Take a deep breath.

It’s cold. The night air’s black and thin.

My breath is throwing frozen angels into the night.

Purse my lips, puff. A misty cherub.

I puff again, enjoying the effect.

Again.

Again.

Stop that, you say. It’s going all over me.

What’s going all over you?

Your breath, you say.

My breath?

You say nothing.

My breath is going all over you.

You still say nothing.

But my breath is always going all over you.

Yeah, but normally I can just ignore it, you snap.

You’re irritated.

This is new.

I wait for a second, then can’t help myself.

What’s… wrong with my breath going over you?

It’s, it’s… – you wheel your hand impatiently at the wrist – it’s dirty.

I laugh.

This is clearly the wrong response.

Well, it is! It’s fucking filthy!

Measured tone.

How can it be filthy? It’s just breath.

Oh my god.

No, really, how can breath be dirty?

It’s not just breath, is it? It’s, you know, breath that you’ve used up already. It’s, like, waste. Like car exhaust or something. You wouldn’t laugh if I said I didn’t want to breathe in car fumes, would you? It’s the same thing.

Car exhaust is poisonous, though.

So is breath. It’s all carbon dioxide. All the oxygen’s gone. That’s why you breathe it out.

Not all the oxygen’s gone. That’s why they make you breathe into a bag if you’re having a panic attack.

No, it’s not. They make you breathe into a bag because you need more carbon dioxide.

But there must still be oxygen in there, or you’d die.

Yeah, but still. And it’s your own breath, anyway. That’s different.

…Is it?

Of course it is. I mean, it’s still not nice, but it’s better than someone else’s.

Fucking hell.

What?

That’s so mad.

It’s not fucking mad. I’m not mad. It’s you lot that’s mad.

By “you lot”, you mean, like, the rest of the human race?

It’s not just me, all right? I bet loads of people think that, they’re just don’t want to say it in case people take the piss.

I wonder why they’d be worried about that.

Look, you’re really pissing me off now.

Sorry.

You’re not though, are you?

No, really. I am. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.

I can see you laughing, you fucker.

Oh look, I’m sorry, it’s just so – it’s just a bit weird.

It’s not. Look, it’s full of germs, right? That’s why they tell you to cover your mouth when you sneeze. “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases”, right? Japanese people don’t even blow their noses in public because they think it’s dirty. You know, it’s waste products. Like – well, you know.

Like shit?

Oh my god. Yes, like shit.

You think exhaled breath is like shit.

Well. No, not shit. More like… more like farts, actually.

Right. That makes much more sense.

I wish I’d never said anything now.

Silence.

But, you know, people are breathing out all the time. Practically every breath you take must –

You put up one hand, palm out.

Don’t. Look, all right, I know it’s a bit weird. But it’s just how I feel. I can’t help it. It’s not normally a problem. I just ignore it. But when it’s cold and you can see everything – well, you know, it’s like the difference between knowing that people go to the toilet and actually seeing it.

All right. Look, I really didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just – it must make it a bit difficult talking to people and stuff.

It does, sometimes. Like I say, most of the time I don’t really think about it. Only if it’s cold. Or when someone stands really close to you and you can feel it.

That’s pretty revolting anyway. Unless you fancy them, of course.

Well, yeah.

Silence.

A thought occurs.

So what about when we, you know? When we kiss? I mean, it’s pretty unavoidable then, isn’t it?

You stop, turn to face me. Your face is hard, your stance stern.

Yeah, you say.

I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. ##

Let no man put asunder.

And so it came to pass that Gretel and Spejbl were to be married, and a glorious day it was to be.

Spejbl had long sought his true love. He had waited, patiently, for the right girl, biding his time and moving to the time of the unseen hands: directed this way and that by the constant tugging of his strings. He had waited as days turned into weeks and months and years, and wondered if he would ever meet the one for him, the one who would understand that beneath his clownish exterior lay a true, loyal heart that would never waver in its devotion. He had almost given up all hope when quite by chance one day he happened upon Gretel, and he knew almost at once that she was the girl for him.

Gretel, for her part, had also tired of the constant dance, of the perpetual, pre-ordained rituals of courtship: one step forward followed by two steps back. Her good looks had brought many suitors, but most were not what they seemed. Sometimes they were dull; sometimes they were unkind; and sometimes they were both. She longed for one who would see below her brightly-painted surface and delicately-carved features to the warm and gentle soul locked inside her wooden body. And she too had almost given up hope when she by chance happened on Spebjl, and she knew almost at once that he was the boy for her.

And so the great day came, and there was much excitement among the friends and family who gathered. For when puppets marry, they lose their strings: no longer must they follow directives from above, but they may choose their own path together. So the assembled congregation were eager to see Gretel and Spejbl tied in matrimony, and there was much hubbub as they waited in the highest chamber of the hilltop castle for the ceremony to begin.

In the event, Spejbl, though nervous, acquitted himself admirably. Gretel, for her part, was a beautiful bride, and there was a rising murmur of approval as they exchanged their vows and their strings came tumbling down. Free at last, the couple led the way down the winding stairs of the castle to the great green outside. But suddenly a terrible thing happened: a great wind blew up and, before anyone could move to intervene, Gretel, untethered, was blown away across the moors, never to be seen again.

And so Spebjl was left, alone and afraid, on the hill. The congregation called to him, to come away from the dangerous edge, to return to them. But without his bride, and without his strings, he could not move an inch. ##

All’s fair in love and war.

1.     Avalanche

Honestly, it was getting beyond a joke. It wasn’t even a case of always the bridesmaid, never the bride; she never even got to be the bloody bridesmaid. Just a face in the crowd, leaping gaily for the bouquet. She’d even caught it a couple of times: her height gave her an advantage that was starkly belied by the impediment it presented in real life. That was probably why she was never the bridesmaid, too: no-one wanted her towering over the bride.

More recently, though, she’d given up even trying to grab the flowers. Anything like that just brought out the question: So when’s it going to be your turn? And it was a good question. When was it going to be her turn? It wasn’t even that she particularly wanted to get married; she just wanted to meet someone nice. Settle down. Get a cat.

But every day brought news of another man captured; she was starting to feel twinges of angst even for the losses of those she had never previously considered to be among the possibilities. It’s true: all the good ones are either taken or gay, she said laughingly to her dwindling circle of single friends, knowing that they would be quick to pour scorn on the notion, to reassure, to be mutually supportive. And so they were.

But none of them, including her, ever dared say what they really thought: that maybe it was true.

2. Racing Kings

It’s obvious from the moment he enters the room that she’s the only person in the room worth talking to — and yet the only one he has no reason to talk to (although he has plenty of motive). Hers is the first new face he’s seen at one of Jay’s bashes for a while, and her novelty is refreshing; but it’s also a startling, perhaps even scary, challenge to their timeworn social order.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s so very pretty, her hair bobbing as she laughs at whatever her — male — sofa-mate is saying. He feels a momentary stab of jealousy and incongruous fear: fear that he has lost her before he has even had a chance to win her; fear that they will never laugh, later, as couples do, about that man who tried foolishly to hit on her, to sever their bond; but most of all, fear that he he can only be rendered ridiculous in the face of her desirability.

