THE NIGHT IT RAINED ICE CREAM.

The weather was baking hot in Toestampton, a little place where everyone stamps about in big green welly boots. The bus had just pulled in from Chutney, it had been driven by Mr. Pickle who was thirsty. Mrs. Pickle made him tea which he tipped straight down the sink. “This tea’s fizzy”! He shouted. She tried hers and to her disgust found it was. She tried some water from the tap only to find it was lemonade instead. She tried to jump onto the water board – A great big piece of hardboard which has a man sitting on it with a beaker, scooping beakerfuls out of the Thames and pouring it into the pipes where it runs always down to the spouts on the taps. He’d taken his lemonade with him to drink but just as he was about to pour it from his flask where he had put some to keep it cold, he sneezed and dropped it all into the river. Now when he collected beakers of “water” it was lemonade which had become mixed up and gone into the supply.

That night another weird thing happened. When it rained instead of water coming down from the clouds, ice cream came instead. There was ice cream all over the cars, ice cream over the ground, in the trees, in the hedges and ice cream in Mr. Trundle’s cornet which he’d carelessly left against the back fence in his garden. Mr. Trundle who owns a carpet shop called Mr. Trundle’s carpet bundles, plays the cornet in the Toestanpton and Chutney Brass band. When he tried to play it in the morning he found the bell was packed solid with frozen ice cream. He sucked and blew, sucked and blew and banged the cornet against the fence. “Don’t do that”, scolded Mrs. Trundle. You’ll dent it. “What we must do is send for the Labradors.” When the dogs, George, Wheat and Esme heard about the ice cream they rushed to help. Already Esme had eaten a lawnfull of ice cream and George was busy trying to lick out a milk bottle which had been put out for the milk man. Wheat was the first to come up with a good idea and Esme and George both wished they’d thought of it first. Wheat ran to Mr. Trundle, wagging her feathery tail (she was a big golden Retriever) and barking. Mr. Trundle didn’t understand Woofle, a kind of dogs’ language so was wondering what she wanted. He gave her a biscuit at first but then she ran to the cornet and stuck her tongue into the bell. At first it only went a little way in but then as her tongue warmed the ice cream she found she could get it further and further in until it went all the way down to the deepest and narrowest part of the bell. I bet you can guess what happened – Yes, her tongue got stuck. She yelped, snorted, woofed, waggled her body, banged the cornet on a tree and whined. Finally, George, Esme, Mr. Trundle and Mrs. Trundle all gave a big pull rather like you do in a fabulous game of tug-of-war and eventually her tongue popped out and all the Ice cream was gone. Mr. Trundle gave a great big blow on his cornet but because he was so thrilled to have it working again he forgot to wash it. Everyone was showered with dog’s spittle and Mrs. Trundle snatched it off him and washed it out. Then, of course, the inside was all sticky from lemonade which you may remember is coming out of the taps instead of water. “My turn, my turn”! Shouted George as he licked out the cornet again but the lemonade wasn’t half as much fun as the ice cream would have been.

Next day the man on his water board bailed out all the lemonade from the river. Some kestrels flew down, together with an enormous Wagpie – A cross between a Labrador and a bird, and drank all the water or rather lemonade until the Thames was empty. Then everyone in Toestampton and Chutney were told to put out their buckets and mugs, and anything they could find in order to catch the rain water and take it back to the Thames. Everyone hoped it would rain water and not ice cream again. Nobody thought that the Thames would fill up on its own when it rained again. Mr. Trundle put out his pork pie hat which got soggy and the pastry crumbled and the meat and jelly bits were soaked. Eventually Wheat ate the soggy mess, feeling it was her just reward for rescuing his cornet.

It didn’t rain ice cream that night but nobody will forget the day Mr. Trundle’s musical cornet became an ice cream cornet and Wheat will not forget the taste of Mr. Trundle’s pork pie hat. For a while he wore a steak and kidney pie hat and loved it when the weather got hot and the gravy trickled into his long, long beard. Just like an adder he flicked out his tongue and licked it all in. The Labradors wished they could jump high enough to have a lick too but gravity kept pulling them down to the ground again. His wife said that kissing him was like having another meal but thought that some day she ought to get him a new pork pie hat as bad meat can poison you and make you poorly. Some time I’ll tell you how he got a new pork pie hat but not now.

(the end).

THE ADVENTURES OF TUMBLY, GRUMBLY AND RUMBLY.

Tumbly was always falling down, grumbly was always wearing a frown and rumbly was always ever so hungry.

One day the three friends decided to walk to Mr. Trundle’s shop: “Mr. Trundle’s Carpet Bundles”. They wanted to earn some money so they could buy extra chocolate. At home they were only allowed so much chocolate each since chocolate in large amounts makes your teeth bad and causes you to get fatter and fatter till it’s impossible to go through doorways which means it’s very difficult to leave home or go to new places with narrow doorways. There were so many places the three of them wanted to see but first of all they had to have something to eat which meant earning some money so they could buy food.

Stumbly wanted to walk to Mr. Trundle’s carpet shop but was always falling over his feet so he thought it’d be better to drive but then he remembered his father told him he was too little for that. Grumbly wanted to stay in bed because it was either too hot out, too wet or too cold and Rumbly was too hungry to work yet knew all the same that he must or he’d never get anything to eat. Yesterday he’d seen a Canada goose flying overhead and asked her if she knew where there was food. She just told him to go and find some and flew off in annoyance. Then he asked a crow for a share of what he kept in his beak:

“Caw no”!

The crow replied.

“Go and earn some money and then buy food with it”, he suggested.

Mr. Trundle was whistling as he opened up his shop. It smelt especially nice this morning as it had some brand new carpets in there. Mrs. Trundle had made him trim his beard as, like Tumbly, he’d tripped over it twice. Then she’d told him off for spending too much time counting the spiders which lived in it and threatened to hoover them all out with the vacuum cleaner hose. She’d done this once before when some of them crawled into her long hair at night when they went to bed. How he hated that! Anyway he saw the three little friends outside his window and wondered what they wanted. Eventually they told him they wanted to do some work so they could earn money for food.

“What sort of work”?

He asked them. They told him they could shampoo the carpets or lay them in the hedgehog houses down in the wood. Winter was coming soon and they’d need a good carpet if they were to hibernate in comfort. In the end he told them about a tortoise he knew who needed some carpet for his box. He too was soon to hibernate and needed to have some carpet and since the sweep had come and taken the leaves away and the wind had blown them away as well there was only some carpet of his which the tortoise could have. The three little friends carried the carpet between them. It wasn’t that big but they were small and it felt like a huge load to them. As usual Grumbly moaned about the weight of it, Tumbly fell over it and Rumbly’s stomach made such a loud noise that they all laughed – Even Grumbly did – Which made them almost drop it in the mud.

When the threesome arrived at the tortoise’s box they couldn’t see him at first. They thought that his shell seemed more like a giant stone and almost kicked it away when he peeped out, yawned and asked them what they wanted.

“We’ve brought you some carpet for your box”

They told him. They were looking at his lettuce as they began to fit the new carpet into its new home. They thought he’d be too slow to catch them and planned to run off with his lettuce at the end of their task. He offered them some and one bite told them just how boring it is to eat especially on its own. They longed once more for chocolate and that’s when they decided to go and see if there were any shops open but then they remembered they had no money. As they returned to Mr. Trundle’s shop they saw him sitting on the step outside his shop. He told Mrs. Trundle:

“If those three manage to lay that carpet in Mr. Tortoise’s box before bed time I’ll eat my hat”.

They seemed to spend so much time grumbling, stumbling and rumbling that he couldn’t see how they would be able to get it all done in time for sleep that night. His hat, which was a new pork pie hat which Mrs. Trundle had just bought him, tasted good. The three little friends were horrified to see him eat it and not offer them some especially after all their hard work. He laughed so much at their dismay that they told him they’d never come back again to help him in his shop. It was then that Mrs. Trundle appeared, invited the friends in and gave them some of her “treecle” pudding. They expected some lovely sticky runny treacle but instead ended up with her very own version, made out of trees which grew in her back garden. They told her how they longed for chocolate and then they saw them. Mr. Trundle had chocolate buttons on his shirt and trousers, on his jacket and even on his calculator which he used to add up the prices of his carpets and work out how much change was to be given back to his customers. While Mrs. Trundle was washing up the plates in the kitchen they busily ate them all and ran like the wind all the way home. As they tucked themselves into bed that night, they noticed that Tumbly had run home without falling down, Grumbly was no longer wearing his frown and at last Rumbly’s tummy had stopped its rumbling. As each fell asleep they began to dream of the chocolate buttons they’d stolen and of how nice they tasted – Much nicer than Mr. Trundle’s pork pie hat would have and definitely nicer than Mr. Tortoise’s lettuce!

THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN.

Holding the photograph in her hand, Louise stood like an ice statue, frozen in time.

“Ring o’ ring o’ roses, a pocketful of posies, a-tishu! A-tishu! We all fall down”.

Louise begged again and again to play the game with her adoring grandparents – Substitutes for her own parents whom she had never known.

“Stop it”!

Her grandmother shouted at last, remembering the time and anxious to get tea ready. Louise ran inside at last, the call of her stomach substituted for the call of her voice to the only people she’d ever known as family, inviting them endlessly to come and play.

“You spoil her John”

His wife remarked when they were alone.

“She’ll have you worn out. You should think of your health”.

“Stop it”!

He mimicked his wife.

“You’re only old once”!

Then he ran after Louise once more, Louise, the little girl who’d held them together after her parents were killed during the Second World War.

Louise’s childhood was carefree and happy. Sometimes her days seemed eternal as she excitedly waited for something special to happen.

“Don’t you just love those big saucer eyes”?

John said to Mary.

“One day those eyes will turn a man’s head”.

Within no time at all Louise had blossomed into a woman who loved travelling and went abroad to study. Her greatest love of all was the Orient. Eastern culture fascinated and captivated her, eastern food was tastier than that with which she was familiar and eastern philosophy she found most interesting of all. To her, east rather than west was best.

“Look at this photo Louise has sent us, John”,

Mary implored him.

“Put the damned thing away! I have no wish to see it. I have no time for them or their culture”.

