Here are extracts from a selection of the stories from Issue No 5.
It was a dark place, she thought. It didn’t help that they drove there – through the sullen village and the bare poplars – on an October day when the world seemed devoid of life and all colour had been washed to the sea. Indeed that was the only thing she heard, the hard drumming of the river as it frothed under bridges and raged away between the fields.
It was he who had first heard of the place. It was Daniel who came running in one evening with a map in one hand, trembling to tell her about this medieval place that was on the market for next to nothing and had been for weeks. It had three acres of land, an orchard, outbuildings – and it was for sale for far less than any of the concrete excrescences they’d been trudging round listlessly for the last six months.
They thudded the car doors shut and stood for a minute – he like an emperor who’d stumbled on vaults of gold, casting his eyes about unable to believe his good fortune; she wary and unsure, anxious not to betray her first impressions.
She thought it looked like a giant piece of granite that had been soaked for centuries in one endless downpour of water. The ground behind the house was a sump; you could only walk so far safely before it gave way to shallow stretches of water in which the bare trees were reflected. A crow rose from a branch and flapped away, its wings hissing. She felt cold.
‘Come on! Let’s go inside!’ he called….
That night the weathervanes hummed more than usual. The sound chilled him, like a wireless needle caught between two stations; a constant, wavering, tuneless drone. He wanted more than ever to stop that never-ending weeping, to have a bit of peace. He’d had more bother than usual that night. The last ferry had been late in and the passengers seemed to have had one too many to drink at the bar. They had sloped off the ferry haphazardly, like loose change. Most had let him be, numb with drink or rolling towards bed. A couple of teenage lads had given him the run around though, telling him they had seen someone making off with one of the yachts. He had run over to see what was going on but when he arrived, breathless, his flashlight hiccupping in time to his gasps for air, there was nobody. He cursed the boys, and his naivety. He had heard their laughter as they climbed into their car, revving off round the estate at high speed.
The estate stooped over the marina awkwardly, jutting into a world of millionaire yachts, each one worth more than he had ever earned in all his years at the docks. These yachts glided into the marina with a cruel ease that made him curse. Their effortlessness made his step heavier. Up in the flats overlooking the main road from the ferries, the blunted sound of TV screens sending out the news headlights or an evening match usually soothed him. The noise drew him into the sitting rooms, into the rooms lit by lampshades and glowing electric fires. He could almost feel himself in a worn down armchair, feet on a stool, settled down for a night in front of the telly. But tonight, they just made him shiver. He zipped up his padded jacket, feeling conspicuous with the orange fluorescent strips of his uniform….