Special Treatment & Other Stories

By Mark Swain

*The story 'Special Treatment' was winner of The Kinglake Modern Short Story Prize in 2010.

Mark Swain describes these 12 short stories as: short excursions into the lives of others. In each story we find ourselves transported – thoroughly absorbed. We are there. Some places we think we recognise, while others are unfamiliar, even mysterious. There are dark corners, but most of all there is humour – poignant and frequently ironic. The locations are illuminated for us. Vivid images; the atmospheres; the smells and sounds. But it is the characters we are drawn to: A divorcee hairdresser who dotes on her son. A resentful victim of a construction-site accident. An elderly man victimised by political activists. A boy’s summer job, lovers, adventurers, workers, travellers, prisoners, they open their lives to us and we are let into their secrets.
"There is an authenticity to Mark Swain’s characters that can leave the reader feeling almost like a voyeur. We are privileged. We know them, care about their plight, laugh and cry with them. We can certainly never forget them."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tinderbox Publishing
• Release date: Jul 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310820564

Mark Swain

Mark Swain was born in Singapore in 1958, where his father was stationed in the RAF. He has lived in many countries, and as a young man found it hard to break the habit of a nomadic life.With a low boredom threshold, Mark has had dozens of jobs and several careers. This provides him with endless source material for short stories and is probably the prime reason for the sense of authenticity people see in his work.Studying Graphic Design at Hastings College of Art at 16, he ran off and joined the Army in search of adventure. Later he found himself travelling the world on the QE2 as a silver-service waiter and going to the Falklands war. Training as a TEFL teacher took him to Tokyo in 1984, where he met his wife Lorna. In 2008 Mark took a year out from a career in Risk Management to cycle 10,000miles from Ireland to Japan with his son. This life-changing decision resulted in them writing Long Road Hard Lessons, which became an Amazon bestseller.Mark and his wife Lorna have three grown-up children and live in Canterbury, Kent. There is not much in his life that he does without passion, although he will do anything to avoid having to dance or empty a kitchen bin. Asked about his ambitions, desires, or his sense of right and wrong, he says, “I trust in instinct. I simply grow towards the light.”Mark particularly enjoys the Short Story form, admiring American short story writers such as Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan and Richard Ford as well as classic short story writers Franz Kafka and Anton Chekov. He is also a great admirer of George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Norman Maclean, Albert Camus and the contemporary travel writer Jonathan Raban.Two collections of Mark's own short stories - including the award winning story 'Special Treatment' - have been released by his UK publisher, Tinderbox Publishing Ltd along with the bestselling "Long Road, Hard Lessons" a non-fiction book with photographs and maps about a 10,000-mile life-changing cycle journey he made with his teenage son from Ireland to Japan.Mark is at home in England, but is constantly drawn back to Asia, Morocco, and to Dingle in Ireland.

Book preview

About The Author

Mark Swain was born in Singapore in 1958, where his father was stationed in the RAF. He has lived in many countries, and as a young man found it hard to break the habit of a nomadic life, so fascinated was he by the variety of cultures he had experienced as a child.

With a low boredom threshold, Mark has had dozens of jobs and quite a few careers. This provides him with endless source material for short stories and is probably the prime reason for the sense of authenticity people gain from his work. Studying Graphic Design at Hastings College of Art at 16, he ran off and joined the Army in search of adventure. Later he found himself travelling the world on the QE2 as a silver-service waiter and going to the Falklands war. Training as a TEFL teacher took him to Tokyo in 1984, where he met his wife Lorna. Having set up a successful Risk Management Consultancy business, Mark took a year out to cycle 10,000 miles from Ireland to Japan in 2008 with his teenage son. This resulted in them writing ‘Long Road Hard Lessons,’ which became an Amazon bestseller.

Mark and his wife Lorna have three grown-up children and live in Canterbury, Kent. There is not much in his life that he does without passion, although he will do anything to avoid having to dance or empty a kitchen bin. Asked about his ambitions, desires, or his sense of right and wrong, he says, I trust in instinct. Like a plant, I simply grow towards the light.

