By Lisa HC
Location: South Street, Openshaw, 1951
I saw her from a distance. Well, as distant as the length of a row of rundown terraces with outside plumbing can get. She was running at me, head down, hand holding her taped bottle bottom glasses to her face, brown bowl cut slicked down with grease and the remains of the morning rain. Bruised knees knocking at the fallen hemline of the pinafore-style dress we all wore.
Her eyes were panicked. She reached me and screamed ‘Run!’, and something about her compelled me to comply. Heart pounding, legs wobbling, I ran next to her, down one alley, into another and round the gable end.
‘Why are we running?’ I gasped, through gritted teeth, lungs burning.
‘Windah cleenah! Gunna… kill… me!’ My poor eight-year-old heart nearly failed. A man was going to kill her! We were not just running now, but running for our very lives! From somewhere I managed to pull out even more power – we call it adrenalin now – and ran even quicker than before, over the road and into the park. I headed for the bowling green, with its big well-kept hedges that might provide some cover. I tried to speak, each word punctuated with gasp after gasp of laboured breathing, a stitch starting in my side.
‘Why… is… he… gunna… kill… yer?’
We ran to the far end of the hedge, where it was thickest and she stopped, crouching, pulling me down with her.
‘I shat in his bucket.’
Lisa HC is a writer, traveller, teacher and artist. Not always in that order. Born in Manchester, her love/hate relationship with the city tends to send her running from and returning to it at irregular intervals. http://www.blankmediacollective.org/portfolios/rocketmanhc/
By Winston Plowes
Location: M62, J22 (Lancashire/Manchester border)
You could cut the air with a paper knife
And re-open the wounding word.
Restrained in a windowed envelope
still dying to be heard.
Deja vu on the M62,
as we passed we didn’t know.
That Britain’s highest motorway
could make us feel so low.
With only hard shoulders to cry on
in this day of contraflow tears.
As the two of us crossed over Yorkshire
both red and white roses appeared.
Fog lights reflected our faltering start
and the road noise was unrelenting.
Permanently more than two chevrons apart…
You were never the one for repenting.
Winston says: ‘After living for over 10 years in Manchester I am now a resident on the Rochdale Canal in Hebden Bridge. Among other things, my work is inspired by the Calder Valley, my interaction with the local landscape and by my 10-year-old daughter. I appear regularly as a compére and performer at open mic events in the North West and also work in cabaret and run workshops in schools.’
By Richard Owain Roberts
Location: Wilbraham Road, Chorlton
I think you will be coming into the shop today. I think it was this time a week ago that you last came. You hired a DVD and bought a pack of Polo mints. This is what you ‘do’ every time you come in. I think you’ll be coming in soon, so I reach around to the front of the counter and pick up a pack of Polo mints. I open the pack of Polo mints and take three out and put them in my mouth. I have a sense of enjoying them and this surprises me and I don’t know why exactly. I put three more Polo mints in my mouth, crunch them up, and suck on the flavour.
I finish the pack of Polo mints.
You don’t come in tonight and I have eaten six packs of Polo mints. I close the shop and, as I lock up, take another pack of Polo mints from the counter and put them in the back pocket of my black cords. That is seven packs now and I hope that will be okay.
**
It’s the next week and it’s the same time. I have already eaten two packs of Polo mints and am starting my third. I generally put four mints in at a time now; I think this is just about the right amount.
You are not here yet and I am rearranging the DVDs. We have thirty DVDs at this shop. Courtenay likes them alphabetical, I like them via stream of consciousness connections. I place Daddy Day Care next to Babel. I immediately do not understand this decision.
You have dark hair and dark eyes and like to rent DVDs on Tuesdays. Three weeks ago you took out You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and when you returned it you told Courtenay it was the best film you had seen in years. You told him that it was a ‘laugh riot’ and you enjoyed it so much that you had to, just had to, write a thousand-word review on IMDB. I think you were messing with Courtenay’s head. I think he is susceptible to that kind of thing.
I walk back to the counter eating the last Polo mint from the current pack. I crumple the empty wrapper in my hand and throw it on top of the shelf unit that stocks the cigarettes. This is where I throw all of the empty wrappers and I jump up and down on the spot to check that they are not visible.
You do not come into the shop tonight.
**
By Laura Marsden
Location: Dell Road, Shawclough, Rochdale
My Dad is a mechanic and his name is Kenny. We live in Rochdale. Everyone always goes ‘alright Kenny’. No one says alright to me even when I’m with Dad. He says it’s because I have funny eyes. What’s funny about them Dad? They’re a bit bozzy he says.
I’ve got four brothers and one sister called MELISSA. She’s the spit of my Dad Kenny except she has long hair and wears it in a French plait.
All my brothers are dicks. They all have fat heads and loads of spots. They’re always cupping rank farts and then shoving the farts in my face for jokes. Our Carl made me strip off in the snow last night for a joke. I had to stand in the back yard for ages with nothing on except my Winnie the Pooh slippers. They got dead wet because of the melty snow what stuck to them like cold brains. All Carl’s knob-head mates were there. They were all laughing loads and kept grabbing my tits.
Everyone who comes round to ours is always staring at my tits because they’re quite massive. But nobody will look at my face because of the bozzy eyes.
Sometimes I like to just get away from it all for a bit so I tell Dad that I’m going to my room do not disturb. I just lie on my bed and listen to tapes and/or do some colouring. I like colouring. It’s very therapeutic.
MELISSA is allowed to come in whenever she wants because it is also her room. She sometimes brings me a Slim-a-Soup (Minestrone) and a packet of cheese and onion McCoys and/or a Topic. I’m the only person I know who likes Topics.
Next week I’ll be 26. Can’t wait. Dad says he might try and find out if there’s a place in town where they fix eyes.
Laura Marsden lives in a flat that has five rooms. It’s in Salford. She buys weekly provisions from Mocha Parade, the local shopping precinct. It’s really good quality and value for money. For many years she lived in Rochdale. Rochdale, mighty, mighty Rochdale. http://tonguesandwiches.blogspot.com
By Ian D Smith
Location: A34 by Parrs Wood
At Parrs Wood on the A34 heading south, I saw a man in a suit at the side of the road holding up a cardboard sign with In-Car Valeting scrawled on it. At his feet, an open briefcase contained the tools of his trade.
The windows were greasy, the carpets were filthy and there was dust lying all over my ‘86 Metro, so I was interested in the idea. I’d provide the lift; Mr In-Car Valeting would do the hard graft. We’d both be happy. So I stopped and opened the door.
The man peered inside.
He sniffed, ‘Where to?’
‘London,’ I replied.
He nodded, ‘S’fine.’
And he hopped right in. He slammed the door and smoothed down his hair. He put both hands on top of his briefcase.
I set off and reached the M6 junction, but he just sat there staring straight ahead, and he didn’t say a dickie bird. He looked at his watch. His shoes shone like diamonds. I asked him when he was going to start doing some valeting.
‘London,’ he replied. ‘I’d be a mug to start before then wouldn’t I?’
‘That’s not part of the deal.’
‘There was no deal.’
