I haven’t spent this sleepless night playing “How Soon Is Now” on a continuous loop and alternately missing you so much it makes my chest ache, and wanting you here so I can scream at you until my throat bleeds.
#
I check whether anyone’s gotten back to me on my manuscript. Nada.
If I get my book published, he’ll like me again. Wanna fuck me and stuff. Or at least talk to me.
I’d genuinely decided there were no nice men left in London, possibly the world, before I met Mark: that they’d all been snapped up or kidnapped or something. And then Mark happened.
Full disclosure: I’d been stood up the night we met. It was Friday and the pub was heaving: I was glaring into my phone, thinking about hunting down Johnny No-Show from Tinder and possibly killing him with an axe, when Mark asked if he could join me. I didn’t really want company, not even Johnny No-Show – in fact, especially not that prick – but I mumbled OK and he sat down.
I fell in love with him over pudding. Not dessert. I am not a woman who would eat a dessert. I would desert a dessert. I am a pudding woman. A woman who wields a spoon, not a fork. Forks can fork off.
Things had started well. He had chosen the pork terrine as a starter. A brave and bold choice. I like a man who isn’t afraid of a good bit of pork. He ate it with gusto. I smiled.
If we were all being honest, none of us expected the nanny to actually stay for Christmas.
One of my bad habits (amongst a few), is letting my mouth run away with itself. James and I had got stuck into slightly more cherry brandy than was strictly necessary, as it was Christmas, although technically it was still November – the 8th. When I walked unsteadily past the nanny’s bedroom I heard a low, animalistic howl.
I could hardly ignore it, could I? What if a werewolf had broken in and was savaging the poor girl? Surely I would be failing in my duty of care?
“Who’ll be Mother?” Jess wonders as we flip through her extensive wardrobe.
It’s more of a relief than anything that none of us are seeing our folks again this year – nobody’s exactly family-orientated, and enduring the usual round of resentments, tensions, arguments and passive-aggressive regiftings doesn’t appeal. So Jess, TJ and me are having Friends are Family Christmas in our flat, where nobody can critically examine our lives, question our choices or, crucially, tell us we’re drinking too much.
“Is that a wig?” asks TJ. He extracts a blonde mop, frisking it about on his spread fingers like a permed Muppet.
The bank slopes gently to the river so there is no danger for the girls. Mamma has said they may play there while she is gone into Mullinvane but they must not go out upon the ice. She has taken the pony and trap and Dada is away up the fields somewhere, so they have promised to be on their best behaviour.
But it is not the river bank they want today. That is a summer place, for building dams and fortifications of pebbles. The river bank is for dressing down. Off with the boots and stockings, skirts tucked into knickers. It is for soft silt between the toes and sunlight dancing on the arcs of water they send flashing into the air.
We’ve aw been there. A nicht oan the tiles. Dancin shoes oan. Tarted up like a Gregg’s donut at the front o the display. An innocent enough wee swally - or so ye hink. Then, a few hoor later, yer poundin heid goes: ‘Whit the puck did ye dae last nicht?’
The Fear. It’s a well-kenned phenomenon. But seriously whit could ye really dae and furget aboot it? It’s been playin oan a loop in ma heid aw mornin.
Ah wis at ma pal Jamie and his burd’s last nicht. It wisnae a big wan. Three drinks. Max. Then ah callt a taxi hame. Lassies cannae be too careful and aw that. Plus, the tube’s probably hoachin wi the Rhona, never mind the vomit-stained nicht bus.
The forty-second floor office is preposterously swanky. I don’t think I have been at a place of business above third floor before. It seems the higher they get, the more luxurious they must become.
This particular office looks like something out of a TV show about sexy lawyers, saving the world one pro-bono case at the time.
But it is not a law firm. And I’m definitely not an impossibly well-dressed lawyer. I am currently wearing a black polyester suit that I bought for a Hillary Clinton costume back in Halloween 2016. My shoes are equally unstylish and full of scrape marks, which I tried to cover up with a sharpie but it turned out to be purple highlighter.
“So,” said the Vampire, tying his cape. “We’re walking, I presume?”
“We’ll take the car,” the Pumpkin said, with barely a pause.
Frowning, the Vampire turned from the mirror to study his friend. “Really? You think that’s a good idea, after last year?”
“Definitely,” said the Pumpkin. He dabbed at his make-up with a tissue. “If this party’s as wild as the one last year, we’ll be way too pissed to walk back afterwards. We’re taking the car.”