But then he sends that train of thought into a siding, takes a deep breath, walks over, trying to look casual but aware that his chest is protruding aburdly, that his gentle half-smile perhaps more closely resembles a leering grin. To win her regard, he will have to quite literally oust his rival, driving him from his stronghold on the sofa.

And to do it, he will have to be the brighter and funnier and more charming man. It’s not something he’s very good at, competitive wooing; but he thinks that for her sake he might rise to the occasion.

3.    Losing

She’s losing patience, wants him to act; and yet she doesn’t want to show her impatience, doesn’t want him to sense that she is in any way less than carefree and delightful and perfect for him, and yet; this isn’t working, they are running and running but still standing still. He isn’t answering her sidelong glance, or the pat of her hand on his arm, or even the slight angle that she keeps finding that her hips have adopted. Even her body is betraying her desire: what more can it take?

She’s embarrassed and unashamed at the same time, because she is teetering on the verge of not caring if she’s becoming obvious. Perhaps obvious is okay, she thinks, although she feels foolish and uncomfortable trying to strike poses, and besides she wants him to take her, she wants to give herself to him, not throw herself at him –  why won’t he take the gift of herself that she’s offering?

4.    Extinction

He could not believe that that bastard had got her, that he was taking her out of the equation, out of consideration, out of play. How dare he? And yet of course Jay dared, because Jay didn’t know how he felt about her, how he had always felt about her, since that first time they had met and he had gone home, head abuzz, wondering if he should perhaps have pressed his luck but being sure, for once quite sure, that there would be another opportunity –

– except that the next time, she had been not quite as pleased to see him as he had hoped; and his bonhomie had quickly grown stale and he had failed to entirely conceal the resulting gloomy bad temper; and then he felt he had been churlish and an awkwardness had sprung up between them that over time and repeated encounters grew into an unbreakable, inflexible formality.

And so he had never felt that he could ask Jay, even as a merry aside, if Jay thought he was in with a chance; and so Jay never knew how he felt about her. And so Jay had felt no compunction in moving in, with the thoughtless boldness that he at once envied and resented. And now Jay was taking her down the aisle and out of his life.

5.    Alice

And now there was a new joke, and this one wasn’t funny either. This one was about how rarely the two of them were ever seen in the same place at the same time. There was always some reason. He had to work. One of her oldest friends was in town. He really couldn’t stand opera. She’d got a terrible migraine.

Not too many of her friends were still cracking the joke. Most had even stopped asking where Jay was. It had slowly, subtly slipped out of the chirpy realms of banter and into the silent twilight of taboo. But there was still the odd enquirer who would allude amusedly to Jay’s elusiveness, only to be elbowed and shushed by those who were more in the loop. They didn’t think she saw. But she did.

What they didn’t see was that it wasn’t just social functions that separated them. They were barely ever together, in public or in private. At home, they haunted different rooms; at weekends she went shopping, while he hung out at home; and their mutual pact to avoid holidays could not have been more sacred if it had been written in blood. To say nothing of the togethernesses of which intimacy was built.

Where he was, she was not; and where she went, he went not. She wondered: why had he fought so hard to capture her, if he had never wanted to keep her? Why had he stood by her side at the altar, but forsaken her ever since?

What did he want from her? And what did she want from him?

6.    Fairy

And all of a sudden the rules had all changed. He found it all very confusing.

There was the sudden arrival of gravity, for one thing. It was no longer permissible to engage in the weightless, carefree couplings of his youth. Everything – everyone – was laden down with anxieties, neuroses, obsessions. Could his love heal her old wounds? Would he promise not to max out her credit cards? Would he be a better father to her children than hers had been to her? Would he still love her as she got old? Was he the one?

Then there was the sheer variety of his pursuers. Suddenly, it seemed, it was open season. Woeful divorcées who drank too much and merry widows likewise; hopeless spinsters, hopeful lolitas and hapless nymphs; women with children and women without children; housewives who wanted his body and lesbians who wanted his sperm; headcases, flirts and maniacs. And men.

They set out all manner of lures to entice  him: social advancement, unbecoming wealth, excessive candour, craven submission, sweaty desperation and implausible sex. (To his subsequent regret, he accepted the last of these a few times.)  They got their friends to set him up, they cornered him at parties, they trapped him at work; they baked him cakes, they took him to dinner, they bought him champagne.

But throughout all this, throughout all their attempts to reel him in, catch him and keep him, he kept thinking. About her. About the one that got away.

7.    Kriegspiel

“But how did he look?”

Natasha shrugs. “He looked, well… he looked okay, I guess. You know. A bit tired, maybe.”

She feels betrayed. Because Tash has been fraternising with the enemy (a term she uses to make her feel more combative, less defeated, than she actually is). But even more because Tash cannot be bothered to make up a comforting lie.

She wants to hear that he looks awful, that he hasn’t been sleeping, that he’s been waking up in the middle of the night and staring into the dark, waiting for the dawn as his furious, frustrated tears turn into bitter, sad ones.

Because that’s what she knows he knows she is doing.

8.    Dynamo

“Go on,” urges Simon. “You’re in there.” This is delivered with tongue firmly in ironical cheek, but at the same time in deadly sincerity. Not bullying, not quite brow-beating, but there’s a weight behind the words, a pressure. Simon wants him to move on, but doesn’t have the words to frame the sentiment. This isn’t a space they’re comfortable in.

“Nah,” he demurs. At other times in his life, he would have let Simon’s words lift him up, carry him along: but not now. Now, he finds that the greater the insistence, the greater his resistance. He’s sick of the subject, sick of the game, sick of… sick of women, to be perfectly frank. He wants to prove that he doesn’t need them, no matter how badly Simon thinks he does.

But before he can protest, he is standing in front of her. Simon meets and greets, then does the gentlemanly thing and hands off to him. On closer examination, she is not as attractive as he had hoped, and her guarded expression suggests that she’s thinking much the same about him.

Momentary hesitation blooms into silence.

“Well,” he says, “so how do you know Jen?”

Her nose wrinkles a tiny bit before she begins, tiredly, to answer.

9.    Magnetic

But he’s perfect for you, that’s what they all said. But when they said perfect, what they really meant was he’s just like Jay. They meant well, but she resented it; resented that they wanted her to slot back into her assigned place, the same place as before, as though nothing had changed. As though she hadn’t changed.

Yes, Marcus was perfect for her, and that was exactly why he wasn’t perfect for her. She already knew what he’d be like to talk to, where he’d want to go, the tenor of his moods, even, presumptuous as it seemed, how he’d be in bed. She wanted something else, someone else, someone as completely different  as possible from Jay and his waxed hair and blue shirts and brown loafers.

