Story #4 More boar... PART THREE

The Story So Far: Having refused to reveal what it is they are delivering and then leaving Leanne to complete her first delivery alone, Le’Roy attempts to fight off an invisible force.

Growing larger all the time, he was now taller than the brewery wall, and transparent, as if halfway through his transformation. The chain whirled around in his hands, there was another loud crash and red sparks exploded from one of the spiked balls.

The final part of the delivery would be up to her. Gritting her teeth she took the next corner at high speed, gripping the handlebars tightly, leaning into it like a racer. Quickly she looked back, Le’Roy was catching up fast, just a few yards away from her, he spun the chain again. This time she felt heat from the sparks hissing and bouncing on the tarmac, perilously close to her wheels. Terror thumped in her throat. Until now, she had convinced herself this wasn’t real, just some kind of crazy day dream. On questioning him about the package she hadn’t taken the warnings seriously at all. Now she knew he meant them; it was dangerous to fight, and she could actually get hurt.

Terrified, she pedalled on, legs whirring faster than ever before, though it felt that every down-stroke took forever and her legs were made of glue, growing ever more sluggish and tired. She was petrified of slowing down. 

Finally, she spied an entrance in the brewery wall. A door that appeared incredibly out of place; glossy green, a small effort at a portico, with a huge brass door knob, bigger than her head. Without surprise, she noted to one side hung a decorative animal head, a bucket dangling from its tusks. Doubtless, this was the right door.

Breaking right up against it, she hammered on the wood with her hand. There was no immediate answer. Another bang told her that Le’Roy had scored one more hit on their attackers. She hammered on the door again with her other hand and yelled, “Delivery!”

Still no reply. She couldn’t tell if anything moved inside. There were more loud crashes, and from the corner of her eye she saw red sparks scatter, heat rose on the back of her head, whatever Le’Roy was fighting was getting very close.

Pressing herself against the door, hoping the portico would provide some protection, she hammered on the door again. Why was no one answering?

Maybe it would be better to lob the basket over the wall, it looked possible, with enough of a swing and a lot of luck. But, a single line of thought occurred; she would have to take the basket from her bike and it was taped on with horribly strong and sticky carpet tape. She’d need scissors, but she hadn’t brought any. How stupid. What on earth was she going to do?

All around her the battle banged and crashed, like cars smashing again and again she felt the reverberations. Frantically, she tore off a glove and started scrabbling at the carpet tape with her fingers, desperately trying to find the end. Behind her, where Le’Roy should be, all she could see was a green blur, spinning like a tornado, occasional explosions bursting out in blooms of red. He was having to fight very hard.

The only practical option was to get through the door. Giving up with the tape she used both hands to hammer on it again, hurting her fists, vainly hoping to raise whoever was inside. As a last resort she grasped the brass door knob, not expecting it to do anything, but to her surprise it gave way beneath her hands.

Harshly berating herself for not trying it first, she pushed the door open with all her strength. It gave way easily, opening up onto a large hallway with a red carpet and a white painted balustrade, and she didn’t care what else, she hopped off the bike and grabbed the basket with both hands, hauling it, and her bike, over the doorstep and inside. Collapsing, she knelt on the floor, the bike’s front wheel between her knees, still holding the basket, with its precious contents, whatever they were, upright and undisturbed.

All the commotion outside abruptly ceased. Le’Roy, in ephemeral half-boar form, looking decidedly unwell and leaning perilously to one side, drifted towards her, as if pulled by some unknown force into the basket, where he reformed into the mask with a weary sigh and settled down with his eyes closed. She lent and swung the door shut behind him, echoing his sigh as she did so.

However, looking back up to the space where the door had been, she was bewildered to find herself staring into the twin barrels of a shotgun, and beyond the sights, a growling face of a very angry looking, yet at the same time very blue, life-size bear.

To be continued...

I keep posting then editing, which I think is some kind of blogging foul, or at least, not the proper etiquette. But then, I'm quite new to this writing thing (it probably shows, sorry), because I only started in April, so I keep thinking I should improve what I've put out, just out of tidiness really. So apologies for any offence / irritation. IF ANYONE EVER READS THIS BLOG.
xJ

Short Story... Don't mess with the London Underground...

I hate the London Underground. In fact, I hate it so much that I feel a bit sorry for it. Anyway, after a crap journey, I wrote this, and it turned out fairly well, so here it is...

Having taken the wrong branch of the District Line yet again, Potero stood on the platform and swore. He cursed the London Underground; the stupid people who made huge misleading signs, and teeny weeny correct ones, which they generally hid.
He cursed the engineers who designed the track, and he took the name of Harry Beck, the clever cartographer who made the tube's map, very much in vain.
He threw the fate of the train’s driver under the wheels of the next train; and sent all the other drivers after it. He also vented his ire on his former fellow passengers; cursing every last glance too quickly turned away, each conversation never started, every newspaper unshared then discarded.

He even cursed himself three times, for how stupid must he be to have done this thing yet again?
Rage should have turned his eyes black and fire should have sprung from his lungs to singe the hair of passengers with wheelie bags in rush hour, but it couldn’t, instead he stood on the platform in a funk.

