A Couple of Stops (Light Transports Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Celebrity Who Failed

  Linden Trees

  Thirst

  Ten Tickets

  Wait

  The Sacrifice

  Window Dressing

  Authors Biogs

  Verso Page

  Title Page

  A Couple of Stops

  Part of the Light Transports Series

  Editor: Steve Dearden

  Contents

  The Celebrity Who Failed by Winifred Holtby

  Linden Trees by Tom Spanbauer

  Thirst by Mandy Sutter

  Ten Tickets by Steven Hall

  Wait by Ellen Osborne

  The Sacrifice by Chenjerai Hove

  Window Dressing by Kath McKay

  Introduction

  Welcome to Light Transports, seven reads to get you from A to B via somewhere else, each lasting a couple of stops.

  Seven stories about how we grapple with the big world, how we hold on to people, how we let go. The collection is built round four Yorkshire based writers: Steven Hall takes you into the inner lives of the other passengers in your carriage; Mandy Sutter gets right inside one of those moments when certainties shift, the ground seems distant and things take on a life of their own. Kath McKay and Ellen Osborne explore how we move on after the death of someone close.

  They are joined by two writers who have worked for periods in the region, Tom Spanbauer takes us back to his house in Portland, Oregon, and Chenjerai Hove meditates on the fear Bible stories created in his Zimbabwean childhood.

  I couldn’t resist delving into the region’s literary attic and kicking off the collection with a delightfully contemporary satire written by Winifred Holtby, in 1930.

  These stories are locally grown or locally sourced – you can get in touch with the vibrant writing and reading going on in the Yorkshire region by visiting www.light-transports.net where there is much more on the writers in this book as well as links to the people who publish new writing and put on events in the region.

  Steve Dearden

  The Celebrity Who Failed

  Winifred Holtby

  Once upon a time in a slightly-too-much-inhabited island lived a young woman called Amelia who learned how to walk on water. The feat was not unprecedented. Two or three young men had already performed it, and a clergyman’s wife picnicking with her husband at the seaside had scrambled for nearly half a mile over quite choppy water in order to retrieve a lost picnic basket. But her husband attributed that effort to the power of prayer, and as the newspapers did not know what to say about it, nobody took much notice.

  The attitude of the Islanders towards the achievement of young women was remarkable. Cherishing an old tradition that it was more difficult for men than for women to perform anything except child-bearing and teaching kindergarten, they supported their belief by making other accomplishments almost impossible. When Amelia announced her intention of learning how to walk on water, nobody definitely forbade her. Her mother said, ‘Well, of course young people in these days do as they like, and I can hardly expect you to pay any attention to my feelings.’ Her pastor said, ‘Unhappily all this athleticism and publicity is lowering our High Standard of Ideal Womanhood, and diverting the attention of our island women from their true function of motherhood.’ The president of the local Athletic, Aquatic and Sea-Walking Association said that he could not possibly admit Amelia to membership, entitling her to the use of pacing boats, stop-watches, dressing-rooms, and so forth, but that she might possibly be allowed to join as an associate member, a privilege hitherto reserved exclusively for the wives of members.

  Amelia, however, being an obstinate young woman, and seeing that nobody would help her, determined to help herself. She got up at six every morning before she went to teach in her kindergarten, and practised walking on water. First she walked across the open-air swimming baths; then she walked across the river; then she ventured out on to the sea. When she had practised for some time without attracting any particular attention to herself or otherwise damaging the Islanders’ ideal of perfect womanhood, she announced that she was going to walk to the mainland.

  Now the island was separated from the mainland by thirty miles of rough and difficult channel. Upon two occasions previously young men had managed to walk across this, after several months of careful preparation. The National Athletic, Aquatic and Sea-Walking Association had sent out launches and trainers and floating kitchens for their assistance, the rubber firms had competed to supply them with free waders, and the Cinema News Service had arranged for a special film of their performance. But when Amelia announced that she was going to make the same attempt, these two young men laughed at her, saying, ‘Since we, with all the undoubted superiority of our sex and the assistance of our fellow-countrymen, only just managed to achieve this heroic feat, how can a girl succeed?’ The leading press syndicate arranged a symposium by a novelist, a film star, a retired judge and a bishop, on the subject, ‘Why Girls Can’t Walk on Water’, and Amelia’s mother said, ‘Now don’t be silly, dear. Sit down quietly and finish your needlework.’

  But even this did not deter Amelia. She bought a second-hand compass, a pair of bargain-basement waders, a tin of meat jujubes and a sixpenny walking-stick, and wrote a note to the kindergarten saying that she might be absent for one or two days. Then, very early one morning, she set out on her adventure.

  For the first mile nothing happened. The sea looked very large and empty, and Amelia remembered all the tales she had been told of young women who set off on wild-goose chases and came to a bad end. But as she entered her second mile a retired sea captain, looking through a telescope from his bedroom window, as was his custom every morning before shaving, saw her small figure bobbing along over the faint ground-swell. He immediately rang up the police station, which rang up the coastguard’s office, which rang up the lifeboat, which dropped a hint to the local reporter, who rang up his city news editor, who rushed out a late morning edition of the paper, with the headlines, ‘Amelia Sets Out’.

