Don't let go of my hand

If I let go I know

If I let go I know I’m going to fall. Please don’t let me Mum. I can’t bear him. You don’t know. The way he smiles at me Mum, why can’t you see it? It’s diseased. Can’t you see the puss at the corners of his big mouth? that’s mine Mum. Do you remember last Saturday? You went to the book store? Why did you leave me with him; he’s not my Dad. Dad would kill him if he knew. ‘But you’re Dad’s dead sweetie.’ He laughed after he said that. I cried all the time we bounced on your bed. Could you not see my imprint on your sheets Mum? The outline of a clipped bird; did you not see my dribble on your pillow? or hear the scream hidden in the muff? I know you’re tired a lot Mum, I think he’s trying to poison you; when you dream I nightmare.  I don’t want him in the house anymore; every time he places his ogre hand on my shoulder my skin crawls into pimples: mountains against a miserable sky, like when you and Dad went to Rome remember? And my hairs stand like pikes. I’m not ill Mum, when I throw up, don’t you see? I’m allergic.                                                                                                                                        The white chocolate he gave me? It wasn't a gift it was payment.The games he tells you about, it’s not right. They’re not in the books you give me; there’s no detective that solves the mystery Mum and I’m scared. I have to wax – I’m only thirteen. 


Copywright 2011 George Ide LLP Solicitors                                                                                   

Chichester Observer - Short Story -

Title asked:  What makes Chichester Special for me

Last night a ghost passed through Chichester; he stayed until the morning, humbled by the courtship of dawn-birds and silence. As the residents of the Roman city slept, a spirit drifted through Chichester’s dream; a poem whispered from Lion street. ‘Perhaps she is speaking to the robins and jays, to the sparrows in College Lane’, the ghost thinks, ‘even to me?’

The ghost was spotted by a young man who had been sitting in Priory Park since… well he couldn‘t remember; he was sitting in the orange haze watching the spectre glide along the path. He hadn’t cared much, not with the thousands of other spirits all around. But on this occasion he called the manna over and the two sat down on the ridge looking at St Paul’s silhouette.

‘I lived,’ the ghost murmured.

The young man pulled out a pen and began to take notes.

‘You are a scribe?’

The Spirit told the young man his name, (the latter thought that such a King of Celts was guaranteed to get him a good grade), and that he could call him Coggie for short. Coggie had once lived - tendered the soil of Noviomagus.

‘Do you hear her?’ asked Coggie.

The young man listened to the wind circulate around the Roman walls - in between the flints. The high pitch sound invaded the hedge rows and his paper-thick clothes, converging around St Paul’s pious foundations. If you ever have the opportunity to sip the night scent of ancient flowers you know that it addles your mind, distorts the present picture with a tableau of something that was once there, Chichester’s flora reminds its present of its past.

‘That’s Minerva,’ Coggie whispered. ‘She’s our poet.’

Coggie told the young man how Chichester felt the same, ‘You see, History is always in front of us. Each step is only an allusion to the past, an unknown future is an illusion.’
The young man sniggered, sneezed the scent from his nose and walked away.

Silly thing, the young man thought, a paradoxical mess, rubbish: Chichester is about the Zee Bar, the drunken nights in Halls, sleeping next to toilets, the arduous lectures and assignments; the cheap drinks in Spoons, the bus ride to Thursdays, the high street shops,  not history - who cares? The young man passed through The Cross pulling the lapels of his River Island jacket to his cheeks. History, what a joke.

He couldn’t make up his mind where to go. South? East? West? He wasn’t going North, he couldn’t suffer another night in bed knowing the deadlines looming. He sat under the Chichester Cross and lit a cigarette. Bishop Edward Storey and Bishop Stigand were sitting above the arch waiting for the young man to notice their dangling legs. “Good Morning,” it shocked the young man who spurted the smoke from his mouth.  Not more, he thought. No more parables please.

‘I built this you know,’ the former ghost began… but the young man had already slipped away. ‘I suppose I did in a way, I was the Bishop after all. I (and I mean the larger “I” of the community) built it, all that silly old Duke of Richmond did was pull the string around his purse and chuck a few coins at it later, but I built it’. ‘I moved the cathedral,’ Stigand interrupted, I (and I mean the larger “I” of the Selsey community) moved every brick, every sediment of faith to here.’ The Ghosts looked around but the young man was no where in sight. They crossed their arms as the clock sat at quarter past three staring at HSBC on the corner of East Street. Edward Storey never imagined such a thing, no one could be trusted in my day, he thought, look after my money? no one but one’s soul… and it’s giver of course, could ever look after capital. He remembered one market he had organised, (it’s still going today) when he had been swindled and left with two goats which was meant to pay for two Cobs. By the time the man was supposed to return to him the thief was half way to Battle - long gone. Stigand, unlike Coggie, couldn’t remember what he had lived in. The cathedral was still there. He loved that. He would mollify his conscience amongst the Christian stain-glass windows and shriek with delight (visitors think it’s the wind flying through the stone cloister) when his name was mentioned, but except for his rock, his God, he remembered very little of his time. He was far too taken with other windows these days and the beautiful clothes that hung behind them; luxuries teased the old Bishop at every corner. He had languished for a millennia; he craved to change his tatty robes.

Coggie was sitting up at the Trundle gazing over the sea of fire-lights that came up from Chichester. As a ghost you can’t feel the South Downs: the on-shore gust that shoots your hair like an electric current; that pours a red dye into your cheeks and allows you, if only for a moment to change your perception on life, isn’t felt. For it is the spirits of this historic city that fuel the wind faster and fill your lungs with an ethereal breath. The Trundle, guarded by its levity over the flat City, has housed many of its ghosts and occult spirits. Their one complaint is the two radio masts at the top of St. Roche’s Hill that pour out distorted headaches: although many of the younger ghosts use them as maypoles. Coggie had helped the Romans when they had landed, he wasn’t going to fight Goliath. He liked the art they brought with them most; he laughed as Minerva’s voice washed over him,

“Sleep as all those who have before and dream as so many will after; now I sing to you….” Minerva kissed the city as the final ghost slid into the pristine night sky, and we begin to wake.




Copywright 2011 George Ide LLP Solicitors