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The Lie - Third Prize Winner “Preparing For Winter..”
Third prize goes to Alison Bacon of Bristol. This story contains some beautiful, evocative writing and is sensitive and fresh. Not a word is wasted and it is a pleasure to read.
Well done, Alison!
Alison Bacon is a native Scot who now lives and works in the West Country. A ‘late developer’ in writing terms, she is now making up for lost time and in the last ten years has written two novels, a clutch of short stories and a smattering of non-fiction articles. When she’s not mulling over novel number three, you can most often find her loitering on Twitter or receiving guests at http://debutnovelist.wordpress.com
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Preparing For Winter..
When the day arrived she woke early, ready to hunt down its treasures and store them up, like a squirrel preparing for winter.
Still in her night clothes she went out to the garden. The day stretched before her like a fragile gauze. She breathed slowly. She must savour it, all of it, even the waiting.
There were tomatoes ready to pick, almost the last of the crop. She detached them one by one from their trusses and took them indoors. The sense of smell, she knew, was the greatest aid to memory. She laid the fruits in a bowl and inhaled the scent from her fingers: warm, acrid and autumnal.
She dressed with deliberate satisfaction. The wide-necked blouse revealed her collarbones, the skirt swung around her bare legs. She sprayed a cloud of perfume and stepped through. Its dampness settled on her like a veil. She checked the clock. Hours to wait.
In the kitchen she made coffee, strong and earthy. The sun was burning off the early mist. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Every detail must be right.
The radio droned a dull news day. That too was as it should be. Nothing would distract them from each other. The thought of him brought a frisson, but it was too soon. Like her he was still at home. She turned her back on the dark outcrop of his other life, distracting herself with the hum of the oven, the flakes of a croissant yielding to her tongue.
As she locked the door behind her, a neighbour waved from over the hedge.
‘Off into town? Enjoy yourself!’
She walked on, airbrushing the neighbour from the scene.
In the bus, dust and warm vinyl together created a pleasingly alien atmosphere. Trees and lamp-posts trembled in the heat. The door hissed open and closed. A jolt sent her forward. She steadied herself on the steel upright then sat back, dropping her shoulders, smoothing her skirt. The heat, the dust, the hiss of the door. She added them to her treasure trove, to the morning mist, the coffee and the tomatoes.
On the waterfront the air was smooth as obsidian. Boats glided or chugged, unhurried. She composed herself. She would not let anticipation spoil the perfect calm. She did not turn to look until he was beside her.
She said, ‘I picked tomatoes today. They made me think of you.’
In public they did not touch. He kissed her with his eyes. ‘I thought today would never come.’
She returned the eye-kiss.
‘Let’s go.’
Outside the city the sky was still milky, the horizon blurred. She breathed in the warmth. ‘I’ve never been here before,’ she said.
Further on they got out, walked from the road and lay down on an open moor. Here the sky had cleared. They looked into its blueness, denying themselves. They must let the day be what it was. He rolled over to look down at her and touched her lips with his finger. ‘Perfect,’ he said.
The heather pricked her legs. She bit his lip so that he would share both pleasure and pain.
‘Perfect,’ she said to the sky.
The road wound down into folds of green where signposts bore rickety names: Crowcombe, Wiveliscombe and Stogumber.
‘Shall we eat?’ he said.
‘Yes. Let’s go to …’ she stumbled over the consonants ‘… to Stogumber.’ It came out like a burp and they laughed together. Stogumber. What a name.
The barman came to serve them, winking at his regulars. The alcohol stirred the warmth inside her.
Under the table his leg pressed hers. She pressed him back. Time for bed.
In the car park he said, ‘I’m sorry but I have to …’ She nodded and walked away from him into the street.
He came after her.
‘There isn’t even a church,’ she said, as if she were a tourist, as if she had been looking for a church. She could see the place in his pocket where he had put back the phone.
They checked in at dusk. He apologised for the room: old-fashioned with a whiff of damp. She lay down and studied the flowered paper and cracked cornice, committing them to memory. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s perfect.’
Darkness fell. The day was a shimmering memory. When the old bed creaked they did not laugh. They would not be distracted from what was theirs: one night, to be filled, to excess, to exhaustion.
‘I love you,’ he whispered in the darkness.
She took this on her tongue and swallowed it whole. It lay there with the others; the scent of tomatoes, the stab of heather, the sound of Stogumber. The bedside clock blinked the minutes away. She turned its face to the wall.
They slept little, not admitting to discomfort or tiredness. In the morning they said they would remember it forever.
Going back, the motorway was drab, the heat abated. In town the bus was crowded. She held herself apart from the slew of noise and people until her neighbour shuffled in alongside. ‘In town again? Glutton for punishment.’
She smiled. This was afterwards. This was unimportant.
At home she lay down and curled up into a shell where she unpacked her memories and stroked them like pets. Crowcombe Wiveliscombe and Stogumber, the names ran through her fingers. Only the hard edge of a phone spoiled the cascade. In the blueness of the day she could have borne it. But in the run-up to night it had come too late. She tried to nudge it away but it refused to leave.
On her own bed she slept until evening. Afterwards she showered, rinsing the old skin away. The new one felt raw and exposed. She picked out a fine wool wrap, protecting what was left: the tomatoes and the mist, the cornice and the creaky bed.
A key turned in the lock. The front door closed. A suitcase bumped the floor. His jacket reeked of airport lounge and late-night meetings. She acquiesced to a hug and pulled away, preserving something: a prick of moorland gorse, a village with an awkward name.
‘Good trip?’ she asked.
‘Okay.’ He dumped his flight bag on the table where it made a black uneven stain, pushing the bowl of tomatoes to the edge. ‘Look, this is for you.’
She did not want to touch the package with its sharp and shiny corners but he was waiting. Perfume from the duty free, the one she liked. This made it worse. ‘Oh, thanks. Nice. Lovely.’ She turned up her wrist and sprayed a little to please him. Only now did she feel that something had been wrong.
‘So. What have you been up to?’ he asked. ‘While I was away.’
The scent was too strong in the room. She went to open the door but was met by a cold gust, presaging rain. She closed the door again and turned to face him. ‘Not much. I picked some tomatoes.’ This was not enough. He wanted more. ‘I went out for a drive.’
‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Yes, to the hills, some villages. Pretty. One had a pub.’ She frowned. ‘But no church.’
Why had she said that?
With a stride he was beside her, taking her hand, raising her wrist to his face. ‘I need a shower. Why don’t you come too?’ His lips brushed her inner arm.
She pulled away, startled into the truth. ‘I already have.’
He looked into her face but said nothing.
When he had gone she lowered her face to the bowl of tomatoes, but they had lost their pungency. She stepped sharply on the pedal bin and consigned them to oblivion. Outside she heard the spatter of rain. The rest of the crop would be spoiled.
He came back tangily clean. ‘That village you mentioned. The one with the pub. Maybe we should go there sometime?’
Darkness was falling. She walked to the window and reached for the blind cord. ‘We could,’ she said. ‘Except I’ve forgotten the name.’ As the blind fell, the garden and everything in it disappeared.
She drew her wrap around her shoulders. Soon it would be winter.
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