Science & Magic | 34
Five Minutes Out
Running bore alert. If you’d rather not spend the next few minutes with a man explaining his streak, skip ahead. Nobody else in this issue mentions their split times.
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with running for 25 years. At school I was crap at it. I’m six foot five, and runners are built like whippets, all neat and folded and economical. I’m built like a stepladder that’s been asked to hurry and I’ve spent most of my adult life distrusting anyone who tells me how far they went this morning.
But running definitely gives me something back. “Runner’s high” isn’t a myth put about by people in bad compression socks, it actually happens. I’m never surprised when ex-addicts and rock stars swap whatever was killing them for a pair of trainers because the return is much the same. What probably changes is the order with the pain coming first and the pleasure after.
Right now I run every day. Yes, every day. I only have one rule: trainers on, five minutes out, five minutes back. If I get to the five-minute mark and fancy more, I do more. If I don’t, I turn round, I’m home ten minutes after I left and the day counts as done. As I write this, the current streak is past 160 days and I rarely turn back at 5 mins.
I half-nicked the rule idea from Casey Neistat (I know, but I love New York City) and a YouTube video called ‘720 Days No Exceptions’. What I think the video articulated so well is that all the good comes from what the rule takes away completely. Every day means there’s never conversation in my head any more about whether I’m going today, or how far, or whether yesterday earned me a day off, or whether tomorrow might suit better. That whole committee has been stood down and sent home. I put the trainers on and go. Every day. No discussion.
Which, now I think about it, is exactly how this newsletter works too. Every fortnight a group of people sit down and write about a thing they love or inspires them. Nobody ever convenes a meeting about whether they feel like it. And then a few thousand of you read it, some of you write back. And a fortnight later it happens again.
The preparation is the five minutes out and some weeks it’s uphill both ways. And then it goes out, you read it and tell us what you made of it, and that’s the five minutes back. I’ve yet to find a better reason to turn up.
Issue 34. Trainers on.
Matt
i
Ten Questions
In Issue 11 we asked the TUC’s General Secretary Paul Nowak which Liverpool band deserved to be huge and wasn’t. He picked Ian Prowse. He said it didn’t matter whether Ian was playing a one-man acoustic gig or fronting a fourteen-piece band at the O2 Academy because he gives everything every single time he plays. Anybody who’s seen him knows that’s an understatement.
Ian started out with Pele in 1991. They signed to Polydor and had a number one in South Africa with ‘Megalomania’. He formed Amsterdam in 1999 and in 2005 ‘Does This Train Stop On Merseyside?’ had John Peel in tears on air before Christy Moore took it to number one in the Irish album charts. He’s opened for Elvis Costello on his last three UK tours. His twelfth album No Names came out on 3 July on Learpholl Music with Costello, Damien Dempsey and Steve Wickham of The Waterboys on it. With Mick Ord he also hosts the podcast Misadventures in Music.
We asked Ian to pick ten questions from our archive. He told us to put the answers in any order we liked and so we kept them in the order he sent them.
If you could time-travel to witness one musical moment in history, when and where would you go?
The Clash at Bonds nightclub on Times Square in New York City. 1981.
There had never been anyone like The Clash. A band which put its punk manifesto front and centre of its entire existence, at least as important as the music, probably more.
5 years in and they stood at the height of their powers about to blow up big time in the USA. Any band member will tell you that it’s the feeling just before something happens that is the most enjoyable, when the air crackles with the possibility of how good you are and how good you are going to be.
About to release their 4th album Sandinista!, The Clash were fucking cool. They were onto the new street sound of hip-hop before anyone. On the legendary London Calling LP they’d opened themselves up to Motown, Jazz, Rock & Roll, Ska, Reggae, they were on creative fire.
When someone writes the great thesis of The Clash V The Jam, Mick Jones and the Clash’s internationalism will stand them in great stead to take that particular crown.
The Bonds night club shows unintentionally brought all the groups myths & strengths together.
The promoter significantly oversold the shows which led to the NY authorities closing down the entire 7-day stand. Cue riots on Times Square, mounted horseback charges, chaos, legal threats, sensational TV news.
The champions of the underdog, the greatest antiestablishment most idealistic rock and roll group of all-time responded by honouring every single ticket sold and added another 10 shows so no one missed out. At significant cost to themselves.
The Clash took New York City.
What album cover has had the most profound impact on you - either as art in its own right or as a gateway to the music within?
The brother of Melanie Roberts, my first serious girlfriend, had the best record collection of anyone I’d ever met. Sprawling and eclectic. If the NME/John Peel had written positively about it in the 70s or 80s, he had it.
When Martin was at work I’d go in there and just gawp at its magnificence. One morning I pulled out an album whose cover stopped me in my tracks. It was more like something that should be hanging in the Walker Art Gallery. It made me feel funny.
I immediately played the music held within. That was strange to my ear too. Not like anything I’d ever heard before, all atmosphere, mood and feeling, exactly like the cover. You wouldn’t even call them normal songs. They were like soundscapes.
By the 2nd time I’d played ‘Over The Wall’ I felt it was the greatest piece of music to ever come out of Liverpool, I still do.
The album of course is Heaven Up Here by Echo & The Bunnymen.
What's the best gig you've ever been to?
The entire thing was an assault upon the emotions from the second we arrived in Milano, this was his last show of the tour after all.
Meeting other Springsteen obsessives during the day we’d sat in a bar pondering which song you wanted to hear the most at the San Siro stadium that evening.
Mine was an early 1973 barnstormer, ‘Rosalita’. The experts amongst us confirmed that was highly unlikely; he hadn’t played it in Europe for over 20 years and rarely played it in the States either.
For some reason I’d found myself on the guest list for the show, so we decided to get to the stadium early in case that was too good to be true.
Surprisingly the stadium was full a good 3 hours before show time, and they were all singing.
Huge banners unfurled across the upper stands, the stadium so vast you had to peer through the mist to see them.
‘Thank you Adele’ (Springsteen’s mum’s name, she was Italian).
‘Our Love Will Not Let You Down’.
‘This Land is Your Land’
As show time approached the Italians had worked themselves up into a wild fever, the lights went down and 80,000 twinkling tiny lights appeared all over the San Siro. They must have handed them out upon entrance but because we went in the side entrance on the gezzy we didn’t get given one. It was an astonishing moment of blindsiding beauty.
‘Jill’s Theme’ from Once Upon a Time in the West began playing; I was already in a lot of trouble at this point.
Being in any stadium at the start of a Bruce Springsteen show has transcendent power, the band always come out one by one until Bruce appears. If you’re a true believer, which I am, then it’s messianic overtones a go go.
Here in Milan was like that but on crack, by the time he surged into ‘The Promised Land’ the 80,000 strong legion were singing the harmonica riff! Then the guitar riffs, then the sax riffs, all note for note. To this day I’ve never heard anything like it.
What really elevated the show out of this realm, and into another, was when an electrical storm hit the stadium about 7 songs in. The rain fell with such intensity it was like standing in the shower. You just had to surrender to it.
The Italians, rather than look for cover in the stands, ran onto the pitch, into it. Like a mass baptism. I’m not faintly religious by the way.
3 hours later after all the big hitters and the mayhem, after all the exhilaration, after all the joy, after every emotion had been wrung out, while Bruce and the E Street Band were taking their bows, he turned to them all, unbelievably he was indicating one, more, song.
Rosalita.
My knees actually went at the opening chords. I’ve only ever levitated twice, once inside Goodison Park when Tranmere put the 3rd goal in to win a 4th round FA Cup match, and at this moment inside the San Siro Stadium.
I don’t know why, but I swore to myself in that instant that if I ever had a daughter, that would be her name.
Rosalita Prowse was born in Liverpool Women’s Hospital at 8.20 pm on November 13th 2011.
What artist do you think is criminally underappreciated?
Mick Jones. Much of the glory surrounding The Clash is centred on Joe Strummer, the great communicator, our leader, the one who understood. There are countless quotes by Joe which you could base your own personal moral code and life outlook on.
‘Do I have a message? Yeah, don’t forget you are alive’. Sounds simple but it’s not, it’s profound.
Listen to the records and it’s Joe’s off the cuff shouts which often steal the show.
‘Elevator goin’ up’.
‘Sing Michael sing!’
‘Bongo jazz a speciality’
But actually, it’s all going nowhere fast without Mick, and that isn’t said often enough.
Jonesy wrote all the music; he organized things in the studio, did the overdubs, doubled guitar lines, suggested instrumentation. Look at the chords to stone cold Clash classic ‘Spanish Bombs’, no one has ever put those 4 chords in that order, ever.
His lead vocals are all too often overlooked as well. ‘Train in Vain’, ‘Police on My Back’, ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’, ‘Gates of the West’, ‘The Prisoner’, ‘I’m Not Down’. Just brilliant.
Mick led them into hip hop early doors, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is all him.
The chef’s kiss for me though is when it was all over, what did Mick do?
He released ‘E=MC²’ with his brand-new band BAD, easily the best post Clash song by any of ‘em.
And he had one of my CDs in his Rock & Roll library exhibition in Soho, you’ve no idea what a thrill that was.
