Winner of short story competition

The winner of our latest short story competition is Robert Ronsson with his entry 'The Flood Barrier', which is very appropriate at the moment!
If you want to see more details go to our web-site of http://www.buttonbridgebooks.co.uk/ or of Robert's other work at http://www.robertronsson.co.uk/ , he is soon to publish a new book.

He wins a copy of one of our titles by Deborah Clarke - 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits'

Here is is - enjoy!

The Flood Barrier


"German design, German engineering, Tix. They're the only ones could have done it."
"It’s incredible," I said. "How much water is it holding back?"
"Must be millions of gallons. The forces will be immense. It's flowing past, not hitting the barrier face on but nevertheless ..."
John's voice trailed away. I looked out over the top rail of the temporary barrier, which was about shoulder height. This side, the cobbles of the roadway were damp but our feet were dry. On the other, a waist-high, hoof-less stampede of mud-thick water charged blindly to the sea. It swirled with the muffled hum of jet engines inside a sleepy 747. There was an occasional slurp as a hidden current collided with another deep in its living mass. The roadway vibrated through the thin soles of my high heels. It wasn't only the winter evening making me shiver.
"Worth the trip, Tix?" John looked down at me, his voice pitched high and his face lit with a boyish grin.
"OK, you win. I didn't believe. But this ... this is something else," I said.
We had travelled down that afternoon. The Beemer's headlights and wipers had worked full-pelt to drag us through the curtains of rain. While we were unpacking, the sky had lightened and now in the crisply damp darkness we stood in front of our Tudor-beamed riverside accommodation buttoning up for a stroll before dinner.
John took my hand and we swung along together separated from the surge only by the confection of stanchions, plates and bolts. John sprang on his toes. My scepticism had been as well-rooted as the trees that were being borne downstream. As we walked, he explained how the barrier could be erected within half a day and now gave the town's residents year-round protection.
We took the pedestrian arch under the 200-year-old bridge. I wondered fleetingly whether the barrier's designers had taken into account how the ancient stonework would be subjected to new forces created by the river's containment on one side. Of course they would, John would say if I asked him. They're German.
We stopped again to look at the view across the river. The smell from the chip shop sharpened my appetite. I shivered beneath my thick coat and clapped my hands. The strangeness of our lower bodies being below the waterline made the damp more bone-piercing.
The bank on the other side boasted no barrier and we could see threads of reflected orange from the street-lights where the river had spilled onto the road. Cars splashed down its centre creating waves on both sides. As they turned on to the incline of the bridge, their headlights speared the black sky.
"I'll just check the car's OK and we'll go back," John said. He led the way through the town to the car park beyond the barrier. We double-checked the encroaching water wouldn't maroon his precious Beemer and then wended our way down an alley back to the inn. Its Christmas-lit windows drew us in along shafts of red and gold.
We went into the bar and while John stood waiting to order I thought about my answer. My best friend Ruth couldn't keep it to herself when John had asked her to help him choose a ring and I knew it would be tonight. I felt my face flush in the room's warmth - I could put it down to the open fire. John was everything I had hoped for. He was fit, bright and he made me laugh. He pressed all the right buttons. Good job in a computer consultancy - he'd never be made redundant like my dad had been. He owned the flat I'd been virtually living in for the past three months. Did I say he was fit? I knew the answer – yes; he pressed all the right buttons.
"Will you marry me, Tix?" John's blue eyes shone. The restaurant was hot and thankfully most of the tables were now empty. He was so earnest. How could I not love him?
We sealed our engagement against the noise of the heaving river racing beneath our window. As we slept, the flood-water strained to break through on our side so it could spend a night on the town as had been its custom for centuries.
It was still dark when I woke to the new sensation of a band round my finger. The room was hot. The duvet, which had been so comforting going to bed, now lay round my legs like desert sandbags. I took a jumper and jeans into the bathroom and dressed in the light of the shaving mirror. John's tousled hair was just visible on the flowery pillow. He snuffled as I kissed him on the forehead. I picked up my coat and clicked the door shut behind me.
I pulled my belt tighter as I stepped onto the cobbles. No further panels had been added to the barrier but the water was at least a foot higher. It glinted with silver edges in the fading moonlight as eddies switched and crossed the stream but never interrupted the career southward.
