From All Angus (Angus Writers' Circle Anthology 2015)



  from all Angus

  Angus Writers’ Circle Anthology 2015

  Copyright 2015 by cited members of Angus Writers’ Circle

  All characters in this publication are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the cited authors, and may not be distributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this e-book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer. Thank you for your support.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  MAURA COLLINGE

  The Boy in the River

  ANN CRAIG

  Auchmithie Breakfast

  The Poppy

  ARCHIE DARROCH

  The Mirror

  Looking out a Window

  ESTHER DINGWALL

  A Selkie Tale

  Lapping Water

  BETTY DOE

  Web Insight

  ELIZABETH FRATTAROLI

  Hi, I’m Sophie

  Regret

  SANDRA IRELAND

  Two Cups of Tea in the Night

  RICHARD JENNINGS

  Supply Chain

  Meeting of Roads

  HAMISH McNIVEN

  The Prizegiving

  Tears

  LIZ STRACHAN

  Plastered

  JAN STRICKLAND

  The Bag Lady (California Style)

  Have You Heard?

  Magic and Missed Romance

  PAM TURNER

  Outrage (Extract)

  ALLAN WEBSTER

  This Year, Jerusalem

  ERIC YEAMAN

  The Lighthouse Chapter 1: The Rock

  INTRODUCTION

  Welcome to Angus Writers’ Circle Anthology 2015.

  Angus is a quiet corner of eastern Scotland between the North Sea and the Grampian Mountains. The main settlements are the Seven Burghs. Four of them – Monifieth, Carnoustie, Arbroath and Montrose – are dotted up the coast from the mouth of the Firth of Tay. The other three – Kirriemuir, Forfar and Brechin – are in the fertile Valley of Strathmore.

  With fertile land adjacent to the sea, it’s not surprising that Angus was settled early. Our road signs boast: “Angus – Scotland’s Birthplace.”

  In 685, the Angles, a tribe from Northumbria in the North of England, invaded the land of the Picts, whose strength lay in Angus and the North-East. The Picts confronted them at Dunnichen, the first of the three pivotal battles in Scottish history. The Picts won the battle, preventing their lands from becoming a northern extension of the Northumbrian kingdom.

  The victory is commemorated by a cartoon-like sequence of engravings on the reverse of the great sculptured cross at Aberlemno, shown on the cover of this anthology.

  When the different tribes coalesced into a single nation, proto-Scotland, early kings ruled from Angus. They later moved south, eventually to Edinburgh.

  Angus Writers’ Circle was formed more recently, in 1991. We are now in our fifth venue, the Rosely Hotel, a Victorian mansion on the outskirts of Arbroath. Our membership comes `from all Angus’ – young and not so young, men and women, novices and those with a large published portfolio.

  We meet on the first and third Wednesday evenings of each month. At some of our meetings, we have visiting speakers – giving talks or workshops on aspects of writing, or adjudicating our competitions. On ‘club nights’, members read out their work in progress, for constructive comment from others.

  During the tidying of our small library, three older AWC anthologies emerged. Two had been printed and sold, but the third was a manuscript in which the existing members – around twenty years ago – had each made a contribution, and these had been bound into a folder. It was an interesting read, and brought back memories of former members.

  Accordingly we decided at a meeting in late 2014 to produce an anthology so that members in twenty years’ time would have a record of the names and work of current members.

  But a similar, single, bound volume would take more than a year to circulate among our members. We therefore decided to publish it as an e-anthology so that it will be available immediately to all members, and to anyone else around the world who would like to read it.

  Thanks to all contributors, to Sandra for collecting and proofreading, and especially to Eric for formatting and uploading.

  Please read with enjoyment.

  Ann Craig (President)

  MAURA COLLINGE: This story was awarded Second Prize at the Scottish Association of Writers weekend conference at Blairgowrie in 2001.