What song is permanently fused to a specific place or holiday - to the point where hearing it transports you instantly?
‘Barbados’ – Typically Tropical
I was playing crazy golf on my own in Newquay in 1975. My parents were in the hotel, I was 11. The song came on a radio close by as I was busy having a competition with myself (something only children are very adept at).
Stopping to listen and enjoy the nation’s Number 1 song, it must have seared its daft melody into my mind so hard that all these years later I’m transported back to Newquay in an instant upon hearing its cod reggae lilt.
What critically acclaimed or universally loved album do you secretly believe is overrated?
Anything by Queen.
What song feels like it knows something about you that you never told anyone?
When I was 14 a life defining thing happened, one that still often rolls across my mind. I was fortunate enough to be sent to Dallas, Texas for an entire Summer to visit my Uncle Sid & Auntie Julie who’d emigrated there from Ellesmere Port just 12 months before. A very unusual thing to do in the 1970’s.
Strangely, given my age, I travelled all the way there on my own, including a flight change at Heathrow.
Landing in the oppressive evening heat for the next 24 hours I was immersed in a world so profoundly different from the grey, council house, industrial one I’d come from, I thought ‘I can never go back there’. The standard of living was so much higher than what I was used to. Swimming pools, pizza, great shopping malls, Dunkin Donuts, drive throughs, Dr Pepper, Root Beer. It blew my mind.
To ground myself I went with my auntie to a local department store and bought the Beatles Red & Blue LPs, even at 14 I knew they were the biggest things to ever hit western culture AND they were from where I was from.
Being so far from home, I took a source of great pride in that.
It amazed me that I already knew 95% of the songs already, they had already seeped into me (even to this day no one ever mentions ‘Old Brown Shoe’ so god knows how that got on there).
One Texas afternoon (temperature outside 106 Fahrenheit) I was playing the blue album when the tune ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ came on. It wasn’t the song that had me; it was the coda.
Inexplicably the music shifts from triumphant & strident to something that doesn’t even have a description.
It barely lasts more than 20 seconds, but as I stood gawping at the stereogram it felt like a portal was opening, and it seemed to say to me (and still seems to say), we know something, there’s something about all of us, we can’t say right now, but here’s a clue ...
Elvis Costello recently said to me, he’s not of this world.
What album would be most likely to bring you out of a coma?
Automatic for the People – R.E.M.
This is my favourite LP of all time, it’s mostly concerning mortality so my thinking is it might prevent me from passing across to the other side and pull me back.
What's your favourite song from a film soundtrack?
‘Green Onions’ in Quadrophenia.
The scene itself is great, the Ace Face (Sting) is showing off in a nightclub dancing to this classic. ‘Green Onions’ is one of those songs that doesn’t dull with repetition, maybe because it’s a brilliant groove based instrumental. All feeling.
What song would you send into space to represent humanity?
‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’
‘Hello other life forms, you’re probably more advanced than us, but do you care about each other like we do? I doubt it.’
ii
Magnetic North · Thirty-Four
Silence
My mother was the first to wear the christening gown in November 1930, a few weeks after she was born on the 13th of October. The dress is fragile, almost as delicate as a spider’s web, almost a hundred years old, its pale spring flowers still in bloom. It was worn by her, by her sister Margaret, by two of Margaret’s sons, by my two sisters, and by me. It seems impossible that it still exists for it’s as delicate as that wasp nest I once held in my hands, scared to breathe as I paid close attention to the nest’s disintegration. If you breathe on the christening gown it moves like a ghost. If you hold it in your hands, it’s like holding an atmosphere or mist or moonlight.
The thought takes me to 1964, to the day of my sister Kathryn’s christening at St Luke’s church on Goodison Road. I was a 7-year-old boy wearing a cap stuffed with newspaper because it was too big for my head. I remember this but I don’t remember the christening. I remember the quiet walk home to our house on Winslow Street and the front room full of grandparents and aunties. And I remember that feeling I’ve had all my life of being alone in a crowded room, of sitting there in silence, my own silence, and of loving that silence and wanting to remain there. And I have the sense that somehow the christening gown is possessed of that memory, of the silence of remembering.
I am increasingly drawn to the delicate, the quiet, the still, the fragile, the silence, (the not-quite-silence), the in between, the underneath, the pollen, the moth dust, the raindrop, the mist, the pause, the word itself – silence. I sense these things – these atmospheres - in the christening gown, sense the trace elements, the memory of her, of the mother long gone but somehow still here in the fragility and elegance of the gown.
A few days from now it’s her birthday. She would have been 96. The christening gown is hanging in the wardrobe almost 96 years since she wore it. It is possessed of her singing and her laughter. I am holding memory, mist and moonlight. And after her laughter fades away the silence of remembering fills the room.
— Jeff Young, 7 October 2026
—
Jeff Young stores silence in jam jars on the top shelf of the larder. The Winslow Street jar is the heaviest. At four in the morning he can hear the difference between moth dust and pollen landing on a windowsill. He believes moonlight is a fabric and that someone in Walton still knows how to stitch it. On the thirteenth of October he leaves the wardrobe door open a crack so the room can hear whatever is singing in there.
New from Jeff Young
Latchkey
Jeff’s novella goes back to 1980s Liverpool and a squat shared by two would-be poets. The narrator’s girlfriend has just walked out on him. Sacred Parasite call it an account of Jeff’s former life as ‘a hapless and yet lyrical delinquent’ and anyone who reads Magnetic North will know the man they mean. It’s an 86-page hardback in a hand-numbered edition of 350 copies at €16 and it came out on 29 September.
iii
The Paphides Principle
Indu
on Greg Freeman
Pete Paphides chooses which festival acts to see by the names he doesn’t recognise. At Green Man he followed that rule to Greg Freeman in the Walled Garden at Saturday teatime. This week he brings us ‘Indu’. Greg wrote it in about twenty minutes while he was trying to shake off flu on tour.
I scrutinise festival line-ups and make a decision on the basis of the names I don’t know. But the names I’m raving about when I return are the ones that meant nothing to me in the minutes before I stumbled upon them. That’s how it’s been with me and Greg Freeman these past few weeks – ever since, in fact, I saw him and his band amping up the Saturday teatime shift in the Walled Garden at Green Man.
“But what was he like?” asked my 23-year-old daughter Eavie, who had been elsewhere on site. And in that moment I felt a bit like Kevin Rowland’s lovestruck protagonist in Dexys’ ‘This Is What She’s Like’, trying to hip Billy Adams to the active ingredients of his fresh fervour. In trying to answer her question, I found buzz-phrases in my glossary that I didn’t even know existed. I muttered something about a home-made jangle-powered sonic boxcar that might just fall to bits before it reaches the end of the track. But that didn’t help much. I mentioned artists she’d never heard (Gigolo Aunts, Matthew Sweet) and artists she had (Weezer, Brendan Benson). However, what ultimately landed was “a skinny-tie version of early Pavement.”
What I actually heard that evening was most of All Set The Bone, Greg’s third album, which finally emerged a couple of weeks ago. I could tell these were songs that had only recently been pulled out of the ground and that this year had been a particularly bumper harvest. Greg had written most of them between leaving Vermont and moving to Chicago. He spent two months alone, isolated in Los Cerrillos, a sleepy New Mexico town between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. This backstory stuck with me because it reminded me of the time Stephen Duffy wrote his 1994 opus Duffy in a similar in-between sabbatical. Sequestered in Alaska, the resulting album by Stephen pushes a lot of the buttons that Freeman songs do on All Set The Bone.
What, you might wonder, does Greg like to sing about?
“I feel like my music is about the sublime,” he recently told Range’s Alexa Margorian. “There’s a lot of music that’s just about the mundane. I fight against that—not that I don’t write about the mundane but I try to write about the big emotions, also. I think we should all be trying to make beautiful poetry and not apathetic slacker whatever.”
That’s not really answering the question, is it? But, in the case of All Set The Bone, that’s not a problem. I actually love Greg’s lyrics. Here’s an extract from ‘Indu’, the song I would like to highlight here. “In the desert of my bed they’re gonna find my bones/And on the dunes of my pillow, a saguaro for a headstone.” Greg wrote the entire song in “a complete fugue state” while attempting to survive a mid-tour flu. And, in the best possible way, you can tell it was written in 20 minutes.
Last week, elsewhere, I wrote about another great song that sounds like it was coughed out. That was Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘Did You Miss Me?’ – and I described it as “the sound of talent outrunning intrusive thoughts in service to the decades of application that led its creator to the spot where it was waiting for him.” Greg has been alive less than half as long as Lindsey, but I note that he’s performing comparable marvels all across All Set The Bone.
I also love the fact that Greg chooses to sing at the top of his range rather than dead in the centre of it. He sounds like he’s straining to escape himself and mute the ceaseless churn of needless distractions. All I can say is that I hope the act of writing these songs is as much help to him as it will be to everyone who hears them.
— Pete Paphides, 8 October 2026
iv
Scéal & Sound
On a drizzly evening in June last year La Violette Società played one night in Leamington Spa. Jasmine Nahal bought a ticket off Instagram and came on her own. On Tuesday 3 November Scéal & Sound puts on its first night in the same town and Jas is behind it.
