Short Stories & Flash Fiction to read
There are now SIX award-winning short stories to read below - Da, Lips, The Night Ape and The Open Door. Publication and award details are at the bottom of each story.
Additionally, here are online links to some short/flash pieces published on various websites -
Flash Fiction - Links
The Call of Owls (published by the National Flash Fiction Day Flash Flood. June 2022)
Golden Hoopoe (published by online literary journal Ellipsis Zine. Jan 2021)
Flat Screen (published by online literary journal The Phare. Nov 2020)
The Day of the March (published by online literary journal Spelk. June 2020)
The River (broadcast on YouTube by Bath Story Friday and read by actor Bill Ward. June 2020)
For the Kid (broadcast on YouTube by Bath Story Friday and read by actor Caroline Garland. April 2020)
The Winner (Published Ellipsis Zine in a print anthology. April 2020)
This Dark Window (illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins)
Short Stories - Links
Read Drawing a Line under the Dog in Issue 04 of Truffle literary magazine
Read The Hero in Issue 16 of The Cabinet of Heed online literary journal
Read The Most Beautiful Thing She Has Ever Seen published in Issue 02 of Truffle litmag
Click here to see a video of the actor Moses Hardwick reading my story Strange Fruit - An Imagining at the 2015 Cheltenham Literature Festival. This is a new re-engineered louder version! Many thanks David Penny.
Short Stories to Read Here
Below are SIX stories to read here - Da, Lips, The Night Ape and The Open Door.
Da
Mrs Doherty said Da’s head hadn’t so much rolled down Clare Road as bounced. That mothers walking to school had pulled their children to their stomachs shading them with their winter coats from The Terrible Sight.
Mrs Doherty said that Da wasn’t the kind who would have wanted A Lingering Death.
“He was an impatient man,” she said. “At least he always was with me.” I wanted to ask her what she meant but couldn’t.
“It would have been quick,” she said. “That’s nice for him. But not for you - the family.”
I can think of things Da would have found nicer than being decapitated at 10am on a Tuesday morning on the Clare Road. A drink with his mates at Gogarthy’s, for instance – then home happy and drunk. Collecting his winnings from Declan Cullen’s betting shop – and home happy and drunk. A trip to his beloved public library. Returning with three or four new books, although he may have left the place with six. Lending them to strangers on the way home. Or dropping them. And home happy and drunk.
When it came out, the brakes on his thirty year old Chevette had failed. He’d been driving down the hill, on his way to look in the fields around Kennedy Bend where Ma had said she’d seen an angel last week. Bobby Lynch’s reclamation lorry, in front of him, stopped at the lights, but Da’s car, fuelled by Murco and gravity, tore its way underneath the lorry. Or at least most of his car did. The upper part, the part that included his head, hit the back of the lorry, and came off.
“Poor Bobby Lynch, God-love-him,” Mrs Doherty said. “Sitting at the lights. There’s a crash behind him, and even before he’s out of his cab, he sees your da’s head bobbling by, gathering pace, ignoring the red light, and bouncing clean over Eamonn Dougan’s battered Land Rover and into the Fill Me Up, Darlin’ service station. Where it hit a wall before falling under the wheels of the reversing Murco petrol wagon.”
“He was dead by then, Marie,” she added.
“You don’t say. What are you - the feckin’ coroner?” I said.
“I’m sorry, Marie,” she said, as if she wasn’t. “But at least he didn’t drive into the river.”
“Of course,” I said, although I thought the irony lost on Mrs Doherty.
***
Ma said that he couldn’t make his Entrance into Heaven looking like that.
“Or even the Other Place.”
She insisted on laying him out in his coffin in the parlour before the funeral. This put Some Pressure on Smiling Mr. Carty of Carty’s Funeral Parlour. But he was A Man Up To The Job.
“The human head is like a football,” he explained. “We put duct tape over your late father’s mouth and one nostril, then use a tube in his other nostril and a foot pump - you know, the type you use for pumping up a football or a li-lo – to force in the air. His poor squashed head will inflate. Of course some residual air will be emitted from his ears, and, in your father’s case, from his open neck.”
The results were extraordinary. Granted, laid out in Mr Carty’s Trinity solid oak coffin, with the head of Mary carved into the side panels, with brass clasps and handles, his head and body swathed in white satin, dressed in his Sunday blue suit from Ryan’s the Tailors, he didn’t look like Da, but he did look like he’d once been human. Almost human anyway.
