Aidan Higgins

“The heavy mangle stood in the kitchen between the tall cupboard and the window under the clothes line. Blocky as a medieval torture instrument oozing black grease it stood foursquare in wrought iron on its castors; the space between it and the wall was used regularly by the cats as their lavatory, the old messes growing fuzzy hair. When the stink became unendurable old Mrs Henry, our cook, cleaned it out with buckets of water and Jeyes Fluid. When I hung on to the mangle for dear life I felt safe. Nothing could get at me in there, skinny as a skeleton.”
― Aidan Higgins, Dog Days

“CLINTON BINNIONS ADVANCES slowly in green wellingtons amid his placidly grazing herd of Friesians who hardly deign to take notice of him as he strolls among them, slaps a meaty hindquarter (‘Thou art mine, goodly lass!’). The sea-swimmer, horse-rider, tennis player who makes his own wine now claps his hands; and slowly they rise up and amble off stage, swishing their tails. Binnions, abstracted, hands plunged in pockets, his thoughts far away, follows them off the field. I was thinking today that my father, dead these sixteen years, was like one of those minor Shakespearean characters – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – who are killed offstage and never rejoin the action but take a curtain call at the end when they appear half out of character (already actors on their way home), bowing deeply to the audience, with complacent smiles.”
― Aidan Higgins, Dog Days