Jas wrote about that June night for Issue 14. She wrote down what she’d worn (a black satin skirt, a corduroy jacket and brown Solovair boots) and that she’d come alone but never felt lonely. She finished by promising to say yes to everything she could. Seventeen months later she’s booking the acts herself.
Scéal is Irish for story. The rules will be familiar to anyone who came to the Società: four acts with equal stage time, no headliner, suspended tickets for anyone who needs one and no fees taken off the door so every penny of it goes to the artists. The Scéal & Sound website says the night was inspired by La Violette Società’s ‘quiet revolution’.
I didn’t expect that line to get to me, but it did. We ran the Società for ten years and closed it in April. When Brendan Fenerty took it to Leamington he kept asking whether any of it could travel. Jas has answered him.
Session One is at The Duke on Tuesday 3 November. Yesterday’s Flowers come up from Folkestone with the early-sixties California sound they’ve been working on since their first singles in 2023. They’ve played the Società in Liverpool too. Zoë Alexandra sings indie folk and soul from the keys or the guitar. Headwired are a four-piece from the Black Country in the line of Oasis and The Stone Roses. Roy closes the night. He was on the bill that June evening and Jas wrote at the time that he’d disarmed everyone there.
Plenty of people say there ought to be a night like this. Jas has booked the room and the acts and put her name to it. I couldn’t be prouder. Go on your own if need be. She did and look what came of it.
v
New Single Out Today
Hallelujah Trial
vi
Part 1
What Remains
Amy Collins wrote the whole of her summer holiday into a notebook by hand: ten days on her own through London, Cornwall and Devon. The last stop was a mindful canoeing retreat at Sharpham on the River Dart. Phones go in a lockbox there, so she decided to start rationing hers from the moment she left Lime Street. She’s typed the notebook up and cut it into six parts. We’re running one in every issue from this one to Issue 39.
We took Violette off social media in 2025 and started this newsletter the following week, then put Science and Magic on Instagram in September, so we’re in no position to judge the woman on the Avanti to Euston who spends Lime Street to Crewe trying to get one post up.
Straight to the second page of my new notebook and look (swaps from blue biro to black), I was right to be intimidated. I’ve made a mess already. I picked the prettiest pen in the box, and it let me down at the first hurdle.
I’m writing from an Avanti train bound for Euston. It took me all the way from Lime St to Crewe to do one Instagram post because the internet is patchy. I couldn’t tag the people I wanted to tag, then I couldn’t load the music I wanted to play only for my followers to decide how cool I am or think I’m a right show off. That’s the game we play there though, isn’t it? Straddling the line between irritatingly bragging and well-meaning promotion of a life being lived.
The thing about social media is that intention is irrelevant. People will receive what they want. It’s subjective. I can’t control what anyone else thinks, but I do want to examine my own compulsion to record and share my life. Maybe this trip will help me understand it.
The final part of my 10-day solo jaunt will be a mindful canoeing retreat at Sharpham Estate in Devon. They sent me a welcome pack and phone use is discouraged during my stay.
WHAT?!
You mean no photos of my legs stretched out in a canoe with the River Dart in shot? No cheeky heron in the distance? They have a lockbox for phones.
I got a sweat on when I realised I wouldn’t be recording and sharing my retreat. The addict in me wants to capture everything. It wants to make hiking maps of Cornwall and Devon on my Fitbit. It wants to catalogue birdsong with the Merlin app and review every café I visit. But to what ends?
I’ve just whizzed past a poppy field and resisted the urge to record it. Then I had to resist checking where we were on the map so I could include it in these notes. It’s relentless.
I took the retreat as a challenge to shape the first part of my trip differently too. To be more mindful about using my phone in general. I’m already talking myself into succumbing because:
- I’m on my own and won’t be able to relive memories with a travel companion.
- My memory is terrible and I’m worried I’ll lose the experience completely.
- I’d like to inspire people not to wait for someone else before taking a trip. Go alone!
There’s ego in all of it.
What about the experience lost to recording everything with tech? I want this trip to explore what’s possible in presence. Can I move beyond the urge?
So I’ll try to record and reflect in analogue ways. This notebook can house my travelogue, sketches, prints and whatever else. Even then, I’ll only record if it doesn’t sabotage the moment.
Urgh. This already feels indulgent. Perhaps that’s the point.
There is a tiny delay between the speakers in carriage D. When the woman comes over the tannoy, it sounds like a spaceship talking to its crew.
I’ve seen horses, ponds thick with lily pads and a big brutalist-looking works of some sort pass by the window. I’m wondering whether I’ll stop experiencing things in terms of what I’d like to photograph. Whether I’ll simply be able to enjoy them.
I saw a woman in a striped shirt crossing a meadow behind three caramel coloured dogs, breed unknown. The tractor trails through the crops are strangely pleasing.
I’m trying to write without being self-conscious. Without Grammarly aiding my punctuation. Without looking up synonyms. Writing for the sake of it rather than for an imagined audience or a future publication.
Even as an analogue recorder, there’s a danger of missing now.
I realised that at Aldgate East when I tried to fix the custard-coloured tiles in my mind but worried I’d push out the accordion carriage connector, the woman carrying a tropical plant, or the single daisy left on a seat.
There are a lot of Arsenal fans on this train. I think they’ve won something.
I saw some graffiti earlier. Block capitals: NIGHT ON MY MIND
I’m going to ponder that for a minute.
Who knows what happened between custard and my digs. So I’ll readjust. I should attempt NOT to hold on to images. Simply see what survives by the time I get a chance to write it down.
—
Amy Collins has a small grey pocket inside her warmest coat where she keeps remnants of every flaking window sill she hasn’t photographed since Lime Street and it’s nearly full. Her phone sleeps in a biscuit tin in an airing cupboard and she is fairly sure it dreams about herons. Anything custard-coloured goes straight onto the shelf marked Aldgate East. Martha sits on whatever she writes and he considers it co-authorship. The good pen lives in the bread bin. The black biro lives in her coat. Night is on her mind.
vii
Sorry Sir, Testicles Are Off The Menu Today
I went to Chile in 2008, on an instructive wine tasting tour. Well, sometimes you’ve just got to get out of the house for a while. While I was looking for my contact in Santiago airport, a lady struck up a conversation with me. We talked about work, although her profession seemed uncertain. The rep appeared and dragged me away to a minibus, while suggesting that my new friend’s profession was in fact very certain. We drove into Santiago on a motorway that looked like the M53, getting stuck in a tunnel and all. Sex workers? Birkenhead? Queensway? Already? What hellish miasma had followed me here, and will there be more of it? Was I going to get hauled in by the Carabineros for bringing their capital into immediate psychic disrepute?
But things improved. We were taken to a posh hotel and given plush rooms for the next two nights. We enjoyed said rooms for about half an hour before going out on a breakfast quest. Well, food quest. We could probably have found breakfast in the hotel, but you’ve always got to explore. And then the lengthy drive to Errázuriz, a winery respected for its estate wines. But they weren’t going to bother making us taste those. We tried the high-end ones. Fourteen of them. And then to dinner, although it was becoming difficult to believe this was still the same day as we’d arrived in the airport, and I’d been accosted by a lady of the night. Or of the afternoon. The time was filling itself up quite nicely.
8.00 a.m., up and refreshed in time for a bus tour through grinding poverty, single-floor shacks, ramshackle garages and general totems of hardship. And a winery, eventually. Childish distraction was offered as we passed shops with names like “Craps” and “Niples.” I wondered what they might make of Borland’s Darts and Television shop in Edinburgh…
It was a relief to reach the winery and find its picturesque grounds teeming with scampering rabbits and squawking parrots. Our host asked us what we thought of wine writer Olly Smith, whose recent visit to Chile seemed to have fixed his place in the South American wine firmament. I felt duty bound to mention Olly’s bizarre and embarrassing attempt to fondle Anne Robinson’s breasts on The Weakest Link. Our host had never seen The Weakest Link before, alas, and thought it was a wine programme.