And although he now had the widest smile, and indeed the widest moustache, you ever saw - ear to ear they were - Ma was impressed.
“It’s taken years off him,” she said.
His brother Ronnie was more pointed, “Like a child has painted a face on a feckin’ balloon.”
It wasn’t easy to lean into the coffin to kiss him. He was cold, as I imagined he would be, and after, when I looked in the mirror, it was as if I had been having an affair with Boy George. Or was Boy George. There was so much of Da’s make-up on my face. And so much less on his. I carefully re-painted him with my Revlon. To Be Fair to Smiling Mr. Carty he came round each of the three days that Da was in the parlour to touch him up.
He had also dressed Da in a brand new high collared white shirt to hide what he described as the Rather Heavy Stitching used to re-attach his head.
Ronnie’s children, JohnJo, JoJo and Ken, my cousins - feckless young men all - were, like their father, less complimentary about Da’s appearance. “The face of a bloated clown and the body of Harry Hill,” one of them said.
It was after their second visit, when they left the house sniggering behind their hands, that I noticed a line of five ball point pens in Da’s top pocket. I left them there. Da would have seen the joke. Grinned his broad moustachioed grin, and rubbed his comfortable cardigan stomach.
When Ma woke from her afternoon sleep she called out, “What’s that noise? Is it heavy breathing? Do you have a man in your room, Marie? Again?”
“Mr. Carty says Da’s head is deflating so he’s re-pumping it,” I told her.
“Is this a dream?” she asked.
Standing in the parlour, covered in perspiration from pumping, Smiling Mr. Carty explained to us how the formaldehyde was preserving Da.
Uncle Ronnie said we should insert Da in the fish tank, claim he was an installation by Damien Hirst, and put him up for auction.
By Day Three there was a gathering smell in the parlour, and Ma stopped walking the streets inviting people to Pay Their Respects. When The Smell got worse Ma admitted she had a Big Cheese in the Cupboard, and it might be that. I didn’t believe A Word Of It, especially when I walked in the parlour and saw Mr. Carty waving a bottle of Charlie over the casket.
Before the funeral, Ma asked us - the close family - if we wanted anything of Da’s as a keepsake. I requested his copy of Flann O’Brien’s ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’, yellowed and dilapidated through reading and re-reading – the lovely grubby hand of my father upon it. Nan asked for his black-rimmed specs. And Uncle Ronnie for his weekly bar spend at Gogarthy’s.
***
On the way to the funeral the shoe-shine black hearse had to drive down the hill on Clare Road. We - Ma, and Nan and I - followed it with Ronnie in his Mondeo. The one he got from the salvage yard. “You’re always safe in a Mondeo,” he said, like a talking advert.
There were boys playing with a football on the pavement and I thought of Da.
When we arrived, there was already a crowd. We parked the car next to the hearse - in the shadow of the monolith of St Peters. The dark lopsided stones of the church graveyard looked like big versions of Nan’s teeth. But the day itself was brash blue. I could feel everyone’s eyes on us, measuring our grief, but when I looked back they turned away. It seemed that the whole town was there, dressed in black or navy, having skipped lunch in the hope of an invitation to the wake at the Silver Shamrock Hotel.
I had to take Nan’s arm and lead her towards the church. She was wearing Da’s black-rimmed specs and looked like a tiny wizened Michael Caine.
“Not a lot of people know this, Marie,” she said. “But I can’t see A Blind Thing.”
The pall bearers heaved the coffin from the hearse and hoisted it on their shoulders. Had we chosen with more care we’d have had Six Big Men. Five were Up To The Job, but the Sixth was Declan Cullen from the betting shop. Less than five feet tall, God-love-him, his trouser bottoms flapping over his shoes and his suit jacket near down to his knees, he was lifted clean off the ground with the casket, and hung by his finger tips from one corner, legs flailing, like a monkey dangling from a baobab tree.
It was either a stiffener before he left the bar, or the combined weight of Da and Declan, that made Gogarthy’s Cillian Clooney, sweating like a heavy-weight boxer, stumble on the rough ground outside the church. The casket lurched downwards. Horror and panic distorted the men’s faces. But little Declan came into his own. His feet briefly on the ground, he stood his tallest, his arms raised above his head, pushing the casket skywards until Cillian re-gained his footing and his grasp on the box.
A Funeral Incident was averted.
