The Last Time

 A figure skater leaves the ice

“Doesn’t she look beautiful, George?”

“She always does. Turn the volume up a bit.”

There was the sound of applause. In the seats above the arena, knots of Japanese spectators waved Union Jacks.

“The Japanese are so nice,” said Wendy. “Cheering on foreigners. When they’ve got so many good people of their own.”

A gust of wind blew the rain against the living-room window.

“I wonder what the weather’s like in Osaka.”

“Better than here. Shh dear.” He leaned forward to listen.

Santeri Viinamäki/Wikimedia Commons

“And here are the Brits,” said the commentator. The loudspeaker in the arena cut across him: Representing Great Britain: Catherine Castle and Vitaly Semyonov! There were cheers. Catherine led the way around the ice towards their start point, her short dark-blue dress billowing behind her, the glitter on its hem and sleeves catching the floodlights. Their names flashed up on the screen, as did their ages: Catherine, 34; Vitaly, 27.

The commentator went on, breathless.

Two-time winners of the British national title …Bronze medal at the Europeans five years ago… They’ve had a couple of difficult seasons, with Castle’s landings looking a bit suspect… She fell on the double salchow in the short programme and they go into the free skate lying seventh out of eight…

“Lovely, lovely dress,” said Wendy. “So graceful.”

A figure-skater long known for her style, this daughter of a helicopter pilot from Heston, West London. Like several others she and Vitaly train with former World Champion Sergei Alekseev in Montreal.  But At 34 she may be thinking about the future …Her landings have been very suspect this season …Knee injury took them out of the Worlds after a fall in the short programme in Boston…

“I do wish he’d shut up,” said George.

She landed badly once or twice. Spot of under-rotation from Catherine there. But the lifts were good. In fact she was all right until she landed from the throw triple toe-loop. Her knee gave way under her; her shoulder took the fall and there was a sharp pain as she rolled across the ice. She got up quickly but saw a brief darkness on Vitaly’s face. In the top left of their screens Wendy and George saw a red square appear below a green one. It’s minus one on the grade of execution for the triple throw, they can’t afford to lose that but they went on although her shoulder was on fire and then it was over and Vitaly stomped into the kiss-and-cry while she was still leaning on the boards putting on her skate guards and she stopped for a moment before she followed him, thinking: This is the last time. I am stepping off the ice for the last time.

Sergei gave her a perfunctory hug. Vitaly’s face was like thunder. Sergei reached in his back and handed her a bottle of water and her emotional support penguin. (“She’s got her plushy penguin,” said Wendy. “That’s good.”) But she didn’t wave them at the cameras the way she often did. The scores boomed out over the loudspeakers. That’s eighth place and I don’t think we’re going to see them at the Olympics, not sure we’ll even see them at Sheffield for the Europeans, from the looks of Semyonov I wonder if that’s their last skate.

“Oh, do shut up, you clot,” said George. “Let’s go to bed, dear.”

“Yes.” Wendy clicked the TV to standby.

Catherine stayed an extra day. “I want to see the temples in Kyoto,” she told Sergei but they both knew she couldn’t face an 18-hour journey with him and with Vitaly. They’d had it out at the hotel afterwards. “You’re too old now and you’re holding me back,” said Vitaly. “So you’ve got what you needed from me now. That’s it,” she thought, but kept that to herself. Sergei was gentler. “You are one of the most artistic skaters I have trained,” he said later. “And maybe the nicest. But it’s time.”

She flew to Montreal to close her little apartment in the trendy Verdun district and got a logistics firm to pack her belongings. She said goodbye to Sergei, but briefly; when you both know it’s the end, you don’t linger. She did not see Vitaly. She did see her friend Sarah, who was training but held her hand up to Sergei and came off the ice and hugged her. “You can’t go, girlfriend,” she said. “Who do I get wasted on margaritas with at the end of the season?”

The dam broke then, just for a moment. “Oh Sarah,” she said. “I’m not a skater any more. Don’t know what I am.”

“Don’t talk like that. Come to New York when the season’s over. Lots of guys gonna lust after a classy Brit with a tight athletic little body.” They laughed, and hugged again; but she thought, This is the last time I see Sarah. Our paths diverge now. I’m not a skater any more.

 She took the evening Air Canada flight from Pierre Trudeau to Heathrow. She sat by the window but there was nothing to see, just the navigation lights blinking in the dark. It was the last time. The last time on the ice. The high adventure was over.

*

Wendy had cleared away the dinner and was washing up. George was drying the plates and putting them away. She heard them clattering away in the kitchen, where they wouldn’t let her help.

“I wish you’d eaten more, dear,” said Wendy.

“I don’t really feel like it. Sorry Mum.”

“I’ll feed it to the penguin.” Wendy peered round the door jamb into the dining room, her hands and wrists covered in bubbles from the sink. “Mind you he could do with a bath.” She nodded towards the two soft toys standing on the dining-room table.

