These are robust, vivid stories crafted
from startling ideas; in Growing Things buried animals are
reborn as if they are plants. In Foothold, a woman has hands
for feet. In Wings – the story is a well-written feast of
gothic sumptuousness and in Shaggy Dog Story a son sends his
mother telepathic pictures of what he wants.
There are memorable characters, like
Ronnie, in The Cobbler who engage us and the skilful
storytelling compels us to find out what happens to them – even though we also
kind of know – because we are abetting a mischievous authorial voice that lurks
out of sight providing us with sly jokes just as the hapless characters are
reaching their dénouements – for example the doctor who finally comes to take
Ronnie (the cobbler of the title) away is called Dr Last. ‘Be the Kipper you
need to be – be the sort of Kipper you really are. Let your inner Kipper shine
through…’ says the mentor to the unfortunate Norman (nicknamed Kipper), in Touchy
Feely. Poor Norman: ‘I enable them to own their
feelings and then re-direct them towards me,' he says, 'That way, they don’t
carry things back to the work place. It seems to be successful and I’ve had no
trouble persuading them to focus their resentment on me.’
In Resident Power a
woman accepts a house-sitting assignment in a village of perfect, pastel
painted cottages, so that a frail old lady can have a holiday with her sister,
a nun who is only allowed out into the world once a year. ‘I saw myself
wandering down country lanes on sunny days, or cycling along riverbanks…’ the
woman tells us, but somehow, once we've seen her bedroom; ‘…a room
with a sloping ceiling, billowing white curtains and flowers from the
garden on the dressing table…’ we just know that this isn't going to
end well. The woman finds everyday reality: ‘… scraps of circling litter,
a clattering, jingling milk-float that stopped as soon as it had started…’
coexisting with the surreal: a post office where a monstrous woman refuses to
sell her anything; a petshop full of caged hedgehogs.
And, in Menu, the
ghost of Sweeney Todd rises up as soon as the protagonist notices that
there is a strange smell in the unfriendly pub she has to stay in.
Characters spring instantly to life,
like Neville, the cat: ‘…with huge fluffy feet and
deliberate intentions. Had he been
human, Neville would be the sort of person to stride up and shake hands very
firmly. As it was, he threw his feline bulk at my calves and looked up at me
with a cheerful face.’ The author is adept at scene setting: for example in Clean: ‘Then I
saw the two paths and noticed curtains in the upstairs windows. That’s the only
way you can tell, really. All the windows have mis-matched curtains upstairs
and down. Sometimes there’s a real clash of tastes, with plain, neat nets on
the lower floor, then frilly, flouncing ones above.’ Wood deftly achieves
maximum information with minimum fuss while conveying something of the uneasy
watchful caution of the protagonist. Or: ‘The neat little shed was opened for
my inspection – a warm, dry
place holding trapped sunshine and
stored apples.’ We are given precise, spatial and sensory information. Sharp
eyed observation and succinct language is in evidence throughout the
collection, not only to describe settings or characters (one memorable image
evokes a shop assistant whose blue eyeshadow gave her the look of a 'chilled
parrot') but also to make social comments; for example neighbours borrowing
things from one another: ‘There was no particular kindness in this give and
take arrangement, but rather the necessity of favours.’
Economy of language is a great thing in
a writer and Caroline Wood's economy extends to titles too – like the excellent Foothold,
a beguiling story which, like the other stories showcases the author’s
impressive power of description e.g. this, about the inside of the body: ‘Strands
as fine as hair weaving in between his pulsing, beating organs – visible like
underwater rocks, dark vibrating shapes. And his bones – ivory segments of
spine like a line of church candles, the ribs a sculptured cage.’ Or: this, of
a dwelling, in The Cobbler: ‘Surrounded by rambling, tilted
outbuildings and a shed made entirely of old doors, the house looked
abandoned.’
This collection has affinities with
Grimms fairy tales in the length and pace of each story and the short titles.
It bears kinship to legend, magic and myth; such things keep shifting into view
and disappearing – silkies, vampires, Alice in Wonderland, Stepford
Wives, Midwich cuckoos, The Prisoner, these are its
cousins. It has grotesques like the Savage twins with their purple Punch
profiles; it has hostile taxidermy and a Fellini-esque dwarf barber. Its
protagonists often have a sense of unreality. Their dreams reflect their
predicament or they are haunted by illusory memories that they can’t quite
bring into focus. The stories are unsettling in the way that all the best
spooky stories are. And, in my head at least, the ghost of Sweeney Todd rises
up as soon as, in Menu, the protagonist notices that there is a
strange smell in the unfriendly pub where she has to stay.
This collection would make a good TV
series - it reminds me of Tales of the Unexpected.
