The Mary Gornall short story competition is run annually with a closing date of 15 November. Prizes £100, £40, £20. Entry fee £4. Should the competition make a profit for the club, the excess after expenses goes towards the cost of running our FREE short story and poetry competitions for local children. (See Children's Competition page).
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Competition Rules
Mary Gornall Memorial Short Story Competition 2009.
1st Prize £100 2nd Prize £40
3rd Prize £20
Entries should be double spaced, one side only of A4 paper.
- The author's name should not appear on the manuscript.
- 2000 words maximum. No minimum.
- Entries should not have been previously published or broadcast, nor placed 1st 2nd or 3rd in any other national competition.
- If you require a copy of the results please supply a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
- Keep a copy of your entry as manuscripts cannot be returned.
- With the author's permission, the winning entries will be published on the club website: www.ashbywritersclub.co.uk.
- The entry fee is £4 for the first, and £3 for each additional story. Competitors may enter as many stories as they wish provided they forward the appropriate fee. Cheques should be made payable to ASHBY WRITERS' CLUB.
- Closing date 15th November 2009. All entrants enclosing an sae will receive details of the winners in spring 2010
- Entries should be addressed to: Ashby Writers' Club, 41 Highfields Close, Ashby de la Zouch, Leic's. LE65 2FP.
(Please use block capitals)
NAME
ADDRESS
POST CODE COUNTRY
E.MAIL
I wish to enter the following stories for the competition:
I have read and accepted the conditions of entry.
Signature Date
Any problems: Tel: 01530 412456
Competition Results
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------------------------------------------------------ Mary Gornall Memorial Short Story Competition 2008 Results
Ist Prize £100 Sarah Evans (Herts): Proud 2nd Prize £40 Andrew Campbell Kearsey (Brighton): Captive Audience 3rd Prize £20 Marcus Toyne (Devises): Wilkie's Turn
Shortlisted
Anne Wilkes (Tenby)- The Tree Diana Philo (Digby)- Mind Games Anne Goodwin (Mansfield)- Cold Calling Andrew Jones (Isle Of Wight)- The Number 19 Rosemarie Rose (Torfaen)- Me And Sophia Loren Peter Rolls (Camberley)- Secret Desires Iain Pattison (Bristol)- Stab In The Dark Polly Walshe (Oxford)- Two Years Of Solid gold Joanne Fox (Solihull)- The Man Who Smelt Of chocolate
Novelist David Bell's Comments All twelve of the shortlisted stories were interesting, well written and worthy of publication. For me, a short story needs a gripping opening, a strong "voice", plenty of dialogue to bring the scenes alive, and a crisp satisfying ending. The winner, "Proud", had all of these, although to be picky, I would have liked the narrator - the voice - to be established from the beginning, rather than in the 3rd/4th paragraph. The ending was perfectly judged, however. In second place is "Captive Audience." This writer made me abandon my preference for dialogue, since the narrator cannot speak at all. However this character does have a wonderfully strong "voice", a wry personality and a cynical attitude to life and to the other characters. Wryness is an undervalued quality! Choosing the third story was difficult. There were five stories that could each have made it, but in the end I went for "Wilkie's Turn." Here, I enjoyed the personality of Emily Ironside - a very tough but engaging character. This was a story to restore the reader's faith in human nature. David Bell
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PREVIOUS WINNERS
Lisa beams wedding day confidence for the camera. Men sweat in monochrome suits and flamboyant ties while women swirl like butterflies in lurid prints. It’s a festival of flowers, of heterosexuality, and hats. “Doesn’t she look lovely,” Mum sighs. Lisa’s virgin lace marshmallows out over her swelling belly. She looks ridiculous. We’re joined by Auntie May and Uncle Roger. Some rather fabulous concoction of pink hedgerow trimmings frames May’s jolly face. She’s agitated. This is her big day. According to the books she should have had eighteen months to plan it, but in the circumstances she’s had only three. “You wouldn’t believe the work. I’m quite worn out,” she complains with satisfaction, while my mother offers sympathy edged with envy. “So, Joanna, how’s “Great!” It’s only a few days since I got back to Stonecroft, with its die-of-boredom village green, its picture postcard cottages, and tucked away affordable housing. Already “Tell her about your results,” Mum prompts me. “Mum!” I cast an angry glance at her. But it’s too late, it will look rude and churlish not to explain, “I got my results for prelims, my end of year exams.” “A first.” Mum says it for me, fearful I might not. “That’s wonderful!” May has no idea what it actually means. I worry sometimes she’s too bright for her own good! I picture her musing with Roger. Boys don’t like girls to be too clever. May floats off, to fulfil her mother of the bride duties, spending a smug moment or two with each of the guests. “Did you have to?” I turn on Mum. She looks back surprised. “I don’t see where’s the harm. I’m proud of you.” I don’t want her to be proud. “Can’t you just be pleased for me?” “I don’t see there’s a difference.” Proud means claiming ownership, as if it’s her achievement not mine. Proud mean being pleased for her sake not for me, for the opportunity it provides to boast, to bask in reflected glory. Proud means beating Lisa, getting one up on May. But I know I can’t explain it so she’ll understand. “Mothers do feel proud.” She looks at me pointedly. How would I know what mothers feel? The reference to motherhood, brings us back to Lisa. “Isn’t Lisa looking well? She was so pleased you could come. You got on so well as girls.” “Did we?” My cousin and I always regarded each other with mutual distrust; our mothers battled to prove their child was best. Lisa was petite and pretty, had a dazzling smile. I was big and brainy, smart with numbers. She was Mary in the nativity play; I won a gold star for spelling. She came second in the county ballet age groups; I was top in the end of year exams. She enjoyed brief fame modelling twin-sets in Littlewood’s catalogue; I achieved straight As in GCSEs. I got into Lisa won. Because by now the rules of the game have changed. Both mothers have the same ambition: to see us wed, producing grandchildren. Lisa is delivering two for one. My bag blares out the opening strains of Matters of the heart. I step to the side. “It’s me.” My pulse beats faster at the richness of her voice. “The train’s finally moving again. I should be there in fifteen. I’ll go straight to the hotel.” “Maureen,” I explain. “She should be here soon, in time for the reception.” My mouth opens to say, Mum, I need to tell you something, as my insides rise up my throat to block the words. But Mum has turned away. “Have you seen Aunty June’s outfit,” she says, “looks like it came from a charity shop.” * “What am I invited as?” Maureen turned on me a gaze that felt decidedly cool. “As you!” Already I regretted the suggestion, offered in a wild expansive moment, which it was now too late to retract. It was her who broke the uncomfortable silence. “I’ll come. But only if you tell them.” I realised with dismay that I was still on probation, she expected things of me. Her tone softened, but only slightly. “I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. How can I love you if you’re not proud of who you are?” “Yes, I will, of course.” It felt simple then, slipping into the warmth of her arms, to assure her, “I just need to find the right moment.” But what is the right moment to casually destroy the dreams of a one-child widowed parent, to deny her right to the grand display she’s planned for two decades, to leave still-born her hopes of grandchildren? “But she must know.” It was easy for Maureen to say; her own parents welcomed the chance to prove their liberal credentials. “Yes and no,” I hesitated, struggling to articulate. She knows it was always female pop stars who I idolised. She knows I talked non-stop about a girl at school. She knows I’ve never had a boyfriend. I imagine the slightly fraught conversations with May, when May with apparent innocence will have asked, “Still no boy?” and Mum would have defended me, with words she didn’t quite believe. “You know Joanna. She’s choosy. She’s focussing on her studies. She’s got lots of time.” But knowing is not the same as being told. I’ve never said the words to make it real. I couldn’t tell Maureen about that conversation. “I do think you could dress a bit more femininely,” was the limit of Mum’s advice as I left home for college. Then when she got no response, she added her warning and her hope, “You know to be careful don’t you?” * Fancy cars whisk us to the hotel with its rustic thatch. “It must be costing a fortune,” I reflect. “Over ten thousand.” Mum knows the obscene figure. “But,” she says, “You know, I have a bit put away.” She’s already climbing out of the car, escaping any possible reply. We form a line to offer wishes to the happy couple. “Good luck!” I murmur to Lisa as my lips brush her painted cheek, unable to bring myself to say congratulations! “You next!” she whispers slyly back. The wedding presents are laid out to be admired, consumerism in all shapes and sizes: crockery to fulfil unimaginable needs; colour coded his ’n’ hers; crystal glasses that will be too good to use. I glance about anxiously; Maureen should be here by now. Then I see her, standing slightly apart. Her sleek black hair is cut boldly short. Her long legs sport flowing trousers, standing out among the florid prints, which I have succumbed to. She’s wearing her deep red velvet blouse, reflecting back the natural colour of her lips. Mum has seen her too. Her face stiffens. I see how she is ageing, the deepening lines of vulnerability spreading out from her eyes. “About Maureen,” I start to say, as suddenly I want to vomit up the canapés, knowing I should have said this days ago. I’ve let the opportunities dodge past: this is not the right time. “I’d best go and say hello to George,” Mum says. * We’ve been photographed and fed. We’ve raised flutes of fizzy wine to the changing of a name, the wearing of a ring. “An institution of oppression,” I hear Maureen’s wry voice in the women’s group I joined my first week at college, seeking out what I’d never found in my hometown. My eyes had drunk her in, leaving me scared that it was possible to feel so exhilarated. Now we’re being talked at. “We don’t like boys.” Everyone laughs as Roger recalls what Lisa and I would say as girls. My Mum nudges me, asserting her prior claim, “Do you remember?” She turns to Maureen defiantly, “She and Lisa were such friends. It’s funny, the things they say, how they change.” I see the small smile on Maureen’s lips as she flashes me the challenge. We’re sitting on a table with an assortment of cousins and their offspring. “I like boys,” five year old Beth says. The DJ places the record for the first dance; Lisa and Alistair stumble round in an approximation of a waltz. The music changes to something livelier. Alistair’s best man is at my side, “Fancy a dance?” He was sweet on me for a time. At Lisa’s sixteenth, we ended up in a drunken snog, as I waited for the swooning passion I was meant to feel. “No, I don’t feel like dancing.” “Go on!” Mum urges me. Earlier she told me meaningfully how well he’s doing, only twenty-one, but already a partner in his Dad’s business, going somewhere, He’ll make someone such a good husband. “Come on!” he insists. “Unless you’re too grand for us now.” We jig about uncomfortably, saved from having to talk by the blast of sound. Between strobe lighting Maureen’s amazon cheeks are etched in stone; my mother’s mouth is animated in some long tale. The music ends. “I’d better go back to Mum. And my friend.” “Perhaps she’d like to dance?” Rob can’t conceive he might not be of interest. I settle for my most withering look. “Having fun?” Maureen asks, with detached disdain, as I sit back down glumly. “Then when Joanna was six…” Mum is getting into full stride with those endless anecdotes, as if she’d like me to return to the little girl I was, because what I was then is simpler than what I have become. I feel myself caught in the sinking sands of other people’s expectations, which drag you down, until you can no longer move or breathe. “Joanna’s Dad was so proud of her.” Mum is still rambling on. “Be yourself,” Dad said, as he lay in the back room, where the air was sick with sweat and stale tobacco, with time running out on him, turning him uncharacteristically philosophical, “don’t ever let anyone tell you who to be.” “A change of mood,” the DJ announces, “for all you romantics.” The opening bars of Woman in Red ring out, the same song that was played that other time, when it was Maureen who came up to me at the College disco and took my arm. I trailed her uncertainly onto the floor. And as she placed her hands lightly on my hips, pulled me close, and I offered no resistance, years of whirling questions set into crystal certainty. My legs stand me up, as if of their own volition. I take her hand. It’s my turn now to lead her to the middle of the floor, to draw her in, and slowly sway with the most beautiful woman in the room. Winning Maureen is my biggest achievement, the thing of which I am most proud. I watch the opening of a gap around us, the look of delighted shock in the ‘O’ of Lisa’s perfect lips, the last vestiges of hope disappearing from my mother’s eyes. I close my eyes. I want the song to go on forever so I will never have to emerge from this embrace. We sit back down. I don’t dare look at the others, as their embarrassed faces turn away. We’ll provide months of gossip. Amidst the cacophony of song, of a hundred conversations, a shield of silence surrounds us. Then I hear my mother’s best polite voice, “So Maureen, I hear you’re studying law?” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Proud
Captive Audience
by
I suppose that I should be a little more grateful. It just does not come naturally to me. It never did. The odd few have a sadistic streak but in the main the majority are well-meaning. I am a hostage to their time keeping. They are meant to come at
I sit, positioned in my wheel-chair in front of the television. I am beginning to recognise the people who come in and look after me from the cars they park in my drive. It’s the strange green car today. That’ll be Janine, harmless enough but criminally dull. No doubt more stories about her charmless grandchildren. I have seen quite enough pictures of her unphotogenic progeny.
The carers, provided by some hi-tech sounding agency, let themselves in. Callers would be waiting until after the Day of Judgement if they expected me to answer the door. I had made it crystal clear through grunts and nods to the social worker that I wished to remain in my own home after the stroke. He was straight out of central casting, any more in touch with his feminine side and he would have been a full cross dresser. I had resisted structural changes to my house. Now I lead a triangular existence. I am washed and dressed in my former dining room. I spend the majority of my waking hours in the lounge and I am occasionally sponged down in the shower room off the hallway. I could not see the point of installing a stair lift. I long for them to vary the route if only to spare the carpet pile.
My two upper floors are now just a memory, a giant double storey attic. I love the decadence.
I can hear Janine struggling with the lock. She is not the most delicate of women. Thickset, I think is the polite expression.
“Good afternoon Mrs. Montague. How are we today?”
If she expects an eloquent response then she will be disappointed. I manage to nod.
