Elephant Shoe Read online
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
1. My Brother, Everyone. Real Stand-Up Guy
2. The Avoid David Experience: Day Two
3. Hostile Takeover
4. Ouch! A Brick To The Face Would Hurt Less
5. So That’s How It Is, Huh?
6. My Bad
7. Can’t Be Here
8. Eau De Carlsberg
9. Piggy The Pup
10. Oh, What A Pickle
11. Like Being Inside The Sun
12. Rat-a-tat-tat. Surprise!
13. A Fail On So Many Levels. And Yet…
14. It’s All About Balance
15. Violated Lips
16. Kill Me. Kill Me Now
17. Bad Brothering
18. I Claimed Him First!
19. And With Dawn Comes Disgrace
20. No Thanks, Monday. Not Interested
21. Hanging By A Thread
22. Can’t Work With Neon
23. Time Out
24. Fun Plans And Foul Play
25. Magic Hands With A Little Something Special
26. Difficult
27. Just Jody. Just Once
28. A One-Way Trip Across Barriers
29. The Bombs Keep Right On Coming
30. Fixing Up What’s Broke
31. Toasty
32. Oh, My Hero! Except, Not So Much
33. Better By Far You Should Forget And Smile…
34. Elephant Shoe
35. Lost And Found
36. Keep Right On, Doing What You’re Doing
37. Beast Defeated, We Get Our HEA Now, Right?
38. Trigger Warning
39. Beware The Wolves And The Bears
40. There Was Once An Odd-Ball Called Tate…
41. The Wall
42. No Point Crying Over Spilt Orange Juice
43. Hold The Sugar-Coating
44. Sledgehammered
45. Ain’t No Place Like Home
46. Cos Making Up Is Hard To Do
47. Assimilate: To Absorb Mentally; To Become Adjusted.
48. Pussyfooting
49. For What It’s Worth
50. That’s All Folks!
About the Author
Want To Read something completely Different?
Acknowledgments
Elephant Shoe
J.S. Edge
J.S. EDGE
Copyright © 2018 by J.S. Edge.
Cover Art Copyright © 2018 by Dan Edge.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or critical article.
First Published in the United Kingdom, 2018.
Contact: [email protected]
ISBN-13: 978-1-78926-064-9
For Daniel and Winnifred Nightingale.
Always in my heart.
Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
About the Author
Want To Read something completely Different?
Acknowledgments
Contents
1. My Brother, Everyone. Real Stand-Up Guy
2. The Avoid David Experience: Day Two
3. Hostile Takeover
4. Ouch! A Brick To The Face Would Hurt Less
5. So That’s How It Is, Huh?
6. My Bad
7. Can’t Be Here
8. Eau De Carlsberg
9. Piggy The Pup
10. Oh, What A Pickle
11. Like Being Inside The Sun
12. Rat-a-tat-tat. Surprise!
13. A Fail On So Many Levels. And Yet…
14. It’s All About Balance
15. Violated Lips
16. Kill Me. Kill Me Now
17. Bad Brothering
18. I Claimed Him First!
19. And With Dawn Comes Disgrace
20. No Thanks, Monday. Not Interested
21. Hanging By A Thread
22. Can’t Work With Neon
23. Time Out
24. Fun Plans And Foul Play
25. Magic Hands With A Little Something Special
26. Difficult
27. Just Jody. Just Once
28. A One-Way Trip Across Barriers
29. The Bombs Keep Right On Coming
30. Fixing Up What’s Broke
31. Toasty
32. Oh, My Hero! Except, Not So Much
33. Better By Far You Should Forget And Smile…
34. Elephant Shoe
35. Lost And Found
36. Keep Right On, Doing What You’re Doing
37. Beast Defeated, We Get Our HEA Now, Right?
38. Trigger Warning
39. Beware The Wolves And The Bears
40. There Was Once An Odd-Ball Called Tate…
41. The Wall
42. No Point Crying Over Spilt Orange Juice
43. Hold The Sugar-Coating
44. Sledgehammered
45. Ain’t No Place Like Home
46. Cos Making Up Is Hard To Do
47. Assimilate: To Absorb Mentally; To Become Adjusted.
48. Pussyfooting
49. For What It’s Worth
50. That’s All Folks!
About the Author
Want To Read something completely Different?
Acknowledgments
1
My Brother, Everyone...
Real Stand-Up Guy
The ice took us off the road; the tumble crushed the car roof; the tree caved in the driver side door. My best friend, Tate, suffered a hefty blow to the head, dislocated right shoulder and fractured wrist. Me, two cracked ribs and a broken shin.
My parents died.
That was six years ago. I was eleven.