And on again, on again, to Amayna, to gaze upon its dazzling modernity. It was a wonder, but part of me thought of Grand Designs, where a couple with just half a million quid to spare manage to convert an attractive church building into something that looks like Garston Leisure Centre. There were only four wines in the range, all of them glorious, and we tasted them in a big glass box of a tasting room beset with piss flies. A lunch of conger eel and oaked Sauvignon Blanc was served in a separate house on the grounds, the better to appreciate our hosts’ exquisitely congenial hospitality. And onwards again, replete with wine and eels and warmth, to be plonked into what was basically an outbuilding set in the middle of numerous hectares, the fabulously understated Viña Leyda. It was so resonantly silent that you could have slept alone on the floor and felt warmed and protected by imagined canticles of ecstasy. Was this really the same day that had started with Craps and Niples? Eleven beautiful wines, bringing the total for the day to Loads and making me very glad that I was a spitter. Then a white-knuckle ride to a meat restaurant, a wall of death back to the hotel, and a half hour in vain pursuit of a bar. Maybe we just weren’t looking properly. To bed, at last, and awoken at four by a text message from the kids’ school saying they had a vacancy for a dinner lady. The sun was up and I was alive, so I went for a walk by myself…
The hotel was quiet, but the road outside had a crackle about it. I turned right, because that was where I could smell the energy, and walked a mile or so looking for a turnoff. Found one. Walked another mile or so and started seeing life-support prefab housing that reminded me of 70s Dingle. Workers shifty-eyed past me on squeaky bikes that sounded like an Evan Parker album. Mmm, a nice hotel, a good breakfast and an Evan Parker LP, sounds blissful! So what the fuck was I doing here, where nobody could hear me scream? And where have all these mangy dogs come from? Turn round quietly, say nothing, don’t even look backwards to see if they’re far away, just move…
I’d left alone, I returned alone. Breakfast wasn’t even served yet. Nobody else was up. The llamas behind the hotel simply looked on noncommittally, as if they could see the rest of the day and wanted nothing to do with it. Ah well, things had been peculiar enough so far, a bunch of Billy Pilgrim llamas weren’t going to make much of a difference. Maybe they could see the day’s three wineries and barrel rooms beginning to blur into each other, or the lunch up a hill where the view was magnificent and the table was plagued by lizards. Perhaps they already knew about the hotel maid checking I was all right when she heard me singing along to Frankie Valli, or they could foretell my disappointment at the restaurant where I was told that “testicles” were off the menu today. But they definitely had an idea that I’d end the day standing alone at the bar of a place called “Thelonious,” listening to a band working its way through ‘Blue Bossa’, while I wrapped myself in the reassuring familiarity of the old warhorse.
And next day, home, a trip of 29 hours from Santiago, one centre of unpredictable energies, back to Lark Lane, where everything’s normal, all the time. A beer or two in Madrid Airport:
“So, if we’re here, and it’s two hours ahead of Britain, but we’ve come here from a time zone that’s different by God knows how many hours, what time do our families think it is?”
“Erm, half past eight in the morning.”
“And what time is it in Santiago?”
“Thursday.”
“I think we need another pint, you know…”
—
Michael Stoddart has worn a second watch on his right wrist set to Santiago since 2008 and he checks it before opening anything older than he is. Corks tell him which Thursday a bottle was meant to be drunk on and he’s never once been wrong about a Thursday. He spits everything including tea. Llamas in his view are the only animals who can see the rest of the day coming and he lowers his voice around them out of professional courtesy. On Lark Lane he’s known as the man who’s always two hours ahead of something.
viii
Whatever Comes
—
Donna Enticknap cuts her words out of library-sale paperbacks with a pair of nail scissors she’s owned since 1987 and keeps each one in a jam jar labelled by how far it’s travelled and on the mornings she wakes up an asteroid she eats her breakfast standing at the back door facing west and on the mornings she wakes up a crater she stays in bed until the dust settles and the jars wait on the landing in the order they’ll be needed for a sentence nobody’s told her yet.
ix
Sammi with an i
For a company specialising in marketing, Matrix Digital Comms had done very little to advertise its presence to the people of Kirkhill. Nevertheless, it was becoming one of the biggest employers in the area, having signed a five-year lease on the old council headquarters, tucked away behind the Fitzgerald Health Centre – with which it shared a car park – on Williamson Way. Visitors to the Fitzgerald, if they were lucky enough to find a parking space, had begun to remark upon the young professionals vaping and drinking from huge water bottles outside what were still known as the council offices. Few, however, had thought to wonder what went on inside the building now rebranded, with an oversized rotating metal sign, as HQ.
Amongst the recent additions to the Matrix team was one Samantha Goddard, an arrival from down south who liked to dress smart casual, was not averse to athleisure on Fridays, and for whom colour was a non-negotiable essential. As was secure cycle storage, for which she had lobbied during Any Other Business in her first board meeting as Finance Director. Two months on, the promised storage had not materialised, much to her unvoiced disappointment. She had, as it happened, more pressing matters to attend to, starting with the name plate on her office door. One Monday morning, as she was reviewing her daily to-do list, she paused upon hearing a rat-a-tat-tat on said door. A weathered, friendly face appeared as the door edged open. Harry, the man who fixed everything that was broken, who held copies of all the keys, and who – the FD was not yet amongst the cognoscenti – was known to have better biscuits than those on offer in the break-out areas, nodded in her direction.
‘All done, Ms Goddard. I’ve given it a wipe.’ Harry entered the office, waving a blue microfibre cloth. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘No, that’s great, thanks Harry.’ She watched as he turned to leave. ‘But you can call me…’ She gave up as Harry made his way to his next job, or to one of his biscuits, whistling a tune from his dancing days. Instead, she got out of her chair to inspect Harry’s handiwork.
At the third time of asking, the white-on-black sign on her door read Sammi Goddard, not Samantha or Sammy. Perhaps this would help her new colleagues get the hang of it. To date, they had called her Samantha, Miss Goddard, and rarely – this was at least technically correct – Ms Goddard. A more suspicious person would think it was deliberate. Not Sammi, who had long ago made a conscious effort to give everyone the benefit of the doubt; and to make things easier for the team at Matrix, she pulled a strip of colourful stickers from her stationery drawer and surrounded her new name plaque with … small orange dots. Gold stars would be too much, she had decided. They might suggest a person had a high opinion of themselves. Orange dots, though: who could find anything bad to say about them?
Sammi returned to her desk, leaving the door open. She heard laughter from the finance department break-out area – a small sink, a refrigerator, a cupboard with mugs and plates, chairs and beanbags – and when she raised her head to see what was happening, three backs turned from her gaze, and the laughter ceased. She closed her eyes, lowered her head and whispered I am Sammi with an i, I can do this, I’ve got this between deep, nasal breaths. She let her palms hover over her desk, allowing the fingertips to kiss the veneer, and opened her eyes to focus on the grain.
When she thought about it, things weren’t too bad. After all, she wasn’t the only one going through a tough time. Not long after starting at Matrix, she had noticed that something was bubbling between Charlotte Christie – Accounts Receivable Clerk, young and quiet, always in dark, unusual but stylish clothes – and Ricky Billington – Financial Analyst, five years older than Charlotte, not quiet, dressed like Peaky Blinders. Ricky had a habit of informing anyone within earshot that he was going places. More than once, he had looked towards the glass walls of her office as he’d said this. He went on about networking skills, commercial nous, and emotional intelligence, which he, of course, had in abundance. ‘It’s about identifying the opportunity,’ he liked to say. Charlotte, on the other hand, would not say boo to a goose. She kept her head down, was diligent in her work, and professional in her dealings with customers. Small talk – the office variety – she had yet to master, in Sammi’s presence at least. She had asked her once about her weekend, and Charlotte had replied ‘This and that. A few jobs for Mum,’ and blushed. What to make of this unlikely pairing; and was it not Sammi’s responsibility, as their boss, to look out for one of the parties involved? Matrix had not yet got as far as issuing a company handbook, and besides, the founders were co-habiting and not shy about public displays of affection; but if she could save Charlotte a broken heart, wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?
The first sign she had spotted was one morning when Ricky slowed to trail a finger across Charlotte’s desk, on his way to a meeting with Sammi, for which he was late. Two days later, Charlotte had tried to snag his foot with hers, out of character for someone so timid. He had stumbled, but arrested his fall in such a way that it was impossible not to notice. Even when he tripped, this man needed an audience. That same day, Charlotte followed him into a meeting room which was supposed to be vacant. After that, she favoured him with mugs of coffee, chocolate biscuits, and awkward winks. And then, a few weeks down the line, nothing. Ricky kept his hands in his pocket, passing Charlotte’s desk at speed. For her part, she looked the other way, finding something urgent in an invoice or an error in her spreadsheet. No more coffee and special biscuits. Six weeks later, Charlotte was absent for a fortnight, her doctor’s note citing stress and anxiety. On her return, Sammi invited her into her office.
‘I’m fine now, Ms Goddard. I’m sorry to have been away so long.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay to come back?’
‘Mum said I should get back to work. I don’t want to lose my job.’
Sammi wouldn’t say as much, but Charlotte’s face was as pale as the office walls, and she had lost weight. She watched her that first morning back, running back and forth to the bathroom, holding both hands to her face. None of her colleagues raced after her. Ricky, who had taken to hovering around the workspace of Emily Mitchell, the intern who had been covering for Charlotte, kept to his end of the office, taking the longest route available around Charlotte’s desk when venturing to the other side. By mid-afternoon, Sammi had had enough. She followed Charlotte into the Ladies and waited for Emily Mitchell, of all people, to finish at the mirror and disappear with an enthusiastic grin.
Sammi waited an awkward minute until Charlotte exited the far cubicle and ran for the basin opposite.
‘Charlotte,’ said Sammi, ‘what’s the matter?’
Charlotte leaned forward to splash water on her face. ‘I’m sorry Ms Goddard. It won’t affect my work.’
‘Won’t you call me Sammi?’ She moved forwards to hold Charlotte’s hair away from the water, but the younger woman flinched. ‘Sorry,’ said Sammi. ‘Inappropriate.’ She stepped back, putting space between them. She rubbed her hands on her jeans, felt the heat through the denim.