As if it felt his anger, and who knows, maybe it did, the platform beneath him began to heave, as though a train was trying to break through right under his feet.
He fell to his hands and knees, vainly grasping for something to hold onto to prevent himself being cast onto the lines. Concrete splintered like biscuits under his fingers, casting ceramic tiles into the air, it felt like London had been struck with a force seven earthquake.

Potero didn’t hold out much hope for his safety, but, when the ground stopped convulsing he was still alive. He scrambled to his feet and started looking beyond the bodies of screaming, moaning people for a way out, but, before he could do anything, his attention became fixated by what was happening to his feet.

His leather brogues had become quite tight, too tight for him to walk. At first they appeared merely swollen, but it soon became clear they were growing. His shoelaces popped first, then agonisingly his big toes broke through the leather and flopped out onto the broken platform, huge, reddened, the nails now the size of his hand, the skin as tender as a newborn’s. Every rough grain of concrete grit rammed like needles into his sole.

“Arrrgh! My feet!” He yelled. But nobody came to his aid; somehow it was as if they sensed he wouldn’t have helped them in return. So, painfully and slowly, all on his own, he made his way up the stairs.

When he finally crawled out into the concourse, he found lots of people milling around moaning, saying they were hurt and generally getting in his way; at least that’s the how he saw it. Someone bumped into his tender feet, making him shriek and decide to get out as soon as possible. He rudely waved away the kindly administrations of a medic and headed for the nearest exit on hands and knees.

At long last making it to street level, he spied a street vendor selling slippers.

‘That’s exactly what I need.’ He thought, imagining the soothing feel of fluffy cotton slippers on his poor hurting feet, at the same time imagining them pink and wondering why.

“Hello there my man,” he addressed the stall keeper, “Do you have any slippers big enough for me?” He waved towards his enormous feet, which he needn’t have done, because they were now by far the most noticeable thing about him, even more so than his flourish of a moustache, monocle and the bat’s head buttons on his green ex-Russian army great coat.

“Ay up, guv.” The vendor replied, knowing he had to perform for the occasion. “Yes, but the only slippers I have that are big enough for you, are magic slippers, and they cost £100.”

“£100! That’s a lot of money for slippers.” Shrieked Potero.

“You pay the extra for the magic, Sir.”

“Magic? What do they do?”

“They float, Sir. Just like a boat in water, but in the air.”

Floating slippers! They sounded exactly like what he wanted.

“I’ll take them!” He cried.

“Right you are. That’ll be £200 then.”

“What? You thieving wretch! You said they were £100 just now.”

“Each, Sir.”

“Each?”

“Yes, Sir. They’re magic slippers, Sir. Them’s don’t come cheap now.”

“Aren’t you slightly over-egging the accent now?”

“Apples and pears, my lover, apples and pears. £200 for the pair, no less, no more. Very comfortable on.”

“Oh, alright.” Grumbled Potero, plucking the money from his back pocket. It was rent money, but he was desperate.

When he put on the slippers they felt beautiful, the inner was made from the softest lamb’s wool and they cushioned his hurting feet beautifully, as if he were standing on a cloud. In fact, from below, watching him precariously gripping a street lamp, trying to keep level, it looked very much like he had two little fluffy nimbo-cumuli strapped to his feet.

“Well, try ‘em out then.” Yelled the stall owner, wondering if that was the plural for nimbo cumulus.

“What?” Potero yelled back down.

“Take a step.” The man called back, impatiently.

“What, a step?”

“Yes! It’ll be a bit odd at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

“Won’t I drop?”

“No.” Lied the man, who hastily collected his wares, expediently gathering the stall’s tablecloth corner to corner and slinging it over his back. As he galloped off down the road, he muttered under his breath, "But be aware of the gap as you leave the train.".

Potero, who didn’t hear or see him go, tentatively let go of the street lamp and was soon bobbing up and down on the spot. Slightly wobbly but totally amazed; the floating slippers seemed to be holding his weight, it made him feel strange; an odd tightening around his chest, which anyone else would have recognised as excitement, awfully close to that light-headed feeling you get from jumping up and down on a bouncy castle for too long.

But it didn’t stay that way. As soon as he took his first step it felt like he was walking through jelly; as soon as one foot went up  the other would sink. He found it impossible to achieve an equilibrium, the slippers seemed to have a mind of their own, he found himself marching in the air, arms flailing about. Abruptly, he slipped, his feet skidded from under him and he was left hanging in the air upside down, with his face dangling in front of a glowing red bifurcated circular sign: the logo of the London Underground. This one marked a different entrance to the station from which he had emerged.

Frantically, he clawed for the sign, fearing he would slip from the cloudy slippers, but it was too late, they had other ideas. His fingers barely scraped the sign's plastic surface before he was whisked away, up over all the streets, roofs, and towers of the city of London and into the freezing cold stratosphere, where he froze into a deathly, Potero shaped, icicle.
The tube carried on as normal.

