GOOD VIBRATIONS by Maggie Redding

Maggie Redding has kindly allowed us to publish this delightful new story. We must admit, it took us ages to work out what was in Grandma's special bag. Will you be any quicker to solve the riddle?

G00D VIBRATIONS

My grandma was a lovely lady. You wouldn’t think she was as old as she was, 83. Visiting her, which I did frequently, was no chore. One day, I let myself in as a note on the door instructed – ‘Janey, just come in and bring the key with you’ -. Was grandma ill?

‘Up here, Janey, love,’ she called, confirming my worries. Her voice came from her bedroom. In bed?

I pulled the key from the lock and ran up the stairs to the big bedroom at the front of Grandma’s house, which she used to share with Grandad until he died. I had been only seven at the time.

I was right. She was in bed, but on the top of the covers and over her only a blanket. I threw myself at her. ‘Oh, Gran, are you ill?’

She chuckled. ‘Just a bit off colour, love.’ Her white hair radiated on the pillow. I thought she looked beautiful. Could old ladies look beautiful?

‘Can I get you anything Gran? A cup of tea?’

She frowned. ‘I’ve gone off tea. Tell you what.’ She waved a £5 note at me, ‘Could you pop down to the shop and get me a bottle of fizz?’ You know, common or garden lemonade.’

‘Of course I can.’ Nothing was too much trouble for Gran, especially if it would keep her alive. ‘Anything else?’

‘No love, that will be lovely.’

I checked, and again, but that was all she needed. It didn’t seem like enough. Anyway, I rushed out, remembering to take the key. I brought home a large bottle of lemonade and when I went back into Gran’s house, I popped into the kitchen for a glass tumbler.

‘You’re a good girl,’ she cooed over me. She paused and seemed to be pondering something. ‘Look, can you do something else?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘It’s got to be kept a secret.’

‘That’s okay. I can keep a secret.’

‘I need to give you a bag, to take to the rubbish dump. Recycling. You know? And don’t tell anyone, and don’t look in it.’

‘No,’ I said rashly.’ I won’t.’

She hesitated again, then ‘Okay’, she said. ‘You see that third drawer down in this unit next to the bed?’

I looked to where she was pointing. It was too low for her to reach from the bed. She could easily fall out. ‘This one?’ I squatted down to the drawer and tugged it open.

‘Is there a pretty bag, with a zip, in there?’

There was, with lots of other pretty things. Grandma loved flowers. The bag was very pretty with birds and flowers on it, all in lovely colours. It looked a bit lumpy. ‘This one?’

I pulled it out. It was not big or heavy.

‘That’s the one.’ Gran leaned back on her pillow. ‘Just take it to the dump and sling it on.’

‘Even the bag?’

‘Yes. Even the bag. Especially the bag. I hoped I could trust you. I’ll get you a bag like that if you want one.’

‘No. No. Shall I go now, Gran? The dump isn’t too far, is it?’

‘No, but I think you should go home straight afterwards. Your Mum will be worried.’ She put her hand out to touch my face. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. She sounded weary. ‘I’ve been wondering what to do with that bag.’

‘You haven’t been robbing people, have you, Gran?’

‘Yes, I have. And don’t you copy me.’ But she chuckled. ‘Janey. It’s my guilty secret. I have a few, private things, you know, that nobody knows about.’

I set off, with the pretty bag, to go to the Recycling Centre. It was not far. What on earth could my grandmother have a guilty secret about? Old ladies surely don’t have guilty secrets.

On my way, as a distraction, I prodded the bag. There were, by the look of it, some unlikely-shaped articles in there. I could not imagine what they were. On the way I met my school friend, Lauren. Normally, I would have been pleased to see her. 

‘Janey! Where you going?’

‘To the dump. With some rubbish.’

‘What’s in there? I like the bag.’ She reached out to touch it.

‘No!’ I shrieked. ‘It’s my Gran’s. You can’’t touch it. It’s – lethal rubbish.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said as I turned so that the bag was behind me.

‘I promised Gran. It’s old-fashioned stuff.’ I was desperate. I had promised Gran that the bag would be disposed of.

‘All right. Keep your hair on. The Dump is closed today, in the afternoon, anyway.’