“I’ve got somebody new with me today. Just joined us. I’ll be showing her the ropes. Thought we’d start her off with one of our favourite clients.”
I suppose I am meant to be flattered. I do not fully understand why they have to work in pairs. I expect it is due to some hideously drafted health and safety legislation for which we have to thank
I hear the other one in my kitchen. I expect she’s having a good look around. They always do the first time. Sarah has compiled a comprehensive inventory of all my belongings. I am sure that she has already entered into detailed negotiations with her brother on how they will carve everything up between them. I would like to think that needed to be done in advance, since when the time comes, the grieving process may overwhelm them. I can but dream. It’s touch and go whether Thomas will even attend my funeral service. I remember reading once that parents always get the children they deserve.
“Can you come in here and help me Irina.”
Good grief, I have a Communist in my home. I expect a lumpen creature, raised on a diet of potatoes and vodka. But when she comes into the room I am struck by her beauty. Irina won’t last long in this job. The repetitive nature of all its mindless and unpleasant tasks will grind her down. She manages not to show her disgust as she changes my pad. Many of them grimace but Irina stays remarkably cheerful.
“That’s her float money for when we have to get any groceries in. Her daughter leaves fifty pounds every week for us. You need to write down in the little book what you’ve spent. I’ll go and prepare Mrs. Montague’s lunch. Perhaps you could see to her hair.”
Irina brushes my hair. She does not tug. I am shocked by the tenderness which she puts into such a banal activity. Her voice almost shocks me. It is not the impenetrable Eastern European accent I expected.
“I cared for my grandmother up until last year. I used to brush her hair and she would sing to me. Towards the end she would hum. My mother would brush each side of my head one hundred times when I was little. I always hoped she would make a mistake and have to start counting from the beginning.”
She talks about her childhood. I have no option, but if I had, I would choose to stay and listen. She tenderly straightens my blanket and corrects my wrongly buttoned cardigan. I learn about her struggles to reach
The ping of the microwave announces Janine’s imminent return. I wonder what excuse she is about to serve to me.
“Here we are, Mrs. Montague. Careful, it’s piping hot. While it’s cooling, we can have a look at these. I’ve saved them for you specially.”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out an envelope. Thankfully it is not terribly big. Janine gives me a running commentary about each photograph detailing the exploits of her grandchildren. Drug abuse and borstal might pepper up these dreary tales. I could write an extended essay on their swimming prowess alone. We get to the last one and I speculate why her son stopped at
“I’m going to sort the washing. Irina, can you flick through the television channels. Mrs. Montague will nod if there’s something she likes the look of, but I doubt if she’ll be able to concentrate after seeing my snaps. They mean a lot to her, bless, what with not having any of her own grandkids.”
The last part was spoken in a stage whisper to which I was not meant to be privy. The stroke had not affected my hearing and as feeble compensation it seemed to be heightened.
Irina places the remote control down after choosing the least awful option. It is one of those property makeover programmes. They deal in astronomical figures. I expect that my offspring have the local estate agent on speed dial to receive a weekly valuation update on their inheritance. I wonder if I could hold on until the next property crash. She begins to feed me the accompanying salad. The lettuce has seen better days. She blows on the first forkful of lasagne. It sounds unhygienic but it is thoughtful of her. She does not hurry me like the others. She gives me plenty of time between each mouthful. Mastication is one of the few physical activities I have left. We sit in parallel. She does not look directly at me, yet dabs attentively with a tissue if I dribble or have sauce on my chin. I hear about family bereavements and the trials of securing a work visa here. I find it terribly sad that she remains so hopeful for the future, still sufficiently naïve to believe that the world will give her a chance.
Janine lumbers back into the room with a pile of unironed garments. They purchase ‘easy care’ clothing for me. I am sure that I would shudder if I could see the labels. I used to love wearing expensive clothes. My pleasure was in direct correlation to the cost. Now they dress me in jogging bottoms and sweatshirts. Even their names revolt me.
“Look, she’s crying.”
There is a look of shock and sadness on Irina’s face as she says this.
“Don’t worry, dear, just a blockage in her tear ducts. It’s happened lots of times before. The doctors told me there’s nothing to worry about. I used to think I’d done something to upset her. Could happen at any time.”
Perhaps I flatter myself in thinking I am a good judge of character, but Irina’s concern appears to be more than the threat of losing her job by making her first client cry.
“We’d better be off now, Mrs. Montague. We’ll be back at tea time to see what mischief you’ve got up to.”
I have always despised people who laugh at their own jokes. Irina looks back and waves before she leaves the room. Sweet girl. I think I’ll rest my eyes for a little while.
Who’s that? I must have nodded off. The carers are not meant to come for another hour.
“It’s only me. Don’t get up.”
There he is, in front of me, my pride and joy.
“Came to check up on you, mother dear.”
Thomas has not done this for a while. He’s probably been drinking and ran low on funds. I’m easier than a cash point. He scoops up the money from the saucer on my table.
“Just to tide me over,” as he pockets the few notes and loose change. A ten pence piece slips through his fingers and rolls across the floor. It comes to rest at the side of my wheelchair. As he walks over to retrieve it he staggers.
“Every penny counts.”
He must have been drinking for a while as his speech is remarkably slurred. He thinks he intimidates me. Thomas fumbles with the remote and eventually manages to mute the sound. He collapses into the arm chair and the predictable tirade begins.
“You never really loved me.”
If this were the work of a professional playwright it would be booed off the stage. He recounts my failures as a mother. In a court of law I might plead guilty to a few of the misdemeanours, but most of his claims are ridiculous. I am the original captive audience and have no escape from this litany of woes. The monologue makes his throat dry and he goes into the kitchen. I hear him opening and banging cupboard doors. The only alcohol in there would be a bottle of brandy for the Christmas pudding. It’s been there for over five years. I wonder if it goes on fermenting. Thomas blatantly did not bother with a glass. He used a mug and a large one at that. Its contents slop over the sides and he licks his fingers once he has reseated himself. He gulps his drink as if it were lukewarm tea. Thomas is so eager, that he fortunately does not restart his rant.
I watch as his head rolls forward and then he dozes for a few minutes. I enjoy the peaceful respite. I notice that his left lace has become undone. My maternal instinct to tie it for him is still present, no matter how I try. Even when he comes round I am powerless to alert him to the fact. As he comes to, he takes in his surroundings and with a curious mixture of what I hope is embarrassment and shame, Thomas gets up to leave. He steadies himself. He mutters something but he is incoherent. As he approaches me, I dread that for one ghastly moment he intends to kiss me goodbye. He trips on the extension cable of my alarm button. As his head cracks against the fire place I am surprised at how unreal the colour of his blood is. It quickly darkens.
When Janine arrives, my eyes are dry.
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3rd Prize Winner 2008
Wilkie's Turn
by
Marcus Toyne
"Yes, Mr. Collins, I can see you're getting restless, but you'll just have to be patient, won't you?"
He lowered his head. No good kicking up a fuss; you tangled with Miss Ironside at your peril, as her pupils well knew. Not that she bullied them in any obvious way - if anything, she seemed amused. That cool grey gaze over the top of her half-moon spectacles always did the trick. Not exactly hypnotism, but something pretty close to it.
Emily Ironside had become head of the local comprehensive in her mid-thirties, inheriting a school in serious need of a turnaround: the pupils were rowdy and uncouth, the exclusion rate uncomfortably high, the staff disaffected, the whole atmosphere edgy and aggressive. Her predecessor had left under a cloud after scandalous revelations about his "unprofessional behaviour".
Emily lost no time in making her mark. Nothing escaped her, whether it was the frightened snivelling of a child being bullied in the toilets, the jubilant roar of a class out of control, or hanky-panky behind the pavilion. Parents on the warpath were miraculously turned into staunch allies, who suddenly took to saying things like, "Now Miss Ironside wouldn't like that now, would she, Kevin?", while Kevin and his kind became her champions, basking in her attention when she waylaid them in the corridor for what she called "little chats", in which she seemed to know them better than they knew themselves. Well, that was all water under the bridge now. Her school had long been regarded as a centre of excellence, so much so that people deliberately moved into its catchment area to make sure their children could go there.
"All right, Mr Collins. You've waited long enough. Go and get your lead then."
The dog rose to his feet and shook himself joyously, before padding out to the hall and returning a moment later, lead in mouth, tail wagging furiously. Emily had acquired him shortly after taking on the new job - an energetic tyke of uncertain breed, boldly patched in black and white, with a distinctively kinked curly tail. She'd rescued him from the RSPCA, despite being warned that he was "unreliable", if not downright vicious when the mood took him. He'd given a token growl when she bent down to let him sniff her hand, but within seconds, his tough little face had taken on a foolish and fond look, as he rolled over in ecstatic surrender to let her tickle his tummy.
"I'll call you Wilkie," she said, because she happened to be reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins at the time.
She reckoned that Wilkie must be about twelve or thirteen by now. Quite how old he'd been when he first came into her life, she didn't know. He'd obviously been neglected and generally maltreated, but it wasn't long before he perked up and filled out under her brisk and kindly management. He wasn't above the odd bout of temper, but Emily had only to give him one of her famous looks, to make him think better of it. From the start, she was determined that he shouldn't be left on his own while she was at work, and was able to arrange for him to spend the day with the caretaker's wife on the school campus. Morning and evening, townsfolk could set their watches by Miss Ironside's outings with her scruffy little escort, who so obviously adored her. He still enjoyed his walks, but had become rather more sedate over the years, and had recently developed a slight limp.
Today was Emily's birthday, and at 48 she remained a slim and attractive woman, who could never have been accused of looking dowdy. She and Wilkie set out on their usual morning patrol, leaving the house shortly after seven, but Emily was slightly perturbed to notice that the dog seemed rather breathless, and reluctant to break into a run, when she picked up a stick to throw for him.
"Ah yes, Mr. Collins," she said. "Beginning to feel your age, I see. Go on, you lazy beast. Fetch!"
He gave a little yelp and ran gamely after the stick, but it was obviously costing him a lot of effort and by the time he'd picked up the stick and laid it at Emily's feet, his tongue was lolling out as he panted noisily.
She decided he needed to rest and have a drink, so it was a matter of getting back home as quickly as possible, which meant cutting through a part of town she usually avoided.
Many of the children attending her school came from this estate and, by and large, she'd established good relations with the problem families there, but inevitably there'd been exceptions, especially when she'd been forced to call in the police. Jason Willbelove was a case in point. Fortunately Jason was at last off her hands, and she wasn't sorry to see him go. He'd left a nasty taste in the mouth with his loutish sneer, swaggering manner and casual violence. At the same time, she couldn't shake off a sense of unfinished business somehow. She prided herself on bringing the best out in her pupils, but Jason was a nut she'd failed to crack and that irked her.
By this time they'd reached the estate with its trademark litter, abandoned three-piece suites, and overgrown or asphalted gardens. Many walls had been reduced to untidy piles of bricks, victims of the latest craze for pushing them over. Any obligingly blank surface had been daubed with graffiti. A beaten-up truck roared past, the relentless beat of pop booming from its open window. A couple of girls in micro-skirts tottered towards her on stilettos, shrieking at each other with amiable ferocity.
"Come on, Wilkie! It's not far now," said Emily sternly, her familiar voice making the girls raise their eyebrows in tittering dismay as they minced past.
Wilkie, meanwhile, had not only slowed down dramatically, but was increasingly unsteady and uncertain on his feet. Emily crouched down beside him, real panic overtaking her for the first time, as he feebly licked her outstretched hand, before staggering in his tracks and keeling over onto his side.
She was so preoccupied that she hadn't noticed the approaching footsteps, and started with alarm when someone bawled, "What's goin' on 'ere then, eh?"
She looked up at the figure towering above her - scuffed trainers, torn jeans, grubby sweat shirt, shaven bullet head. She rose unsteadily to her feet. It took her a few seconds to realise that this forbidding figure was none other than Jason Willbelove, looking very different without the wild mop of greasy black hair which had marked him out at school.
"Oh, Jason, it's you. Look . . . I'm in a bit of trouble here . . .''
The boy reached out a meaty hand with black-rimmed nails, placing it firmly on Emily's shoulder. Her immediate instinct was to shrug him off and run, but she schooled herself to stand her ground, and try to appear calm. She'd never backed down from Jason in the past; now was no time to start. Besides Wilkie needed her.
She was appalled to find herself on the brink of bursting into tears, unnerved and yet oddly comforted by that grimy hand on her shoulder. Before she could stop him, he suddenly released his hold, stooped down and scooped the dog's inert form off the pavement, cradling the little body in his muscular arms with unexpected delicacy.
"What are you doing?" cried Emily, shrill with alarm.
"Me girlfriend's just up the street like."
"Girlfriend? I can't see how - "
For answer the young man loped off with Wilkie clutched to his chest, leaving Emily to follow as best she could.
Five breathless minutes later, she caught up with him outside a building well known to her from previous visits - the veterinary clinic on the main road. Jason rushed ahead of her through the entrance and by the time she had joined him inside, a purposeful young woman in a white coat was already carrying the casualty through some swing doors, releasing a waft of tangy disinfectant in the process.
"That's Julie, me girlfriend," explained Jason with an expansive gesture. "She works 'ere, see."
"Really? Julie ... Julie ... ah yes, Julie Henshaw. Pretty girl. She always set her heart on working with animals, I remember, even in her very first year with me."
"She thought the world of you,
At that moment, Julie came back through the swing doors followed by Wilkie looking bemused and a bit shaky, but undeniably alive. The girl bent down to fondle him, "Gave us all a nasty fright, didn't you, you naughty boy! Ah, Miss Ironstone, there you are - well, he seems to have made it this time round. Lucky you got here quickly though, so that I could give him a shot. Old dogs sometimes have these seizures, but unlike us, they don't let it get them down, and once they're back on their feet, they carry on regardless. Providing he takes it easy -
"If it hadn't been for Jason . . .''