The Boar's Head: PART TWO

The story so far... Leanne was visited by the Queen’s loyal porcinerry, has agreed to work for him as a courier and is now about to perform her first delivery...

Finding the envelope full of cash unfortunately proved that the whole experience had not been in her imagination. A tall, green, quivery snouted and hairy boar had materialised in her kitchen, pronounced himself to be a servant of the British Crown, and invited her, a person of no special character or quality, to become his aide in the delivery of who knows what. And furthermore, she had let him persuade her to do it.

The envelope fluttered from between her fingers and shed its load of used notes onto the threshold of her flat. Quickly she gathered them up and riffled through them. Resentment fled her mind. Seventy pounds. If that was half her payment, then two times thirty-five pounds meant that her first shift would be just four hours, there would still be time to sleep before her normal job. She stuffed the money into her purse and hurried on down the stairs, pausing to give her cycle, which was chained to the railings at the foot of the stairs, a cursory, yet critical, once over.

The bike wasn’t new, but it was a smooth ride. However, the bulb on the back light had gone. Leanne wasn’t a rich person, she had just enough money to spend on rent, bills and food, and on cat food for Pig, but not on things like holidays, presents or new bike lights.

Ruefully, she realised that most of the seventy pounds would have to be spent on the bike now; to replace the light, get some better reflectors, and the rest she would have to spend on warm clothing, but it was only half the payment and she reasoned that she could keep the other half for herself.

Right then she didn’t spare the time to wonder about why she accepted the Boar’s job so quickly, because she had to get to work. But you see, it wasn’t just about the money, or her bravery, it was simply because she wasn’t accustomed to being praised, or even noticed, for the things she could do. When the Boar had spoken to her in such way it had felt nice and she wanted more.

Her talents were not the sort that get you noticed, but quiet ones such as being able to concentrate for a very long time, or always remembering people’s names. Those are the sort of important talents that easily get overlooked, and over time, every small occasion of being disregarded ground down her natural self confidence and eventually she grew used to it and always expected to overlooked or live in the shadow of other people’s more noticeable talents.

This might make some people unhappy, but not Leanne. Partly because it was something she had got used to, like the comfortable but threadbare cardigan you wear around the house and  won’t discard regardless of its holes and food stains, even if it horrifies your friends, and even when they threaten to steal and burn it. Mostly though, it was because she discovered that going unnoticed also meant being left alone to carry on doing things her way. That allowed her to live a life with a lot less hassle in it than would have otherwise have been the case.

But the Boar seemed to think that she had extra special talents, and even though the circumstances were peculiar to say the least, she was unable to resist such praise. So much so that she was determined not to disappoint.

When she returned home after work with her new purchases for the bike she was excited to find a note in the bucket saying that her first job as a courier would start that very evening, at 10pm.

At ten exactly, there was a smart rap on her door and there on the door mat was the Boar’s mask, as before in its old fashioned basket, with a note tied to the handle, which said, ‘Zenith Brewery, Western Street’. She picked up the basket, took it inside, put it back down on the floor and waited for the boar to transfigure just as he’d done last time. Nothing happened. Disappointed, not only because she wanted to see him do it again, but because she had questions to ask; like how she was going to find Zenith Brewery because she had no idea how to, and where was the thing they were supposed to deliver.

Eventually, she peered into the basket and spotted an A to Z map book tucked in next to his mask. She plucked it out and turned to the page that was marked with what turned out to be a carefully folded chocolate wrapper, and discovered that a route had been drawn in red pen from her house, which was marked with a large cross, to the brewery, which was circled. Obviously, that was all the information that she was going to get at this point.

The brewery was on the other side of town, on the outskirts and near the river, not somewhere with which she was familiar, but only an hour’s cycle ride away. She wondered how it would be that they would need four hours to get there and back.

Still feeling nervous about the trip but more relaxed about making it on time, she fixed the basket firmly to the front of her bike with carpet tape, shrugged into her brand new bright yellow reflective jacket, securely fixed the chinstrap on her old helmet and wheeled the bike out of the building being both careful not to disturb her cargo and at the same testing the changed distribution of weight on her cycle. It was now more front heavy than she was used to, but not so much that it would be difficult to ride.  She pulled on her new waspish gloves that had so many little yellow reflectors stuck onto the outside that her hands would look like a swarm of insects in the dark, checked her pocket for its stash of chocolates, which she thought might be a good idea to bring although she had no idea how she might use them, turned on her bike lights and set off without disturbance in the direction described in the A to Z.

The first part of the journey was easy. She thought people would notice a fluorescently dressed young woman with an ugly boar’s mask in a basket cycling at night. She thought that might be a problem, but it wasn’t. She sped through the streets unimpeded, weaving smoothly between what little traffic there was. It had rained earlier and the road was still wet, reflecting headlights and shop windows in a colourful way. The traffic lights, which she generally ignored anyway when she was cycling, all seemed to be working in her favour, a fact that didn’t occur to her as odd at the time. She enjoyed the ride and didn’t feel cold at all.

