By Carole Ogden
Location: Oldham Road, near Wing Yip
A girl in a bluebottle coat scuttles by,
Head down, rushing into town.
She has shiny hair, shuttered eyes and sensible shoes:
a girl whose parents would be proud.
A man in a plasticine hat appears,
wearing a tie he borrowed from a friend.
Loud, tired and cheap, he will keep it
long after the end of the friendship.
By the frown of a streetlight,
Mr Oversight sings his swansong.
Shuffling along and tapping his toes
to a tune only he knows,
Clicking his over-long fingers.
On the other side of the road
stands the nuclear family,
using mobile ‘phones to keep in touch.
They send each other photos
of their smiling faces.
Rain soaks, like a memory,
into the skins of the paper children,
huddling against tall walls.
Unnoticed, they slip, once more,
back between the cracks in the road.
The world passes by
under the influence of billboards
and naked ladies kissing.
Carole Ogden lives in Bolton and was a Poem for Manchester finalist about five years ago. She is currently working in reader development and trying to get back into writing. About this poem, she says: ‘I used to travel regularly down the Oldham Road where I saw billboards with the poem title on – was quite intrigued!’
By Max Dunbar
Location: Salford Crescent
Dubious T lies in the tangled humidity of his bed at half twelve on a Friday afternoon. He is not, naturally, an early riser. Even hearing the others go to work is irritating. Can take a little while to go back under. And that fucking light from the car park keeps him awake.
Tom normally rises – if that’s the word for this grudging abandonment of sleep’s possibilities – about two. Today must be different. George will be here at half five, Alan might be back even earlier. Say this for Carrack, he does have the capacity for surprise.
It is the sixth of June, and summer has officially begun. He looks out onto the dappled tarmac of the car park underneath his window. But Tom’s mood doesn’t match the weather. For long now he’s been feeling a prickly resentment, coupled with a nagging fear and frustration.
Which begins at the bathroom mirror. There are lines on his forehead that cannot possibly be his. A spatter of crow’s nest around the eyes, and two nasty dope-coldsores that turn every yawn into half a scream. The skin itself has a sallow, unhealthy look, perhaps due to lack of exposure to the air.
Loads of munchiefood downstairs, not much of it his. George goes to the supermarket every week but Tom hasn’t put in for a while. Got into a row with Carrack, that twat, because he’d eaten his chicken drummers. Carrack said he’d break Tom’s jaw. Tom would have thought, if Carrack was a high-flying reporter like he acted, a few chicken drummers would be nothing to him. Accused me of nicking his wine when I hadn’t touched it. Carrack and his suits and the voices of his women in the night.
It’s his last meal here, so he makes the most of it; a massive fry up with eggs, bacon, beans, mushroom and toast, plus what’s left of George’s Cumberland sausages and Alan’s sun-dried tomatoes. Stick the plate and pan in the sink – Alan could take care of that shit.
Runs up and gets his Nike rucksack. Packs the tin of hot dogs, some of George’s ready meals, packets of pasta, bottles of Corona, cans of beans. Most of it will keep, and hopefully he’ll be near a fridge soon.
There is a cubbyhole in the bedroom that provides good storage space. Yet most of his wardrobe hasn’t been unpacked from when he moved in, what was it – two weeks, three weeks? Tom’s sense of chronology is not good.
By Paul Capewell
Location: The Deaf Institute, Grosvenor Street
Illustration by Abi Milnes - www.abimilnes.com
In the bar of the venue I am sat. Waiting. Watching. Concentrating really hard on not sweating. It’s an impossible task; it’s so hot outside. Uncharacteristically so, but it’s the city, and when the weather is hot, the city is hotter.
I’m trying to contain my excitement whilst keeping myself to myself. It’s not easy doing both, and all of me wants to tell everyone why I’m here. The thing is, everyone else is here for the same reason as me, and none of them are running up to me to tell me how excited they are. I bet they’re excited deep down though. Just too cool to show it. I feel like the least cool person in the building.
I turn the pages of the magazine I had in my bag. I haven’t read it yet, but none of the words are grabbing my attention. Beads of condensation are beginning to group on the side of my drink in such a way that they appear to be making a run for it. Deserters.
Before long I’m on my second attempt at the magazine. Maybe I’ll get into it this time. Somehow, having not paid attention the first time, everything now seems old. Passé. I’ve seen that photograph before. I know what that woman is saying.
A guy sits down in the booth opposite. He’s strangely well dressed for this time of day, this establishment. His suit — not an expensive suit, but a suit nonetheless — is an oasis in this land of Converse shoes and checked shirts. He is wearing glasses. Spectacles. A designer pair. All clean lines. He sticks out like a sore thumb. I wonder why he’s here. Perhaps he’s wondering that too; He keeps checking his phone. Is he waiting for someone?
I look over at the glass panel and the hallway beyond. The girl I walked past on my way in is still there. She’s my early warning sign. My silent comrade. She doesn’t know about her role, of course. But if she’s not there, it’s time for me to move. At this moment in time, she is still there.
The girl by the glass panel is on her own — at least as far as I can tell — and she’s undoubtedly waiting for the same thing as me. Why don’t I go over and talk to her? No. It wouldn’t do. As much as it would feel chivalrous, brave and exciting, she would see only a creep. Possibly even a threat. No, best that I stay here.