My brother, David, was twenty-one. And on that day, he became all I had. Freshly orphaned; injured and traumatised. He was then all I had, and I needed him.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t all he had. He had his girlfriend, Melissa. He had their unborn child. He didn’t need me. Nor did he want me.
Two weeks later, as David settled his new family into our home, I was sent away. 400 miles away. From my small rural town in Devon, from everything I’d ever known, to Newcastle and into the care of grandparents who were barely more than strangers.
I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve seen my big brother since, and I can take off two for the number of times I’ve spoken to him.
David Alston is –no shadow of a doubt –my least favourite person on the planet.
Under
standable, right?
And so, imagine my horror when I arrive home from a sweet afternoon’s skating jaunt with Jody, utterly beat and hankering after the leftover lasagne I know is waiting for me in the fridge, to be surprise attacked by the sight of the heinous tosspot sat at the kitchen table. All self-assured cockiness, an older, more expertly put-together version of me. Looking way too comfortable. Greeting me with the ugly “We need to talk” line no one ever wants to hear.
Yeah, it’s that shoved off a cliff kinda horror.
I gape. For way too long.
“Uh…There appears to be an undesirable besmirching my seat, Suzy,” I say (and sound not at all as impressive as my brain convinced me I would), transferring my eyeballing to the woman sat across from him. Gran’s best friend and our upstairs neighbour. My ally…or so I’d thought. Wringing guilt from her bony hands, I see betrayal etched in every wrinkle of her heavily made-up face. My, how it stings. “Why?”
David sighs. “Really, Michael?”
I grit my teeth.
Holding my gaze, Suzy purses her lips, collects the two empty mugs from the table and pushes up from her seat. “Sit down, pet. Tea or coffee?”
“You been colluding against me, is that it?” I’m stood in the doorway, vice-gripping the frame. My feet still skated up; my jacket still on; my shoulder still backpack burdened. I make no move. “All in on it?”
“Jean and Hannah know David’s here, aye.”
“And Gran?”
She gives a limp sort of half shrug, turning her back to me with an almost imperceptible bob of her head. My temples throb, heart botching some beats.
“You don’t take my calls, Michael. What else am I supposed to do?”
Mikey. It’s MIKEY! My middle finger tells him, And, seriously, take the neon-bright hint, moron: Leave us the hell alone!
I force a breath. “And you couldn’t have warned me? No?”
“Do I look daft, pet, eh?” Suzy lays the two mugs on the bench and plucks my ‘No.1 Grandson’ one from the mug tree. “What good would thata done?”
Wow!
“We’re supposed to be a team, Suzy. A team. What the f… what were you thinking of?”
“Mikey,” (
“No.”
“Mikey…” I hear a needling mix of plea and warning. Suzy turns, teaspoon in hand, and I catch the apologetic glance she sends David’s way before she meets my glare, her free hand fixing on her hip.
She’s totally sold me out.
And working off the fact David’s been pushed to make the cross-country trip up for a face to face, her tattling must’ve been slap-around brutal.
I’m shaking my head. Vehemently. No idea how long I’ve been doing it. “No.”
“You’re being ridiculous, little brother.”
Am I? Am I really? I can barely stand being in the same room as him, can’t look at him. His voice offends my ears, and his smell, Christ! The scent of his cologne is everywhere and, with each breath I take, I swear I’m being poisoned. As if I’m gonna willingly sit and let him chew me out. As if he holds any power to chastise me and have an impact. He doesn’t belong here. He has no place here. I owe him nothing. He’s being ridiculous thinking otherwise.
Pushing off of the frame, I swerve a tight one-eighty over the kitchen’s linoleum floor onto the hallway’s laminate.
“Mikey!” Suzy repeats in a sterner tone.
“Suzy!” I throw back. “I said NO. Make him disappear.”
‘Least favourite person on the planet’, yeah, I understated it. I’d take to bartering with Lucifer for my soul over listening to anything David has to say. Fact.
“Hell. That went…as expected.” I hear David grumble as I clump my way back along the hall (storming out calls for an aggressive step, and the clump satisfies where a glide would not), accompanied by the scrape of a chair against the floor.
“Leave it, pet. Won’t do yerself any favours pushin’ him. Best just lettin’ him stew awhile.”
I can feel both pairs of eyes branding my back.
“Ah, I’d be a fool to believe any amount of stewing’s going to make the slightest difference here, Suzy,” David voices my thoughts precisely as I step out the flat and shut (slam) the door behind me.
Beyond making my point, I really didn’t think this storm out through at all. It’s the middle of February. It’s freezing cold. And the afternoon’s swiftly growing dark into evening. I have zero desire to be out, no idea what to do now I am. Not a hell’s chance I’m going straight back in.