‘It isn’t?’ I gasped.

‘Where you gonna put it now?’

‘I don’t know. Is there another rubbish dump?’

‘There are rubbish bins in the Park,’ Lauren said. Would that count, a rubbish bin? I didn’t know. If Gran wanted to keep this bag a secret, there was no way I was going to take it home. My mother would have been so inquisitive. I knew that revealing your secrets to your mother was something not easily done.

We walked a bit further, Lauren and me. It was a late afternoon, not getting dark, but sunless and gloomy. Trees were beginning to turn. The air smelled sort of dank and of rotting stuff. ‘I expect a rubbish bin would do,’ I said.

‘I’m not supposed to go in the Park alone,’ Lauren said as we neared the gates.

‘You wouldn’t be alone if I was with you,’ I told her. ‘I can go on my own if you don’t want to come.’

But she wanted to come with me. I suspected she still hoped to find out what was in the bag. ‘I won’t try to take it off you or anything, bad, I mean, I don’t want to be haunted by your Gran’s ghost.’

‘Gran’s not going to die.’ I said. I glanced sideways at her. I was suspicious. Would Lauren return after I’d gone to investigate the bag if I put it in a bin? I could not allow that. I owed it to Gran.

We turned into the Park, through the gates, still open. Ahead of us was a group of boys. Normally I would have given them a wide berth, especially at this time of the year, when they were likely to be tossing fireworks at what they considered to be attractive targets.

‘They’ve got fireworks,’ I said. ‘I’m going back home. I don’t like fireworks.’

‘Me neither,’ said Lauren and began to run. She reached the gates well before I did and when I got to the road she was a fast-vanishing speck, almost at her home.

Now I could return to the Park, even facing the boys and their fireworks. I had feared Lauren returning more than I feared fireworks.

Rubbish bins were situated at frequent intervals along the pathways round the Park. The boys soon saw me and came towards me. There were five of them, one of them, probably their leader, spotted Gran’s bag. He was grinning. I took a couple of paces backwards. There was something in his hand which he half-heartedly was attempting to hide or avoid me seeing, a cigarette or a firework, I was not sure.

‘Nice bag,’ he said indicating Gran’s bag with a grubby finger.

‘It’s an old lady’s bag,’ I said.

‘Why you got it, then?’

‘I’m on an errand for her.’

‘Let’s see,’ he said, coming closer.

‘No!’

I spun the bag over my head and then with all the skills acquired as Shooter in the Netball Team at school, I lobbed it towards the nearest rubbish bin, some eight feet, or two metres anyway.

With a loud metallic clunk and the sound of breaking glass, it landed squarely inside the bin. An aroma filled the air, that of the scent I had given Gran for Christmas. Disappointment washed over me. Had Gran not used the scent which I had given her last year? It sounded as though the bottle had smashed on hitting the metal of the bin. I rushed towards the bin, peered in and froze. The bag was there, soaked in the scent, but an ominous buzzing came from the soggy depths. The bag appeared to move, too, odd jerks. Was it alive, whatever was moving about in the pretty bag? One of the boys rushed forward, eager to find out what was causing the noise and the movement.

‘It’s alive!’ I yelled but all they did was to look at me and laugh.

I was getting desperate now. I leaned over the bin, anxious to pull out Grandma’s pretty bag, but one of the boys lunged towards me, ready to shove me aside.

But I shoved him aside. He tumbled to the ground and prepared to have another go at me, but I hit out at him, hard on his nose, causing it to bleed, great gushes of red blood pouring down his face. I stood there, frightened at what I had done, but unapologetic.

Now I had achieved desperation. I screamed, ‘It’s a bomb!’ and took several paces back.

Two of the boys rushed forward. ‘Nah! It ain't!’ shouted the biggest one and, to prevent further exposure of whatever was now emitting smoke from his fingers, chucked it in the bin with the bag.

I ran. An almighty flash, and a boom followed. I fell over.

By the time I’d picked myself up and was on my shaking legs, the boys had disappeared and a plume of smoke billowed from the bin.

Walking at an innocent speed, in case someone came to investigate, I returned home to hide in my bedroom for the rest of the evening.

