Liars' League

Talons & Teeth by Lizzie Muncey

Read by the author (57 minutes into podcast, here)

I live just over the road from them; directly opposite. If I wanted to, which of course I don’t, I could see right into their lounge from my bedroom window. I’d have to stand on a chair and climb on my chest of drawers to do it, but it would be possible.

The old one is a bit wild nowadays, if I can put it like that. She’s developed a strange, intense look about her. And a mad laugh-come-cackle. With the middle one it’s more of a general crumbling. An overall dishevelment. She used to be an attractive young woman, but now it’s like she resists her beauty. And the youngest one too, having been such a quiet, biddable child, has loosened. Now she walks around barefoot and I can tell, even from this distance, often neglects to put on a bra.

The Man Downstairs by Renesha Dhanraj

Read by Anoushka Deshmukh (third story in podcast, here)

Tonight, again, Madam cannot sleep because of the rustling. Because Madam doesn’t sleep, I can’t sleep. She pulls me from my cot — a meagre straw thing pushed to the furthest corner of her bedroom — and wraps my fingers around the pinta broom. We keep the broom inside now.

Downstairs, she says.

Downstairs is the kitchen, which is where I slept before Madam got the way she is now.

A man is downstairs. A man has gotten into the kitchen because Madam left the downstairs window open, hoping that a breeze will flit its way in and soothe the overheating of ancient womanhood.

The Princess and the Kennel Girl by Fiona Mossman

Read by Patsy Prince (first story in podcast, here)

There was once a princess in a high, far, wintry kingdom who had a very strange gift that some called a curse. It was on account of this that the princess was locked away, her contact with other people forbidden, and gloves of the most curious kinds ordered for her from the lands to the south, where costly materials were woven by many skilled artisans, softer and kinder than the rough wools of that mountainous kingdom.

The princess was treated well and wanted for nothing, but her heart was sore from loneliness. She could often be seen at the window of her high tower, talking to the birds and to the air. The folk in the fields below saw her, and looked down again to their work.

Interview at the RSA by Sarah Richardson

Read by Andrea Hall (first story in podcast, here)

The man opposite had started trying to make eye contact. I could tell by the way his shoe twisted quickly back and forth, grazing the scuffed floor of the waiting room in a timid plea for acknowledgement. I kept my gaze on the shoe—a worn DM, sketchily smeared with polish by its owner—for as long as my nerves could take it, which I doubted had amounted to very long at all. I looked up: ‘Hi—’

‘Hi!’ The man’s hope leapt from his throat so forcefully that another man, sitting to his left, visibly recoiled. ‘I don’t suppose you’d—’

‘No.’ Then I added, ‘Sorry.’ Because genuinely I was: sorry for him, whoever he was, sorry for all of us. Chances were he was decent enough, and he wasn’t bad-looking either—a bit sweaty, but all of us left had been waiting more than three hours now and to be honest I probably looked a lot worse. 

Dear Miss Maguire by Amy Eddings

Read by Caroline O'Mahoney & Oliver Yellop (final story in podcast here, at 1:23:40)

Dear Miss Sullivan,

Was it but yesternoon I beheld you first, gliding so elegantly through Hanover Square in that utterly bewitching taupe walking-dress with the Paris silk trim? The feathers on your hat danced as vivaciously as if they would truly fly – and my heart, treacherous bird that it is, flew from my breast to be with them! I near-swooned, fearing that so divine a vision must be heaven-sent; that perhaps my twenty-four short years on Earth had concluded as I turned the corner, and God had sent an angel to reap my soul!

It was only when you dropped your little lace handkerchief – positively the coverlet for an infant cherub in its delicacy and beauty! – granting me the inestimable good fortune of retrieving and returning it to you, that I understood I was not the visionary dreamer of an exquisite dream, and that you existed indeed! A Woman, in the very Flesh, before my bedazzled eyes!

 

Mushroom by Melanie Carvalho

Read by Katy Darby (fourth story in podcast here, at 47:25)

It was that limbo week between Christmas and New Year, five years ago. It was the first limbo week I had spent alone with the kids, after their dad left me. I say me, because he insisted he did not leave them, only me. I say left, because he said I was being melodramatic when I used the word abandoned, and so even now, in private, between you and me, I’ll try not to be melodramatic. Even now, his version of events wins out. Even now, I can be charmed by him, as is everyone, still.

Starfish by Donna Tracy

Read by Linda Shannon (second story in podcast here, at 16:50)

It’s Sean’s sister, Jackie, who tells me he’s back. She drops it casually into the conversation when I bump into her at the market.

‘Just until Monday,’ she says. ‘It’s Mum’s seventy-fifth.’

She looks at me funny when she says it, waiting to see how I react. I nod, purse my lips as if I’m not that interested. I’ve always liked Jackie, she’s a good laugh, but she’s got a streak of something in her that gets a kick out of seeing people squirm, so I’ve never asked her anything about Sean, never let her know I want to know.

