http://www.writers-online.co.uk^33Runner-up in the creative non-fiction competition was Malcolm Welshman, Crewkerne, Somerset, whose story is published
on http://www.writers-online.co.uk. Also shortlisted were: Dominic Bell, Hull, Humberside; Jeni Bell, Winchester, Hampshire;
Virginia Betts, Ipswich, Suffolk; Andrew Boulton, Nottingham; Sian McDermott, Newport, Gwent; CL Raven, Llanishen,
Cardiff; Jane Robinson, Skendleby, Lincolnshire; RW Simpson, Thrapston, Northamptonshire; Julia Thorley, Kettering,
Northamptonshire; Deborah Tomlin, Bath.NOVEMBER 2019Read the judge’s
analysis at:
http://writ.rs/
wmnov19EXPERT
analysisgrips my hand.
‘Well, I don’t know. Let’s watch
and see.’
‘I want them to,’ he says, turning
his face up at me again, a frown
appearing over his blue eyes,
wrinkling his smooth brow. My heart
fractures a little. A fine line of pain.
‘Who’s this?’ his big sister says,
looking up from her book, one hand
holding her page down.
‘Oh, just these brothers.’ I say,
‘They’ll make it through. They’ve
had loads of screen time.’
‘Is that how you know?’ she says.
‘Yeah, course,’ I say, thinking
about formulae and advertising and
how it all tessellates. My free hand
goes to the nape of my boy’s head,
slides through the ends of his hair
where it is still baby soft. I resist the
urge to lean forward and breathe
him in again. I sigh and wish we
could be here forever, lounging
and propped by carefully chosen
cushions, now stained and picked at
the edges. Family markings.
The brothers have not done well.
‘Aw?’ says my son, a question of
disappointment and refutation, a
resistance. The brothers on screen
are near tears.
‘Are they crap?’ my daughter says,
looking up from her book again.
‘Not crap, no. Wrong song.’ I say,
knowing as I do I am just anticipating
what the judges will say, nothing
more. ‘They need to sing something
different. Do you think they’ll get
another chance, mate?’ I ask, kissing
the top of my son’s head. He shrugs,
still fixed on the faces of these singing
brothers. Their guitars hang idle,
shameful across their thighs. A bottom
lip wobbles in pixels.
‘Is this happening now?’ he says.
‘No. Last night.’ I frown.
Something ticks over. ‘In fact, no.
This was recorded months ago.’
I wonder how the emotion is
transmitted with these images.
Is it, even? Or do we put it there
ourselves, filling in the spaces? My
arm has gone dead but I don’t want
to move. His little frame is tense. I
rub his head, his shoulder, pull him
an inch closer.
The judges are about to make a
pronouncement. They are serious,
even angry-looking. How dare
these rapping brothers waste their
time! The boys are pleading for
another chance, declaring they really
want this, promising hard work,
promising they will make the judges
proud. Everyone is uncomfortable.
The judges too. Or pretending to be.
The one in the middle sighs, looks
theatrically doubtful. The audience
is restless. He waves a hand with
weary irritation, before crossing his
arms and narrowing his eyes. Make
it count, he says.
‘Ah. They’re going to do it
acoustic. Stripped back version,
Jesus. They love that.’ I smile,
knowing that they means us, means
the audience. I suspect a set-up.
‘What does that mean?’ he says,
his eyes still on the screen.
‘Shh,’ I reply, ‘let’s just watch and see.’
They begin to sing. The bottom
lips have settled and there’s a shine
to their eyes. Their mother is in the
audience; her hands clasped to her
chest in a prayer for her boys up
there. I understand. I understand
the tears standing in her eyes, those
waters of desperate, unbearable,
bottomless love. They are singing
like angels; the judges’ eyes are
smiling, their annoyance melting,
deftly shot close-ups focusing in on
emotions quivering in eyelash and
nostril. The judges are starting to
look at each other, to nod and smile.
The singers finish, and wait.
A soundtrack steals in on tiptoe- music chosen and added in post-
production – a single violin note
sustained high and sweet, holding
the tension with a faint pulse as
the camera zooms in on the judges
to capture their faces, opaque in
their decision-making. The singers
are holding their breath, my boy
is holding his breath and holding
my hand, I am holding my breath
and squeezing him without really
knowing it and my girl is poised
to turn her page but suspended
along with us while we wait; the
audience waits, the mother
waits and I can see a tear
trembling in the rim of her
eyelid, longing to run down
her face but needing the signal,
the reason to roll. In pain, or in
ecstasy. And then the main judge
smiles and says you’re through to the
next round and as the soundtrack
crashes into drums and swelling
violins and the brothers throw their
arms around each other and jump
in celebration and relief and the
maternal tear finally rolls and the
audience stands as one body with
their arms in the air, my boy turns
into me with a cry and weeps, his hot
head thrust into my chest, his body
wracked and sobbing with something
he doesn’t understand. And my
own tears rush up through me like
something is overflowing and I know
I am reacting to his overwrought
six-year-old body that cannot take
it cannot be so full of it cannot bear
to feel this emotion from so many
people from so far away.
We are not built for this.
I’m annoyed.
We’ve all been manipulated, like
machines. Press this button, get
that output. I want to carry it for
him, tell him you don’t have to feel
what everyone else feels, here, give it
to me. But instead I hold him and
let him cry until his hitching chest
has settled.
A moment of stillness. And then,
‘It made me feel sad.’ He is broken
voiced and frowning, trying to
understand himself.
‘Well, it’s ok to feel sad. It made me
cry too. Why do you think we feel sad
when something is happy?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’ He says, rubbing
his eyes. My daughter pulls her best
face of amused disdain and sinks
back into her book.
‘Sometimes, we just feel things
son,’ I say, ‘and that’s ok.’
He nods and slides off the settee
to play with his Lego, leaving me
empty-handed.SHORT STORY COMPETITION WINNER
Amanda Marples is
an academic mentor
living in Rotherham
with two noisy
children. This is her
fourth competition
win. She is about
to complete her
creative writing MA
at the University
of Sheffi eld, after
which she intends
to start sending out
her novel. When
not writing, she
enjoys going out on
her skateboard and
falling off it, then
blogging about at
motherboardskate.
wordpress.com.
She really is old
enough to know
better.