Everything was fine until, just before she was about to cross the third bridge, she realised that she was unsure which way to turn next; she needed to consult the A to Z map again. So she stopped and propped herself and the bike up with her foot within the little pool of light of a street lamp, but as she grabbed the book, the boar’s voice boomed, “Why have we stopped, Leanne of the Green Boar?”

She jumped, nearly dropped the book and stammered, “I’ve forgotten which way to go.”

“You must remember.” He exclaimed. “It is dangerous to stop before we get there. Turn right after the bridge. Go!”

“Sorry!” She stuffed the A to Z back into the basket and pushed off from the curb.

In a more normal tone, the boar added, “If you are lost, say so. I can guide you.”

She pedalled speedily over the bridge and turned right which took them alongside the river then veered left, away and up a shallow hill into a residential area filled with large brick detached houses with long driveways and so many hedges and plants that the lights from their many windows were obscured. They were the only traffic on the darkened road.

She leant forward and whispered, “Which way do I go at the end?”

There was a bit of a pause, by which point she was cycling past a bus stop where two teenage girls were idly chatting and sharing a magazine, so when his voice boomed out the new directions she shushed him, exclaiming, “They’ll hear you!”

“They cannot hear me. They can only hear you.”

She looked back over her shoulder at the girls. Indeed, they appeared undisturbed.

“You should have told me that earlier. Why can’t they hear you?

“Because they can’t.”

“How...?”

“It is not of my doing. It is because their ears are not open enough to hear creatures of my sort.”

“So only I can hear you?”

“Many people can hear me, but most of them still cannot understand me. Very few people can. Leanne, this is why your talents are so special.”

She took a few moments to digest this, feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed that she still considered the boar’s opinion of her to be flawed, it felt churlish in the face of what she sensed to be a genuinely meant comment. She changed the subject: “What are we delivering?”

“I cannot tell you that at this time. It is better, for your safety, that you don’t know.”

“What? I can’t know what it is?” This alarmed her. All of a sudden it came home to her that she had put herself into what could be a very dangerous position. They could be carrying anything, and her employment contract as a courier was hardly official. If, by unlucky chance, the police stopped her and whatever it was turned out to be illegal, how would she defend her innocence? If the police couldn’t hear the boar, and she assumed that if they couldn’t hear him they wouldn’t see him either, how could her activity be explained? Everything suddenly looked very bad.

The boar carried on speaking, “For your own safety, you understand?”

 “Is it drugs? I don’t want anything to do with drugs. If it’s drugs we are stopping right here, right now, and you can find your own way home.”

“It isn’t drugs. I’m sorry, but it really is better that you don’t know.”

Leanne didn’t agree with this line of thought at all. She let the bike start to coast and decided to force the issue; bravely she said, “We’ll stop right here unless you tell me what is.”

They were on a quiet bit of road between two housing estates; some parkland fringed with woody scrub, no houses nearby. They were the only living talking things out in the open. If she screamed now nobody would hear and no one would come to her aid, but that would also allow her to yell forcefully at a magical disembodied boar’s head in a basket without anyone thinking she was a complete lunatic.

She said, loudly, to him, “Promise me that I am not carrying anything illegal.”

“I promise. Please don’t stop.” The boar entreated.

“How can I trust you?”

“I have given you my word.”

“What good is a word?”

“The word of Le’Roy the Green Boar, Porcinerry to the Queen is the word of truth! We hold the highest standard of honour in the land and nobody doubts that.”

“Nobody! Then how come I’d never heard of you?”

“Because you live in a society where no one ever listens to what is important, everyone hears only what they want to and ignores what they don’t like or don’t understand.”

“Okay.” To Leanne that made sense; he’d just perfectly described her world. “So the only thing you can offer me is your word even though you have no reputation in my world.”

“Yes. Can you trust me?” The boar sounded worried.

“Your word is all you can give me?”

“Yes. The word is all. I have nothing else. If we stop then I will have to fight and it will be dangerous.”

“Then you want me to keep going?”

“Yes. Please Leanne. I don’t want to fight unless I have to.”

“Your real name is Leroy?”

“My full name is Le’Roy, of the Green Boar. My family were originally French.”

“Roy? Your name is Roy? Roy the boar.”

“Le’Roy. The head of my family is always called ‘The Roy’, so I am Le’Roy. Not Roy. Le’Roy of the Green Boar. We are a very long and distinguished line.”

“Okay. So, Roy.”

“Le’Roy.”

“So Le’Roy, if I trust you when you say that it will be dangerous if we stop, then I also have to trust you when you say that what we are carrying is not dangerous or illegal.” Leanne paused, weighing the weight of her next words, “And I haven’t stopped yet.” This was true, although the bike was moving only just fast enough to allow her to keep her balance. “I’ve trusted you, obviously, so you should trust me. I think I have a right to know what this is that I am carrying for you.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not.”

“It wouldn’t be wise.”

“I’ll stop.”

“Please don’t stop, Leanne. Please. I have full responsibility for our package, and equally I have full jurisdiction over it, and I have decided to share its contents with no one. Your task is to help me get it safely to its next destination, not to know what it is. That it is of the utmost importance, to your Queen and country, is all you need to know, and all that it is safe for you to know. But I can assure you, that as far as the police are concerned it is not drugs and it is not illegal.”

