There was a dame sitting at the bar. She was attractive and alone. I decided to take a chance. I slid onto the stool next to her and asked if she wanted a drink.
‘My name is Alice’ she said, ‘Alice Fortune. Miss Alice Fortune.’ I noticed her beautiful smile as she shook my hand.
As our fingers met, I felt something pass between us. My sixth sense was screaming at me but I took no notice, I was hooked.
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‘Find the killer of my daughter.’ Beauleigh Williams’ breath came in more pants than a filly at the Derby. ‘Where you gonna start?’
‘Motive,’ I replied. ‘Did she have any enemies?’
‘She had a boyfriend. He was my enemy. The rat wasn’t good
enough for her. He’s not good enough for a female rodent, come to that.’
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It is notoriously difficult to swim through pancake batter, so Emmie settled for floating on her back. Her eyes opened briefly after a staccato rattle, followed by a piercing whistle, a loud bang and a cascade of spitting bright star fragments. A war must have started. Emmie was dimly conscious of being shot in the middle somewhere; blood everywhere, lots of pain. Best get back to the pancake batter. She re-submerged.
Her eyes crept open again on hearing voices.
‘She’s coming round. Are you OK love? It’s Mum here. You had us worried’
Emmie was pleased to hear this because she too was starting to be worried.
‘What’s the fighting about out there? I think there’s a bullet in my belly. It really hurts a lot and I keep falling into a thick lake. And…’
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A new message flashes. The little icon with her photo, all Bambi-eyes and dimples, sets his heart racing. And then there’s that other feeling. The one he shouldn’t have for someone her age. The one that twists his stomach and clamps his jaw tight.
The curtains are drawn, as always. His secrets fester like bacteria in the stale air, seeping into the furniture. They clutter every surface, filthy as the plates that litter his room. He cannot risk them spreading beyond the confines of this house. Not like they did in the old neighbourhood.
These new neighbours seem friendly. They posted that ‘Welcome’ note through his door, with the link to the community Facebook group. That’s where the fireworks display was advertised. And where he found the laughably easy to access local youth chatroom. Honestly, this lot could do with some internet safety training.
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Watkins, a whole platoon in a single body, clumsily barged open the door. The committee room became a lot more crowded with his entrance. ‘They can’t deliver today,’ he said.
Davies, his face communion wafer white, said, ‘Why not?’
‘Strike at the depot.’
‘For the best,’ said Jones.
‘This is going to be a success!’ Davies insisted.
‘It’s meant to be a do to celebrate Phil’s passing, for god’s sake.’ Jones sat up aggressively in his chair. ‘Why do we need bloody fireworks?’
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The storm clouds are gathered just to starboard, forcing us further and further west. The sun, lurking around the horizon and casting golden and amber hues, hasn’t set in what feels like eleven hundred days, although it’s tough to tell. We’ve given up counting, after the crude marks we’d scratched into the deck mysteriously vanished.
Time hasn’t frozen, so much as slowed to a crawl. The fluttering and rustling of the sails proves there’s still a tailwind; the creaks and groans of wood as waves lap around us, and the swells of the waves we ride, are enough to evidence that. Our crew, fractious at the best of times, had initially turned on each other, tensions increasing until it spilled to violence. Men were thrown overboard, beaten, and blades drawn. It had only stopped after a voice had cut across the melee, singing; pure, clean, and melodious.
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“This is your first time, right?”
The knife slid from my already-sweaty palm onto the ground with a thud. Someone had seen!
She was perched on a branch above me, swinging her legs. Behind her, gossamer wings sparkled in the half-light.
My heart stopped. This was it. I’d gone mad with the stress of it all. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
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As the bell rang young Billy Thomas barged his way out. Racing off he headed into the woods above the school Megan’s words echoing in his head: ”I’m sorry Billy we can’t be friends anymore.”
She had just walked away from him.
Gasping for breath he threw himself onto the floor. What had he done? He and Megan had been like brother and sister. They had played together for as long as Billy could remember.
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The postmistress had a bad reputation and specialised in being irritable with everybody. She was perhaps in her fifties, but almost of a geological age. You were put in mind of a slab of granite behind the serving hatch in the corner of the mini-supermarket. Her face was stony, her resentment hard.
‘NEXT!’ she barked from behind her counter. ‘First or second? Put it on the scales. ON them, not under them. Where’s it going? WHAT? Gib-raltar?’ She pronounced the word as though it were the most awful place on the planet. Then she forked the parcel off the scales with a plump paw, eyeing her customer in the manner of a prison guard with a felon.
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Carmichael’s curse came true.
She proclaimed in her base voice that Angus, Sean, and Ian would never see their twenty first birthdays.
“You’re all going to die,” she cackled.
And sure enough, they did.
Angus was the first to go, dropping dead in Spain, whilst partying with his college chums, Sean meanwhile died during his missionary work in China. Both croaked at the stroke of midnight on the eve of their birthdays.
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He strokes the canvas. With his eyes closed, and with a gentle enough touch, he can almost convince himself that he is feeling her skin, petal-soft, beneath his fingers. How he misses the feel of her. He can look at photos, listen to recordings, smell her perfume. But the sensation of his skin on hers, that can never be revisited. He swallows the lump in his throat.
In front of him, a meticulously mixed palette of colours – her colours, matched to the exact shade of her eyes, skin, lips and hair – glistens in the hazy garage light. It is as though she is here, all the parts of her, just waiting to be put back together. The thought brings him comfort. She has not gone, not really. Not when she can be re-created again and again, each time a greater likeness. If he just keeps going, perhaps he can conjure her back from the dead. He wields his paintbrush like a magic wand. A super-power, that’s what this is. This artistic gift of his. Dare he say it, he’s a God of sorts, if you really think about it.
