Ripper

One of my favourite exercises when I'm not working on a specific project, is to simply write flat out for half an hour on the first topic that comes into my head. The quality and quantity doesn't matter, so long as I write continuously for 30 minutes, without pausing to make corrections or alterations. Once the time is up I stop writing, even if I'm mid way through a sentence. The exercise is best performed longhand with a pen and paper, unless you are a blisteringly fast typist!! A stopwatch or alarm clock is useful too.

Usually it's complete drivel of course, but it gets the grey cells working and acts as a confidence booster when I'm blocked. I don't even bother to read it back to myself. At the end of the exercise the piece goes into a folder never to be looked at again, unless of it's an idea worth developing of course - which is not very often!

Anyway, here is one such exercise, inspired by the murder in 1888 of Martha Tabram in Whitechapel, London:


He sensed that his opportunity was close at hand. He had followed her from the corner of Goulston Street, keeping a discrete distance, as she weaved her way along the cobbled length of Wentworth Street. Occasionally he caught snatches of a song coming from his prey. "It was only a flower I picked from my Mother's Grave." Quite appropriate. 

From her unsteady gait and the way she slurred her words he could tell that she was pretty well pickled. Good. They were always so much more pliable when they were in that state. Less likely to make a fuss or cry out. His heart rate quickened in anticipation and he took a deep breath to calm the jitters.

The woman ahead paused briefly under the glow of a gas lamp and hitched her voluminous skirts. He ducked quickly into a doorway, just in case she turned around. Satisfied that she was presentable, the woman stumbled across to the opposite side of the street and continued on her way. He quickened his pace slightly to narrow the gap between them. There were numerous doorways to yards along this stretch of the street into which she could disappear. He didn't want to lose her at this stage. Not when there was important work to be done. He did so enjoy his work.

The woman stopped again, this time in a doorway and vomited loudly and copiously into a doorway. This time he did not bother to hide. Red Lion Yard was just a few yards further along the street. That would be the ideal spot to do the deed. In a few long strides he crossed the street and stood just a few feet behind her. Her stench was overwhelming, a caustic mix of urine, stale sweat and vomit. He scarcely noticed. They were all like that around here, these "unfortunates". This one was certainly unfortunate. Not for her status as an east end prostitute, but because she was about to make the acquaintance of his special friend.

The woman hoisted her numerous skirts and petticoats and squatted down on the pavement and began to urinate on the pavement, oblivious of the tall, black clad figure standing close behind her. He watched in rapt fascination as the hot jet of liquid squirted from beneath her, glinting silver in the moonlight. How like the blade of a knife it looked. A long thin blade, much like his own.

He cast his gaze over her enormous buttocks, white and wrinkled like fresh dough. He thought to reach out and kneed them, but held back. There would be time enough for that later, once the deed was done. Then he could take the time to explore her mysteries, her crevices.

He waited until she was finished and had straightened her clothing. He noticed that she wore a threadbare green velvet jacket embroidered with pink daisies. He wondered how she had come by it. Items like that usually came from fine couturiers up west, not from the local Yiddish sweatshop tailors. Perhaps this trollop had seen better days herself. Perhaps she had fallen from a better class. He wondered how such an event could have occurred. Perhaps her husband had died, leaving debts. Perhaps he had simply become bored with her. Surely not. No man could possibly become bored with a rump like that as his plaything. He smiled to himself. Her background was of no matter. A whore was a whore. The fact that she might once have had a bit of class just added a delicious piquancy.

He stroked his pencil thin moustache and coughed to get her attention. She turned, staggered, steadying herself on the door jamb. 

“Hello dear,” she grinned, revealing three missing teeth in her lower jaw. “What's a fine gentleman like yourself doing creeping up on lady like that?” She cackled like a drain before coughing horsely. Early onset of consumption he thought. At least she would be spared from that ignoble fate.

He grinned coldly, and held out a handful of small coins, wordlessly. Her eyes lit up greedily and she licked her lips, no doubt anticipating a few more hours spent in the gin palaces of Commercial Street.

