A VISIT AT CHRISTMAS

 A VISIT AT CHRISTMAS

BY BOB FRENCH 

The judge at Edmonton Crown Court cleared his throat, thanked the jury, for their service, then glanced up at the young man standing in the dock.

“You have been found guilty of grievous bodily harm against Miss Victoria Smith.”  The judge stared down at his papers then adjusted his glasses.”

“Charles Alexander Fenwick, you have been convicted of the offence of manslaughter, by the verdict of a jury.  The court has heard that on the 31^st of December 2023, You and the victim, Miss Victoria Ann Smith, caught the 11:10pm train from Bristol Temple Mead to Exeter. According to several witnesses, you were both drunk and arguing.  At around 11:30pm, you were seen swearing and fighting in the carriage corridor of the train with Miss Smith, and that during this fight, you opened the carriage door and pushed Miss Smith out onto the track whilst the train was moving.”

“I have considered the aggravating factors in this case, including the fact that you were both drunk and fighting in a public place, I have also considered the mitigating circumstances, and the evidence of Doctor Yellington regarding the medical state of Miss Smith.”

He turned to the Doctor. “Doctor, as of nine o’clock this morning was Miss Smith still in a comma?”

The Doctor stood. “That is correct Your Honour.”

“And is there any indication as to when she will recover?”

“I am afraid that only nature can tell us Sir.”

The judge turned his attention back to Alexander. “Your lack of remorse about the health of Miss Smith’s condition is plain to see.  I therefore sentence you to a term of twelve years imprisonment. You will serve half of this sentence in custody before being eligible for release on license." 

That night in the Duck and Pheasant, Alexander’s second home, everyone felt sorry for their star rugby player.  Some gave their penny worth about a fair trial, others thought Victoria should have been in the dock and some thought that Alexander should have been given a much longer sentence, whilst the majority of his friends thought that Victoria had it coming to her.

 Victoria Ann Smith had arrived in the small town hoping to get a job at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.  She had qualified as a nurse in Liverpool, but decided she wanted to live and work down south.  It didn’t take her long to find, then mix in with the ‘in crowd’ which centered around the local rugby team.

On a cold, wet and windy Saturday afternoon in November, some of Victoria’s friends decided to go and support the local rugby team on the understanding that the third half was always a great hoot, with good food and drink. Victoria had never been to watch a game of rugby and was surprised how rough it was. Half-way through the second half, three players collided with each other and spun across the muddy touch line, knocking three of Victoria’s friends over.  All six ended up in a deep muddy puddle. 

Without thinking, Victoria donned her nurse’s hat and jumped into the pile of groaning bodies, quickly administering medical advice to those who followed her.

Two of the players were classed as walking wounded, but one player, a tall six-foot blond-haired man had to be stretchered off the pitch.  Victoria stayed with him until he reached the dressing room.  The coach, an elderly man who by the state of his nose, was an ex-rugby player, thanked her and asked if she could stay and help administer first aid?

“Sure.  Let me examine him properly first.” 

The coach, whose name was Bert, dug out a rusty old tin with a white circle and red cross on it.  “This is all we have.”

Victoria grinned and thought ‘when had the health and safety rules changed the marking on first aid boxes to white with a green cross.’

“Alright Bert, help me get this muddy jersey off him, but be careful, it looks as if he has a dislocated shoulder. After a great deal of gentle pulling and pushing, Bert swore.

“Sorry love.  We are going to have to cut him out of it.”

“No! it’s my favorite shirt.” The player shouted.

“What’s you name?” Victoria looked him sternly in the face.

“Alexander.  Do you really have to destroy my jersey?”

“No, not really.  I can leave you in your stinking, muddy shirt and wait until infection sets in.  Then I doubt you will ever play rugby again.  Your choice?”

Alexander reluctantly gave in and lay back down on the physio bed.

“Now just relax.  I will count to three then you will feel a sharp pain as I put your shoulder back in its right place, OK?”

“One, Two,” then she pulled his shoulder back into its original place.

What followed was a string of foul language, including some words that Victoria had never heard before.