But after that, a Loud Rolling Sound came with every movement of the casket. We all knew what it was. It seemed to run the full length of the box. Then back again. And so on. Some of the watchers took out handkerchiefs. Others hid their laughter behind their hands. Mr. Carty, his normally crescent mouth like a pastry crust, looked horrified.
Ronnie said that Da always enjoyed a game of pinball.
As we entered the church, Ma whispered to Smiling Mr. Carty about opening the coffin and re-attaching Da’s head. Smiling Mr. Carty said he didn’t think that would be practical.
“And anyway,” he said. “He will be a Whole Person in heaven.”
“What makes you so sure?” said Ma.
“Have you ever seen an angel without a head?” he said.
“No,” she replied. “But I have seen a huge bird made from metal fly across the heavens.”
“That’s an aeroplane,” said Smiling Mr. Carty, patting her arm in the sure knowledge that our entire family was mad.
Copyright - John Holland 2016
'Da' won First Prize in the 2016 InkTears Short Story Contest (actually in March 2017).
Lips
As they were leaving the college she asked him if he wanted a coffee. He said that he only drank tea. And walked on. The following week she asked him if he wanted a tea. In the cafe, they talked about the pottery class. She told him her name was Dorothy. Dorothy, he repeated. He didn’t say his name, so she asked. He said it was Ellsworth.
After, he returned home to his small room with the skylight and the empty dog basket with the hair-matted maroon rug, and the small circular oak table with the vase-shaped stain. And sat in his uncomfortable wooden armed chair, picked up his ballpoint pen and opened his book - the one without the lines - and wrote the date (14 January 2006) and the word ‘Tea’.
At the pottery class, he made a black iron-glazed stoneware urn which she admired. She made a blue-glazed earthenware plate with yellow and white-glazed fried eggs, orange-glazed beans and brown-glazed individually cut chips, which he didn’t comment on. After the class Dorothy again invited Ellsworth for a tea. And when classes ceased they continued to meet in the cafe each month. He always drank tea. Occasionally they had a sandwich. Even at those prices.
After five teas in five months, they touched cheeks as they parted. His lips briefly on her skin. It felt strange to him. He liked it. He liked her, he thought. He didn’t want to do anything sudden.
Back in his room he placed the metal end of a tape measure against the midpoint of his cheek. Then extended the tape to his lips. The centre, not the edge of his lips. Then removed it, holding the tape between his thumb and forefinger, and examined the numbers and lines on it. One hundred millimetres or ten centimetres. Her cheek and lips must be similar, he thought.
Using a blue plastic calculator, a piece of A4 paper from his book - the one with the lines - and a short, almost blunt, pencil, he began to draw up a grid. He calculated that if, when they parted each month, he moved his lips one millimetre towards her mouth he would reach her lips in eight years and four months. He had the time, he thought. He looked in his Oxford Pocket Dictionary, eighth edition, 1992, and wrote the date in his book - the one without the lines - and the word ‘incremental’. He sighed. Eight years and four months. He didn’t want to do anything sudden.
The next time they met (June 2006) he felt slightly anxious, as he had to move his lips one millimetre towards hers. Because of his pre-occupation with this he hardly talked at all. Only a few words about pulling handles on jugs. As they parted, he kissed her cheek in what he hoped was one millimetre closer to her lips. He couldn’t be exactly sure. He couldn’t really measure it, could he? She didn’t seem to notice. In his room he wrote the date and the words ‘Plan commenced’.
By January 2007 (8 months into his plan) his lips, he thought, had moved roughly eight millimetres towards her lips. He didn’t think that she had noticed. He barely had.
When they met in the cafe in March 2007 (10 months/10 mm) he talked about the Japanese potter Hamada, and she talked about her husband. He said that he didn’t know she had a husband. Didn’t you notice my ring? she asked. No, he said. His name is Chip, short for Charles, she said. Like on the plate you made? he said. Yes, she laughed. In his room he wrote in his book the date and the word ‘Chip’. It made him feel sad. And a bit hungry.
In May 2007 (one year/12 mm) he asked her if, as well as a husband, she had a dog. No, she said. It’s just that at home I have a basket, he said. Sorry, she said.
In September 2007 (one year 4 months/16 mm) they talked about transfer-printed pottery and she told him that she dyed her hair. What, is it not really green? he asked. No, she said, and called him silly. He had been called silly before. But, for the first time, he liked it. Are your eyes really blue? he asked. Oh yes, although they used to be more blue, she said. When he returned to his room he wrote the date and the words ‘Less blue’.