Jody comes to her door in spotty pj’s and a hot pink dressing gown. Her slippers, hairy grey beast feet. And her curly brown hair’s squished flat on one side. Disturbingly, the look’s not new to me. I know straight off her answer’ll be a resounding no, but I go ahead and ask anyway.
“Joking, right? I’ve just got shot of you, Miktard. Passing up Zombieland and my snuggly blanket to come back out trawling the streets with you? Hil.Arious.”
“Aww, come on, please?” I try out the puppy dog eyes.
She snorts. “Not if your life depended on it.”
“But you owe me one.”
“Nope.”
“I’d do it for you.”
“You would not.”
I huff out a cloudy breath. “Okay, be that way. But know this: Next time things turn sour in Paul Paradise, you’ll get nout from me.”
“Yu-huh. Call me tomoz. After 11.” Then the door’s swung shut in my face.
The chippy around the corner is where her mister, Paul, works. My next stop. I’m freaking ravenous. Reckon, with a bit of badgering, there’s a fair chance he’ll slip me a freebie just to get me gone. Only…
“What can I get ye, flower?”
Pants to my luck, Paul’s not working this evening. Brenda is, and she scares the bejeezus outta me. She once attempted to suffocate me in her ample bosom.
“Yeah, um, I’m good, ta,” I say, backing out the door before it’s had chance to close.
I consider –briefly –the park for my following port of call. Creepy in the dark, I imagine, probably –possibly – full of ne’er-do-wells. And so, at a loss and reluctant to stray too far, a few zips around the block and I end up back on my street.
The lights are on inside my flat…
Situation analysis: Suzy’s car’s gone from the drive, her first-floor flat dark; so she’s gone to work. I’ve not yet filled in an hour, and Jean’s car hasn’t replaced Suzy’s out front; so Gran’s not back.
…Blatantly, David has very much not disappeared. Why, oh, why has he not disappeared?
Taking a perch on a garden wall across the road, I hunker down and wait. And dread the coming blow a little more with each passing second.
The moment I see Jean’s old fiesta turn into the street, I’m up and over the road. Sliding to a neat stop at the top of the drive, I wave and smile at Gran as the car pulls up to park. Gran pretends she doesn’t see me. Crap!
“She’s had a bad day,” Jean confirms, wearily stepping out the car and rounding it to open the passenger door. “Come on, Evelyn, love.”
I watch Gran look all around herself, startled –as if she hasn’t the faintest clue what’s required of her, before leaning out the door to stare up at Jean. “Ye’ve tied me up, woman. I canna get out!”
Jean sighs, pressing her lips tight as she stretches an arm around Gran to unclip the seatbelt.
“Your daft jumpers tickling me snozz. Gerroff, will ye.”
Jean jerks back, sucking in a sharp gasp, “Evelyn, don’t you ever nip me again. You hear?”
Gran cackles.
“Gran?” Moving slowly around the front of the car, catching her attention, I stop by Jean
and crouch down. “Let’s get in, eh? I wanna hear about your day.”
She smiles. I return it, holding my hand out toward her.
“Ah, my little Davey, you made it! Such a handsome face.” She pats my cheek.
My smile drops.
Taking tight grip of my hand, Gran shuffles awkwardly out the car. Jean catches her other arm, helping her straighten and balance. “Eee now, Davey, ye wouldna believe the day I’ve had, pet. Wouldna believe!”
This isn’t the first she’s called me by my brother’s name. I try not to let it bite, remind myself it’s nothing more than a slip up. But this time…well, the added affirmation she’s been expecting him makes it all the more hurtful. Actually, thinking on it…these past few days I’ve been Davey more often than not. “It’s Mikey, Gran. I’m Mikey.”
And of course, as if summoned, David chooses that moment to appear at the front door. Filling the space and scrutinising the scene before him. I’ve no idea what of anything David’s been told, but I’m assuming Suzy’ll have said something about Gran. There’s a whole world of difference between the telling and the seeing, though, and this, right here, is exactly what I’ve been sat dreading. Stupid jerk should have disappeared.
Gran tilts her head to one side, frowning as she considers my face through narrowed eyes. Then her white eyebrows lift and she chuckles. “’Course it is, dear love. Silly cow that I am, I’m just so tired, ye know?”
I manage a weak smile, drawing her closer to tuck her arm beneath mine, hands still clasped. “Yeah, Gran, I know.”
“Bet ye didna know Liz –Church Liz, I mean –she hit me. Didna know that, no? Today. In Hannah’s place. Reet across the back of me bonce.”
Jean’s shaking her head at me. Releasing her hold, she steps back. “Her bags are in the boot, Mikey. Can you grab em? I’ve gotta get off.”
Elephant Shoe