Turning on his heels he slammed out of the room and Mary wondered if he would start shaking again. The nightmares which had become less frequent, had begun again. They were terrible when he first came home – Them and the tortured screams for mercy. Louise’s visit to Japan had brought it all back to him and the mention of it in her letters distressed him beyond endurance. Vivid memories of the trenches, the blood and the corpses and the smell – The terrible indescribable smell had all surfaced once again with such ease and such clarity. His memories of Ypres which had lain dormant for so long and which at first made him wish he’d gone too, were now crowding his mind and crying out for attention. The faces of his friends who had never come home as he had done. She couldn’t get one word out of him and when she did eventually hear his voice again it was only to repeat what she had heard so many times before:

“All those people on the Somme and at Ypres and Paschendaele! The senseless slaughter and waste of human life and for what”?

Then after an interminable silence during which his old eyes filled with tears:

“Our boy lost in the ’39 war. The senseless cruelty of the Jerries and the Japs Then you want to show me a photograph of that bloody country! I’d just as soon be blind than look at their damned country. I hate them! Every last one of them”.

Mary’s attempts to calm him were futile so she quietly took the photograph away and went to bed.

Fugi stared at her with rapt attention. He thought of her as pretty. They’d met during a visit Louise had made as she completed an assignment as part of her journalistic career. His favourite phrase was:

“I have little engrish”, the l being pronounced like an r. Fugi had longed to know more about the west which fascinated him as much as the east did Louise. He wondered if he would ever see it and whether they would become more than the nodding and smiling acquaintances they already were. Then as the weeks turned into months, Louise found herself helping him with his English and began talking about herself, saying she had been orphaned but not telling him why. She told him of her grandparents and then began to realise that things would become very difficult were she to fall in love with him, because of her grandfather’s hatred for the Japanese. She also knew though that in order for there to be peace in the world, hatred like this must be overcome and it had not been her battle or her past so she knew somehow that she had to make him see that in order to have a happy future he must come to terms with his.

A year to the day after they’d first met, they found themselves standing outside her grandparents’ front door. Nervously Louise tapped, rather like the child of long ago who waited impatiently for dawn on Christmas morning and could hold her excitement in no longer so risked waking her grandparents so she could open her presents and have breakfast.

“John’s down at the allotment”,

Mary said.

“You know what he is like about his vegetables”.

Louise sat, paused for flight like a bird who half expected a cat to appear. She knew her grandfather’s feelings and wondered at the wisdom of this visit but her dear wise grandmother had been insistent and begged her to come home in order that he may lay his ghosts to rest before he died. Mary knew that, her time, in particular, was short. Diagnosed with cancer, she knew that John was likely to be alone after her death unless he could reconcile himself to Louise’s choice for a marriage partner. She also knew that Louise, like him, was stubborn and much more likely to go through with marrying Fugi if he set his face against him. Ever the gentleman, John received his visitor with a dignity which cost him dear. He’d shouted at Mary before their arrival, telling her she’d no right to ask him here without his consent and blaming her for violating their home. Wise and thoughtful Mary also realised that, with both of her grandparents dead, Louise also would be alone if she didn’t find someone to love her and she realised too that the war was now so very long ago. However, she also knew that while she’d been part of it she hadn’t been involved in it in the same way as John whose wounds still hurt. He still had shrapnel in his body and visions in his head that wouldn’t go. Mary also realised that to hate a new generation of people for that which their parents and grandparents had done would be unfair and futile and may indeed lead to further wars. She realised that under the skin all our blood is red, that people have the same needs and that bigotry and prejudice are the children of ignorance and fear and that to overcome fear you have to meet and talk with those you do not know, thereby turning strangers into friends no matter what religion or creed you are and no matter what colour too. She knew too that the Christian message of forgiveness had to start in each individual’s heart and spread out like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond so that links can be forged and that if this is not done soon we will ultimately bring about our own destruction. This then was her quest, to bring about a sea change in her little pond before she died and reconcile the past to the present by making John see that the only way for him to heal was for him to forgive though realising also that he could never forget. Many would call her a silly old woman but even silly old women are entitled to their dreams or at least that’s what she told herself as she padded off towards the kitchen to make the tea.

Six months later Mary died. Fugi and Louise parted as he made his decision to fly home. He realised that his presence distressed the old man especially now his wife of sixty-five years had died. Louise made the most heartbreaking decision of her life – To let her loved-one go so as to stay and look after her grandfather. She felt the empty days filling up with a dull sense of duty but knew that she owed everything to this old man and her now dead grandmother whose unselfish love had made her who she was. Then the miracle happened.

John, now in his nineties, stood ramrod straight at the Cenotaph, decked out in all his medals and looking handsome even on two sticks, so he could be there to remember all those comrades lost so very long ago. Like millions, they observed the two minutes silence and heard “The Last Post” being played and Louise stood proudly at his side, gently tucking a hand underneath his arm in case he fell. Nobody noticed him at first – The quiet young man from Japan who crept up to John’s other side and in unison said in flawless English:

“At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them”.

With head bowed, he stood in silent homage and paid tribute to those who gave their lives for the freedom we now take so much for granted. This young man, for whom war had thankfully not been a reality, had flown thousands of miles so that he could share this moment not only with the one he loved and couldn’t forget but so he could be with the old man who had given and lost so much. It was at the sound of his voice that Louise looked up but it was John who’d seen him first.

“You’d best come home with us”,

He said when the service was over and he’d chatted to the few friends who were left. This time though he was smiling and his medals were glinting in the autumn sunshine.

At Louise’s wedding he looked as proud as ever and was sorry Mary had not lived to see it, thinking how proud she’d be of “their little girl”. He was also pleased that now Louise would have someone to be with when he too finally died but kept this thought to himself. Louise had just got back to Japan after sorting out her grandfather’s affairs. He had lived long enough to see just one of his great grandchildren be born and was teaching her some colours and nursery rhymes and watching her take her first steps when peacefully he died at home in his sleep. Louise was holding up the photograph of both her grandparents when young and thinking just how handsome and lovely they both were. She hardly heard Fugi creep up behind her and he startled her as he suddenly spoke:

“Ah! You look at John and Marly! We must never forget! We must never, never forget”.

Then, with a drink in each of their hands, they silently looked out at their children playing in the garden and said, in unison as on that other Remembrance Day so long ago and as we will on all the ones to come:

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall remember them”.

THE PROMISE OF SPRING.

I was startled by the sound of the bell even though I was expecting it to ring. I opened the door to Gordon, the man I’d recently talked to on the phone. This was his first visit. He was a mobility instructor. He had come to widen my world for I am blind and he was going to teach me the way round my area so I could go out alone. We shook hands. Like his voice his hands were warm and on letting go of mine he swiftly returned me to my blind “island” state. I offered him coffee which he accepted and I made it with nervous fingers – Two spoonfuls in each cup and four on the tray on which they stood. His help was unobtrusively given and gratefully accepted. Gordon was a good listener but then that’s essential in his work. Living on my own as I do I tend to talk a lot. His manner was easy and when we went out so he could assess how good I was at using my cane and what local knowledge I had, for the first time in many years with one of these mobility instructors, I felt easy too


“I think you did really well today. We don’t normally go out on our first visits to a client as you know but you were right to assure me you would be fine.”, he said when we returned home. “I’ll come again next week and we’ll progress from there”. Suddenly he was gone and I was left alone to contemplate the day’s events. Although I was looking forward to his visits I was not looking forward to going out alone as I knew I’d have to one day. I knew how the drill was. These people get further and further away from you as confidence and knowledge increase until finally they disappear altogether and only meet up again when you have reached your destination. I had a shock next time he called. There was to be no long chat over coffee like there was last time. We were out working at once but the work was not too difficult. We strolled around a park so I could relearn my cane technique while not having to also cope with traffic. I’d been ill for some years and had lost my guide dog. This meant I had to a large extent become agoraphobic. He told me something about himself – His taste in food, his hobbies and his bachellor existence. Privately I wondered why a nice guy like this wasn’t married but would never have voiced these thoughts. In turn I told him how nice it was to speak to someone who treated me normally and not like some moron or freak, how nice it was to be with someone who wasn’t constantly on the watch to see that they didn’t use words like “look” and “see” and how good it is to talk to someone who isn’t making an effort to talk to me. I started to think about him during his absence but that I most certainly did not tell him. The work progressed well. I was just as interested in practising my cane technique to please Gordon as I was for the obvious benefits it would have for myself. I go red even when I’m alone when I think though how sometimes I deliberately got a section of the route wrong so I would have to take his arm as he took me back to its start so I could redo it properly. It’s funny what a solitary life coupled with very little human contact will make people do – Well it would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Then I received this phone call. My twin brother, Daniel was dead. My neighbours spouted the usual platitudes so I gave up talking to them about him especially after his funeral when life was supposed to return to normal. “At least you have your memories”. Couldn’t they see it was my memories which were hurting me? Anyway I wanted what I’ve always wanted and what most people have – Support for the future and not just memories of a shared past. When Gordon came I burst into tears. He held me and told me he didn’t expect me to go out that day and that like the first day we met we could once more have coffee. This man had indeed widened my world. He had helped me to like using my up-to-then hated white cane which I saw as the ultimate badge of blindness and which I associated with power-crazed people who had always told me my mobility was poor. He didn’t automatically assume that I had poor mobility as many do because of the eye condition from which I suffer which supposedly pre-disposes one to poor mobility. For all these reasons I found myself leaning on him more and more and eventually suggested that he might like to drop in for coffee outside our scheduled lesson times. I was asking him in essence to become my friend and confidante. I don’t know who of us was the more embarrassed. I could feel the tension in the air as he swiftly changed the subject to why it was that I didn’t go on holiday to places where blind people go or why I don’t belong to blind clubs. I wearily told him as I have so many others that I have tried all my life to escape from the small and narrow world of those similarly affected and to cut the ties that bind me to the rest of the blind with whom after all there is only blindness which binds us all together. Only with other friends of the same intelligence and shared interests do I have anything in common, regardless of whether they can see. I told him how artificial and unnatural it is to keep meeting up with old school friends and enemies alike when you can’t get away from the goldfish bowl. I said how once the labels are applied they’re impossible to remove whether they are the ones applied by the sighted or other blind people and then in sheer desperation I said: “Do you go away with those of your choice? Your work colleagues or people named Gordon”? I wondered why even this enlightened man could not see that the same standards should pertain to me as to everyone else. I tightly held on to his fingers as he tried to extricate himself from my grip as he was leaving.