“Salchow’s fine,” said Catherine. She gave him a little pat. “Penguins are very clean, you know. Mum, is it OK if I watch the end of the women’s free dance from Lake Placid?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“I know. But I want to see Sarah. She was lying fourth after the short programme. She might podium.”

“Since when has ‘podium’ been a verb?” George lifted the dinner plates into the cupboard. He looked over his wife’s shoulder. “Is that the Sarah we met in Boston once? The American one? A bit loud she was, but rather nice.”

“She’s loud. But she’s so cool.”

“Watch if you want but don’t upset yourself, dear,” said Wendy.

Catherine switched the TV to YouTube and found the International Skating Union feed. She was in time to see Sarah swirl across the ice, her thick long brown hair streaming behind her then falling across her shoulders; no prim ponytail for her. A tide of applause as she bowed and kneeled on the ice then she was gliding into the kiss-and-cry and Sergei was hugging her very popular skater from Brooklyn looks like no deductions no technical panel reviews those grades of execution were excellent trains in Montreal with Sergei Alekseev my goodness he looks pleased it’s going to be good it’s good season’s best on the night and the total for the short programme and the free – yes it’s good – 205 my goodness 205 it’s a personal best and that’s Sarah Rosenthal on the podium for sure and it’s looking good for the Olympics in February ”Turn that off,” said George. “Yes Dad,” she said. “Have you got a clean hanky?” asked Wendy. “Here’s a tissue. Now, I’ll make some tea.”

*

They didn’t stay up late. Wendy kissed her goodnight. George moved to follow her then turned to his daughter, who was still sitting at the dining table with Salchow beside her.

“I do worry,” he said.

“I’ll be fine, Dad. I mean, it was coming, wasn’t it.”

“Your grandad knew that too. Didn’t help. You know about him, don’t you? Was in the RAF very young then afterwards he joined BOAC and flew the first jets and everything. Never got his hands on Concorde. That annoyed him. Flew everything else though.”

She said nothing, so he continued. “Was captaining on 747s at the end. We went to meet his last flight. They made them retire at 60 then you see. Anyway, he came out to meet us without his briefcase, he’d turned in all his papers and everything and he’d taken off his uniform and he looked, well – well he looked smaller.”

He sat down opposite Catherine and reached out to stroke Salchow. “He does need a bath,” he said.

“Salchow’s jolly hygienic. Go on.”

“Well, I thought of him on Saturday night. Because he came out looking smaller somehow, without his uniform and his briefcase, and he was saying over and over again, ‘That’s the last time. The last time. I’m not a pilot anymore.’ And he’d never been anything else, you see. Flew through the war and everything.”

“I never met him.”

“No. He died not long afterwards. Because he didn’t know who he was then, you see. So he drank.”

“Oh,” said Catherine. “You never told me that.”

“No.” He mauled what was left of his hair. “I saw your face as you came off the ice and you knew it was the last time, didn’t you? And you looked so like him. Same eyes and frown.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“We’ll be here and we love you, you know.”

“I know, Dad.”

He stood up. “Are you coming to bed? It’s late.”

“I will,” she said. “Not yet. Time difference. Osaka, Montreal, I’m swaying a bit.”

“All right.” For a moment he thought he was going to hug her, but George wasn’t very huggy. But he gave Salchow a gentle pat before he went out. She heard his heavy steps on the stairs.

She sat still for a moment, then took out her phone and wrote a text.

205 personal best

And added

You f**king legend

Not that she’ll read it, she thought. But her phone vibrated.

is that britspeak

yeah means you rock

you know what girl I actually do

triple salchow was orgasmic

thx. you good?

think so

you better be. Vitaly looks like shit lol 

fuck vitaly😒

that an order lol

nooooooo 🤮

was it hard coming off ice

last time and knowing it

yes

will hurt me too

when time comes

never done much else

me neither. not skater now, who am I

you are not a skater

I am not a skater

what

we are sarah and cathy

we are the love we give

and the love we get back

thank you thank you

go get one of your dads pilots

get his chopper out lol

grab his joystick

naughty girl

got to talk to usa today guy now

OK

love you cathy

you be not skater, you be who loves you 

love to smelly penguin

he loves you too

 

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed midnight. A door shut upstairs. The heating went off with a click from the thermostat on the living-room wall.

Find more of Mike's short fiction here 

Mike is now also on Substack here 

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.

Follow Mike on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Short fiction from Mike Robbins

The short story is a demanding form – but a rewarding one

Until 2023 I wrote mainly books and novellas. I didn’t attempt short stories because I didn’t think I’d be good at it. I’d read the short stories of Somerset Maugham, V.S. Pritchett and Elizabeth Bowen and admired them greatly. Bowen in particular has a gift for equipping her reader with the information they need and no more; there is not an ounce of fat in any of her short stories. They convey so much that they could easily have been spun into novels, had Bowen felt the need to do so – but you see at once how superfluous that would have been; a few sparse keys are enough. Bowen is a master of allusion.

