Life just bounces
The salesman’s skin glistened with sweat. ‘Where’s the big money?’ he cried.

‘Bouncy castles!’ we replied.

‘Correctamundo!’ His legs quivered like a manic preacher’s. ‘And I know that those of you who respect yourselves as people will sign up today.’

The words of the presentation echoed in my head as I stared at the rusted generator and sagging vinyl edifice that covered the lawn. All my redundancy, everything, sunk into this. Rowena would kill me. I had no van to transport it and no money for advertising.

I switched on the power, the generator throbbed and clunked, and slowly the gaudy plastic puddle rose up to become a quivering enchanted fairy palace. I thought about the others back at work, the ones who had been kept on. Then I flicked off my shoes and jumped in. I bounced. It was good, bouncing away. The salesman was right. Everybody wants to bounce.

Music like ours never dies
Marion said the article could have been written with me in mind, and I riffled through the supplement and there it was: Losing it – the Bay City Rollers story.

The Rollers had everything, but threw it all away. They were egos on legs, emotionally cramped, and manager Tam Patton had a sinister, seamy undertow that eventually destroyed them.

Marion was right. Their story was my story. I was self-obsessed, vain, and paid slipshod attention to Marion’s needs. The Bay City Rollers were encoded in me. And Tam Patton? He represented my father. Emotions were unsilted, tears fell on Les McKeon’s face, and when Marion returned from her run, I hugged her close.

‘Darling, I will never allow us to become the Bay City Rollers.’

She flipped Les over. ‘This is the article I meant.’

EMOTIONAL INFIDELITY, it said, above a picture of a man and woman on a park bench.

Alone, I drew a penis jutting out of the man’s trousers and a moustache on the woman. That’s what the Rollers would have done. What matters is the moment, not everlasting fame.

Spoilt Victorian child
I saw the ad on the Internet and thought, what the hell? I had no kids of my own, probably wouldn’t have time, so why not go for it?

I didn’t realise the child was Victorian at first, I thought it was just grumpy. But when it asked for a sing-song round the piano instead of plugging in the Xbox, I knew that I’d been done. The knickernockers should have been a clue.

I’d read an article about the trend for adopting Victorian children. They were cheap to maintain as they ate little, had no desire for expensive trainers and were unable to use mobile phones. Yet I hadn’t seen many around these parts. Until now.

But still, it was a child, so I made the best out of it. I tried every possible distraction the twenty first century had to offer, but nothing worked. The child was continually bored.

Until it found the flyer for the Art Treasures of the UK exhibition. As soon as it read about the paintings and artefacts to be displayed in Manchester Art Gallery it became agitated with joy. I was to take it to the exhibition without delay and must ensure that our visit took full advantage of Mr Halle’s orchestral performances and the various organ recitals scheduled throughout the day, which the Victorian child had circled in the much-handled programme.

I hadn’t been to an art gallery myself since I was dragged there by my school, but I agreed to give it a go.

When we got into the city centre I was amazed. The streets were full of them, Victorian children just like mine, each with a bemused parent trailing behind as they raced towards the gallery. I had no idea so many Victorian children existed; there were hundreds, and whilst we waited in the queue, I got talking to one of the other parents. He’d got his Victorian child from the same Internet advert, and was having the same problem keeping it entertained. It was great to share my problems with another parent, and later that day as we trooped home and I watched my Victorian child jabbering away with the other Victorian children about the paintings and the sculptures, I began to wonder whether I should read up about the behaviour of Victorian fathers. I could grow an elaborate moustache, perhaps invest in special wax. The idea appealed and, recalling one of the tunes from the organ recital, I began to whistle through my teeth, which the Victorian child said was a vulgar affectation and exceedingly annoying to the ear. It was then I realised that the child was middle-class too and I went upstairs to look for the contract.

Pretty, ain’t it?
Mrs Kalinsky spoke through wreaths of smoke from the cigarette she had permanently cocked at the side of her head. ‘This is Alfred.’ The fat pampered cat looked up at her. ‘He’s insured for two grand.’ Her long nylon-clad legs made a hissing sound as she crossed and uncrossed them. ‘Double if he gets run over.’ She stroked the flabby ball of fur. Bars of shadow from the Venetian blinds made her expression unreadable.