Julie gave a broad grin. "He always admired you, you know, Miss Ironside. Course he didn't let on - couldn't really, could he? not with that hard man image of his."
But Jason had already sidled surreptitiously out of the building.
As for Mr. Collins . . . he lived out the rest of his declining years without any recurrence of that traumatic attack, until he retired to his basket one night for the sleep from which there is no waking.
After which Emily's dog days were over. At 51, she retired from teaching and married an eligible bachelor bishop. From all accounts, she made a radiant bride and could never understand why any woman should wish to be a bishop herself, when it was so much more satisfactory to marry one. But then Miss Ironside had always been a traditionalist.
FIRST PRIZE WINNER 2007
ELIZABETH DUCIE (click here)
The Second Pair of Slippers
Olga Petrovna launched herself into the night, leaving behind the warmth of the Metro. She clutched her coat more tightly and pulled the fur collar around her ears. The street was almost empty. A last-minute voter hurried into the polling station; an occasional vehicle passing. But the normal hubbub was missing. The city, exhausted, was resting, holding its breath in anticipation.
As she reached the steps leading to the Elections building, she heard a squeal of tyres on wet tarmac. A Mercedes with blacked-out windows made a rapid U-turn and slammed into the curb, sending drops of water flying, narrowly missing her feet. The doors opened and three large men spilled out. Each wore a discreet earpiece and carried a walkie-talkie radio. They were followed by a slight figure, wearing an Armani suit, cashmere scarf and overcoat. It was Alexander Ivanovych Polychenko, leading light of the Our Future party – one of the most well-known men in the country.
The group swept up the steps towards the imposing glass and metal doors, engrossed in their momentum to the exclusion of all else. As they approached, she caught Alexander’s eye and smiled, about to say something, to wish him luck. He seemed to pause fractionally, but the group was moving too fast and the moment passed. The door swung shut with a hollow clang.
Olga stared after the group, but all she could see was her reflection in the glass. Her face seemed frozen; more of a grimace than a smile. Slowly, like snow in the sunshine, it melted, replaced by a look of disappointment. She clenched her fists, biting back angry words. She was wearing her best suit and new boots; her hair was freshly bleached and permed. But to them, she didn’t exist.
Olga compared this man now with the boy she first knew so many years ago. They lived in the same apartment block, attended the same school. In the summer evenings they sat on the swings in the small courtyard, surrounded by crumbling balconies, and planned their futures. They wandered hand-in-hand down
Following the group into the building on that Sunday night, Olga heard the clock strike nine. She reached into her bag for an official pass. It was time for her to go to work.
*********************************************************************
Monday lunchtime, Olga walked through the dim building towards the canteen, ignoring the crowd that milled around her, demanding answers. Only three of the eight light fittings contained bulbs. After the bright atmosphere in her office and the counting hall, she had difficulty focusing in the semi-darkness.
As she opened the door she smelt the usual aroma of a municipal canteen; a subtle mix of fat that has been fried once too often - and dill. Dill, the aromatic herb that is used to flavour everything – fish, meat, sauces and mashed potato.
Lights flickered from all sides. Wall-mounted TVs in opposite corners of the room showed different channels. One an old Russian movie, the other a local fashion programme with skeletal models showing last year’s designs. No-one was watching either. People were concentrating on their food, enjoying a brief respite from the mayhem in the rest of the building.
She chose a chopped beetroot salad from the display cabinet, added to her tray some vinegary rye bread and a glass of raspberry compote and moved with leaden feet to an empty table. As she passed a mirror on the wall, she glanced furtively at her reflection. Her boots, all pointed toe and high heel, still shone. But, she had rubbed a blister on her left heel and was beginning to wish she had chosen a pair a little less fashionable and a little more comfortable. The adrenaline rush provided by the excitement of the occasion, and her role in it, had started to wear off. She looked at the sleepy women serving the food and sympathised with their yawns. If this went on much longer, she would have to close the canteen for the staff to get some rest.
As she ate, she glanced across to the glass-walled section reserved for the politicians. There, at the centre table sat Alexander Ivanovych and his supporters. She was still hurting from their slight, although the sting had faded somewhat.
The four men were smoking and drinking small glasses of vodka. In front of them lay the remains of Russian salad and aubergine rolls. Their jackets had been slung over the backs of their chairs and their ties had come adrift. Their posture was tense, their brows creased and they kept looking towards the door. Alexander was talking urgently and waving his hands around. First one man rose from the table, then another. They walked out of the canteen in the direction of the counting hall. After a few minutes, the third companion followed them. Alexander chewed moodily on a fingernail, tapping his foot in a staccato manner. Then, he too jumped to his feet and left.
For ten minutes or more, the tableau remained unchanged.; a table bearing the debris of a meal in progress. Finally, Alexander came back into the room. He took his former place at the head of the table and smoked yet another cigarette. Eventually, one of the others returned. By the time Olga left the canteen, the other two men had still not re-appeared. She was to see them later in the company of a young up-and-coming politician from one of the other parties.
***************************************************************
On Tuesday morning, for the second day in a row, Olga stared out of her office window at the slow dawn. Light was creeping across the street, turning the snow from grey to brown. It had been many months since any white had shown through the lingering piles pushed by the snowploughs to the sides of the road. Her eyes were stinging from lack of sleep and she was having difficulty concentrating. She hauled herself to her feet and checked her reflection in the mirror once more. Her skirt looked like she had slept in it. Strictly speaking, she had – but only for a few moments just after midnight when she could no longer stay awake. Her blouse looked as if it had never been near an iron. If she had known the counting was going to take this long, she would have brought a spare with her.
Nevertheless, she knew that her big moment had arrived at last. The counting was finally complete. Every objection and argument had been dealt with. All parties accepted the results and the official announcement could now be made.
Olga applied a new coat of lipstick and checked that none was smeared on her front teeth. In the early morning light, the gold replacements for her top molars shone dully. She threw back her shoulders, took a deep breath, picked up the document from her desk and opened the door.
It was strangely silent. For the past thirty-two hours, reporters had hounded her each time she ventured out of the office. Whenever she went to the canteen or the counting hall, she was followed by her own personal pack.
‘Olga Petrovna, is there any news?’
‘Not yet guys – we have just gone to a third recount’
‘But can you tell us who you think will win? Any news that we can put in the early edition?’
‘Sorry guys – I can’t help you. You know I can’t say anything until the final result is announced.’
This time, the corridor was empty. As she passed the open door of the pressroom, she realised why. All around the room, representatives of the local and international media were sleeping. One had made a bed out of cushions and lay stretched across the floor. A couple were lying with their heads on the desks.
‘Just like Alexander and me when we were in junior school’ she mused.
The others were hunched in their chairs, trying to find a comfortable position. She rapped smartly on the doorframe.
‘Gentlemen of the press - official announcement in five minutes’. She smiled to herself as she walked on, leaving behind a sense of panic and urgency.
As Olga walked on to the stage, she glanced at the paper in her hand. For each result, she had underlined the successful name in red, to make sure there were no mistakes. Under the heading of Central Oblast, the name she had underlined was Yulia Grigorovna Semerenko. The difference between her votes and those of Alexander had been very small. That was one of the reasons why this election night had gone on for so very long.
Olga glanced up and saw Alexander standing at the back of the room. He was wearing his jacket once more, but his tie had gone - and so had all his companions. She contrasted his appearance now with the last time he had appeared on television, at an election rally a few days ago. Supporters and well-wishers had surrounded him. But he was irritable with the crowds, his answers to questions off-hand and dismissive. She remembered wondering where this streak of arrogance had come from. Didn’t he know that he depended on these people, rather than the other way around?
For a brief moment, she allowed her neutrality to slip and found to her surprise she was pleased he had lost. Maybe it was the lingering effect of Sunday night’s slight. Maybe she had not liked the man she had watched on TV, the man he had become.
As the television lights shone down on her and the cluster of microphones pointed upwards from the front of the stage, Olga announced to the country the results of the election for Parliamentary Deputies. She leaned slightly against the lectern to support her weary body and was thankful that her feet were hidden. It would not do for the news footage to show that the Head of the Central Elections Commission had made her announcement in fluffy pink slippers – having finally abandoned her new boots as the mistake she had known them to be, even when she bought them.
*********************************************************************
As Olga walked out of the building some hours later, she was hit by an icy blast. She paused to tighten her scarf around her neck and pull her gloves up to cover her wrists. She was suddenly aware of someone at the bottom of the steps. A slight figure, still expensively dressed but looking very crumpled and somehow older. He was wearing a cashmere scarf around his neck, but his overcoat hung over one arm. He shivered in the cold. No longer entitled to an official car and without his former bodyguards, he seemed uncertain what to do or where to go.
She slowly walked down the steps towards the man. At the sound of her heels on the stone, he looked up and recognition broke through the bewilderment in his eyes.
‘They don’t want me any more. It’s all been for nothing’.
Olga gazed at him and the final vestiges of hurt and anger melted away. She no longer saw Alexander Ivanovych an arrogant politician wound up in himself and his ambitions. She didn’t even see the little boy who excitedly told her his dreams as they wandered the streets. She just saw Sasha, a husband, father and grandfather who had for a time lost sight of what was really important and now needed support and reassurance.
Reaching the bottom of the steps, she slipped her arm through his and leaned over to kiss his cold cheek.
‘Come home Sasha’ she said. ‘ I have your slippers warming by the fire and Anna is bringing the babies to see us today. Tomorrow will be soon enough to think about what happens next.’
SECOND PRIZE WINNER 2007
SARAH EVANS
The things we might do
The images of humiliation, of conqueror’s shame, stare inexcusably from the front page.
“They should be shot!” Tim doesn’t mean it literally, he’s against the death penalty. “Locked away for life. Life should mean life.” He softens it slightly. He has the moral certainty of youth.
The Abu Ghraib pictures don’t make easy viewing. It’s not I don’t share his dismay. But still I feel compelled to reply, “We don’t know the circumstances. The orders they had.”
He regards me with distaste. “That’s no defence. That’s what the Nazis said, ‘only obeying orders’. Would you find excuses for them too? Honestly Granddad, don’t you ever feel pure disgust at what people do?”
I feel the urge to confess. The words form and rattle in my mouth, hesitate to come out, “I’d like to tell you something.”
His phone goes off. I’ve never got used to the things, his has a rather catchy tune I can’t quite place. It feels rude, the intrusion into whatever other conversation might be going on.
My heart is pounding unnaturally fast, just the thought of telling. Maggie would be cross if she were here. My doctor tells me I should take it easy, avoid getting worked up.
Tim moves away, some rather earnest conversation is going on. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, deeply.
*
The advert looked so innocent. A pristine white sheet tacked to the student notice board proclaimed: Volunteers wanted! With the promise: Good rates of pay. A couple of quid for an hour or two would come in handy. I was already seeing Maggie then, thought I’d take her out somewhere special, perhaps buy her the latest Beatles’ album.
I headed north past Euston, an area I didn’t know. Old brick mingled with new concrete, the survivors from the war sitting side by side with their bombed out replacements.
The directions landed me at a dingy back-street entrance with a chair propping open a flaking door. Black printed arrows led the way to a hall where high arched ceilings, supported by grubby columns, hinted at former grandeur. The gathering group were all ages, men and women. A hum of chatter filled the space; it could have been a church outing. Except beneath the outward bravado I sensed a slight frizzon of nerves, you didn’t quite know what they were going to ask of you. But it was only psychology, it wasn’t like real medical tests with needles and strange pills.
Our names were called out in pairs. My other half was a chap about my age. Bob he was called. His hair sprouted messily, longer than I’d have dared. He grinned, admitted to being a bit apprehensive too.
“They’ll probably just have us looking at ink blots,” he hazarded a guess. “Or talking about our dreams.” We both grimaced. I wondered if we might not go for a pint together afterwards.
A severe looking man in a white coat introduced himself as Doctor something or other; the name evaporated as soon as it was said. He led the way through a warren of yellowing corridors, to a small windowless room.
“First, we need to decide your roles.” There was hint of a foreign accent I couldn’t quite place. He held out two cards. I let Bob pick first. His said student, mine teacher.
“Good,” the Doctor said, with no trace of a smile. He had the sort of grey hair that looks painted on and a short clipped moustache. He started instructing us on the theory. Something to do with memory retention and the effect of punishment. I couldn’t follow all the technical terms, so it was a relief when he explained, “But what you need to do is very simple. Terry will read out pairs of words. Bob will try to remember them.” That didn’t sound too bad, I could read out words. “If Bob gets any wrong, Terry will administer a small electric shock.” Bob was still grinning as if this was all a good lark. Still I was glad it was me as teacher. Finally the Doctor concluded sternly, “I hope you appreciate, this is an important scientific experiment.”
The room had two halves. The Doctor and I stood in front of a panel with a big dial, behind which was a glass partition. I could see Bob sitting in a chair, chatting to a young nurse. She laughed; I suspected he was flirting. She pulled a strap across his chest and fastened it, attached two others to his wrists. Wires trailed across the floor towards a generator.
The Doctor showed me the big round switch, how it clicked round. The scale of voltages went up slowly at first: 5, 10, 15 with the reassuring words slight shock. It picked up speed: 25, 50, 75. Then it gathered further pace: 100, 150, up to 300 and the warning danger: severe shock. The very last one didn’t have a number at all, it just read XXX in scarlet letters. There was a button, “Press to make the connection.” Click and press. It was pretty straightforward, though my stomach lurched uneasily. Still the Doctor had been to so much trouble to explain it all. And there was Bob, perhaps he’d not be paid if I backed out now.