The phone call came soon after that. By now I had almost completed my work programme so his visits were becoming less frequent. A woman called Jean told me that she was to take over from Gordon as he had an increased work load. “But he still comes to Portsmouth. I know he does. He sees Stella, my friend”, I protested. Then I went on about how he sees Laurie as well – Obviously not understanding or not wanting to – The implications of what was being said to me. I rang him up at a later date to ask why the transfer had happened. I was angry and he said in his turn: “This is very difficult for me Heather. I really do sympathise with your plight and actually can’t understand why you haven’t got more friends and why things have gone so terribly wrong for you but there’s nothing more I can do I’m sorry”. He was telling me that our relationship – Professional though it was – Had now come to an end and that even if it were to continue it could not extend beyond its professional capacity where it must always remain. I felt sorry too – Not least of all for him as well as myself who now, because of my feelings for him and because of my loneliness due to the loss of Daniel, longed for the relationship to be something more than it could be. He had to be naturally warm and friendly to his clients in order to instill confidence and trust and I had misread those signals and because of that he had to pass the case over to someone else and obviously felt lousy about doing it.

I started writing to him at work and telling him about things. I knew Jean would update him anyway and that there was no need to write as I did but I couldn’t help myself. I knew too that he wouldn’t, couldn’t reply. I continually thought about him and would ask Jean about him who always gave me vague and non-committal answers. She’s nice too. I found myself wondering how many of their clients they’d exchanged when they tried to come close, to cling to them in inappropriate ways. Then I started my usual musings about how it is often easier for blind men who get mothered by “mumsy” types who are after all just looking, like me for someone to care for them and to be cared for in return. I wondered if Gordon and Jean laughed about us behind our backs or thought of their clients as sad lame ducks and whether they were flattered or embarrassed by our misguided feelings.

I’ve made up my mind to stop writing letters to Gordon. I’ve even stopped asking Jean about him too. I think she has interpreted this as a good sign but it’s not. My heart’s still breaking over the loss of Daniel but that’s not all it’s breaking over. It’s breaking over the loss of things I’ve both had and never had – Acceptance as a normal human being, by those who are after all just as flawed albeit in a different way, The chance to make a relationship with someone sighted due to reduced opportunities because of hidden disabilities and the fact that sighted men will never see me as a whole woman – Only a blind woman but more than that it’s breaking with the ever-increasing weight of love which is ungiven and which bitterness is threatening to sour. For me life has been a series of earthquakes and my spirit is becoming crushed beneath the rubble.

I’ve just come back from shopping. Gordon was instructing someone else when we met in the town centre. “You’re getting on really well, Heather”, he said. I thanked him for his comments and walked swiftly away. It’s a year since Daniel’s death and of course Gordon meant that I was getting on well in mobility terms. He couldn’t have meant in any other terms since I’m not getting on very well at all apart from being able to go out alone in safety now. I suppose I can’t or won’t until and unless I can meet anyone to whom I am other than a client and unless I can be cared for in anything except for professional terms. How can I progress till life progresses beyond the conveyor belt caring which is all that professional concern can ever amount to and until I can put my arm through that of another for another reason other than just to see me from one side of the road to another.

As I hurried away I heard Gordon shout after me: “Although it’s only February there’s the promise of spring. Some of the buds are coming out on the trees”. To me and for me God’s promise of the spring has been broken many times and the certainty of the summer is definitely for someone else.

(the end).

WARREN.

The day was appropriately wet and bleak when Penny Palmer found out the truth about her mother and her boyfriend.

Irene Palmer had cleaned the house, got enough food in to feed an army and dug out all the best china and table cloths. She hardly ever saw her daughter’s boyfriends – Not since Penny had moved to Hereford. She knew this time it must be serious even though her daughter was only twenty-two. In Irene’s view this was still too young to be married but if she said so there would doubtless be an almighty row just like the ones about high heels, too much make up and loud music when Penny was living at home. How well she remembered those days. There were times when she thought the ceiling would fall down because the music was so loud and vibrated so much. She had a couple of hours to kill before their arrival and decided to take a trip down memory lane. She dug out the old photos she had which were carefully preserved in her album – Penny as a baby, as a little girl, as a teenager and now as a young woman – Days at the seaside, pictures of her own family and parents who had been Victorian in their attitudes and morals and the only one of the little boy which she had rescued from her mother’s attempts to obliterate from the family history. A tear ran down her weather beaten face as she recalled the memory and stared at the photo. Hastily she put it back in its place, looked at the rest and remembered. Then she went onto the ones of Bill, her husband who had been killed in action during the Second World War. He’d never seen his little girl or had arguments with her about the blaring music or the excessive make up. He’d never held her on his knee and played with her and would not be there to give her away if this relationship was serious as Irene suspected it may well be. Suddenly the ring on the bell made her drop the photos she had been looking through all over the floor. They tipped out of their places in the album when she dropped it.

He first saw her on the College campus – A stunning girl if ever there was one. Exceptionally tall and hour glass thin, Penny Palmer was enough to turn the head of any man. Warren Lomax couldn’t and didn’t take his eyes off her and hastily went up to her and introduced himself, offering in an old fashioned way to carry her books for her as if they were fourth form school kids. She smiled rather shyly and introduced herself, feeling the same degree of attraction towards him as he did towards her. They clicked at once and from then on went out together like inseparable twins. Within a matter of months – Even before each had met the other’s family they were engaged. They’d made love several times as people do these days and probably always have done though now it’s more openly talked about. “Mum will just love you”, Penny told him though he was terrified of meeting her mother. “Mum will just love you too”, he assured her though she was equally nervous at the prospect of meeting his. Now the time was here she could feel the butterflies in her stomach but knew her mother would take to him at once. Sometimes she thought how much like her dad he was- The dad she’d never known but of whom her mother endlessly talked and whose photos Penny had seen a thousand times or more. The footsteps padding along the hall just before the door opened told Penny the waiting was almost over and she introduced them with all the enthusiasm of a small child bringing home her best friend. “This is Warren Lomax, mum. Warren, this is my mum, Irene.” Irene almost fainted at the sight of him but composed herself quickly as she shook the outstretched hand and invited them both inside.

“Didn’t you like him”? Penny asked after their evening together was over. “Of course I did love”, her mother said in an unconvincing manner rather like that which people use when lying about a dress that doesn’t suit a dear friend whom they don’t wish to offend. “Well you couldn’t take your eyes off him that’s for sure”, her daughter remarked. “Well he’s an attractive young man”, her mother replied. “You ought to be past that sort of thing, mum. Seriously though something’s wrong isn’t it”? “No dear not at all. I just don’t think you should pin all your hopes on one person. You’re still very young you know. There’s plenty of time to settle down and there’s your future to think of. It was different in my day. We were encouraged to marry early and settle down to a life at the kitchen sink and the cradle but not so with you. You can play the field, have a career. I don’t mean you should sleep around just choose from a number of people rather than jump on the first one who takes your fancy”. “Oh Mum you are funny! The way you talk you’d think I’d never had a boyfriend before. Warren isn’t the first guy I’ve gone out with you know”. Irene wanted to ask her if they’d been lovers but knew she just couldn’t and that even if she did she’d likely as not get no answer. She knew that if they had been they must never be allowed to be ever again.

Alice Lomax was still up when Warren came in. “Mum, we need to talk”, was all he said as he flopped down on the sofa beside her as she did her knitting. “Did you have a nice evening dear”? She said, fearing another scene about her waiting up for him. Jerry always sided with him too and if he came down and joined in the tirade she’d be out numbered as per usual. “No. Well I mean yes. Pen’s mum was nice but it wasn’t that. It was something I saw while I was there. I pinched it and brought it home. Here! Look at this”. He produced two photos – One of an older man and the other of a little boy – A little baby boy. Alice put down her knitting and stared at them. “It says on the back of this one: ‘my little Warren, the boy I shall never forget’” “You’ve always known you were adopted”, Alice said. “Yes but look who my mother must have been? Can’t you see what this means? I’ve fallen in love with my sister for heaven’s sake mother”! “You’ll wake your father”, Alice said, holding a finger to her mouth. She knew though as she stared at the photo of the man that he was absolutely right – That there could be no room for doubt.

Penny was becoming moody and sullen. Warren was ignoring her – Cooling off. Of course it was obvious. He’d found another girl – Either that or he was bi-sexual and she didn’t think that very likely – No it was obvious. She wasn’t sleeping now and hardly eating either. Her work was suffering and she looked a mess – A far cry from the stunning attractive girl whom everyone longed to take out and date. It was ever since that meeting between her mother and Warren that things had started going wrong. She rang her mum and asked if she could come home. It was term time but she told her mother that she was ill and needed to get away for a bit. Her mother seemed reluctant to agree, telling her she had things to do, people to see. Penny put the phone down, puzzled but so unhappy as not to think about it further.

“Come in Warren”, Irene said, taking his hand and leading him down the hall as if he were blind. As they sat opposite each other he wordlessly handed back the pictures he’d taken from under the chair on the night they first met. “Please tell me everything”, he said. “Well Bill and I were both just fifteen. We loved each other from the time we were in primary school, right through into senior school. My mother especially was very Victorian in her attitudes and when I got pregnant after the one and only time we ever did it, she made me give up the baby – You I mean. A nurse took a photo of you which mother said she’d destroy if she found it and she did too but luckily I had a copy made in case she did – A copy which I smuggled out of the hospital by stuffing it down into my underwear. Your name was never mentioned again and all I had to remind me of you was that photograph. As soon as possible I got away from home and married Bill. By the time Penny came along Bill was dead – Killed in action during the Second World War You were never far from my thoughts but somehow I never got round to telling her about you even though you shared the same father and weren’t the product of some grubby little affair I’d had in some back alley. Tell me about yourself, what your life’s been like and how you’ve fared”? “Well I’ve always known I was adopted. ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ never kept it from me. They never even changed my given name from what it was on the birth certificate and although I had my surname changed to Lomax and knew Penny’s name was Palmer I never connected it. It’s a common enough name after all isn’t it? I always wanted to be a teacher and when I landed the job at Hereford I was pleased. I took one look at Penny – Another thing that’s against the rules – And fell for her at once. I realise now of course that it’s impossible – That we can’t go on being lovers or seeing each other because for one thing it’s against the law and for another it’s not moral but I don’t know how to end it, how to tell her that the only girl I’m ever likely to love – That I have ever loved is my sister”. By this time the two of them were in each other’s arms and in tears. “Oh Warren I’m so sorry! Bill and I caused such heartache both to ourselves and now to you two and all because we loved each other too”. Neither of them heard the key Penny had to her mother’s house being inserted into the lock, they were in such a state and by the time she burst in upon them, holding each other and sobbing, it was too late for them to pull apart.