Right now, she didn’t care if it lasted, if he was unsuitable, if he was a handsome heartbreaker with a rose in his teeth and a glint in his eye — she just wanted him to be different, to be someone new. To be someone who really was perfect.

10.    Displacement

Fuck! He hadn’t been expecting to see her here. Not here, not now. Not when he wasn’t ready. And not when he was supposed to be squiring her friend – a barely consensual agreement brokered by mutual acquaintances – her friend who, despite her initial froideur, seemed to have warmed to the idea and was hanging somewhat tipsily from his arm.

And yet he still found himself darting her surreptitious looks, hoping that her escort – boyfriend? – would not notice, and mostly hoping that she would not either, that she would not look round at the wrong moment and assume that he was the kind of philanderer who would arrive at dinner with one woman and spend it flirting with another. Better to enjoy the evening with this perfectly nice woman, and stop fantasising about a moment that had long since passed.

And yet he couldn’t stop peeking.

And then she looked round, caught his eye.

And he held his breath.

And she didn’t look away.

11.    Triplets

Fuck! Here she is, with Marcus’ sleepy arm draped over her waist, and she’s momentarily guilty about how it feels both familiar and alien, the touch-memory of another arm just there springing unbidden into her mind – and she squeezes her eyes that bit more tightly shut, but the insides of her eyes are dancing with images of him, and she gives a little shudder of pleasure.

Dammit, she wants to get up, she wants to jump up and down on the spot and shout out loud, she wants to go out and run along the side of the river as fast as she possibly can because she has so much energy burning her up inside, and she wants to run until she’s outside his door and she wants to shout up to see his tousled head poke out of the window -

12.    Progressive

From laughing to kissing to loving to living, it all comes so easily – and it comes ever faster and faster. His careful steps give way to confident strides, to great leaps and before he knows it they are running, running as fast as they can, out of the grey of the past and into the brilliance of the rest of their lives.

13. Checkmate.

If you have enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy: Popular Chess Variants by D.B. Pritchard; Batsford Chess Books, 2000

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

“It’s been a while,” my former mollusc said to me. He was looking well, I was annoyed to note. Better than me: I’d put on a bit of flab and was feeling drab: but he still had his clear colours, his proud beak, his sinewy tentacles.

I wondered momentarily if his ink still tasted like the open ocean. Then I cursed myself inwardly for even thinking about it.

“Yes, it has,” I replied. “How have you been?” Polite but distant, I told myself. I hate running into exes. Particularly at work. But it had been inevitable that our paths would cross at some point. It’s a small ocean, after all. Smaller still when you both work in high-end calamari marketing. If there was one place I was bound to run into him, it was at the annual offshore conference. (Technically, all our business was conducted offshore, of course, but you know what management types are like for jargon.)

Try as I might, I couldn’t help but feel some residual affection for him. It remained true that I’d outgrown him. But it was equally true that he’d played a big part in making me who I was today. And he was the least embarrassing of my exes. I still cringe to think about some of his predecessors, particularly. Thoughtless, inarticulate and irresponsible: it was a minor miracle that I’d made it out of adolescence without losing an arm or three.

“Not bad, not bad,” he said with unconvincing casualness. “I’ll have to tell you all about it. Actually, do you fancy a drink?”

I hesitated.

“Oh, come on,” he said, smelling slightly annoyed. “Can’t we at least be civilised about this?”

“I tried to be civilised about it, remember?” I snapped, my flanks flaring red despite myself. And blowing any remaining chance that this encounter would pass unnoticed by my colleagues. I could smell half the department nearby — including, I was horrified to realise, my boss, my boss’ boss, and my boss’ boss’ boss. I could practically feel their eyestalks protruding in my direction. “It was you that got all hysterical.”

“Well, I was the one that was being dumped, wasn’t I?” One of the ways in which we were similar was that neither of us had ever been much good at hiding our emotions. And one of the ways that we were different was that he always tried to; I never did. His flanks were as ablaze with fiery colour as mine, despite his attempt to conceal them with his pseudopods. I tried not to notice that it looked rather good on him.

“Time to move on, you said,” he continued bitterly. “I was stifling you, apparently. You needed your space.” Were we just going to recap the clichés we’d spawned during our break-up, I wondered? Or would we get down to good old-fashioned character assassination in due course? Maybe some shouting: that’d impress the octopodes from Head Office.

Despite his tone, he’d actually been more worried about surviving on his own than about losing me. And he’d had a point: it’d taken me a long time to accept that it was time to go our separate ways, and even longer to suggest it to him. He’d taken it well initially, and it’d all been pretty amicable to start with. But then came the monosyllabic conversations, the heated arguments, the cold negotiations over the books, the records, the furniture, the exoskeleton, the nervous system…

Now, he just looked withdrawn and hurt, his mantle pulsing with dolorous green-brown rings. I began to worry that he might actually start crying. Or disappear into the background as his camouflage kicked in. I hated to make him fade out this way – but actually, I rather wished I could disappear myself, what with all the Head Office pseudopods pointing in our direction.

“C’mon,” I said gently, reaching out to tap his carapace. “How about that drink? For old times’ sake. A martini? With zooplankton and bladderwrack on the side?”

He clacked his beak sullenly. But there was a hopeful tang in his odour.

##

I felt a bit better once we were back in the bar, ensconced in a semi-circular rock booth. The decor was banal, the ambience lousy and the lighting so bright you could barely see yourself think. And the drinks were weak. That’s hotel bars for you, I suppose. But then again, I was more interested in the quantity of the booze than its quality; the lilting tidal motion reminded me of my carefree barnacle days; and the company… Well, I was warming to the company despite myself.

We’d been silent for a few moments — a companionable silence, like in the old days — when he gave an abrupt laugh. “Can I ask you something?” he said. “Did you leave because… because you found someone else? You can tell me, I promise I won’t get angry.”

I paused, wondering what answer he was hoping for, before opting for honesty. “No,” I said, “I just thought it really was time we went our separate ways.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. How could I possibly have been carrying on with anyone else without you knowing about it?”

He visibly deflated, flushed pale blue and then an embarrassed, sickly green. “I suppose I thought you might have developed some independent motility and didn’t tell me about it. Sneaking around while I was asleep, maybe.”

“Don’t be daft,” I said, slapping him gently with a tentacle to show I was teasing. “I couldn’t have moved an inch without you. Until… well, until the end.”

“I’d rather hoped there was someone else,” he said. “Was I really so difficult to live with?”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t like that. We’d just — you know, we’d just gone as far as we could together.”

“That’s even more depressing,” he said, “the idea that you just didn’t need me any more. It makes me feel completely redundant.”

I was starting to feel unsympathetic again. “Well, that’s just how things are, I’m afraid.”

“I wonder what it’d be like to be a squid,” he said. “You know, with one continuous lifecycle. They just develop from one stage to another. Larva to instar to adult.”

“Sound bloody weird to me,” I said, dipping my beak further into my drink. Avoiding his eyes.

