Eight Rooms Read online

  Legend Press Ltd, 3rd Floor, Unicorn House,

  221-222 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6PJ

  [email protected]

  www.legendpress.co.uk

  Contents© C.J. Carver, Rebecca Strong, D.E. Rhylis,

  Mark Kotting, E.C. Seaman, Guy Mankowski, A.J. Kirby,

  Miranda Winram 2009

  The right of the above authors to be identified as the authors of

  this work has be asserted by them in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

  ISBN 978-1-907461-01-9

  All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and

  place names, other than those well-established such as towns and

  cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.

  Set in Times

  Printed by J. H. Haynes and Co. Ltd., Sparkford.

  Cover designed by Gudrun Jobst

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  C.J Carver

  Rebecca Strong

  D.E. Rhylis

  Mark Kotting

  E.C. Seaman

  Guy Mankowski

  A.J. Kirby

  Miranda Winram

  About the authors

  The Short Story Reinvented Series

  Legend Press’ unique short-fiction series, The Short Story Reinvented’, is designed for today’s busy, but discerning, reader. Short fiction is a perfect answer in a world where everyone wants things to be easily accessible, sleek and tailored to fit their needs.

  High-quality, thought-provoking short fiction can perfectly fill what before may have been an enforced gap of ‘dead-time’ in a daily routine. Dipping into short fiction is not as daunting as delving into a thick novel on a commute or during a lunch break, when you know that you might soon be interrupted mid-chapter, yet the subject matter in this popular series is weighty and meaningful, providing something new to think about and feel inspired about for the rest of the day, week, month and year.

  Legend Press receives hundreds of submissions for the collections, from all over the UK as well as from all around the world. The successful entries for each book are chosen so that all stories combine and contrast compellingly to make the most varied, yet at the same time the most cohesive, collection possible.

  1

  C.J. Carver

  The one good thing about this journey is that I’m travelling in a vehicle my daughter might term a convertible. The truck has no roof, no canvas top, and I can stand in the fresh air and look around. Not that the air could be called fresh, it’s incredibly polluted and I can taste chemicals at the back of my throat. There’s a faint blue haze hanging over the streets but it’s nothing to do with mist or fog or anything natural, it’s the city’s hangover from burning coal. Some cars have their headlights on the pollution’s so thick, and I know that when I sneeze, my snot will be speckled with black.

  That said, it’s a big relief to be outside and despite the dirty air, I can’t believe the colours; the red of that woman’s dress, the bright white of that schoolgirl’s socks. Even that man’s overalls aren’t a normal brown, but conker brown, mahogany, nutmeg. The intensity after seeing nothing but monochrome inside the camp makes my eyes ache.

  The truck turns right at the traffic lights and down a broad street, wide enough for our truck to turn full circle if the driver so wished. The knot below my ribs immediately tightens as I search for the stadium, but thankfully I can’t see it. I breathe deeply and try to enjoy my surroundings, but the knot won’t loosen. I’ll have to suffer from it.

  We are, I realise, driving right through the centre of town, parading us criminals for all to see. It’s supposed to scare the general public into behaving themselves but nobody seems to be taking much notice. Everyone’s busy shopping, haggling over everything from kitchen mops to plastic tulips. We pass a dental surgery, then a shop devoted to women’s underwear – mostly utilitarian white cotton and as titillating as a bath mat – and a stall selling goldfish. A waft of frying noodles floats past. I am amazed when my mouth instantly salivates, my stomach contracting with a growl. I didn’t think it was possible to feel hunger on a journey like this, but it shows how instinct can overcome even the strongest emotion.

  Little wonder I’m hungry. For the past five years I’ve been fed with just enough food to keep me alive. Hunger has dogged my every thought. For a man who loves his food, living on runny corn gruel in the morning and a bowl of weak vegetable soup in the afternoon has been torture. It didn’t help that I refused to acknowledge my criminality when I first arrived. The prison commissioner promptly accused me of denying guilt and resisting reform and cut my meals to one a day. I thought that type of belief had gone out with the proverbial Ark, but not in my camp. It’s like being back in the sixties. And there was I thinking the effectiveness of thought reform and political education had decreased since Mao Zedong kicked the bucket. Fat lot I know.

  A radio attached to a rickety-looking shutter blares pop music as we trundle past. The smell of noodles intensifies and I wonder if the military policeman standing next to me is also salivating. From the aroma I guess the noodles are being cooked with garlic and chicken, the music … I’m not sure what group it might be. I’ve never been into pop. I’m more an opera man. My daughter hates Chinese opera. Says it gives her a headache.

  I wonder what Li’s doing right now? Whoops, I mean Lia. She changed her name when she joined the Hong Kong police force, said she wanted something more Western, as if her Chinese name wasn’t good enough. Apparently Lia is Italian, although why she wants an Italian name is beyond me. Does she think it’ll help her career? I don’t think so, but who am I to protest? I’m just her father.

