WORK IN PROGRESS

As well as researching and re-imagining folk tale for my Celtic Tales show, I also use elements of Irish myth and folklore to create strange and wonderful pieces of speculative fiction. Here are extracts of three stories I will be working on this summer.

The Sea God & the Duplicitous Merrow (draft extract of a fantasy / love story)

It was Jack Merrow who introduced me to the?Theory of Fuck It, Fuck It All. This was over a century ago, the year nineteen hundred and eighteen by the reckoning of mortals. Though I’ve pretty much been guided by the Theory ever since, this does not mean I regarded Jack as some sort of genius or guru or whatever. No, Jack the Merrow was an arsehole, let’s have no doubts about that. But even the worst of us can somehow stumble their way into elucidating an idea of stunning profundity.

I never liked Jack, and I’ll admit it right off - his appearance was part of the problem. He was green, his eyes little vicious red dots. His nose was a snout and his mouth was filled with needle sharp fangs. He did not have arms, instead long flippers with little digits at the end. And of course there was that long fat fish tale. I was the one with two legs, wavy locks and biceps, as well as a devil-me-care smile. And yet all the lady Merrows swooned when they saw him.?

That pissed me off royally. Lady Merrows are beautiful creatures, slender things with well-toned arms and midriff, as well as high bosoms and wide hips; even the tail end is sexy, long and silvery with a phosphorescent sheen. Yet, try as I might, I could never get any of them to wrap her tail round me. They all loved pig-face Jack. ?It was not unknown for one of the ladies to take a look at him, gasp and spurt out a stream of eggs - I think that counts as a subtle hint among the piscine adjacent set.?

What did he have that I didn’t? “Charm,” was his reply when I asked him. “Charm and courtly manners.”

After the Fall (draft extract of a horror / love story)

The hotel bar is packed. It is hot and people’s faces are glowing red from the drink. There is laughter and a lot of handshakes and claps on the shoulder as people are re-acquainted or asked about what they are doing for this year’s Three Villages Festival.

All previous festivals included a poetry recital by my brother-in-law Peter McKenrick. When he accepted the position of resident poet – a handsomely funded position I created for him – his talent brought an added lustre to the Freeborn Institute. However, he rarely stayed in the institute; his only obligation was to write new poems to be recited at the Three Villages Festival

But he will not be reading at this year’s festival. Instead, the festivities will include an evening in tribute to Peter and his work. I expect there will be a considerable media presence at that event. Thinking about this I feel a little melancholy, but my daughter May tugs my hand and smiles at me. ‘Go out,’ she eagerly insists. ‘Go out’. I smile as I look down at her, then let her pull me through the crowd and out into the cool September night.

It is a wonderful thing, sharing time with my daughter. For the last three days she has enjoyed staying with me in the accommodation section of the Freeborn, though I did have to explain that the live-in area was not a real village. When the institute decided to sponsor a festival to thank the two local villages it was decided, in a corporate jokey way, to refer to the accommodation wing as a third village, thus the Three Villages Festival. May considered this information, then dismissed years of corporate reach-out with a laugh. ‘That’s bit silly,’ she said and I found myself agreeing with her totally.

?It has been three months since my daughter’s last visit.? As always, after such time apart, I am surprised anew by the changes in her. At almost three years of age she has grown taller; her face is more animate; her use of language more confident, filled with all that easy poetry and word play of human infancy.

Now May points up to the night sky. ‘Tinkle, tinkle,’ she says, her face frowning with thought. ‘Tinkle, tinkle ever where.’ I nod gravely in agreement and raise my hands up. ‘There’s billions of them,’ I say. ‘Billions of them everywhere.’ For a moment my love for the child is as vast as that great star blazed canopy, but my joy is dulled by the aching need to hear Peter express his thoughts about stars, children and the words that weave them all together.

The Wicked Woman (draft extract of a ghost / love story)?

A little way up from the shoreline the young lovers lived. Their house was a simple affair, with only a ground floor and an attic for storage. Behind their home the ground tilted upwards, a dry-stone wall marking the end of their property. Beyond the wall the ground rose more steeply.

Caitlin and Peadar worked hard: the land and home being the domain of Caitlin; the sea and the boat the domain of Peadar. Inevitably, though, there was some overlap. She would help in repairing nets and stripping barnacles from the hull of the boat. He would help in repairing the dry-stone wall or in breaking the soil for planting crops. But in the main she took care of growing the potatoes and carrots, of milking the cow, of making the butter and cleaning the house, of keeping the hens disease free, and myriad other chores. Peadar harvested the sea in all weathers; his little vessel gliding easy over waves that sparkled and danced with sunlight, or bucking wildly when the waves boomed black and spat spume into his face.

It was all hard work, but the very hardness of it brought satisfaction, an understanding that together they were labouring to create a life and a future.

Then one day Caitlin made her way down to the rocky shore. The boat rested there upside down, with Peadar scraping the hull. “I’ve news,” she said. Her husband looked up and saw her beaming smile. “Are you sure?” He sounded confused, uncertain, but before his wife could reply he spoke again, this time his voice filled with laughter. “Do you know when?” he said, as he pulled his lover close. “Middle of December,” she replied. “We’ll have a baby for Christmas.”