“Perhaps it’s better that way,” he continued. “No exes hanging around, wondering if there’s anything left to live for.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “That’s life. You’re just going to have to accept it.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he said. Then a half-smile crossed his maw and he flushed a satisfied pink. “For the moment.”

Something about the way he said this chilled my already cold blood still further.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He laughed, and it was not a kind laugh. A dark black stripe raced over his body from tail to tentacles. “Oh, none of us think our time will come,” he said. “But honestly, do you really think you’re the last in line?”

“Well -” I started. Then I stopped. Remembered my feeling that I’d put on a bit of weight. I touched my tentacle to my side. It probably was just a bit of flab. But then again… weren’t you supposed to know if you were budding?

He looked at me, raised his glass in a half-rueful, half-amused style.

“Drink up,” he said, “and perhaps we’d better go get some dinner. After all, you’re eating for two now.” ##

The quick brown fox…

I have always wanted to type. When I was a little boy, my fingers would dance merrily – if somewhat randomly – across the wipe-clean plastic keyboard of My First Computer. My parents laughed that one day I would be a writer: so great was my desire that I was producing pages of perfectly typeset gibberish before I could properly walk.

When I was a little older, my father unearthed — more or less literally — an ancient  Remington Standard from the cellar, where it had been abandoned by some former resident. I pecked at its keys, finger by finger, even though the ribbon had long since dehydrated beyond use and the spools turned fitfully, if at all. There was magic in the clack-clack of the printer heads on the platen: it was the sound of words being made.

Last year, I turned sixteen, and resolved that the time had come for me to put childish tapping aside in favour of a man’s typing. But who would teach me to walk this path? There was only one possible guide. Mavis Beacon. I was young, too young to acquaint myself with the heady world of stenographers and secretaries; but already I somehow knew, as if by whispers carried on the wind, that Mavis was finest typing tutor to be had.

Eagerly, I placed my order on Amazon.co.uk, thanks to my newly minted debit card, and waited for my parcel to arrive. And waited. And waited. It was unlike Amazon to be so tardy, even if I had selected Super Saver Delivery. Would it never arrive? Would my dream of fluent touch-typing go unfulfilled? I slept restlessly, had nightmarish visions of producing my first novel one painful character at a time.

I should have kept my faith.

One morning, the doorbell rang. I bounded down the stairs to greet the messenger, no doubt carrying in his hand the smile-emblazoned box in which all my hopes were vested. To my surprise, however, what met my eyes was not a surly courier, but a vision in blue. There was an angel on my doorstep, clad in a business-like straight suit whose lines nonetheless promised much.

She beamed widely and nodded at me. “I’m Mavis Beacon. I teach typing. Shall we get started?”

Reader, for all that I fancy myself a writer I am lost for words to express how astonished I was at this turn of events. Truth be told, I had expected no more than a software disc — with an illustrated manual, if I was fortunate. Still less can I express the emotions that Mavis stirred within me: here was a woman who was, yes, undoubtedly beautiful, but also one whose demeanour suggested great accomplishment: frankly, but without pride or hubris. In short: here was a great typist.

The days that followed were perhaps the happiest of my (admittedly brief) life to date. Mavis’ method was exacting, but effective. The entirety of the first day was spent merely positioning my fingers over the keyboard; I do not believe I struck a single key. Yet so enchanting a tutor was Mavis that I uttered not one word of protest.

“Typing begins in the mind, and the heart,” Mavis told me, and I could feel in my own heart that it was true. “You must first learn to become at one with the keyboard.” So great was the conviction with which she spoke these words that I longed for that blessed union to come as quickly as could be — a week, a day, an hour!

The next day, Mavis allowed me to strike my first letter. I remember it was if was yesterday. It was an H, a letter I had previously thought unremarkable but whose brilliance I saw clearly for the first time that day: its upright arms exhorting heaven, its sturdy cross-brace stiffened against all ills.

“Even the longest journey starts with a single step,” said Mavis, as she prepared for her departure. “Today, God willing, you have taken the first step on the most exciting and challenging journey of your life.” She smiled at me, and in her warm brown eyes I saw the promise of the future.

Despite my previous experience, and my assumption that I would use an electronic keyboard, Mavis insisted on talking me through each part of a manual typewriter’s anatomy: spools, ribbon, platen, carriage return bar. “You cannot understand a thing’s nature without understanding how it is made,” she said.

And then, finally, we began to type. She would tap out a phrase, her movements deliberately staccato so that I could observe their patterns and repeat them. At first these phrases were short, but soon they grew more elaborate, and sitting side-by-side our fingers would dance across the keyboard.

It was a tribute to Mavis’ teaching that it rarely took me very long to catch up with her fingerwork. But every time I thought I was on the verge of matching her dexterity, she would increase the tempo, her slim fingers pirouetting like birds in flight. I could only look on in breathless admiration. After she had gone, I would attempt to mimic her balletic movements.

But these efforts usually ended in a confusion of letters, a tangle of knuckles and joints. Even when she was there, I inevitably made mistakes. My fingers betrayed my innocence — and perhaps also my nervousness, conscious as I was of Mavis’ fragrant form beside me. But Mavis was always kind, always encouraging.

“Practice, practice, practice,” she said to me. “No matter how great your skill, you will make nothing of it if you do not practice.”

And so every morning, I would type relentlessly, for hours on end — so much so that my family pleaded with me to stop, fearful that I would contract tendonitis, or carpal tunnel, or worse — but I paid them no heed. I typed, my hair wild and my clothes in disarray; I typed, my hands aflame with agony and my eyes flooding with tears; I typed as though the devil was at my heels and my life in my hands.

I was determined that I would one day make Mavis proud. Only once did I see her lose her patience, one day as she was waiting for her customary pre-lesson cup of tea (Earl Grey, no milk, no sugar). I was struggling with the lid of the biscuit barrel, which seemed to have become stuck fast. I held it in the crook of my arm, wrenching at it with my free hand.

A flash of anger crossed Mavis’ face — a frighteningly incongruous but nonetheless beautiful sight, like lightning flashing through a clear summer sky. She seized the barrel, grabbed me by the wrists.

“Never forget!” she cried. “Never forget that these –” she shook my hands — “these are your instruments! See how they have reddened, how close the blood has drawn to the skin! You must treat them with the greatest of care, for they are the most precious thing that you own. Do you promise me that you will not forget?”

I promised. But I was thinking that it was the pressure of her cool, pearly-tipped fingers that I would never forget.

And so the days went on. I hoped that they would never end. But inevitably, our time together was to be finite, as all mortal relations are. My confidence grew: our fingers raced and danced and sang across the keys. Their clicking patterns never intertwined, but mine followed hers so closely that I thought I would — I must! — catch up: but always, always, she drew away, teasingly darting ahead as I drew close.

Finally,  one afternoon as the setting sun threw long shadows across the room, I embarked on a rallentando stanza, my fingers darting unerringly to their homes on the keyboard like swallows returning to their nests — when I suddenly became aware that I was typing alone. Mavis was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. Their quietude discomfited me greatly. I stopped typing.