Inspirations: Elizabeth Bowen in 1942 (Howard Coster/National Portrait Gallery); Somerset Maugham, painted by his friend Gerald Festus Kelly in 1932; V.S. Pritchett, also by Howard Coster in 1942 (National Portrait Gallery)

I didn’t feel I had those skills. “Don’t even try, you idiot,” I thought, and did other things. Then in 2022 I retired from the UN and left New York, where I had lived for many years. I returned to Norwich, a city known for its bookish connections; we’re a UNESCO City of Literature (find out more here and here). I can’t say I’ve done much for the city’s cultural life, apart from the pubs. But I did join a writer’s group, and had to prepare a short piece for every meeting. The others often did verse. I’m a lousy poet. Short fiction was the answer. To my surprise, I found I could do it. I’d like to thank the others (Angela, Jenny, Jim, Piers and Vasudha, themselves good writers) for their encouragement.

I’ve put the stories online, on my blog and now also on my new Substack (here). Below are links to the stories and I’ll add more as they appear. And at some point I will collect them all in a paperback/ebook, I hope in the first half of 2026. Most are set in Britain, but a few are set in the United States – a country that was my home for a long time.

I do hope you enjoy these. If you do, please share them with your friends and on social media. There’s no reward for doing so, except that you’ll make a grumpy old writer happy. And that’s worth doing, isn’t it?

The Last Time A figure skater leaves the ice
After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it? So we can spot it happening
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky 
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

 

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
Follow Mike on Twitter and Facebook.

Short fiction: After the Flood

An end? Or a beginning?

They’d had trouble getting an air taxi. Thelma the producer called four and the fourth said, “Yes if you come right now. We’ll get you in there but we may not get you out. It depends who needs us. We’re landing on Boltby Fell above the concentration site.”

“OK,” said Thelma, seeing no choice. “We’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

She rang off and turned to the cameraman. “Get Siobhan.”

“Siobhan? She’s useless. She’ll shit herself.”

“Tough,” she replied. ”Phil, she’s the only body in the newsroom right now.”

Phil picked up Siobhan, a Sony PXW, two wireless microphones and a battery charger. He thought the cellular network might be out and collected a LiveU satellite backpack unit as well. “This is the bare minimum,” he said as they got into the car. They drove out to the airport just as the light began to show in the sky. Their route was on high ground and had not flooded, but there was an inch or so of water on the surface from the ongoing rain that hit it with force, the large droplets shining in the headlamp beams. Thelma drove.

Winifred Knights (1899-1947): The Deluge (1920)

“Siobhan, can you switch on the Today programme,” she said.  Siobhan did, and they heard the presenter interview someone from the Met Office.

“It’s happened in Spain,” said the Met man. ”A few times, actually. They call it the gota fría. In October the water in the Med is still hot and the rising warm air from the sea may collide with a cold front, causing heavy, dramatic rainfall and flash floods. In recent years, as the Med has got warmer, it’s got worse. But it hasn’t happened in the North Sea before, not like this.”

“Why now?” he was asked.

“The temperature in the North Sea in October is usually 12°C to 16°C and wouldn’t normally exceed 20°C. But it has been rising. On Thursday it was 24°C. Then a vicious cold front came in from the east. There was a very rapid drop in air temperature.”

“Jolly good,” said Siobhan. “Your house has gone and you’re up to your neck in mud and shit and you don’t know where Granny is, but at least you know why.” Her voice was high and posh. In the back, Phil winced.

The 6.30am news headlines began. “The Government has declared an emergency for Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Cumbria,” said the presenter. “People from the flood-affected areas have been advised to gather at specific locations on high ground, where local authorities and emergency services will attempt to assist them.” She listed several, including Boltby Fell.

“Christ,” muttered Thelma.

She parked the car outside the air taxi’s depot, hoping someone else from the office had its digital key on their phone and could collect it later. The chopper was already warmed up and they rushed through the paperwork then belted themselves in with grunted greetings from the pilot, who was in a hurry. The rain had stopped, and dawn had come; they climbed into a dirty grey and yellow sky. As they flew up the river valley towards the moors Phil started shooting the landscape below. The light seeped into the valley as the sun rose and they could see the river was still beyond its banks; the gritstone villages nestled beside it were flooded. There was no sign of movement on the road, which was mostly underwater.

 As they neared the head of the valley the ground rose to meet them, grey-green fields, drystone walls and then the rough moorland of the fells. Then they crossed to the next valley, the ground fell away and they could see the slope opposite. At first it resembled a vast seabird colony, then they understood what they saw.

“Oh God. Phil, look,” said Thelma, but he was already shooting it.

“It’s like Ethiopia,” said Siobhan. “Those famous pictures of the famine. In the 1980s. Remember?”

No-one answered her.

They slowed and circled towards the convex summit of Boltby Fell, where another helicopter was on the ground; a second was taking off. They touched down and a small knot of people ran towards them, heads bowed as they neared the rotor blades. Two were Sikhs in high-viz jackets with the symbol of Khalsa Aid. The third, oddly, was a vicar.

