Flash Fiction x 3
I. The Cup Final
Cup finals have turned ugly. The insulting chants have got louder and more virulent, fights have broken out, resulting in fatalities. The F.A. seems to have abdicated its responsibility. Think tanks and special task forces have proved useless. It has even been suggested that they should be banned altogether. Then quite amazingly a letter in the Guardian by an 8-year old girl caught the nation’s attention, and this year they are going to try out her idea.
Wembley is packed to the rafters. The War of the Roses is about to start again. Embodied by the Reds of Accrington Stanley fans on the one hand, and the white and blue stripes of the Terriers of Huddersfield Town.
In the early stages, the chanting is good-natured, the insults anodyne. The fans are aware that there are hush hush plans to counter violence, but the people involved have been sworn to secrecy.
Twenty minutes before the whistle, an appeal for silence comes through on the loudspeakers, and immediately a hundred stalwarts in Accrington red and another hundred in blue and white Huddersfield stripes take position at the halfway line, facing each other aggressively. They were specially hand-picked by their fan clubs from among the most hot-headed members. The 8-year old girl had written that she had got the idea after watching the haka at a Rugby match between New Zealand and Australia.
The fans shout abuse at each other and cheer their gladiators. The rules are very rigid. No knives or weapons. One infringement and you are banned for life on any football ground. The men can throw bare-fisted punches at each other, one on one, but kicking is verboten. The referee then blows his whistle, and to the accompaniment of the encouragements of their fans, the fighters lustily go for the brow bones of their opponents. Inevitably blood flows, but only moderately. A few get knocked down and are carried away on stretchers by officials, but the rest fight on. After twelve minutes the referee blows his whistle, and the fighting stops., and those who are still standing shake each other’s hands, smile at each other and embrace. The hundred and fifty thousand fans then spontaneously applaud, and when they calm down, an appeal for calm is made, and the match begins.
For the first time in years, the match end peacefully.
Myriam Asante (the 8-year old letter writer) was an obvious Nobel Peace Prize winner.
II. Vengeance is Mine
I had heard that he had gone to some posh job abroad, so gradually stopped thinking about him, but as if being bullied day in day out at Eton had not been enough, when we were at Caius’ Cambridge, he pounced on Octavia, and she never looked at me again. I do not think I ever went to bed a single night without wishing that something awful would hit him.
Now, twenty years later, who should walk into my pharmacy, but Charles Thompson-Taylor himself. He had no idea who I was, and I would not have recognised him, but there was the name on the prescription: melarsoporol, intraveneous, 2 x 3.6 mg/kg/day for 3 days. Trypanosomiasis_ sleeping sickness. Caught it in Africa, did you? I asked, and shrugging, he muttered Sierra Leone. Diamonds, I thought. He seemed to read my thoughts. VSO, he said. I remember him hating Africa and putting forward in a debate, the view that it would be kinder to euthanise their cripples, the hare-lipped and the blind. Wondered what brought about the change. But that did not temper my hatred for him. He had been a genius at inventing schemes for my humiliation, and I could never forgive him.
Melarsoporol being an arsenic-based drug, if the treatment lasts longer than 3 days, there is every chance of serious side effect, including death.
I obviously do not prepare the medicine myself, and passed the prescription to my assistant. When she had done, I cast a cursory glance at the packet and thought that her 3 might have looked more like 8. I stopped myself making any remark, and handed it to Thompson-Taylor. I admit that I hoped he’d read the 3 as 8. If anything happens to him, I reassured myself, it would be in the hands of the gods.
A fortnight later, when I read his obituary, I suddenly remembered that my nemesis, whose death I had wished, was in fact Charles Johnson-Taylor.
III. When I arrived in Edinburgh
The night I moved to Edinburgh, just as I was falling asleep shortly after midnight, there was a knock at the door. I got up and found a tall thin woman and a short fat man outside, both dressed in black. I asked them in, but they declined, saying that they were only delivering a short message.
And what’s the message, and who is it from? I asked.
It’s just to let you know that it’s been decided to make you a gift of the Botanic Gardens, the thin woman said.
I thought that it was jolly decent of whoever was responsible and asked my visitors to thank them, but I had a nagging doubt and expressed it.
Oh no, the short fat man said, everything, the land, the buildings on it, the hothouses, the equipment, the flowers, all the plants, the American sequoias, the Alpine plants, the seventeen varieties of rhododendrons, the petrified log, the museums, the whole lot.
I blessed my lucky star, but suddenly I was assailed by another doubt.
Ah, this means that henceforth I am responsible for its upkeep, for paying the thousands of gardeners, horticulturists, the labourers and what not?
Oh, no, absolutely not, the thin woman assured me; everything will be taken care of, the maintenance and repairs, the new stocks, you won’t have to lift a finger, just enjoy!
And together the pair said that it would all come from taxation.
What a lucky chap I am, I said happily, and the pair took their leave and turned their back on me.
I was going to close the door when they stopped suddenly and moved again in my direction.
We forgot, the thin lady said.
A sort of post-scriptum, the fat man added, and taking turns, they elaborated.
Also the Meadows.
All the Commons.
Inverleith Park.
Princes Street Gardens.
The Waters of Leith, Arthur’s seat … you get the picture? I did.
Did I mention the National Art Gallery? asked the thin woman suddenly. I pursed my lips and shook my head.
Oh yes, the fat little man said, the National Gallery, the building and all the paintings inside.
Including the Skating Clergyman? I asked, unable to believe my good fortune.
Aye, they said, a tad testily I thought, we said everything.
I am so grateful that I live in a civilised land.