I looked at her, then. Her expression was calm, impassive. I knew what she was going to say. And I wished with all her heart that she would not say it. The moment stretched on. Finally I had to break the silence: “Mavis –”

She simply raised one of those marvellously sculpted fingers to her lips.

Then she replaced her hands on the keyboard, typed.

The quick brown fox …

I followed: precisely, accurately, quietly.

“You don’t need me any more,” she said, and without another word, she gathered up her coat, and her briefcase, and left.

I wonder now, what she thought of me. I had hoped for a confession, a declaration of admiration. I had hoped, secretly, that I might be the finest student she had ever had — I even thought I sensed it in her unspoken delight as I followed her fingers across the keys.

But that would not have been Mavis’ way. Hers was a humble path, one dedicated to the art of typing, not to the aggrandisement of herself or others. And that was perhaps her greatest gift to me. Mavis Beacon teaches typing. But she taught me so much more. ##

A story for anyone who’s ever thought they might be a furry.

The man with the musical penis sat in the café, a newspaper folded over his lap as he absently stirred a cup of coffee that had long since grown cold. Even a casual observer would have been struck by the weariness evident in the slump of his shoulders.

For he was tired: tired of his organ’s propensity to announce even its faintest stirrings with a note, a whistle or even, if the excitement proved more sustained, a flurry of drums.

Clinks, clanks, whistles, whines, dings and especially dongs: his disobedient manhood had a ringtone for every occasion. And for every occasion he had an excuse:

“I’m so sorry, I forgot to turn off my phone.” or

“I didn’t know you could hear the church from here.” or

“Oh dear – I think I must be hungry.” or

“Isn’t it a bit late in the year for an ice-cream van?”

Medicine had no answers. The white-coats had struggled to maintain their composure, while he had found it hard to attain tumescence before their professionally concerned faces. The result was a few subdued, but nonetheless inexplicable, parps and toots. Declining more intrusive clinical examination, he was referred to the shrinks: but since the problem was manifestly not in his mind, they made little headway in getting to grips with the problem of his root. The noises were real: and so were the problems they caused.

He recalled, with a wince, the time that he had found himself staring thirty degrees south of a client’s face, lost for a few moments in the maze of pale freckles diving into her cleavage, and his nether regions had announced his distraction with a resonant and enduring bong. The formality of the meeting had fractured as everyone around the long conference table had looked at each other in bemusement. He had struggled to maintain his impassive expression; she had been momentarily flustered but moved on quickly; and so the moment had passed. But they lost the client soon after.

Others would have taken to the stage, run away to the circus, lost themselves amid red lights: but that wasn’t his style. Some men are born to freakiness; others have freakiness thrust upon them. But not all carry the burden easily, and the man with the musical penis was, somewhat to his regret, one of life’s shy and retiring types. He wished that he were suave enough to casually acknowledge and even exploit his rare talent; but he simply could not condone the idea of tooting his flute for an audience.

But his affliction’s implications for his daily affairs were as nothing compared to its effects on his affections. It is difficult to win a woman’s trust when you are continually stifling your genitals. Even if she did not realise that the sound was emanating from his groin – which was not, after all, an explanation that leapt naturally to mind – his inability to relax came over as shiftiness, and thence to reluctant pecks on the cheek and unacknowledged answer-phone messages.

But even those failures were perhaps preferable to the rare occasions on which he had managed to persuade a woman to come back to his place. He knew that he should really own up to his peculiar proclivity, hope that she would find it amusing – or even, in his wildest dreams, charming. After all, people rejoiced in all manner of sexual peccadilloes: surely sound-tracking the third act was an entirely forgivable quirk.

In the event, however, he had never plucked up the nerve to confess. Instead, he played music on the stereo, hoping it would drown out his own impromptu sounds of passion. But since he never knew whether to expect a protracted trumpet solo, a pealing glockenspiel or the plaintive tones of an accordion, he had few choices beyond loud, experimental jazz: and since even fewer of his few dates had considered this to be appropriate mood music, things had generally gone downhill from there.

In fact, he had only once succeeded in consummating the relationship, but it had been a miserable occasion. Why she had not noticed earlier he didn’t entirely know – too desperate or drunk to pay attention, he guessed – but his ejaculatory crescendo had rattled the windows and shaken the bed, getting her attention rather more effectively than he had thus far managed. She hadn’t stopped to ask questions, barely even pausing to get dressed. More a matter of fright than disgust, he suspected, but either way the result was that she had taken his virginity and left him nothing but his ringing ears and a damp patch for company.

Since then, he had become increasingly resigned to his fate. He had tried to meet deaf women, but they found his signing incompetent and his eagerness creepy. He had tried to soundproof his pants, but the resulting bulge attracted almost as much unwelcome attention as the bagpiping it ineffectively muffled. He had even, in his desperation, tried to date women he found profoundly unattractive, hoping that he might find someone to love in a sexless way. But testosterone always won out, and his penis always found fresh reasons for fanfare.

So for all that music was supposed to be the food of love, he was starving. His only hope was that the problem would lessen as he grew older and his hornpipe less jaunty. And so it was that he sat at a solitary table outside the Café de La Lune, stirring his cold coffee, wishing for a miracle. But he did not expect one to arrive: and he was astonished when it did.

“Excuse me,” said a voice: female, sweet, familiar. “David? Didn’t you used to be at Branwell Philstein?”

He looked up. It was his client, the one from that excruciating meeting two years ago. She was as pretty as he remembered her being; her top today was less revealing, but he nonetheless blushed deep at the memory. She smiled at him uncertainly.

“Kay,” he blurted. “Goodness, how delightful to see you.”

She smiled again, waited. An eternity passed as the man with the musical penis prayed that his piece would, just this once, hold its peace. And mirabile dictu, it did.

He had to say something more. She seemed to be waiting.

“Would … would you care to join me?”

“Yes, I would,” she said, her shy smile breaking into a broad grin.

She was holding a cup of takeaway coffee, so there were no formalities to be observed, no business during which he could gather his thoughts. The seconds ticked off one by one until the mass of accumulated silence became stifling. Come on, he thought, don’t chicken out now. “So where do you work now?”

“Philip James Associates,” she said off-handedly. Dismissively. Damn, he thought, boring question. You’re blowing this. As usual. But small mercies: at least the rapid dampening of his libido was discouraging his trousers from making themselves heard. The silence loomed large once more.

“David,” she said abruptly. “I hope you don’t think this is forward, but I saw you sitting here and I just had to ask …” she trailed off, blushed, fidgeted in her seat, crossed and re-crossed her legs – and as she did, he heard, ever so sweet and demure, a twinkle of delicate chimes.

He sat bolt upright, breathless with anticipation. And from his lap, there came a sparkling burst of melody, and just this once it felt not strange, or perverse, but like the most natural thing on earth, and he realised that he had answered her unspoken question. And with the gleam in her eyes, the sheen of tears of relief, she answered his. ##

Boy meeten girl.

