Shelly Green Eternity

A setting of Gabrielle Calvocoressi's At Last The New Arriving, which to me is a poem about shaking off the things that try their best to cling on and pull you down (Catholic school. Getting your face beaten to a pulp. Boys not wanting you to dance with the other girls.) and joyously waxing poetic, raving, shouting about everything beautiful that persists nonetheless (Playing your horn. Winning the fight. Dancing with the other girls.)

– by Yona B.

Much of her time these days is spent scouring the Block for the nicer things she can find. Strange, the things the Threshold offers up. The ritual of the search is calming. It’s hard to tell what she prefers: the finding or the sharing. Today, she’s putting some trinket or other where it belongs, until it finds its way to a new home. It’s a quaint porcelain dog, missing one ear. She lifts it, careful not to chip it any further, and somehow, under it is a postcard. The picture on it is a painting, abstract bright colours that eventually coalesce into fields and birds. She pauses, tilts her head; the painting looks familiar, but she’s certain it’s not pinned to any wall of her home.

Days off are unusual in her line of work, so she takes what she can get. This time, it’s a Thursday in Glasgow. 1991. Her second year of training. She hadn’t realised there was a gallery here. The park around it is vast, green, sunny, and disguises behind its twisting leaves a surprisingly large museum. She checks her watch – time to kill. Why not?

Most of the museum doesn’t catch her attention. The banners are nice. Impressive needlework. Mostly, she’s enjoying the walk; strange angles and hidden staircases are more to her taste. When she first sees the painting, it’s the white blotches at the lower left that catch the corner of her eye. She shrugs, tries to look nonchalant as she reads the description. Sunburst by Duncan Shanks. An explosion of colour, a river scarring the centre of the canvas, pink evening glow descending over the birds and the plants.

20 minutes later, she’s still in that same spot. A child bashing into her leg is what it takes for her to snap out of it. She takes a step back and mouths a quick ‘sorry’ to the kid’s mother. A glance at her watch reminds her of the time. Nowhere to be, but lingering too long feels like a bad idea. Out of character, or something like that. She throws one last look at the painting, then makes her way out.

It’s something she might have pictured doing herself, once. Splashing bright colours on a canvas. A Sunburst. Not how things have ended up. But on her way out, she picks up a postcard at the gift shop. 15p. 40p for 3, but that’s just excessive. It’ll probably end up in the bin of her hotel room. Nice, though, to imagine being the sort of person to collect postcards.

She picks the picture up. The card is thick and soft, and the strange light of the Threshold suits the painting. She rubs her thumb over the back, then tucks it into her pocket. Maybe it’s her memory; maybe it’s someone else’s. Either way, there’s a spot on her wall that will fit this perfectly. There always is.

– by Yona B.

After everything that has happened in its shadowed alleyways, it’s an ironic ray of sunshine that Shelly Green would set up her shop of trinkets and nostalgia. Everything in this place is made of memories; it only seems right to treasure the good ones, meaningful ones. From the warmest hello to the coldest goodbye. Whoever they may belong to one day.

“Gracias, Miss Shelly. I had a compass like this many years ago. This one will remind me I still have this home to return to when my journey is done.” Diego; setting off at last in search of his partner.

“Hey Shelly. Do you think we’ll have enough seeds yet?” Judyth; reclothing the concrete jungle in guise of green.

“Hullo! I told you I’d be looking for a lamp, do you think you could help me with that?” Bale; searching for a warm glow to light his home - his first home in a very long time.

Not every item need prompt a flashback of happier times; sometimes the value of a trinket is as a reminder of who and what we care about in a much more mundane sense. It can bring a smile to a face or a tear to an eye. And that matters just as much.

“Are we finally getting round to Silence of the Lambs?” comes the voice of William Bishop across the Resurrectionist’s tap room. Tables have already been arranged to create a more communal viewing space, and this particular viewing has long been jestingly anticipated since the early days of the Film Club. Now, after many of Queenie and William’s bingo sheet parties passed, it seems ironic that it is now of all days that the classic film is gracing the old projector.

Chairs are pulled close. Old faces and new ones gather in the darkened room. Shelly smiles to herself as the film begins to roll and the wall of the Resurrectionist is bathed with the opening credits, trees on the lakeshore. How fulfilling a joy it is to be surrounded by people you love.

The door opens. A late arrival enters the tavern. Shelly knows who it is without turning; several audience members break out into gasps and murmuring. A chair from the far corner clacks slightly against stone as Albert Wyre takes a distant seat. She sees him out of her periphery, arms folded, expression neutral. A fresh enigma. One she has been anticipating these last few days. Shelly’s thoughts drift back to a drawer in her shop, the one drawer whose deadly contents are not for sale. She smiles. Perhaps a less curious, less watchful person would let the released barber go about his new freedom unchecked. Not her.

Once a spy, always a spy.

You receive a handwritten letter, in messy, sharp black biro – it is encoded, but a simple Ceaser cipher reveals the following message:

Hello! Film club is starting! We’ll be meeting in my room – it might be a tight fit, but that just makes it all the more cozy. Our first film will be Mean Girls. Come along! It should be great fun.

A time is written below, followed by a frankly upsettingly bad doodle of a cat.

A translation of the message, decoded, is on the back.

She pauses, holding the eyeliner almost to her skin.

‘I’m not sure.’

She meets her own eyes in the mirror and blinks. ‘I never liked to spend time with things. You know? I never let things settle. I never… savoured anything. Everything I did was so planned out. Never spontaneous, but never lasting, either.’

Silence suffuses the air for a moment, but she breaks the tension with a soft laugh, bringing the makeup to her eye. ‘But if I had to pick one moment? There was this one woman I met. An enemy agent. Italian. I won’t bore you with the details, but that was a highlight, to be sure.’

Harry. This is concerning news. You must attend film club. It’s important for your wellbeing.
-S

In what way is it important to my wellbeing.
Harry

I can’t explain it to you. You have to experience it for yourself.
-S

I cannot emphasise to you enough how much this is not convincing me of doing anything.
Harry

What if I told you it would make so happy I start wearing the cat jumper again?
-S

Now that's an interesting proposition.
I'll consider it.
Harry

She thinks for a moment, mouth twisted into a frown. She looks at Siphy, then, meeting xer eyes. ‘You’re right, of course. There’s no erasing the past. Even if you forget something, it still happened.’ One hand moves absently to her upper arm. ‘But all we have here is time. I think you can make up for anything with enough time.’

She reaches for a pin, and surveys the room for a spot that fits the card. ‘It was the first thing I got here. I hadn’t decorated my room at all. I was convinced I’d be out of here in no time. But it caught my eye in the Market Place, and I thought – I might as well try to fit in. Or seem like it.’ There – a square of space on the wall across from the door, just waiting to be filled. ‘I fear I’ve gone native,’ she laughs. ‘But this place is full of… I don’t know. It’s full of beautiful things. Horrible things, too, but –‘ She pins the picture in place, then turns to face Acacia. ‘I can hardly leave the house without bumping into something more lovely than I ever thought I’d see.’