‘I’ll be fine…Sammi. Please don’t say anything.’
‘To Ricky? Because…’
‘To anyone.’ Charlotte plunged her head into her hands and sobbed. ‘Please just leave me alone.’
Sammi moved to the farthest mirror from Charlotte. She straightened her shirt and patted her hair. ‘Okay,’ she said to the mirror. ‘You know where I am.’ She left the bathroom, returned to her desk, and regulated her breathing. Five minutes elapsed before Charlotte emerged from the corridor to fold herself into her workspace.
That same evening, in her new home on Beatrice Street in neighbouring Mossdale, Sammi separated the crates stacked against the back wall of the garage until she reached one labelled Running Gear. She liberated her Mizunos, a showerproof jacket, a pair of black leggings, and the t-shirt given to her as a finisher of the 2019 Richmond Park half-marathon. As she shook out the leggings, a ball of black Lycra rolled between the wheels of her new bicycle. She raced to retrieve it, her heart thumping, and smoothed it out on the bicycle seat. It was, as she had feared, Andrew’s beanie hat, the one with the hidden pocket in which he had liked to carry a twenty pound note. Running had been their thing more than bars and restaurants, museums and galleries. It had been their thing until the day, twelve months ago, when she had come home and he had not. It was time, Sammi reasoned, to stretch her legs again. Maybe tomorrow, or the weekend.
She sat on her sofa and surveyed her living room. The agent had talked about potential, the good sense of buying the worst house on the best street, but honestly, it wasn’t that bad. ‘You’ll not lose money in Mossdale,’ the agent had said, ‘even this close to Kirkhill.’ Sammi admired the cornices and the ceiling rose. The master bedroom had a rail for hanging pictures, and high skirting boards. Their rental in Wimbledon had been modern, and soulless. No colour, unless off-white counted. The carpets had been grey. No distinction between the kitchen and living area. Andrew said it was better with less walls and doors. Here, Sammi had bought a scrap book and was working on mood pages. What the house needed, she reckoned, was colour to reveal its personality. She’d get to each room in time, and she’d leave the box room to last of all. All of his books, clothes, his watch, his toothbrush – everything he had left behind and that she should have thrown out – she had locked in that suffocating room on the day she moved in. The beanie hat, sitting on the coffee table between her and the TV, was reminder enough.
The evenings were long, and having fashioned herself a new start, Sammi was determined she would not sit around. She had enrolled in Zumba, intermediate Italian, and Mandarin for beginners at the Frank O’Dowd community centre in Kirkhill. There had been an ‘ooh’ when she had introduced herself to the Italian speakers, Mossdale being Kirkhill’s toffee-nosed neighbour. ‘We won’t hold it against you,’ one man had said in English, drawing a Parla italiano, per favore from the tutor. He hadn’t returned to class, but Sammi hadn’t returned to Zumba – too shouty – or Mandarin – where to start? – and was looking elsewhere to fill her evenings. Santorini, a Mossdale restaurant popular with university lecturers, middle-aged professionals, and well-to-do retirees, was advertising a class on Mondays – The Food of Greece – which was tempting. In the end, she came back to running. What a healthy way to explore the area into which she had moved; and if she wanted to meet people – she had to, didn’t she? – there was bound to be a running club. After a week of leaving Charlotte Christie alone except to check her work and once to offer her a protein bar, she spent Saturday mooching around the shops in Mossdale, and bought a jardinière from a vintage shop called Yesterday Today Tomorrow. Saturday evening, she worked her way through a bottle of rosé with bread, olives and cheese. She woke up early on Sunday, brushed her teeth and reached for her running gear. She laced up her shoes, zipped her phone into her jacket, locked the front door, and turned right.
The locals know when you pass from Mossdale to Kirkhill, but for Sammi Goddard, the boundary was and is invisible. Give it time, Sammi, and it will be second nature. On this particular Sunday morning, the streets were quiet and still. She passed a teenager on a bike, wrestling a newspaper from a yellow bag. A few minutes later, she had to jump as she turned a corner into a pile of abandoned e-scooters. A taxi raced past, oblivious to the speed limit. Cold air chilled her lungs, her limbs loosened and warmed, and the feeling of running for no other reason than running brought Sammi some peace. She arrived, by chance, at the wrought iron gates at the southern entrance to Victoria Park. Keeping to the central path, she skirted a lake, said hello to a swan, and sprinted through the northern gates into a street lined with bars and restaurants. She took a breather outside a shop called Vintage Beauty, and ten minutes later, she stopped outside a church to consult her phone for the best route home. She looked up from her screen, her interest piqued by a large notice board in front of a row of granite headstones. The church itself, an impressive sandstone structure, sparkled in the early morning light. Turning to let the sun warm her face, she was overcome by a fit of coughs and sneezes that left her breathless.
‘Can I get you some water?’ A man had appeared, dressed in black except for a pair of white running shoes.
Sammi held up her hand. Her cough subsided, and she straightened to face the stranger. His black hair was peppered with grey, and his beard matched. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, as the cough returned.
‘Come with me,’ he said, taking her elbow with the lightest of touches, and turning towards the church doors.
‘No, I can’t, I mean I don’t…’ said Sammi. Nevertheless, she let him lead her through the doors and into the dark of the church.
‘It wouldn’t be a good look, letting you expire outside the house of God,’ he said. A joke, Sammi thought, following him to another set of doors behind the rear benches.
‘I was opening up when I heard you,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Come through here and sit down.’
She sat at an old wooden table and watched him disappear into yet another room. He returned with a glass beaker and took it to a Belfast sink she hadn’t noticed, letting water run through an ancient tap. Everything was old, but maintained. The prevailing odour of the room was that of polish. Beeswax, perhaps, or run-of-the-mill spray cleaner. Beyond that, Sammi detected the sweet, fusty tang of incense. It was a place out of time.
‘The pipes need replacing,’ said the man, delivering the beaker to Sammi. ‘The water should be fine now.’ He took a seat opposite her and watched her drink.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely, the water.’ It wasn’t, but what can you do?
‘Not a problem. My boss likes me to do as many good deeds as I can.’ He smiled as he said this. Another attempt at humour, Sammi thought.
‘My bosses are okay,’ she said, thinking of the cohabiting couple, ‘but my team…sometimes I think I’m invisible.’ Where had that come from?
‘We might have that in common,’ he replied. ‘People tend to give me a wide berth, especially when I’m in uniform.’
‘Uniform?’
He dug a hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out a white, plastic band which he slid under his shirt collar. He fastened the final button, fiddled with the band, and sat back. ‘Ta da!’
‘You’re a priest?’
‘Should I have said?’
‘Sorry, Reverend?’
‘Father, if you must.’
‘Sorry, Father, I was wrapped up in myself.’
‘Not technically a sin.’
Sammi pushed her chair away from the table. ‘It’s Sunday. You’ll be busy. I’ve taken up…’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, standing. ‘You can stay as long as you like. I’ve three quarters of an hour until showtime.’
‘What?’
‘Mass. The service.’
‘Oh, I see. All due respect, Father, you need to work on your jokes.’
He rolled his eyes and chuckled. ‘It’s been said. There are those who think a priest shouldn’t be getting involved in humour. That’ll be one of them now.’ He turned towards the sound of the outer doors groaning open, or shut. ‘First in and last out, our Kathleen. If I ever mislay my conscience, she’ll be sure to find it for me.’
It was like he was speaking another language, or maybe it was because she’d never been religious. She might have overdone the exercise. It wouldn’t be the first time. This was what she did: when she made up her mind to do something, she was all in. She resolved to try for an Uber to get home.
‘Hang on a sec.’ The priest disappeared into the back room. He returned with an orange sheet of paper. ‘Are you new? I haven’t seen you around, and I get about a lot on foot.’
‘I’ve not been here long,’ she replied.
‘Take this.’ He handed her the paper. ‘It’s the back of the newsletter. Activities and the like in the church hall.’
‘Erm.’
‘Not religious stuff.’
‘Ah.’ She folded the paper into a square and zipped it into the pocket with the phone. ‘I’ll take a look. I think I’ll leave you to it.’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘You’ll have stuff to do.’
‘Not…yes, and you.’ Sammi got to her feet and walked towards the doors.
‘I’m often here, or next door, in the house,’ said the priest. ‘I have tea and coffee. Biscuits sometimes. Enjoy the rest of your day,’ he said to Sammi’s back.
As she walked through the gloom at the back of the church, she felt a presence to her right. Behind a column, a woman was piling books onto a trolley. She looked up as Sammi passed. There might have been a nod. There was, without doubt, a glare, from eyes set deep in a face creased with pain, and, Sammi sensed, defiance.