Lauren Van Schaik’s short fiction has been shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and The White Review Short Story Prize, published by the Cincinnati Review and performed by Liars’ League. She has an MA in Creative Writing from UEA and is working on a novel.
Gloria Sanders trained at Drama Studio London. She regularly narrates audiobooks for the RNIB and recently joined the cast of Time Will Tell’s Dracula at Whitby Abbey. She often works as an historical interpreterat heritage sites around the country and has continued her training in clowning and historic fooling. She recently qualified as a Spanish Interpreter.
Alice pulled the flowers from her mother’s crystal vase and threw them, yellow and bright, into the bin. They barely made a sound as they hit the bottom – but the baby stirred all the same.
Rosy-cheeked and wide awake, it mocked the blackout blinds she’d made her husband install and stared right at her as she opened the door.
Good morning my little love, she chirped.
Swoosh. Welcome in sunlight. Swoosh. Welcome in day. Swoosh. Welcome in sweet-promise-of-another-go-around.
Molly Skinner’s work has appeared in print on her mum’s fridge and in the body of emails entitled “could you proof this?” Formerly she co-managed the indie press Peirene Press. She has an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art and this is her first published work.
Annalie Wilson is an actor, singer, songwriter and music producer. She has acted in theatre, musicals, film and TV, and particularly enjoys working with new writing. After a few years releasing music under her alter ego Luna Bec she has returned to her original name with her recent single “Coming Home,” which can be streamed in all the usual places. More at www.annalie.co.uk
I am the body he shoves and kicks under the bushes so deep that the dogs scratch their noses on the thorns and the police have to use torches to find my pale hand curled in a claw among the brambles.
I am the body that makes all this fuss. Yellow tape and gloves and white jumpsuits. They don’t want to disturb me in case they spoil the evidence, but they can’t see any evidence whilst I am stuck under a bush either.
I am the body they hesitate to bury. I am searched inside and out and all over. They comb through every particle of me and they are not even looking for me at all, they are looking for him. Did he leave any of himself behind?
The two men appeared in the car park at six o’clock. The sun was beginning to set, glowing behind them like a warning, but they didn’t take heed.
At first, they were just faceless black shapes striding out of the orange blaze. One was taller and broader than the other. The shorter one swung his arms more. They walked side-by-side. Perhaps they were brothers, or friends, or lovers.
Burning alive isn’t a fate I would wish upon anyone. Of all the ways I had died, it was the worst. Flames licked across skin that hadn’t seen the sunlight in three months. Smoke stung in my lungs like acid. And all the while faces that I’d come to call my friends and neighbours gawked on, delighting in the horror of such an act. It’s no wonder that eternal flames are used to torment dark souls in the underworld – at least the small mercy was that for me it didn’t last forever.
I was careless for getting caught, though I had only been trying to help the harvest, by bringing forth the rain and stilling the wind. Alas, in this period of history into which I was transplanted, I was not heralded as a deity to be worshipped or a nymph to be respected, but as a heretic and devil worshipper.
Our 5th annual celebration of stories about and by Women & Girls was performed to a packed crowd on Tuesday 10th August at The Phoenix, with six slices of fantastic new fiction read aloud LIVE by our marvellous Liars' League actresses. It featured Mormons, murder, mediums, malicious moths, medieval maladies, Shakespeare & more - and the stories, videos and podcast are available to read, watch & listen to right now!
WINNING STORIES for WOMEN & GIRLS
Plague of Exes, 1349 by Lauren Van Schaik, read by Gloria Sanders Goddess Interrupted by Lyndsey Croal, read by Lois Tucker How a Body likes her Breakfast by Cathy Browne, read by Kim Scopes Oh Little Beast by Molly Skinner, read by Annalie Wilson Vengeance by Mina Ma, read by Josie Charles Lear in LA by Sakki Selznick, read by Sophie Cartman
Inspired to write for us?
NEXT DEADLINE: 11.59pm on Sunday 5th September for MAGIC & MAYHEM (event on Tuesday 12th October):
This Hallowe'en season, enchant (or curse) us with your most soul-searing stories of sorcery, necromancy, blood sacrifice, crazed rituals, inchoate horrors from a realm of unspeakable chaos ... you know the drill.
To the red lady on the St James omnibus – I sing of men, and of the love That slipped from my fingers Velvety pure, ever unsure I still have your glove. Please reply as to return address via this column.
- The man with the hat
It is a pointless endeavour for a writer to hide her guilty pleasures from her reader, so instead I shall boldly confess my greatest sin here – I adore the agony columns. Those personal messages which sit on the second page of every great paper in the city of London, where people write tiny love letters, advertisements for missing relatives, requests for money and other cries from the heart – the great majority written in some kind of cipher that is only intelligible to the single soul in the world to whom it is addressed … or to a good detective.