“You bitch! You bitch!” She screamed at her mother. “So that’s it! That’s why he’s been going cold on me. That’s why he’s been refusing to see me any more! Well I knew he had another woman. He just had to have but I didn’t know it was you! You! You! Above all people you! What is it with you? Is it because he looks like dad? Are you hankering after your lost youth or just feeling sex starved? Perhaps you’re developing Alzheimer’s disease and going senile! Perhaps you think I’m your mother and you’re my daughter! What the hell is it then? Tell me! Tell me! I have a bloody right to know”! She threw herself between the sobbing couple, grabbing handfuls of her mother’s hair and scratching Warren’s face as she fought with them, shrieked at them and hit out at them both verbally and physically. Only the words – The tear filled, half sobbed, heart breaking words, barely audible yet all too clear: “Warren is my son. Warren is your brother”, stopped her in her tracks and left her frozen to the spot. As gently as she could, their mother told her the whole story from beginning to end – The story which Penny should have been told years ago. At the end Penny, white faced and trembling, stared into the eyes and face of the man whose older self she’d seen so often in her mother’s photographs and wondered why she’d never seen the similarity before.

The day was bleak and wet when Penny finally said “Goodbye” to her brother. She and her mother had gone with him to the air port to wave him off. He held them each in turn as they tearfully waited for him to board his plane to America. He gave them each a photo of himself – For one, a memento of a past they had briefly had as lovers and a reminder of a forbidden future and for the other a memento of an updated story of a forbidden past denied her by over strict and judgemental parents. When their “goodbyes” were said and the two women silently walked home after Warren’s plane departed Irene was the first to break the sorrowful, leaden silence: “I’ve lost him twice Penny. You’ve only lost him once. I’m getting old now and may never see him again. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. You are all I have.” The girl looked hard into her mother’s face and said: “Who’s counting? Loss is loss isn’t it? No matter how many times you lose and how many things you lose? Loss is loss”. Within days each had a separate letter containing identical wording: “Arrived safe. Missing you both enormously. Love you loads. Wish I could be with you. All my love, Warren”.

(The end).

WATCHING AND LISTENING.

Colin stood yet again on the corner, taking up his vantage point where he knew he’d get the best sight of the girl. She was late tonight. Perhaps the traffic was held up and the bus was late, perhaps she was delayed by extra work.

Whatever the reason she wasn’t there yet. His desperate eyes scanned the crowd – A man with a briefcase and a rolled umbrella, an elderly woman with a stick, hunched in an ill-fitting raincoat and a tramp hugging his wine bottle to him like a long lost love. Colin wondered if soon people would start to think he was loitering – Up to no good. Every night after he closed his shop he stood here and every Saturday when she shopped there their fingers touched and he’d be treated to her big beaming smile. Like his pay cheque that smile had to last till he had the next one for in the week when he saw her she did not smile as she skilfully traversed the obstacle course on the pavement as she made her way home she was unaware of him. There she was now! Small, grey haired and scowling at the rain, standing at the crossing and waiting for the bleep. It came, she crossed and in a flash was gone. With a sinking heart Colin walked away. Yet again he’d not managed to speak to her. Bowed down by the weight of failure and shyness he too made his way home, cursing the advance in technology which brought about the invention of bleeping traffic lights. He prepared for another night, cloaked in the darkness of winter and of slow despair.

Jenny sipped her tea. Wonderful Wednesday was here again. Coronation Street, Brookside and then two more days till Saturday. That’s when she did her weekly shop, that’s when she had time to read a bit, that’s when she went into her local butcher’s and that’s when she heard “that voice”. Last week she could have screamed! A queue of people coming from nowhere had piled up behind her making it impossible for her to engage him in conversation. She almost went back on the pretext of forgetting something but that would have meant a more difficult walk so she decided against. Besides what could she ask for? In rare and spare moments she thought of him, wondering if he was married with kids, was homosexual or a confirmed bachelor. “Whatever the case” she said aloud, “he wouldn’t want me because I’m ‘’’”, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She hastily checked herself and turned on the radio. “soon be time for the ‘Archers’” she also said aloud.

Saturday was here again and Colin’s eyes were fixed on the seemingly stationary clock hands. Mrs. Shipley had been in and so had Dan. Mums with buggies and crying children, young pretty girls whom he had no eyes for and a few men who obviously lived alone. Then suddenly the shop started revolving. All other sights melted away as Jenny advanced towards him. People parted like the waves as she stepped forward. Two women pushed her forward saying: “You go first ducks, we’re in no hurry”. How could Jenny tell them she wanted to go last not first! She hated the unwanted attention everytime she was out and about and thought not for the first time how horrid it must be to be famous. Still fame was something some sought and loved yet this was something she had no choice in. All she wanted was to be unobtrusive – To be loved by someone certainly and to be thought of as normal and not treated like a walking spectacle. Most of all though she wanted to be left in the shop with him. As it was their moments together were so rare and their conversation so brief and predictable and now once again it was about to be marred by the other customers who crashed into their togetherness like dodge ‘ems at the fair. Stumbling up to the counter she once more asked for her purchases and felt her mouth drying. It was all over. Her purchases paid for, she felt herself propelled into the street by well meaning hands and she was out in the sunlight.

“Cat’s got Colin’s tongue! Cat’s got Colin’s tongue! He can’t speak, not this week, cat’s got Colin’s tongue!” Intrusive children’s voices from the past, cruel and taunting, filled his head again as he swept the shop. Long long years of children’s cruelty still made its presence felt and affected him. Mark and Jean, his brother and sister never had any problems but he always bore the brunt of children’s jibes. His stammer made it worse providing as it did a focus for their unkindness. He supposed it had started as a result of his crippling shyness and worsened because he dreaded saying anything knowing he’d be taunted and that adults would impatiently finish his sentences for him. As a result of all this he retreated into a world of books and paintings. He drew beautiful landscapes and found it a relief to go into the family business where he would feel secure and not have to get used to strangers. Now all his father wished for him was that he would be less on his own. He thought being alone was all he could ever hope for till he saw Jenny. Then it was more a case of wanting to be with her than worrying about being alone.

“We’re going to the disco tonight. Why don’t you come with us Jen”? Sandra’s voice broke Jenny’s train of thought. “Oh no! All that loud music means you can’t hear yourself think. Besides I was always a wallflower at school. Plus I have two left feet, hate large crowds and parties and there’ll be loads of people turning up at casualty departments all over the place because I’ve tramped all over their toes”, she said. After refusing so often the invites stopped coming though she and Lisa sometimes went to a film together. She remembered Stephen King’s “Misery” very well. Those screams of the people in the cinema really made her jump. She talked of nothing else for days, thinking the film great and chatted happily enough to Lisa when they walked home. Lisa was great. To her Jenny was just Jenny. She wondered though how much she’d see of her once she was married to Alan. As she foresaw their meetings became less frequent. Jenny was partly to blame as she didn’t like being part of athreesome. She wondered how the term “Gooseberry” came to be used for an extra person with a couple. She also knew in a painful kind of way somewhere deep inside herself that she couldn’t just keep existing from Saturday to Saturday in the hope of a snatched conversation with and brief touch from him. She didn’t even know his name. When she’d once asked him he’d only just got the first syllable out when a woman interrupted them, he dropped her change all over the floor and she’d wished she’d not asked him. Again she was propelled out into the sunshine, going home.

He was there again. Idly reading the adverts on the boards and scanning the crowd. The tramp was also there with his wine bottle. “Better night for sleeping rough”, he said to Colin. Colin nodded in agreement. “See you ‘ere near on every night. Ain’t you got no ‘ome to go to neither”? “Oh yes”, Colin said, blushing to the roots of his hair. “I was just watching the people”. “Specially that girl eh!” Said the tramp, laughing coarsely. “Shame! Pretty girl like that. Shame!” Colin again nodded in agreement, wondering how he’d cope if it were him. “She lives on Rowan Avenue you know”, the tramp informed him. “She’ll have to be careful tonight though. They’ve got the pavement up. Bloody drillin’ again. You wouldn’t mind but soon as this lot’s done some other lot’ll be diggin’ it up again. I wouldn’t mind but they never puts the pavement back proper when they’ve finished. Glad I don’t pay no Council Tax specially for that lot o’ buggers! Wastes your money soon as they gets their hands on it seein’s it ain’t theirs whatta they care! They makes a fresh lotta promises they don’t keep and muck up the good that the others ‘ave done little though it is”. In all the time Colin had known this old man he’d never been so expansive. He never knew him capable of such speech. “I ‘ad a girl you know. A’fore I came down in the world. Mind you I was always a travelling man. I went where and when the fancy took me. Killed she was you know. Must a’ been about five years ago now. Crossing the road she was. One minute ‘ere, the next gone. When you thinks of all the ways there are of dying – Disease, murder, suicide and old age and she has to get killed crossing the bloody road. Dirty great lorry done for her. Mind you I think her eyes was going. Too proud she was to get specs. Afterwards I sort o’ lost me zest for life. Drunk a lot – Well I’d done that since me days in the Navy – And came down in the world as I said. I’ve drunk, womanised and populated the world a bit. In the end I found meself out here after getting’ into debt. I got the stars for me roof and the earth for me floor. Don’t want no more now she’s gone. Don’t suppose I’ll last many more years out ‘ere. I’m past me allotted span you know. The cold paralyses me but it’s different wi’ you though. I’d say a different sort o’ thing paralyses you. Am I right”? He paused then, allowing Colin to talk about himself. He found he stammered less in front of this rough old man who’d seen and populated the world, lived in it and become disillusioned with those who ran it and remained insightful and shrewd. On the surface he was telling Colin a story of dissipation, disappointment and loss but he was telling him much more than that. He was telling him that the boat only sails once. He was telling him we each have a one-way ticket for the same port though each travels by a different route and disembarks at a different time. He didn’t finish Colin’s sentences for him but rather hooked him on the line of his rhetoric like a fish who needed pulling ashore. Eventually Colin told him about school – The taunts of the children, the family business and how he came to work there, why he stammered and lastly his desperate longing to get to know Jenny whom he admired from afar. With a startled cry he suddenly thought she may have gone while he was engrossed in conversation with this tramp. “It’s okay son. There she is. Get your feet walking towards Rowan Avenue. Take a deep breath and just talk to the girl”.