“I’ve got foil survival blankets for them,” said the pilot. “And portable microwaves for the Khalsa guys. I’ll unload, then I’m off. Good luck, OK?”

They grabbed Phil’s gear and ran out to the edge of the field. In the distance an air ambulance crossed the valley towards them. They climbed over the gate that separated the moorland from the rough pasture that sloped down into the valley. There was scarcely a patch unoccupied. A few people noticed their arrival. “Oooh, they’ve heard about us. The telly people are here,” said someone. But most didn’t move; they were hunched on the ground with an air of apathy. Some had foil blankets around their shoulders. Here and there a few men and women in uniform picked their way through the crowds, wearing the green shirts of the St John Ambulance or high-viz jackets with a round British Red Cross symbol. Now and then one of them would help someone up and guide them towards the gate; they seemed to be triaging the injured.

Thelma tried to estimate how many people were in the fields. She thought it was several thousand.

“Let’s do some interviews,” she said.

“OK,” said Phil. He put the Sony PXW on his shoulder. “But I feel like a dick.”

Siobhan was kneeling in front of a middle-aged woman who was holding a young child. “Are you OK? Can you tell us what happened?” she had asked, and she sounded gentle. It occurred to Phil that she might be a good reporter after all.

“It was so sudden,” the woman was saying. “Everything seemed all right last night. Geoff – that’s my husband – he took the dog out about ten and when he came in he said the river’s pretty swollen, running quite fast but, well, it does that sometimes, you know? The weather forecast said maybe some local flooding. We watched Newsnight then went to bed. Then we woke up and the wall – the bedroom wall – “ She started sobbing.

“Is Geoff here?” asked Siobhan.

“No! I don’t know where he is! I was just swept – into the garden….”

She bent forward. Thelma raised her hand to Phil and he stopped the camera. She took the woman’s name and noted it down on a pad with the words HUSBAND GEOFF so they could identify the clip later and add a caption.

They went on down the slope. Most people just stared at them; they seemed to have nothing to say. Now and then someone would raise their hand and want to tell their story but the crowd was dense, and Phil wished he had his boom microphone. Once they came across a woman kneeling on the sodden grass and sobbing. Another woman was trying to calm her down. “Try to talk to her,” said Thelma, seeing that Siobhan did not want to; finally: “What happened to you?” Siobhan asked. “Can you talk to us?” The other woman shook her head. “No. Her baby was swept away. Fuck off,” she said, and looked back at Siobhan with eyes full of hatred.

“I will run out of juice soon,” said Phil, looking at the Sony’s power indicator.

“We may have what we need.” Thelma nodded towards a group of SUVs and pickups at the bottom of the slope. “I guess we need to get out of here. Can you upload with the LiveU?”

“I’m doing that.” 

They stumbled down to the cars. A twin-cab was preparing to leave, its flatbed scattered with the detritus of takeaway meals; there were power packs and cables too, and the car was towing what looked like a portable generator. Thelma ran towards it and tapped on the window, which wound down to reveal a man with a beard and turban. Beside him sat a slim young woman with a mass of black, curly hair, wearing a denim jacket and jeans and a high-viz tabard.

“BBC camera crew,” Thelma panted at them. “Where are you going? Can you get us out of here?”

The man looked back without surprise. ”We’ll try and make Bradford,” he said. “The Red Cross wanted us to take some people. But they’re better off waiting for the air ambulance, ‘cos we don’t know if we’ll get back through. You want to take your chances, it’s OK.” He jerked his head towards the rear doors. The three of them tumbled onto the rear bench seat, Siobhan in the middle.  The car rumbled away down a green lane.

“Gurpreet,” said the driver. “This is my sister Sunita.”

“Phil,” said Phil.

“Siobhan,” said Siobhan.

“Thelma,” said Thelma. Her phone buzzed. “Hey. I’ve got a signal. It’s BBC North, the newsroom in Salford.” She put the phone to her ear. “Yes,” she said. “No. Maybe. Bradford. What? Yes, Phil just uploaded from the LiveU. Don’t know. What. What?” Her face contorted  and her eyes closed. “My God, no. No. OK. Yes, OK. Yes, we’ll be fine.”

She rang off. “What,” said Phil.

“Ten thousand dead,” said Thelma. “A million homeless.”

No-one responded and for a minute or so there was silence. The rain had started again but it wasn’t heavy. The windscreen wipers hummed across the glass.

Gurpreet said something to his sister in Punjabi. She nodded and replied. She turned towards them. “We’ll try and reach the gurdwara in Bradford,” she said, in a strong Yorkshire accent. “The kitchens we have in the gurdwaras are working overtime..”

“The Indian restaurants are working full-on too,” said Gurpreet. “They’re giving us as many ready meals as they can.”

“Aren’t they all Bangladeshi?” asked Siobhan.

“Usually, and sometimes Pakistani in Yorkshire,” said Gurpreet. “It doesn’t matter. We’re all in this mess together.” He jabbed the touchscreen and turned on Radio 4.