Four days later, after two hours of Intermediate Italian in a class whittled down to five (including the tutor), Sammi rescued the orange leaflet from her running jacket. She sat on her bed to review the activities at Blessed English Martyrs Parish Hall. Parishioners were invited to bring soup, sandwiches, cake, ‘or just yourself’, to a midweek shared lunch (No), while parents and carers could deposit children at Brownies on Monday evenings, Cubs and Scouts Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Guides on Fridays (No to all, obvs). The walking group met every third Saturday, and this month they were heading to the Lakes to take on The Old Man of Coniston, come rain or shine (Maybe). There were several fitness classes (chair yoga, light stretch, slow Dancerobics) for senior citizens (a huge No). What caught Sammi’s diminishing attention was an image of a ball of yarn into which two needles had been stuck to form an x. Knit and Natter, hosted by Miss Kathleen Noonan, was held every Tuesday evening after Cubs, for two hours from seven-thirty prompt. New members were welcome, but requested to call ahead. Kathleen, thought Sammi. Not a common name these days, and it was the second time she’d heard it this week.
The following morning, the offices of Matrix Digital Comms were awash with the singular mood that floods a workplace on Fridays. From her open office door, Sammi heard loud discussions about weekend plans. She watched a group of half a dozen colleagues gather in the break-out area, under the spell of Ricky Billington. He gestured his audience to lean in, and, aiming a thumb behind him, towards the office of the Finance Director, cracked a joke only the chosen could hear. Sammi looked away as laughter exploded, and focussed on the orange sheet of paper she had brought from home. She jabbed a number into her phone and waited.
‘Yes.’ An older voice.
‘Hello. Is this Blessed English Martyrs?’
‘It is not.’ Stern, impatient. Breath flowing through nostrils.
‘Sorry.’
‘This is The Wool Shop. This is Miss Kathleen Noonan. To whom am I speaking?’ Something about the voice reminded Sammi of Mrs Levinson, the teacher who had made her cry, aged seven, for talking too much in class. She leaned forward to rub her calves, stinging with the memory of a stainless steel ruler. Her mum had made an almighty fuss, and Mrs Levinson had retired soon after. She came back in for a special assembly. The headteacher had presented her with a photograph in a frame, and some flowers. She’d made a speech to the children, had not looked Sammi in the eyes.
‘Are you there?’
‘Sorry.’ Sammi let her trouser legs drop, and straightened. ‘This is Samantha, Sammi, Goddard. It’s about Knit and Natter.’
‘Why didn’t you say? Tuesdays, half past seven. As soon as they’ve tidied up after the Cubs.’
‘I wanted to ask…’ The phone went dead.
Ricky Billington’s acolytes had dispersed, performance over until next time. What was it with people? She’d wanted to know if she should bring her own equipment. It was a simple enough question. You’d think that woman didn’t want anyone to turn up to her bloody Knit and Natter. The way she spoke, it would be like Levinson’s classroom in there. I can do this, thought Sammi. ‘I got this,’ she said aloud. She would find this wool shop, equip herself with the necessaries, and meet this grumpy gatekeeper in the process. She couldn’t be all bad. Even Levinson had had her good days.
Midway through the afternoon, when even Finance Directors start watching the clock, Charlotte Christie appeared at Sammi’s door. ‘There’s drinks tonight,’ she said.
Sammi invited her to sit. ‘Drinks?’
‘At Lulu’s.’
‘Who’s Lulu?’
Charlotte joined her hands in her lap. ‘It’s the wine bar around the corner.’
‘A wine bar?’
‘Cocktails, too. Ricky said it was bohemian.’ On naming her ex, Charlotte took an interest in her fingernails.
‘I always thought that meant scruffy,’ said Sammi.
‘Oh no, it’s not scruffy. Anyway, he’s not going tonight.’
‘Ricky?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘Six a side final, or something. It’s probably not true. The drinks are still on, and I thought you might want to go. I’m sorry about how I was before. We could go in together.’
It wasn’t a disaster. She’d insisted on buying a round for the team. Most of them had talked to her, asking about her new home, had she met the neighbours, what did she think of the area. Gary Powell had pressed her about flexi time and working from home. ‘As long as your work gets done, I’m easy going about times,’ Sammi had replied. ‘I’m not so keen on working from home. It’s not good for the team dynamic.’ He’d moved on after that, but had thanked her for the drink, so no hard feelings. Amelia Hough had asked if there was a Mr or Mrs Goddard, to which Sammi had replied that she was ‘taking a break from all of that.’ ‘Amen to that,’ said Amelia. ‘If you knew my track record…’ She hadn’t elaborated. For the most part, Sammi had chatted with Charlotte, who had winced every time she had heard Ricky Billington’s name. He had been the focus of more than one overheard conversation, and from what Sammi could make out, he wasn’t as popular as he would have you believe. On her way home, in an Uber – she’d left the bike in her office – Sammi found she could not remember what she and Charlotte had talked about. Superficial stuff, she guessed, putting it down to nerves. She found The Wool Shop on Google Maps, and worked out that she could collect her bike in the morning, and cycle from there.
The locals know a short cut that knocks fifteen minutes off the journey from Williamson Way to Blundell Street. For everyone else the long way round isn’t too bad on a Saturday morning, traffic wise; and should you need it, the exercise will wipe out last night’s wine. Sammi found The Wool Shop at the end of Blundell Street, a run of well-kept, for the most part, terraced houses that gave way to a takeaway that did kebabs, pizzas, chips, chicken, an empty shop, and her destination. The pavement widened on the corner, there being enough space for a circular bench where a group of men were drinking, smoking, and shouting. One waved as she slowed her bike to take in the shop, mumbling something about a hen in a Scottish accent. She waved back and turned away, looking for somewhere to secure her bike. She chose a downpipe, padlocked her chain, and wiped her hands on her jeans.
Above each of the windows – the shop was on a corner – a sign announced in white block lettering, The Wool Shop. In the windows, matching displays of yarn (blues, greens, reds, oranges) were bookended by jars of silk flowers. In the right hand corners, a small sign informed interested parties that the shop was the domain of Proprietor Miss K Noonan. The shop front and frames were painted royal blue, upon which no speck of dirt or dust had been allowed to settle. The Proprietor, it seemed, was not a fan of mess. The Proprietor was also standing inside the door, staring at the men by the bench, when Sammi reached out a hand to push it open. Miss K Noonan – who else could it be? – stepped to one side as Sammi entered. She released the arms she had folded across her chest, and took up a position behind the counter. Sammi drifted between tables and display cases, humming a tune to ward off the intense and suffocating silence. Minutes dragged. One of them would crack in the end, Sammi thought, and it’s not going to be me. She held her nerve.
‘Is there something I can help you with?’
‘I’m enjoying looking around,’ Sammi replied, ‘but I would love a beginner’s set, if such a thing exists.’
‘We’ve spoken on the telephone.’
‘We have. I called about…’
‘Knit and Natter.’
‘…and if I needed a beginner’s set, but you didn’t give me the time to…’
Kathleen Noonan produced a pen and notepad from the pocket of her tabard. ‘Write down your name and number. I’ll order a pack for you.’
Sammi moved towards the counter. ‘Great, thanks.’ She bent over the glass and began to write, close enough to feel the woman’s breath on her neck.
‘Have you done any kind of knitting before?’
Sammi returned the pad to its owner. ‘I’ve sewn some buttons, holes in pockets, a dropped hem, although in that case I’d use an iron-on strip.’
A hand was raised to quiet the customer. ‘Any knitting?’
‘No, but Knit and Natter sounds like fun.’ Sammi paused to sweep a hand around the shop. ‘Such a beautiful selection of colours.’
‘It’s what people want.’
‘And some of your patterns are so wonderfully retro.’ This comment seemed to puzzle the Proprietor, whose eyebrows lifted while her lips thinned.
‘Payment in advance, if that suits.’ She looked at the notepad. ‘With an i? Is that how you were christened?’
Sammi held her card over the terminal by the till, a little surprised by the presence of technology. ‘I wasn’t, but my mum calls me Samantha.’
‘Well, Samantha, what’s good enough for your mother is good enough for me. I will telephone when the pack arrives.’
Sammi nodded. ‘It’s Miss Noonan, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘Thank you Miss Noonan.’ She walked towards the door, dismissed and a little deflated. Before she could open the door, Miss Noonan called her back.
‘I will bring the pack to Knit and Natter on Tuesday, if it comes in time. If not, I’m sure we can find something for you to work with. If you’re on your bicycle, you can bring it inside to keep it safe.’
Tuesday came, as it does, the memories of one weekend vanished, and the prospect of another too distant to contemplate. Sammi grabbed a snack at home and made her way back into Kirkhill where she stood under a tree at the entrance to the yard in front of the church hall. Cars arrived, engines stopped, doors opened and closed. A mixed group of adults gathered. Some chatted. At a quarter past seven, uniformed children exploded from the hall and into the hands and cars of those waiting for them. A young Cub, Molly, asked Sammi about her bicycle. Yes, it does fold up. I put the ribbons on. Yes, it is colourful, do you like it? When Molly’s dad arrived, he put out a hand for his daughter without looking up from his phone.