*
I can no longer hear the murmur of Tim’s voice. I open my eyes. He’s watching me. “Are you OK?”
“Oh!” I startle, “Just dozing!” I don’t know what my face might have given away.
“I could make some tea?” he suggests.
“No, no!” I insist, “I’ll do it. My doctor says it’s good for me to keep active.”
I go through to the kitchen, fill a pan. The kettle is broken, the plug emitted sparks when I switched it on this morning. I really should get a man to look at the wiring before someone gets hurt.
*
“Please start,” the Doctor ordered. “Set the dial to 5.” I clicked it round. The first card had three pairs. “Dog. Cat.” I started to read them. Then I paused, and read out, “Dog,” waiting for “Cat,” to be echoed back over the audio system. Bob grinned when he got all three right. This was going to be OK.
The next lot were harder, more pairs, less obvious connections. Bob got one wrong. “Go ahead,” the Doctor said. I hesitated slightly. But it was only set to 5. Hopefully it would teach Bob to concentrate better. He reacted with only the slightest of jerks.
“Set the dial to 10.” I obeyed my instructions.
The questions kept getting harder; Bob’s memory went from bad to worse. I felt a flicker of irritation that he could be so stupid. At 50V it looked quite an unpleasant jolt.
“Look,” I reasoned, “it doesn’t seem as if this is working. Perhaps we should just call it a day.”
“Please continue,” the grey haired Doctor said.
By 100V, Bob cried out. “This is wrong,” I objected. “It’s hurting him.” My eyes were beginning to twitch.
“The experiment requires you to continue,” the voice of authority insisted.
With 200V the cries got louder, the jerking continued for some time after the shock, as if he’d had some kind of spasm. Bob’s body sagged, his head flopping. He really didn’t look well.
“This can’t be right.” I was shaking so bad my hands could hardly move. “Look what it’s doing to him.”
I felt unreasonably angry with Bob, for being rather dim, for not helping by clearly stating, “I want to stop.”
“Please continue,” the white coat repeated. “The experiment requires you to continue.”
“B…b…but whose fault is it if he’s harmed?” I stuttered.
“I take full responsibility,” the steely voice replied. “Please carry on.”
It’s here my memory fails me, I watch on as if from the outside, which is how it felt at the time. For a moment I was no longer there, this wasn’t me. I felt trapped in some nightmare. As if my Dad had fought the war for nothing; Hitler had won.
I can’t explain what happened.
I turned the dial to 300. I read the questions. I waited for Bob to get them wrong. His voice was subdued now, it felt like he was no longer trying. I knew beyond any possibility of doubt that it was wrong, but when the Doctor with his implacable features told me to proceed, I pressed the button, I administered the shock.
Bob didn’t cry out. The silence was almost worse. Just one great big convulsion, and he slumped forward in the chair.
I sank down to the floor. “I can’t do this,” I was burbling like a baby.
The voice above me kept on. “Please continue. The experiment requires you to continue.”
I cowered, wrapping my arms around my head, pretending like a child I couldn’t see or hear him. Eventually I heard him speak into the microphone, “OK, you can go now.” He patted my shoulder.
“It’s alright.” His tone was gentler now. “It’s over.”
When eventually I pulled myself together, Bob was gone. “No-body’s been hurt,” the Doctor reassured me, but that image of Bob drooping lifeless in the chair still swam before my eyes.
I was taken back along the maze of passageways to the big hall. People filtered in, in drips and drabs, until we numbered about half the figure we had started out with. I glanced about furtively, hoping I’d spot Bob, see he was alright. Everyone was subdued, avoiding looking anyone in the eye; the festivity was gone.
“It wasn’t fair. Experimenting on people like that.” Maggie was indignant for me. My hands were still sweating and twisting round. I knew what they’d done was nothing compared to me.
I’d told her how we’d had it explained. Half the ‘volunteers’ had been actors. There had been no electricity, no shocks. The experiment was testing people’s obedience to authority. After what had happened in
“You must have known it wasn’t really happening, not in
But I knew I’d killed him.
“We don’t have the full results yet of course,” the debriefer said. “But initial indications show all our volunteers administer 300V. And over half of them go the full way.”
Maggie picked up on this. “You weren’t as bad as some.” Still I could take no comfort in her words.
She looked down, said in a quiet voice, “I’d have done the same,” stopping me when I tried to protest, looking me in the eye now. “Everybody did, I’d not have been different.”
She reached out, took my hand, “You’re still a good person, Terry.”
I think that’s when I fell in love with her. It was her gentleness, her belief in me, which meant I could carry on, that’s sustained the lie all these years: it wasn’t my fault, I hadn’t done anything wrong.
*
I turn the dial on the cooker, click it round to full, hear the hiss of gas, and press the button to ignite. That cold detached voice is still ringing in my ears; I can see Bob’s body hunched in the chair.
Tim joins me in the kitchen. “I’m starving. Got any biscuits?” His face is pocked with acne, untroubled by experience; he has a look of Maggie round the eyes. He says he wants to be a Doctor. And I know I won’t tell him, he’s still too young to understand, the things he might do.
2007 THIRD PRIZE WINNER
ANNE GOODWIN
Shaggy Dog Story
Sunday’s is the hardest wait. On Sundays we sit together in the wingback chair, our limbs entangled like tights in the washing machine, to wait for death.
On Mondays, our triumph over the weekend perks us up somewhat. After I empty the remains of our microwaved meal into the pedal bin, we retire to the chair beside the window, to await the young ladies from Queen Elizabeth High School. Visiting the elderly and housebound; we never had that when I was a lass. The teachers call it Community Service but, to the students, it’s their opportunity to fleece me at poker. They cheat, those girls from Queen Elizabeth’s in their smart blazers and hitched-up skirts. They look at my cards, and how could they not, when my hands, as supple as boxing gloves, refuse to marshal the cards into a fan? By the time they go back to school, I’m five quid and a packet of Penguins poorer.
Tuesdays we wait for the bath lady. Fridays too. It used to be three days a week but I lost one bath to The Cuts. When the supervisor came to tell me, there were tears in her eyes. I shook my head and looked serious, but it was a lot of fuss about nothing. After all, Sunday night in the tub was good enough when we were kids, and that was with all day and every day running around the backstreets, playing hopscotch and piggy-in-the-middle. Just taking my zimmer from the toilet to the kitchen to the bedroom to the wingback chair beside the window isn’t going to have me working up a sweat, is it? A splash of water on my face of a morning and a wipe down there with a damp flannel ought to suffice at my age. It’s not as if there’s any pleasure in it, anyway, with that hoist like a crane on a bloody building site, and the bath lady doing her best to look anywhere but at my gnarled body. But it’s not for me to say, is it? And the bath lady gives a purpose to Tuesday’s waiting.
Today, however, is Wednesday: the best of day of the week. Wednesdays are when we wait for the vicar lady -- or one of her do-gooding helpers -- to ring the doorbell and take us down to the communal lounge for a paper plate of pie and peas and a couple of rounds of bingo. All it costs us is to join in with the croaking hymns while the vicar lady tinkles away on the piano. My mouth is watering already as I sit here, bent and twisted as the trees in the windswept park out the window, Rufus waiting with me, his body wrapped around mine like ivy. I hum a few bars of All Things Bright and Beautiful and Rufus joins in with his funny doggie whine. I laugh and squeeze his body tight to my chest like a hot water bottle, and he growls and licks my face. You daft dog, I say, and bury my nose in the teddy-bear fur of his neck. He has a sour smell, like the sludge of fallen leaves in the winter gutter.
Along with the poker and the bingo and the pie and peas, Rufus is my saviour. Never had time for pets before, too busy with a house and a husband and a market stall to see to. But when the work stops and you find yourself suddenly alone, you need something to share the waiting with you. Companionship. Something to cuddle and push out the thoughts that echo in your head like footsteps in an empty room.
While loyal to me, Rufus can be standoffish with some of my visitors. When the home-helps come round, or the district nurse or the warden or the bath lady, he goes and lies under my bed, out of the way. He can sense when someone doesn’t approve of his ways. Whenever Kelly -- that’s the young home-help who looks anorexic -- finds a hair on the carpet with too much colour to be mine, she wrinkles her nose at me accusingly. To let Rufus off the hook I blame the Queen Elizabeth girls. Their hair always has far more colour than is good for them. Then, when Shirley -- the district nurse who’s married to one of the doctors -- hints there’s a funny smell, I accuse the home-helps of being too lazy to clean properly.
Rufus feels more at home with Monday’s and Wednesday’s visitors. When the Queen Elizabeth girls come, he barks and wags his tail and jumps up to lick their faces until one of them takes him for a runaround in the park to burn off some of that adrenalin. He’s more sedate with Marjorie, the vicar lady, but he seems to recognise in the dog collar the mark of a kindred spirit.
Today, when the doorbell goes, I feel Rufus tense in my arms, like a child who can’t quite believe Santa has finally come. Under all his layers, the shaggy hair and the warm skin and the play-pen cage of his ribs, his heart seems to miss a beat. And then he turns his head to look at me, and almost smiles. You daft dog, I say.
He springs off the chair and runs in circles round the room, while I clamp my arthritic fingers around the zimmer and edge towards the door.
“Sorry I’m a bit late,” says Marjorie, “are you ready?”
Of course I’m ready. What else have I to do but wait? “If you wouldn’t mind getting my handbag for me? It’s over by my chair.”
Marjorie squeezes past me to get the bag. The lead is lying on the floor nearby. “Is Rufus coming?”
“Of course,” I say. “He wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Marjorie picks up the dog’s lead. She reaches out and presses the clip at the end as if attaching it to a phantom collar. Then she strides back towards me at the door, my white handbag in her left hand and the brown leather strap dangling from her right. Meanwhile, Rufus dances around the wingback chair, unfettered.
I giggle.
“What is it?”
I point at the empty lead, then at Rufus. “He’s over there, by the window.”
Marjorie flings down the lead. It lies on the carpet, coiled like a snake. “I give up.”
Rufus and I hold our breath, me leaning on my zimmer by the door, he slouching low on the floor, his back legs tucked under the wingback chair. We wait.
Marjorie’s neck above her dog collar has turned bishop’s purple. “I’m sorry, it’s just that ...” She bends down and picks up the lead, turns back towards the window. “Come on, Rufus. Good dog.”
As we make our way out into the corridor, me shuffling with the zimmer, she encumbered with my bulging handbag and an excited dog, Marjorie apologises again. “I didn’t mean to offend you, but a dog like Rufus, a special kind of dog -- not everyone sees him as clearly as you do.” She presses the down-button and we stand there, two women and a dog, waiting for the lift. “You do understand?”
“You’re saying he’s not real?”
“No, of course not.” Marjorie’s neck colours again. “He’s real to you. That’s what matters.”
The lift goes ping and the metallic doors slide apart. Marjorie keeps her finger pressed on the button while I hobble inside. Rufus rests his body against Marjorie’s legs as the doors close on us. He barks nervously as the floor shudders and we begin our descent. “It’s okay, Rufus.” Marjorie pats the air above an invisible head.
I laugh. “You do look daft.”
“Pardon?”
“Pretending you’re stroking a dog. Like a kid with an imaginary friend.”
Marjorie looks forlorn, like a vacant market stall in the rain. “I was only doing it for you.”
What does she take me for? Does she think I’ve completely lost my marbles? How could I manage with a real dog -- horrible smelly thing -- with my arthritis? Doesn’t she know the rules? They don’t allow dogs or cats in a place like this. Health and safety, isn’t it? I’d have to be completely off my trolley to think Rufus was a real dog.
She winds the lead around her hand, looking, not at me, not at Rufus, but solemnly at the floor. I start to hum.
The floor shudders, the lift pings and the doors slide open. We stumble into the vestibule: one vexed lady vicar, one whimsical old widow and one fantasy man’s-best-friend.
Wednesday’s waiting is over. Time at last for our bingo, hymns and pie and peas.
2006 SECOND PRIZE WINNER
MARY COOPER
The Memory Of All That
He walked in the early morning along the tide line where sea and sand met and the waves came roaring in on a rough sea, sucking and dragging the shingle. At this time of day the beach was deserted, the water gray, the coastline bleak. A cold east wind blew, bringing a taste of salt spray, and he gripped his jacket closer, hugging himself. When the tide was fully in the cliffs formed a natural bay. He made his way towards them, up towards the church.
Arriving yesterday, he walked the half mile from the station to the village, noting points of interest along the way; a few farmhouses set back from the road, a riding school advertising itself ‘Brotherton’ above a board chalked ‘horse manure for sale’ The name meant nothing to him.
He went into the first cafe he came to and ordered a coffee, taking a seat by the window. The place, out of season, quiet. The waitress, a middle aged woman looked curiously at him, “Stranger here? Bit late for a holiday. Visiting someone?”
“No not a holiday” said the man. “I’m here for a funeral.”
The woman lingered by the table. “That’ll be for Kate O’Brian that was. Known her since a girl. Any relation?”
Frank had forgotten how nosy the villagers were. “Family friend.”
The woman withdrew reluctantly.
He looked over the square, a Celtic cross standing in what used to be the village green. He could see two pubs opposite. ‘The Lord Nelson,’ and further along “The Anchor.’ Finishing his coffee he crossed the square and went into the ‘Lord Nelson.’ “I’d like to book a room for just the one night if possible.”
The landlord placed the register before him. “You’re in luck. One room left at the back. All right?” He paused. “Here for the funeral? Sad business.”
Frank walked through the village glancing at the names over the shops. Not a lot of change after all. A sleepy place, even sleepier now. The happiest part of his life was spent here. One short summer in forty one. A summer to remember. He wondered if Kate altogether forgot.