I’ve finished my drink now. The ice is teasing me and rapidly melting into a tasteless puddle. I don’t want to drink melted ice. I get up and go to the bar.
On my way back, the girl by the glass panel has gone. My pulse quickens. I look around. I look at the time. No; too early. I was told 5pm. I sit down with my drink. As predicted, the girl returns to take up her position by the glass panel. She must have gone to the loo. This is ridiculous. Why do I know that? I shouldn’t know that. I try to forget it.
I get out the magazine again, this time determined to find an article to read. Not to skim, or to jump ahead every few lines. But to actually get stuck in to. That should take up some slow minutes. Then maybe it’ll be time to go upstairs? Maybe I’ll bump into the girl by the glass panel? Not yet though.
Paul Capewell is a student from the home counties, studying to be a librarian at MMU. He was the online editor of MMU’s student magazine last year. He likes photography and books, and he is growing very fond of Manchester. http://paulcapewell.com
By Nabila Suriya
Location: St Mary’s Park, Bury New Road, Prestwich
I am in the park,
holding myself.
My thick fleece
Is your arm
Wrapped around me.
I look around
And I see
Every child, every girl
With a father,
Complete.
I fix my eyes,
Concealing five years
Of tears and I see
My child looking
At you.
Her curls have stopped
Bouncing. Her almond
Eyes are still, as is her
Tiny body.
She looks at me,
points at you
and asks
‘mummy, is that my daddy?’
Nabila Suriya is a teacher who is studying for an MA in creative writing.
By John Hargan
Location: The Three Arrows Inn, Middleton Road, Middleton
‘I’ll see you later’
Mike slammed the front door behind him and stepped out into the sharp night air. He smiled to himself in anticipation of his Sunday night trip to the Three Arrows to meet the lads. It was a chance to escape the pressures of family life for a couple of hours and enjoy some male company.
And just being in that pub made him feel better. It was the pub he had first drunk in, over 25 years ago, and it was the pub where he had first met his wife. The Three Arrows was the one constant in an ever-changing world, sat there at the end of Middleton Road, perched on the edge of the northern boundary of the city, the protective wall of Heaton Park at the back of it.
The pub was busy when he got there. Mike found his friends in a corner by the bar. He was met with the usual coarse greetings and Mickey-taking but he took it all in good part before getting his round in.
One member of the group was missing: Jimmy. Mike loved Jimmy, as they all did. He was their resident comedian – a hail fellow well met type who was popular with everyone.
They met Jimmy one night while discussing the possibility of getting the landlord to find them a set of darts, so they could have a game of 501 on the dartboard that hung in the area of the bar that nominally passed as the vault. The darts game had been a regular feature of their nights in the Three Arrows, before the new manager had decided he wanted to make the place a watered-down gastropub.
The manager had politely told them that they didn’t have a set of darts behind the bar any more.
‘Imagine that, a pub called the Three Arrows and it doesn’t have any darts!’
That remark had been Jimmy’s introduction to the group. He’d been a regular since then, though no-one saw him outside of the pub or on any other night than a Sunday.
Mike particularly loved Jimmy’s stories about his exploits with women. Jimmy was a salesman of some kind, though no-one was quite sure what he sold and no=one much cared. What mattered were that his tales of meeting women were always amusing, sometimes downright hilarious, as these sometimes naïve and always frustrated housewives fell for Jimmy’s feeble chat-up lines every time.
The boys carried on chatting in their usual way but there was a sense that the night wouldn’t really start until Jimmy arrived. Paul, who like Mike was a great fan of Jimmy’s, texted him to see where he was.
‘Apparently, he’s with one of his girlfriends now,’ Paul reported with some glee.
‘That’s Jimmy,’ Mike said, raising his glass in toast to his hero.
The conversation returned to the usual topics of day-to-day frustrations with their wives and children, or with their bosses at work. Mike made his own contribution, telling everyone about his failure to lure his wife, Christine, into a night of passion after they’d watched a raunchy late-night movie on TV.
‘You should get her to have a word with me.’
Jimmy was here. The boys cheered in a sarcastic manner.
‘We thought you’d never get here,’ said Paul.
‘Nearly didn’t,’ Jimmy replied. ‘This one was all over me.’
‘How come you’re seeing her on a Sunday night?’
‘Her husband goes out and she was so desperate to get more of me, I had to fit her in, so to speak.’ The lads all laughed. This was Jimmy in fine form.
‘So while some poor mug is out there getting bladdered, you’re sorting out his old lady?’ Mike asked.
‘Too right. He’s busy with his mates, I’m busy with her. Lovely house they’ve got too, on Heaton Park Road, big semi. He must have to work his you-know-whats off to afford that place.’
‘What’s her name?’ Paul asked.
‘Chris, short for Christine.’
‘Crazy Christine!’ Paul said, all the boys laughing with him.
‘Yeah, Crazy Christine,’ Jimmy laughed.
Sunday night out with his mates? A semi on Heaton Park Road? Christine? Mike thought to himself.
Jimmy was still laughing when Mike’s right fist landed on his mouth.
Turns out Jimmy wasn’t that funny anymore.
John Hargan was born in Blackley in 1966, and now lives in Didsbury. He is possessed of an unhealthy fascination with Manchester City.