The traffic lights beeped, calling to Jenny: “come! Come! Come! Come! Come!” She went. Colin was in hot pursuit. Racing on ahead he stood breathless at the cordoned off section of the road. She approached, stopped and listened, sensing someone’s presence in this very quiet part of the area. Whose was that foot that broke that twig? “E-e-e-excuse me but you can’t go that way. The pavement’s up”. “Oh! It’s you from the butchers”, she said in surprise. “Yes. C-c-c-colin”. “Jenny Radcliffe” she said in reply. “M-m-may I help you past”? He offered. He heard the definitive click of Jenny’s white stick as she took his arm. “We’re going the wrong way”, she said. She told him she’d forgotten her meat and, smiling asked if he knew of an open butcher’s. When she told him she had an expected guest coming for tea his face fell. “Oh I see”, he said in a forlorn manner. “Oh I don’t know him well but we meet each Saturday in his father’s shop”. He beamed as he once more took her hand. They retraced their steps as they once more headed for the beeping traffic lights.

(the end).

DILEMMA INSOLUABLE.

As David Carmichael regained consciousness a nurse was holding his hand. As soon as he realised where he was he became agitated, telling her he had to get out of the bed in which he lay otherwise there was no hope of saving the life of the girl he’d seen in his vision.

To Susan Savile, the little village of Pennington was paradise. A picturesque place with a few houses, church and a doctor’s surgery and beyond, the woods where she could take her Labrador walking. She’d become tired of London but not as Doctor Johnson would say tired of life. She was just sick of the rat race and the ever increasing speed of the big city which demanded you go faster and faster just to keep pace with your neighbour.

David had felt the aura just as he was closing his surgery and preparing to go on his morning rounds. Quickly he went to lie down on his couch and wait for the seizure to come and go. When he came round he jotted down the details of the dream he’d had while fitting. A dark haired girl, tall and big breasted was being driven off in a blue Volvo towards Pennington Woods and the man behind the wheel was someone well known to him – A loner by the name of Gordon Gill. Since his car accident two years ago David Carmichael had been prone to seizures. He had been prescribed medication for them by his neurologist and of course common sense dictated that he should take it but he was reluctant to do so for one very good reason. During his fits he saw things – Things which mainly concerned his patients. Often he could warn them not to pursue particular courses of action which may be dangerous for or disadvantageous to them and sometimes he was able to ring the police anonymously with tips about the whereabouts of murdered children or with descriptions of suspects in long unsolved criminal cases, all of whom had been shown to him in these prophetic visions experienced during his seizures. He never had any such visions during his normal dreaming state when asleep and knew that if he took his medication he wouldn’t be able to forewarn people or provide the police with their much needed information which they now took very seriously having at first considered him a crank and even a possible suspect in some of the cases he’d told them of. When Rita, his wife asked him if he’d taken his medication he always told her he had when in fact he’d flushed it down the lavatory. She regularly counted his pills arousing her suspicions. He always counselled his patients against throwing away their medication and here he was doing just that.

Gordon Gill wasn’t liked by the villagers. He never joined in any social events; hardly spoke to people when he saw them out and never if he could avoid it, made eye contact with them. He had nothing wrong with him but was just a loner who was disconcerting to be around. He still lived with his mother and had never married. She was now getting on in years and he looked after her and was according to all who knew them domineered by her. If and when he went to the village pub he only ever had one pint, never bought a drink for any of the other regulars and refused all offers from them. He was an “off cumden” as they called outsiders and knew he was not accepted but that suited him as he thought himself above them anyway – These yokels with their rough country ways. He had spotted another “off cumden” – Another outsider like himself and wanted to get to know her and reserved for her one of his rare smiles though his eyes remained cold when he smiled.

“You seem preoccupied today David”, said Rita as they sat together over lunch. He hoped she’d not notice that he’d had another seizure in his surgery. “Yes”, he said. “I’m trying to think where I saw someone who popped into the surgery today. She looked familiar and I’m sure we met before but can’t think where”. “Well new people always stand out in this village. I don’t know of anyone moving in or visiting and Mrs. Briggs at the post office who knows all the gen hasn’t told me of anyone new being around”. He didn’t dare tell her that he’d not seen her in real life but only in his vision. He knew for sure that he must find her because if he didn’t she would die.

Mabel Thorpe had just written the appointment down in the book for a Miss Susan Savile when David came back to do afternoon surgery. It had been a fairly busy day and he was glad that there was not much longer to go. His partner was on night duty tonight and he would be able to put his feet up afterwards and perhaps watch some TV. The first patient to come in for the evening surgery was her – The tall dark girl he’d seen in his vision. “I’ve come to see you Doctor Carmichael because I am suffering with my periods. I feel so tired and think they may be making me anaemic”. He could see by her nails and the state of her eyes that indeed her assumption was right and that she was indeed anaemic. He prescribed a course of iron tablets for her and some others to try and correct her period problems and was trying to work out a way of introducing the subject of the contents of his vision to this new patient who may well think he was crackers when he heard a terrible commotion in the street. Two cars had piled into one-another and the occupants were hurt. Susan, now with her prescription in her hand, hastily beat a retreat so he could attend to the people involved and never got to hear of his concerns for her safety.

Edna Gill was sulking again. This always happened when Gordon had a date. “I’ll not be late mother. You’ve got your radio and the papers and there’s the phone if you want to ring Auntie Maggie.” “Daresay she’ll be out. Everyone has the chance to go out ‘cept me. The radio’s rubbish. I expect I’ll have an early night and just as I’m dropping off to sleep you’ll come in, slamming the door and waking me up”. Gordon turned a deaf ear. She was so busy ranting on and trying to make him feel guilty that she never noticed the knife he’d taken from the kitchen drawer. She hardly answered him as he wished her a good night and told her not to wait up.

Washed and changed, Susan climbed easily into Gordon’s blue Volvo. They went to the cinema in the nearest town which was about five miles from the village. He’d held hands with her and had hardly concentrated on any of the film. She was thinking how everyone had got him wrong. He never tried to touch her or make a pass at her and neither did he make dirty remarks about the size of her breasts or how big she was. He wasn’t very friendly and chatty like the boys she’d known in London but he was gentlemanly in his own way. He’d insisted on paying for there seats and the ice creams in the interval and although he wasn’t a great conversationalist he said enough to make the silences less awkward than they might have been. As they walked arm in arm to his car afterwards she thought that it had been a pleasant enough evening on the whole.

David was dead dog tired. However there was something more he had to do. Because of the accident he had not told Susan about his concerns for her. She was new to the village and for this reason he couldn’t remember her address. He’d have to go to the surgery and look it up on the computer. “I won’t be long Rita”, he said. “I have just remembered something I have to do”. She looked perturbed and was just about to protest when she saw his retreating back as he went through the door. He was just about to cross the main road when he felt it again – The familiar aura which heralds a seizure. He knew he had about thirty seconds to get to a place of safety which in this case was the pavement on the other side of the road. He just got up the kerb when he went down.

Susan was almost asleep when she woke with a start. “Where are you taking me? This isn’t the road which leads to my house”. “No but it leads to where I want us to go. Surely you don’t think you are going to get home without you pay the debt you owe me. Nobody has something for nothing in this world and tonight you have just had a trip to the cinema and ice cream all courtesy of yours truly who now wants something in return – The only thing a woman is fit to give so I’ll just keep driving shall I”? As they got nearer and nearer to Pennington Woods the people became fewer in number. In fact Susan could see no houses now and nobody about. She wondered how she’d make a run for it when he stopped the car and wondered still more where there’d be to run to. Suddenly he stopped, produced a rope and blindfold, tied her and bound her eyes and then began driving again. Round and round he went like some dobby horse at the fair and then he stopped – She having little idea now where she may be. Finally he dragged her, feet first through the open door of the car, hauling her along the ground like some ungainly parcel. She felt herself bumping along the ground, her head banging up and down, her legs hurting as he held them in his hands. In one deft movement he let her feet go and landed on top of her. At first he lay motionless, breathing into her ear, and then he began to bite her face, sinking his teeth into her nose and upper lip. He tore out handfuls of her hair and beat her with his fists, finally tearing off her clothes and raping her. He then asked her if she’d like him to drive her home. Making as if to help her to her feet, he sought the knife he had brought, found it and stabbed her over fifty times until the life ebbed away from her body. Calmly then, his anger spent, he turned on his heel and strode back to his car and drove home to have the tirade he’d get from his mother.

The crowd had gathered round David Carmichael as he lay on the pavement. Into his mouth they forced an object in order to stop him biting his tongue or swallowing it. This is an erroneous thing to do and just leads to damage to the teeth. The ambulance came as he went into status epilepticus – A prolonged state of fitting without regaining consciousness. By the time he was tucked up in a hospital bed Susan Savile was already dead.

John Dixon knew who to look for in connection with her death. He’d had the anonymous tip off even before her death when the “seer” as he called him had revealed to him the vision he’d had in his last fit. When the police went to see Gill it was his mother who calmly led them into the kitchen saying: “There he is. He’s all yours”. John Dixon nearly had a heart attack as he stared up at the swollen and bloated face of their suspect, hanging from a beam in the ceiling while his mother set about making them both a cup of tea.

(The end).

MARJORIE DORE.

She kept telling me that she had another friend – A little girl just like her that she could play with but I didn’t believe her. Then I saw them together and my heart ached.

