TRASH CAT LIT

Martha Swift

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When her husband returned from the Tibetan Plateau, Mrs Delilah Vane lost the use of her attic. Swathed in blankets and a beard that even Sir Samuel Baker might have trimmed, he bade the servants move his bed and his library into the garret. After walking the Roof of the World, it seemed the man could no longer endure the ground floors of London. He refused to descend—even for meals—and the parlour maid was run ragged fetching up mittens and cups of buttery po cha. The oily, emulsified tea was the only thing the man would consume. 

“Are you sure he understands completely where he is, dear?” Helena Fairfax asked softly over tea at Brown’s. 

Naturally, Mrs Vane had heard of adventurers who returned unable to recognise their own homes. This, however, was nothing but a case of eccentricity. Frederick had simply let their hopes of knighthood drive him to early affectation. It was time to bring the man back down to earth. 

She began the ascent to her husband’s eyrie. On the gracious, sweeping staircase from front hall to landing, a December chill skittered down the bannisters. On the wide, carpeted steps between the first floor and the nursery, her breath came harder. On the narrow, wooden set to the loft, flowers of frost adorned the wallpaper. She grew furious with her husband for the open window he was surely inflicting upon her fastidious home.

Further abominations awaited in the attic. She took in the tent, the furs, the axes and snowshoes; the charred ring of a campfire in the middle of the room; the single dormer window blinded by a thick, white rime. 

“Frederick, what is this?” she exclaimed, pointing to the blackened floorboards. “Have you quite forgotten how to use a fireplace?”

“In Tibet,” he explained, “many dwellings have central hearths.”

“And this?” She gestured to the canvas tent squatting in the eaves. “Don’t tell me your mattress is no longer to your liking!”

“In Tibet, one must be ready to move camp.”

“And the window? We shall have to replace both pane and frame.”

“In Tibet—” Mr Vane began again. 

But “In Tibet, in Tibet!” his wife cut in. “You are in London, Frederick!”

She was across in the room in a stride, yanking at the frozen window. She beat and battered at the sash, but it held fast. There was nothing for it. She seized her husband’s pickaxe and swung. The plate shattered. Glass and ice spun upon a vicious wind. 

“London!” she cried, chest heaving by the ragged pane, hand and axe held outwards as if pointing at a blackboard. 

Frederick Vane gaped at his wife and then past her. Beyond the swirling flakes and tumbling glass, Hampstead had vanished. Where the neighbouring villas should have been, a plain stretched to the white shoulders of distant mountains. 

Mrs Vane let the pickaxe tumble to the hardwood floor. When her husband offered her a coat, she shrugged it on. Together, they began to strike camp. 

Martha’s prompts were: In an Attic, an Explorer, Broken Glass

Martha Swift is an award-winning writer and researcher. She writes short fiction, creative criticism and scholarship about contemporary literature. She was recently shortlisted for the Fish Flash Fiction Prize, and she is a past winner of the New Art Writing Contest by Artblog. Her writing has appeared in publications in the UK, US, and Australia, including “Contemporary Literature,” “It’s Freezing in LA!”, “Meanjin,” “FEMSPEC,” creativecritical.net, and SENT, a collection of 100 ideas about space.

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