I retraced our route to the bridge, this time climbing the steps to the roadway. I was alone. The shop fronts were dark. It was too early even for the church clock to be chiming the Sunday quarters. There were signs telling motorists to turn back. The road on the other side of the bridge was now impassable.
I went to the parapet over the middle of the river and watched the unstoppable passage of water and flotsam as it sped into the misty distance. To my right the barrier sliced a cliff-edge of river down to the walkway. It made an unnatural perpendicular as if space had been inverted. On the other side, the water scurried into pockets and corners seeking new sensations, new places to spend time. It was taking a diversion before rejoining the scrambling migration.
Time stopped. A sort of hypnosis set in and my body became one with the life-form thrashing beneath the ancient arches.
"Hey! Stay there! I'll join you."
I looked back towards the inn expecting to see John. My heart dipped. The road was empty.
"Ouch! That's freezing!"
I swivelled round. A man was paddling through the flooded roadway onto the bridge. His jeans were rolled up to his knees but not far enough to escape the darkening stains as his bare feet sloshed in and out of the water. He was carrying a small knapsack in both hands at shoulder height
He emerged and rolled down his jeans. He walked gingerly towards me on bare feet. His brown eyes were bright beneath curtains of black hair that fell either side of his forehead. I guessed he was about the same age as John. He looked down at me as if we were meeting again after years apart. I'd never seen him before.
"I thought I'd be on my own this time on a Sunday morning." He pulled open the top of the bag. "Coffee?"
I shook my head. I looked back towards the inn. Some of the bedrooms were showing lights. Was one of them ours?
"I make it strong. There's more than enough for two." He danced from foot to foot. "My feet are bloody freezing. I shouldn't have done that. I only came to look at the floods. Then I saw you ... I couldn’t help myself."
"Hold on a second," I said. I ran back to the bridge-closed sign. A workman had discarded some corrugated plastic packing. I took it back and laid it by the stranger's bare feet. They were almost as blue as the plastic. The first thing I really noticed about him was an absence. There were no sprouts of hair on his big toes.
"Stand on that," I said.
He bowed. "Thank you, kind lady." He straightened up and offered his hand. "That's better. I'm Tony, by the way."
"My name's Victoria. Everybody calls me Tix."
He rubbed his palms together. "Thank you, Tix. Now, coffee."
He took out a flask with two small cups. He placed them on the parapet and poured. The steam swirled into the lightening day.
I took a cup in both hands. The heat seeped through my gloves. "Thanks for this." As the first taste stung my lips I remembered I had refused when he offered it.
"Bacon sandwich?"
I shook my head and watched my breath make a pattern.
"Go on. I've made too much for just me. Eyes bigger than. I decided when I saw you alone on the bridge ... somehow ... I don't know ... you must be here for me. Whatever, you could at least help me eat my breakfast." His eyes locked on to mine and I looked away as I nodded.
There was silence. I had taken off a glove to pick up half of the sandwich. I bit into a mouthful of salty, unctuous bread. I washed it down with the bitter heat of coffee.
"Where did you come from, Tony? I didn't see a car arrive."
"I'm parked over there." He pointed to a sleek little sports car, Italian, parked on the edge of the flood. His abandoned shoes were pigeon-toed next to the driver’s door.
"I saw you come to the top of the bridge,” he said. “I was sitting there about to tuck in. When I saw you ... another flood freak, I thought."
I looked down at the writhing bulk churning beneath us. "It is amazing."
"And to think some people come to see the barrier not the river. It's like going to the zoo to see the bars instead of the animals."
"Yes." I pictured John asleep in our warm bed and shivered. Tony put out a hand and withdrew it as I leaned away from him.
"She's out on this damp morning to see the river like this ... swollen, breaking out ... powerful. It's something we have in common, I thought. We're soul mates. The least I can do is share my breakfast."
I held up the cup. "And very appreciated it is, as well."
"Anyway, Victoria ... Tix. Why are you here?" he said.
I swallowed the last salty gobbet. "I came with my boyfriend. My fiancé. We got engaged last night."
"Congratulations," he said. His voice was flat. The breeze made his eyes water.
"Doesn't look like we're soul mates after all," I said. "Or your timing would be better. It looks like you're just too late." I smiled.
He skipped only one beat. The cold made him look so serious. "Or, just in time," he said.
"I ought to be getting back," I said, turning to look at the inn. There was a figure in the doorway.
"Wait there," he said. He was already hopping back towards the flood rolling up his jeans as he ran.
"Why?" I called after him.
I caught his response over the sound of the river. "You'll see when I get back."
