In the park she said: \u2018Tell me a story.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He looked at her round red face that had once suggested an arse. Then he had fallen in love with it, and all he could think of were apples, strawberries, ripe fruit, things sensuous to the tongue. Lately though a falling off, and rotting and withering slithered about his brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There was a man who considered his life was like a jigsaw.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018That it?\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You want more, Rebecca?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Have you got more in you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018A couple lunched out on a death anniversary. He, Bren, was thinking of a childhood conversation with his late mother. \u201cThat\u2019s Nanny in Ireland,\u201d she\u2019d said as a sound like a distant earthquake rumbled in her belly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u201cShe\u2019s got a funny voice,\u201d the infant Bren had replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u201cIsn\u2019t it travelling all the way from Kerry, darling,\u201d his mum\u2019d said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Bren\u2019s wife, Kath, pushing her finished plate away, broke into Bren\u2019s memory: \u2018\u201dExpect she\u2019s creating good vibes upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018True enough, Bren thought. Even that old cumudgeoun God will be snickering into his hoary whiskers when Mum becomes electric with chat. His mother had been gorgeous right until the end: blonde hair which with age silvered. She could cause male heads to turn like a Federer serve. Maybe it was the sky in her blue eyes, her stick of rock slimness, or simply her personality which rose before you like the head on a just poured stout. She left her thumbprint on folks\u2019 imaginations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u201cShe told me once she was a completed jigsaw but for one missing piece. I always assumed she meant you. I took you away and she wanted you for herself, didn\u2019t she?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u201cShe\u2019d have liked a daughter to go with her three sons: that\u2019s what she meant. She wasn\u2019t jealous of you at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u201cIs there a missing piece in your life, Bren? Just asking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Bren felt a tickle in his stomach. Not the curry, no, but his mother telling him: \u201cYou\u2019ve got all you want. Be satisfied!\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re OK, Kath,\u201d he said eventually. \u201cI weaned myself off Mum long ago.\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Not much of a story!\u2019 Rebecca scoffed. \u2018Who\u2019s the mummy\u2019s boy? It\u2019s you isn\u2019t it!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rebecca was giving him that snear more and more recently. Nineteen years of age, pretty as a supermarket punnet of peaches, and yet her face was smeared with the war paint of ugliness. She\u2019s developing a nasty feeling for me, spitting venom on my weak points, he thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oedipal Bren\u2019s my father, actually.\u2019 Rebecca was too dumb to get the story. His initial take on her face had been right. She\u2019d the imagination of a pair of dumping buttocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018So what\u2019s your <\/em>missing piece, lover boy?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n He surveyed Rebecca the way a carpenter might study a rusty screw. \u2018You. As of now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n He got up and walked away, not looking back at the park bench. Rachel was the surplus piece the manufacturer had unnecessarily put in his box; the unwanted extra. He was complete now, surely?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the park she said: \u2018Tell me a story.\u2019 He looked at her round red face that had once suggested an arse. Then he had fallen in love with it, and all he could think of were apples, strawberries, ripe fruit, things sensuous to the tongue. Lately though a falling off, and rotting and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,718],"tags":[7,20,14],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-april-2023-missing","tag-her","tag-his","tag-she"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-jigsaw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}