  The lunch-hour edition carried a couple of photographs of Amelia at home, and a leading article on ‘Our Island Spirit’. The evening papers carried an interview with Amelia’s father, a picture of her out at sea taken from an aeroplane, a descriptive paragraph of the kindergarten where she had been teaching, and a chat with the president of the Athletic, Aquatic and Sea-Walking Association, who said, ‘Our girls are wonderful. We are proud to have Miss Amelia as a member of our association.’

  By the time that Amelia had reached her tenth mile, the channel was strewn with launches, motor-boats, yachts and pleasure steamers, and the announcement was made that she had beaten the sea-walking record for the first seven miles. The two young men champions, when interviewed, declared that for a girl Amelia had done wonders, and the leading press syndicate changed its symposium from ‘Why Girls Can’t Walk on Water’ to ‘Do Sea-Walkers Make Good Mothers?’

  But the wind was rising, the waves grew steeper, and many of the spectators were overcome by sea-sickness. Night was falling, and Amelia, already weary, had to scramble up huge breakers, high as houses, and slither down again on the other side. She lost her compasses, the meat jujubes began to make her feel sea-sick, her waders were full of water and her sense of direction failed. In the dark and the storm she lost touch with her many followers, and the morning papers were able to go into three
editions carrying the headlines, ‘Amelia Missing’. But in the morning, wet, footsore, hungry, chilled to the bone and green with sea-sickness, Amelia was seen again, struggling on gallantly towards the mainland coast. When she saw that she was nearly there, she cried a little from pure relief and had to borrow a handkerchief from a young reporter who rushed up to her from a speed boat, and then sent back by wireless to his paper a snappy paragraph on ‘Our Wonder Walker’s Girlish Tears’.

  Two hours later, she dragged herself out of the water on to the mainland shore, to find a crowd of twenty-five thousand people, the representatives of thirty newspapers, twelve cinematograph operators, the president of the Mainland Aquatic Association and the Mayor and Corporation, all awaiting her. She was received with splendid ceremony; school children dressed in waders presented her with fifty-nine bouquets and the mainland king sent her a silver walking-stick.

  ‘Thank you very much indeed,’ said Amelia, ‘and now, if you don’t mind, I should like a hot cup of tea, and to go to bed.’

  ‘Oh, but I am afraid that is impossible,’ said the Mayor. ‘We have arranged a reception for you in the town hall, which has already cost us several hundred pounds. Now that you are a celebrity, you must not disappoint your public.’

  ‘But I really am very tired,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Celebrities are never tired,’ said the Mayor.

  So Amelia was taken in an open carriage through streets lined with cheering people, to a reception where five city councillors, two cabinet ministers, a professional footballer and the chairman of the Association of the Promotion of Better Relations between the Island and the Mainland, all made speeches to her. She did not hear much of the speeches because she felt so cold and tired that she nearly fell asleep, only she was too hungry; but when they were finished, she was told that she must make a suitable and gracious reply. ‘But I can’t speak,’ said Amelia. ‘On the island girls are not allowed to make speeches.’

  ‘Girls who are celebrities must always make speeches,’ they told her. ‘If you disappoint your public you may undo the good work which you have already done in cementing the loyal friendship of our two nations.’ So Amelia got up and made a speech, but it was not a very good speech, and only the people just under the platform could hear her, and the rest said, ‘Well, we do think that she might have spoken better. When one takes all this trouble over a celebrity, she ought to show a little more savoir faire.’

  ‘And now, please,’ said Amelia, ‘might I have just a cup of soup and go to bed?’

  But they told her that a very grand luncheon party had been organised in her honour at the Mayor’s house and they set before her lobsters and caviare, and tournedos à la Belle Amelia, and ice pudding, which she could not eat very well, because she still felt rather sea-sick. But after luncheon there were more speeches, and then she was taken to open the new wing of a children’s hospital, and asked to say a few words about preventive medicine.

  ‘But I don’t know anything about preventive medicine,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Of course you do,’ they replied. ‘All celebrities know something about everything. If you cannot say a few simple words, you will be letting down your sex, your country and your generation.’

  So Amelia said a few words and then was taken to a football match and asked to kick off for the opposing teams. ‘But where shall I kick?’ asked Amelia.

  ‘How very foolish you are,’ they told her, beginning to lose patience. ‘You don’t have to kick anywhere. You just kick off. All celebrities kick off.’

  So Amelia kicked off, and then she was taken to the broadcasting station and asked to broadcast for half an hour a bright informal talk on ‘Sea-Walking as a Career for Girls’. ‘But I can’t broadcast,’ said Amelia, ‘and I don’t know anything about sea-walking as a career for girls, except that to judge from my experience it’s pretty awful.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t possibly say anything like that,’ they told her. ‘Do you realise that eight million people are hanging upon your every word, and that we have arranged for the United States to relay a coast-to-coast hook up, and that you cannot disappoint your public?’