A month later, my poor Gran died never knowing what caused the boom in the Park that day. Neither did I. At least, not until I was much older and wiser.

Oh, and Gran bought another pretty bag and left it, with a note, for me.

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

Magenta Wise is this week's guest writer. She's kindly given us permission to use this powerful poem. Here's what she told us about it: 'This poem came about when I was writing a book of short stories, one of which is called I’m Invisible. It’s about a woman who, throughout her life, was never noticed because she was not attractive, yet she had a great talent. This, of course, is one of the ways the patriarchy treats women: we are judged by our sexual attractiveness to men, but oppressed and blocked from reaching our true individual greatness. Once we "lose our looks" we are disregarded, by men who no longer desire us, and even by younger women who no longer see us as a threat. When women do create great things, their achievements have frequently been stolen by men or ignored altogether. This theme led me to express these thoughts in a poem about the invisibilities of women in society. I have read it out at poetry gatherings, and it’s amazing how many women say they’ve heard it before, even though they haven’t. “That’s about me, it’s my story,” they say. It could resonate as almost every woman’s story, I think. It’s time we rose up: the world needs the input of women if we are to create a fairer and happier society, based on cooperation rather than competition. We are needed now more than ever. It’s time to shout our truths, to show who we are, to come together and sing our soul songs, that they may they be heard, that they may heal, that we may be seen and no longer be invisible.'

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

You might catch glimpses of her peeping

through art galleries, creeping behind

the crowd of artworks done by men. Then

here and there you can catch sight of her,

the light of her, until she sinks once more

into token representations. Her creations

in the past may last, but she herself has

tarnished, vanished behind many

a man’s signature.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Have you heard her music, composed,

transposed, morose now, played by a

man’s name, the notes of her being drowned

by a cacophony of false identities,

enemies singing from oppression’s

song sheet.  Her Siren’s wail, her chants,

her symphonies of meaning lying forgotten

under the famous. She chants her mysteries

to ears deafened by explosions of war

and pain and anger.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Have you read her wise words, she of the first

autobiography, the first novel, now a fossil,

dreaming lots and scheming, her plots, her poetry

ancient, silently recited in the desolation of

stone circles, languishing in the dust, no longer

published, her stories, her nouns and verbs,

Her literature bound in a ligature of the choked,

yet still reciting her tales, biting through the gag.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Open a newspaper, is she in there? Very little

but a report of her murder, plunder or rape.

Oh wait, there she is, decoration, naked  breasts

displayed for his pleasure, to enjoy at his leisure,

boobs and a hand or string over her pubes,

pictured next to fully clad men doing important

things like running the world, shunning the world,

conning the world. Cunning clay kings.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

You’ll see bits of her from scaffolding, building sites,

cat calls from ugly dogs, what a sight, whoa, great tits,

look at that arse, don’t pass, I could give her one,

hey beautiful look at me, fuck you then you whore,

you slag.  She walks in space men call their own,

turns her face, not safe, no place for her, so smile,

it may never happen, it has just happened, it happens

everyday in fearful ways. The night is dangerous,

don’t walk alone, stay at home.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Rape culture, victim blaming, slut shaming, wearing

the wrong clothes, drunk, teasing, not pleasing when

she says no, short skirts, long skirts, trousers, burkas,

dresses, medical dressings, children, old women,

sinning for being female, not about sex, it’s power over.

Even when sober she is accused, responsible for the

aggressor’s pride, she tries to hide as they hide

behind lies and mad eyes that see an object

and fail to respect her.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

We spot a sprinkling of her in parliaments,

But she may not last long, her hair will be wrong,

Her dress sense called into question, a session

devoted to her shoes and the pitch of her voice.

Assassinations of character or shot by bullets,

She is little seen in politics although recently,

increasingly she stands, so catch her while you can,

promote her, vote for her, remember suffrage.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

She’ll keep running and jumping and throwing

and be the best in the world and enjoy temporary

praise, and they raise her, cheer and count

her medals but it’s clear they don’t count

her opinions, rape-threatened for speaking

against sadists, told to shut her mouth or else.