  The truck swerves around an The truck swerves around an army jeep and the policeman beside me is caught unawares – he’s gawping at a girl wearing spangly heels and a mini skirt that barely covers her sex – and he crashes into me. The board hanging around my neck whacks him under the chin. He makes a brief, surprisingly high-pitched noise of pain and hurriedly stands upright, dusting his uniform down, looking embarrassed. I feel sorry for him until he catches my eye and curls his lip into a sneer. I wink back. It always disconcerts them, this conspiratorial gesture and this policeman’s no different to all the others. He glances around to make sure nobody else has noticed, terrified he might be reported as having an inappropriate relationship with a prisoner, or some other claptrap. I sigh inwardly and turn my gaze away. He’s just another drone.

  There’s another prisoner on board, a woman, and most of the stares we attract go to her. She’s young and pretty, and I wonder what the authorities trumped up for her. Wife of Soldier Negligent in her Marital Duties? Mistress of High Official No Longer Required? I feel sorry for her because she’s too young for this. She should be at home bringing up her one child and caring for her husband. It’s alright for me, I suppose, as I’m in my fifties. Still pretty fit too, even if I am as scrawny as an underfed chicken, but at least I can feel I’ve lived a little. Seen a bit too, and although I’d rather not have experienced the last few years in a laogai – Chinese gulags are p
articularly unpleasant places to be – life hasn’t been all bad. I’ve been pretty lucky really.

  A woman shaped like a giant brick and dressed head to toe in black shouts something, I don’t catch what, but the policeman next to me shouts back, telling her to shut up. She’s pointing at me, and still shouting. She’s either mad or an idiot. You don’t yell at the police. You’re likely to end up where I am if you do. Curious, I ask the policeman, “What did she say? ” “

  “She was complaining she couldn’t read your board.

  ” I can’t read what it says either, especially since I can’t read what it says either, especially since it’s upsidedown and written by what I can only assume was a blind orang-utan. I ask him, “What does it say? ”

  He sends me a pitying look. “Don’t you know why you’re

  He sends me a pitying look. “here? ”

  “Not really.”

  He glances away and for a moment I think he’s not going to respond, but then he says:

  “Active Falun Gong member, subversive planning violence and disobedience against the State.”

  “Thank you.”

  I sigh, ignoring his probing, curious look. How could they say I’m planning such rubbish? I couldn’t plan a trip to the zoo. I’m hopeless at planning. I try, Miahua kindly assures me, which makes me realise how bad I really am. Take Lia’s fourth birthday party. Half the people turned up on the wrong day, including the magician, and Miahua’s mother, Fang Dongmei, a bent twisted old hag with a permanently sour expression, who never let me forget it. When I admitted I’d clean forgotten to invite some wasterel friend of hers she stared at me – she’s got a creepy stare, that woman, her eyes are so dark you can’t see where the pupil starts and the iris begins – before she spat on the ground. Her gob of spittle missed the tip of my shoe by a hairsbreadth. It was impressive. I wish I had such a good aim.

  Luckily Lia didn’t care my organisational skills weren’t up to scratch. I’d bought her a puppy, just as she wanted, and to see her face light up like that … Oh, how I wish I’d taken us to the mountains like I wanted, but Miahua wouldn’t hear of it. She started by saying I’d make more money as a doctor in the city, which was true, but the real reason was that she didn’t want to leave her mother behind. When I suggested bringing the old hag with us, maybe find her somewhere to live nearby – no way did I want her actually living with us – Miahua was really pleased and everything was looking rosy until she put it to her darling Mama. Mama promptly responded by saying she wasn’t going to leave all her friends behind. All her contacts, her herbalist, her hairdresser, her chiropodist, her favourite shops. Why should she move to somewhere strange at her age? I can remember her stubborn look as though it were yesterday. Mules have nothing on the old crone.

  Why didn’t I put my foot down? Why didn’t I insist we go without her? Because I’m a soft touch, and look where it got me!

  Banged up for teaching my patients callisthenics. For improving their blood pressure, lowering their cholesterol, building stronger bones, helping diabetics, helping Mei Ting overcome her terrible nerves, helping Zhi Peng lose weight – heavens that man was fat! – and boosting Ri Feng’s self-confidence. And what about Miao Tian? She’d been bent double with arthritis, barely able to hobble to the park, and after doing barely ten-minute exercises each day for a month she could move more easily and her energy levels were through the roof.

  I’m an old fashioned doctor, the type who happily spends a full hour listening to a patient if that’s what is needed. I’ve found that questioning patients not just about their symptoms, but other aspects of their lives, helps build a picture of what’s really happening. Take Xui Li, for example. A friend of a neighbour, a once handsome woman in her mid-twenties who ran a grocery store on the end of our street, Xui Li came to me with a headache. It was the first time she’d visited my surgery since she left school and she kept looking over her shoulder, jumping at the slightest sound. She was a nervous wreck and nothing like the strong, confident woman I knew when she was eighteen.

