AnyaKimlin
Confuddled
This is my urban fantasy. Does this beginning have enough to it? I'm not supposed to be working on this book but I am awaiting the feedback on my sit-com idea so needed something to keep my mind busy.
Chapter One
Ian Erasmus Black shivered and, despite the warm summer's day, pulled his tatty old cardigan round him. Senility had finally hit at 8.45 am that morning. At the time he had been standing in the queue at the baker's, trying not discuss Mrs Arbuthnot's daughter's hysterectomy; it was a tale to fire fear into the heart of any right thinking man. He had sneezed thrice, coughed twice and shivered. On the plus side everyone else thought he was getting the plague so had backed off and he had been able to buy his large crusty bloomer and two well-filled custard slices in record time.
He pushed his glasses back up his nose with his forefinger and locked his jelly-like legs, so they could move. With some dignity in tact he paid Jim Whale, the too jolly baker, and left the shop, escaping the prying eyes and clacking tongues of Umber Bridge's blue rinse brigade. No doubt by 9.30 am his mother would be phoning him to see if he would like her to bring round some chicken soup.
Foreboding followed him, on the walk back up the hill lined with grey-stone terraced houses. White knuckles held tight hold of his string shopping bag as if he expected to be mugged for the delicious wares and he found it harder than usual to capture his breath. Every lamp-post, pillar-box and rubbish bin could be hiding Nessie, The Gruffalo or even Smaug. They weren't and his head knew they weren't but his OAP senses screamed otherwise. As a police officer would have called them his detective gut but that had calcified upon his retirement.
His hand shook as he fitted the key into the lock of the green glossed door with small leaded glass window at the top. “Don't be so bloody stupid, Ian.” In the safety of his porch he felt even more ridiculous. “Anybody home?” He bent down and picked up the mail. “Junk, junk, junk, junk, bill, ahh interesting.” He sorted through the envelopes throwing most of them into a bin next to the hall stand.
The door to the back parlour opened. In 1964 Ian had carried his heavily pregnant wife over the threshold; she left him and their five sons after nine disastrous years of marriage but not much else had changed. Décor and furnishings meant little to Ian and every five years he repainted it in exactly the same colours as before. “Hey, Wilf.”
Willowy, wiry and wise, Wilf propped himself at an angle against the wall. He wore khaki shorts and a checked shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, revealing his muscular forearms covered in soft grey hair. From his mouth, he removed his pipe and smiled, just a little. “What happened to you? You look your age and then some, old man.”
“Compliments abound.” Ian sat down on the seat and exchanged his sneakers with the hole in them for his plaid slippers. “What time are you going to work?”
Wilf checked his watch. “Not until two. His Lordship has a shooting party he wants me to take over the moors. Want a coffee?”
“Only if it has something stronger in it.” Picking up the bag, Ian rose to his feet, with a lot more help from the bench than usual, and padded down the hallway into the small kitchen, located directly opposite the front door. Lime-green nineteen sixties units and a yellow Formica dresser with corrugated plastic doors did not compliment the wallpaper with tiny red roses. Wilf manned the kettle but Ian stood and stared at him. The two men exchanged a brief soft kiss, Wilf's moustache tickling against Ian's top lip.
Wilf took the string bag that Ian still clutched, Wilf had to prise open Ian's fingers. “Go take a seat, love. Hungry?”
The kiss had made Ian feel more human but drained any adrenaline that had been keeping him going. He shook his head. “Sick. Thanks.” Feeling far more than his sixty-eight years, Ian's body slumped and he painfully moved from the kitchen into the back room. Laid out with the folding table under the window, utility sideboard along the back wall and a putty coloured leather suite arranged round the gas fire. To the right of the fireplace sat the chair, covered in a bright crocheted blanket, that Ian jealously guarded.
He picked up the blanket, wrapped it round himself and capsized into the chair. Familiar faint smells of leather, Glenfiddich and Wilf's favourite black cherry tobacco, grounded him and enveloped him in the safety of his home. Pain from his limbs leached into the chair as he allowed them to relax. The position he found himself in placed in direct eye contact with the painting above the fire; an oil of a forest clearing that his father had painted before Ian was born. A little black plaque on the bottom of the gold frame: Fairy Glen. Oak, ash, birch and a few others surrounded a stone circle with a flat alter like stone in the centre. Always there he hardly ever noticed it but he found his gaze drawn to the alter stone and the cold in his spine spread through his body. Sweat soaked his forehead and drenched his shirt.
Early morning dew heightened the scents from the forest and sun filtered through the canopy. Ian followed the light until he came out in the clearing. A wail... increasing in volume... echoed round the clearing. Fluttering of birds. Not birds... bats... they descended on Ian and he raised his hands to cover his head. Screams. Were they his? Heat, sweat, aching filled his body and they forced him to lower his body until he was knelt on the stone, head down. “Save me.” His screams had turned to whispers.
A shriek louder than anything he had heard before. The glen was silent. No fluttering, no screams, no wails.