Leanne was still angry, she didn’t think this would help her explain anything to the police if she had to, “How come you get to make that decision? This is my cycle and I’m riding it, therefore I have a right to know what it is I’m carrying on it.”

The bike was dawdling now, but they were about to encounter a low slope so it would carry on freewheeling unless she deliberately stopped it. She kept her feet on the pedals. She wasn’t sure that antagonising the boar was a sound policy.

He changed tack, “Do you really want to know what it is?”

“Yes!”

“What do you want to know about it?”

“What is it?”

“I cannot answer that.”

“You just asked me what I wanted to know about it.”

“Yes. What do you want to know about it?”

“What? I just asked and you wouldn’t tell me.” Leanne lowered her voice with difficulty, they were entering the next housing estate and she didn’t want to be seen talking to her bike, but he was annoying and made her feel like yelling.

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Well, what type of thing is it then?”

“It’s not really a thing.”

“Not a thing...?”

“It doesn’t exist as an object in the way you think of an object being.”

They’d reached the end of the slope so she started to pedal, feeling that as they were making progress in the right direction that it was the least she could do. “Still though, how can it not be a thing? Everything is a thing somehow, in some form or another. Even air is a thing.” She breathed in a huge gulp of it and blew it out again. “There are things in that breath, yet that breath is still a thing of itself. There is nothing that cannot be a thing.”

The boar said nothing in reply.

“Okay. So if it’s not a thing, then has to be a message.”

“Turn left here. It is not a message in the way you think of a message.”

“What? Because it is also not a thing?”

The boar was silent. There were a few minutes of silence between them and she grew afraid that she had angered him, then he said, “You ask difficult questions. Yes, in a way you are right about that. Turn right. You must ride quickly now.”

“Why now?”

“We are close to our destination. The closer we get the more dangerous it is. Please ride as fast as you can.”

She did so to humour him. They were entering an older part of the suburb now, more industrial, with Victorian warehouses, factory buildings and fewer houses. She could see the brewery up ahead, it’s two aluminium conditioning towers shining golden in the sodium lights of the street lamps. The whole complex was contained by a high brick wall, dark red and blackened with time, parted only by a gate made of thick black wrought iron which was topped with curls, spikes and a coat of arms that she had never noticed before. It was odd for a brewery to have a coat of arms, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because she was concentrating on breaking to a sensible stop outside the gates.

As her breaks squealed the boar shouted, “No, not here. Don’t stop. It’s the other door we need. Go! Go! Oh, they’ve seen us.”

Before she could start off again the head in the basket moved up of its own accord and spun in the air, reforming before her eyes into Le’Roy’s green and hairy body. This time, to her shock, he was clad in shining silver armour and in his trotters he held a chain, indelicately weighted at either end with nasty looking spiked metal balls, one end of which he began to spin around his head, faster and faster until it blurred into a squashed circle. Her mouth dropped open.

There was a strange whooshing noise, then, almost straight after, an almighty clang, just as if the spiked ball had hit something hard and metallic. Red sparks exploded from the circle above their heads, showered down around them and scattered, jumping and hissing, on the road.

“Go!” He screamed at her again, pointing with the other trotter down the road behind him, “Left and round the back. The door with the bear. You must get that basket inside the compound, or all is lost. I’ll hold them back”

Unable to see anything that could account for ‘them’, but taking in his terrifying figure alone she was only too eager to comply; she kicked off as fast as she was physically able. Her feet seemed to find the pedals without her knowing but wind whipped through her helmet and a chill ran like iced water ran over her body. Taking the first corner around the brewery complex without slowing down she nearly lost her back wheel in a skid, but righted herself somehow, miraculously, and chanced a glance back at Le’Roy, and was nearly unseated again by what she saw...

... to be continued...

Why? - Exhibitions | RSC

Why? - Exhibitions RSC

Paccar Room, Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Why? is a constantly evolving digital sculpture exploring the answer to one question...'Why Shakespeare?'
The sculpture asks audiences to consider Shakespeare's continuing presence and influence in our lives today. By answering this question, a swirling and constantly growing web of words is created entirely from the thoughts, ideas and imagination of its audience.
Text is added to the sculpture by submitting mobile phone text messages or by using keyboards situated in the space.

Back to Craesbeeck...

I'm still quite fascinated by Joos Van Craesbeeck (See September Post: The one who liked pubs). I have to admit that this is mostly down to his name, but also, and more edifyingly, down to what he was about. So what can the bottomless pit tell us about Joos?

1. Joos could be pronounced 'Whose' or 'Yous'.

   As an English speaker I find both endearing. Incidentally there is a 'useful' website that breaks down Dutch pronunciation into syllables: http://woordenlijst.org/ It will only be helpful if you already speak the Dutch. I digress.