Someone was talking about the changing climate. Was this a result, she was asked.

“We don’t know. The attribution people at Imperial College will crunch the numbers,” she replied. “They’ll tell us the likelihood. We must get the science right.”

“But we know, don’t we,” said Gurpreet.

“You know what pisses me off,” said Phil. “We always knew.”

They turned onto a tarmac road. After a few hundred yards they came to a village. Several houses had fallen down. There was no sign of life. The road was strewn with rubble and Gurpreet picked his way carefully through, mindful of the generator trailer behind. They came out of the village; ahead, the road swung over an old stone bridge. The centre span was missing.

“That’s our road to Bradford out,” said Gurpreet.

“Go past the bridge,” said Sunita. “There’s a back way into the Dales.”

He did as she suggested. But past the bridge the road had collapsed into the swollen river. He stopped quickly. “Damn,” he said, and added a few choice phrases in Punjabi. The river was high, and brown with soil; it billowed down to the ruins of the bridge, where the remaining spans were blocked by debris. They got out of the car. The sky was a pale yellow-grey with darker tendrils that scudded in the wind.

“Look,” said Siobhan. “Look.”

In an eddy close to the bank an object swirled. Phil raised his camera. He zoomed onto it and could see the shape of a small body in a playsuit, one arm stretched before it, its tiny hand and fingers just visible in the dirty brown water. The playsuit was decorated with teddy bears. He raised his eyes from the viewfinder. A woman’s body drifted by in the main current, her arms stretched before her as if she were praying. On the bank was the body of a dog, a small terrier in a dog-body warmer; behind it a long dog lead floated in the current. Phil looked at the bank of debris that lay across the broken bridge and saw that there were several bodies trapped in the branches, their limbs moving obscenely with the flow.

“God help us,” he muttered. “God help us.”

He heard the national anthem on the car radio. The familiar voice of an elderly man came from the speakers.

“You will know, by now, that a terrible tragedy has befallen our country,” said the voice.

“Yes, we do. Sod off,” said Thelma. She realised she was crying too and clenched her teeth in anger at herself and the river.

“I cannot heal the damage that has been done to people today,” said the voice. “But I know, as you all do, that this is a turning point. For years we have tried to pretend this would not happen. Now it has, and we have a choice.”

“Oh, do fuck off,” said Siobhan. She knelt down on the bank close to the eddy and started to cry.

“We can let this break us,” said the King. “Or we can let it be the making of us.”

Phil wandered off towards the bridge to get footage of the bodies trapped in the branches.

“We can respond to this with horror or with courage,” said the King. “We can scream denial. Or we can work together to face a future we do not, as yet, quite understand. This can be an end. Or it can be a beginning. It is up to us all.”

“Yes,” said Gurpreet. He watched his sister as she helped Siobhan to her feet and guided her towards the truck, and settled her in the seat, talking to her quietly, almost under her breath.

See more of Mike Robbins's short fiction here

Mike is now also on Substack at https://mikerobbinswrites.substack.com/

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here

Short fiction: Remembered Time

The past is a dangerous place

“The tape turned my bowels to water,” said Peter.

Jake had been at the window, looking out at the glass-and-steel canyons of Docklands. He turned towards Peter, noting how boring lawyers look when not in court. “What?” he said.

“I think you’d better see it.”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” said Jake.

“I’m not,” said Peter. “I’m a legal advisor to this newspaper. And I think you should see the tape.”

David Iliff/Creative Commons

Something in his voice gave Jake pause. “All right,” he said at length. “Tell Michelle to set it up. But bugger off for now, I need to see tomorrow’s feature layouts.”

Peter turned to go. He paused in the doorway.

“What,” said Jake again.

“I do not think you understand the gravity of the situation,” said Peter. “Stella’s husband may sue.”

“Good. Think of the column inches,” said Jake.

The other shrugged and went off across the newsroom. He was ignored by the subs, who were in the white heat of their day – that time in the late afternoon when all the copy must be made ready so the layout people can start casting off and asking for a cut here, a subhead there.  

Jake looked at his desk. It should be clear now, ready for the first mock-ups of tomorrow’s Daily Morning News front page. But there were several large sheets on it, mostly pen-and-ink drawings of a caricature weasel. The weasel was accompanied in some frames by a stoat and an otter. Across one was scrawled: Proposed comic strip. Mike and the Mustelids. They were a submission from some art-school hopeful.  The art director had brought them in for Jake’s opinion (which was brief and clear) and then neglected to take them away. He sighed. “Michelle,” he yelled. His assistant swayed in on six-inch heels. “Michelle, get these back to Derek, would you. He’d forget his balls if they weren’t in a bag.”

“Yes Jake,” she replied. “Is ten tomorrow OK for the tape viewing?”

“I suppose so.”

“Who’d you want there? Peter says it’s sort of sensitive.”

“Who did Pete say?”

“Him. And William Bristow.”

“What, Bill the Brief? In person?” Bristow was a barrister. “That’s a bit heavy. No-one else?”