The small windswept church stood high on the cliff overlooking the sea. Kate was to be buried alongside her forbears, her parents and grandparents, hardy fishermen and their wives, and some nameless victims of shipwreck and storm.
A bell tolled. The service began. Voices rose in prayer, ‘O God our help in ages past.........’ He slipped into a pew at the back of the church hoping to remain unobserved. A man whose face he vaguely knew passed him a hymn book.
Frank let his gaze rest on the coffin, covered in white roses, lying at the foot of the altar and from there his eyes passed over the chief mourners. There was Tim looking old and drawn, accompanied by his children.
Frank had hated Tim when he learned that Kate and he were married. After that last passionate weekend, Frank’s plane was shot down. He was reported missing presumed killed, and taken prisoner remained in a critical condition for many months. When finally he was able to write his letters remained unanswered. Kate seemed to have disappeared. After the war, repatriated, he returned to the village to find her married to Tim, with two small children. He never understood why. So soon. He expected more loyalty than that. Seeing them living happily together, Frank left and never returned, but now, for the good times he wanted to say good-bye.
The service ended and the coffin was borne down the aisle followed by the family. He could see traces of Kate in the woman holding Tim’s arm although she was dark where Kate had been fair.
He followed the mourners to the graveside.
‘Man that is born of woman.....’ Frank let his mind roam over the past; the shock of discovering Kate married. He had knocked at the O’Brian’s cottage and found it occupied by strangers. “We’re newcomers to the place. Don’t know anyone of that name. Must’ve been before our time.”
He asked around the village and discovered that Kate left two months after he was reported missing, returning as Tim Driver’s wife eighteen months later, with a baby boy and another one on the way. They moved in with Tim’s parents and Tim took over the running of the farm.
Frank walked down the lane to the farm on a hot day; the air rich with summer scent. He leaned over the gate at the entrance to the farmyard and saw a small boy and girl on the garden path playing with a parcel of kittens. Kate with Tim’s arm about her stood laughing in the kitchen doorway. His lovely Kate. The picture was one of contentment and Frank left unobserved, afraid to spoil things. She had made a life. What place for him now?
From time to time he received news. A friend from the old days, who could be trusted to be discreet, knew of Frank’s interest and kept him informed. It seemed she was happy.
‘.... in sure and certain hope....’ Earth was scattered. People withdrew. Tim, his children on either side, turned to go. It was then that Frank was arrested by his first clear sight of the boy’s face. If the girl bore a likeness to Kate there was no doubting the parentage of the boy.
Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Frank was struck by lightning, instead of blindness, suddenly all was revealed. He could see it all so plainly now.
Knowing village gossip and to protect her unborn child Kate moved away, and believing him dead, Tim and she married. Somehow, the letters went astray. He was glad that the marriage had been a success. He walked at a distance behind them drinking in the sight of his son. There could be no mistake. With the boy’s face always in front of her Kate would never have forgotten him.
He spent the evening in the bar of the ‘Lord Nelson,’ catching glimpses of his son in the lounge where the wake took place. Such a small village, it seemed everyone was there. He sat quietly sipping a beer and reminiscing, content with his thoughts.
Now, in the early morning, he climbed the cliff path and the sky turned pink as the sun began to burn off the gray mist. Frank stood by the graveside remembering the summer of so long ago, his sadness tinged with joy knowing that he and Kate lived on.
The End.
Creosote
Once I'm sure there's no one about, 1 switch on the torch and creep downstairs. There's no stair carpet, so 1 keep quiet by going down in my bare feet. 1 have to be careful to step over the fifth stair from the top because it's got a loud creak and might wake Big Sister. If she ever found out what 1 was up to she'd kill me.
Downstairs it smells of stale beer and cigarette smoke. The beam of my torch cuts through the dark and makes a bright circle on the grubby floor and walls. 1 put on my old muddy trainers and my khaki parka. The dog has heard me, and whines softly behind the kitchen door. 1 freeze as Big Sister turns over noisily in her bed, but then she's silent. 1 wonder if her boyfriend is staying the night. 1 go to the sitting room and pick up what 1 need for my mission. Then 1 go into the kitchen, hush the dog, unlock the back door and creep out into the garden. 1 make for the shadows of the village street. There's no moon, but the sky is alight with stars. The weather's ideal. Tonight's will be the biggest show yet.
* * *
Harry Makepeace heard the church clock strike two. The small hours were his time of day. Outside, apart from the wind in the trees and the occasional scream of an owl, the silence was at its deepest. Everyone, except for a few insomniacs, was asleep.
Harry was not himself an insomniac. At the age of 75 he was still able to sleep well. It was just that he wished to be fully awake at three o'clock in the morning because he believed that this was the time when most people die in their sleep. At that hour, his doctor had informed him, body rhythms are at their lowest ebb: the pulse is slow, the breathing lighter. For anyone in chronically bad health, there is a high risk that sleep could easily slide imperceptibly into death. Harry's heart attack a year ago had put him at just such a risk.
Harry's almost superstitious fear of three a.m. had deepened when his wife, Enid, had died from cancer at about that hour three months ago. This fact, and his own heart trouble, had made him resolve to outwit the Grim Reaper by changing his sleeping habits. He now went to bed at sunrise and slept till mid‑day.
Hauling himself up from his deep armchair, Harry yawned and switched off the porn video that had helped to keep him awake since midnight. It was time to do his rounds of the village. The doctor had told him to take regular exercise for his health, and this nightly patrol was his way of doing it. As a retired policeman he had been an active member of the village's Neighbourhood Watch scheme for some years. As he stepped out of his front door with his heavy duty flashlight, he reflected with a smile that, after all these years, he was still on the beat. Then he remembered that tonight he was on arson alert.
* * *
1 like running at night. Funny how you seem to be going a lot faster than you would by day. In the dark the trees and bushes seem to be rushing the other way. It's as though they're fleeing from some disaster 1 don't know about.
I'm getting used to the dark. 1 saw a fox just now, quite close up. It stopped and looked at me, eyes smouldering like hot embers when 1 turned the torch on him. A bit further down the road I pass the blackened ribs of one of the barns 1 burned down on Christmas Day. 1 enjoyed that a lot more than having to share Christmas dinner with Big Sister and her boyfriend.
1 reach the allotment fence and crawl under it at a place where the wire is loose. Allotment and garden sheds are always good burners. I've done three sheds already. But tonight I've got my sights on a much bigger target which will need something to get it going. 1 head for the shed where Big Sister keeps the can of creosote. 1 unlock the padlock with the key she keeps under the brick beside the door. The peppery smell of the newly creosoted shed pricks the inside of my nose like pins and needles. I'd love to set the shed on fire, but Big Sister, knowing how much 1 hate her, would suspect me straight away. Grabbing the can and some rags, 1 set off towards my goal.
* * *
As he patrolled the village Harry wondered what the fire‑raiser's next target would be. Since last September there had been a series of arson attacks. Flames had claimed the bus shelter, the youth club and a number of barns. Bales of hay had been set alight and several garden sheds and outbuildings had been torched. Some fires had been started at night, others by day. On Christmas Day there had been no fewer than three outbreaks. No one had been hurt, but the arsonist had so far cost the residents many thousands of pounds. One problem was that the nearest fire station was over fifteen miles away. By the time the fire engines arrived the damage had usually been done.
Harry tried to put himself in the shoes of the arsonist. At first, in common with other villagers, he had assumed the damage was being done by one or more kids. But while he could imagine kids setting fire to garden sheds, he found it harder to see that they would come out at midnight to burn a barn. Whatever age he was, this arsonist was clever, rapidly making off from the scene of his crimes and leaving no incriminating evidence. So far the police had found no clues to his identity and had no idea what his motive might be. Perhaps, thought Harry, the offender had a grudge against the village, or maybe he just enjoyed the power of setting things alight. A friend of his in the local police had told him that arsonists are often people with a low opinion of themselves.
Harry's speculations were interrupted by the appearance of a slow‑moving police car, which halted beside him. The driver wound down his window.
"Hello Harry. Seen any good fires lately?"
"Hello there, Steve lad. You doing the graveyard shift then?"
"Yeah. Old bloke like you ought to be in bed."
"You know me. I'm a night owl."
" Don't suppose you've seen or heard anything."
"Nothing. You?"
"Na. Dead loss."
"Better catch him soon. People here are scared they'll be burned in their beds."
"It's not you, is it Harry?"
"You're getting desperate."
"Well, you're the only prowler around at this time of night."
"You just mind your community relations, sunshine."
"All right, Mr Neighbourhood Watch. See you later."
* * *
1 had to stop just now to take a look at the stars. Venus is very bright. I read somewhere that she's burning herself up like a sort of celestial bonfire.
1 begin to tense up when, there, beside the road sign that says our village welcomes careful drivers, 1 see the shadow of the big empty house. 1 took a look at it the other day. It's an old Victorian villa. It wasn't boarded up, and some kids had kicked in the front door. A developer is going to demolish it and build new houses on the site. So 1 decided to give him a hand and make it my next target. It had better be the last. The police are all over the village. 1 don't want to go to prison, but sometimes 1 almost wish they'd catch me. At home – some home! – I'm treated like dirt. Big Sister never listens to me and just keeps putting me down. Ever since Mum died, she's wanted me out of the way so her boyffiend can move in and they won't have to bother about me. I've got good GCSEs and want to go to college. But she keeps on at me to get a job.
Right, let's get down to business. 1 start off at the back of the house. 1 spread the rags I've brought with me round the floorboards in the back room and sprinkle them with creosote. 1 quite like the smell; it reminds me of tar and coal smoke.
* * *
* * *
The fire took hold of the house like a passionate lover. The back of the house went up first. The heat, light and noise of the blaze had my senses dancing.
It was when 1 went to take a look at the front of the house that 1 noticed the cat. To my horror, 1 saw that it was inside, furiously scratching at an upstairs window, its image flickering as the flames began to break through behind it. I had to rescue it somehow. 1 had vowed that my fire‑raising habit would never harm any living thing. But what could 1 do? 1 tried throwing stones to break the window, but 1 was never any good at throwing. Was it too late to go inside? The wind seemed to be blowing the fire away from the front. 1 braced myself, pushed open the front door and went inside.
As Harry approached the burning house, he saw a hooded figure about to enter the front door. Breaking into a run, Harry shouted at him to stop, but the roar of the fire consumed his voice. He went up to the open front door, from the top of which thick tarry smoke was billowing. The fire had not yet broken through to the hall, which was protected by a closed internal door. He ducked as low as he could below the smoke and found the stairs. Suddenly a screaming cat rushed past him and out through the door. He looked up the stairs. The black smoke lifted briefly and revealed an inert form lying on the landing. Harry wrapped his scarf over his face and climbed the
staircase. Flaming debris started to fall through the smoke around him as he groped for the body and hauled it up into his arms. When he turned to descend he saw to his dismay that the fire had broken through the internal door and was barring his exit. Using his body to protect his burden, Harry plunged down the stairs and hurled himself through the flames and out through the door where he stumbled into an amazed group of firemen and collapsed. It was three o'clock in the morning.
* * *
1 recovered from my bums in prison. 1 am the one who should have died, not him, an old man with a bad heart. 1 will never forgive myself. Harry saved my life, and the one who caused his death was me, his grand‑daughter.
COMP
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THE MARY GORNALL MEMORIAL SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2005
RESULTS OF THE 2005 COMPETITION 1st. Prize £75: Pippa McCathie(Guernsey). Liberation Day 2nd. Prize £40: Heather Parker(Cumbria). The Birthday Party 3rd. Prize £20: Janet Davis(Australia). The Wishing Tree Commended: Laurie McTaggart. By The Rivers Of Babylon Christine Sutton. Mother Alert Sheila Corbishley. Discovering Genoa Shortlisted: Sophie Duffy. Out Of The Birdcage John Malvert. The Final Note Mrs. S M Birchall. Honesty Is The Best Policy Final Judge: Novelist Freda Warrington Entries: 100 |
2005 WINNERS
2005 FIRST PRIZE WINNER
LIBERATION DAY
By
PIPPA McATHIE
The wind whistled around the headland, flattening the grass and sea pinks. A fine sand‑filled spray from the sea far below stung his face. He could smell the seaweed, and from the common came the coconut scent of gorse. Some part of his mind realised how chilled he was, even with his uniform buttoned up to his throat, but the chill wasn't caused by the weather. Not entirely. The deep down chill in his bones was far more than that, a mixture of nightmare memories, grief and guilt. Still he sat on, staring out at the distant waves as they thundered against the grey and pink of granite rocks.
All those years he'd waited for this day. Imagining every detail of it had kept him going through the worst of the war, dreaming of it had sustained him. And now this, so grotesquely different to his dreams.
He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his mother's letter. The wind snatched at the paper and he crouched against the rocks to protect it, began to read it once again.
"... and I'm worried you'll expect everything to be just as it was when you left. These years have changed us all, especially your sister. She is a grown woman now, with heavy responsibilities. But once you're safe we'll manage, you'll see ... " When he'd first read it he'd wondered what she'd meant about Maggie. Now he knew. He wished to God his mother had told him, maybe then he'd have guarded his tongue. But how could she have told him? It would never have got past the German censors. No good blaming her. He was the one who'd lashed out and said those dreadful things.
***
They hadn't known he was coming. He hadn't known himself until a few days ago when his C.O. called him in.
"Want a trip home John?"
"I beg your pardon sir?"
"You heard. Our lot's detailed to be part of the force taking the German surrender in the Channel Islands. You're a Guernseyman, thought you'd like to be involved."
"You bet sir!" He could have hugged the man.
The Colonel grinned. "Okay then. I'm afraid there's no chance of letting your people know. It'll have to be a surprise for them."
"Right sir. No problem."
And there it was, settled.