At twenty five past, Kathleen Noonan dragged a chair from the hall, propped open the doors, and stood sentry. Sammi watched women drift into the hall on their own, in pairs, three with toddlers in tow. She opened the gate for a woman pushing another in a wheelchair, and wheeled her bike behind them. The woman in the chair was tiny, held her knitting in swollen fingers, and was fast asleep. Kathleen Noonan patted her hand as she passed, but the woman didn’t stir. Kathleen put a hand on Sammi’s shoulder. ‘It arrived,’ she said, handing her a small, blue, fabric bag. ‘Everything you need is inside.’ Sammi stashed her bike against the far wall of the entrance, and went inside. A woman in a knitted cap beckoned her to a group sitting at the far end of the tables which had been pushed together in the middle of the hall. ‘We’re the English Martyrs Yarn Bombers,’ she said. ‘Forget whatever Kathleen’s told you. We don’t bite.’ And just like that, Sammi Goddard found her tribe.
English Martyrs Yarn Bombers was an informal crew of parents, parishioners and friends who responded to appeals for blankets, jumpers, hats, scarves and gloves. Last Christmas, they had presented patchwork blankets to the parish priest and Miss Noonan. They had made a smaller one for the crib in church, which the children used to keep the baby Jesus warm during the Nativity. They tied scarves to railings for the homeless, and sent packages overseas for earthquake victims. As well as Knit and Natter, they met up to three times per week, holding the extra meetings in various members’ homes. Sammi noticed, as she said hello to each of the group, that they all wore colourful knitted caps.
‘Can you teach me how to make one of those?’ she said to Cathy, the woman who had called her over.
‘First things first,’ Cathy moved closer. ‘What’s your story?’
As if from nowhere, and aside from the moment Kathleen Noonan came to take drink orders, words tumbled from Sammi’s mouth as she shared the events of the past year with these strangers, all of whom chose straight away to call her Sammi. After that first evening at Knit and Natter, and despite not having managed a single stitch, she dropped Italian in favour of stitching and bitching. After two months, she had her knitted cap. One month after that she convened a meeting in her living room. She had a proposal for the EMYB.
‘There isn’t enough colour around here. The houses are all the same red brick; the streetlamps aren’t painted; the buses are a dull blue; and at this time of year there are no flowers. I walk around and all I feel is grey.’ She looked around the group and turned to take a polythene bag from her upcycled sideboard. She dragged something over her head and swivelled to face her friends.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What is that?’ said Cathy.
Sammi crouched as though poised to leap forward, hands in the air and ready to grapple. Her head was adorned with a red and gold balaclava, or something like it. Her eyes and mouth were visible through three large ellipses. The rest of her face was covered by the mask.
‘Nacho Libre: a Mexican wrestling mask. It’s crochet. Isn’t it great?’
‘Did you make it yourself?’ asked Emma Howard, a quiet and nervous newcomer who had something – she hadn’t said what – to do with Kathleen Noonan. ‘Was I supposed to make one? I didn’t know…’ She rubbed her forearms and stared into her lap.
Sammi shook her head. ‘There are tons on Etsy,’ she said. She abandoned her pose, removed the mask and let it rest on the sideboard.
‘But what’s it for?’ Cathy furrowed her brow. ‘I thought you ate nachos.’
Sammi circled the room, between armchairs, the sofa and around the coffee table. ‘To hide our identities.’
‘Why would we want to do that?’ Sandra Gibney, a little older than the rest, fiddled with the clasp of her handbag.
Sammi hopped from one foot to the other. ‘What are we? We’re yarn bombers.’
Cathy reached over to the sideboard and took hold of the mask. ‘That’s just a name. We’re knitters. We knit. We stitch and bitch. We’re not out to cause trouble and besides, my Pete is a policeman.’
‘I’m sixty three,’ said Sandra. ‘I’m not bombing anyone. Not even Kathleen bloody Noonan, although God knows...’
Sammi clapped her hands and snatched the mask from Cathy as the room fell silent. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve read all about it. People go out and cover things up.’
‘For fun?’ asked Emma, tugging the mask from Sammi’s hands. ‘Like what?’
‘All sorts of things. Street signs, bicycles, trees, statues.’
‘Street signs? Is it legal?’ Cathy put her head in her hands.
‘I don’t see why not. There’s a man who paints bollards, I’ve seen him. No one’s arrested him.’ Sammi looked at the women, one by one.
‘Well, I won’t be doing any harm.’ Sandra stood and held her bag to her chest.
‘I’m sorry love,’ added Cathy, ‘it sounds like fun, but what with Pete, you know, I don’t think I can.’
‘I’m in.’ Emma stretched the mask over her head and attempted a wrestling pose.
The morning after, Cathy called in on the priest to discuss Sammi’s plan. She accepted a cup of weak tea and sipped through her teeth.
‘Think about the parish’s reputation.’ She placed her mug on the floor beside her feet.
‘I think the parish can survive a bit of guerrilla knitting,’ said the priest, ‘and it’s anonymous isn’t it? Cloak and dagger and all that.’
‘What about Miss Noonan?’
‘Cathy, you know how much I respect and appreciate Kathleen, but if we worried about upsetting her, well where would we be?’
‘But what if they trace the wool back to her shop?’
‘I think she’s safe.’ He checked his watch. ‘Your husband knows her. Do you think the police are going to go up against Kathleen?’
Sammi and Emma spent two weeks knitting fly agarics: simple white stalks under red caps with white spots. The spots were tricky, but they managed a dozen woollen fungi with advice from Sandra, who they had persuaded to help with technique with a promise that they would reveal nothing about her involvement. Early one Sunday morning, in full running kit and carrying a bulky backpack, Sammi met Emma by the gate at the north end of Victoria Park. On the count of three, they donned their masks and ran to a huge and ancient tree known locally as the Northern Oak. They placed their handiwork in a ring among exposed roots, pegging them to the ground with a rubber mallet. Two days later, only five remained and by the following weekend they had all disappeared. Like the Northern Oak, they had an Instagram profile which Emma discovered late one night. They followed the toadstools around town, from shop windows to abandoned telephone boxes to the dashboards of buses and taxis. A storm brewed in a teacup when one was attached to Queen Victoria’s sceptre at the monument in Liverpool, as featured in a light-hearted end to a local TV news bulletin.
One Wednesday evening when Sammi was working on Matrix’s quarterly forecast, Cathy and Sandra, emboldened by the public reaction and a letter of permission from the headteacher, lent a hand as Emma weaved flowers around the railings at English Martyrs Primary. The following week they covered a line of six bollards – these had escaped the local painter – in a private car park, and wrapped an extra-large blanket around the Northern Oak. Emma set up an Instagram profile for EMYB which attracted more followers than the oak and fungi combined. The yarn bombers swept across Kirkhill – and sometimes Mossdale – in a blur of colour. Sammi finished each working day in anticipation of the latest plan, pedalled home at speed, eager to meet up with her friends. People pointed at her crocheted handlebars, and she rang her bell in triumph. One memorable evening, after riding all the way home in her mask, she stayed up all night to finish an orange and russet cape.
One Wednesday, she texted Emma an invitation for tea. The young woman arrived at six, wrapped up against the autumn chill. Sammi handed her a package wrapped in yellow polka dot paper, tied with white ribbons. ‘This is for you.’
‘Can I save this ribbon? And the paper?’ Emma opened the package and shook out the cape. ‘What is it?’
‘Don’t you recognise a cape when you see one? It’ll go with black, don’t worry.’
‘Help me get it on.’ She raised her chin as Sammi tied the cape around her neck. ‘We’re superheroes, bringing colour where it’s needed, when it’s needed.’ She shrugged. ‘We need a better slogan than that; and you need a cape. I’ll make you one.’
Much later that evening, after Emma had skipped into the blustery night in her cape and mask, Sammi opened the door of the box room next to the bathroom. She plucked a plain white postcard from a shoe box and carried it down the stairs to the kitchen.
He hadn’t used writing paper. He hadn’t bothered with an envelope. He’d written on a plain postcard, and had not used her name. I am going away. Do not try to find me. Please don’t blame yourself. He’d actually written It’s not you, it’s me. She struck a match and held it under the card. She watched it burn over the sink and ran the tap to wash away the ashes. She drank a glass of wine and sank into her sofa. Half an hour later, she was fast asleep.
‘Samantha. Sammi. Open up.’
Sammi squinted into the dark at the bearded face peering through her front window. She spotted the collar under the waterproofs.
The priest sat opposite her at the kitchen table, holding her hand. Gentle as ever.
‘They found her on Wright’s Avenue. Cathy’s husband recognised her. He’s been called out to her before. Cathy says you’re close.’
Sammi dipped a quivering finger into the teardrops on the table.
‘She was wearing a woollen balaclava. Cathy said you would know why. But it wasn’t that. It was some kind of blanket. They think it got trapped between her legs and she fell into the road.’
—
Every morning Rob Schofield comes downstairs to find something else in the house wrapped in wool. The kettle went first. Then the banister and the bread bin and a Penguin Brighton Rock he’s been meaning to finish since 1994. He’s put it down to somebody in Kirkhill with a grievance and he’s lain awake most nights listening for them. There isn’t anybody. He’s been doing it in his sleep since August in a double moss stitch he’s never been taught and he’s getting better at the spots.
x
Is Anyone Offended By The F-word Anymore?
1975: South of France. Another great holiday in Beryl and Jim's caravan: a static-home shoved far into the backside of the foothills of Fréjus.
