A Midlands Odyssey

Polly Stoker, Elisabeth Charis, Jonathan Davidson, Polly Stoker, Elisabeth Charis, Jonathan Davidson, Polly Stoker

• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780992758981
• eBook ISBN: 9780992758998

In A Midlands Odyssey ten writers take the stories of Homer's Odyssey and transplant them to the English Midlands. With a range of settings – from smart canal-side apartments to late-night launderettes – these stories are wonderfully inventive and offer a down-to-earth take on one of the world's greatest pieces of storytelling.

'The Odyssey theme, so rich with its tales of wandering Odysseus, the lure of the Sirens, the loss felt by Penelope and those gruesome reports across time from the underworld, energizes the ten writers here, providing a pretext for a fine array of inventive and imaginative stories, attuned to the legend, aslant to the Ancient World, adventurous in their address. If the topology is contemporary and centrally oriented, and the themes entertainingly current, this anthology is certainly not Midlands miscellaneous; it's the opposite of drab urban realism: a mere seagull's cry, only the odd whisper and rumour away from Ancient Greece itself.' Alan Mahar

'An inventive and intriguing project, distinguished not only by the power of its Homeric reimaginings but by the superb quality of the writing throughout.' Jo Balmer

Stories edited by Polly Stoker, Elisabeth Charis and Jonathan Davidson.

Includes stories by: Yasmin Ali, Lindsey Davis, Elisabeth Charis, Kit De Waal, Charlie Hill, Paul McDonald, Richard House, Dragan Todorovic, Natalie Haynes, David Calcutt.

This book is also available as a eBook. Buy it from Amazon here.

KIT DE WAAL

Adrift at The Athena

Ulysses Tate walks uphill in early evening light, the air tainted with city fug, heavy with unspilt water. He’s developed a shuffling gait over the last few miles in the soupy August heat and his overcoat is killing him. He stops and takes it off at the corner of Reddings Lane and Stratford Road, leans against the glass of a shop window and wipes his sleeve across his face. He has a long way yet to go. He sits on the concrete step of The Athena Launderette, its door is wedged open and it reeks of clean. Down the middle aisle, between banks of washers and dryers, there is a single wooden bench, wide as a raft floating on mock marble tiles. The strip lighting hums overhead and the whole place invites him in.

He closes the door behind him and walks straight to the back. There’s a small office, padlocked and next to it, the big industrial machines, as tall as the man himself. He shucks his overcoat over his shoulders and takes everything off, his old boots, his jeans, his blue shirt, his underpants, his socks. He puts his coat back on and bundles everything else into a machine. He buys a small box of powder from a dispenser and fills the plastic chute to the top. He feeds in a few coins and hears the water rush through the pipes, watches his clothes turn sodden black. Five items. Everything he has.

He pushes the bench against the dryers and settles his boots on his lap. He stretches his neck left and right, crosses his bare feet at the ankle and leans back against the cool metal. He listens to the slosh and slop, the rhythmic agitation of his £3.75 wash, the churning of the drum and somewhere nearby a woman singing. He shuffles into comfort and closes his eyes.

After a while, at the edge of his consciousness he hears an alarm and a door banging but he keeps his eyes shut and stays in his dream. He’s remembering a baby’s bath and his arms in the soapy water, splashing, getting wet, the baby laughing, the water tickling his skin. His dreams pull him under sometimes, leave him frantic, gasping for air but he’s found, over the years, a way to surf the in-between time, skim over the water and stay afloat. He’s learnt to half-sleep through screams and fights, retching and masturbatory grunts, broken sobs, oaths and beatings, but the sound of a girl’s voice brings him up, back to life.

They stand over him, two of them, arms folded.

‘They’re bad shoes, man. 80’s shoes,’ says one.

‘They’re boots, Sasha. Or boats. Yellow suede boats.’

‘Nubuck.’

‘Old buck, you mean.’

‘He’s drunk,’ says the first.