Dedication

For my mother, Helen, a great observer of people and a woman of simple wisdom, who loved telling me stories as a child and upon whom I practised my own first stories in the form of elaborate lies.

It is my great fortune to have had parents who were patient with me. Eventually I learned that truths were more interesting than lies and infinitely more powerful.

I would also like to thank my children (and Sue-chan), who pleaded with me so often to tell them made-up stories. Nightly episodes of a ginger cat with a wanderlust, travelling the world by train was the only thing that would motivate Alex to endure camping when she was little.

And what of Lorna, my wife? She is wedded to truth, as much as to me. She epitomises the kind critic. Lorna has helped me to recognise and build on my strengths – my essence as a storyteller – while constructively dealing with my weaknesses. She encourages my desire to improve without damaging my self-belief. It’s a hard trick to pull off.

I commend those (few) of my teachers who placed creative thought, originality and passion for storytelling above compositional rules and grammatical perfection. To the others I would say: thank you for trying, but perhaps you missed your vocation... in the police force or as actuaries. I remained a lonely believer in free spelling and inventive punctuation for years. It is only in fairly recent times that my wife, children and a few supportive friends, have helped me to let go of it. Further thanks go to Lucy Boutwood for her proofreading assistance.

Special Treatment & Other Stories

Short excursions into the lives of others

http://sptreatment.blogspot.com

by

Mark Swain

http://markswain-author.blogspot.co.uk

First Published in 2013

This re-edited Second Edition 2014

Both by

Tinderbox Publishing Limited

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Mark Swain 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher.

The right of Mark Swain to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of Fiction.

ISBN 978-0-9572002-2-7

Edited by Alexandra Swain

Cover design by Caleb Simmons http://www.calebsimmons.co.uk

Cover photograph by Kirstin Walden-Crockford

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Mark Swain can also be found at:

http://www.twitter.com/MarkSwain4

Contents

Special Treatment

Topolino

For the Love of Marsha

Open This Box

His Perilous Throne

Sweet Revenge

The Deadly EPOS

The Six-Fifty

Dry-clean Only

Kaboom!

The Pole Dancers

Leila’s Dowry

Special Treatment

Rhys was always shy as a boy, said Brenda, to the woman whose hair she was highlighting. Even before his dad left. I remember his first day at school. The teacher said she couldn’t get him to say a word all day. It was nearly a year before he made friends, and that was only because we bought him a stylophone.

Brenda was an attractive woman; nicely proportioned, with soft skin and a sparkly personality, but she had been determined not to pursue any new relationship after the failure of her marriage. She could do without the heartache as easily as she could do without the other, she had told herself. Instead she invested all her attention and affection on her son.

Brenda had taken over Glitz ‘n’ Glamour with her divorce settlement money. She had worked there for a few years before that and the previous owner had sold it to her when she retired to Australia, to be with her daughter. The salon had been a good move. Not only had it given her a good income as a single mother, it had also started her son Rhys in work straight from school.

Rhys had attended a hairdressing course at his local college, on day-release. People always said he had a talent for cutting, but he was hampered by his shyness with customers, and it was not until he won a national cutting competition that things began to improve. The prize was two weeks in London, working at a top salon in the Kings Road, staying in a hotel and sampling some London nightspots.

At eighteen, Rhys had only twice before travelled outside South Wales; once to see an ophthalmic specialist in Shrewsbury, for his lazy eye, and once on a school trip to Bath, where he was taunted all day because he was the only boy at twelve wearing school shorts.

London was altogether another world for Rhys. Brenda had sent him with a few books to read, thinking he would keep himself to himself, but he returned with the books unread. Over the space of two weeks, Rhys changed. From what Brenda had ascertained, his quirkiness had made him popular with the London stylists and he had spent all his nights out with them, dancing and drinking. They had taken him out in The King’s Road and he had bought new clothes in the latest gothic style. As if this was not enough, Rhys had had his hair cut in what he called a new romantic mode. It had been a shock, but Brenda consoled herself with the fact that her once shy son had returned positively brimming with confidence.