“Look mummy! There she is! Over there by the window. We’ve been talking about dolls and things. She said she had lots of them when she was here”. “Yes dear. Now eat your tea. Each time you talk instead of eat you’re missing a mouthful”. “No I’m not! I’m just postponing it that’s all”. “Smart Alec! Just eat will you”. As if in a dream Natalie continued eating. Her eyes were on the garden as she did so. First she stared at her swing and then at the old apple tree as if she saw something I did not. “Stop dreaming or you’ll not have finished your meal by the time daddy comes home. He promised to take you to the park to make the most of the light summer night have you forgotten”? “No”, she said. I was amazed. For the first time my daughter had answered me in just one word. She was still staring out of the window when she started humming the nursery rhyme again about Marjorie Dore and Johny only earning a penny a day. She said that was when it first started. She was absent-mindedly humming the rhyme on her swing when the little girl first appeared. Dressed in old fashioned clothes, she had long hair which was done up in a bun. Natalie said she talked to her, laughed with and played games with her. The only trouble is I have never seen her. At first I just dismissed her tale as the product of an over-active imagination. I knew that in many ways Natalie was a lonely little girl. She wanted a little brother or sister but I could have no more children due to the complications I suffered at her birth. Bill said that I wasn’t to worry, that she’d grow out of it, but it’s three years now since she first started to see Marjorie. I don’t know what to do. I told Bill that she ought to see a child psychologist since it’s interfering with her education. The other children make fun of her because they’ve never seen this child either and think she’s odd. She hardly plays with them now, preferring the company of a non-existent child that nobody but she can see. She doesn’t accept that Marjorie isn’t real and I don’t accept that she could be a ghost. I’m becoming irritated by the whole thing. I can even hear Natalie laughing with this non-existent child in bed at night – Laughing and talking with her and my friends are beginning to label me as: “The mother of that funny kid”. It’s becoming embarrassing. “I know mummy doesn’t believe in you. If you’d only come to her, be real to her and talk to her. She’d have to believe in you then and she would know at last that I’m not making you up. Then we could play together openly. Why won’t you come to her, Marjorie? Why?” “I will, Natalie. When you come through the narrow gate I will. Then they’ll see us together but not now – Not yet.” “Where is the narrow gate and where does it lead to”? Asked Natalie. “Never mind that now. You just be happy while you can”. “I can’t be truly, truly happy because people don’t believe that you’re my friend and that you are real”. Suddenly, as Natalie looked up she noticed that Marjorie was gone. Whenever she was lonely, sad or in trouble, all she had to do was sing the rhyme about Marjorie Dore and she would appear to her again and comfort her. It always worked and never failed.

Bill took Natalie to the park where she happily played on the swings and the slide. She did not dare sing the rhyme in case her little friend would come and begin a conversation with her. Her father would then ask why she was smiling and she would tell him about Marjorie’s presence and this would invoke his anger. Like her mother he was now becoming irritated by the presence of her invisible friend.

For several weeks she neither saw nor heard the other child. She neither sang or thought of the rhyme and was beginning to think her little companion had forsaken her. Then one night she had a dream. Marjorie came and led her by the hand up a long dark ladder which was narrow and steep. At the top was a tiny door through which only the children pass. Beyond was a huge expanse of green with thousands and thousands of flowers. Then she woke with a start. She thought she heard Marjorie saying that this was heaven but woke with a jolt before she could be sure. In her fright she screamed and was soon soothed by her mother. At breakfast she explained that she’d seen heaven in a dream and was scolded for being wicked and talking of such things so never mentioned her dream again.

“Hullo Natalie, it’s been ages hasn’t it”? “Oh Marjorie! Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you”. “I have been making a place for you. I have been preparing the way so you can come and we can be sisters forever”. “But we’re sisters now”, cried Natalie in alarm. “No. Now we are only friends and it is draining my strength keep coming through to your side of the gate. For us to be real sisters you have to come to me through my side of the gate. You have to live here with me forever”. Natalie looked puzzled. “You mean never, never, never to return? You mean I must come and live in heaven?” “Yes that’s right”. “But that means I will die”. Natalie almost became hysterical as the realisation that she would never grow up to be a woman dawned on her. “No you won’t. I’m not dead am I? Only the body which is a casing which holds the soul dies and the soul lives forever and ever and ever”. “Is it frightening”? Natalie enquired timidly. “No not really. Anyway when you’ve been here for a bit you will have forgotten what it felt like. I can’t remember what it was like now”. The child then told her not to worry and that she must celebrate her tenth birthday before coming through the gate, just as Marjorie had done. For some months they never talked and once more Natalie almost forgot about her again, thinking that she’d abandoned her.

It was after Natalie died of meningitis that I was first to see them playing on the swing in the garden. At first the sight distressed me until I met someone who knew the history of the house in which we lived. Apparently a couple with one little girl had lived there and Just like us, the mother could have no more children but the child always longed, as Natalie had, for a brother or sister. The child was killed at a tragically young age after having prayed hard for the brother or sister that she was never to have. The story goes that once every so often she appears to another child in the village – Usually another little girl – The sightings last for about three years, after which time the child who has seen her dies.

I cannot say whether Natalie was the only child to have seen Marjorie, whether the story has been exaggerated over time or even whether any of it is true. What I can say is that I get enormous comfort from seeing them together, that I have longed for more than one daughter all my life and now in a funny sort of way I feel as if I have two and that now all I have to do is to hum the nursery rhyme about Marjorie Dore and there they are, as real as any living person is, standing at my side. I know one more thing too and that is as a result of these occurrences I have completely lost my fear of death.

WAITING FOR A TRAIN.

There had been no railway line or station at Upper Parkway for many years so why were three little children waiting for a train?

Jill Somers had told her three little children, Max Wendy and Ross to go out and get some fresh air. They were continuously bickering over who was going to choose the t.v. programmes, whose toys each was to play with and who should be the one to walk the dog. She thought that if they were to go and get some air not only would they run off their excess energy but also may make them more amenable to reason and less argumentative.

I had been born in Upper Parkway and longed to go back there to live. When I met Richard who worked on the underground I hoped he’d like to go there too. He did go there but not for long and not often. He showed the greatest reluctance to even think about ever living there. I couldn’t understand this since I knew it had beautiful scenery even though I couldn’t see it. Richard and I met on the underground. Being blind I have to have help sometimes when making my transition from one train to the other. He often helped me to do this and stood there holding my hand as we waited for my train to arrive. I hoped he’d one day ask me out, which he did eventually and rather liked him holding my hand. I no longer have to hope for the signal failure I used to hope for when we were waiting for my train, not now that we are married.

“Let’s play that game with the pennies”, said Wendy who had saved up her old pennies in order to throw them onto the tracks so they could be run over by the express. Ever the tomboy she was the one who loved adventure even when it was the dangerous and foolhardy sort. She had the attention span of a flea and hopped about like one too – Hopped around when she walked and hopped from one subject to another when she talked. The boys would trail after her and found it easier to do as she suggested when it came to getting into mischief. Now she had thrown all her pennies onto the track and watched the trains run over her pre decimal coins which were big and suited the purpose very well and she was now getting bored.

Duncan Jones was also bored. He’d been given another sedative by the Matron of his Nursing Home. He always referred to her as the Ward Sister in his more lucid moments but his more lucid moments were now getting less frequent as he was entering another stage of dementia. What was all too clear were the earlier days of his life – His childhood and time spent as a train driver. When he saw the vision of the tragedy in which he was an unwilling participant he became agitated and it was then that he needed the sedatives. These scenes had not dulled over the years and he could not stop them recurring over the decades to follow them first taking place. Before the onset of his illness he longed for release from these scenes – Longed for the end to the torment which played and replayed over and over and over again in his mind. Now even the dementia wasn’t blotting them out – Not yet at any rate.

Jill had given the children a basket and suggested to them that they might like to go blackberrying. Ross would soon taste his mother’s blackberry jam which he adored and even Max was now getting a bit bored with playing down by the railway line. They’d clapped and shouted under the bridge so they could hear the echo as they did so and yesterday they had stood on the bridge and thrown big stones onto the cars below, now they thought they all should do something sensible. Wendy however liked throwing things onto the line and playing dangerous games with the trains. She grabbed the basket from Max and threw it onto the line approximately three minutes before the express was due. The seconds felt like hours as they waited for the approach of the train. Then they heard the whistle, after that they felt the rush of air and the thunderous noise of the metalic lion as it roared into the station. Suddenly thinking of their mothers wrath at the loss of the basket which would soon be a mangled mess, Wendy jumped out in front of the train to retrieve it. She slipped and fell, reaching out a hand to save herself and connecting with the live rail. She died in an instant. In one single movement of united sibling love and protectiveness, her brothers leapt forward to try and drag her clear, not quite understanding at ages seven and five that it was already too late to save her. The train rattled into the station and rolled straight over them all mangling beyond recognition all three of their little bodies. The driver saw them and tried to apply his brakes but the time lag wasn’t enough to stop the train and spare their lives and stop their deaths and horrific injuries.

As we stood in the bar of the Parkway Arms, having a drink after visiting Richard’s sister, I distinctly heard the sound of a train whistle. Richard’s face was ashen so they told me as his eyes were fixed on the wall to our right. Out of the wall and across our path hurtled the 11.45 Parkway to London Express. It came out of the right-hand wall, straight out in front of us, running over three little bodies and a basket in the process, and disappeared into the left-hand wall. At last I understood Richard’s reluctance to return to Upper Parkway. The poor little children who died were his niece and nephews and the person he’d been to see was his only sister Jill.

THE LONG CASE CLOCK

The hands on the long case clock in the hall governed Martin’s life. In the end they brought him great sorrow.

As a small boy Martin was sickly. Although it’s true to say his illnesses were for the most part genuine it’s also true to say that many of them were either exaggerated or invented. He didn’t consciously make up illnesses in order to get out of going to school or some game he didn’t want to enter into with his friends but rather he thought he had them because that’s what his mother thought and encouraged him to believe.

Martin had a desperate need to adhere to routines. All of us like to stick as far as possible to our set ways of doing things but with him it was a matter of obsessional rather than normal behaviour. He hated being late for anything. His mother had told him that if he was on time he was showing politeness and that if he were early for something he was wasting his time but if he were late he was wasting the time of the person who was expecting him which amounted to rudeness. As he aged this maxim became his rigid rule of thumb which was to be obeyed without question or exception. He would glance at the clock in the hall which told him accurately what the time was or at one of the many other time pieces either worn about his person or dotted about his home. Then his problems multiplied and transformed themselves from obsessions with time and punctuality into checking that the doors were locked, windows closed and set number of paces paced between one room and another before he could leave the house. At first he thought that his wife Bryony had not noticed but she was under no illusions that his problems were mounting and amounting to the beginnings of a serious illness for which he would need help and that he would be more disabled without it than as a result of any other illness real or imagined which he may have had throughout his past life.

