The Pygmy Giant

by Fiona Glass

Geoffrey fell through the cracks in life a long time ago. There was a time when he had it all – wife, home, kids, dog, fast car and a decent job. The wife was Sheila, blonde, pretty and trim, if not the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer. Home was a three bed semi in stockbroker belt with geraniums in pots either side of the red front door. The kids were Penny and Sam, outpacing him physically and mentally as kids tended to do; and the dog was a loveable rogue called Dip.

And the job? Well, that was the trouble all along. The job was teaching maths in the school on the local estate. The kids hated Geoffrey and Geoffrey hated the kids, and neither of them liked the maths enough to fill the gap. Lessons were a riot in the literal sense of the word; the kids chattered and texted and ran up and down the aisles while Geoffrey wrote equations on the board with squeaky chalk and prayed for the hour to end. The chatter turned to shouts and the running to climbing up the walls, and Geoffrey found himself on report for not keeping control. He didn’t like to admit the kids took control long ago so he shuffled his feet and said he would do his best.

Two days later Danny Smith pulled the blackboard off the wall. He’d been climbing up it, he said, to retrieve his football shirt, which Jimmy Pratt had thrown up there and which he needed for footie practice that afternoon. The headmistress gave Danny detention and Geoffrey, losing patience at last, gave him a clip round the ear. Two days after that the police came round, rapping on the red front door and leaving muddy footprints in the hall. Assault, they said. Touching a child in an inappropriate way. Pressing charges, they said. Please report to the police station first thing in the morning, sir, and don’t make plans to go away.

Geoffrey left that night, and didn’t even pack. He tucked Penny and Sam into bed, kissed Sheila on the cheek and said he was going to the pub. But the car keys were still on the hook by the kitchen door and he left his wallet on the table by the bed. He took some cash, the clothes he stood up in and a Dan Brown book he was halfway through, and he walked down the drive and never looked back.

Now Geoffrey pushes his belongings round town in a supermarket cart. Newspapers and an old blanket he stole from someone’s washing line; a few tins of food, can opener, plastic fork; and hidden in the blanket’s folds the blessed relief of the whisky bottle. He buys a new bottle every other day, rationing himself because the dole money doesn’t last. He’d drink a bottle a day if he could, but then he couldn’t pay for the luxuries in life: toilet paper, disposable razors, and the occasional pie and pint. There’s a pub he uses sometimes, on the corner of Clarence Street, with a sign outside that swing-creaks whenever the westerlies blow. He doesn’t know its name but the barmaids take pity on him and the decor’s grimy enough not to show him up. He can’t stay there long, though, in case They come after him again. He knows that if he ever settles down They’ll find him and take him in. He gets muddled now and can’t remember why, but that doesn’t stop him moving – moving – moving all day long. They haven’t got him yet but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

He follows the cracks between the paving slabs. Up one street and down the next, until he finds a pavement that’s been tarmacked over and doesn’t know where to go. He can’t remember where he used to live, or see his childrens’ faces any more. If someone asked him to pick out Sheila from a photograph he could, but he’s forgotten her maiden name and when her birthday was. Some days he can’t remember his own name and pushes his trolley in a sullen trance.

There are others like Geoffrey in town: a grey ghostly army that life got its own back on long ago. They roam the streets at dusk and dawn, bundled shapes drifting through nights and sleeping with the sun. Geoffrey’s a ghost now too, forgetting, forgotten and lost. He’s a ghost who’s grown old, and knows he could never go back to that sunlit world he left behind, or his children, or his wife. He’s never forgotten the important things, though, like Danny Smith’s name or where the wine shop is. And if you buy him a pint in the pub on Clarence Street, he’ll tell you he misses Dip.

Fiona Glass lives in a pointy house in Birmingham and writes fiction, some of which has been published by Byker Books, Mslexia, and QueeredFiction.