2.  Born 1605 or 1606 in Neerlinter. Died 1661, Brussels
3.  Trained as, and worked as, a baker. This seems to be throughout his early and mid-career at least.
4. Was taught and heavily influenced by Adriaen Brouwer
5. He worked as a baker in a (debtor's) prison
6. They may have met when Brouwer was in prison (for tax debts) where he was the baker.
7. Craesbeeck also got married in the chapel of the prison, to the former Antwerp prison baker's daughter. 

   This suggests to me that either things in prisons were not quite as they are today, or that the lives of Craesbeeck and his wife to be were so deeply intertwined with the business of prisons that it seemed a natural choice to make, for example, I know of someone who decided to get married in a whisky distillery because her father was a high level employee there. Where to be married is an emotional as well as a practical choice.

   Maybe I am reading too much into it, but it seems to me, that a middle class professional baker could chose to get married somewhere different, and the fact that he chose the prison indicates that he was somewhat of a type that was 'down with' the people. 

   Remember, artists, even now, operate in popular society; they need to sell work, and, until artists like Hogarth created for himself a popular middle class audience by cheaply making prints, works of art were unique and took a long, long and painstaking, time to make. Artists needed their audiences to have a lot of cash. In the 1600s, generally, that audience was the upper class.

8. The influence of his teacher Brauwer can clearly be seen in his earlier work.
9. Later in his career he turned completely to middle class scenes set in pubs, and using a somewhat limited range of characters.
10. His later work is compared unfavourably with that of his teacher: "the rolling eyes and roaring mouths never achieve the deft trenchancy of his model." http://www.sphinxfineart.com/

There may well be another post here when I've had a better look at the work of Brouwer. To me, the most interesting thing about Craesbeeck is his choice of subject and how that ties up with a change in wider society, and I'm interested to see how that differs from Brouwer.

Story #4 'The Boar's Head' PART ONE

It was a mask of a pig’s head, “No. A boar.” said the bloke on the stall. “See. It’s got tusks.” It was the colour of  sickly verdigris, shabby and worn except for the gold leaf on its undeniable tusks and dark bottle-green in the depths of its carved fur. The eyes had lost, or had never had, their irises, so were a staring blind sky blue, its teeth could once have been painted silver and, from one side of its mouth, hung a once crimson tongue like a panting, rabid dog. From the tusks hung an aluminium bucket – “for plants” – and there was a hole in the top of its head for another.  "Shabby chic." Said the man.
             It looked hideous, but she liked it anyway.

             She took it home and hung it outside her front door to scare away the children that taunted her, “Pig.” she said and put a fern in its head. Its mad blank eyes stared through its new green dreadlocks like a psychotic old English sheepdog / boar hybrid trapped in a jungle.

                The bucket filled daily. The postman preferred feeding the pig to putting her post through the letterbox, and, if she left one thing in there by the time she came to collect it had multiplied. Mostly it was litter; junk mail and plastic wrapped plastic bags for clothes charities, but one day she found Pig in there sleeping, curled up tightly on a bed of chocolate wrappers. It mystified her as to how he got there; she couldn’t imagine him climbing up the wall himself, he was tiny. She could only imagine that someone had found him and, for want of any better place, left him to her. She took him in, fed him and loved him and in time he became a full-grown cat.

                The pig outside continued to deliver refuse and letters. On Halloween she put chocolates in the bucket. They disappeared, but she didn’t discover into whose mouth. At Christmas she took out the fern and replaced it with a poinsettia, but the boar missed his dreadlocks so she put the fern back and put a sprig of holly in his mouth.

                On Valentine’s morning she watered the fern and hung a lonely heart over the rim of the bucket. Fat blobs of water dribbled from the tips of the fern. That evening there was another heart  hanging from the bucket together with hers, their strings were intertwined. Mildly curious, she wrote ‘Who are you?’ on the back of one of the hearts. There was no answer by the morning so she took them both back into the house.

                There was nothing else momentous until two weeks later when she found a piece of A4 paper neatly folded inside itself and addressed to ‘Madam of the Green Boar’. She assumed that this person could only be herself and so she took it inside and opened it. It said: ‘Do you need a part time job? Evening hours only, and at your discretion. Please reply via the boar.’ It was otherwise blank; no name or number.

                She did need some extra cash. Her flat badly needed new furniture and the curtains were old. But she was hesitant about accepting a job from an anonymous stranger who approached her in such a way. There needs to be more information, she thought. So under the message she wrote: “What terms?” Then refolded it and on the outside crossed out ‘Madam’ and wrote ‘Leanne’, and under that ‘To whom it may concern’. Then she put it back in the bucket and turned on the telly and began to make herself pasta with tomato sauce for supper.

                She’d eaten just half her pasta when the doorbell rang. Not expecting any visitors and not wishing to rise to the challenge of the neighbourhood’s children she waited until she had comfortably finished her meal.

When she finally went to the door there was nobody there, but, just before she shut the door she looked down, and found at her feet on the doormat a wicker basket; the type that might comfortably be used to go shopping in a quaint country village at some point in the previous century but one. A basket that required one to wear a bonnet in order to look appropriate in its company.  In it was another boar’s head, and she could see that it had been carefully positioned so that it would be looking at her as she opened the door. She was in no doubt that it was for her because there was a note tied to the handle upon which was drawn, in large deliberate letters, ‘Leanne’. She picked up the basket and took it inside.

