Fisher wipes his eyes and grabs the glass of cold mulled wine. He downs it in three gulps and sits to examine the first page of what Edward has typed. As he does so he picks up the phone, hesitates.
It might be too late to call her.
Too late.
Michael F Russell’s first novel Lie of the Land was short-listed for last year’s Saltire Society First Book of the Year award. He is deputy editor of the West Highland Free Press newspaper and his short fiction has appeared in Gutter and Northwords Now. His second novel, Heliopause, is looking for a home, and he is currently working on a third.
Shaker Loop
Bo Balder
Art: Jackie Duckworth Art
Dad was demonstrating the disappearing drawers again. Patrick clung to his father’s calf through the thick whipcord pants. A mist of one part irritation and two parts wonder descended on Patrick’s uncles. Their stirring was a scary thing because their huge feet shuffled restlessly and asses got scratched, huge hands swinging down right past his face.
“Do it again, Paddy,” his uncle Joe said.
“I got no keys to spare anymore,” his dad said. “Anyone? Just gimme a matchbox or a cigarette, your keys are gonna be gone. Unless you don’t believe me, of course.”
“A waste of a good smoke,” Uncle Riley said. His fingers, fidgeting with a freshly rolled cigarette, hung down next to Patrick’s nose. His mom had recently issued a ban on smoking indoors. It didn’t make the Christmas gathering any mellower.
“No one?” his dad said. “Joyce? Bring me a fork or something?”
“What? You want the good silver to disappear?” his mom yelled back.
“Here,” Patrick said. He held out his prize possession, a purple and green Leatherhead figure from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If something made the keys disappear, he figured Leatherhead would know what to do with it. Anyway, he wasn’t willing to risk Donatello or Leonardo.
“Hey, thanks, kid,” dad said.
He held the figurine up for all the uncles to see.
Dad put Leatherhead in the left drawer. Not that it mattered, loose change and spare rubber bands disappeared from the right drawer just the same.
“You guys, look carefully. One toy. Everybody happy it’s in there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Uncle Rod said. “You missed your calling, Pads, you should have joined the carnival after all.”
Dad shoved the drawer shut with more force than necessary.”Okay, I’m gonna step back now. Roddy, you wanna do the honors?”
“What?” Uncle Joe said. “You just skip over your little brother? Nice going.”
Patrick shoved his head against his dad’s thighs. Not again. They had such loud voices, and with their big bellies and big hands they made the house seem so small. If it hadn’t been snowing he’d have been in the treehouse looking over the lake. He was just like mom, or so dad said. Shy, bookish. Patrick wasn’t sure that he was, he just didn’t like his uncles always shouting and arguing and getting red in the face as the evening progressed.
“Hey!” Uncle Roddy said. “It’s gone. How did you do that?”
He bent over and peered into the drawer, feeling inside it with his big hands. Patrick’s dad intervened when Roddy threatened to yank the drawer from the casing.
“Hey, hey, careful, it’s an heirloom.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s yours,” Uncle Roddy bit back. “You live here coz you’re the eldest, but it’s our house, too.”
Uncle Joe intervened, as he always did. His father and uncles withdrew to the den to drink some more.
An heirloom. What did that mean? It was a shiny table from a kind of whirly wood. You couldn’t play on it because there were no chairs allowed in the hall and anyway it was tiny. Grown-ups used it to put keys on or mail. But it did kind of get in the way of using the black-and-white tiles in the hallway for sliding. So all in all Patrick didn’t think it was a very good piece of furniture. Maybe heirloom meant “kind of useless.”
Patrick stood on tiptoes to check if Uncle Rod had been right. Yep, Leatherhead was gone. He opened the right drawer to check if the figurine was in there. All he found was a funny thing, like a tiny flat walkie-talkie. Only it was a gross, girly pink. And nothing happened if you pressed the buttons. He put it back. The right drawer only ever produced stuff like that, shiny, pretty, but pointless. If you put it back in, it disappeared.
His eyes prickled. Maybe he shouldn’t have given Leatherhead away. He’d just wanted the uncles to stop wrangling. Mom was in the kitchen, grousing about making lunch for so many people. Better not to disturb her.
He went to his room to cuddle up with Leonardo and Donatello.
*
When the last uncle had left, back to their normal lives, Patrick could breathe again. He climbed on the deep sills of the garden-side windows and closed the curtains behind him. It was dark outside, so he couldn’t see anything, but it was safe and silent. No uncles to punch his arm or rough up his hair. The look on his dad’s face meant he had to pretend to like that stuff, and that was the worst.
Mom yelled that dinner was ready. It would be warmed-up macaroni and cheese, his favorite. Dad took his plate outside to do some banging and swearing in the shed. He hung out with his brothers for the holiday duration and then he got mad he hadn’t gotten around to fixing anything in grandpa’s old workshop.
Patrick had proposed not inviting the uncles, but although mom had smiled at him, she’d also said they couldn’t do that. “It’s their house as much as ours, hon. We should be happy we get to live in it all the time.”
Dad returned and played with the side table some more. Patrick didn’t join him because he was tired of watching things disappear.
He slid off his chair to get in some reading time upstairs before Mom would make him turn off the light. Dad didn’t want him to read during the day either, he should play outside like a little man.
