Chapter 1 of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall, by Matt Boothman
I wrote this story chapter by chapter, without outlining first. It was an experiment in writing consistently, producing a chapter once a month, without fail, for the Foggy Outline newsletter. So don’t expect something polished or finished; but what it does have is momentum, and a fluidity that came from wanting to change things up enough to keep myself interested enough to write more.
If you’d be interested in a properly edited, fleshed out, finished version of this story, let me know!
“I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for it,” said Marielena, “but I want to introduce you to my brother.”
Callum arrived at the house on Bronze Street about half an hour after the party was meant to have started, and found the front door shut and no Marielena waiting for him, which didn’t leave him with a lot of options. He blew into his cupped hands in their fingerless gloves until his fingertips were warm enough to work a touchscreen, and texted Mari to see if she was already inside. No response after a couple of minutes. Callum told himself she must be driving, but wasn’t especially convinced.
He limply lifted and dropped the iron knocker a few times and fluttered the letterbox a bit, just so he could say he’d done his due diligence when Mari eventually turned up and found him shivering on the doorstep. Through the letterbox, Callum could make out the sounds of an evening easing unhurriedly towards liveliness. Music, shuffling feet and smiling, comfortable voices. The volume of the voices rose for a few moments to compete with the door knocker, but as expected, no one came to answer it.
Wait on the doorstep in the cold, or walk back and wait in the car? Callum had spent enough time with only his own thoughts for company to know that if he went back to the car, the next choice was to keep waiting or to drive home. He also knew which way that decision would go. Once he was behind the wheel it would be too easy.
It was always easier to leave. To not bother. To not ask yet another thing of Mari.
And if he kept on only ever doing what was easier, things would never change. He’d always be dependent on her. Better to lean on her a bit harder now so he wouldn’t have to quite so much later. That’s what the two of them had agreed. That’s why he was here. Why she was meant to be.
The text was delivered okay, but still unread. Callum sent a chaser just in case. Then he flexed blood into his fingers, stuck them in his trouser pockets and hunched down on the doorstep to wait.
It was twenty minutes before another guest showed up. The host had a lot of friends with a lot of free time, and was the sort of person whose friends would all want to keep their hand in – one of the reasons Mari had presented this party as a good option – so where was everyone? Were they all determined to be fashionably late? How late was that, anyway? Callum didn’t get invited to enough parties to have a good sense.
The newcomer wasn’t Marielena, and wasn’t on the list of expected guests Mari had shown him. The way their dress was rumpled, they had to have come on the bus, which wouldn’t be typical of the set at this party as far as Callum understood them. The drape of their long hair had survived the journey better. They switched a deep handbag from one shoulder to the other, extracting a bottle of wine from it in the process, and took no notice of Callum. Callum, who had plenty of practice observing people who didn’t know they were being observed, scanned the newcomer’s face and tried to figure out why this person with their dress, long hair, makeup and handbag wasn’t reading to him as straightforwardly feminine, but as someone choosing to present as feminine just for this moment.
The front door was opened before the newcomer could knock twice. Vivian Hithercombe, the owner of the house and host of the party, stood centred in the open doorway, splitting the spill of brightness from inside like a blade, so it fell on the paving to either side of the newcomer. And on Callum, who sprang up from the doorstep ready to take his chance.
“We were beginning to wonder,” said Hithercombe. The photos Callum had seen of her softened her, maybe intentionally. Up close, she was more jagged, more of a fountain pen scratch than a brushstroke in her sheer black dress.
“Wonder no more,” said the newcomer, “here I am.”
Callum looked from one to the other as they held each other’s stare. Hithercombe a step higher, heels together, arms crossed and elbows crooked. Newcomer aslant, weight on one foot, the wine bottle dangling from one clenched fist.
The newcomer moved first, straightening the dangling arm to put the bottle between themself and Hithercombe, like an exorcist with a crucifix.
“Or I can always go,” they said.
With the grace of a spider, Hithercombe accepted the bottle and drew the newcomer up the step and into an embrace. “No,” she said. “You’re here now.”
Callum squeezed past into the house, unseen, unnoticed. On the way past, he lifted the newcomer’s purse from their bag. More out of habit than curiosity, he told himself – but wasn’t especially convinced.