*

Yes, what’s happened to your Rhys? called another of Brenda’s customers from under a drier.

I know! replied Brenda, "I was just saying to Gwen, it’s all happened up in London. To be honest at first I thought he’d turned gay, but he said that’s the way they all are up there; camp, like. He says he feels comfortable as a heterosexual. Well quite honestly you could have blown me over with a puff of wind. I’ve never known him even mention stuff like that. Always too shy."

Blinkin’ hell, I caught a glimpse of him passing the social, Monday, said another lady, lifting her head out of the sink. Someone needs to tell the lads in Pontardulais to watch out, he’ll have every floozy in town after him in that new get-up. Hey, talk of the devil!

A faulty bell clinked. Rhys entered with uncharacteristic panache.

Morning Rhys, the women chimed, exchanging winks and nods.

Ladies, how delightful to see you all! he replied, hanging up his new, high collared coat.

Amid the sounds of stifled sniggers, one of the women ventured to ask Rhys about his two weeks in London and remarked upon how much his new glasses suited him. They were heavy and narrow, with Yves Saint Laurent written along the sides. The women studied him carefully. The town had never seen anything quite like him. Rhys responded charmingly and went through to the back room. Looks were exchanged, but soon the conversation moved to other local gossip. The butcher had been taken ill with a stroke but had been in a house not his own at the time, while his wife was at her mother’s.

Sin is all around us nowadays, whistled a lady with loose dentures. I’ll get my bits of meat elsewhere now, see if I don’t.

Having been through his mail, Rhys left for the rest of the day. With his newfound confidence he would be perfectly comfortable taking care of the busy evening shift alone.

*

Brenda was tired when she finished work. After making herself some cheese on toast, she put her feet up to watch her program on television, before making herself a warm drink and taking herself off to bed early. Since Rhys’ return from London she had been able to start taking Wednesdays and Fridays off, but no sooner had she done so than a friend prevailed upon her to help out running the mother and toddler group at the chapel, so she was busier than ever.

Brenda woke up after a couple of hours and was surprised not to find Rhys home. During the several weeks since London, he had got into the habit of going out to local pubs and clubs. In her half-asleep state, she assumed he had been back and gone straight out somewhere, but this was not in fact the case.

Although there were two early evening bookings, the first had cancelled when her husband cut his hand assembling a new greenhouse. This left only Pamela, a forty-year-old divorced mother of four, who came in monthly to have her roots done. In the past, Rhys would have been petrified at being left alone with an attractive female customer in the shop – mainly for fear of having nothing to say – but this evening he felt completely calm about the prospect. He chatted happily to Pamela about her children and where she was planning to take them over the Easter school holidays. Pamela was amazed; she had never known Rhys like this. Putting his newfound boldness down to his time in London, she managed to steer Rhys onto the subject of what he did there in the evenings. She even asked about the girls he met and whether he had fancied any of them.

Eager to test the limits of Rhys’ new personal comfort zones, Pamela asked him whether anything had happened with any of the girls. The limit having been well and truly reached, however, Rhys went quiet, but since they were alone she persisted. Catching his eye in the mirror as he stood behind her, she asked him if the girls in London had firm breasts and whether they wore short skirts, so that you could see their thighs. Pamela’s voice had dropped to a slow husky tone and Rhys couldn’t help noticing that she had begun to stroke her thigh. His heart began to race; he was sure that at this distance she could hear it. Nervous and unsure how to respond, Rhys turned to look at the door, hoping she’d think someone was about to come in, but in doing so he spilled some of the contents of the bowl of hair-dye and it fell onto Pamela’s dress.

Rhys was stunned for a moment, his previous awkwardness immediately returning. Rushing to the large sink out the back for a cloth,