The Best British Short Stories 2012 by Nicholas Royle

Author:Nicholas Royle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salt Publishing Limited
Published: 2014-07-29T08:53:25+00:00

There’s a row of big houses along the main road into town. The houses back onto a railway line then reservoirs. Starting at one end they dart across lawns, duck under washing lines, scamper across patios, leave footsteps in flowerbeds, wobble over creosoted fences, send cats running, dogs barking and are pursued all the way by their shadows running sideways on the ground. At the end of the row they run over the railway lines and up onto the reservoirs, where the water shines vast and silver and spreads out before them as they climb the bank and look over the low stone wall.

‘Do you think we could swim across there?’ asks Leo.

‘Don’t be daft. We’d probably drown,’ answers Joe.

‘It’s not that far.’

‘Well I’m not doing it. What time do you have to be in?’

Leo looked at his watch. ‘Oh shit, I’m too late already.’

Joe takes another look at the water, the ripples in the light wind a moving corrugation in the moonlight. They run down the grassy slope beside the stone steps, climb back over the wall again and follow the old farm track back to the road where the chevrons are lit by the orange of the streetlights and cars sometimes pass. A couple walk back from the pub, the woman’s legs more wobbly than the man’s so that she clings to his arm for support as well as love. On the distant motorway, lorries and cars and sometimes motorbikes flash past.

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