“Right, lets look at the rest of your injuries. Bert, can you sponge his legs down so I can get a good look please.”

“umm! This looks bad. I think you are going to need stitches.  Do you have the kit to do this Bert?”

“Yes. Not sure if it’s clean and sterile though.”

“Have you any antiseptic?”

“Yeh, got that in a bottle over there. I’ll get it.  Do you need some cotton wool?”

Victoria thanked him and continued to study his legs.

Once Bert had finished cleaning the mud from his legs, Victoria completed her inspection.  She noticed that Alexander had so many scars from playing rugby; it was little wonder that there was any space left for more scars.

After the game had finished, the bar, club hall and dressing room started to fill up.  Bert suggested that he’d bring Alexander out once he’d got him sorted.

From that moment on, for over a year, Victoria and Alexander became an item.  They were never seen apart. Then in the summer, he invited her to move into his flat and for a few months’ life was bliss. They even decided to pool their resources and open a joint account.

Alexander gradually became aware of her variable behaviour and was a little surprised.  She was not slow in coming forward so that she got her way. Alexander was what one may call a gentle giant, a bit of a push over and he thought it was just first or second date nerves.

At Christmas, he wanted to take her up to London, take in a show and then have a nice meal at one of the posh restaurants. But she had other ideas. She wanted to go dancing down at Chinnerys in Southend.

A few months later they were contemplating a spring holiday. Alexander suggested Cyprus, but Victoria vetoed that idea and they spend two weeks in Val d’lsere, costing a fortune. On the last day of their holiday Alexander decided to have it out with her.  What was suppose to be a discussion between two people who were in love, it quickly turned into a real fight. To defend himself, Alexander had to pin her down until she relaxed, leaving bruise marks on her wrists and upper arms.

Alexander knew many of Victoria’s friends and one evening met up with them in a local pub.

“Thanks for meeting up with me and please forgive me if I cross over any boundaries of friends trust.  Since we got married, Victoria’s behaviour has deteriorated to the extent that on our last holiday we ended up actually fighting each other, and it wasn’t nice. One friend suggested that she might be on some sort of drug, but the other friends shouted her down.

A week later Alexander suggested that they follow the rugby team down to Bath staying at a really nice hotel.  To his surprise she agreed and the train into London was without problem.  Then on the Great Western Railways train she found a bar on board and started to have a drink, then another until she was tipsy. Then they started fighting.  He chased her down the corridor.  Then they started to struggle and without reason, they crashed against the door which suddenly flung open.  He tried to grab her but the suction caused by the rushing air past the open door sucked her out. That evening the Bristol police arrested him in the hotel and took him back to London.

It was the late afternoon on the 24^th of December and Alexander was about to start his eight years in prison.  Alexander kept himself to himself, but the word got out that he had beaten his wife into a coma and she had died.  As he watched the rugby game one of the Prison Staff touched him on the shoulder and quietly said that he had a visitor.

“Who is it? No one ever visits me.  Are you sure?”

“Just get a move on. I want to watch the game as well.”

Alexander went to the visitor’s room, sat down in the cubical and waited.

Then the door opened and a woman entered the other side of the glass.

When she took off her scarf and glasses, Alexander stood up and stared at the woman.

“God! I thought you were dead.”

Victoria grinned. “No.  I just popped in to wish you a happy Christmas before we, that’s Manuell and I are off on a holiday in the sun.”

“But have you told my solicitor that you have come out of your coma and that I want to challenge my sentence. I still have money you know.”

Victoria gave a quiet laugh.  “Alexander sorry but you have no money any more.  Remember we had a joint account and I took great delight in spending it all.  As far as your solicitor knows, I died last year.  I have a new identity now and my boyfriend is taking me to Spain on his yacht, then onto the Caribbean.  Goodby Alexander have a happy Christmas.

Copyright Bob French  ~  Dec2024

 

Time out

Barbara Thomas

After it had been heavily advertised in the local paper.

My mother, myself and my late husband decided to visit Aldi’s supermarket in Southend on Sea Essex to see what all the fuss was about.