  Xui Li insisted all she needed was some strong painkillers. I surreptitiously studied the yellowing bruises through the makeup she’d pancaked on her face. Indicating vaguely, I asked her, “Did you fall”

  She looked away, “Yes. ”

  “Do you fall very often? ”

  “Yes. I’m very clumsy. ”

  I nodded, and made a note on my pad. Everyone on the street knew her husband beat her, but there was no point in mentioning it. She’d be terrified I might report back to her husband, and that he’d reprimand her with yet another beating. That’s what wife beaters do. You step out of line an inch and you get belted. You soon become like Xui Li, afraid of your own shadow. I said noncommittally:

  “Your headache may well ease if you try a little light exercise. ”

  She looked startled. I continued, “SuLyn Peng has benefited enormously. ”

  SuLyn was the local beauty that every woman wanted to be like and every man man wanted to sleep with. She was also a pop star, a bit of a celebrity, but thankfully as yet it hadn’t gone to her head. “I don’t know if you know, but she used to suffer dreadfully from headaches. ”

  This was a complete lie, SuLyn had only seen me because she’d been petrified she was pregnant, but I’d learned over the years that the odd white lie invariably outweighed the sin it was supposed to be.

  Xui Li blinked several times. She gulped before saying, “Really? ”

  “She’ll be at the park with the rest of the group on “Thursday. I know she’d love to meet you. ”

  Xui Li’s expression changed. It was no longer stiff with you. ” nervousness, embarrassment or fear, and it took me a long time to recognise what it was, long after Xui Li had met SuLyn and they became friends, giving Xui Li a social life and re-born confidence that eventually eked to sweeten her bitter marriage. It was hope.

  Miahua tells me I should be proud having helped so many people, that I should feel gratified having spent my life doing something so fulfilling. But do you know what gets me through the day? It’s not thinking of my patients, believe me. It’s thinking of those mountains, the clear-running streams, and air as clear as ice.

  I’m a young man again and Miahua has the bloom of youthful beauty, her hair long and glossy and not cut into that hideous bob she says is so easy to care for. I can see our little stone house, the sheep grazing the grass. Wildflowers are sprinkled everywhere. And there’s Lia. She’s playing with the puppy, teasing him by hiding his ball, and suddenly she looks up and sees me … and she leaps to her feet and she’s running towards me, her face beaming, yelling, “Papa!

  ”

  I scoop her up and swing her high before pressing my face against her neck and breathing in her scent – fresh grass with a hint of ginger, a sprinkle of cinnamon. She must have been cooking with her mother earlier. The puppy is still playing with the ball, pouncing and growling at it, when Miahua steps outside. She’s smiling that lovely smile of old, carefree and joyous. She puts an arm around my waist, and with Lia’s chubby arms around my neck, we go into our little stone house. While Miahua prepares our evening meal I sit on the stoop drinking green tea, gazing at the jagged peaks cutting into the purple evening skies. I breathe in the clean air.

  “What are you smiling about?” The policeman has whispered the question.

  “I don’t suppose you get many people smiling. ”

  “You’re the first. ”

  I won’t tell him about my home in the mountains because it’s none of his business.

  “I was recalling the second stage of my rehabilitation.

  He looks startled, so I add with a shrug, “I found it particularly hard, that’s all.”

  In fact, I’d found it almost impossible. I was supposed to recognise my crimes, and ruthlessly censure myself while at the same time expressing gratitude for the magnanimity of the Democratic Socialist Party. I told you this place was out of the Ark. But when I heard the revered son of the same m
an who’d seen the massive influx of prisoners during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the late fifties ran it, everything made a strange kind of sense.

  An uncle of mine was arrested back then. He might even have been sent to my camp. It’s a cruel story, and one that gets my goat every time I think of it. It was the time when the good old CCP – the Chinese Communist Party – decided to be a bit magnanimous and encouraged everyone to offer helpful criticisms of the Party, apparently without reprisal; ha ha. My poor uncle, under immense pressure from a Party secretary to voice his views, tentatively suggested that during the 1955 political movement the CCP was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. His remarks were duly published, and three years later he was arrested as a rightist and sentenced to life imprisonment.

  The truck bounces over a pothole and I grasp the metal bar in front of me. My minds eye can picture my uncle quite clearly. I try and recall my father’s face, but it’s blurry and indistinct. Disconcerted, I look over the bonnet of the truck and watch a man with a soft face like a doughball sitting on a stool outside a tool making shop. He’s got his flask of green tea with him – I can see it steaming in the cool air – and he’s lighting a cigarette. Another man joins him. He’s brought out his flask as well. They’re both wearing greasy blue overalls and I guess they’re taking a break from work. The first man glances at me, then at the woman prisoner, all without a flicker of interest. He doesn’t even appear to read our boards. I feel as though ice water has been poured into my veins. He doesn’t care. He has obviously seen this many times before; two prisoners on their way to the stadium to be executed.

  A shout builds in my throat. I want to yell at him, make him see me, hold my gaze, recognise my plight, my fate, but I’m prevented at the memory of Xu Guan. He was a patient of mine back at camp, who was known for chanting antigovernment slogans. Before he was paraded through the streets he had his larynx cut out. Which sounds pretty bad, but when you consider it was done without anaesthetic …