                This boar’s head had no hole in its head for a flower pot, there was no bucket included to hang over its tusks and it was decorated with a far more meticulous hand than the other, but though they were not a pair she could see they were from the same family.

Thinking that there might be a clue underneath it she cautiously lifted it out of the basket with both hands, but no sooner had she done so than its mouth moved and it began to speak. She was accordingly so surprised and horrified at this that she shrieked and dropped it and therefore missed the first few words it said.

The head rolled away from her into the kitchen part of her apartment and stopped on the floor by the sink. As she watched, it righted itself to face her and rose up gently, mellifluously growing from the neck downwards a body that soon exchanged foggy ambiguity for the solid form of the body of a hirsute green boar, pulsing with the certainty of life. It stood on hind legs as high as the window with one front trotter placed on the kitchen counter, possibly as support. It ducked its head slowly towards her, as if it were bowing and said, in a resonant, and slightly nasal, voice, “Thank you, Leanne of the green boar, for welcoming me into your abode. Please allow me...” at this he eyed her quizzically with small black eyes, his whiskers quivering questioningly around a large and glistening trembling snout, and she heard herself say, as if she was listening from behind a wall, “Yes, go on.”

It is worth saying, at this point, that the part of her that was doing the listening was afraid, very afraid, but it was split away from her and tucked away like a shadow behind a bone china plate. But because it was there, not here, and although the plate could be smashed at any time and her fear dash out and declare itself, it was currently controlled, and the part of her that stood in the kitchen with the boar was able to show not one ounce of fear.

The green boar began his sentence again “Please allow me to introduce myself.” His voice changed slightly and she got the impression that this next bit was well rehearsed. “I am the Green Boar, royal porcinerry to the Queen and defender of this realm. I have come to ask you for your most valued assistance, should you be willing to bestow it upon us, to help with a mission that is of the utmost importance.” He paused, and looked at her quizzically again, but this time she had nothing to say. “It is a dangerous task, which, of course, it is entirely under your discretion to undertake. Of course, if you refuse to take part nothing further will be said and I will depart in the manner under which I arrived, and we will, of course, reimburse any costs that were incurred in the manner of my arrival.”

He paused again and it seemed that she was required to reply, “What do you want me to do?”

“We need you to act as a courier.”

“A courier?”

“To make deliveries.” That seemed, to her, the usual description of a courier’s duties.

“Oh.”

“And sometimes to make collections.”

“Right... Is that it?”

“There will be others who don’t want us to complete our deliveries or our collections, but you won’t have to worry about them; I will take care of them.”

“How?”

“I will deal with them; I am highly skilled in hand to hand combat and several martial arts. I am feared across the land and I have not failed yet.”

“And how are you expecting us to courier things? I only have a bicycle, and I can’t drive a car.”

“The bicycle is fine. In fact, it is perfect.”

“Oh. Okay.” That was rather disappointing, she’d hoped that there might be a car. A car would have been useful. But it wasn’t a problem; she liked cycling and she frequently weighed herself on the bathroom scales and said to herself that she should ride more. This could be a good way of doing so. She asked, “What are we going to deliver?”

“Things that are vital to the safety of this country and the Queen.”

That sounded too important for the likes of her. “But why are you asking me, surely we have armies and the police, or the post office, to do that.”

“We have tried the police and the armed services, many times, but our needs are specialist. As you have already seen, we do not operate in the normal realm of experience, and as such, they are not adequately bold, nor clever enough, and the post office has been privatised.”

The boar drew a breath, and looked beseechingly at her, well, she felt it could be a beseeching expression, but he could simply have been keeping in a large fart. He continued, “So far, only you have proved brave and clever enough to be able to do this.”

She opened her mouth to question this statement, but he quickly said, before she could utter a word, “But if you are not willing to help us, we understand. It is a lot to ask. We know that. You should not worry.” He looked what she thought could be sad. “We will simply continue our search for someone yet more courageous, even though the date of the first delivery is very soon.”

With a hand on her heart and a shake of her head she said, “But I don’t understand how I have proved myself to be so bold, or somehow clever.”

“How could you not know?” The boar seemed genuinely shocked. “The chocolates you left to foil them. It was a master stroke. We were all so very impressed. You cannot know how much. It is a technique that has been entered into our textbooks. We’re all doing it now.”

She couldn’t help but feel flattered by the boar’s admiring tone of voice; nobody had ever spoken about something she had done in such a way before. And she couldn’t help thinking, that if chocolates were all that it took to frighten away the Green Boar’s enemies, then she could probably handle whatever else they threw at her. So she decided, right there and then, that if the money was right she’d take the job.
                “Okay, the job description sounds manageable. Tell me more about the money.”

“We will pay you thirty-five pounds an hour with any part hours rounded up to the full amount. If you can provide the details we can pay it straight into your bank account for you. And we will also pay you half your first job in advance to cover any costs.” He paused, then added: “We believe this is a fair amount for the work you will be asked to do, but of course, if you don’t, then we can negotiate.”