In July 2008 (2 years 2 months/26 mm) she told him that she had left her husband. Why? he asked. I don’t like him, she said. Me neither, he said. But you haven’t met him, she said. I’m just supposing, he said. She told him she was now living with her sister. Does she have a dog? he asked. No, she said.
In September 2009 (3 years 4 months/40 mm) they talked about glazes, including nuka, the oriental rice-based glaze. She told him she had met an Egyptian sculptor. He has dreadlocks, she said. Dreadlocks - very secure, he said.
In December 2009 (3 years 7 months/43 mm) she told him that the Egyptian sculptor made his work from human faeces and blood. Human faeces and blood, he repeated. When they parted he checked her cheek before kissing it. In his room he wrote the date and the words ‘Shit sculptor’.
In May 2010 (4 years/48 mm) she told him she had moved in with the Egyptian sculptor. He blinked and said nothing. Later he said he had a headache and stood and left without kissing her cheek. In his room, he regretted doing that.
In December 2010 (4 years 7 months/55 mm) they talked about kick wheels and she told him she was pregnant. With a baby? he asked. Yes, she said. When he returned to his room he wrote the date and the word ‘Baby’ in bigger letters than usual.
In June 2011, back home in his room, he reviewed his plan. Over five years had elapsed. He believed he had moved his lips slightly more than sixty millimetres or six centimetres. He thought he was on target. He didn’t want to do anything sudden.
In August 2011, about the time Dorothy was giving birth, a woman in the laundrette asked Ellsworth if he would like a coffee. Tea, he said, and felt proud of his assertiveness. In the cafe, he asked her name. Ernestine, she said. Ernestine, he repeated. And he told her his name, before chatting to her about clay and throwing and glazes and kilns. She seemed interested. As they parted he moved to kiss her cheek. Instead she kissed his lips. When he returned to his room he wrote the date and the words ‘Spin cycle’.
The next month, September 2011, he met Ernestine again. At her suggestion he tried a cappuccino, but didn’t like it. He brought with him a copy of ‘Ceramic Review’ magazine which he lent her. He asked her if she ever threw pots. Only when I’m cross, she said. He didn’t get it. He asked her if she was married. No, she said. Whether she dyed her hair. No, she said. Whether she knew anyone who made sculpture from human blood and faeces. No, she said. What’s with all the questions? she asked. As they parted she kissed him again on the lips, and asked him if he wanted to see her room. Do you have a dog? he asked. No, she said. When he returned to his own room he wrote the date and the word ‘No’. He regretted lending her the ‘Ceramic Review’.
In January 2012 (5 years 8 months/68 mm) he met Dorothy again and this time she brought the baby. It was a boy. He asked his name. Donald, she said. Donald, he repeated. He asked if that was an Egyptian name. Not really, she said. When they parted he wasn’t sure whether to kiss the baby on the cheek too. He didn’t. But he did move his lips seven millimetres nearer her lips to compensate for the period when he hadn’t seen her. He hoped that this was not too sudden and that she would not notice. As far as he knew she didn’t. Although he thought Donald might have.
In July 2012 (6 years 2 months/74 mm) Donald was with her again and cried and seemed unhappy. She said she had to go and change him. When she came back he was surprised. It’s the same baby, he said. He’s just pooed, she said. He asked if the baby’s poo would be used for a sculpture. She said it wouldn’t.
In February 2013 (6 years 9 months/81 mm) she stopped bringing Donald with her. Her mother was looking after him, she said. They talked about Japanese anagama kilns. And she told him that she’d left the Egyptian sculptor. To come for a coffee? he asked. No, forever, she said. That’s a long time, he said. Are you pleased? she asked. Yes, he said. She looked at him. He looked at her. He didn’t want to do anything
sudden. When he returned to his room he wrote the date and the word ‘Forever’.
In December 2013 (7 years 7 months/91 mm) he talked to her about the best time to buy a new dog. How long since your dog died? she asked. He paused. His eyes moved upwards and to the right as he thought. I’ve never owned a dog, he said. Now might be a good time then, she said. When he returned to his room he wrote the date, and, in a rather shaky hand, the word ‘Now’.
In August 2014 (8 years 3 months/99 mm) he knew he was one millimetre from his target. From her lips. From kissing her. They talked about the porous qualities of unglazed earthenware. When he returned to his room he wrote the date and the words ‘Rome wasn’t built in eight years and four months’.