“Gonna do sleep,” voke Amrolite. Fucken AIbrid think he so fucking cool with he retrofleshy stylen. Like you don’t already know he dealin double-helix, not just some two-bit qubit. No, he gots to do the keepen it real with the vital sign and the bio stylen.

Peripet throw Amrolite a wave with hir dendron afore ze drop in boomtube and gone. Me though, I not so easy.

- Fucken wasten time dirty stoppa – me ding.

Pull back me claw, smack Amrolite full up. Meant to be like soft tap but exo overcomps and it blow right through he face.

Whoops.

Blood everywhere, droplet ten exp six. Viddy pip to slow so can admire the air mist. Amrolite head it like totally bomb.

Maybe gone too far, nag me ethimod. Maybe it score true. Crowdrank dip red; not diggen this. But Amrolite he just laugh. He passen tape like it rainen punchcards as nano morph he head back. Fucken Aibrid won even stay down. “Fuck you Tb0mb,” he voke. Head red fucken mess. Nanos vapen, roaches eaten. All clean now: then he sleep likesay.

“Powerdown maybe a minute, maybe ten,” voke Amro. Smooth as u like.

“Nuff den,” me voke. “See yo metal in Miraflo.” Full casual like. In boom tube.

But Miraflo it dead. Proxim nada. Fullen graveport. Solo Peripet n Fowler. Shoulda been cruisen wit partynav tonite but Fowler wanna go blinden. Shoulda passed. Fowler nother fucken retro head with e romantic bullshit. Nuff den.

- Where been, Tb0? – ding Peripet. – Fucken ages -

- Mibad – me ding back, ceecee Fowler. – Amrolite -

- Viddied u – laugh Peripet. – Ubad, right -

- Fucken stupid blind – me ding Fowler. – Proxim on – Power up. Scene coming in overlap2p. Cerrochrome and Dyce biggen it east Vladi way. Dyce head wide fucken open. Ze crazy. Practically inviten neurocrash party.

- Psych? -

Peripet channel green. Fowler shrug, ping amber. Fucken serotweak already methink. But Fowler turn that off too, says proxim. Nuff den. Jump.

Dyce head it fucken crowded. Everyone ircing through. Yeah, it fun scene. If you like fucken standen room only.

#@Dyce you need fucken upspec!

#Yeah yeah

#No fence nuttin but me checkin out.

#@Tb0 Shit man don be no dirty stoppa

# @Dyce spect but me checken out

Where to go? Proxim flash up rentbodies. Not arsed with choosen, just want checkout. Psych in. Holy butterfly space. Cool.

Milkweed an UV.

“Hey hey, check Tb0mb,” voke Cerrochrome, banden pix. Cool. Cerro ain’t usually bloggen me. Hey hey, ‘deed. Me recommod flash: Manaus? Good for butterfly. Cerro dings green. Fucken a. Tb0 the leader. Fucken a. Boom the butterfly.

Manaus tips the round. Partynav deprecated; hell, proxim deprecated. Port fucken bangen. Serromod flooden: neurostim blowen out on flower forest perfume vibe. Dyce port fucken snake, Peripet aquabot. Even Fowler he finally risen up.

An Cerro: Cerro matched pair on me b-fly. Fucken yeah. Cerro ze hot. Always diggen high, always clear blue hitpoints an cortex all the way up to hir plexus. Usually no fucken chance viben with me, but now flyen the pair!

- Flyen pretty good for new bug – me ding Cerro. Overlap2p me view of hir flyen above, vector overlay. Tryen present schooled, but instant the ding go out it sound dumb. Fucken no voke in butterfly body.

But Cerro ze no vaped. – Flyen pretty swit youself – ze ding back, overlap2p hir own view. An with glitter trail cuttenpaste. Damn. Cerro actually rollen with me.

B-fly nice n pretty but ain’t no voke, and sensoplex weak. Better kicken it mammal style hereon. But Cerro rel no follow, right? wtf aint no harm tryen.

# Hey Cerro how bout go warmblood me ding. Then: realise dint ding im, dinged irc. Oh fuck.

- Woo – ding Dyce. – Slick move mofa -

Can’t read hir lights. Prolly piss extracten but Dyce he good guy. Dint ceecee anyone. Swit trick too with head fulla psychs. No-one else listenen: aint scored up in any one else’s inbox. For 1nce, thanken fuck for lowstats.

Uh-huh, ding Cerro. What in mind? Me recommod pipe: Lemur? Very prehensile, very nice. Fucken yeah. Getten prehensile wit Cerro, hur hur hur. Proxim pings rentbody near the space. Ethimod nag: not cleaned after past user. Remember NIV: safe swap means clean ports. Yeah yeah. If Cerro don mind then I don mind.

Oh yeah. Lemurspace rocken. Fucken saucereyes n multilimbular. Swit. Climben tree, an Cerro wit me.

Moon silversweet in saucereyes.

Proxim dingen as the party en Dyce head droppen off.

Alone wit Cerro, oh yeah, Tb0mb clicken it on. Ze pipen in olfact, viz… tactile. Uh huh. Me   rollen tonite, yeah.

- Open psych? -

- Nuh uh – ze ding. – Warez fire? -

But ze droppen firewall settin a notch. Senden packets. Starten download.

Oh yeah, ze openen up now. Interface throbben. Pulsen.

Oh yeah.

- Hey Tb0? -

- Yes, Cerro? -

- Wanna go @ ¦¦ ~ #oh hey, Amro! -

An there he be, fucken Aibrid, fucken spammen all over you. “Hey whassup sweet lemur Cerro that fur is benden and banden all over the place.” Still voken. Go to fucken ding, me think, ze no interest in yo fucken retro bullshit. But ze fucken fallen for it.

“Where you bin Amro?” ze voke.

“Bin sleepen. Builden up energy,”  he grin – flesh grin, do you believe it – I gots so much dreamtime to show. Wicked cool.” Pipen glyphs, fast and loud – dazzlen Cerro.  Completely fucken overclocken me.

- Amro, you algo fuck – me im.

- Hey, Tb0, you don mind if I show Cerro this thing – he irc back. Finally, fucken dingen. Even if irc, not im.

- Actually -

- See you later, Tb0 – ceecees Cerro. Fucken ceecee.

Leaven. Psych wiped, ports closed.

Fuck.

Shoulda hit that son of a bitch harder. ##

Up, up and away.

February 1931:

[In] our life together I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. If we can be honest I think the difficulties which may arise may best be avoided should you or I become interested deeply (or in passing) with anyone else.

Please let us not interfere with the other’s work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.

- Amelia Earhart, letter to George Putnam

December 1931:

It’s late, and Amelia is starting to feel a little drowsy. Jenny is reeling off some interminable tale about a surly waiter at an Ambassador’s dinner. Amelia sighs and tugs at the neckline of her evening dress, feeling trapped behind the mask of her polite half-smile.