***
For hours John had been standing on the deck of the ship as they waited for the signal. The deck moved gently under his feet and the slap of water on the ship's sides reminded him of long ago fishing trips. His fingers felt stiff and sticky with salt as he clutched at the rail, watching for familiar landmarks.
As the sun came up the engines throbbed back into life. They were on their way. A moment later he got his first clear sight of home. Herm and Sark on the port side, Guernsey to starboard. Below the layers of mist creeping slowly away he could see familiar buildings crowding comfortably in the curve
of the hill. The Town Church with the pub opposite where he'd had his first pint, the red brick tower of his old school. Tears stung his eyes. Quickly he wiped the back of his hand across them as one of his fellow soldiers joined him.
"There it is, mate. Seems that bastard Huffmeier's finally agreed to the surrender. We're on our way in."
John couldn't speak. His friend glanced at him, clapped him on the shoulder and grinned, then wandered off. He was grateful for the man's understanding.
As they shinned down the rope ladder into the landing craft, one officer and twenty‑five men, John couldn't keep the grin off his face. Yet there was fear as well. What would he find? After five years of occupation surely his home town would be very different. He looked up at Castle Cornet on its rocky outcrop by the harbour mouth, felt a little spurt of anger to see German gun emplacements on the walls. Closer to land there was barbed wire everywhere, and the buildings were dilapidated, desperately in need of a coat of paint and a few repairs. But otherwise all was unchanged.
Crowds of islanders, most of them emaciated and shabby, cheered and thronged around them as they marched from the harbour into town, making their progress slow. He scanned the crowd for faces he knew. There was no sign of his mother or his sister.
"John? John Ogier!" He looked round, craning to see, trying to work out who'd shouted his name. "John, over here!"
"Good Lord!" He'd have recognised his old headmaster anywhere. "Mr Robilliard, how are you?"
"All the better for seeing you boys." He shook John vigorously by the hand, gripping his shoulder with claw like fingers. There were tears in the old man's eyes.
"Have you seen my mother, or Maggie?"
The man's smile faded, his eyes became veiled. "Er, no. Well, John ... good to see you." Quickly he stepped back and was soon swallowed up by the press of people.
For a moment fear gripped at John. What was all that about? Yet again he wished he could have warned them he was coming. Thinking about his mother's brief letter his apprehension grew, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
A couple of hours later he finally managed to make his way up the hill from the harbour, leaving the thronging crowds still celebrating with his fellow soldiers. All was quiet as he walked along, up the hill past tall houses, some with the V for victory splashed hastily on their walls, many with Union Jacks hanging from their windows. At last he reached a familiar corner and turned into his own road. Here he slowed, heart beating hard in his chest, hands clenched by his side. Stupid to be so nervous. A moment later he was standing by the gate.
Seconds, minutes ticked by, and still he stood there looking at his home. No lawn any more, the front garden had been dug up and was full of plants, green with small white flowers. Potatoes he thought. The house needed painting, the window frames were peeling, and the lace curtains had gone. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he pushed open the gate and walked up the path, lifted a shaking hand and knocked on the door. He hadn't the courage to walk straight in.
Footsteps sounded inside. He held his breath, sure the thumping of his heart must be audible. The handle turned and the door opened just a crack, then a little more.
For a moment he didn't recognised her. Last time he'd seen her she'd been a plump thirteen year old, now she was a young woman, stick thin, her face drawn. But her flaming red hair hadn't changed. It still clustered round her face in uncontrollable curls.
Her mouth dropped open, eyes widened and the blood drained from her already pale face. "John?" It was more a breath than a word. Seconds ticked by, then she shouted back over her shoulder, "Mother! Come quick!" and flung the door wide. Only now did John notice the small child she held on her hip, barely a year old, with flaming red hair as curly as her own.
His mother came running from the kitchen. She too was thinner, and looked much older, her hair sandy with grey now. They stood in the doorway and hugged, exclaimed, cried. At last John stood back, turned to his sister.
"And who is this?" he asked, trying to smile as he looked at the child, who'd buried her face in Maggie's neck.
"This is my Jenny."
"Yours? When did you get married?" He knew it was a stupid question.
"I'm not, John."
He tried to keep his voice neutral. "So who's the father. Anyone I know?"
"No."
"John, please, not on the doorstep. Come inside." His mother took his arm and, after an anxious glance up the street, closed and locked the front door.
In the familiar old kitchen, same range, same scrubbed table, same copper pans, though there seemed to be fewer than before, they stood and looked at each other. The silence stretched out and was finally broken by John's mother, her voice artificially bright.
"Why didn't you tell us you were coming? My dear boy, it's so good to see you. Did you get my last letter? How long have you got?" She kept on touching him, his arm, his face, as if she couldn't believe he was real. "I'll make some tea. We had a Red Cross parcel last week. Sit down do"
But John didn't respond. He could think of nothing but the child and Maggie. "So, tell me about it, Mags," he said, trying to stop his voice sounding accusing and failing. And she told him, baldly, her voice flat and expressionless.
"He was a German soldier. Rudi." Her voice lingered over the word.
"No John, don't." His mother grasped his arm, but he shook her off.
"I'll kill the bastard."
"You can't." Maggie's voice was full of pain. "He's dead, killed by a mine down at L'Eree. He was running away, from the Feldgendamerei."
"A coward as well, eh?"
But his mother interrupted her, her voice harsh. "He was an animal."
"Mother!"
She ignored Maggie's protest. "He raped her."
"What?" The word cracked out, like a bullet, and the child, clinging to Maggie, began to cry.
"John, please. You don't understand." But John didn't hear her. Nothing but the cold anger rising up inside him had any meaning. All the pain and hatred held contained for so long pushed to the surface, concentrated on this one German who'd defiled his sister. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words were frozen in his throat when Maggie said, "He didn't. I loved him."
"She doesn't know what she's saying."
"It's no good mother. I've told you so many times." Quietly Maggie repeated, "He didn't rape me. I loved him."
And that was when he lost control, called her a whore, called Jenny a Nazi's bastard, and much more. Piled insult upon insult, and all the time Maggie stood there, absorbing it, not saying a word as she tried to comfort her crying child. At last he slammed out of the house and walked until he ended up on the common amongst the gorse and the sea pinks, where he slumped down, exhausted.
***
Guilt ate into him. How could he have lashed out like that? High up here on this familiar cliff top, it was as if he'd been purged by his outburst. The hate was no longer there, but the guilt and self loathing remained. He must go back and explain to Maggie, tell her he hadn't meant what he said. But still he sat on, his arms wrapped tight round his body, his eyes stinging with spray and with tears, sick at the memories crowding into his mind.
He didn't hear her approach, maybe because of the noise of the wind and waves, maybe because of his tormented thoughts. It wasn't until he felt a soft hand on his shoulder and her voice, tentative, saying his name that he realised she was there.
"I knew you'd come here. You always used to when you were upset or in trouble. Do you remember that time you stole Mrs Mahy's apples?"
He looked up at her. She looked years beyond eighteen, with smudges of dark shadow below her eyes, cheeks sunken, her skin so pale it was almost translucent. The only hint of colour her hair and the redness round her eyes.
"Let's get out of this wind," he said, taking her arm. He could feel it trembling and his guilt grew. Neither of them said anything until they were in the lee of the rocks and out of the worst of the weather.
She put a hand up to his lips, closing off the words.
"Ssh, stop. Let me speak. Let me tell you about my Rudi."
THE END
2000 words
2005 SECOND PRIZE WINNER
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
BY
HEATHER PARKER
'Do you know if you're getting a birthday card from the Queen?' asked Sarah, as she helped the old lady to dress.
Kate shook her head vehemently. 'Not if my grandchildren know what's good for them. They know exactly how I feel about the Royals, so if they want my money…'
Sarah was shocked. 'I thought all old people liked the Queen.'
'I'm not all old people,' muttered Kate angrily. 'I'm me.'
The young carer raised her eyebrows. 'I bet you were a handful in your younger days, Kate Meadows.'
'Thank you, dear,' beamed Kate. 'One does one's best.'
Sarah chuckled and went to see if any cards had arrived at Reception.
'How is our birthday girl?' asked Simon, as he sorted the post.
'Oh, cantankerous as ever,' grinned Sarah. 'I think she's wonderful.'
The manager snorted. 'You don't have to sort out her complaints. I'm beginning to think she's on a schedule. Monday it's the food, Tuesdays the television in the next room's too loud… And yesterday I was in trouble for letting the vicar in to visit her. She told him she didn't need spiritual guidance thank you very much. She was a Communist!'
Sarah burst out laughing but realised that was a mistake. Simon didn't have much of a sense of humour.
'Anyway this should keep her happy,' he muttered, pulling out the large official -looking envelope.
Sarah gazed at it in horror. How on earth was she going to tell Kate?
'I'm sure they meant well,' said Sarah nervously.
'Fiddlesticks!' replied Kate, outraged. 'It's a nasty, stupid joke. I've
been a Republican all my life and they ought to know that! Those parasites sit in their palaces, looking down on the rest of us. Am I supposed to feel honoured because some poor lackey in an office sends me this?'
She threw the offending object down on the bed in disgust. Sarah realised Kate wasn't just angry, she was upset. She watched the old woman wipe a tear away quickly. She found it hard to understand but she was concerned.
'Come on, Kate, sit down a minute. What's all this really about? Why does the card bother you so much?'
Kate sighed and carefully lowered herself onto the bed next to Sarah.
'I'm not sure I can explain it. I feel as if no-one sees me anymore, Sarah. Not just the old woman living in this room but the girl I used to be when I was in my twenties. She's still here inside me you know - but nobody sees her. Did you know I was once on the Jarrow March? Now I'm just an old lady who should like the Queen and Songs of Praise. They don't see the woman who tried to kill herself in 1941 - or was arrested in 1972 for demonstrating against the Vietnam War. It's as if she never existed.'
Sarah was astonished. 'You were arrested?'
Kate smiled for a moment. 'That's more shocking than trying to kill myself, is it?'
'No, I didn't mean that. Why did you do it, Kate?'
'Because my first husband was killed in the war and I didn't want to live without him,' she said simply. 'I couldn't imagine ever loving anyone else.'
'But you did,' said Sarah, glancing at the photograph of Kate's second husband by the bed.
'Yes I did eventually but I was lonely for a long time. I threw myself into my studies at Oxford instead.'
'So when did you meet Tom?'
'When I was forty and my mother had written me off.'
Sarah laughed. 'It's quite fashionable to be single nowadays.'
'Well, it wasn't then. Although I wasn't alone. A whole generation of women had lost the men they loved in the first bloody war, let alone that one.'
'Is that why you became a peace campaigner?' asked Sarah.
Kate nodded. 'It was the start of it I suppose. And how I came to be arrested in the seventies. Twice.'
'What did Tom think about that?'
'Oh, he understood. He was arrested five times.'
Sarah smiled. 'I think I'm beginning to understand. And the people who really know you aren't here any longer, are they?'
Kate shook her head. 'I sometimes wish I wasn't either. I'm lonely without them, Sarah, and my family only come because they have to. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame them for a second. It's natural. They've got busy lives and more than enough problems of their own. But I just wish there was someone who could see who I really am. I still care about the troubles in Palestine and the war in Iraq. I wanted to go to London and demonstrate, you know, but the doctor wouldn't let me.'
Sarah nodded. ' I remember that. She said you were being impossible and you should act your age.'
Kate glanced at her. 'See what I mean? What is my age anyway? I still feel about nineteen. But my body is a hundred.'
Sarah thought about Kate all morning and wondered what she could do to help. She knew some of the grandchildren were coming in about two o'clock for a 'surprise' party and the home had arranged a special cake and balloons. Suddenly it sounded more like a children's tea party and she realised what Kate meant. She sighed and decided to make a phone call to a friend. It was very short notice but it might just work…
'Really, Sarah, I wish you'd told me. What if the relatives don't approve?'
'It's Kate's birthday; surely she's the one that matters,' retorted Sarah crossly. She didn't really care what Simon thought. Her friend had been very enthusiastic and promised to have everything ready in time. The party was certainly going to be interesting.
'At least they'll think we've made an effort for her birthday,' suggested Sarah and Simon brightened a little. Perhaps she was right. He went off to make sure there were fresh flowers around and an odd bottle of wine on the table. It had to be good publicity for the home and Head Office ought to be pleased.
'What ghastly things have you got planned for today?' asked Kate rudely.
Simon reminded himself it was her birthday and swallowed hard.
'Wait and see. We don't want to spoil the surprise, do we?'
'Is that the royal we?' queried Kate but the manager had to go and make a phone call.
'Kate, you can be a pain,' said Sarah. 'You goad that poor man.'
'Well, I need a hobby, don't I?' she replied.
The door to the lounge opened and a stream of Kate's descendants trooped in.
'Heavens, what have I done?' murmured Kate. 'I used to fight for population control but it seems I've produced enough children to populate Belgium.'
Sarah gurgled. 'Act nice for once.'
Kate rose to her feet with difficulty and received the hugs and pecks from the family with fortitude. She didn't recognise most of them but she could always play the age card. People made allowances when you were a hundred. They assumed you must have lost a modicum of marbles even if your mind was razor-sharp, as Kate's was.
Simon reappeared, beaming broadly. 'On behalf of Willowmere Residential Home, I would like to mark Mrs Meadows' one hundredth birthday with a little party. Our friends in the kitchen have baked a cake and we managed to find a special vintage in the wine cellar.'
He allowed time for the polite titter. The bottle of wine from the supermarket bore the name Chateau 100. Sarah watched Kate's face but it was expressionless.
'And now I'm sure you'd all like to join me in a chorus of Happy Birthday to You.'
Oh no, thought Sarah. Not a birthday card from the Queen and a singsong.
