Hymn From A Village by Nigel Bird Read Free Book Online

didn’t show for work the next morning the Principle went across to his house to give him a knock.
    Found the note where it was put.
    ‘Taking a line for a walk’ it said. Didn’t mean anything to her till she opened up and took a look inside.

All Washed Up
    I ’m all...
    ...washed up.
    Stranded like a whale on the sand.
    The air seems to sense it, remaining still in a way that it never does here on the coast.
    The sun, embarrassed for me, dissolves into the sea at the horizon leaving only its blushes behind.
    I pull my bracelet from my wrist and see the pink indents it leaves behind in my flesh, notice the hairs on my arm standing to attention and the goose bumps that have taken over my skin.
    I rub at the pieces of sea-glass like a worrying Greek at the gallows. Feel the cool of their surface and relax.
    We found the first on this very spot a month ago, strolling along the beach with our hands tangled like unruly fishing nets and our bare feet leaving a trail.
    “A lucky stone,” she said, holding it out to me on the palm of her hand. “You can keep it.”
    It was heart-shaped. An opaque jewel to match the green of her eyes. I put it in my pocket just to humour her – there wasn’t a thing on Earth I needed now I had the love of Sandra Malone.
    “They’re nearly always green,” she told me. “And they’re beautiful. But it’s the reds and the blues I love most and reds and blues are as rare as popes.”
    Two weeks I spent combing the sands after the tides had been and gone. Two weeks staring down between my feet, upturning stones and shells and plastic junk, until I had enough. A collection of lucky stones to rival any bag of rabbits’ feet or four-leafed clovers.
    I cleaned them. Polished them with the mist from my breath and the cloth for my spectacles. Put them in my vice and drilled them through. Threaded them with care, arranging them from big to small, alternate red and blue. Knotted it tight. Placed it in the foam-lined box (a ladybird fashioned from a piece of driftwood and a walnut shell) and tied a ribbon of seaweed around to keep it safe and sound.
    “Happy birthday,” I said as I handed it over. “For tomorrow.”
    She couldn’t smile. Just let her eyes fill like tiny rock-pools.
    “It’s not you,” she said, looking at the light-house mobile that hung from the ceiling in the hall. “It’s me...not ready for a serious relationship...feel suffocated...claustrophobic.” She said other things, I know, because her mouth kept moving. Kept talking till I left. And I haven’t been back since.
    The light fades.
    It’s time. Time to return the sea-glass to its true home. To hand it back in person.
    I lift the bags of lucky stones, loop the handles over my neck and take the first of many steps out into the ocean.

Beat On The Brat
    H e makes us anything we want, the clown on the stilts. Hearts or dogs or swords. Whatever we can think of.
    “What’ll it be, bud?” He looks down from his great height and smiles. I don’t know why he puts on the lipstick - he doesn’t need it. Grin’s as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge and I should know - I seen it once.
    “Giraffe,” I tell him.
    “Speak up son,” he says, “It’s a long way for sound to travel.”
    “The magic word?”
    “Sorry, son. What’ya say?”
    “Giraffe, please.” It wasn’t any louder, but he reaches into his apron pocket.
    “Colours?”
    I tell him blue and yellow and this time remember the magic. He messes with the tangle of rubber worms and picks the ones he needs.
    Starts with the blue, gives it a stretch. As far as his arms will go. Takes one up to his lips and fills it with an enormous breath till it looks like a huge salami.
    “How d’you do that, Stevie?” Joey, my little brother, always asks the same things. Stevie never seems to mind.
    “Did martial arts and yoga when I was a kid,” he says and turns and twists his balloons. “Get fit now and you’ll be fit for life.”
    It looks like the neck and head,