In September 2014 (8 years 4 months/100 mm) he knew he had reached his target date. He felt anxious. They talked about salt glazing and its impact on the environment. But he knew what he must ask himself to do. He tried to summon all the courage it had taken to hatch his plan, the courage he’d needed to try that cappuccino, the courage he’d shown by not going to Ernestine’s room, the courage that had made him wait so long - so very long - for this woman. When they were about to part, he pressed his lips gently on hers.
That was sudden, she said.
When he returned home to his small room with the skylight and the empty dog basket with the hair-matted maroon rug, and the small circular oak table with the vase-shaped stain, he sat in his uncomfortable wooden armed chair, and picked up his pen and opened his book - the one without the lines - and wrote the date and the word ‘Lips’. And then she wrote the word ‘Lips’ too.
Copyright - John Holland 2015
'Lips' won First Prize in the 2018 To Hull And Back Short Story Competition and published in the 2018 To Hull And Back Anthology.
It was also long listed for the 2015 Bath Short Story Award and published in the 2015 Bath Short Story Award Anthology.
You can also hear/watch me read ‘Lips’, via a video recorded at the launch of the 2018 To Hull And Back anthology in December 2018 at the LeftBank Club in Bristol here.
The Night Ape - A True Story?
Alfred Craddock had a lucrative business bringing animals back from Africa for British collectors. In the early 19th century nature lovers and collectors preferred animals, no matter how rare, to be stuffed and mounted. This was perfectly legal. Alfred’s wife Jane, a practical woman some years younger than her husband, trained in taxidermy, and was able to support his business, expertly stuffing and mounting the smaller animals. His expedition to the Kingdom of Kongo in central Africa in 1837 was reported fully in the Times, and was well known to the general public. Alfred, a rather squat man with copious facial hair, led the expedition personally, using doughty colleagues from London, as well as local guides, always ensuring that the more hair-raising aspects of his work received full press coverage. Financially, he was extremely successful, amassing a small fortune, with which he bought Eastbrook Hall in Nottinghamshire where he lived quietly with Jane.
With the opening of the London Zoological Gardens in 1847, Alfred’s work began to take on a different aspect. Zoos and menageries, both public and private, began to spring up across the country and to commission him to collect live animals. In 1849 he journeyed for a second time to the Kongo to meet up with local guides. They told him of a nocturnal ape living in an inaccessible forested region. After an exhausting trek taking some weeks, he and his crew were finally able to locate, identify, and, by using an enormous net thrown over an entire tree, capture this rare beast. It was a male, about the size of a small man, and looked not unlike most apes, but because of its nocturnal nature, it had huge eyes, like those of a bush baby. This gave it the appearance of a complete innocent. Alfred named the beast the Night Ape. At the expedition’s end he sailed for home with a huge number of mammals, reptiles and birds, which he believed would result in a lucrative deal.
On the long sea journey, Alfred would occasionally go below deck to check the welfare of his captives in their cages. He remained particularly interested in, and enamoured of, the Night Ape. Although it slept during the day, when visited at night, the ape would stare directly at him with its beautiful huge dark eyes. Perhaps for this reason, Alfred began to talk to the ape. He believed that the ape, its head slightly tilted and its eyes meeting his, was listening. On the night before his ship was due to dock in Southampton, whilst talking to the caged ape, he was astonished when it put a hand through the bars, gently onto his own hand, apparently in friendship.
On arriving home, he decided that the Night Ape was so special that he would not sell it to a zoo, but instead he would convert his huge conservatory into suitable living quarters. This was a shock for Jane, but, after her first encounter with the ape, she agreed that it would be interesting to study this exotic and friendly animal.
The Night Ape settled in well, eating heartily, and seemed contented with its new surroundings, happily leaping amongst the trees. Very quickly, it took to greeting Alfred and Jane when they entered the conservatory by running to them, its arms outstretched. Enchanted, its owners encouraged this affection by feeding it with titbits, particularly chicken and lamb, which it devoured.
Very quickly the ape became house trained, defecating in a container provided for the purpose. However, like many primates, the Night Ape often masturbated. Alfred was astonished to see that its penis, a corkscrew shape, was easily the longest he had ever encountered on any beast of this size. It often conducted this practice without warning and in an almost violent manner, which, if Jane were around, led her to flee in haste, her cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
Despite this, the ape became a real pet to the Craddocks, who began to allow it into the parlour where it would sit man-like in an armchair. First Alfred, and then Jane, began to read to it and it would listen carefully, its huge eyes focussed as it took in every word. It particularly enjoyed Tennyson’s poetry, as well as readings from the Bible.