Suddenly Kate made a strange strangled sound. Then she started to laugh. The family stared at her in horror. It was so embarrassing. Obviously it must be dementia or Alzheimer's but couldn't it have held off until tomorrow? The door opened and another group of party guests entered the room, carrying cameras and recording equipment. The family gazed at them with apprehension. Surely they wouldn't show someone like that on television?
An hour later, Kate held centre stage in the lounge as the interviewer from the local television station started to read from his book.
'Kate Meadows, you were born in December 1905 in the small town of Whitehaven in Cumberland. During your amazing life, you have been a staunch supporter of human rights and pacifism, even being arrested several times and imprisoned for your views. You have been married twice and produced three children and many more grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You also found time to read Sociology and Peace Studies at Oxford, attain a doctorate and teach for many years at Edinburgh University. Your research has helped to formulate policy in many important areas.'
The interviewer paused and watched his subject. Who would have guessed what an amazing life she'd led?
'But these are only the bare bones of your life, Kate. I'm afraid we didn't have enough time to find out much more. We'd like you to put the flesh on those bones now. Tell us what your life was really like? How did it feel to be imprisoned? You are living history, Kate. We need to start appreciating how precious people like you are - and valuing them. Will you help us?'
Kate glanced across at Sarah and smiled. 'Oh, yes,' she breathed quietly. 'I have so much I can tell you. But your girlfriend forgot to tell you about my part in the General Strike. And when I went on the Jarrow March.'
Sarah and her boyfriend were taken aback. 'How did you know about us?' asked the girl.
'I haven't been around a hundred years without picking up something about human nature,' she smiled. 'But thank you anyway.'
She turned back to the camera. 'So where do you want me to start? As you might have gathered, I've never been very good at acting my age. If you do that, you really get old.'
Kate went on to surprise everyone in the room with her stories, her face alight as she remembered those times, good and bad. Some of her family looked shocked by her criminal activities but the younger members were obviously impressed. Who would have thought their great-grandmother was such a maverick?
Two days later Kate died. Everyone else expressed their regrets and the family returned for the funeral. Only Sarah wasn't sorry. She knew Kate was sad and lonely and she wanted to die. But she left a final message for Sarah. The birthday card from the Queen was waiting for her in Simon's office the morning after the funeral and Sarah opened it and read the shaky words.
"Dear Sarah, you can't understand how much my birthday meant to me. For so many years I felt as though I were invisible. Just an old lady with a crochet rug wrapped round her in the corner of the lounge. Can you understand how lonely that was? But you let them see me again. All my grandchildren, the other residents - at last they know who I really am. I've known happiness and I've known tragedy just as they have and I'm still me. Perhaps you've helped others like me. Maybe kids will look at their grandparents differently in future. Who knows? I'm still lonely and I'm ready to go. But I wanted you to know you made me happy, Sarah.
Love Kate.
PS I was arrested for throwing flour at George the Sixth. I can't quite remember why just at the moment. But that's why I don't like the Royals."
END
THE WISHING TREE
BY
JANET DAVIS
Our first morning in Greece, and already I wish Celia could be beamed home to Basingstoke.
The island's gnarled old wishing tree is festooned with rags tied on by superstitious tourists. I wonder if it works on overbearing sisters.
'So people actually believe the wish comes true when the cloth rots off the branch?' Celia inquires sceptically of our Greek guide.
'That is the peasant tradition,' Nikos replies.
'Oh, for a hanky!' I mutter.
'Please take this one, Helen ‑ it is clean.' Nikos hands me a threadbare but immaculate white square. He's charming and somewhat younger than my forty‑four years. Celia glares as though 'Yes, 1 am a gigolo' is chain‑stitched onto his white shirt. She's been rather protective and possessive since Alan died. All morning she's chaperoned us like a pair of hormone‑inflamed Year Ten pupils at that posh school she heads.
'Helen, you can't believe that mumbo‑jumbo?' she says. 'Oh, it's blazing hot out here. Back to the bus, everyone! On to the Byzantine church!' A human Collie, she effortlessly herds our party back along the mountain path to the picturesque whitewashed village where Nikos parked the minibus.
I love Celia dearly, but I need time alone to heal. But how can I complain about her bossy ways? I couldn't have coped without her support during the hellish year since I lost my husband. We were excitedly planning a Mediterranean cruise after seeing Matthew, our younger son, off to university. Then Alan had a massive heart attack.
Celia arranged the funeral. Unmarried, she moved in indefinitely to share my house. I spent a year in a grey fog of depression. Celia forced me on outings, but Wagner's Ring Cycle never was my cup of tea.
'You must have a holiday, Helen,' she insisted as the anniversary of Alan's death loomed. We arrived at the hotel late yesterday evening.
Waking early, I apathetically drew the curtains and walked into the balcony ‑ and gasped, bedazzled. Beneath a sky of deepest azure were olive groves above cliffs, a white beach and a glittering turquoise sea. Bougainvillaea bloomed blindingly purple against the white wall of the hotel's courtyard with its palm‑fringed pool. The scent of coffee and hot croissants wafted up from a dining terrace, mingling with a tang of sea and suntan oil that took me back to long past, carefree holidays.
Forgotten sensations of hope and hunger stirred ‑ followed by guilt. How could I be happy without Alan? But I knew he'd have said, 'Pull yourself together, Helen! I'm not having you moping through a ruinously expensive holiday.'
In the cruelly bright light, I looked in the mirror. Greying mouse‑coloured hair straggled wispily around a pale, thin face. After a disgracefully enormous breakfast, I found an excellent modem hair and beauty salon near some luxury hotels in the quaint nearby fishing village.
'Why don't I colour your hair? A soft honey blonde would suit you,' a nice young stylist from Solihull suggested.
'Why not?' I agreed. The stylishly short hairdo took years off me, and a make up job helped too. Wearing newly bought lime green cotton shorts and a sun top, I went in quest of Celia.
'Helen, I've been looking everywhere for you ‑ what the heck?'
'My clothes and hair were much too heavy for this heat,' I said.
Her pursed lips said nothing, but her eyebrows said 'mutton dressed as lamb'. I didn't much care.
'Right, let's see if we're in time to join a day tour ‑ you've lost us an hour already,' Celia said.
'I thought we might relax by the pool,' I protested feebly.
'Helen! There's so much to see ‑ frescoes, icons, museums, classical temples, Sophocles's Oedipus!'
Somehow I'd never broken the schoolgirl habit of obeying my brilliant big sister. I was unexceptional at anything but running the school tuck shop and painting friends' nails vermilion. After O‑Levels I went to secretarial college. (I really fancied beautician school, but Mum and Dad forbade it.) I married Alan ‑ my boss ‑ when I was nineteen and he was thirty-one. Alan insisted I stay home when our two boys were young, but in recent years I got a beautician diploma. Alan and Celia never really approved.
'All right, Celia,' I agreed wearily. 'Let's ask about tours at reception.'
And there we were introduced to Mr Nikos Philippou, enjoying his morning coffee. He greeted us warmly.
'Yes, we have room on today's tour ‑ it goes first to the island's historic wishing tree,' he said. 'May I offer you ladies drinks?'
Over sweet, strong Greek coffee, he asked endless questions, and I found myself uncharacteristically chattering about my personal life.
'I wasn't really happy about coming away,' I confessed. 'My husband died a year ago this week.'
'Oh, Helen ‑ I am so sorry! I lost my wife four years ago. It was very hard at first our girls were just three and five. But you understand ‑ you have little ones, yes?'
'Not so little!' I confessed, blushing faintly. 'My boys are grown and gone.'
'You do not seem old enough!' he said.
'Matthew's my quiet, academic one,' I babbled on. Christopher's fun‑loving, mad about James Bond. He even got me into those films!'
'Really? I love 007 too!' he said. 'The latest one is on in town! I planned to go alone tonight but why do not I take you to it, Helen? And you too, of course, Celia.'
But before I could decide, Celia had risen and half pulled my arm from its socket.
'Oh, thank you so much, Mr Philippou, but we're going to Sophocles tonight!' she said, dragging me away on the pretext of buying suntan lotion for the outing.
'I bet you're grateful I got you out of that scrape,' she remarked.
'Scrape? Oh, Celia, it was a kind invitation. You might at least have let me reply to the poor chap!'
'Well, you didn't want to go out with him, did you?'
'Maybe. It was just a film, not an invitation to come up and see his icons!
'That would've come later!' She said darkly. 'These resort staff prey on lonely, vulnerable widows. He's too familiar and nosy ‑ and a flatterer. And he's younger than you, you know.'
'Celia,' I said through gritted teeth, 'The rep said Greek islanders are friendly and inquisitive. Anyway, so what if he's five or six years younger?' Then a thought struck me.
'A tour guide just isn't good enough, is he? And neither's James Bond! You're just a snob, Celia Haddy!'
I felt sorry before the words were out of my mouth. Celia looked crushed.
'I'm just concerned you'll get hurt,' she said huffily. 'We don't know this fellow from Aristotle!' I felt 1 had to apologise. Besides, on reflection I had to concede Nikos might indeed compulsively chase every female guest from sixteen to sixty.
So I've been cooler towards him on the morning tour. Leaving the wishing tree village, we visit a church, a winery, a pottery. Celia seems always to be between me and Nikos.
Having discovered he runs all the hotel's tours, she insists we hire a car. From dawn to dusk each day we drive from museum to crumbling Doric column. No time to linger in some vine‑shaded taverna or bask on the beach or picnic in the olive groves, lulled by cicadas and Retsina.
Our last day on this island I've fallen in love with. If only I could spend it by myself, and think about my future. Suddenly it strikes me that I've always been dominated by others. I want my house to myself but how do I tell Celia without hurting her? How can I be firm?
It's evening, and we're going to the Greek folk night at another village. Nikos is far too preoccupied as organiser to bother with me, so Celia relaxes as we dance to bouzouki music. And suddenly it's all too much ‑ the noise, the gaiety. It's a year to the day since I buried Alan. Clouds of returning depression loom. Celia ‑ performing an ouzo‑fuelled impression of Zorba the Greek ‑ doesn't notice as I slip out.
Far, far below, the lights of the fishing harbour near our hotel are reflected in a black sea. Why, this is the mountain village near the wishing tree! Might it help? Suddenly I'm stumbling by moonlight along a rutted and deserted cliff‑side track. The tree's rags ‑ some bright, some rotting ‑ flutter touchingly in the night breeze. I still have Nikos's hanky. But the empty branches are too high ‑ until I place an old folding chair on the stone‑strewn hillock and stand on its seat.
'Oh, just make everything all right please!` I beg absurdly as I knot the cloth round a branch. But the chair gives way. I grab the hanky loop, but the worn fabric tears. Even as I start to fall, I think, 'It broke ‑ so maybe I'll get my wish!' Then my head hits a rock.
`It's morning. Celia sits by my hospital bed, clutching a basket of fruit. My memories are fuzzy. I seem to see Nikos's alarmed face staring down in the darkness. It must have been a dream.
,Helen, really!' says Celia. 'Tree‑clitnbing at your age ‑ at night? The doctors say it's best if you don't travel for a couple of weeks. I'd stay with you of course, but a tree crashed through the assembly hall roof in storms last night! I'll have to organise repairs before term starts.'
'I'll cope somehow, Celia!' Reassured, she kisses me goodbye.
'Thank goodness Nikos saw you looking upset near the cliff‑top and followed you,' she says. 'I think the poor chap suspected you planned to do away with yourself. You could have died from exposure, lying out there injured all night. He wants to see you.'
She leaves and Nikos enters, clutching chocolates and English language newspapers. Hiding behind his back are two dark‑eyed little girls, so shy they can barely be induced to present the wildflower posies they've picked me.
'Ah, Helen ‑ so many bandages!' he exclaims. 'And all is my fault! For I could have caught you if 1 had followed more closely!'
'I'm fine, Nikos ‑ I'll be out soon. And how can you blame yourself? It's thanks to you I was found! I was crazy to make a wish that time of night.'
'It must have been a most important wish, Helen!'
'It was,' I say softly.
'Well, I must hurry and deliver these little ones to school,' he says. 'But I could come back some time ‑ if you like?'
'I'd like it very much, Nikos!'
Alone, I lie back and read about the gales and rain still lashing England. Poor old Celia. There'll be plenty of time now to take things slowly with Nikos. Maybe we'll just be friends. That's fine ‑ a true friend here is what I need. Because I've just read in the local paper that the thriving salon I visited is for sale. Alan's life insurance payout will cover it nicely ‑ and the beauty section just screamed for my touch.