“Peter says it’s all a bit grave and we don’t want gossip, like.” She looked at her phone. ”He wants one other person in on it, says you’ll need their advice. Dr Amery.”

“Who’s Dr Amery when he’s at home?”

“She’s a clinical psychologist,” said Michelle.

“Oh,” he said. He was about to ask why the Daily Morning News needed a clinical psychologist but not for the first time that day, a voice inside told him to shut up. He watched Michelle, not without pleasure, as she swayed out of his office. Then he noticed the latest edition of Private Eye, no longer masked by mustelids. It was folded back at the Street of Shame column.

The Daily Moron News has a problem. Where’s its star columnist, Saucy Stella the Fleet Street Slag? (Or Stella Boggs, to use her proper name.) Her column’s been absent for three weeks now. Moron insiders say something’s gone very wrong. Saucy Stell went off to the backwoods of Birmingham to write an exposé of alleged fraudulent hypnotherapist Arnold Merriweather. It’s a change from her usual headlines. Workshy scroungers! Benefits! Palestinian victimhood! Woke councils! All grist to her mill. Trouble is, she’s now in hospital, gabbling incoherently [what’s new – Ed.]. The sinister Merriweather put her under then stole her sooooul…

He tossed Private Eye back on his desk. “We’ll sue the buggers,” he muttered, but something felt wrong.

He swivelled back towards the window. I do miss Fleet Street, he thought, remembering his visits as a spotty teenager fifty years ago, watching his compositor father work the Linotype machine, the slugs cast in the hot metal, the clatter of the keyboards, the men assembling the formes and finding themselves a word over and yelling for a sub to come and edit on the stone. Then off for a pint in the cool plain upper room of the Printer’s Devil in Fetter Lane, gone now, torn down years ago to make way for some plastic palace. And a walk later to the Embankment, across Fleet Street, past El Vino, which would be heaving with barristers and journalists; and down Bouverie Street, seeing the lorries drawn up with the huge bales of newsprint that were hauled up by ropes on beams that stuck out across the road and worked in through the huge doors way above the street.

Colin Smith/Creative Commons

All gone now. But we haven’t changed, thought Jake. All the news that’s unfit to print and sue us if you dare.

*

“Actually a few people are after this hypnotherapist chap,” said Peter.

“Arnold Merriweather?” said Jake. “Yes, I believe so. That’s why I sent Stella to look into him.”

“From now on say it was her own idea,” said Peter. “It might be safer if we go to court.”

They were seated round the table at one end of Jake’s large office. At the other end of the room was a 65-inch TV mounted on the wall. There were several others on the other walls though not on Jake’s desk. There was little else in the office. (“Would you like bookcases?” Michelle had asked when it was fitted out. “What for?” he had asked, puzzled.) The sole adornments were facsimiles of some of his favourite front pages and a picture of Jake with the proprietor and his wife. The latter had, at the time, just had her boobs done and the sun cast shadows in her cleavage like the Grand Canyon at dawn.

“There are a couple of cases.” Bill the Brief shifted in his seat. He was a lengthy cadaverous figure in his 60s with a hawk-like beak of a nose and bushy eyebrows. Jake couldn’t look at him without the urge to say “M’Lud” and stick his thumbs in his lapels. “A Midland cleaning contractor is suing him.”

“That’s that Featherstone bloke, isn’t it,” said Jake. “Wasn’t he in dispute with his workforce or something?”

“The union were after him,” said Bill the Brief. “They said his cleaners were working 60-70 hours a week. The law says 48 hours. Featherstone said they’d all opted out of the limit, which is legal but voluntary and he was denying shifts to guys who wouldn’t opt out. Someone grassed him up to the union.”

“Seems he was underpaying people as well,” said Peter. “Entering them on the books as apprentices so he didn’t have to pay the full minimum wage. Some of ’em were asylum seekers without permission to work.”

“Oh, and there were a couple who got sick from the cleaning fluids,” said Bill the Brief. “Mixing ammonia-based cleaners with bleach, apparently. And descaling agents. The union alleged breathing problems, chemical burns and other fun things. He claims the victims weren’t working for him. The union says they were.”

“What a nice chap,” said Jake. “Can’t see as that’s got anything to do with this hypnotherapy business though.”

“His daughter bought him a hypnotherapy session with Merriweather for Christmas,” said Peter. “She thought it could help him give up smoking. Apparently Merriweather regressed him to the 1840s and he found himself working in a coal mine as a 12-year-old, which distressed him greatly. He has decided to sue.”

He picked up a piece of paper. “This is a transcript of the session supplied in evidence. Featherstone is talking under hypnosis – Merriweather prompted him with questions now and then but we’ve edited that out for clarity.

“My name is Percy Armstrong and I am 12 years old. I have worked in the pit since I was about six, first as a trapper but now I be a hurrier. We pull the corves from the face where the hewers cut the coal. There is a leather belt around my waist, gurl belt we calls it and a chain goes back to the corve and sometimes a girl behind pushes, thrusters we call them. The passage is low so she’ll push with her head. It hurts my knees to crawl through it, it is so low. You ask the weight of the corves, well I don’t rightly know but they say two hundred pounds maybe.”

