SAWN-OFF TALES
David Gaffney

New and unpublished
November 2007

Don't thank me, thank the moon's gravitational pull

Christine was managing the office relocation, an opportunity to take her mind off the break-up with Malcolm. Malcolm, however, was health and safety, and everything had to be approved by him.

She indicated with a polished fingernail the position of the new building but Malcolm moaned, shook his head and did nervy jazz hands.

'You've forgotten something vital. The building's relationship to where staff live.'

Christine explained about public transport.

'I was wondering whether it's east or west. I only ever work west of where I live, so that on the way to and from work the sun is never in my eyes.'

'But you come to work on the tube.'

'I have a strong sense of the planet. Even underground I know where I am in relation to the sun.'

She agreed to go with him to a cellar bar so he could demonstrate this skill, and it did explain something. The time he'd consulted a compass before making love, claiming the moon's gravitational pull enhanced his performance, he'd been lying.

---

Double digging

Gloria's face was on the banknotes in Nice-Town. Her smile throbbed with evil e-numbers. She was never horrible, never mean, and never made a juicy dig at the girls in promotions. But today dental anaesthetic had tugged the corners of her mouth into an exaggerated sad-clown face and, for the first time in Gloria's life, she looked like mortal sin.

Benjamin didn't normally register Gloria's presence but when he caught sight of her sour, crushed expression he stopped her, and told her that suddenly he felt a connection. She had a dark, adhesive quality that beckoned. He scanned his desk and his eyes landed on a tiny fern growing in a yogurt pot, which he picked up and handed to her.

'Come to my allotment on Sunday,' he said.

Gloria nursed the fern over to her desk. Everyone smiled and offered words to ease her lonely desperation. Her inbox for the first time contained the drinkypoos email. She looked from the email to the fern, and silver voices sang in her head.

On Sunday she watched Benjamin dribble seeds from his curled palm into holes his big fingers had jabbed into chocolaty soil. He smiled at her, she scowled back though numb cheeks, and he laughed.

The dentist could offer her daily injections for a limited period only. It was strictly unethical. But what would she tell Benjamin and the others when her smile returned? How could she go back to happy when miserable was so much fun?

---

Music like ours never dies

Marion said the article could have been written with me in mind, and I riffled through the supplement and there it was: Losing it - the Bay City Rollers story.

The Rollers had everything, but threw it all away. They were egos on legs, emotionally cramped, and manager Tam Patton had a sinister, seamy undertow that eventually destroyed them.

Marion was right. Their story was my story. I was self-obsessed, vain, and paid slipshod attention to Marion's needs. The Bay City Rollers were encoded in me. And Tam Patton? He represented my father. Emotions were unsilted, tears fell on Les McKeon's face, and when Marion returned from her run, I hugged her close.

'Darling, I will never allow us to become the Bay City Rollers.'

She flipped Les over. 'This is the article I meant.'

EMOTIONAL INFIDELITY, it said, above a picture of a man and woman on a park bench.

Alone, I drew a penis jutting out of the man's trousers and a moustache on the woman. That's what the rollers would have done. What matters is the moment, not everlasting fame.

---

Do the voice

It began with the door to the balaclava cupboard. Its two note see-saw creak, in descending thirds, sounded exactly like the uh huh catch phrase of the disturbed woman in Little Britain. I heard this every time I changed my balaclava, which was three times a week, and once I'd noticed it, my house became a polyphony of comedy quips. The moaning floorboard on the stair said suit you sir, and the bolts on the door went what a plonker, Rodney. Smothering the cacophony with piano accordion practice didn't work either. Underneath the tunes, I could still hear the wind rubbing a branch against the guttering, going what are the scores, George Dawes and water curling through the radiator murmuring you wouldn't let it lie. The voices insinuated themselves into my sleep, to be born out into the day with me.