After about two months, and against their better judgement, they gave the ape a name, and began calling it William. William quickly learnt to answer to his name, and the Craddocks were even more delighted when he began to say simple words in a deep gruff voice - at first his own name, their names, and greetings and farewells. William also began to eat with them, sitting in a chair at the table, his dextrous fingers gradually gaining expertise with crockery and cutlery. Beef and pork were now his favourite foods.
By this time, the Craddocks had started to live a more nocturnal existence in line with William’s, and their already small circle of friends began to reduce. Such was their obsession with William, they barely noticed their increased isolation.
One day as a joke, Jane suggested they dress William in a man’s clothing. Alfred tried to rule out the idea, but Jane insisted. And, although he refused to wear shoes at first, she began to clothe him daily, and they both began to refer to him as “our little gentleman”. They then started to take William for walks, fully clothed, wearing gloves, a cloak and hat, usually at night using dark glasses to protect his eyes from the street lights. So human did William appear that little suspicion was aroused. Indeed, there exists a rare daylight photograph of them at the time, taken in Hyde Park, with Jane standing between Alfred and William, holding hands with both, William looking slightly hunched, and Alfred with his side burns and full beard, appearing the more hirsute of the two.
By now, William, his vocabulary growing daily, had the run of the house. Like the perfect guest, he treated his owners, their property and possessions with respect, with only his persistent and violent masturbation continuing to be a cause for concern for the Craddocks. As a result, Alfred decided to acquire a female Night Ape. And in April 1851, Alfred Craddock set sail for the Kongo to locate a mate for William.
He returned disappointed from his expedition in the early hours of the 13 September 1852, and, being mindful of the late hour, left his luggage in the hall and entered quietly. He immediately heard an extraordinary wailing noise from the conservatory. Fearing that William might be dying, he rushed in - to find Jane on all fours in her white underwear, her exposed bottom glowing luminously in the moonlight, and William bent over her assuaging her needs from behind. On hearing Alfred enter, they stopped immediately, and looked furtively over their shoulders to at him. In great distress, Alfred went straight to the hall, took his rifle from his baggage, and returned to the conservatory. Before he could take aim, a single shot rang out, hitting the explorer in the chest, killing him instantly.
For both technical and emotional reasons, Jane found the stuffing and mounting of her late husband quite testing. But when she had finished, both she and William were impressed with her work. Jane had mounted Alfred in typical explorer pose, taking aim with his rifle at a distant object. It was almost as if Alfred was still with them, although to avoid the gaze of any visitors, they had to lock the new version in a spare room. Jane refused to visit it, but William would attend occasionally, often putting his hand on Alfred’s now lifeless hand, and smiling.
It was not too difficult for William to take Alfred’s place. Jane told the few who questioned her that the Night Ape had died suddenly. The nocturnal habits of the new Craddocks, together with the use of gloves, dark glasses and high necked clothing, meant that William’s appearance presented few real problems.
As befitted the age, the new Craddocks were nothing if not a benevolent couple with a strong social conscience. Using Alfred’s considerable wealth, they converted part of their home into a night school, teaching literacy, typing and compositional writing, with Jane as the main teacher. A newly built study room had one thousand desks and on each desk was a typewriter at which their students would learn to type and to write. After many years, it is said that a single work of genius was produced.
As they grew older, Jane and William continued to live quietly respectable lives and their love for each other grew. In 1867, after a short period of illness, Jane died of tuberculosis in the week of her 65th birthday, and William passed away one month later.
The authorities were not long in discovering the truth about Alfred, Jane and William. The national newspapers carried the shocking story, which was a source of disbelief and conjecture amongst both the chattering and working classes.
Alfred’s stuffed and mounted body, still holding the rifle, was buried in a specially made coffin in Highgate Cemetery, where a large crowd attended. William was interred in the pet cemetery in the nearby grounds of Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire, where his simple headstone bearing the words ‘William - the murderous ape’, can still be seen.
Belatedly, Alfred received an obituary in The Times. There is no record of anyone raising the issue of an obituary for Jane, it is believed, because of her gender. But the newspaper did publish a statement refusing to honour William with an obituary, despite his contribution to education and his new found notoriety, on the basis that their obituaries were restricted to human beings.