But I couldn’t go through with it. Then two weeks later a ginger tom got flattened on the A556 out of Eccles. I scraped him into a bin bag, dyed him Alfred’s colour, and took him to Mrs Kalinsky’s vet.

I didn’t see Mrs Kalinsky again for weeks and I never got my cut. Then from the window of the police van, I saw her with the vet in a restaurant, drinking wine. And laughing.

Previously loved
One minute I was on the landing the next in a floating, luminous space, pulsing with blinding light, with no centre, no edges, no up or down. Dozens of men sat on white sofas, staring ahead, and I joined them. The rapturous humming of a thousand angels filled the air. White robes hung loosely about me and soft moccasins were on my feet. Everyone looked the same; we were in a cheap science fiction series. I asked one of the men what I was doing there, and he smiled slowly as if recognising a lost relative, and asked me in an awed half whisper what I remembered last. I told him I had gone upstairs and couldn’t remember why, and had stood on the landing trying to recall. Suddenly, I was here.

It had been the same for them all. They had all gone upstairs, tried to remember why, and couldn’t. He asked me if there had been a mighty flash, and I nodded.

‘If you can remember why you went upstairs, you will return,’ he said.

I asked if anyone had ever managed to get back to the real world, but he couldn’t remember.

‘We are not very reliable on recent history,’ he said.

I sat and thought. Rusty cogs ground in my head, but nothing came. My mind seemed to empty of all facts. If asked, I would have been unable to explain even the concept of upstairs, or the idea of a house, or describe my town, my wife, or what I did during my days on earth.

After a time a salesman asked if I was interested in buying the sofa I was occupying; if not that one, maybe a small corner set – currently on special offer and available in leather as well as linen. I could plump for brand new or previously loved.

I signed a buy-now-pay-later deal for a new one, at a very reasonable interest rate. I wasn’t stupid. Owning your sofa is the sensible choice if you spend long periods sitting on it. Renting is dead money. After all, the sofa might grow in value, while all you have to do is sit and think and stare.

The lost language of chairs
I know that they used to talk to each other. About loose leg joints, fraying seat-covers, unsatisfactory positions in the room. About how one wasn’t used enough, one was sat on by the heaviest resident, and how the Crowther boy habitually rubbed the back of one of them with greasy fingers causing a pale shiny pate like a bald head.

They often discussed Mrs O’Neil, with her old-fashioned dusting technique and cheap polish that smelt of rancid fat.

But they couldn’t speak any more. They had forgotten how. They stood in silence, able to communicate only by gesture, and only one gesture at that – the gesture of open arms, which said, ‘come fill this empty space, I am waiting for you, only you,’ and the sad fact is that this was not what any of them wanted to say at anytime, not what they wanted to say at all.

Double digging
Gloria’s face was on the banknotes in nice town. Her smile throbbed with evil e-numbers. She was never horrible, never mean, and never made a juicy dig at the girls in promotions. But today dental anaesthetic had tugged the corners of her mouth into an exaggerated sad-clown face and, for the first time in Gloria’s life, she looked like mortal sin.

Benjamin didn’t normally register Gloria’s presence but when he caught sight of her sour, crushed expression he stopped her, and told her that suddenly he felt a connection. She had a dark, adhesive quality that beckoned. He scanned his desk and his eyes landed on a tiny fern growing in a yogurt pot, which he picked up and handed to her.

‘Come to my allotment on Sunday,’ he said.

Gloria nursed the fern over to her desk. Everyone smiled and offered words to ease her lonely desperation. Her inbox for the first time contained the drinkypoos email. She looked from the email to the fern, and silver voices sang in her head.

On Sunday she watched Benjamin dribble seeds from his curled palm into holes his big fingers had jabbed into chocolaty soil. He smiled at her, she scowled back though numb cheeks, and he laughed.

The dentist could offer her daily injections for a limited period only. It was strictly unethical. But what would she tell Benjamin and the others when her smile returned? How could she go back to happy when miserable was so much fun?

Smaller than one-eightieth the diameter of a human hair
I’m big in little things, things smaller than one-eightieth the diameter of a human hair. I love the job, it suits me, but Janice isn’t impressed and when I got an invite to present a poster at the Micro5 conference in Iceland she went into her usual rant. What’s so absolutely fascinating about things that are below a certain size? A dog might be the same size as a sewing machine, but does that give them something in common? Worth a building the size of Selfridges, and full of weirdy beardies?