Peter looked up from his paper. “At length Featherstone became very distressed. It seems he ‘remembered’ being badly burned when a candle ignited some fire-damp and then ‘remembered’ dying in great pain not long afterwards. We have tried to check this but parish records are often incomplete, and we can’t be sure of the exact date or location.”

“You’re not suggesting that the man was really remembering a past life, are you?” said Jake. “How would he have any case against Merriweather?”

“They’ll argue that it’s a case of cryptomnesia,” said Peter. “That’s when someone sees something that appears real under hypnosis but has actually read or seen it somewhere in real life and has forgotten it. In the case of Featherstone, much detail on child labour in the mines was collected as testimony to a Royal Commission chaired by the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1842. It may be that Featherstone had seen this, perhaps at school. If the regression sparked an episode of cryptomnesia and distressed the subject, it may be that Merriweather should not have regressed him.”

“Jesus,” said Jake. “Is there anything in this hypnotherapy lark, or is it all bullshit?”

“Oh no, hypnotherapy is quite legitimate,” said Dr Amery. She was a grey-haired woman of maybe 50, a little severe but not unfriendly. “It’s used to treat certain conditions or help people break harmful habits. The National Health Service accepts that. But it doesn’t pay for it, and warns you should select a hypnotherapist with care. Also hypnotherapy is contraindicated if you have psychosis or some types of personality disorder.”

“So maybe Featherstone should not have been ‘put under’ at all?” said Jake.

“No, perhaps not, if Merriweather was not sure of his medical history,” she replied. “In particular, past-life regression is a specific form of hypnotherapy that seeks to uncover the causes of trauma or behaviours, which it is thought may lie in previous lifetimes. But past-life regression is not recognised by all hypnotherapy professionals. It can worsen certain psychological conditions and because someone under hypnosis is suggestible, it can implant false ‘memories’ and distress the patient.”

“Wasn’t there a Welsh chap who made a splash regressing subjects? There was a TV programme,” said Peter.

“That’s right. Back in the 1970s,” said Dr Amery. “It was something of a sensation at the time. He was a serious hypnotherapist who wanted to treat people. But many critics ascribed the tapes to cryptomnesia.”

Peter looked at his notes. “Featherstone isn’t the only patient of Merriweather’s who’s been talking of suing. There was that bloke who runs a chain of wholesale butchers.”

“Ah yes,” said Bill the Brief. “Charlie Mayhew. Charlie’s Country Meats. Big supplier to the supermarkets. I defended him a few years ago. Multiple animal welfare violations. Alleged, I should say. What was he doing at a hypnotherapist’s, anyway?”

“He hoped Merriweather would help him stop drinking,” said Peter. “Hypnotherapy’s often used for things like that. You look into people’s lives under hypnosis and find where the negative behaviours come from. Except it didn’t work, did it. Because he reckoned he’d been regressed as a worker in a 19th-century Chicago slaughterhouse. He says he woke up screaming ‘The blood! The blood!’ and he can’t eat meat anymore.”

“Didn’t Upton Sinclair write a famous novel set in the Chicago stockyards?” said Bill the Brief. “Maybe Mayhew had read it and forgotten he’d done so? Cryptomnesia again.”

“That’s the suspicion.” Dr Amery frowned. “But hard to prove. What about the Brighton case?”

“We’re not acting for them,” said Peter. “They won’t talk to us. But we heard about it. In that case the subject ‘remembered’ under hypnosis being beaten to death by ‘her’ husband. But in waking life she was a he and had recently been divorced by his wife, who alleged assault. And quite serious injuries, as I recall.”

“There’s a pattern building up here, isn’t there?” Dr Amery looked thoughtful.

“Still, it all looks like cryptomnesia,” said Peter. “But whatever. If this comes to court, it will be alleged that Stella the Fleet Street Slag, sorry Ms Boggs, has had a psychiatric episode as a result of being regressed for the newspaper. There may be legal implications.”

“This is all a bit weird for me,” said Jake. “Besides, even if I did send Stella to expose this bloke, that doesn’t make us liable, does it? You’d have to prove she suffered harm as a result. Where’s the evidence?”

“The fact that she’s lying in a hospital bed, moaning and gibbering,” said Bill the Brief.

“Jesus,” said Jake.

“And this,” said Peter.

He clicked the remote and the video started to run on the large screen. They saw Stella, lying on a couch, shot from above so that her face was straight to camera; then there was a voice from someone out of shot, presumably Merriweather. It was an old man’s voice, low, soothing, foody.

“Stella, you are descending a staircase,” said the Voice. “At its foot is a place of peace. Relax yourself, and let the world… wash… over you…”

“This is new-age woke bollocks,” said Jake.

“Drift,” said the Voice. “Drift upon the sea.”

