MENDACITIES

by Alec Beattie

Smashwords edition

© Alec Beattie 2015

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and Noah Murney originally appeared in Duality 3: Peace (Duality, 2011)

Fifteen Minutes originally appeared in Making Waves (New Voices Press, 2014)

Looking Out To Sea originally appeared in In On The Tide (Appletree, 2014)

Freak Out originally appeared in Freak Circus Issue 1 (Freak Circus, 2015)

Table of Contents

Marion

Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

Pandataria

Nelly Stoats A Cripple

Fifteen Minutes

The Wall

Looking Out To Sea

The Dead Fox

Twitcher

Constantinople Suited Me Better

Lucky Man

Freak Out

Noah Murney

Tell Us

Second Course

Boy Defiles Church

Anjandra

About the author

Marion

The taxi driver had refused to drive right up to the front door. He’d taken a quick look at the pot holes that rutted the drive and said he wasn’t going any further. He reversed his cab back onto the main road. You’ll have to get out here, he said to Marion.

Marion opened her purse and asked the driver how much. She was surprised at his reply – eighteen quid love he said, holding out his hand. She gave him two ten pound notes and told him to keep the change. He climbed out of the taxi and took her suitcases from the boot, left them on the pavement and got back in the taxi. Marion got out and watched the taxi disappear up the road. She sighed, picked up her suitcases and began walking up the drive towards the house.

Long tufts of grass and weeds grew out of cracks in the tarmac which had disintegrated at the edge, slowly eaten by the encroaching garden. It had ceased to be a garden long ago; it was overgrown and unkempt, wild and dark-looking even though the day was bright. Marion stopped briefly to catch her breath, refusing to look at or think about the garden. Her attention fell on the house as its shadow fell on Marion.

The grey sandstone house was tall and narrow, turret-like. It had a steeply-pitched roof with moss-covered tiles and large, dark windows. The black paint on the front door was peeling. Nevertheless the house was impressively solid.

Marion took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. She pushed it open, picked up her bags and went inside.

The window on the landing halfway up the stairs lit the hall. The air Marion had let in stirred the dust and it churned inside the beam of daylight. She closed and locked the door then carried her suitcases into the front room.

The room was cluttered with dustsheet-covered furniture. Marion put her suitcases down, uncovered a couch and sat down. She looked at the couch fabric and rubbed it. It felt familiar. She looked around the room, her memory moved by the pattern on the wallpaper and the musty smell of the couch. She stood and went to the light switch and flicked it on. Only one of the five bulbs on the fitting in the centre of the ceiling lit up. At least the electricity’s on, she thought. Miss Hughes had said that the electricity, the gas and the phone had been connected, and that the fridge had a few days food in it. Marion made a mental note to check the fridge. The dust on the bulb had begun to burn so she switched it off.

She picked up her cases and went upstairs, going to her own bedroom unthinking, bypassing her parents’ and brother’s rooms. She stood in the doorway and looked in turn at the unmade single bed, the mirror-fronted wardrobe and the faded carpet. She dropped the cases and sat on the bed.

This is no good, she thought. After years of sleeping in a single bed she wanted one where she could stretch out and move around in. She went back down the hall to her parents’ room.

Her parents had slept in a large bed, flanked on both side by cabinets and a bookcase on the side her father slept on. Marion lay across the bed and stretched. She got up and went to the linen cupboard in the hall, picked out a sheet and sniffed it. It had a faint scent that reminded her of her mother’s perfume. She picked up more bedding, returned to the bedroom and made up the bed. She took the clothes from the suitcases and put them in the wardrobe then went downstairs to see what Miss Hughes had left for her in the fridge.

After eating Marion wandered through the house. She licked her finger and made a spy hole in one of the upstairs windows and peered out at the garden. It began to get dark and she felt cold. She tried to start the gas boiler but didn’t know how so she went upstairs and pulled on another jumper. Back downstairs she picked up the purple trim phone and listened to the dialling tone. She spoke into the mouthpiece, asking if there was anyone there. She felt silly so she put the handset back in its cradle.

She went into the front room and drew the curtains. The dust on the light bulb burned again but it wasn’t too bad. Marion sat on the couch and stared at the wall in front of her. She thought about watching television but there wasn’t one in the house. She decided to look for something to break the silence. Silence was one of the many things Marion would have to get used to.

She found her mother’s old radio in the kitchen and switched it on. It hissed but after a few seconds faint voices came through the tiny speaker. Marion turned the volume dial but the voices became only slightly louder. She tried to retune the radio but could only find static. She shook it then turned it off. She looked at her watch. It was eight thirty.

Marion sat on the couch again then decided to go to bed and read. She went upstairs to the bathroom, stripped and washed herself. She put on a nightdress while reading the spines of the books in her father’s bookcase. She wished she hadn’t given her books away then remembered the magazine she’d bought to read on the train.

She read it again. Reading the same thing over and over was something she’d learned. Finally, when the long day caught up with her Marion switched the lamp off and lay down. She stretched herself out. She thought about how perfectly quiet it was. No sounds of coughing or doors slamming or screaming. She fell asleep.

Marion woke in a panic, unsure of where she was and why it was so quiet and dark before she realised where she was. Suddenly she heard it; she held her breath and listened. The baby was crying again, she thought, before she remembered that the baby had died a long time ago, smothered beneath the pillow Marion had pressed into its face. Still, she heard it. Still, the baby cried on.

*****

Marion waited until late in the afternoon two days later before going out. She had to buy more food and she had an appointment with old Mister Campbell.

She walked down the drive to the main road, glancing briefly at the garden. She had no idea about gardens. The drive needed attention too. She made a mental note to have someone come and look at them.

She stood on the pavement and looked to her left and to her right. Some things had changed; the trees were bigger and the cars were different and there were a lot more of them. She thought about going back indoors to phone for a taxi but she didn’t want to spend forty pounds on fares every time she went out. She began walking towards the village. We’re stuck in time, Marion thought; the post office with its ‘George V’ pillar box and the butcher’s shop were exactly as she’d known them. There were one or two unfamiliar shop fronts but it was as she remembered - slow-moving, quiet, and inward-looking. Marion arrived at Campbell’s office and climbed the stairs.

She sat in the reception of Campbell and Kennedy, her family’s solicitors. Inside, the building was stuffy and uncomfortable. There was a water cooler in the corner of the reception but there weren’t any cups. She didn’t want to pester the girl at the desk. Marion licked her lips, feeling slightly nervous. Mister Kennedy had sold his share of the partnership a long time ago to spend his retirement on the golf course. Old Campbell had insisted the new partner (whose name Marion couldn’t remember) retain the firm’s name and Campbell himself had stayed on well past retirement. Marion guessed that he was eighty, at least. Probably more than that, she thought. People like Old Mister Campbell never retired.

Campbell appeared. He shook Marion’s hand and they exchanged brief pleasantries while they went into his office. They sat down on opposite sides of his desk. Campbell assured Marion that she had absolutely nothing to worry about, that he was just making sure