She’s thinking about the journey she made three years ago, the journey across two thousand miles of featureless grey Atlantic, the shadow of her plane flitting over motionless boulders of cloud. So very different to the almost unbearable six days at sea she endured to reach London this time: six days of leaning over cold iron railings and peering into the thick banks of slowly rolling ocean mist. A castaway on an iron island, wishing to fly free.

Beside her, George stirs, ever so slightly, in impatience. She knows that his tiny motion has gone unnoticed by the other diners, and that only she can detect it and only she can knows what it means, and she is for a moment glad at this evidence of their closeness.

Her husband of eight months is more comfortable in formal wear than she, but he, too, is growing tired of Jenny’s meandering. Jenny is unquestionably charming, her dark eyes raccooned with mascara and her dark hair bobbed fashionably short. So swift is she with her quips and jests that it sometimes seems as though the conversation is scripted to let her shine. But like so many other Europeans, she seems to be a graduate of the endurance school of conversation, spinning every anecdote out into a story and every story out into a saga.

This sometimes infuriates Amelia, who has not entirely lost the slow taciturnity of her Kansas youth, but then she and Jenny are unlike in so many other ways besides: Jenny’s gamine form is contrary to Amelia’s own more rangy figure, her symmetric fall of black hair at odds with Amelia’s tousled blonde mane. And while both women are known around the world, Amelia cannot see how their roles might be interchanged; she would be no more at home in front of a movie-camera or music-hall crowd than Jenny would be five thousand feet up with only an altitude stick to play to.

“So,” says Jenny, turning her bright black birds’ eyes to Amelia, who has thus far escaped her good-natured teasing. “Have you met Herr Jung?”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” says Amelia, glancing hastily down the table, trying to untangle the knot of half-remembered introductions in her head.

Jenny follows her eyes. “He’s not here, darling,” she drawls. “He’s in Switzerland. He is a colleague of Herr Freud, although he has some very interesting ideas of his own.”

“Really?” says Amelia. “I don’t believe I have met Herr Freud either.”

“Really?” echoes Jenny. “You really must next time you are here. His ideas on –” she circles one hand at the wrist–”qu’est que c’est qu’on dit, the unconscious, the part of ourselves we only see in dreams, they are extraordinary.”

“Is that so?” says Amelia. Jenny’s been spending a lot of time in Paris of late, and takes every opportunity to adopt Continental pretensions. Amelia’s not convinced she really even speaks French.

“Yes,” says Jenny decisively, waving her cigarette holder. “For example,” she says confidingly, leaning in close enough for Amelia to smell her cologne, close enough to create a sense of intimacy belied by the rapt attention of the other diners, “his ideas on dreams. He believes that in our dreams, nothing is as is seems. That everything is simply a symbol of something else. As with this new surrealisme of Messieurs Breton et Dali. A clock is not simply a clock, it is something else also: the passage of time, or the fear of age. To eat an apple is to give in to temptation. And so on.”

“That sounds fascinating–” begins Amelia warily, sensing the closing jaws of a trap, but Jenny breaks in.

“For instance,” she says, “Herr Jung says that when one is flying in one’s dreams, it is not flying at all.”

“Then what is it?” asks Amelia.

“It is sex,” says Jenny, wickedly, her small teeth shining. “It is of sex that one truly dreams. What do you say to that, eh Amelia?

There is a hush, broken only by a half-amused, half-shocked titter. Amelia can see out of the corner of her eye that diners all the way down the table are leaning in to see her reaction.

She allows her half-smile to crack open a little wider.

“Herr Jung may be right,” she says slowly. “But then, tell me Jenny, if he is… what does it mean when one dreams of sex?”

The lull goes on for a second longer, then there is a murmur of amusement, puffs of cigar smoke expanding over the table. A few admiring glances, a few outraged ones, and the meal continues.

George squeezes Amelia’s hand gently below the level of the table.

“Touché,” says Jenny dryly.

March 1932:

George is rocking to and fro in his curious, seesaw manner, breathing heavily through his open mouth. Amelia is motionless and unmoved, gazing into the space beyond the curve of his neck, mildly aroused as he moves within her, but no more.

This is the part she likes best, the part of the act which she feels best reflects their marriage: an understated exchange of strength and comfort without histrionics or fuss. He is entranced by beauty that she cannot herself detect; she is supported, yet calm and independent, free to indulge her own fancies and dreams within the gentle cage of his arms.

As is often the case these days, she is dreaming of flight. Not pedestrian, plodding exhibition flybys which tax neither her aeroplane, her body nor her mind, but the euphoric, headfirst rush of open flight over endless ocean, silent but for the wind and the easily-forgotten drone of the motor. And George’s motion is in-keeping with the dream; an undulating pressure that lifts and drops her alternately, in mimicry of the gentle buffeting of the stratospheric wind.

Her reverie is broken as she feels George grow shuddery and anxious in his final seconds. For a moment she is resentful, then wistful as she recalls Jenny’s tipsy powder-room scuttlebutt: extravagant and no doubt exaggerated tales of prodigious lovers, unorthodox locales and something called le petit mort, a state of rapture Amelia finds it hard to imagine arising from her own dispassionate couplings.

A brace of juddering spasms, and George is done. He rolls away and over, his heavy breathing ragged in the exhausted silence.

“I love you,” he says. Though she knows he means it, he does not look at her as he says it.

“I love you too,” she replies, and closes her eyes.

May 1932:

It’s dark over the Atlantic tonight. But not calm.

Amelia is looking through the thin glass egg of her cockpit, snatching glances at the black sea between impenetrable icebergs of cloud, simultaneously cursing and glorying in the lightning bolts crackling far behind her torpedo-shaped Lockheed Vega. The sky around her is a flickering maelstrom of electric blue and burning red; the altimeter is out, the dead hand of its needle jolting dully across the dial as the wind shoves and pushes at the plane; the barograph is her only indication of height, and even it has been thrown out by the vast low-pressure basin of the storm.

Standing tip-toe, Amelia can just see over the bulbous nose of the aircraft. The sea is almost featureless, the scale of its vast sweeping arcs lost at this distance, but she guesses that she is perhaps ten thousand feet up. Then there is the vibration from a separating seam in the engine manifold, as yet inconsiderable, but insistent and growing. And the alarming, but innocent glow of orange-red flames jetting into the sky from her exhaust pipes.

Amelia fears none of these things. The sky is my friend, she thinks. The sky will not let me fall. But even as she thinks it, the throttle grows sullen and unresponsive, the ‘plane losing speed no matter how tight the grasp of her gloved fist. She realises, with a jolt of alarm, that the windscreen is thickly sheeted with half-liquid ice, the face of the moon growing vague through the aqueous veil, and without a murmur of warning, the Vega flips out at the tail and spins.

Amelia hauls at the stick with both hands, pulling it back until the cords of muscle in her neck stand out like drawstrings, the image of a rancher roping a steer at the rodeo flashing into her mind, but the Lockheed continues to plummet in its long, flat spin, until the cabin is a blurred circle of pale yellow lights and the clouds are smeared across the horizon, and still Amelia hangs on the stick, and abruptly the ‘plane flattens out and bumps back into level flight.