I was 11. My mother hated me and I hated her. The beaches of St Raphaël and Fréjus were a free-for-all but she didn’t seem to realise, floating round in her kaftans up at the caravan, she and Dad ploughing through plastic barrels of red enjoying their ‘no kids’ time while I warded off unwanted attention from the older boys who circled around me and Patricia in full view of the rest of the beach!!!! It was so embarrassing!
We arrived home.
There was a handwritten note amongst the envelopes on the front door mat: “Thanking you kindly £1.50 owed for the cleaning of windows 15th August” in spindly script.
Well, my mother went bananas (it could have been the twenty-seven hour drive back home; it could have been the red wine withdrawal; it was probably a combination of both).
‘I told him before we went that we didn't need the windows doing while we were away!! I told him!! Good God, what more do these people need to understand….?!!’ and on and on and on.
So I said: ‘Well tell him to fuck off then….’
And all hell broke loose.
‘You!!!,’ she screamed at me. ‘Stand there!!! Do NOT move!! You stay on that mat….do not move a muscle my girl, or else…’
I stood, stock-still, on the front door mat, a petrified statue of a near-teenage girl. Dad was calling me, beckoning me from the driveway to help him finish unpacking the car, unaware of the fuck-word fury that had just been unleashed within the house; unaware that I was afraid to move, so unnerved was I by my mother's reaction.
Later that night, as I snivelled in my bed, the end of my holiday ruined, he brought me tea and toast.
'Where did you get that word from?’ he asked.
‘Keith at school.’
‘And do you know what it means?’
‘No. He says it all the time and when he does, everyone laughs.’
‘Well, a piece of advice, young lady: maybe don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of from now on if you don’t want to land yourself in hot water with you-know-who….’
Fast forward to the 2010s when I become privy to my kids’ music on a regular basis. They think they are shocking me, playing those songs at high volume in their rooms or in the car, thinking I haven’t noticed that the grimy raps contain an expletive or two (or three or twenty).
They'll grow out of it; it’s just a word.
It's not the end of the world.
—
Victoria Raftery steps off every doormat she meets as fast as she decently can in case it’s still keeping an eye on her. There’s one pound fifty in a Quality Street tin on her hall table for a window cleaner who’s been owed it since 15 August 2005. Toast remains in her view the correct response to most emergencies and to the last night of any holiday. In all her years she’s never found out what the F-word means. It hasn’t held her back. She swears beautifully and mostly in French.
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The Necessary Martyrdom Of Neurodiverse Elders
What follows isn’t addressed to you.
Or it may be, but that’s the point. Emelia Frances Powell is a Liverpool designer who gave up five years of work across music, live events and hospitality to go into education. She’s finishing an MA in Graphic Design and Art Direction and works in mixed media and analogue animation. Her research subject is depathologisation. The idea is that a diagnosis describes how a person works but doesn’t establish that anything has gone wrong with them. Nobody has defined it for design education yet, so she’s writing the definition herself. In her first email to me she said neurodiversity could be summed up in two words: science and magic.
She came to me through PJ Smith after the two of them spent a couple of days as background actors back in July.
She’s writing directly to other neurodiverse people in the second person and she’s asking them for something. Readers who aren’t being addressed will find themselves outside a conversation that carries on regardless. That’s the nearest thing on the page to the experience she’s describing. And it’s deliberate.
The Necessary Martyrdom Of Neurodiverse Elders
Emelia Frances Powell
—
Hartlepool born and Liverpool made. Emelia is almost a master of graphic design and art direction. Defining the theoretical concept of ‘depathologisation’ by challenging structural deficit-based understandings of neurodiversity within creative practice; forging sustainable futures for the next wave of nonconformists.
xii
We Are Here
—
Angie Woolfall gives despair four minutes by the egg timer on the kitchen windowsill and not a second more. Wolfie asked her once if that was enough. She said plenty because the rest of the morning belongs to the blackbird who strikes perfect chords in D minor from the roof of the bus shelter on Smithdown Road. He wanted to know how a bird could tell which bus was the 86 when none of them ever stop for it. The same way anyone does. You nod to the driver and keep your feet firm.
xiii
The Gen Alpha Lexicography
Aura (revised)
No. 31
Etymology: From the Greek aura, a breeze. In the second century Galen credited his teacher Pelops with borrowing the word for the cold draught one patient felt climbing his leg before a seizure. English medicine took it on as the name for the sensation that arrives ahead of the event. By the late nineteenth century neurologists were using it for the lights that come before a migraine. The 1970s gave it to the crystal shops. Entry 21 of this column recorded its conversion into a points score in Issue 24. In 2024 it acquired a verb. To aura farm is to put on a look of effortless cool, usually by repeating whatever makes you look unbothered. The term went global in the summer of 2025 on the strength of one video from Indonesia. More on that below. This entry supersedes No. 21.
My son has taken to standing at the top of the stairs with his hood up and looking at the landing window as though it’s let him down.
I asked if he was all right and he said he was aura farming. I asked what he was growing. He said aura obviously and that I was standing in his light. I went back down the stairs with the washing and didn’t feel I’d won.
I’ve been here before. Entry 21 established that I have no aura. The finding was delivered over cereal I’d paid for and I assumed the matter was closed. It wasn’t. A quality that can be scored turns out to be a quality that can be farmed and anything that can be farmed has gone into production.
The phrase went round the world in the summer of 2025 because of an eleven-year-old called Rayyan Arkan Dikha. He was filmed at the Pacu Jalur, a canoe race held every year in Riau province in Indonesia. In the video he’s standing on the prow of a long racing boat in a traditional Malay outfit and a pair of sunglasses. The child on the prow has a job and it’s an old one. He dances to drive the rowers on and to show the crowd which boat is in front. He did it with a few small, slow movements repeated over and over and a face that suggested none of it was any concern of his. Within weeks footballers, racing drivers and an American tight end were copying him and the internet had a name for it. That’s aura farming: one small thing done again and again without appearing to try until everybody watching decides you’re magnificent.
The medical aura is a warning. It’s the body telling you something is coming while there’s still time to sit down. What my son is practising on the landing is the look without the warning. The boy on the prow was cool because he had a job to do and a boat full of rowers depending on it. My son has the hood and the stillness and nothing is coming up the stairs except me with the washing.
Nobody taught him that. The feed did. A feed pays by the second for the look of a thing and has no use for the thing itself. It took the dance and left the boat behind. We built the machine and the children are farming the crop it asked for.
The line at the foot of my last entry announced Aura as though it were new. I’d already done it. For thirty entries I’ve closed every column with a sentence whose only job is to make you feel that something is coming. Last time I farmed it with a word I’d already harvested. My son would call that a loss of aura. I’d call it a finding. We’re both right. That’s usually how he wins.
He’s still at the top of the stairs. I’ve started leaving the washing at the bottom.
—
Maya Chen spent Christmas 2023 communicating only by rhythmic blinking and a brass hand-bell she bought at a church jumble sale. The findings remain under review. The bell now lives on the hall table and she rings it once whenever anybody in the house says something she intends to write down. It rings more than she’d like. She holds that her own aura peaked for eleven minutes in 1997 during a seminar on Barthes and has been in managed decline ever since. She’s also of the view that aura pools at the bottom of a staircase and she’s stopped standing there.
xiv
The Manual of Malfunction
The Gate
Objective
To bring a hinge to the point where it makes the noise, and then to leave it there.
Apparatus
A steel gate hung on two pin hinges, exterior, north or west facing. Galvanised is a waste of everybody's time and should be replaced before starting. One rag.
Conditions
Three winters. There's no way of shortening this and every attempt to shorten it has produced a different, worse noise.
Safety
Not to be attempted on a rented property, a shared access, or anything a landlord inspects.
Method
- Take the grease off both pins with the rag. Do not use a solvent. The object is to remove what somebody applied, not to strip back what is underneath it.
- Leave the gate alone. That's the whole of the first two years.
- Do not paint it and do not adjust the drop. If a neighbour offers to sort it out for you, decline politely, and then decline again in March.
- From the second autumn, open it once a day, slowly, and listen.
- The first sound is a flat grinding and it is not the sound. Carry on.
- Somewhere in the third winter the grinding thins out and a note arrives, about two thirds of the way through the swing.
- Stop opening it any further than that.
Results
One note, not two.
Present in wet weather and gone in dry.
Audible from the kitchen with the back door shut.
Sources of error
A note that also arrives on the closing swing is over-developed. One drop of oil on the lower pin, then back to step 4 and another winter.
Conclusion
The gate will fail in the end and you will fix it properly, and the note will go, and there is no procedure in here for getting it back.
Issued by the Office of Applied Malfunction. OAM-02. Issue 1, Rev A.
Compiled by R. J. Pennington.
Supersedes nothing.
xv
The Fortnight
The Fortnight is our soundtrack to the last two weeks. It saves me keeping a diary.
Gentle / Naima Bock
Telephone / Andy Shauf
Together We Lost / Hallelujah Trial
Jim Cain / Bill Callahan
A House Is Not a Motel / Love
Colours / The Avalanches
The Others / Way Dynamic
Ultimate Love 4Ever / Lex Walton
Hammond Song / The Roches
Big Boss Man / Bobbie Gentry
xvi