This view was not universally accepted, and became a cause celebre for many commentators, with Punch carrying a number of satirical cartoons featuring William. One, by H. M. Bateman, was called “The man who took four hours to shave”, and another depicted three Times journalists with their hands over their eyes, ears and mouth respectively, and the simple caption “No comment from The Times”.
There remains a modern legacy from this long forgotten story. From that time onwards, the verb “to ape”, meaning to copy, entered the English language, as did the verb “to screw”, meaning both to conduct sexual congress, and to cheat, exploit or betray.
Copyright - John Holland 2014
'The Night Ape - a True Story' won First Prize 2014 Momaya Press Short Story Competition, and was published in the '2014 Momaya Press Review - Captivity'. It was published a second time in the 2016 'To Hull and Back' anthology of humourous stories.
The Open Door
I wake about 8pm. Still in my shirt and shorts. I guess I got home about midday. Doris is asleep next to me. What a shape. She’s knocked up and about to burst. If it’s a boy I’m calling him Baird, and he’ll play the sax. I love music. It’s my life.
This isn’t the lousiest place I’ve had. It’s a two room apartment on the third floor, 132nd and 5th in the heart of Harlem. The rent is in arrears. The walls are brown, but we have a table, and chairs to sit on. Some made out of orange crates. The roaches aren’t too bad. Keep to themselves. No rats. Many brothers, some war heroes, have it worse than this.
Doris moves position and wakes. She’s like some dark aquatic mammal – ungainly on land but streamlined in the sea – only she can’t swim. Even at this stage I want some loving. I have to beg but I get it. Straight after, the inquisition begins.
“You’re not going out tonight, lover, are you?” she asks.
“New club opening.”
“Mazuma for the rent?” she asks, knowing the answer.
I don’t even reply.
“Stay home babe, just me and you.”
“I love you, Doris, but you’re hassling me.” I get up, and see my brown pin-striped suit piled on the wooden floor. There was a time it looked good. “Any clean shirts, doll?” I ask. The object of my love does not reply. I wash my face, and wipe the loose dirt from the shirt I’m wearing. Can’t close it at the neck these days. I put on a tie, also open at the neck. I look in the mirror, and pull my cap over my eyes so I don’t have to recognise myself. I look like shit but the music is calling. “I’m cutting,” I say.
Outside, the air is damp and cold. I get a cab to Greenwich Village and hit the bars, blagging drinks from anyone I know. I’m pretty loaded as I leave Hewitt’s bar and head for the club. The skies suddenly release a storm of rain. By the time I reach the club, my suit is twice as heavy as when I set out. Needed a wash anyway.
It’s about midnight when I get to The Open Door, a stucco fronted building near Washington Square. It looks uninviting, except for the sign outside “One night only - Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and band. Til late.”
The entrance is run down. There are guys smoking and shouting. Cap over my eyes, I somehow ease through without any contact and head for the stairs to the basement. The staircase is steep, dark and narrow, almost like entering a pit, the walls are black and damp to the touch. Are the walls sweating? The sound of music drifts through the air. It’s ‘Round about Midnight’.
At the basement entrance, the fug of smoke in the room is so thick it’s like a physical barrier. The smell is hash and tobacco, with the odour of male sweat and sickly sweet perfume. Breathing is an effort too. And the heat makes your skin prickle.
I get used to it quickly as the music connects to my brain. This might be someone’s vision of hell, but with heavenly music keeping despair at bay. This is my world and I love it.
A search light, like those you’ve seen at the movies in wartime London, restlessly throws silver columns through the haze. The place is jammed; there are small tables where four people could sit comfortably but with eight to ten people crowded round each. No tablecloths. Some have lights. Some don’t. Waiters squeeze between tables delivering drinks without a spill. They are greeted at each table like long lost friends.
The waiter asks if I want a seat. He finds the last one in the back corner between two dank walls. I order two doubles, “Any food, sir?” he asks. The idea of eating in this place seems crazy but I’ve had nothing for 24 hours. “Just chicken, man,” I reply. “Anything with that?” “Yeah, more chicken,” and I laugh. He doesn’t.
Most of the light is at the front of the room where the band is blazing. Behind them a huge mural of a reclining naked woman gives you something else to look at. I take a joint from my top pocket. It’s damp but I get it to light. People around me look - in envy. “Hey, butt me man,” one guy says. I don’t. I need this as much as I need the food. I notice that my suit is beginning to steam as it warms. The smoke and steam rising makes me look like Beelzebub. No one cares.
