'The End of Alpha Street'

 

This is part of a running review of Lost Estates by Mark Valentine (Swan River Press 2024)

I used to count cats. Not all the time, you understand. Just in the morning when I walked to work. I had chosen to live just a short walk from the office - odd, I know, but then I am a strange chap. The point is that counting cats became a kind of ritual. The more moggies I saw on that walk, the better I felt the day would be. A no cat day would not be a good day. Six or seven, and we're cooking with gas. Or at least, that's how I remember it. 

'The End of Alpha Street' is Mark Valentine's take on this tendency we humans have to invent personal rituals out of whole cloth. Or, in my case, a variable number of whole cats. A cat features in the story, as it happens. The narrator befriends the feline and its owner in the eponymous cul-de-sac. And in a way the story is a cul-de-sac, as an exploration of personal rituals leads the narrator to an old man and a collection of apparently random items, all of which bear information. 

There is a whiff of Dunsany about this one, in terms of playfulness at least. It's almost a story that Jorkens might tell, only it does not pivot on any kind of twist or punchline. Instead it leaves us with questions.