The windscreen is streaked with flattened rivulets of water, the control surfaces free once more as the warmer air melts off their stifling burden of ice. Through the window Amelia can see the white-caps on the ocean. The barograph shows her that she has dropped at least three thousand feet, and she tugs gingerly on the stick to inch the ‘plane up again, watching for ice on the glass. The flames lick their way out of the exhaust once again.

Shuddering, Amelia is weak for a moment, her body slackening with the sudden release of tension, then she laughs wildly – once, then twice. Every nerve and blood vessel in her body sings with exhilaration. A chorus of adrenaline.

I can do this, she thinks. After all, Lindbergh made it. But no-one has yet replicated his feat, and certainly no woman. She thinks of Doc Kimball at the New York Met Office and his grim premonitions, his mournful roll-call of the seven women who have died attempting this same passage before her. She thinks of the 99s, waiting patiently in their Earhart jewellery and Earhart fashions for news of their President’s safe landing in Ireland. For the triumph of the New Woman.

But more than anything else, she thinks of the sky. The sky is my home, she thinks in a momentary flash of fantasy. Looking around her, spying the pink glow of dawn at the horizon, she believes this with a pure, perfect passion. I cannot fall. And for a moment, the sky calls back to her.

The sky is my friend, she thinks, relishing the prospect of such union.

And her thoughts move on, to another, still more impertinent, if not intimate, conceit.

July 1937:

It is much too hot in New Guinea, and Amelia is feeling it, though she gives no sign. To the world at large she is unflappable as ever, a figure of almost superhuman calm.

Tonight, she will fly to Howland Island, the second-to-last leg of her round-the-world trip. She is anxious about navigating her way to the isolated two-mile island, but gives no sign, determined to give her doubters no rope with which to hang her.

A few choice insults stick in her mind. A chance meeting with a drunk political aide at the White House who asks if she uses her maiden name because hers is a marriage of convenience. A veteran flyer of no small repute who berates her for flying a man’s machine; the dismissal of her “magnificent display of useless courage” from a correspondent to the New York World Telegram.

Most painfully, even the professionals of the nascent commercial aviation industry – the beneficiaries of the industry she has nurtured with her record-breaking flights – are belittling her as a little more than a flying circus performer. Beside their catcalls, all her plaudits fade to nothing.

She wishes she could talk to George. But he is thousands of miles away, his finances drained by the expense of mounting her trip. In the hold of her spanking new “Flying Laboratory”, as it has been dubbed, are ten thousand exclusive stamps with which he hopes to recoup his investment. Though she has never questioned his business acumen before, she has a sinking feeling that perhaps this time it will not be enough.

“I have more-or-less mortgaged up my future,” she wrote to a friend a few days ago. “Without regret, however, for what are futures for?” But the bravado is not entirely genuine; for the first time, Amelia is beginning to feel that her actions are more for the Press’ benefit than her own, a feeling that makes her unsteady and unsure.

She sits on the wooden bench and looks at the bleached blue of the sky, straining her eyes in the hope of making out some feature, some mark to reveal its awareness of her. The sky is warm, inviting, open. She wishes again that she could talk to George. She needs his support, his strength, his all-encompassing generosity of spirit. And the feeling of fullness in her belly, her sudden bouts of nausea and giddiness make her wonder if there is, perhaps, a more urgent reason to see him.

If it is a child, she thinks, when was it conceived? She has not been with George for months, hardly at all since March, the outset of this expedition. She has done nothing but sleep and fly. This baby, she thinks, if it is a baby, would be a real child of the air.

For a moment, she pauses. Then she rises to her feet and walks slowly over to the ‘plane. Time to fly. The sky awaits her.

November 1992:

The wreckage of an aircraft, believed to be a 1937 Lockheed Electra, is found on the remote Pacific islet of Nikumaroro, some four hundred miles from Howland Island.

Amelia Earhart is still missing. ##

THE CLIFF IS SHEER and the sea is deep, and you’re at the very edge. Your black dress balloons out behind you, a flower bending in the wind.For a second there’s nothing in my picture-perfect world but the sky, the sea and you. Globes of warm blue above and cold blue below. And in the middle, you in your scarlet jacket, a bolt of red lightning linking the heavens to the waters.

Look at me, you say, arms flung out in an accidental crucifix, dark hair streaming. What are you waiting for? Dive on in, the water’s lovely.

You first, I say politely. It is sixty feet to the white-tipped waves.

Perhaps not, you say. But you do a little dance on the edge, your feet kicking out into space.

For God’s sake, I say. Don’t do that.

Why not? you say. What’s the problem? Am I frightening you?

Actually, yes, I say. You’re frightening me. Now will you come away?

Reluctantly you step back. Then you toss a pebble over the edge. It disappears half way to the water, invisibly small.

I feebly wrap my thin coat a little tighter against the sheet of wind. Salt spray stings my broken lips.

Look! you say, leaping in the air. I can fly! And so you do, swept up in the onrushing air, for a couple of feet at least.

Very good, I say. Now can we go somewhere and get out of the wind?

You’re such a scaredy-cat, you say, sitting on the damp grass and ruined chalk, legs hanging over the edge.

Don’t do that, I say. It’s not safe. The cliff might give way.

You pretend not to hear me.

Up here, you say, it’s like being all alone in the world. Just you and me.

And the wind, I add.

And the wind, you agree, tossing another pebble to join the first at the vanishing point. Do you think it’d be possible to jump off and live?

And you lean forward over the abyss.

My heart is alive in my chest. You’re going to find out if you keep doing that.

I’m not going to fall off, you say. I’ve got a good grip.

Famous last words, I say.

It’s a long way down, you muse.

It is, I say warily. And it’s a one-way trip.

Well, I was only thinking about going one way anyway, you say.

Oh for God’s sake, I say. What kind of talk is that?

Really, you say, half-turning to me. What’s to stop me? There is a glint in your eye.

Me, for a start, I say. I wouldn’t let you.

How would you stop me? you ask.

What do you mean, how would I stop you? I just would.

You scramble to your feet. The chalk under your feet flakes, blows away in the wind. Come on, then. Come on over here and stop me.

I look down. The grass below my feet is swaying and circling. I can’t, I say. The sea is retreating from my subtended gaze.

Well then, you say. See you at the bottom. You spread your arms again. And you step off with one foot.

Stop it, I try to say. My breath is growing clotted and thick in my chest; my sight has a narrowed to a cylindrical haze. Get back from there.

You’ll have to come and get me, you say.

Why are you doing this? I protest, even as I stumble gingerly across the tilting earth. I reach for you, fingertips extended, but you do not break your flamingo pose until I am well within reach.

Then you exhale, leap at me and bowl us both over, your arms around my neck and your breath warm and moist on my face as we fall heavily to the sturdy ground and roll away from the edge.

There you are! you crow. No more vertigo!

Don’t you ever bloody do that again, I say.

But you just throw a pebble. ##