The world shook. “Ian.” Shaking increased up the Richter scale until the whole of the clearing shook. “Ian!” The voice was louder.
His body was being lifted until he came face to face with a creature with waxy skin and black leathery wings. Familiar? “For God's sake, Ian!” the creature became irate in tone, but as he spoke his white face with mother of pearl skin moved closer.
Frozen in place, Ian could only recoil from the kiss in spirit but not in body. The kiss became an urgent, ardent, hard kiss, tasting of salmon, coffee and tobacco. A familiar hairy tickle on the lips, forced Ian's eyes open. His eyes blinked like automatic doors on the blink. Blurry.... he picked up his glasses from his chest and put them on. “Wilf?” It was difficult to see through the sweaty smears on his glasses, so Ian picked up the glasses case he kept on the occasional table and took out the cleaning cloth.
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty?” Wilf grinned and sat down on terracotta, tiled coffee table. “I was beginning to think you would never wake up. You were thrashing and screaming so much I considered calling a priest.”
Hypnotically, Ian cleaned the lenses in a circular manner. He opened his very dry mouth but he was not ready to speak. His head hurt, really hurt. Pete, one of his sons had migraines but he had never suffered from them himself. “Where?” He placed his glasses on his face and used his forefinger to push them into place.
“Back room, love. There's a good dose of brandy in it.” Coffee aroma lifted from the thick, lopsided mug in Wilf's hand. Since Mikey, Ian's oldest son had brought his art project home from school it had become a tradition for every child and grandchild to make Ian a mug. This one was bright yellow and green with Grandpa hacked into it.
“Thanks.” Ian took the mug and nursed it, appreciating the warmth in his hands. “That was weird. Really weird. I feel ****.” He sipped the coffee and let the brandy's special heat spread through his body, healing him.
“Harley called. He said he was dropping the boys off this afternoon on the way to work. Shall I call him and cancel?”
“No, we can't.” Another sip of coffee and another step out of the painting and into the real world. “Sarah is experiencing some problems.”
“Sarah is the problem and Harley is a ****. He's using you.” Wilf placed his hand on Ian's knee and moved closer. “Love, you have to start saying no.”
“Wilf, he's our grandson.” Anger to Wilf's assessment would be appropriate but it was so close to the truth that in his current condition, Ian could not summon a greater objection. “Have we got some drugs?”
“All out of speed, but I think there is some paracetamol in the bathroom cabinet.” Wilf stood up and grinned. "Just guessing a quickie before work is out?"
Ian threw a cushion at Wilf, but he was so slow it hit the back of the door instead of its intended target.
Chapter One
Ian Erasmus Black shivered and, despite the warm summer's day, pulled his tatty old cardigan round him. Senility had finally hit at 8.45 am that morning. At the time he had been standing in the queue at the baker's, trying not discuss Mrs Arbuthnot's daughter's hysterectomy; it was a tale to fire fear into the heart of any right thinking man. He had sneezed thrice, coughed twice and shivered. On the plus side everyone else thought he was getting the plague so had backed off and he had been able to buy his large crusty bloomer and two well-filled custard slices in record time.
He pushed his glasses back up his nose with his forefinger and locked his jelly-like legs, so they could move. With some dignity in tact he paid Jim Whale, the too jolly baker, and left the shop, escaping the prying eyes and clacking tongues of Umber Bridge's blue rinse brigade. No doubt by 9.30 am his mother would be phoning him to see if he would like her to bring round some chicken soup.
Foreboding followed him, on the walk back up the hill lined with grey-stone terraced houses. White knuckles held tight hold of his string shopping bag as if he expected to be mugged for the delicious wares and he found it harder than usual to capture his breath. Every lamp-post, pillar-box and rubbish bin could be hiding Nessie, The Gruffalo or even Smaug. They weren't and his head knew they weren't but his OAP senses screamed otherwise. As a police officer would have called them his detective gut but that had calcified upon his retirement.
His hand shook as he fitted the key into the lock of the green glossed door with small leaded glass window at the top. “Don't be so bloody stupid, Ian.” In the safety of his porch he felt even more ridiculous. “Anybody home?” He bent down and picked up the mail. “Junk, junk, junk, junk, bill, ahh interesting.” He sorted through the envelopes throwing most of them into a bin next to the hall stand.
The door to the back parlour opened. In 1964 Ian had carried his heavily pregnant wife over the threshold; she left him and their five sons after nine disastrous years of marriage but not much else had changed. Décor and furnishings meant little to Ian and every five years he repainted it in exactly the same colours as before. “Hey, Wilf.”
Willowy, wiry and wise, Wilf propped himself at an angle against the wall. He wore khaki shorts and a checked shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, revealing his muscular forearms covered in soft grey hair. From his mouth, he removed his pipe and smiled, just a little. “What happened to you? You look your age and then some, old man.”
“Compliments abound.” Ian sat down on the seat and exchanged his sneakers with the hole in them for his plaid slippers. “What time are you going to work?”
