A bell rang.
‘It’s Linda, Mum,’ her son said. ‘With her husband, Jeff. They’re driving you to your brother’s.’
‘Linda?’
‘Hello, Aunt Violet.’ A woman at the door was kissing her.
‘She’s not been there in decades,’ her son said. ‘Good of Ronnie to deign to see her again, isn’t it?’
He was chuckling but the woman kept a straight face.
In the car the woman said, ‘It’s Uncle Ronnie’s sixtieth wedding anniversary.’
‘Anniversary? Is he married?’
‘To Betty. Remember Betty?’
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“In my life,” Becca said to the class, concluding her written homework, “I have worn the masks of a wife, a poet, a teacher and a lover, but none of these can disguise, the empty space inside, where once lived a mother.”
The class was silent until the new boy, Bill Transom, flicked a piece of spittle-soaked paper at Rebecca. “Well, that was shit.”
Laughter erupted, and Becca flushed. She turned to Miss Jackson, who stood with her back to the class, studying a jogger crossing the boundary between the school playing fields and the village green. She turned to face Becca.
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Mitzi nudged Helen’s leg, breaking her out of her reverie. Sighing, Helen collected the lead, her coat and the little booties they had bought the previous year to protect her little paws in the icy weather.
The front door opening, a shiver ran down her back as the cold wind hit her. As Helen looked down, Mitzi pulled her out of the door. Everything sparkled, little diamonds shone on trees and hedgerows, houses were all lit up. There were Christmas trees in windows, and families gathered together playing games, and laughing together.
Helen took their usual walk through the village, stopping to sit a moment on their usual bench. The pond glistened and ducks, all warm in their nest, murmured to each other. Mitzi started pulling, jumping excitedly, looking across Hubert who was sat there.
Continue reading“I’m not giving up Hope!” Liz screamed into the phone at her ex-husband, before slamming it down.
Floods of tears drenched her face. She slowly lifted herself up off the floor, his words ringing in her ears. “Unfit mother, child neglect, no prospects.” How could he have said those things? He hadn’t had been that interested in Hope when he lived with them, why would he suddenly want custody?
After she had calmed down, she tried to reason it out. He’d never spent much time with them when he was at home. She doubted if he had even had the slightest idea of when Hope’s birthday was. He’d missed the fact that his daughter was besotted with him. It just didn’t make any sense.
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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.
Continue readingYvonne opened her eyes to a blackness and silence that caused her breath to stop and her heart to stutter. She lifted her hands up to feel her face, OK, I seem to be alive at any rate!
Putting her hands down she felt around, perceiving a slightly scratchy covering, probably a blanket, and a cool stiff fabric, a sheet. I can’t be in that much danger if they’ve put me in a bed!
Yvonne turned and put her feet down until they touched the floor. It was warm and slightly slippery. She stood up and, waving her hands in front of her, tried to find a wall in what she hoped was a bedroom.
Continue readingJane almost skipped out of the clinic. She had been told by her consultant that she was free of cancer. Striding down the road, she passed the travel agents with its tempting array of holidays. Telling herself that she could do this on her own, she went into the shop and bought a train ticket to Athens and a ferry ticket to the incredibly small island of Halki.
A month before the all-clear, Jane received a letter from Stella who now lived on Halkii. Jane had opened the letter with shaking hands and felt slightly sick. Stella and Jane were the best of friends in the early 80s but in 1987 they had a row to end all rows, on a cliff top of all places! Jane told Stella she did not want to see her and Stella cut all contact.
Continue readingI had to move my bag to make room for him. It wasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a sardonic, “Happy New Year!”
“You a Swansea boy?”
“Pontypool,” I said.
“The Pontypool Front Row! Remember them?”
“Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham Price,” I said.
“More of a Neath boy, me. From Resolven I am … you’d think I’d be one for making New Year’s resolutions, wouldn’t you? It’s in the name.”
I let the chug of the bus answer.
“The number of times I have given up fags and booze … Eventually, the penny drops, don’t it. No point making yourself miserable.”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, just past mid-day.
Continue readingFather O’Brien was already waiting in the confessional. Mary could see his shoes tapping expectantly through the gap under the curtain. But she wasn’t here for the usual forbidden tryst.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…”
“Come into the Vestry, Mary,” Father O’Brien interrupted, breathlessly.
“Father, listen. I’m with child. Yours, of course.” She dissolved into tears.
Father O’Brien muttered a prayer. “Wait there,” he said, finally.
His footsteps echoed and faded as he clattered out of the church.
Continue readingShe had dreamt of winning the really big fortune
And now she had finally done so she had also won
The lottery and she had also finally learnt about politics
And got to marry her sweetheart but it was not how
She imagined it would be or feel. She was living the dream
it was not all it cracked up to be. She had thought it
Would be living the dream it was living the dream but not
living it at all it, it was not like living at all.
Her husband was a Strictly Come Dancing addict. You couldnt get his attention when the programme was on. But when she said, Malcolm, I think Im pregnant, he turned the tv off immediately, and danced her around the room. Theyd been trying for ten years and now shed conceived.
When the first scan revealed a girl, Malcolm began drawing up a list of necessary purchases such as a cot and a baby car-seat. Do we buy pink clothes, or is that sexist stereotyping nowadays? he asked solemnly.