  Amelia said that she would hate to disappoint anyone, but that really, she would prefer to go to bed. However, when she saw that there was no help for it, she consented to broadcast. She did not broadcast very well, because she had nothing to say and her throat had begun to be sore, and she stopped in the middle, and all the newspapers had large headings, ‘Amelia Disappoints on Wireless. Heroine of Water-Waves Fails on Sound Waves’.

  She was very sorry to have been a disappointment, but she had little time to repine, as she was taken to a beauty competition, to judge the most perfect figure among mainland girls, and to give a brief talk upon ‘Is Sea-Walking Good for the Complexion?’ She was hoarser than ever by this time, but she was only halfway through her talk when a man appeared, saying that he must speak to her, because his paper was very angry, as it had bought the exclusive rights to her publicity for twenty thousand pounds, and her broadcast talk had contravened their contract. ‘But I don’t understand anything about contracts,’ said Amelia. ‘In the island young women are not allowed to learn anything about business.’

  ‘Then you have no right to be a celebrity,’ said the man. ‘Celebrities always have to do a great deal of business, and we have lost a hundred thousand pounds over this affair.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Amelia. But then her throat, which had been growing sorer and sorer, gave out altogether, and she lost her voice and began to cry.

  The Mayor sent for a doctor, and he ordered her to bed with hot-water bottles and redcurrant tea, and said that she had a bad cold. All the newspapers in the world then rushed out articles saying that a girl’s strength was not really equal to walking on water, and that the island had been quite wise to discourage athleticism among members of the weaker sex; the young water-walking champions stated in exclusive interviews that they had realised from the beginning that Amelia’s exploit was doomed to failure, and that girls lacked the stamina necessary for great feats. The bishop wound up the syndicate’s symposium with an earnest and soul-stirring article in which he said that water-walkers obviously could not make good mothers, since Amelia had displayed her lamentable ignorance of preventive medicine. And Amelia went home to her mother, and married the local secretary of the Athletic, Aquatic and Sea-Walking Association, and had six children, whom she did not even allow to paddle during the summer holidays and, except for that privation, they all lived happily ever after.

  Linden Trees

  Tom Spanbauer

  Some days it was so bad I was afraid of the trees. The three Linden trees in the median strip between my house and the street. The three Linden trees across the street. Six Lindens all in a clump at the end of Morrison.

  Linden blossoms make a tea that calms the nerves.

  When my friend Sage told me that, I looked up at the Linden blossoms beginning to bloom. I had to smile. Calms the nerves.

  Three years ago, how different those trees looked.

  If I was able to go outside, if I could leave the house, if it was just cloudy and wasn’t raining, if that day I could bear the way the wind moved the boughs of the Linden trees, and if there were only an occasional car on Thirtieth, I’d stand with my shoulders relaxed, my feet square under me, take a deep breath, raise my arms, lower them, then begin the slow movements of Tai Chi. There’s no other place at my house with space enough to dance the entire Tai Chi series, only on the sidewalk, the public sidewalk facing Morrison Street. I started Tai Chi in the same exact spot, always in that spot, directly across from the Linden across the street.

  In those days, and even still now, ritual and order were all I had.

  There was the hospital. There was my therapist’s house. These were the two places I could go. Once a week to Hawthorne Street to see my therapist. Every two weeks to the hospital.

  The hospital six point four miles, fifteen stop lights, and two stop signs aw
ay. The doctor at the hospital was young and beautiful with long curly hair. I asked him once if he had ever been depressed. He said yes, once when his girlfriend left him. We were sitting in a square beige cold basement room with a computer in it. The kind of ceiling tile that has lots of holes and bumps. Dead weeds in the window well. He was wearing hiking boots and olive green whalebone corduroys. The last medication he had given me was like taking acid laced with rat poison. He assured me that this new medication would be better. It wasn’t.

  The year 2000. One year, one particular year in my illness, since AIDS and nearly dying in ’96, of all the years, the year 2000 was the lost year. One anti-depressant after another after another after another. Paxill, Serzone, Effixor, maybe something called Lexus, on and on and on.

  Just the other day, I threw out all the bottles, a half bushel of brown bottles.

  No sleep, or little sleep, and when there was sleep, there were nightmares.

  I am standing and reading in front of an audience and I get to the last page and the last page is missing. Then I’m searching for the last page through the rest of the pages. Pages falling from my hands, pages on the floor. Pages and pages and pages.

  At the hospital one day, in the basement, the man in line in front of me asked to use the phone. He was grey or beige like the armchairs in the waiting area, threadbare, soon to be replaced. His breath was sour, so I stepped away. His long grey fingers trembled. They punched in the number on the phone. His social worker was busy, so the guy got voicemail. The way the man talked I could tell it was voicemail. The man lowered his voice but it was no use. Where was there to go to, away from under the bright fluorescence? To the voicemail on the other end of the line, the man said, ‘new meds’. The man said, ‘agitation’. The man said, ‘Xanax’. The man said, ‘suicide’.

  Once, during a harrowing trip into the unknown, to the social worker’s office, I was standing at a blue counter. I had spoken to the receptionist who was going to get my social worker so that I could speak with him. Crowds of people lined the walls. Crack addicts, homeless derelicts, frightened, cowering, unbathed people. The dregs of humanity. I drummed my fingers on the blue counter.