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Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
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Mike Hoban was sitting in the armchair of his apartment in Finchley, London. At his feet, Amanda Abraham, his girlfriend, was working on a quilt she’d started just before Christmas. Mike is reading “The World According to Garp”.
“Is that good?” Amanda asked without looking up.
“Very,” Mike replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.”
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There’d been an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the village that morning. The boy was glad to go into the solitude of the woods to search for the fox. It wouldn’t take long. Foxes didn’t hide their tracks, unlike people. He stopped to hoist the shotgun onto his shoulder, then moved stealthily forward. Most of his friends knew nothing about foxes, but the boy knew where they made their dens and when they were most active. He could even tell if they were a dog or a vixen from the muskiness of their scent. The fox couldn’t escape him.
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He seemed nervous. ‘Good to meet you after the messaging, Cassie.’
After that, he Cassied her at the end of practically every sentence. Put him at his ease, butter him up, she thought. ‘You’re even nicer than your profile!’ she told him, and was chuffed when he blushed. No big ego then.
‘I’m more of a listener than a talker,’ he said. She smiled sweetly at this, holding his gaze with lingering craft. She hadn’t forgotten how to flirt.
‘You won’t replace me – not unless it’s somebody frigging desperate!’ Those were the words of Bill, ex-husband number two, on his departure. His words had nagged at her for a while, but here she was back on the dating game. Her confidence was breaking out again.
She’d chosen the café upstairs in Tesco. A late morning cup of tea before she went to work. Malcolm was a compact guy, a few years older than her, a couple of inches shorter . He was barrel-chested, making her think of a bullfrog. A gentle froggy: tender, a nice nature. She’d made mistakes with men before, but this one appealed to her. He was courteous and it was odd how she felt at ease talking with him, once he’d broken the shackles of silence.
‘I was brought up by my gran,’ he said, when she’d mentioned her three adult children in Blackburn. His mother had done drugs and had mental health problems.
Message to herself: Malcolm might need a mother figure. It could be arranged.
‘You’re local, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Belper.’
‘Handy.’ And she gave him a little come-on look. A sheepish expression on Malcolm’s face. She did like his shyness.
‘What do you think of me, Malcom?’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘Smitten?’
‘Well I… you know…’
‘You soon will be,’ and she gave a dirty laugh. No point beating about the bush. She was fifty-one, of large build, and she knew she’d never win a beauty contest. She wanted a man for love, friendship, and nookie. Malcolm would do her nicely.
‘So…?’ he said.
‘You’re sweet,’ she said standing up. ‘Fancy popping over to South Normanton to see me?’
‘Well I… yes…’
She gave him a peck on the cheek, and tapped his bum for good measure. That ought to get the message across. ‘Got to go to work, love. I’m in the next couple of evenings. Okay?’ He nodded, the same mix of embarrassment and interest. She was driving the show, and he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Soon then,’ she said, about to depart. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
Malcom was shaking, then he slid to the floor. For a nanosecond she thought of a frog slipping into a pond. Then her nurse’s instincts kicked in. She used her jacket to cushion his head, loosened his collar and tie to aid breathing, then turned him on his side when the convulsions stopped. She stayed with him until the ambulance came. Needs occasional nursing as well as mothering, she noted, as she drove to work.
Aysha had been running and hiding for two days, and still they followed her relentlessly. Now laying under a thorn bush, she was quivering. Her once sleek body was emaciated, a pale grey colour, her eyes seemed to take up her whole face, a beaten look in them.
The hunters found her the next morning, dragging her out and they set off for the krall. She had to be returned. They placed her in the care of the wise woman who set about treating her wounds, purging her of the parasites that she had swallowed in the river water, feeding her honey water and thin gruel. She slowly recovered .
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You know there’s something seriously wrong when the police arrive at your door past midnight. I guessed what it was at once. He had finally done it.
I’d moved out of the family home when I was seventeen, and haven’t put a foot inside it since. After years of wanting my father’s attention, I finally had it once I reached puberty. It was the wrong sort of course, “our little secret” he used to call it.
Poor Mum, the things she had to put up with over the years. She didn’t deserve any of it. She’d never told anybody of the mental and physical abuse she had been subjected to from ‘HIM.’ Even now I can’t call him ‘Dad’, he’s such a despicable human being. Why she stood by him all these years I will never understand.
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The summer city riots had spread to the rural north. The news eventually filtered through to the isolated mining village of Brookover. Its pit had long been closed, a sportswear assembly unit squatting on its corpse. It was the main employer for miles, the owners having brought in scores of Eastern Europeans on the minimum wage to toil there.
The presence of the ‘foreigners’ was a grievance: Polish shops, strange languages in the market square. Their healthy diet marked out the incomers too. They were thin and fit, not paunchy and panting like some locals.
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Okay, there’s certain stories you really dig. Sometimes it’s high art that you feel smart for liking. An approving conscience says well done, yada-yada.
Sometimes you like silly fluff for reasons you can’t justify but it was Crimson Camel who said a good paperback is preferable to bad literature.
Think about it, what would you rather eat, a fresh big mac or mouldy caviar?
So, this story, penned by the always entertaining Arizona Davies, takes us to a modest house. It’s during lockdown and two people are fucking.
They’re roleplaying with the guy doing a hearty pirate voice: “Yer be my kidnapped wrench ha-ha” but the gal decides to dial up the romance instead.
“I love you,” she states with puppy eyes “My heart aches for you.”
He frowns somewhat puzzled.
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My love for her echoes the unconditional love she has for me. She has watched me laugh and cry from the day I was born and made sure she raised me as a sensitive, loving person. There has always been respect for decisions I have made in life and she has corrected many mistakes I have made. Her guidance has made me a more rounded person. The commitment I have for her will always be there.
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