Lockdoon turbo relationships. That’s whit they call it. Ye finally cross pass wi somewan guid, and then boom - Big Boris tells ye tae stay at hame.
“Fancy gettin a hotel?” ah text the fella ah’ve ainlie met twice. Boozers shut at ten, and a few hoors o chat wisnae gonnae be enough fur us. The prices o rooms are oan their arse because o lockdoon two.
“Aye,” he replies, no hinkin twice aboot it.
“Smashin. Meet ye by the station in an hoor?”
“Aye. Cannae wait! x”
Ah’ve gat Mark Zuckerberg tae thank fur this wan. This fella gied me a compliment oan the auld Facebook, and ah replied tellin him that he made a hot wumman. It wis true. That body swap filter is sommat else.
Patrick burnt himself on a hot pan on Thursday night.
I heard the clatter, his shout, rushed towards the kitchen - stopped. I changed my mind and scooped Jamie up from the playpen first.
When I lifted up Jamie, something seemed to pass across his face for a moment. One of those strange seconds where I could see what he’d be like as a man.
“Why are you doing this Mama? It’s wrong,” he would say, if he could talk. Babies always think they know best.
I pressed the faded mustard handset of the rotary phone to my ear. I always expect to hear that woman crying on the other side, the one who first called when we were nine, playing with a Ouija board in the living room.
Paul and Eli hadn’t stopped talking about it since they stole it from Walmart. We touched the planchette lightly and let it glide over the letters.
B-A-L-L-S.
“Get serious, Paul!”
“Fine. But if you want ghosts to talk, you gotta say something smart. Egghead, say something magic.”
The webcam rings. A customer’s waitin. Ah open ma top drawer, pullin oot a whip and nipple clamps. Here we go again. Ah make £2.50 a minute as an online dominatrix. Mair than ah ever made stackin shelves. Ah wis the first tae get the boot fae B&M when the lockdoon wis announced. “Hey there,” ah say, twirlin ma hair fully-clothed. BigThick8756 is typing. “Do you like to bite?” “Ah sure dae.” “Can u show me your sharp teeth up close? xx” Ya dancer. Ah love a weirdo. This is a walk in the park compared tae fillin oot shitey online surveys fur a bit o extra cash, or askin folk tae donate tae watch ma comedy shows. Ma ex Bennie always said ah wisnae as funny as ah thocht ah wis.
Thanks to our faithful fans' nominations we were shortlisted (along with four other eminent & excellent events) in the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category at the Saboteur Awards 2020! We didn't win (though congrats to poetry night Punk in Drublic, who did) but we certainly basked in the glory ...
INTERVIEW ON THE STATE OF THE ARTS
In celebration of our one hundredth event, the fine folks over at thestateofthearts.co.uk interviewed us about the secret of Liars' League's longevity, here.
BEST REGULAR SPOKEN WORD NIGHT AT SABOTEUR AWARDS
We got nominated, we canvassed, we voted, we hoped, we prayed. Then we went down to Oxford - along with our publishing partners Arachne Press - for the Saboteur Awards and came away with a gong each! We won Best Regular Spoken Word Night 2014 and Weird Lies won Best Anthology.
LL IN GUARDIAN TOP TEN
Liars' League is one of The Guardian's 10 Great Storytelling Nights, according to the paper's go-out-and-have-fun Do Something supplement, that is. And they should know. The article is here and mentions several other live lit events well worth checking out.
ARTICLE ABOUT US IN WORDSWITHJAM
Journalist Catriona Troth came along to our Twist & Turn night, reviewed it and interviewed Katy, Liam, Cliff and author/actor Carrie. See what she said in her article for WordsWithJam here.
BUY OUR AUTHORS' BOOKS!
Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)
KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL
Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).
OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!
They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here
Flambard Press Publishers of Courttia Newland's short story collection "A Book of Blues", from which we read Gone Away Boy in April 2011.
Granta A great magazine full of new writing by established and up-and-coming authors.
Literary Death Match Watch blood spill and saliva fly, as writers fight for the LDM crown by reading their work and performing ridiculous tasks.
Sabotage Reviews An excellent review site which highlights the best of indie literature - poetry, prose and spoken word. They gave us an award, doncherknow?
ShortStops A fantastically useful site run by author Tania Hershman which lists opportunities for short story writers, from magazines to prizes to live events.