Stella’s eyelids fluttered; bit by bit they closed. At length:

“What can you see?” asked the Voice.

Stella, eyes still closed, replied in a strange language.

“Stop here,” said Jake. “Have we run that past anyone? What language is it?”

“We don’t know,” said Peter. “My office sent a clip to a linguist but he didn’t recognise it and sent it on to a philologist.”

“A what?”

“A bloke who studies the origins of, and links between, languages. He reckoned it sounded like Carib, or an archaic Arawakan language from northern South America.”

“Or just Stella having a laugh,” said Jake.

“No. He was sure it was a real dialect of some kind.”

“Well that’s not cryptom-whatsit then, that’s for sure,” said Jake. “’Cos our Stell wouldn’t know an obscure foreign language. She has enough probs just with English normally, be honest with you.”

“Ssh, something’s happening to her,” said Dr Amery. They turned back to the screen. Stella was becoming agitated. She started to moan, and then to shout, and to squirm on the couch. The Voice spoke quietly, his words indistinct. After a while she calmed.

“Come back,” said the Voice, “when you are ready. I shall count to five and you will awake, refreshed.”

She did awake but her eyes were staring, and she was sweating.

“What did you see?” asked Merriweather. He sounded concerned for the first time.

“I was at the water’s edge, where the jungle comes down to the sea. The sand was brilliant white and the water deep blue and the trees were full of birds – macaws, parrots? – parakeets.” She blinked. “I was with others. We weren’t wearing much. We did not need to. It was warm.”

“Were you happy?”

“I think so. We were busy. We planted vegetables and yuca, and fished, and the men hunted. We had enough to eat. But then things went wrong.”

“What went wrong?”

Columbus greeted by Arawak Indians (Theodor de Bry/Library of Congress)

“The strange canoe came. With the big cross on its sails. And these odd men waded to the beach and one fell to his knees and waved a smaller cross.” She was silent for a moment. “They came to see us. They took some people away. The men they made to work and the women…” She was silent for a moment, and seemed to be breathing heavily. Then: “They wanted gold. Sometimes cloth. Then the sickness came. Fever. We were exhausted and could hardly move. Our heads hurt, and our backs. Vomit. Then red spots. Then blisters full of pus. We died.”

Eyes wide, she was looking at the camera yet did not see it. Then she screamed. The sound pierced the room. Bill the Brief sat ramrod-straight, rigid; Peter covered his ears; Dr Amery her eyes. The screams continued. Merriweather could be heard trying to calm her.

“Stop it! Stop the tape now!” yelled Jake. He grabbed the remote from Peter but instead of stop, he pressed pause and Stella’s frozen face filled the enormous screen, a distorted rictus of horror and terror. After a moment Dr Amery took the remote and put the screen to sleep.

“Smallpox,” she said. “Stella described smallpox.”

*

The next morning, the weekly editorial conference was underway around the same table.

“Dammit, we need fresh new features pages,” Jake was saying. “I need ideas from you buggers.”

“Wildlife?” ventured someone. “Cute creatures?”

“We could tag an otter and follow it week by week,” said someone else.

“You can’t interview an otter,” said Jake, who’d had enough mustelids for one week. “Can’t we uncover people-smuggling in Parliament or something?”

“When’s Stella the Slag back?” asked the art editor.

“God knows,” said Jake. He looked troubled. Then he brightened.

“I got it, guys. I got it. This past-life regression thing. Why don’t we put someone through it every week?”

“Great,” said the chief sub. “But you’re gonna need volunteers.”

Michelle swayed in with Jake’s coffee.

“Michelle,” said Jake. “Would you like a reporting assignment?”

“Oh yeah!” Her eyes opened wide. She nearly spilled the coffee.

“Jake,” said the art editor, “are you sure this is a good idea?”

When they’d all gone Jake paused to drink his coffee. On the table was a proof from the previous week, a double-page spread with Stella’s last feature. There was a picture of an expensive SUV outside a hotel in some African city and another of two elegant Nigerian fashion models. Third World, Stop Your Whining, read the headline. Colonialism did you no harm. Your Countries Are Fine.

Stella, thought Jake, you were the best.

Hypnotherapy is a legitimate form of treatment that can be helpful to some individuals. Not all patients are suitable and in Britain the NHS warns against it if you have psychosis or some types of personality disorder. It also recommends selecting a hypnotherapist with care through a body such as the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) or the National Hypnotherapy Society (HS). Past-life regression is a specific form of hypnotherapy and Is not recognised by all professionals. For further information, see Willin, M. (2016): Past Life Regression in Psi Encyclopedia  (London: The Society for Psychical Research). It is available online here.

More short fiction from Mike:

A Train Journey When one's sister comes to visit

Time after Time When you have to tell the children

Fashion Subversion. With style

A Time of Darkness It doesn't repeat. But it rhymes

Another Time A tear in the fabric

Evolution The world is turning

When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square

A Man For All Seasons Net zero.The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike is now also on Substack at https://mikerobbinswrites.substack.com/

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.