By Natalie Bradbury
Location: The Ashton Canal, Ancoats
Castles in fairytales are usually magical, awe-inspiring fortresses surrounded by cruel rocks and wild seas, over which the hero and heroine have to make their escape from the clutches of a dastardly step-parent. The castle in this tale is rather less imposing. In fact, it’s not really a castle at all.
The castles of folklore conjure up images of rugged grey buildings, in which every flint brick is enchanted. This one is red brick and grubby, and actually looks more like a prosaic Victorian warehouse to the casual observer.
Instead of being protected by a moat or tumultuous sea, it stands amidst tall weeds and barbed wire on the bank of the Ashton Canal, a stretch of water that’s brown-green and impassive and breaks a ripple only in the windiest of weather. The only thing about the Ashton Canal that implies danger is the amount of rubbish floating in it, which suggests anyone who falls in will be struck down by some kind of horrible waterborne disease.
Those who choose to live their lives on the waterways have usually opted to live a slower pace of life, in the company of ducks and geese, and are the not the type of people whom excitement follows. It was a bargeman, however, making his leisurely way through the canals of north Manchester with plenty of time to develop an overactive imagination, who noticed the building’s intriguing resemblance to a castle (or at least the type of stereotypical toy castle a child would make out of Lego). The building was a solid, impenetrable-looking block flanked by strong towers topped with battlements in a sand-coloured stone.
As his houseboat cruised by, the bargeman noticed a flickering light in one of the towers and an open window high up one of the walls. Otherwise, the building seemed to be deserted, like the rows of boarded up houses nearby, awaiting demolition to make way for regeneration of the area. Like the shells of warehouses around it, it was crumbling and its cracked windows laid it open to the elements.
After deciding to moor for the night, the bargeman became more and more intrigued. Seeing as there isn’t much in the way of entertainment on a houseboat, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around. So, in the dead of night, he scrambled onto a muddy bank, strewn with rubble from warehouses that had already been knocked down. He could see no way to scale the smooth walls of the castle to reach the open window, but the rather more ordinary building next door had several smashed windows through which it was possible to climb, if he was careful not to cut himself.
It was pitch black when he dropped down inside, and he couldn’t see anything. His other senses overcompensated and he was overwhelmed by a cold mustiness that chilled him to the bone. When his eyes acclimatised, he started walking through huge rooms full of machinery, when he heard the distant strains of a female singing. He was surprised, thinking the building must be inhabited and he became afraid he would be caught trespassing.
By Benjamin Judge
Location: Cornbrook Metro Station
The station is a sheet of plastic folded into a twist. A Möbius strip of neon. A hole of oxygen floating over a city of ghosts. From the bridge you can see the skin factories floating in the canal. You can see the ray labs.
He had asked her name but she didn’t even know. She seemed pleased he had asked though. Not many did that any more. And she was still around somewhere. In the shadows. She was watching over him maybe. They did that sometimes. If they really liked you.
He could hear the click-clack of her lolly as she moved it round her mouth. Sugar against enamel. He knew that between sweet and tooth, somewhere, was her tongue, dyed crimson from the colourings. In the train she had coughed up a thin stream of ruby on his shirt. Now it marked him like a scar or an emblem. A medal. A tattoo.
They came from Knowhere. Older than him but younger than her. Ray boys. The blade didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would but it travelled slow as a dream. He looked down and saw the copper collecting where the knife met his body. The copper formed a coin, a penny, and then dripped to the floor. The ray boy grinned professionally as he slid the blade across the belly. More coppers flowed, splashing at his feet. Then his life started to flow out of him. Just coins at first but soon followed by notes. Fives. Tens. Twenties. He hoped the girl was OK. He couldn’t hear the lolly any more.
He saw the first fifty leak out of his gut as he blacked out. He knew he wouldn’t wake.
The station is a sheet of plastic folded into a twist. A Möbius strip of neon. A hole of oxygen floating over a city of ghosts. From the bridge you can see the skin factories floating in the canal. You can see the ray labs.
Benjamin Judge has lived in Manchester for about five years, first in Didsbury, then the Northern Quarter, and now Littleborough. 32. Male. Married. His plans for this year are to write more and eat less. http://cynicalben.blogspot.com
By Sian Cummins
Location: Maple Avenue, Chorlton
The woman was heading for home when she saw them. Taking her eyes briefly from the root-cracked tarmac, she looked for vehicles, and her eyes caught the eyes of one of them, and the one of them she saw said ‘hi’.