Not Raven but Drowning by M J Lee

Read by Keleigh Wolf (fifth story in podcast here, at 1:03:37)

The night is Vantablack and John Cage-silent when the Uber drops me at Zora’s. I thank the driver and rate him five stars and tip him a tenner on the app. What a nice guy, I think. What a goddam human being. It’s four below, and the frosted pavement outside Zora’s live/workspace in Catford is scintillating like a million tiny stars. I can hardly tear my eyes away to find the doorbell, it’s so beautiful. A kind of exquisite fractalism, the tiny ice crystals reflecting the unimaginably massive, superhot balls of gas billions of miles away …

Fuuuuuck!  I shake my head like a cat with a flea-collar. I’m so sick of this wonderstruck hippie bullshit. This is not how I want to feel. And it’s all Zora’s fault. I need more of the bad stuff, and Zora’s the only one I know with a solid connection.

Dear Puss by Donna Tracy

Read by Lisa Rose (fourth story in podcast, click here to play)

Justin chooses the house; an eighteenth-century cottage with exposed beams and inglenook fireplaces, and an acre of land so thick with trees that it can’t be seen from the road. He wants to be in before Christmas, and though most of the work is done before they move in, they can’t find anyone to fit the wood burners until December. When the workmen finally arrive, they assure Helen it won’t take long, and they’ll tidy up after themselves. She goes to make them tea and when she comes back, she finds the two men crouched on the floor looking at something.

‘Found this up the chimney,’ one says.

Helen leans down to get a better look, then recoils in disgust. ‘Ugh! What is it?’

‘Dead cat,’ the man says.

A Cranium for Christmas by E. P. Henderson

Read by Lucy Mabbitt: listen to podcast here (third story)

The chanting rises to a frenzied, animal pulse, like an Army cadence call, or gorillas booming across humid jungles. “DOWN. IT! DOWN. IT!”

I shudder. They’ve all downed it. And now I’m last one standing. Fists pummel the table, startling the crested cutlery. The tinsel on the ancient, panelled walls trembles. “DOWN. IT! DOWN. IT! DOWN. IT!”

Wolf-howls, bird-screeches, war-cries. “Come on you pussy!” bellows Pog, rugby-top straining, face red as a beef-tomato. “DOWN IT!”

I raise the stolen traffic-cone, stare into its mixture of mulled wine, cider, curdled eggnog and mashed mince-pie. The name of this unearthly concoction is Santa’s Nutsack.

 

Convivial by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

Read by Caroline O'Mahoney (fourth story in podcast, here)

Her heart is in the middle of the dining table next to the potatoes. It is pumping away against the tabletop. No one seems to notice. The white tablecloth is beginning to stain; a ring of yellow plasma is seeping beneath the tableware, the central red mark deepening into a dark, sticky burgundy that resembles port-wine gravy.

The thudding pumps have a cloying sound that marks the passing of beat to beat, moment to moment, keeping her silent.

Her husband’s family are catching up, ignoring, not seeing the heart. They began drinking when she was putting the children to bed. They are no longer sober.

Kaleidoscope Girl by Sarah Richardson

Read by Lucy Mabbitt (first story in podcast, here)

The first time she saw the girl, Jen was floating on her back, gazing at the Fowey shore through the frame of her feet. The days had reached that point in September where the late afternoon light was so low it splashed against the swell, sending tiny golden flecks spinning across the water. The ferry that carried passengers the short trip from the town’s tourist-packed streets to the opposite harbour — the sparse two-pub, one-shop hamlet of Polruan — had dropped back to six an hour. Before long it would be winter service.

Jen felt the water under her lift, flatten, lift again. The sun’s warmth washed against her face, easing the swell’s chill. She liked watching the light graze the sea, shooting off in all directions. Out here, in the middle of the little channel, she was at the centre of a kaleidoscope; the pattern around her constantly shifting, obscuring her from anyone’s view.

Medusa Takes a Bath, and Becomes a Monster by Mina Ma

Read by Grace Cookey-Gam - podcast here (fourth story)

Medusa slips into the sultry water, and the snakes sway and hiss about her head. Perhaps they move in pleasure, or revulsion, or annoyance; she’s not sure, she doesn’t understand them yet, these new slithering appendages of hers.

She tries to forget. Relax. Be tranquil.

But out of the corners of her eyes, scales, like green teardrops, pulsate. Black horizontal slits, situated on bulging metallic globes, fix and stare. Forked tongues, pink and unsated, dip into the water, and sip.

A Profile Shot of the Country by Rebecca Lee

Read by Lois Tucker - podcast here (first story)

On the edge of an island just off mainland Honduras, there is a shoulder-height tripod with a phone at the end. It is a selfie stick. A woman on the shore is posing.