Ends
(1,848 words)
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Results of the Ashby Writers' Club Mary Gornall Short Story Competition 2004 1st. Prize £75: Esther Madden 2nd. Prize £40: Tony Mathews 3rd. Prize £20: Brian Morton Highly Commended: Ben Langley
Shortlisted: Alan Wells The Seagull Norman Kitching Mischief Night Pat Mitchell Millie Gets The Message Edwina Kellock Stevie's Story Michael Limmer Giant Slayer John C Bird Room 401 Lexie Fox The Passing Of Lights Esther Madden The Grand Union
Final Judge: Novelist Sarah Rayne previous winners
WINNER 2003 Promises. By Gail Orbell I straightened the picture by the bedroom door. The picture that mum had painted on a glorious day in July, three years ago. The sun had blasted down that day, sucking the last drops of moisture from the herbaceous border, causing the multi-coloured hollyhocks to hang their gasping heads in defeat. Mum loved sunshine and flowers. I touched the picture again, lightly, making it perfect. Mum used to laugh and tell me it was the fairies’ that ‘rucked them up.’ She had a magical way of making you believe the unbelievable. I grew up with stories of enchanted woods and tales of mischievous elves. Mum’s favourite tale was about the three families of elves that lived in the crevices of the rocks that lined the pond in our garden. Mum said, sometimes, if you were lucky, you could catch them gathering mushrooms at dawn. And, if you were too tired to lift your sleepy head from the pillow and missed that, you only had to look very carefully and you would see the tiny trails they’d left as they’d crossed the dew-soaked lawn. Some trails ran side by side – those were the ones made by the two biggest, oldest elves, Thomas Toon and Jackie Jacks, where they had walked side by side carrying the heaviest, largest mushroom between them. ‘I think it’s the vibration from the quarry that tilts the pictures,’ I’d said, one day, as I sat on mum and dad’s bed, watching her flick a bright yellow duster around the many pictures that hung from the picture rail on white twisted cord. Mum had laughed. She had a tinkling, like shallow water over pebble’s, sort of laugh. It came easy, straight from the heart. Carefully, almost lovingly she straightened the picture on the chimneybreast. She had a phobia about straightening crooked pictures. ‘It’s not the quarry, love - it’s the fairies. They come in the night to watch you sleeping. They catch your nightmares in silver spider webs and take them away to a place from where they can never return. They flutter and fly. They play and watch over you. When they get tired - as they do after all that flapping - they land, usually on the top of pictures. They rest a while to get their breath back and to clean the dust from their wings and then they take off again. It’s that little push they make as they leap into the air that tilts the pictures.’ ‘But how do they get into my room?’ I’d said suspiciously, ‘when all the doors and windows are closed. Do you think they’re small enough to get through the cracks in the floorboards?’ Mum had smiled mysteriously and tapped the side of her nose with her finger. ‘That’s for you to wonder and them to know.’ I never told mum I didn’t believe in fairies. In the summer before my tenth birthday, dad died. A sudden heart attack at work. He never regained consciousness. Never had time to say goodbye. Mum and dad had loved each other. I always knew that - as much as a child can know those adult things. And when he died and went away, a part of mum went with him. I wondered if the fairies had taken him away, caught him in a silvery spider’s web. I wondered if he would ever find his way back from the distant, faraway place that they had taken him to. Then I remembered - I didn’t believe in fairies. Mum didn’t paint after dad died. She said her heart had gone out of it. Her easel and watercolours gather time’s dust in the cobwebbed attic. They lie alongside his old cane fishing basket. The one that still smells of wet riverbank soil mingled with cheese and onion sandwiches and shiny brown trout. Every springtime purple and black starlings squeeze their fat bodies under the roof eves and nest behind it. Sometimes I’d catch mum scouting through the old blue biscuit tin, digging out photo’s of dad, some were so old the edges had turned up like charred paper but the face smiling back was still as fresh as one of mum’s painted daisies. After a while mum seemed to rally and even spoke about sending me up into the attic to retrieve her dusty easel and paints, but it was springtime and the raucous starlings were nesting and couldn’t be disturbed. Instead, she spent her days in the garden. Once, I caught her sketching something on the front cover of the shopping- list as she sat in the morning sunshine. When I looked, dad’s face smiled back at me. Mum didn’t say anything, just tore it gently from the pad and tucked it carefully into her blouse pocket – the one next to her heart. It was the second summer after dad had died that mum had her stroke. They said it was only mild and that she would make a full recovery, but she wasn’t the same. Tired. Frail. Unable to straighten the pictures after the fairies had been at night. It seemed to upset her, so I did it for her. I made her a promise that I would always do it for her. How could I let her down? Of all the things that mum ever told me, of all the tales, the stories, the little quips from life, perhaps the one that hurt the most was the one that mum had always seemed so optimistic about. The one she usually said with a glorious smile on her lips – ‘Life is full of the unexpected, love.’ It would have been so nice if, just for once mum could have been wrong. But mums are never wrong, are they? They’re just not made that way. I didn’t see the car that hit me. It came from nowhere. Unexpectedly. They say mum won’t recover from the shock of losing a husband and a daughter so close together. That it’s just a matter of time. But until then, a promise is a promise. I’m glad I didn’t tell mum that I didn’t believe in fairies. For now I know the truth. Fairies do tilt pictures. But, it’s angels that straighten them. End
winner 2002
THE WOMAN FROM THE CRUELTY by Laurie McTaggart
Oh dear, sounded like the Woman From the Cruelty was here. Not to us! We never had the Cruelty! No, it was the Wroths, next door. But it reflected upon us, my mam said, and so when we heard the raised voices she sent me through to see what is was, this time. And it's true what they say about the Fifties, that no-one ever locked their door, so it was child's play - just as well too, since 1 was only eight - for me to slide along the passage and let myself in. 'Knocked' first, of course (with the soft of my fingertip), and then turned the knob and put my head in; and the scene was as I'd expected... It was quiet by then, and Mr Wroth was standing with his hands on his walking stick, one on top of the other like you see executioners leaning on their axes; the Woman was standing in front of him, proud like someone determined to die with dignity; and little Colleen was between them, like... well, like the block. Colleen was the same age as me - both of us born, days apart, in that harsh winter of 1947 - and when she saw me peep in, she came over. 'Ee, Dougie,' she whispered, 'it's The Woman From the Cruelty!' 1 said I gathered as much: 'Second time, this week, innit?' 'Aye! She sez dad could go to prison!' Now, let's clear one thing up straightaway: Mr Wroth wasn't cruel to Colleen, 1 can vouch for that. No, it was just a technicality: not feeding her, or something... Anyway, Mr Wroth obviously considered they'd been facing each other off for long enough, staring each other out and wondering who'd crack first, and he sank back into his chair and broke the silence: 'Funny word, "cruelty", d'yer not think, Miss Givens...' 'My name is not Miss Givens, Mr Wroth, as well you know; and nor is it Miss Chief, Deed, Fitt, Hap or Lay, as you made humour with, the last time 1 was here.' Which he had: and 'Miss Judge!' he said, was another one to be taken into consideration, '... as they say in the courts!' Which was tempting Fate, after what she'd just threatened him with. But he begged her pardon, explaining that he was notoriously bad with names, surnames especially. Now, if they could use first... names? 'I think not,' the Woman said. 'Let us keep this on a formal basis.' 'My name's Geordie...' 'Yes, so it says on the deposition...' and she half-raised the damning piece of paper: the accusation that some busybody had filed with the Children's Department. But 'As 1 was saying about cruelty...' Mr Wroth said: 'Speaking as a poet, 1 find it an aggravating word, having nae exact rhyme to it...' 'Mr Wroth...' "'Geordie", please...' 'Mr Wroth, 1 am not here to discuss the word: 1 am here to investigate the accusations that you are cruel to your daughter.' 'But that's just m'point!' he said. 'Look at her! How could anybody harm such an appealing child?' and his arm made a graceful sweep to indicate Colleen, who immediately sprang into her 'governess' position, as her dad called it: arms behind her back and her shoulders swinging back and forth like the 'governess' of a clock, the very picture of demureness. 'There's nae rhyme to cruelty, and nae reason to it, so why would I do such a thing? I'd ha' to be a beast.' 'Yet the deposition clearly states that you misuse her,' the Woman said. 'In what way, Miss Use?' The woman snatched and jerked a deep breath, to use a weight-lifting analogy, holding it for the regulation three seconds before letting it drop: 'I laid the counts before you, last time,' she said, wearily. 'That you don't feed her, for one...' 'That's woman's work!' Mr Wroth said. 'And look around yer - nae need for a search warrant - can yer see any women here? Apart from yerself? When the wife died...' 'Fathers have been known to feed their children.' 'And 1 would, if it weren't for m'condition! But disseminated sclerosis is so debilitating... hey, yer've no idea: just looking at a frying pan's enough to bring on m'neurasthenia. The bairn'll bear me out...' and he said to Colleen: 'Pet, tell Miss Judgment what I'm like wi' knives and forks...' 'Washing-up, yer mean?' Colleen said, and immediately fell back on the settee in a faint. 'Your daughter,' the Woman said, 'has been known to go from door to door, begging food...' 'Nar, nar, nar, yer wrong there,' Mr Wroth said. 'Pet, d'yer beg for food?' Colleen, on her back, couldn't very well faint again at that accusation, but could only sit bolt upright and declare 'I do not!' 'She pays for the food,' Mr Wroth said, 'which, unless my mastery of English is at fault...' 'It's not, dad.' '…doesn't fit wi' any definition o' beggar I've ever heard. And, before yer ask: no, she doesn't pay for it in the conventional sense, in that money changes hands - as it no doubt says on yer form: all we've got coming in's me Assistance -she pays for it in... services.' 'Yes, this is about where we got up to on my last visit, and you were going to explain to me what those "services" were, remember? Just before you chased me out ... ?' 1 didn't chase yer out! I merely... said yer might ha' been more comfortable elsewhere...' Hell was mentioned, I seem to remember... But, anyway, the Woman apologised, somewhat wryly, assuming the blame for having mistaken what was evidently his, er... callisthenics - the wild waving of his stick, like an Indian club -for something more threatening. And 1 have to admit that me and Coll had sat on tenterhooks all that night, the night of the first visit, expecting to hear the ding-a-ling-a-ling of the police car as it rushed up our street; and it was only about seven o'clock when Journey Into Space came on that we realized she mustn't have reported him to the coppers after all. Mr Wroth said it was kind of her to pretend that she might have mistaken him shaking his stick for a man exercising with Indian clubs, albeit having only the one; but no, he admitted - and he hung his head - he'd waved his stick in outrage, aye outrage, at being accused of something as heinous as being cruel to a child, his child, his dear, dear child... 'These services ... ?' the Woman prompted him. 'Oh, aye... Well, we might be poor, Miss Taken, but we don't accept charity...' 'We do, dad,' Colleen corrected him, 'we just don't go asking for it.' 'As yer say, my angel... But she pays for the food, Miss Apprehension, and paying for food's not charity, same as it's not begging...' 'And how does she pay... 'She pays.' 'Yes, but how? Since you said, last time...' and she consulted her notes: ... we get food-parcels from the Church Mice Association.` 'Show her, pet...' Colleen stood up from the settee, and said to the Woman: 'Imagine I've come to yer door, right? 1 say "Any scraps for the scops, missus ... ?...'" '"Scops"?'the woman said. 'Scops,' Mr Wroth said. 'Noun, plural.' 'I don't quite...' 'Scops! D'yer not understand Anglo-Sax ... ? - Oh, but o' course yer won't, will yer: your sort's like the Norman invaders! Come over here and... A scop's an Anglo-Saxon bard!' The Woman confessed that that was a new one on her... 'It's in the Libr'ry, if yer don't believe me!' Mr Wroth said. 'It is, Miss,' Colleen put in. 'I forget what we were looking up now -probably to see what scope there might be for a cripple who's got nowt else to offer but his poetry - and we lit on scop; and it said a scop was an Old English bard, who went from house to house just when the people were sitting down to their dinner, and, in return for giving them a poem, they gave him a few scraps. Scraps for scops.' 'Let me get this straight,' the Woman said. 'You call at someone's house and, in return for giving them a poem, they give you scraps of food...' 'By George, she's got it...' Mr Wroth muttered. 'So yer see, Miss,' Colleen said, 'it's not begging! We've got too much pride to beg! That's what m'dad taught me, and 1 don't see how that makes him a bad father...' 'I didn't say he was a bad father...' 'Yer's much as!' Mr Wroth said. 'Yer come in here wi' yer frosty face and accuse me o' mistreating the one person 1... Show her the box, pet!' Colleen went over to Mr Wroth's writing table - which was just a rickety old table, except Mr Wroth wrote there - and came back carrying an old shoe box as if it were the Ark of the Covenant, and she placed it reverently on Mr Wroth's knee. 'This,' he said to the Woman, 'is where the lassie keeps all m'work. She's me amanuensis... Define "amanuesis", pet...' ",Literary assistant...` 'Spell it...' Colleen rattled off the nine letters like the man at the sweetshop pouring midget gems onto his scale, and you could see the Woman was impressed. Just an ounce or so of sweetmeats the word might have been, but she looked at Colleen as though she'd just given her a box of Black Magic. 'You,' Mr Wroth said, 'might call that mistreatment: 1 call it education.' The Woman agreed that, where words went, Colleen seemed to be very well-nourished... 'And she don't have to "beg" for them words, neither,' Mr Wroth said, 'and nor's it charity: 1 know m'fatherly duty, and... D'yer feel yer go wi'out, pet...?' 'No, dad,' Colleen said; and she told the Woman that she got words - and only the best mind! how many kids got 'amanuensis' round our way? or anywhere, come to that? - for breakfast, dinner and supper... aye, and all her dad might be guilty of, if he was guilty of anything, was giving her words between meals, as well, so that she was in danger of becoming obese with them. The Woman looked at her bony little frame, and 1 felt I had to put my oar in here, and tell her that Colleen didn't mean obese in body. No, she meant in lip -and not as in fat-lip: she was nippy as well as lippy, and took some catching - but a lot of people could testify to her big gob: neighbours, trades-people, the teachers at school... 'Thanks, Dougie...' '…librarians, doctors...' 'Thanks, Dougie...' '…anybody who crossed her...' 'Thanks, Dougie!' She was welcome... But that's how that day ended, anyway. The Woman From the Cruelty went away and no doubt put her report in, and that was the last we heard of her. Well, until she came round asking Mr Wroth why Colleen sat on the step outside the pub, every night, while he was inside giving a reading ... ? And then, another time, why was she seen walking to school in the snow in sand-shoes ... ? And then ... Hmm, Colleen said: did 1 not think there was some victimization going on here ... ? 'Have 1 got the right word, Dougie? Victimization's the act o' singling somebody out, but... well, when a woman singles a man out, it's called summat else, surely ... ?' Yes, 1 saw her point, but... No, 1 couldn't think of the word either... END
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