Otherwise she goes unsportily unreported

on the sports pages, paid little, no interest,

it’s only women after all, chasing a ball,

no one cares.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Where is her credit, due for her brilliant inventions,

in your computer right now, the intentions to steal

her work, in the sciences, in medicine, engineering

and design, disappearing, in psychology, in every field

plus cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing,

childbearing, caring, a servant and a grow bag,

always working, earning less, cracked red hands,

no equality, her human rights neglected,

but bright, young and blonde on television.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

She is cloaked in age, grey and lined,

maligned, ignored and bored with ignorance,

wrinkles of wisdom of no seeming worth on earth,

no longer ripe for sex or breeding, too tired

to be a housework prostitute, a good-for-nothing

hag. Her years of experience pouring into

incontinence, shrivelled and fading,

a walking corpse, courage in her bent spine,

despair in her heart.

 

Have you seen the Invisible Woman?

 

Amidst the carnage, bandaged as she is,

eyes blood red, masked behind blue, purple,

black bruises, limping and weeping, I seek her,

bid her come forward, onward, to wear her

bright colours and be seen, to sing her music,

loud, proud, insistent, making its way into

closed ears, to push her way, be visible,

let her views be news, let her run swiftly

round the arena, waving her victories aloft,

reclaiming her activity, her creativity.

 

How much we owe to her yet do not know her.

I see her, I’d free her, I recognise her achievements

and bow to her, adore her, beg for more from her,

and tell her how very much she is needed with all her

findings, to remove her bindings and cast them windward,

to rise in all her glory to scream her story.

She has always been here, near, creating, waking,

making, aching, baking, quaking, shaking,

but not breaking.

 

Now do you see the Invisible Woman?

Biographical Note
Magenta lives near Brighton, England and has had several careers and interests, including psychic skills, teaching healing, Tarot reading and related subjects. She has been a web designer, video producer and active in the performing arts with One-Woman shows. She has published three books, one of short stories, one of poems and one on evolving human consciousness. She is also an artist, committed vegetarian, ecologist and Feminist.

Website www.magentawise.com

Books: Short Stories, ‘Kill and Cure’

Poems: ‘Messages are Dancing in the Rain' mybook.to/MessagesareDancingintheRain

‘Live From Your Centre’ - mybook.to/LiveFromYourCentre

A Murder Mystery with Magickal undertones

'I wrote The Compact intending to depict a sort of autumnal romance between two older women of the 1890s, whose early love had been cut off by marriage. Of course, the process of writing a story throws up all sorts of characters, and I soon found that my ladies were dealing with a bit of an uncontrollable psycho in the form of Minerva Atwell - who turned up out of the blue. Then a very young Aleister Crowley came along; and my background research uncovered his intense affaire de coeur with Jerome Pollitt, a splendidly eccentric amateur female impersonator, who was also a patron of Aubrey Beardsley. The next thing I knew was that Dr Watson (temporarily separated from Sherlock Holmes) involved himself in the plot -  and the whole thing became a murder mystery with Magickal undertones. It was a lot of fun to write, so I do hope you enjoy this short extract. The story opens as Alexandra Roberts, an artist with a somewhat bohemian household, has fallen under the influence of the powerful, charming Minerva Atwell. Harriet Day, her friend, a quiet piano teacher, has meanwhile become fond of Alex’s newest lodger, the forgetful, mediumistic young actor George, protégé of Valentine Cabot, a theatrical manager. Valentine’s search for financial backers brings him into contact with the young Aleister Crowley, his lover the Aesthete Jerome Pollitt – and a lonely Dr Watson, taking on a little investigation of his own in the absence of Sherlock Holmes. Things quickly take a grim turn as an unexpected death, a rabidly homophobic enemy and the unhealthy influence of Minerva Atwell whirl all the characters into a darkening spiral.'

Charlie Raven

 

A few days later, George Arden had a free morning and decided to call on his friend Harriet Day. He found her sorting out letters and photographs. A drawer from her desk had been removed and the contents had been divided up and piled on the floor. She seemed pleased to see him and stopped her work immediately.  