She is wearing a thick-thonged bikini bottom the same bile-yellow as a chicken snake. Her top is two triangles and a string. As the woman reaches up to grab a plantain, she turns to her selfie stick and smiles.

The only other person on the beach is Anne. She, too, is slicked in tanning oil, but would never take pictures of herself in public. Neither she, nor the thick-thonged bikini woman will swim at this beach. Slimy water grass runs rampant near the shore.

Lifendelich of the Loch by Jennifer Gaboury

Read by Carrie Cohen - podcast here (second story)

The elderly sisters Pitt went missing shortly after the loose woman, Ramona Rothchild - known adulteress before she was widowed, and doomsday-bringer to many a philanderer - vanished into the woods and was sure to never be seen again. The wives and clergy rejoiced; the men with wandering hearts performed a perfunctory search of the surrounding hinters as penance. But they would not penetrate the deepest forest for fear of what had long lurked there, slumbering undisturbed until now.

Hunger must have woken it, or else it was Ramona who roused the beast with her wiles and met her rightful end. The Misses Pitt were well past their primes and might have fallen on the path that circled the wood. From there, the beast could have snatched them up unseen and dragged them into its den. Another cursory search was performed, with no intention of treading perilous ground. The gentle ladies had long since lost their bloom, and so the loss of them was hardly felt. They had never been mothers, and so it was the consensus of the village that two lives had already been wasted; there was nothing more to be done.

Up Yours Gravity by Charlotte Turnbull

Read by Claire Lacey - podcast here (third story)

It started with only one mum. She was all sweaty and couldn’t breathe because she was swinging so hard, but she really yelled up yours gravity. Then, all our mums got up from the benches. They pulled their children off the swings and tied their coats round their waists and started swinging as hard as they could.

There are four normal swings and two of the mums stood on their feet in the baby swings. The frame really, really wobbled. There was also a mum on the tortoise bouncer but she didn’t seem to mind.

The Keepsake by Renée Agatep

Read by Orchid Ayers. Full podcast here (final story)

My mother died in an unseasonably warm Ohio winter. There was no snow on the winding county byways, and the newly finished tar of the road to the cemetery was dry as bone. The day after the funeral, Christoff and I began to pack up the contents of her house. No one had lived there in some time.

“I don’t remember this one,” I said aloud, my eye catching an unfamiliar face in the kitchen. 

“There are a hundred magnets on that fridge. You couldn’t possibly remember all of them.”

Dragon Blood, Pig Heart by Junyi Chew

Dragon Blood Pig Heart MP3 

Read by Rebecca Yeo

“I’ve ordered char siu pao,” Mum said. “Your favourite.”

We were sat at a table upstairs in a busy restaurant in London’s Chinatown. The ‘pao’ she'd ordered were white steamed buns with a filling of pork in salty-sweet red sauce. They were a food from my childhood, when I would eagerly devour the fluffy outsides to get to the treasure within, at some point reaching the perfect ratio of meat to dough. I hadn’t stopped then to consider possible spellings of the word, which could shapeshift all three letters, sliding from pau to pao to bao. For me, the buns would arrive with a ‘POW!’ like a hearty blow in a Batman comic.

Saturday Nights Have Changed by Soraya Berry

Saturday Nights Have Changed MP3

Read by Aren Devlin

Outside, the weather’s turning. The air is fecund with possibility. The sky has rinsed itself clean, and the certainty of new life hangs around in gardens and parks where the soil is busy nurturing millions of tiny seeds and bulbs. They’ll burst open soon, in an orgy of very slow and satisfying activity.

Inside, he sits. And waits. And watches. There’s not much more he can do. Ironic, really, that their own slow and satisfying activity has led them to this room. It hums with the buzz of unidentifiable machines, tubes attached to walls and the swish of the curtain rails which flick back and forth as midwives pop in periodically to stick two fingers in and assess dilation.

It’s all quite fascinating, he thinks, although he wisely doesn’t tell his wife that.

How to Keep them Away by Nora Nadjarian

How To Keep them Away MP3

Read by Jasmine Raymond

My mother warned me. If you ever see them, she said, you must cross yourself to make them disappear. They will steal your voice if you don’t.

The fear of coming face to face with a Kalikandjaro and losing my voice made my heart beat in my throat. My thoughts trembled during the twelve coldest nights of the year leading to Christmas.  I placed my hands above the crackling fire in our fireplace and reminded myself that I lived in a safe, warm world. I had to look after my baby sister when my parents were busy or away. When she fell asleep in her cot, her rosy face lost in dreams as sweet and soft as candy floss, I envied her bliss. I couldn’t move in the house without seeing their shadows on the living room curtains, without hearing their hooves on the stone kitchen floor or their high-pitched voices in the creak of kitchen cupboards opening and closing.

Let There Be Tigers by Sara Corris

Read by Andrea Hall

I’m not thinking about you, Ian.

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.