The policeman, I forget his name already – Masters? Marsden? – reclines in his seat and regards me with a gaze that is probably intended to be intimidating but can only be described as ‘cute.’ It’s true what they say about the police looking younger as you age.
“Tell me about your conversation with Gina Montrose on Monday,” he says. “You were overheard talking about Marco Conti.”
Continue readingAs the poor got poorer, local councils were inspired to think about the optics of people dying alone in unheated homes during the chilly winters. Small grants enabled local organisations with free space to keep their heating on and invite local people to come in and warm up, sometimes offering soup and sandwiches as part of their welcome to the heat hub.
People certainly benefitted from the warmth, and they also met other people. For some this went no further than the chat and the bingo. For others it presented opportunities to establish some common ground: to build solidarity.
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The thing about Iffy is that he’s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and ‘if only’ flights of fancy. That’s where his nickname comes from ‘if only I’d done this or that or the other’.
Take last Thursday as an example. A few mates met up in the pub and were mentioning the imminent implosion of the marriage of two of our friends. Off goes Iffy:
‘If only I’d asked Gwenda to marry me before she met Bob. We could have been happy. Maybe we’d have moved to the country. It’s my fault they’re not happy’.
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An unexpectedly early inheritance: poor Aunt Hettie shouldn’t have died so early, and Janine hadn’t considered the implications. However, hearts wear out, and as a result, Janine now owned a largish suburban house and just enough income to enable early retirement from a dull, mid-rank civil service post. Janine stepped out of her job and (at last) from an unsatisfactory marriage, kicking them both aside like dirty clothing. Free!
The house had a lovely garden backing on to a small copse. There was ample time in Janine’s rethought life to take on beekeeping, two hives of bees soon making good use of the garden.
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I love a conspiracy theory, don’t you? Say what you like about them, mine is the best. It’s about…well let me take you to our inaugural meeting to hear believers and the yet-to -be convinced shouting the odds…
Newbie 1: You’re saying Earth is a penal colony used by several peaceful and well run planets to deport their undesirables? Well that makes complete sense to me. I’m in. Who do we have to kill?
Newbie 2: Where did you get the information? Q Anon are very clear about their origins.
Continue readingHow I came to be in McLaine’s commune on the shore of Puerto de la Valencia is a story for another time, because today, of all days, is about tomorrow.
McLaine was busying himself with his fishing nets in the courtyard at the back of the pre-civil war building housing his community, his wives, Consuela and Pamela were arguing in a mixture of rapid-fire Spanish and Surrey English about the best way to gut hake, and the writers, me included, were sitting on the garden wall watching the TV we rented for the occasion. We’d positioned it there because no room in the house was big enough to hold more than two of us and one of those would have to be standing.
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The interesting thing about crossroads, well to me anyway, is that they take many forms. The physical, the metaphorical, the emotional. Sometimes you don’t even realise you’re at one until it is too late.
The defining characteristic of all of them though is choice, the temptation to stray from your originally chosen path to explore pastures new.
We found our own personal crossroads in a previously unexplored area of the galaxy called The Midnight Quadrant, no charts to guide us, seeking our fortune. The sensor probes we’d sent out had returned nothing but dust for weeks, and we were just about to leave when the onboard AI threw a visual up on the holographic screen and proudly announced that there was an anomaly worth investigating. His enthusiasm was somewhat wearing and, not for the first time, I wished he’d chosen a female-presenting form and voice. I hated the 1930’s suit, hat, and guitar.
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Feeling totally confused, Jaxon lay there. He could hear lots of noise, occasional conversation that seemed to be about him. His eyes refused to open; where the hell was he? Drifting off, the bleeps seemed to soothe him.
Out of nowhere appeared a boy about his age, wearing funny clothes like you see in the black and white photos his mam had. When he started to speak to him, Jaxon’s mind went into overdrive.
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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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Lorenzo had booked the local pub, boasting to a few hopefuls that they’d win “oh fifty quid” and have the attention of a hundred people when they performed.
The worst thing that could happen was that they’d be laughed at, although this crowd tended to look away in embarrassment when a no-talent embarrassed themselves.
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I must say, it was the weirdest outing ever. I can try to laugh about it now but really, it just reinforced all my early fears about not getting into things where you can’t see a clear way out. (I completely blame the Brothers Grimm for this, what with Hansel and Gretel having such a close encounter with an oven – nightmare).
Dilly, my sister, (Delia, but she hates the name)and I live far apart so we take the occasional weekends together and meet up for hotel stays, meals out, the odd show and whatever we fancy.
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I wish I was more savvy. As a child, I could have joined more dots and avoided being completely gaslighted via the medium of song. These were supposed to be songs about real people who we were expected to feel sympathy for. In part I blame the News Chronicle Book of Songs for providing the lyrics and not-too-challenging piano scores for not remotely accomplished teachers to aid our indoctrination.
Take the ‘Skye Boat Song’: lovely tune, romantic story, you forgot to ask just what happened to Bonnie Prince Charlie and his devoted Flora once they arrived in Skye. He was a hero, fleeing the massacre on Culloden fields (or did he decide to give Culloden a miss that day?).
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Driving from Cardiff to Swansea, Lloyd found a passenger in his car.
‘Who are you?’ he said, slowing.
‘Your inner self,’ came the reply.
The guy certainly looked like him: older, more haggard, greyer. It could be him.
‘You’re on the wrong road, Jim,’ the passenger said, ‘every day commuting a ton of miles to that vehicle licensing hole.’
‘It’s a job.’
‘So’s being a galley slave. How about jumping ship?’
Port Talbot steelworks skittered by, its Meccano limbs tangled against the grey sky as if in agony. The other Jim had vanished, gone in a spurt of yellow steelworks gas.
Work went badly. Workmates faces resembled those of ghouls. The phone calls, a hundred ways of asking the same thing about car tax, lapped in his brain with a disturbing echo. He felt outside everything.
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The university park stumbled down to the sea, imitating the crazy lurching of the terraced houses on the same giddy hill. Sam scuffed about the paths round the flower beds, vaguely aware of daffodils in bloom.
He had a sharp, stabbing pain at the side of his stomach that wouldn’t go away. He was utterly miserable. Three years he’d stayed away from the town, but as soon as he’d entered the park – following the route he and Nicola had often walked – the sense of oppression had just welled up from within him. Memories from the past pushed up a bit like bulbs in the soil.
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