The woman was 100 yards on before she realised what she’d seen. Instinct had not allowed her to stop or respond to the ‘hi’, and now she knew she was heavily in instinct’s debt.
They were coming in twos down the road, badges swinging from strings round their necks, in violent primary colours. The woman ran for the old house. Before she reached the door, she heard another door open and another ‘hi’ said to the unsuspicious occupant. What could she have done? She couldn’t have warned them all.
She slipped inside the door and closed it, though they’d already seen her. It occurred to her to alert the ones who lived on the other floors of the house, but her responsibility was to the one who shared the second floor with her.
As she pulled the man away from the window by his sleeves she could already hear their voices outside the next house.
‘Did they see you?’ he asked. They huddled in the hallway. He took a ragged strand of tobacco from his trench coat pocket and rolled a thin cigarette.
‘One of them said “hi”.’
He reached behind her and extinguished the light from the swinging bulb above their heads. ‘They’ll see that! They’ll know we’re hiding!’
‘If we keep quiet they’ll pass us by.’
The man and the woman were equal, but she found a part of herself deferring to him on this point. He spent his days in the rooms they inhabited together and had developed a knack for surviving these regular forages to the door, a knack different to that needed for her own forages to the city.
‘Those others will just open the door,’ she hissed. ‘In all the other houses. They’ll think they’re doing a good thing.’
The man and the woman helped where they could, but considered themselves shrewder than their neighbours. Bags on shoulders, they had left Levenshulme for a better life, and knew better than to open their door to strangers.
By Charlotte Gringras
(After John Betjeman)
Location: Altrincham Metrolink station
The metrolink from leafy Chesh.to Piccadilly
rumbles and shunts its way straight to the city,
passing through pretty unappealing places,
where wide-eyed children dream of open spaces.
The towpath by the canal with the odd canoe
skirts gardens, ducks or swans and barges too,
giving promise of beauty with reeds and hedges-
tram windows show rubbish strewn at its edges.
We go on past graveyards, scrap yards, back yards,
dissecting piles of waste everyone discards,
water parks, play parks, car parks stretch for miles,
screened by vandal-proof metal grilles or broken tiles.
Rows of mirror-image houses obediently planted
behind lawns and bedding, now sit disenchanted
by budding conservatories growing out of the wall
once far better used in a kids’ game of football.
Suddenly, there – behold – the ‘dreaming spires’
of Man. U’s ground, the place that still inspires
the hopeless with hopes of playing the game
that brings the chosen few a moment of fame.
Nearly in the metropolis now, where apartments
for yuppies and massive corporate departments
grow higher and higher – in stature and price –
with an awful urban view they never think twice
about. How will they feel looking out at streets,
stuck up in their million ‘k’ penthouse suites,
staring simply at a grey cityscape, a stone’s throw
from the Bridgewater canal and the Metro below.
Charlotte Gringras says: ‘Been a hobby poet for a few years, deeply embedded in Manchester and its regions, had a few poems published, enough to keep me compelled to write. Always fancied trying a Betjeman lookalike.’
By Lauren Bolger
Location: Tib Street
Where the suited and booted see pigeons day to day
Roundabouts, the vultures’ playground of retail foreplay
Cast-offs of a half up half down hacienda
Dancing on stage, the dark atmospherics all coloured in
Jade and jaded the thoughts of the big-time bouncer
The drug infused frame who will have us over
To the friend who sits facing with spunk in her hair slathering verbs terms
Pulling the pronoun round Tib Street showing it parkas with detachable fur
At night something bold occurs on the blackout beat
Filled with ejaculations, cobwebs, piss and bleach
Damp, damp is my pocket and damp is the earth where I fell upon it
To a chorus of mist, to a crescendo of sex on parachutes kissed
Humming, shaken where the lighters speak sonnets
In solace my pavement where I fell upon it
Lauren Bolger, 20, is Mancunian and studies English and creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has performed this poem onstage at The Deaf Institute and it is part of a collection she has been working on in preparation for her final dissertation piece.