When she tried to talk to him about all this he denied there was a problem as many people from gamblers to alcoholics invariably do. Then she nagged him, telling him he ought to see a doctor. He eventually found that she had called him in, ostensibly to see one of their two children but really to have a look at him. “How are things with you these days”? Doctor Levy enquired. “Fine”, Martin said as he polished his glasses for the umpteenth time and excused himself to wash his hands after picking a paper clip up from the floor. The doctor was definitely hearing alarm bells in his head. He thought that Martin should see Doctor Klein, a psychiatrist. In the end and with much persuasion he agreed to do so.

There was much unravelling of his past and the feelings he had towards his mother’s over protectiveness and guilt at not taking his father’s symptoms seriously which in her eyes meant he died because she failed to see that he was undergoing a coronary. There was much talk of all the bullying he’d suffered at school because he was sensitive and delicate and didn’t like rough games or came to school wrapped up “Like a girl” as the boys put it. There was even more talk of all the imagined and real illnesses that Martin thought himself prey to and eventually an admission that, yes he did have a problem with time, obsessional behaviour and strict adherence to routine and terrible feelings of guilt when he let other people down or fell short of either their imagined or real or his real standards which were impossibly high. He attended group therapy sessions and was exposed to small amounts of his feared things and situations. For instance he was made to arrive late for an appointment with his psychiatrist – Just a matter of ten minutes or so – Also he was helped to reduce the number of checks he carried out at home on windows and doors and eventually life became more manageable which meant a better atmosphere at home and a more smoothly running household.

George, aged eleven had a vivid imagination. He told his mother that the long case clock in the hall was being silly and playing tricks. “Well it is very old now”, Bryony said to him. “Yeah I suppose it is. It even smells of the Winter Green oil that Nan used to use”. “Well there you are then”! His mother replied, reminding the child that she had died when he was six. The ticking of this clock, though comforting to many visitors to the house, was a source of irritation to Bryony who didn’t like it one little bit. She had planned to get rid of it and was wondering how she could broach the subject to her husband. She bought a bottle of wine and cooked a lovely supper for them all; even the children were allowed to stay up when she planned to introduce the possibility of getting rid of the clock. She knew there was less likely to be a scene if they were there. In the end, the second glass of wine having given her courage, she came straight out with it: “Martin, I think we ought to rid ourselves of that monstrosity in the hall. It is obvious you are now much better and I feel it is holding you back or at least it could do. I know it was your mum’s and that it is probably very valuable as an heirloom but health is more important than money and if you feel that bad about making money out of selling a treasured possession of your dead mother’s we can give the money to charity”. There she’d said it! All in one breath it came out like a cork from a bottle. He looked aghast at her and almost became angry but restrained himself, remembering George and Peter’s presence. “No dear. The clock stays. It sets the hall off a treat and looks grand. Besides as you say I’m a lot better now and just as some alcoholics like to have drink in the house so they can prove they can resist having it, I think it would be good to keep the clock so I can prove it doesn’t rule my life any longer. Besides that I have other time pieces which could take its place in that regard and it does remind me of mother. She would turn in her grave if I sold it”. He got up and turned on the TV, signalling that the discussion was at an end. Bryony however had other ideas and planned to auction it on the internet when he went into hospital to have a minor operation next week. When he came home she would present its absence to him as a Fait a Complis.

“’Bye Mum”, the children shouted as they ran for the bus. The house seemed alarmingly quiet as Bryony made coffee and waited for the computer to warm up. She thought she may give Nancy, her sister a ring. Nancy was due to come over from Ireland next week for a fortnight’s holiday. She loved Nancy so much. She often wished that she’d settle here for good. She was a lively bubbly sort of girl with Irish good looks and an Irish wit to match. She loved Ireland though, remarking on how lovely the scenery is and how Bryony was mad to leave it. However, the occasional trip to the big city was enough for her and one a year was sufficient to quell the wander lust in her. Besides she loved to see her nephews who were now growing into big strong boys. It hardly seemed a moment since they were babies and now here they were, eleven and nine respectively. She was sure that George would grow up to be a writer because of his vivid imagination. That’d be good she often thought to herself. Then the phone rang and she was jarred out of her reverie. “Must be Bry”, she said to herself as she hurried towards the phone.

Bryony sat on the stairs in the hall. Strangely, this was the best place for her mobile phone signal, goodness knew why. She glanced at the long case clock and knew it would not be long before Nancy went out to help their father on the farm. She pressed the buttons and heard the phone ring. The two girls were laughing together and giggling at the appalling jokes they were exchanging and the clock hands were moving. Then the clock itself seemed to move – To lean like the famous Italian tower, to tremble and to shake. Then a hand lengthened and strengthened. Eventually the clock had moved its position until it towered over the woman on the stairs. As it chimed ten, the big hand hit her as she tried to rise and flee upstairs, knocking her back down again as she rose. Then eventually it lowered itself down upon her, the whirring of its works in her ears and became a dead weight above the dead body which lay underneath. All Nancy heard at her end of the phone was the continuous chiming – Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty – It didn’t stop till it reached Bryony’s age – Forty-five, at which point the glass in the door shattered, the wood caught fire and the whole house went up in flames.

THE GLASS DOOR.

“Sit up straight now Maud! Just look at you! All that soup running down your chin! We’ve got to make you a pretty girl now haven’t we? Never know who may be popping around here after I’ve gone home”. Maud gave Carmel a rye old smile. She knew nobody would be popping around but she was glad of that. All she wanted was peace and quiet so she could look at her old photos and play her 78’s. Carmel was lovely but she chattered on so much and Maud was no longer used to it. She loved to see Carmel – Well let’s face it she couldn’t do without her now – But somewhere in a little secret part of her she was glad when she went home. It was like going on holiday, Maud thought. At first you longed to go then longed to get back to the unequalled comfort of your own bed. “I’ll be in later to tuck you up”, Carmel said. “Snug as a bug in a rug”. She always said that to Maud as she left, as though she were talking to a child instead of an old woman of eighty-nine.

Maud had no relatives who “owned” her as Carmel said. Carmel was her home help. Of course she had become more than that. She had become her confidante, carer and friend. She wasn’t employed by Social Services but by Maud privately. She, Maud, had come into money when her husband died and took on this lively girl four years ago when she started to feel her age and realised that she could no longer manage by herself. Without help.

Carmel described herself as being from “across the water” and hadn’t lost her accent. She had the energy of a dynamo and the ability to talk and work at the same speed and time. Being close to home, the job suited her and when she went on holiday Maud went into a nursing home for respite care. She often cooked for: “Me owld lady”, as she affectionately referred to her and they got along well together. The cleaning she didn’t mind – Even down to dusting Maud’s innumerable China cats but what she really hated was shining up the glass door on Maud’s shower cabinet. For some irrational reason she was filled with an indescribable hatred for this glass door. She knew that in less than a day the door would not be spick and span as it was now but splashed and smeared again and the thought annoyed her intensely. She knew that all the other jobs would also need doing again so realised how silly it was to feel like this but some things were beyond explanation. Every time she saw it she had to fight the urge to put a fist through it or kick it off its hinges. Each day she cursed it and pulled faces at it as if it understood and could respond to her venom. Then she’d catch herself pulling a silly face in the shining, gleaming glass and say to herself: “God Carmel! You’re an eejit! It’s only an owld door!” At that point she’d look away, embarrassed at her silliness.

Old people get lonely sometimes as do all of us and that’s when they say things they perhaps shouldn’t. Carmel and Maud were growing very close and Maud started to take her more and more into her confidence. She had already shown her the masses of photos she had in her albums and all her jewellery. Carmel knew about her life as a young girl. Maud had been a dancer and had worked abroad. She’d lived in Italy and was well travelled. She loved the sea and animals of all descriptions but her favourite – The ones which captivated her heart above all others – Were cats. Her last pet cat Simpkin had died and she now felt that she was too old to have another one. Her arthritis was now very bad so she had to allow Carmel to dust her beloved ornaments, with which she now had to content herself and Carmel carried out this duty as though it were a labour of love. Only once did Maud get cross with her when she dropped one and broke its ear. However all was restored to peace and harmony when her boyfriend, Jimmy, stuck it back again with glue and did such a professional job that you couldn’t tell it had ever been damaged. “Ah! We all have little mishaps now and again”, she breezily told Maud who grudgingly agreed that this was so. Maud always said after one of their little spats: “What would I do without you? One day my dear you will be rewarded and I don’t mean in heaven. As you know I’m rich and nobody has been so faithful to me as you except Simpkin. He was more like a dog than a cat. Yes you will be well rewarded for having me as your cross in life”. “Wisht! Don’t be talkin’ like that! I don’t like to hear all this stuff about dyin’. You’ll outlive us all for you’ve the constitution of an ox!” Carmel was genuinely distressed to hear Maud talk of her inevitable death because she had grown fond of her and thought of her as a mother. Besides which she knew she’d be out of a job once Maud died. As I said the position suited her well and although Maud could be irrascible and tetchy sometimes, well you made allowances didn’t you? She was always generous and had a fund of amusing anecdotes and stories with which to brighten Carmel’s day.

It was in the spring that Maud started complaining of the pains. The doctor came and went, saying they were the result of old age and prescribing pain killers. Immediately after she’d gone Maud insisted Carmel throw them down the toilet saying: “What use will they be? I should go to hospital. I know it’s something serious – Must be at this age! I may have a malignancy”. “Ah no! Don’t be workin’ yourself up like that now! You look as bonny as ever. Besides the quack won’t be very pleased when she finds you’ve t’rown all your pills down the loo now will she? They don’t be inclined to take as much notice of you the second time if you don’t do as they say the first. That’s what I tell Jimmy after he is after goin’ with his back. He’s no sooner bin’ to the doc’s than he’s up the pub or doing the garden again. Ah! Men can be awful stupid sometimes! You don’t want to be folly’ing them now Maud”!

Maud and Carmel took their holidays apart and as usual missed each other greatly. Maud wouldn’t always admit it though, saying she was glad to get away from Carmel’s constant chat and her endless jolly smile. She let her have the spare key while she was gone so she could spring clean for her before she went away with Jimmy.