It was a very generous amount, much more than her meagre clerk’s wage, and, though she still wasn’t exactly sure what the job would entail, she already knew that the money would come in very handy, so she said, not wanting to quibble, but at the same time wanting to leave room for serious quibbling later on, “I think that would be okay to start with.”

“Do you mean to say that you will help us?”

“Yes, I do.”

The Green Boar tapped the sink with his trotter in delight. Then he bowed to her again, more gravely this time, and, in a tone of declaration said, “Then I am delighted to welcome you, Leanne, as one of our number. I declare you to be an honorary porcinerry.” His whiskers twitched three times and he wiggled his snout and, with a porcine squeal exclaimed, “I’m delighted you said yes. We’ll show them won’t we? You and I!”

Leanne said, politely, a little awed by his excitement and hoping, suddenly, that she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew, “Well, I hope so.” And allowed herself to fear, just a little bit, about what she’d got herself into.

“Oh! And before I forget, because that wouldn’t do, if you could kindly write your account number and sort code on the letter in the basket. I would be most thankful, you see I find it hard to write with the trotters.”

She carefully printed the numbers on the letter and refolded it, and placed it back on the bottom of the basket.

“Thank you kindly.” Said the Green Boar, nodding a little bow of thanks. He seemed very polite, but she assumed this was required when one was in royal service. “Well, that’s wonderful. Such good news!”

Then he walked towards her on green and hairy, but very sturdy, hind trotters, until only the basket on the floor remained between them and his quivering and wet snout was nothing but a few inches from her face. He fixed her with his beady black piggy eyes and said, in a low and more serious voice this time, “Thank you again for agreeing to help us; you will be doing a great service for your country. Now, let me tell of your duties: I will return here on the evening of our first assignment, in the same manner as this evening. You shall receive, via my brother on the wall, notification of the time of that assignment. Meantime you should make sure that your bike is in top working order and that you have some warm and waterproof clothing to wear.”

Having imparted this important information he twitched his snout quite violently. “Now, I must go. It doesn’t do to stay too long in one place. Please return the basket back outside to where you found it but turned outwards, so that I am looking away from your door and towards the passageway. Please then close the door and let me leave by my own path.”

The instant this last word passed his lips his body began to lose consistency, turning firstly transparent then shrinking downwards. The mask floated gently down his body as it liquefied and disappeared and settled softly back into the basket in the same position as it was before, looking up at her, but this time with what could have been a smile on its piggy chops and an aura of expectancy.

She put the basket outside on the doormat, carefully turning it so that the mask faced outward, and closed the door. She heard a rustling, but even though she opened the door shortly after it stopped, bearing in mind the boar’s extortion that he wanted his mode of transport to be unknown, there was nothing to see. She looked in the bucket hanging on the tusks of the boar on the wall but there was nothing there either.

So she went back inside and curled up on the sofa with her cat Pig, poured herself a large glass of white wine, and watched reality television for the rest of the evening. By the morning she had convinced herself that she had simply dreamt up the whole thing.

But then, absently checking the boar’s bucket on her way out, she discovered a fat envelope containing a wad of cash.  ...to be continued.

Micro Story: 'Crows'

Have you ever seen how airplanes appear to hang totally motionless in the sky when your own speed and angle of travel countermands theirs? I've only seen it on the approach to London, from the A4, when the planes were perhaps a mile into their ascent from City Airport.

CROWS

The upper and greater of two crows angled itself explicitly into a bullet-shaped mark against a pearly-white strip of sky trapped beneath an ash-strapped darkened cloud. They glided precisely over the hedge, losing speed and height on a declining course, but from where I was, the first appeared to hang motionless for an improbably lengthened second.

You were sitting next to me when I last witnessed this optical pause in time and space. You won’t remember that though, your mind dwelt on more important things back then, and I hadn't said anything at the time; I didn’t want to distract you.

You won’t remember that morning. It was when the airplanes first flew again after that Icelandic volcano stopped all flights and we were driving to London to some or other meeting. The sky between the buildings was lemon tinted and from where we sat, in our angle of vision, because of the distance and our speed of travel, the planes appeared immobile again, but this time in the sky, as if they were painted on a mural. 

            For a moment I'd supposed they were model airplanes strategically placed between office blocks by a body of government wanting to reacclimatise us to the sight of human flight; to reassure us after many days of isolation that we would be reconnected.

Constantly anxious, I imagined reassurances but you gave them unasked, you were my personal government; a delicate chain of office, I imagined your effective management of my truths, imperfections, fey uncertainties and doubt.

I didn't doubt this crow; the control it exerted over its body against the wind was effortless.

It eventually floated into the corner of my watery eye, darker than India ink on coldpress paper, implacably solid, unreservedly precise. Its lower, lesser fellow, its doppelganger, flapped sluggishly after, untidy in its slipstream. Then there was nothing more than the road ruling onwards beside the brow of an arable field topped by a row of small silhouetted trees; three fat full stops.

I’m so sorry love; I should have flown today.