"You’re mad," I shouted. My words carried out over the parapet and joined the ripped-up hostages from up-river lives floating away downstream.
I wiped my mouth with the sandwich wrapping and put my gloves back on. The last dregs of coffee were cold but I welcomed the taste like an addict.
He came back carrying a book. He had the look of an eager puppy. "It’s just … I've nobody else to give this to. I'd like you to have it." He thrust the book towards me.
I read its title, Memoirs of a Shido-Joshu. The sub-title was, An English Teacher in Japan. The author’s name was Tony Robertson. I looked at the picture on the back cover. The author was standing in front of me.
"It's the first copy. I got it yesterday. It's officially published next month," he said.
"You're a writer." I said.
"Only if it sells. I'll teach again if it doesn't, here in the UK ... or maybe Europe, I don't know. I'm sort of at a cross-road. I'll let the fates decide."
"I can't take this," I said. "Not if it's your only copy."
"Seriously, you can. You must. Like I said, it's fate. Don't you think things are pre-determined? When a raindrop falls in the river in Shrewsbury it doesn't have any choice but to go with the flow and be spat out into the sea at Bristol. I thought it may have been like that ... when I saw you on the bridge. That's why I was so affected."
He shrugged, showing his open palms. "OK. It looks like I was wrong ... but there has to be some element of fate in our meeting. When a river floods, it leaves its course but only fleetingly - it always has to go back."
I laughed. "You sound like you picked up some Japanese philosophy while you were there." My hands trembled as I held the book. "OK, I'll take it. But only if you think of something appropriate to write in it for me - a Japanese proverb perhaps. A dedication. Is it a deal?"
He thought for a second. There was twinkle in his eye. He smiled and the way he looked made me think I had better head back to the inn. "Deal," he said. "But you must promise not to look until you’re back where you're staying." He took out a pen and as he wrote, his face creased with concentration. "I was thinking on my way back to the car ... what I said about going to the zoo and seeing the bars. I don't want you to think I go to zoos. I think they're cruel."
"So do I," I said.
"But I did work in the Safari Park once ... the one down the road. It was my summer job when I was at college. I was on the gates to the monkey enclosure. I should have said that coming here to see this ...” He waved the pen in the direction of the river. "Seeing this and just marvelling at the barrier, well … it's like being more interested in the gates than the animals. Maybe that analogy works better."
"You needn't have worried,” I said. "I didn't think you were a zoo freak anyway."
Tony took my gloved hand. His fingers were long like a musician's. "Well, Tix, au revoir." He handed me the book. "Remember, you're not to open it until you get back to your hotel. Promise?"
"Promise."
John was still in bed. I slipped the book into my bag and woke him.
"Where have you been?" he asked as he touched my cheek.
"For a walk," I said. "I stood on the bridge to watch the river. It's higher than yesterday."
"Don't worry, Pumpkin," he said, stroking my face with the back of his hand. "That barrier can take it."
We ate breakfast at the same table where John proposed. He called it our table. "We'll come back here for all our anniversaries and always sit at this table," he said.
"What about today?" I said. "What shall we do today?"
"What do you want to do?" he said.
"Did you know there's a Safari Park near here? We could see the animals."
"If you like," he said. "But I think you'll find it's closed for the winter. There's the steam railway. Would you like to go on a train?"
I ignored the train suggestion. "John," I said. I didn’t think I would have the opportunity so soon. I had to work to keep my voice even. "That Safari Park? How do they keep the animals in the enclosures when all the cars keep moving through? I mean, some of those animals are dangerous. What if they escape?"
"You are a silly goose," he said. He smiled. He reached across and put his hand on top of mine. "You worry about the strangest things. They have double-gate system. The gates work in sync so the enclosure is always secure. It's perfectly safe. Look, I'll show you ..."
He moved cutlery round the table top. My mind turned back to the opposite bank, where the river had broken free. It was stretching its wintry toes - blue with cold and surprisingly lacking in ugly sprouts of dark hair - into places it had never been before. What was it Tony said? When a river floods, it leaves its course but only fleetingly – it always has to go back. What did it mean for me?
I went up to pack, leaving John in the lounge catching up with the football reports in the Sunday paper. I felt in the bag for the book. I ran my palm across the front cover, turned it over and did the same to the picture on the back. Such a nice smile, I thought. I opened the book to the title page. There was no Japanese proverb. Tony's dedication was a mere two lines. It said: If I'm just in time rather than just too late, you'll need this. Underneath he had written a telephone number.




--The End—