“You see, Mr Arden, I am taking your advice a step further. Not just the spare bedroom but all the nooks and crannies of the house. I’m going to go through each one and discard any old sad unnecessary remnants. It’s all going. I’ve sent Peter’s old clothes to the poor and his toys to the hospital. I have to confess I rid myself of my husband’s clothes long ago. And I shall have more plants and flowers growing absolutely everywhere, as long as I can remember to water them. A jungle of them!” 

“How interesting,” said George. “I would never have thought of doing that.” 

“But this is a direct result of your intervention,” said Harriet with a quizzical look at him. 

“Ah, good,” George nodded. “This is so nice, though isn’t it? Sitting here like this. I like your house now. It’s a lot more peaceful.” He looked round the room as they talked. The pale-blue papered walls were hung with a variety of pictures, large and small. In quite a few he thought he recognised the fluid, confident brushwork of Harriet’s friend. “Surely some of these are by Mrs Roberts?” he asked, peering intently at a little picture not far from where he sat. 

It was of a young lady in a bonnet and white dress, looking back over her shoulder. She was standing at the end of a jetty; and there was an opal sea-light behind her. Wind was tugging at a deep-blue ribbon and the painter had made the shine on the silk the same  colour as the young lady’s eyes. 

“And this is you yourself, isn’t it?” he said, glancing across at Harriet to check her eyes. 

“Yes, it is,” said Harriet shortly. “By the sea at Ramsgate. Mrs Roberts was a keen artist, then as now. Not Roberts then, of course. She was a Silver.” 

George stood up to look more closely at the picture. Then he reached out a finger and, touching the silver of the frame, said, “Your life is full of secret signs. Clever of you,” 

Harriet made no comment and turned the conversation to how his work was going. 

“It’s going well, thank you,” he answered slowly, pushing the dark hair back from his forehead. “Quite hard, currently. I am helping almost every day from twelve o’clock at the Parnassus, moving things and running to and fro; and then performing, afternoon and evening and getting home at one or two in the morning. Valentine says this is a good thing for us. The moving things behind the scenes is dusty and cobwebby.” He sighed. “But today I’m free, no work at all. Valentine has something planned. He keeps saying there is a great opportunity coming for us, a play which will be famous in the West End. We’re having a meeting tonight at Dame Fortune’s with some rich gentlemen.” 

“That is simply wonderful!” exclaimed Harriet with enthusiasm. “What is the play?” 

“He’s very secretive about it,” said George. “Between you and me, Mrs Day, I think he hasn’t really written it yet. He’s got his shoebox of scripts out and he’s shuffling the papers to and fro and combining them in different sequences, but mostly he just goes out lunching and dining. He says this is because there is a particular set of people who will pay good money to help us put on a play and he has to make them interested. It costs a lot of money to make them invest, so that’s what has to happen.” 

“Oh, I see. So, the idea is still only an idea? Well, mighty oaks, you know, Mr Arden!” 

“Oaks?” 

“From little acorns grow. Big things come from small beginnings.” 

“Yes, yes, I see.” George nodded seriously again. “And you are well, and Mrs Skipton?” 

“Mrs Skipton is very well indeed. She speaks of you often, as a matter of fact. You must have been especially kind to her because she seems to think you are rather a paragon of Christian virtue. As for myself, well, as you see, keeping busy. I have my students.” 

“I rather hoped I would see you at Mrs Roberts’s one day,” said George. 

“Oh, yes, I’ll be coming over soon, you’ll see. Mrs Roberts is a busy person, a busy woman of business.” 

“I’m sorry,” said George. 

“Why sorry, Mr Arden?All is well, all is as it should be. Rather like your Valentine Cabot, she too has to pursue her patrons. Commissions don’t fall from trees.” 

“Not even oak trees,” added George. There was along silence and he continued to regard her sympathetically. 

“Well, there’s no point preetending to you, I can see that,” said Harriet. “I think you and I are friends, aren’t we? Even though you’re so young and I’m so old, and you’re male and I’m female, you’re a foreigner and I’m an Englishwoman. And I don’t know, there are so many other reasons why we should not be allowed to be friends, in the normal course of events.” 

“I can’t think of any reasons,” said George. “And you’re not old and I’m not young.” 

