Post by Calenture on Jul 20, 2010 19:43:47 GMT
The Cold Blue Collection by Peter Tennant
Chapbook first published 2003; D-Press
"This collection is dedicated to all Small Press editors and publishers, past, present and future, but especially to Trevor Denyer, Paul Bradshaw and Ian Hunter, who first sent these stories into the light, and of course to D, for giving them a second chance to shine. You're the people who make it happen, and without you we'd all be a lot poorer. Respect."
A 32-page chapbook collection of five stories, which I think were previously published in Whispers of Wickedness, here illustrated by Carole Humphries.
The Thing in the Park: In the dream he is in the park with Kerry, and the thing is in the tree above them. “It is long and black with a wedge shaped head and eyes that sparkle like coloured beads glinting in the sun.” But as in the original Garden of Eden, the dream is soured and becomes nightmare.
The narrator returns to a prosaic (and well-observed) waking life that so many of us can identify with; one of unemployment, no prospects and endless bills falling on the doormat. And as Kerry keeps reminding him, the kids need to go on that trip to France and they must have their friends around for tea.
A very well written tale of mounting desperation that finally tips into despair and violence. I liked this one very much.
Sexual Politics: A conversation between a pair of lovers in a cemetery at night takes a macabre turn.
The Postman’s Tale: The mail that Henry Parker delivers to No. 18 Lambert Close arrive at irregular intervals and come from all over the world, and they are all addressed to ‘The House, No. 18 Lambert Close’, as if the house were the recipient and not the unnamed occupant.
Over time, Henry’s curiosity about the house grows to an obsession. He asks people in nearby houses about it, researches its history. He learns nothing; encounters only silence and suspicion. And in his mind the house begins to take on the nature of something animate and frightening.
“The garden in front of No.18 is overgrown and untended, nature red in tooth and claw. You walk up the path and pass beneath ancient trees that blot out the sun, as if entering some secret subterranean world. From the street the door looks ordinary, but close up its bottle green glass seems to glow with a weird luminosity. At times I could swear that there is no letter-box, that it forms only as I approach the door, like a mouth opening to receive prey.”
Irresistible stuff.
Water Baby is the strongest story in the collection. Charlie and his mates are on their way home from the Pig & Whistle and decide to take a route through the cemetery. By the light of the full moon, they reminisce, reminding each other of past romantic adventures in the place, and then the moonlight falls on the recently dug grave of Edward Fitzallen.
‘Fitz’ had been their schoolteacher and his genius for sadistic bullying had found plenty of room for expression mentally torturing the small boys in his care. After his death, the things found in his home had indicated that his vicious nature had not been limited to the more subtle nastiness that kept him on the side of the law. ‘Sick things. Pictures of young children. And there was a dead cat in one of the rooms, words written on the wall in blood. Terrible things so they said.’
Charlie was once so bullied and humiliated by the teacher that he had finally wet himself in front of the whole class. After that, Charlie had been nicknamed ‘Water Baby’ and the name had caught the imagination of the other boys, and stuck.
That night Charlie takes his revenge and pisses on Fitz’s grave.
The following night he's in a pub toilet and something hideous tries to escape from the pan. He wakes only to find that things aren't what they seem; and he’s about to learn that Fitz has one more terrifying lesson for him.
I wish we’d had this story for Filthy Creations 4, the ‘It Came From The Toilet’ issue.
The last story, The Object of the Experiment, takes us into a research facility, where Carson is investigating the practices of Dr Mitchell. Funding is being cut, research departments shut down. Dr Mitchell is studying the responses of subjects facing enforced tough decisions, which test their principles.
As he says to Carson: ‘“Bertrand Russell said that if politics was ever to be regarded as a science we would have to determine at what point of starvation people would prefer a bag of corn to the vote.”’
Or how close to death must a starving vegetarian be before she sacrifices her principles to eat the live meat on the table.
Not my favourite story in the collection (that would be Water Baby) but a grim little piece. A very enjoyable collection.
If you'd like to read it, I suggest you drop Peter a line. Here's his blog.