  THE BOY IN THE RIVER

  Paul turned off the main road onto the path by the river. The day was hot for early June – too hot, he thought, to be cycling around making deliveries. He felt as if he’d delivered to every street in Dublin. His shirt stuck to his back and his buttocks stung from contact with the hot saddle. Although he’d been to the outskirts of the city before, he’d never taken this route but he knew it was a short cut which would bring him back to the shop.

  Suddenly, right in front of him, some big, jagged stones broke the even surface of the path. He tried riding over them but the bike, like a temperamental horse, wouldn’t go on.

  As he dismounted, he glanced into the river. The water looked cool and clear – foaming white over the stones, brown where it welled into a deep pool. Deep enough for a swim.

  There was no one around so, propping his bike against a tree, he took off his clothes and got in. The sudden chill of the water took his breath away but when he swam it grew warmer, and he gave himself up to the feel of it with a contented sigh.

  Backwards and forwards he went, and then turned over, slowing his movements until he floated. Glancing down at his body, he was surprised at how white it looked and at how nice that whiteness was, the hair, swaying like waterweed between his thighs a reminder that though he still looked like a child, he was in fact, fifteen. He’d never swum in a river before. It made him feel like a different person, a being who was part of the clear water, the milky-blue sky and the poplars outlined against it with their flickering leaves.

  For a moment he stopped and rested, sitting on the bank opposite the path with the sun warming him. He closed his eyes. From the main road the noise of the traffic was a muted drone, no competition for the metallic trilling of the birds, the gurgle of water and the whisper of leaves. He knew that he mustn’t fall asleep. It would be so easy to....

  He opened his eyes. Two teenage girls were staring at him from the path.

  When they saw him looking, they giggled and ran on. No sooner was he back in the water than they turned and smiled at him.

  Paul smiled, too. Did they really like him, like his white body? He knew very little about girls. His sister Maureen was only seven and his other sister Eileen was five. He remembered when he was five, starting school with Martha Price, the girl who lived in the flat downstairs. Sometimes he’d see her in the playground. They’d laugh and call one another names. These days she wore a lot of makeup and heels so high he wondered how she could walk. As for the girls who’d gone by, their smiles drove away his sense of shame.

  Often that summer, he swam in the river. Few people passed by but when they did, he’d move quickly to the other side or stand behind the reeds.

  It started as a sudden temptation to raise himself out of the water at the sound of female voices. When the girls giggled, he’d smile and get back in. He preferred to show himself to girls his own age. He liked the way they stopped and fixed
their eyes on him. When they looked back, that was when he liked it best of all.

  Sometimes, he’d lift himself out of the water as a woman in her twenties or thirties came along. The older ones didn’t smile; instead they looked scared or annoyed.

  His mother rarely smiled. She hadn’t got the time, he supposed. Always there were nappies to be boiled for the latest baby, children to be attended to. When they were old enough they went and played in the street with the hordes of other ragged children, swinging around a lamp post on a skipping rope or chasing an old tyre with a stick.

  When he was a child, he thought of his mother as bright with flowery dresses and sparkling eyes, her hair blond and permed. Now her clothes were nondescript, her hair grey and straggling. The only time she became like her old self was when he brought home his pay packet. She’d tear it open and give him back some pocket money.

  Nobody ever saw his father’s pay packet. He’d loom into the flat, a huge figure covered in black from the coal he delivered, eat his dinner and then light a cigarette. Sometimes he went out and came back with drink on him. Often Paul heard him shouting at his mother in the bedroom and his mother arguing back. Then the little kids would cry. Paul would squeeze into the bed beside them, his throat so tight he couldn’t speak. They’d cling to him until the angry voices were quiet and they could hear their father’s weight creak into the bed.

  Summer turned to autumn, and autumn to winter. Under the trees by the river a coating of frost powdered the grass, and a thin crust of ice roughened the surface of the water. Instead of swimming, Paul went to the pictures more often.

  One night in the cinema he found himself next to a girl of his