“Very well,” went on Harriet, “I’m going to tell you something which I hope you will keep to yourself. Can you do that?” 

“Like the Sphinx,” said George. 

Harriet, looking at his face with its pale olive skin and luminous dark eyes, said, “The Sphinx, yes, perfect. As silent as the Sphinx then. Well, then, Mrs Roberts seems to be very much taken up with a certain patroness of hers, a certain very rich, very beautiful, but rather young woman. And it is making me feel – not happy. I’m worried about her, truth be told. I can’t say a word about it, of course, any more than you can object to your Valentine’s pursuing all his rich patrons.” 

“He’s not my Valentine,” put in George very calmly. “He’s tiring. It’s tiring being with him. But point taken.” 

Harriet paused at these words, but being in full flow on the subject of Alexandra, she continued, “And she has changed remarkably over these past two weeks. I think she gets anxious about what this woman will think of her, or say to her, or suggest next. The first warning sign was a sudden illness which made her cancel an engagement between us – not Mrs Roberts being ill, you understand, Mr Arden, but a fake illness the woman had concocted to steal Alexandra’s day from her. Alex told me of it when we met afterwards and the thing which struck me as odd, and very unlike herself, was that she thought it was funny. An endearing, funny little trick like a kitten tangling one’s wool. And then she seems to have engrossed her attention every day, day after day. 

“Then there was an afternoon last week when she, Mrs Roberts, turned up here out of the blue and was in distress because the woman had taken something she said amiss. It turned into a most terrible argument, apparently, and the woman had stormed off and threatened to – well, this really has to be a secret, Mr Arden – she threatened to harm herself in some unspecified way. Of course, she did no such thing. But the upshot was that Alexandra Roberts, an independent, dignified and experienced woman, was hammering at this other woman’s door in a panic. 

“Well, that is such girlish nonsense for one thing, and for another, it is most upsetting. And then there was some kind of exchange of expensive gifts to make up for all the boiling panic. I don’t know! How can she have the money to spend on expensive gifts? I know she has not! And I’m sure I don’t know the half of it because when I made some slight disapproving noises – really the very slightest and most discreet – Alex flew into a rage with me. We haven’t spoken since. And I do know this: some people are accustomed to causing chaos and drama wherever they go and it’s a way of controlling everybody around them. Best avoided, best avoided if possible!” 

George listened silently to this uncharacteristically vehement speech, nodding from time to time. “And what will you do?” he asked when she had fallen silent. 

“What can I do? If I say something to criticise this woman, it will simply harden Alexandra’s resolve to stick with her. She has got it into her head that she has a tragic history and this is why she is so lonely and desperate, and she needs a mentor. But I think this is how Alex makes herself feel equal to her, because the lady is wealthy and so on and so forth, as I have said. It’s a tiresome muddle. And they’ll travel together and see mountains and deserts and treasures and I don’t know what else. And it will look as if I’m jealous and unkind if I say a word of criticism. Do you see?” 

“It’s very painful,” said George. 

“Yes, it is. That is exactly the word. And I told you before all about our long, long friendship. I would have thought that counted for something, but it seems not.”

They both sat staring into the fire. Finally George said questioningly, “I think it might be the lady with knife?” 

“Lady with the knife? No, no. It’s a lady with face cream and powder puffs, that’s all. It’s very good, the powder puff. I know because Mrs Roberts was so very kind as to bestow a Beauty Balm Compact upon me, gratis. Very thoughtful of her. Wasn’t it.” 

George regarded her with his head tilted very slightly to one side and she immediately added, “Yes, I know. Bitter. I won’t be bitter, not for long. I’ll throw it all out. That’s what I was doing. All her letters. I’m putting them in the kitchen fire.” Harriet felt her eyes prickle with tears. She stood up hastily. “And so I must get on, dear Mr Arden. I have a student coming in – oh – twenty minutes, it seems. Come and see me again soon, won’t you? And good luck with your meeting tonight. I hope your rich gentlemen help you and Valentine.” 

George looked thoughtfully at her for a moment and said, “I think the next time I see you – it will be very dark.” 

“How very mysterious,” Harriet said with a smile. Silly thing, she thought fondly as she watched him through the window, wallking away down the street.