Wilf checked his watch. “Not until two. His Lordship has a shooting party he wants me to take over the moors. Want a coffee?”
“Only if it has something stronger in it.” Picking up the bag, Ian rose to his feet, with a lot more help from the bench than usual, and padded down the hallway into the small kitchen, located directly opposite the front door. Lime-green nineteen sixties units and a yellow Formica dresser with corrugated plastic doors did not compliment the wallpaper with tiny red roses. Wilf manned the kettle but Ian stood and stared at him. The two men exchanged a brief soft kiss, Wilf's moustache tickling against Ian's top lip.
Wilf took the string bag that Ian still clutched, Wilf had to prise open Ian's fingers. “Go take a seat, love. Hungry?”
The kiss had made Ian feel more human but drained any adrenaline that had been keeping him going. He shook his head. “Sick. Thanks.” Feeling far more than his sixty-eight years, Ian's body slumped and he painfully moved from the kitchen into the back room. Laid out with the folding table under the window, utility sideboard along the back wall and a putty coloured leather suite arranged round the gas fire. To the right of the fireplace sat the chair, covered in a bright crocheted blanket, that Ian jealously guarded.
He picked up the blanket, wrapped it round himself and capsized into the chair. Familiar faint smells of leather, Glenfiddich and Wilf's favourite black cherry tobacco, grounded him and enveloped him in the safety of his home. Pain from his limbs leached into the chair as he allowed them to relax. The position he found himself in placed in direct eye contact with the painting above the fire; an oil of a forest clearing that his father had painted before Ian was born. A little black plaque on the bottom of the gold frame: Fairy Glen. Oak, ash, birch and a few others surrounded a stone circle with a flat alter like stone in the centre. Always there he hardly ever noticed it but he found his gaze drawn to the alter stone and the cold in his spine spread through his body. Sweat soaked his forehead and drenched his shirt.
Early morning dew heightened the scents from the forest and sun filtered through the canopy. Ian followed the light until he came out in the clearing. A wail... increasing in volume... echoed round the clearing. Fluttering of birds. Not birds... bats... they descended on Ian and he raised his hands to cover his head. Screams. Were they his? Heat, sweat, aching filled his body and they forced him to lower his body until he was knelt on the stone, head down. “Save me.” His screams had turned to whispers.
A shriek louder than anything he had heard before. The glen was silent. No fluttering, no screams, no wails.
The world shook. “Ian.” Shaking increased up the Richter scale until the whole of the clearing shook. “Ian!” The voice was louder.
His body was being lifted until he came face to face with a creature with waxy skin and black leathery wings. Familiar? “For God's sake, Ian!” the creature became irate in tone, but as he spoke his white face with mother of pearl skin moved closer.
Frozen in place, Ian could only recoil from the kiss in spirit but not in body. The kiss became an urgent, ardent, hard kiss, tasting of salmon, coffee and tobacco. A familiar hairy tickle on the lips, forced Ian's eyes open. His eyes blinked like automatic doors on the blink. Blurry.... he picked up his glasses from his chest and put them on. “Wilf?” It was difficult to see through the sweaty smears on his glasses, so Ian picked up the glasses case he kept on the occasional table and took out the cleaning cloth.
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty?” Wilf grinned and sat down on terracotta, tiled coffee table. “I was beginning to think you would never wake up. You were thrashing and screaming so much I considered calling a priest.”
Hypnotically, Ian cleaned the lenses in a circular manner. He opened his very dry mouth but he was not ready to speak. His head hurt, really hurt. Pete, one of his sons had migraines but he had never suffered from them himself. “Where?” He placed his glasses on his face and used his forefinger to push them into place.
“Back room, love. There's a good dose of brandy in it.” Coffee aroma lifted from the thick, lopsided mug in Wilf's hand. Since Mikey, Ian's oldest son had brought his art project home from school it had become a tradition for every child and grandchild to make Ian a mug. This one was bright yellow and green with Grandpa hacked into it.
“Thanks.” Ian took the mug and nursed it, appreciating the warmth in his hands. “That was weird. Really weird. I feel ****.” He sipped the coffee and let the brandy's special heat spread through his body, healing him.
“Harley called. He said he was dropping the boys off this afternoon on the way to work. Shall I call him and cancel?”
“No, we can't.” Another sip of coffee and another step out of the painting and into the real world. “Sarah is experiencing some problems.”
“Sarah is the problem and Harley is a ****. He's using you.” Wilf placed his hand on Ian's knee and moved closer. “Love, you have to start saying no.”
“Wilf, he's our grandson.” Anger to Wilf's assessment would be appropriate but it was so close to the truth that in his current condition, Ian could not summon a greater objection. “Have we got some drugs?”
“All out of speed, but I think there is some paracetamol in the bathroom cabinet.” Wilf stood up and grinned. "Just guessing a quickie before work is out?"
Ian threw a cushion at Wilf, but he was so slow it hit the back of the door instead of its intended target.
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