It was good in Iceland to share time with other people who were passionate about things smaller than one-eightieth the diameter of a human hair. I met Helen on the hot springs trip. ‘You know how I explain to my students the length of a nanometre?’ she told me. ‘It’s the amount my pubes grow every second.’

The next day Helen and I sat close together watching the final presentation. The lecturer was a pony-tailed boffin whose tie looked like it had been dipped in batter. I drew a picture of him with a burger king crown on his head, wheels for legs, and a speech bubble that said I am a twat. We laughed, really, really laughed. All around us everyone was thinking about things that were smaller than one-eightieth the diameter of a human hair, and the room seemed to hum with promise. For the first time in ages I didn’t feel like I was a tiny particle being examined through a microscope by higher beings in a laboratory somewhere.

The way you say park
He had been listening to her voice for years; the percussive, slightly guttural approach to Newton-le-Willows, the gorgeous ripe burr in the vowels of Hazel Grove, the absolute absence of sarcasm when she apologised for cancellations. Today he was singing along in his head as usual when he heard her inject a new enunciation into Eccelston Park, giving the word ‘park’ greater emphasis and putting a little suppressed laugh at the end of it.

This was significant because it was his name. Parker. And each time she said park she made the same little flourish.

He decided not to go in to work and instead stayed at the station, listening to the way she said park. The staff wouldn’t tell him where her office was, but tomorrow he would discover her name and shout it on all the platforms. That way she would know that he loved her in return.

Little Jan
I was the only Janet in the office until she arrived but there was no problem until one day I asked Harriet for the long stapler and she said she’d given it to little Jan.

Little Jan. She wasn’t particularly little and I’m not especially big. I didn’t want to be known as big Jan, like some bull dyke prisoner. Harriet tried to reassure me; the new Janet was little Jan but I would always be Jan. But they might as well write fat cow on my forehead for all the difference that made. So-called Little Jan is a 12 at least, and not TopShop, more like Marks.

So whilst recovering the long stapler I told Jan all about fast-track promotion in this place, the people to influence, and how to do it.

Now I’m still Jan but she’s known as stock-room Jan and she’s off long-term with stress.

We are the robots
She was the third girlfriend to ditch me this year. ‘We went to this club,’ I told Gary, ‘and at the end of the night she’d completely changed. She was distant, hostile.’

He looked at me over the rim of his spectacles ‘Did you dance?’

‘Well,’ I poked at a beer mat. ‘At one point I did throw a few shapes.’

He tilted his head towards me. ‘Did you do the robotics?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘What was the music?’

‘Eighties techno’

Gary removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. ‘How many times have we been through this – you hear the music, you do the robotics.’ He picked up his coat. ‘No woman will stand for it.’

Later I was on the floor. A moog bass line squelched, a metallic snare ripped the air, I was part of a machine, a valve in the heart of a bleeping gnashing metal beast.

Away day
Imagine you are happy. Picture it. You, happy. It can be you, yes. You can be happy, like everyone else. Picture it now. You, a happy person, doing happy things, without a care in the world. Have you got it? Can you see yourself? What are you doing? Don’t tell me, I know. You are in the countryside. You are with friends and family, the people you love. It’s a sunny day. You are sharing food and drink – wine, even. You are drinking from a paper cup, a tablecloth is laid on the grass.

It is a picnic. You are having a picnic.

Everybody’s idea of happiness involves a picnic. A picnic has everything a human being needs. If there were more picnics the world would be a happier place. And what do our clients want from us but happiness? Isn’t that why they come here? Why the health service contracts us to deliver the service?

Next month the clinical psychology team are going on a picnic. Details are attached, along with a map. Please wear appropriate shoes and clothing.

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David Gaffney is the author of Sawn Off Tales (Salt Publishing, 2006), Aromabingo (Salt Publishing, 2007) and the novel Never Never out in September 2008 on Tindall Street Press. He has also been published in several magazines including Ambit, Stand, Opium, Transmission, Riptide, Succour, and Illustrated Ape. © David Gaffney, 2008.

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