remove a man who had been knocked unconscious when asserting that the dedication in Emma was a forgery, while police, uncertain whom to arrest, started with the tall Parisian academic who had greeted their arrival by toppling the podium onto a colleague from Nice. Shortly after 2.30pm, somebody in maintenance had the idea of turning on the sprinkler system. By 3pm, every speaker and delegate – sopping wet – had been taken either to the hospital or the police station, and all conferences had been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Quietly, on a bench some distance from the conference centre, Dr Tove Sivertsen was examining her Norwegian/English dictionary, and tutting gently to herself. How frustrating, and how careless. Once again, she realised, shaking her head, she had confused the English words ‘wrote’ and ‘read’.

A little while ago I put some short fiction up here – Oranges – and people said nice things, so I thought I’d do it again!  It’s a bit different this time… Picture again irrelevant; I just don’t like putting up posts without pictures…

“Oh, did you get a moment’s sleep?”

I answered that I had slept perfectly well, thank you.

“Oh, but you look shattered.  I’d be surprised if you did as much as close your eyes.  The spare bedroom is terribly uncomfortable, I’m afraid – especially for a man, I always think.”

I didn’t try to work out her reasoning; instead, I said again that my night’s sleep had been all I could have wished, and we spent another moment or two politely disagreeing with each other on the matter.  She obviously believed herself to be the perfect hostess, and would have been shocked to find that anybody thought anything else.

“Here’s a nice cup of coffee, that will help.  Unless you’d prefer tea?”

As she was holding the coffee towards me, I could hardly do anything other than take it and drink, but luckily it was exactly what I wanted.  Although the bed had been comfortable (“like sleeping on broken glass, I know“) and the room an entirely ordinary temperature (“it blows gales through that room, you don’t have to tell me – or otherwise it’s a perfect oven“) I hadn’t slept quite as well as I made out.

“And what would you like breakfast?  There’s only one egg, but I could pop out and get some more?  Nothing would be easier.”

She started towards to the door, and I quickly intervened.  Of course I was quite happy without eggs.  I didn’t normally have anything except coffee for breakfast as it was.

“Nonsense!  I don’t want people saying that I’ve neglected you.”

I was a bit startled.  Why would anybody say that?  Who would say that?  I couldn’t imagine anybody considering me to be the victim of neglect, especially when I’d had to throw away four pairs of trousers while packing yesterday, as they’d all been noticeably too tight.

“Just a spot of toast, then.  You remember where the plates are, of course?”

Of course, I did.  I hoped fervently that she’d sit down, or – better yet – leave the room completely, and let me eat my undesired toast alone. But she simply stood in the middle of the room, perhaps uncertain how to act, despite the stream of words.  And yet, when she spoke, it was with the confidence of an actress who has thoroughly memorised her part.

“I’m going to get everything sorted today.  Well, as best as I can.  (I’m afraid the jam isn’t homemade, but I believe it isn’t actually inedible.  But, please, do say if it is.)  If I have any questions, would it be too much of an inconvenience to phone you?”

I wished that she would say a sentence precisely the way she thought it, without any of the trappings of etiquette and show.  Everything would be so much simpler.  I chewed the toast and jam (certainly edible – pleasant, even) and said as little as I could without seeming terse.  When she was quiet for a few moments, I looked up; she was staring at my hand.  After a second, she recovered.

“Look!  It’s quarter past eight.  You have to leave at quarter past eight, don’t you?”  She picked up my plate and took it towards the sink, but stopped after a step.  “Unless you’d like anything else – ?”

No, no, I did indeed have to go to work now.  The office had never seemed so inviting.  As I did up my shoelaces and put on my coat, she fussed around me, asking whether I’d like an apple, or to borrow an umbrella, and (not, apparently, one to leave a point unlaboured) apologised again for the bed in the spare room.  Her voice followed me down the short path to the pavement.  “And – if I may – I’ll speak to you soon.  I do so hope it doesn’t rain today.”

I got into my car feeling more or less how Dorothy must have felt upon landing in Oz.

To think – that, until yesterday, this woman had been my wife.

I’ve been vaguely intending to include some short fiction on here ever since I started up Stuck-in-a-Book, but wondering how to go about it – it might be a bit of a jolt to those of you expecting a review.  But since I’ve put up some jovial poetry of late, I thought I might indulge myself with this, called ‘Oranges’.  I actually wrote it with my friend Mel’s flash fiction site The Pygmy Giant in mind, but that’s on hiatus, so… it will be here instead! Be kind :)

The ‘five a day’ campaign was a real blessing to folk like me. I can see people slowing down as they walk past, probably on their way back from a day in the office, counting in their heads (and occasionally on their fingers)… and realising they’re one short. Next thing you know, you’ve sold an apple or a pear or an orange. Half the time it’ll probably go uneaten, put optimistically on the table and left to shrivel up – but that’s not my problem, of course. Once it’s sold, it’s sold.

It’s mid-morning and I’m doing ok today. I’ve stacked up my oranges nicely, and that’s not as easy as it looks. You have to have larger ones towards the bottom, to keep the structure secure – but, of course, customers don’t want to be cheated, and there are plenty who’ll spend five minutes trying to get the largest orange from the bottom of the pile. But today I seem to be doing better with strawberries – two pound a box, bigger and juicier than you’ll get in the supermarket – because the sun’s out. It makes a real difference to our work.

Andy beckons me over. He sells veg on the stall next to mine, and he’s a good lad – although the price he tries to get for leeks is a joke, believe me. I have a quick glance around, to make sure I won’t be missing any sales, and pop over to say hello. But I don’t get the chance – as soon as I’m in whispering distance, I hear the words I always dread.

“They say he’s in the area.”

Oh no. Not today – not with the sun out, and a good day’s business ahead of me. But of course, the sun always is out when he makes his appearances.

“Are you sure? Who’s said?”

Andy just shrugs – but nine times out of ten he’s right, and I know better than to ignore his warning. But what to do?

I sell a couple of boxes of strawberries to a nice old dear who’s a regular, and an apple to somebody who looks late for work, but my mind isn’t on it. I start packing up a few bits and pieces, and Andy has boxed up some tomatoes, but we know there’s nothing we can do really. There isn’t a proper way to prepare for what’s coming.

And, suddenly, it’s all happening. The first sign is the shrieking and shouting, but that only gives you about two seconds of warning before it’s too late – he’s here, he’s on you, at the speed of light – this time on a motorbike – heading straight for (ALWAYS straight for) those beautiful oranges I spent all morning arranging. Fruit is flying everywhere, the awning is torn to shreds, and he doesn’t give a monkey’s. He’s gone as soon as he came, destruction everywhere in his wake.

It doesn’t make any difference now, but I can’t help shaking a fist at the already-distant motorbike.

“Damn you, Mr. Bond!”