“Oh I see,” she murmured. She looked about, seeking a place of privacy before lighting on the entrance to Red Lion Yard. “Come on then, we can nip in there.”

He almost laughed aloud as he followed her. Just like a lamb to the slaughter. Quite literally.

Coming Home

This story was written for the first assignment of my Open University creative writing course, for which I earned a distinction. Please feel free to comment.

Coming Home

by David Thorne

The street was much shorter than he remembered. The prim red bricked terraced houses had always seemed to stretch forever as he trudged home from school, hauling his satchel of brown paper wrapped books. There were a lot fewer cars then too. When he'd lived here not many people owned cars. Mr Rutter from number 52 had a Wolseley. Of course he could afford it, he was something important at the tank factory. He'd once taken the two families to Whitley Bay for the day. If he closed his eyes Tim could still recall the smell of the polished leather seats. Feel the overworked springs, as eight of them crammed into that tiny motor car. James hadn't been born yet, of course. They'd had ice creams that day. A rare treat back then, before wartime rationing came to an end.

The bitter October breeze curled around his legs, causing his cotton slacks to ripple and bulge. He pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets and struck out towards the top of the street where the pit heap had loomed over the entire village. A four lane bypass cut through it now.

He played a game of trying to put the names of families to the numbers of houses as he approached the crossroads. Quite a few of the residents at this end of the street must have bought their homes. Some had put in upvc double glazing and doors, or hung pretentious name plaques. Most had unsightly satellite dishes fastened to the walls. Tim chided himself for thinking how common they looked. He paused at the corner where the shop belonging to Mr Lawson the butcher had stood. It was a combined tattoo and tanning parlour now.

A telephone box marked the spot where he had been knocked down by one of the Kelly boys on his bicycle. A rueful smile creased Tim’s lips at the thought of that wild haired figure whizzing around the pavement corner, scarecrow legs frozen out wide to avoid the flying pedals, bell ringing frantically.

'I've got no brakes!'

Then there was a blank. No recollection of pain, just the doctor putting the finishing touches to the plaster cast on his left ankle before ruffling his hair.

He reached number 67 and stared. The peeling, faded front door might have once been red, perhaps brown, he couldn’t tell. It might be the same one that had been there when he was a child. The lacy net curtains which his mother had washed and pressed religiously every fortnight long gone. He couldn't tell if there were even any curtains at all hanging at the grubby, sightless windows. Inside, the dull jaundiced glow of a naked lightbulb revealed stark magnolia walls. In the gloom he could make out a psychodelic poster of a marijuana leaf hung haphazardly over the chimney breast, one corner ripped away.

A tattered and bulging black refuse sack teetered on the top step, oozing the stench of rotting vegetation and soiled nappies. Tim covered his nose with a sleeve to prevent himself retching. His throat stiffened and ached as he pictured his mother on her knees scrubbing those stone steps. Hair tied up under an ever present headscarf, rheumatic hands raw from the icy water in the galvanised bucket at her side.

The door burst open with a shuddering crash that threatened to shake it from the hinges. For an instant Tim expected his father to step out in his thick woollen trousers and threadbare brown jacket, crisp white shirt, collar all freshly starched and ironed. How had his mother managed to keep those shirts so white? Every evening Dad would arrive home black with the grime of the coal face, and every morning Mam would send him out looking like he'd just stepped out of a Saville Row tailor. Well almost.

A shaven headed mountain of a man dressed in filthy denim jeans and black bomber jacket lurched out, accompanied by the sound a child howling.

'...and ye better shut that bairn up or I'll stot both your heeds off the wall', he roared. Tim caught a brief burst of a woman's harsh voice hurling abuse before the door once again slammed shut.

'What the fuck are ye gaupin at?' The man shouldered past Tim, knocking him into the gutter. His Pierre Cardin shoe avoided a fresh dog turd by a hair.

A smouldering tear percolating down his cheek, Tim crossed the street. Without looking back he walked towards his car.