‘He’s mashed,’ adds the other.

‘He’s a tramp.’

‘Yeah, a tramp. Or a vagrant.’

‘Is it vagrant? Or vagabond?’

‘Whatever. He’s naked, that’s all I know.’

‘Yeah, a flasher.’

‘Or pervert.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

He draws his coat about him and looks down at his feet in a pool of warm water. He lifts them up on to the bench.

‘Cover yourself, man,’ says one of the girls and they draw back giggling covering their eyes.

He sees her then, twisting a mop in a bucket, a young woman, older, taller.

‘You two go on,’ she says over her shoulder ‘I’ll catch you up.’

‘No, Nicci, man,’ they say.

‘You can’t.’

‘Leave it, Nicci. Do it later.’

‘Everyone will be there, Nicci.’

‘I can’t,’ says the woman. ‘It’s everywhere. Go on without me.’

The two girls shake their heads, pretty heads held at an angle, their eyebrows plucked into accusing arches, red-painted downturned lips, each sheathed in the skin of a dress, red for one, orange for the other.

‘I don’t like leaving you, Nicci, man. He could be anyone.’

‘Worse than that, Sasha. He could be someone. Know what I mean?’

The woman with the mop stops but doesn’t turn.

‘Are you someone?’ she asks.

‘No,’ he replies. ‘No-one.’

‘See,’ she says and resumes her mopping. ‘Go on. I’ll catch you up.’

They hold hands, trip with dainty steps through the soapy water.

‘Don’t be long, Nicci.’

‘Uncle won’t like it if you’re late.’

They turn the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ and drop the latch on the front door.

The woman keeps her back to him and he watches her move. She’s slow and easy in her green rubber clogs and bare brown legs. Her silver jacket shimmies as she moves, her black dress waves at the hem as she dances the mop across the tiles. He can see her neck and wisps of hair that curl against it, he can see the side of her cheek, her strong hands but he cannot see her face. She makes shapes with the mop on the floor and she’s quiet, concentrating as though she’s writing a poem, a love letter.

‘Suppose that’s my fault,’ he says.

Her head moves a little in reply.

‘Maybe I didn’t close the door properly,’ he adds, ‘or something got trapped.’

‘That would be my guess.’

‘I didn’t see anyone when I came in.’

‘You don’t get much business on a Saturday night. I live in the flat above. I just came down to lock up.’

She writes, moves the bucket along with the mop, writes again.

‘Was it you singing?’ he asks.

‘I don’t sing.’

‘Maybe I was dreaming.’

‘You were talking.’

‘Must have been rubbish. I didn’t say anything did I?’

Her head moves again as an answer but still she doesn’t turn. She is so close he could reach out and touch her, bring her round to face him but he doesn’t move.

‘You’re not dressed for it,’ he says drying his feet with the hem of his coat. ‘Should have got your mates to pitch in.’

‘They’re my nieces,’ she answers.

‘Pretty girls.’

She rings the mop, twists it dry and picks up the bucket. She turns to him at last, smiles and as she walks away she shouts.

‘Young enough to be your daughters, I should think.’

He watches her unlock the office and go inside. He sees a light come on, hears her moving about. She comes back carrying a folded white sheet.

‘So, everything went in. Pants? Socks?’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘Because?’

‘They had a smell.’

‘Of?’

‘Somewhere I’...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• YASMIN ALI - In the Lap of the Gods
• LINDSEY DAVIS - The Telemachus File
• ELISABETH CHARIS - So Far from Home
• KIT DE WAAL - Adrift at the Athena
• CHARLIE HILL - Odysseus Weeps...
• PAUL McDONALD - Who Are Ya?
• RICHARD HOUSE - Underworld
• DRAGAN TODOROVIC - Every Storm
• NATALIE HAYNES - The Two Penelopes
• DAVID CALCUTT - The Old Man in the Garden
• Reflections
• Biographies