The band is hitting its stride and the punters are into it. The audience is about half black, half offay, mainly guys but some babes too. At the next table an older white guy sits with a beautiful dark haired white girl. The heat has made her remove her short jacket and put it on the back of her chair. Her shoulders are naked and slender. The guy is making moves like a professional wrestler, but she looks like she can take care of herself. She sees me staring and briefly returns my gaze. It’s not so much a ‘come hither’ look as a ‘fuck you, loser’ look. It doesn’t stop me. The thought of kissing those shoulders begins to arouse me, so I get back into the music.
The band ends ‘Midnight’ and the place goes wild. Diz is at the mike, his voice raspy. He’s wearing a red beret, a black double breasted leather jacket, like a high class biker might wear at a society ball. He has a goatee and dark glasses. “Thank you everyone,” Diz tells the audience. “Many of you will have noticed that the Bird has flown tonight. We hope he will be here soon.”
There’s a spare mike stand and a Charlie Parker sized gap next to Diz. The band starts up the next number ‘Scrapple from the Apple’. Diz blows hard on the trumpet hitting unfeasibly high notes time and again. His face and neck inflate into a huge distorted bubble, like some giant obscene bullfrog. Mingus is on the big bass, an instrument he dwarfs. A huge bear of a man, his skin is lighter than the others but his face is darkened by a rough beard. His jacket, already showing dark patches of sweat, strains at his huge girth. A man with a temper, some say he carries a gun. He frowns throughout, but his big fingers are incredibly dextrous as he commands his booming instrument.
Monk is on piano. Porkpie hat, dark suit and whiskers, his angular frame makes him appear unusual, even abnormal. He audibly groans and moans as he plays, poking and prodding at the keys, like you’d prod someone who drove into your car in the street. Accusatory. His playing is rhythmical but spare. More left out than left in. Even this audience doesn’t always get it. But I do. On drums is the bespectacled Max Roach, moving with ease around his kit, forcing the band on, not just keeping the beat, but somehow implying it, playing around it. He looks happy, delirious.
The pace of the music is furious. Technically challenging, it’s a fiery, emotional cauldron of sound. And I love it.
Around the front of the stage young men sit at the tables with their horns - saxes, trumpets, one guy with a trombone - hoping to be able to jam with the band at the end of the night.
About half way through ‘Scrapple’, we all see a large black guy with soulful eyes enter the club, and walk with purpose, and a slight sway, towards the band, where he stands motionless in front of the stage. There seems to be some expectation from the audience, but Mingus, without stopping, bellows, “Sit down, motherfucker!”, and the guy disappears in an instant. The audience realises that this is not the gentleman they were expecting. You can feel the disappointment in the room.
My chicken arrives. It’s all legs and wings. How many New York sparrows had to die for this? I leave the cutlery and use my fingers. The chicken’s hot and greasy and it suffices.
To a tumult of applause, the band ends ‘Scrapple’. Diz bows theatrically. There is some inaudible talk now between Diz and members of the audience. And people look to the back of the room. The search light is trained to the corner where I am smoking. Even as I put my hand over my eyes, it illuminates my table and blinds me. Diz yells, “Bird, what you doing back there? Get up here, man!”
“Stay cool, man. My horn is in hock,” I reply.
“Don’t give me that jive. Someone give that man an alto.” Five or six people rush towards me from the darkness as I stand. I pass the end of my joint to the guy who asked, then wipe the remaining chicken grease from my hands onto my jacket as I take the first horn offered. The search light is still on me, I advance slowly towards the stage, catching the beautiful brown eyes of the girl at the next table. Her expression is different now. I imagine for a second making those brown eyes really light up.
Diz announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, the genius Mr. Charlie Parker.” The audience is now applauding, some standing. As I step onto the stage, Diz kisses me square on the mouth, as is his custom. Max grins. Monk does not turn, keeping his focus on the piano keys, and Mingus glares.
Diz announces, “And now ‘Ce Soir a Tunis’ – ‘A Night in Tunisia’.” I put the horn to my mouth and blow as if my life depends on it. I know it does.
Copyright John Holland 2013
The Open Door won Second Prize in the Momaya Press annual short story competition 2013. And was published in Music - Momaya Press Annual Short Story Review 2013 (anthology) in November 2013. Then in The Best Stories in a Decade (Momaya Press) in December 2013.