From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress), by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 8: He stood up then to fit his wallet back into the jeans my mother had bought him the previous Christmas; he’d spent Boxing Day in a tub of hot water, shrinking them down to the fit he preferred.  For months afterwards the floor of [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress), by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 6 You working yet, Roy?  Ricky asked softly.  What’s it been now – nine, ten months? That’s enough, Ricky, my mother said sharply, and everything in the room seemed to pop and deflate.  He’s no work at the minute, she continued, but he does have [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress) by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 5 I’ve always wondered how you sleep at night, Ricky, my father said, then took the day’s paper from the top of the fridge and pretended to read.  At my mother’s urging Ricky finished his tea and the sandwich she’d made for him but shook [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress) by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 4 We did not see him often.  He was sixteen when he left Northern Ireland, and his specialty then was macabre illusions.  For a time he’d worked in a London nightclub where his simulated dismemberments and impalings drew a select but appreciative crowd.  But the [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress) by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 3 Almost a week passed after that first delivery before Ricky himself appeared, having entered the house without any protest from the floorboards in our hallway, which were usually roused by the lightest step.  He might have stood at the door to our sitting room [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress) by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 2 Ricky was my favourite, it’s true, though it did bother me that we got on so well when he and my father detested each other.  Three years before this, when I was seven, my father had gone to France to rescue my uncle, who’d [...]

From “Versus” (a novella-in-progress) by C. Clayton James: Installment No. 1 On the second day of his first year at the Boy’s Model School in Belfast, my father submitted an essay entitled “My Family,” for which he received a failing mark.  The next afternoon the teacher who had assigned the paper explained why he was making [...]