“Ah! There you are you owld bugger! I left you till last as usual! Couldn’t face you till now but when you’re done this time you’ll stay clean for the whole two weeks! Oh I could smash you so I could! I could put a brick right t’rough you! You’re the most god-awful t’ing I ever set me eyes on so you are and god forgive me!”

Six months after Maud’s return home she died from a stroke. Carmel was heartbroken. She cried for the best part of a couple of months and Jimmy was quite worried about her. Then she received what can only be termed the shock of her life. She was the sole beneficiary of Maud’s will. The house, money and jewels were hers and it was just as Maud said it would be. However there were certain conditions she had to agree to. Firstly she had to live in the house and run it as a cats’ home. She thought she could just about manage that. It was the second condition she found so unbearable. On no account was she to dismantle the shower unit and replace the glass door with a curtain. Maud had commented how lovely she kept it and how brightly she’d made it shine. In a private letter to Carmel she wrote: “Dear Carmel, thank you for all you’ve done for me. I trust you will enjoy living in the house and running it as a cats’ home just as much as I know how much you enjoyed polishing my glass door. You did it with such zeal that I’m sure you loved it best of all since you always saved it till last”. Carmel thought and said aloud to herself: “You owld bugger Maud! You know damned well I hated it! Ah well! I’ll just get the vinegar and newspaper”!

THE SHOES.

She hated the shoes – From the moment she saw them she knew that they would have to go.

Maureen couldn’t sleep. It was another muggy night in mid July. She was frightened of waking Alan. He’d been working hard lately and needed his rest. They were hoping to visit their only son in Canada in September of the following year and that cost money. At the moment they hadn’t got a bean. She was doing two jobs as it was and now, the way things were going, she would be too tired to properly cope with either of them.

It was the noise that had woken her as well as the heat. It was like someone banging about and was coming from the wardrobe. She knew if she told Alan about it he’d only say she was dreaming or imagining it so she kept quiet but the noise was definite enough. She’d only noticed it during the last couple of days and after she’d crept down to the kitchen and made tea, she sat trying to think exactly when it had started. Then she remembered. It started after Alan had brought home the shoes. They’d been given him by Brenda, his old friend’s widow. She said they were too good to give to the charity shop and as Alan was the same size asAndy he may as well have them.

“This is a lousy pub”, Andy commented to Alan when they had drunk their first pint. The seats were ripped, there was beer all over the floor and the staff were abrupt. “Yeah”, Alan agreed. “Let’s move on”. They were only a few yards down the street when Alan spotted two girls walking along. “They look nice”, he commented and made straight for the one with the long legs and nice tan. “Fancy jjoining me and my mate for a couple of drinks”? He asked hopefully. The girls looked wary. They weren’t used to being propositioned so forcefully and besides were on their way to see someone in hospital. “What’s your name anyway – Well I mean names really don’t I”? Maureen who was the less inhibited answered for both of them, telling them their names and shaking hands with the two men. Until then neither of the men had thought much about finding girls to go out with. They’d each been contented with heavy drinking sessions and going off on steam trains which was a passion they’d shared. Now though with these two suddenly appearing out of nowhere things looked as if they may be very different. Andy especially was very taken with the quieter girl who hardly said much and thought she may be nice just as a friend but didn’t want too much involvement all the same. Instead he thought of her as rather mysterious – A puzzle which he’d solve in his spare time which would be found only when he wasn’t off on steam railways with Alan. For Alan though he was truly smitten with the lovely Maureen and definitely wanted to get to know her better.


Maureen and Brenda had always been good friends. From infant school they were inseparable. Maureen was the more confident one in whose shadow Brenda walked. They were happy with that though and Brenda never felt herself to be domineered or kept down. Luckily their mothers got on really well too. Eventually as they grew they did everything together and to some extent even dressed alike though Brenda being much shorter looked a bit silly in some of the clothes Maureen war so looked for others which were a bit different but not too much so. They got jobs in the same places . Neither of them were particularly ambitious and didn’t like offices much. They were happier meeting the public and especially Maureen loved chatting to clients and smiling even at the most miserable ones which seemed to have the desired effect - To make them smile in return. Working had really brought Brenda out of her shell and her mother commented how much less shy she was now she had this job and had left school. Her mother felt rather sad then when she started to bring Andy home. He was quiet like she was and seemed to have eyes that looked right through you. His only interest seemed to be trains. He never talked about sport or politics, didn’t know much about what was going on in the world and had no hobbies but the steam trains. True he went for a drink with Alan but that was only at his suggestion and Brenda’s mother doubted he’d go anywhere by himself without Alan’s prompting. He worked at a shoe menders - His father’s in fact. She rather had the feeling he’d been forced into that and would rather have been doing something else – Probably on his beloved railway. Now Alan was a different kettle of fish. Cybil, Brenda’s mum, always hoped that her daughter would get involved with him. Now here was a man who would have been able to bring her out. He was lively and had plenty to say and was good looking – She thought rather like Clark Gable had been in his youth. He could wax lyrical on any subject and seemed to always have a funny joke to make everyone laugh if there was an awkward silence brewing in a conversation. He was interested in her funny hobbies too when they all visited her as a foursome. She loved the tarot cards and reading tea leaves not that there were many of those now since the advent of teabags.

Of course all four had a double wedding. It seemed that Brenda wanted to share her big day with Maureen who was equally anxious to do likewise. Maureen’s family were delighted to see that the girls were now settled. Her sister Anna was also married now and only Duncan was left without someone. He was Maureen’s older brother and was in and out of hospital a lot because of illness. In fact they were off to see him the night they first set eyes on the boys who really were the ones to set eyes on them. Cybil was very put out to find that Maureen was expecting and that her Brenda – Her only little girl wasn’t. As it turned out ?Andy was infertile – Another thing for which Cybil could dislike him. He was always very polite to her and very kind to Brenda. She even grew to love the railway almost as much as he did. She’d go on trips with him when Alan couldn’t because of commitments at home and again sometimes they’d all go as a foursome.

He’d bought the shoes just before Christmas. He’d liked them. During that winter what with the heavy rain, he had noticed that the soles and the uppers were separating a bit and thought how sad it was that nothing is made as well as it used to be. Probably enough glue hadn’t been used on them during their manufacture. Whatever the reason, he’d pop them into the shop tomorrow and get them mended. In a quiet moment he’d have time to see to them he was sure. Cybil was there again when he got home. He showed them off proudly to her, telling her what a fine bargain they were especially for someone who could repair the slight damage that there was to the soles. She sniffed and looked down her nose as usual and when he was in the bath he heard Brenda and her rowing over him again. He’d always known that she didn’t like him. However, he had long ceased to worry about it. As long as Brenda cared that was all that mattered and she did care. He was still friends with Alan and doted on Maureen’s baby whom he saw as a little niece really since he and Alan were almost like brothers they’d been friends for so long.

Brenda slammed out of the house, taking their dog for a walk. She always did this when annoyed with her mother. All was now quiet in the house as Cybil held each shoe in her hands. She seemed to be talking to them when Andy came down from the bathroom. She hastily dropped them when she heard the door opening, telling him she had indeed thought them nice. All she wanted now was to get an object of Maureen’s and her plan would be complete.

The next morning Brenda woke shivering with cold and coughing. Obviously she was in for a dose of something nasty. Dutifully Andy rose early in order to take the dog walking before he went to work. He could take him into the shop with him and knew his mother would have him. She lived in the flat above. He may as well wear the shoes while walking the dog and then take them into work on his feet instead of carrying them in a bag. He had a spare pair at his mother’s anyway. It was while crossing the fields with the dog that he first noticed it. The shoes seemed to be propelling him along – Sometimes against his will. Like someone with Parkinson’s disease he couldn’t always stop when he wanted to. He was fine when he took them off but he didn’t like to do that here because of the dew and wet leaves. They were now approaching the road. He called to Sam, the soppy old Labrador which trotted along chewing up a stick he’d found and put him on his lead. When he reached the road the lights were red. He tried to stop but the shoes wouldn’t let him. They kept on moving, moving out between the moving buses, moving out between the lorries and cars, darting in and out between the motor cycles until finally a bus knocked him down. He died later that day but amazingly, the shoes and the dog were intact.

It was Brenda who first heard the noise when she had them in her own wardrobe. They seemed restless as though they wanted to find someone. She hated to see them there and wondered why she had not had them buried with Andy. Then she thought that maybe they’d be “quieter” with Alan, his only friend. She gave them to Alan who brought them home but said nothing about the noises they made or the feeling that they were looking at her when she took out the laces and looked into the eyelets through which they were threaded. From the moment Maureen had them in her own wardrobe she hated them and knew she would have to get rid of them. Somehow she knew they would kill Alan if she didn’t. She formulated her plan while drinking her tea and waiting for the alarm to wake him. When she was alone and he was at work, she’d take them – Take them and dump them beside the tree in the middle of Parmaston Grove. She was sure that this would be the best thing to do. It was far enough away from their own home so that they’d not be traced. If anyone asked her why she was doing it she could say that she was grief stricken at the loss of her friend and was a little unbalanced. They’d be safe there. No way could she or would she give them to anyone else. These shoes were evil.

When Alan had gone to work she phoned in sick. Her old ladies at the sheltered housing complex where she worked as a home help would understand and that nice Head of the school where she also worked would sympathise too. She never took any time off she was so conscientious. Quietly she looked out of the car window to make sure nobody was looking. Then she saw that one man on a bicycle was coming past. She waited for him to go and then gently placed the shoes by the tree. As she was getting into her car she saw to her horror that the shoes were running after her. She only just managed to scramble into the car in time to drive away with the shoes in hot pursuit.

Just as Cybil was coming out of the local post office she saw them too. They’d just crossed the main road where a group of startled pedestrians and motorists were staring open mouthed at the sight of a pair of lone shoes running side by side along the road as if they were being chased by the devil himself. Suddenly and without warning Cybil fell to the floor with shock. Then the shoes came for her and began to batter her about the head and body. As if they contained the weight of a man, and crushed her ribs as they danced upon her and leapt on her chest. They broke her legs as they did their frenzied dance like the mad things they had become. Eventually the laces flicked out of their eyelets and wrapped themselves round her throat like coiling snakes. They squeezed and squeezed until all her life had ebbed away. I should know. I was the reporter on the story for the BBC news. As I picked them up once they had stopped their deadly dance I saw a face – A man’s face with a hammer in his hand cobbling the soles and the uppers back together.

(The end).