 

As we entered the new surroundings picking up our baskets and looking forward to checking all the goods on show.

 

Mum picked up several items then picked up a large jar of pineapple, all excited she explained she hadn’t seen that fruit for years, so without fail it went in her basket.

 

Then she was gazing at other jams and noted something that made her frown then she turned to me and asked me a question “was Aldi’s a German company” I replied, “yes it was, why?”

 

Well! before I knew what had happened this smart quiet 88 year old lady, took everything out of her basket.

 

Then looking round she glimpsed the elderly old man on the opposite aisle.

She immediately went up to him and said that was he aware that the shop was German owned. He said, “no he hadn’t realised”, then Mum asked him had he served in the forces during WW2

A bit taken back at first after being accosted by this little lady, he said quietly that yes he had served for 6 years in the Royal Engineers during World War 2

 

Now this was the time out moment:

 

My Mum then told this innocent man to immediately put his goods back and go leave the shop, as in her words, “we lost too many of our good men in that war to start giving money to the Germans”.

 

He obeyed my mother and without another word, walked out of the shop followed by, you guessed it, my mother.

 

Although weeks later my mother saw a music centre she had seen advertised in Aldi’s and would I get it for her?

My reply was “No! I thought you didn’t give money to Germans”.

 

Copyright Barbara Thomas

 

Haiku Collaborations :

Haiku Collaborations :

By Rob Kingston & Christina Chin 

Enjoy...

 Are we there yet?

By Jane Goodhew

“Are we there yet, are we there yet?” they repeated the words over and over until I thought if I heard them one more time, I would open the car door and shove the pair of them out!  What was I thinking of, not about shoving them out the door but in taking them to a pantomime.  A pantomime used to be exactly that a mime meaning actions speak louder than words but how they have changed and now they are loud, brash and not my idea of comedy or fun in any shape or form.  I tried to control my temper, to refrain from taking the next left and going back home after all it was Christmas.  The season to be loving and giving and suffering, after all isn’t childbirth suffering and Mary had given birth to Jesus, which was why we celebrate, isn’t it?  Although I think the meaning has been lost in translation over the last century and now it appears to be a time for greed and overindulgence and pantomime.  I could almost hear myself say “BAH Humbug” as I was beginning to sound like Scrooge.

“Which one are we seeing,” they ask in unison, and I have to think hard for which one we are seeing.  “Cinderella” I say and then the song Cinderella rock a fella keeps on repeating itself in my head and how I long for the Sound of Silence.  I keep driving telling myself to still be calm, and at peace, it will soon be over, and they will be back at school and normality will prevail.  For they are not even my children but my sisters, away at the moment taking a restful holiday in the sun with her workaholic husband who could only take this period off from his busy schedule.  How convenient!

I remind myself to be more charitable and less hostile towards them after all they are delightful, polite, well mannered, no problem at all.  Who was I kidding they were little monsters, they awoke early,  and even when sent to bed they continued chattering away until late and if I went upstairs to ask them to be quiet they just looked at me as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths and as soon as my back was turned begin again.

“Aunty, Aunty” they scream in delight, as they see the sign for the theatre.  We are almost there but, first we stop off to buy some sweets at the corner shop; as they are always extortionate in the foyer.  I am Scrooge!  They stock up on all that would be banned the rest of the year, and they look so angelic when they smile sweetly and say, “Thank you Aunty, we do love you and enjoy staying with you.”  How they manage to say it with such a straight face I don’t know perhaps they are psychopaths in the making.

Back in the car, they resume their game of Eye Spy and that was when I spied another sign, the billboard for Cinderella and a poster straight across it with the words CANCELLED DUE TO SICKNESS.                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                        

My prayers had been answered as I turned the car around and headed back home with two very subdued and forlorn children who would now have to finish decorating the tree instead and go to bed early whilst they waited for Santa to call.  

 

Copyright Jane Goodhew

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

NO TIME TO RUN

 

NO TIME TO RUN - (out of time)

By Bob French

It was a crisp February morning, the mist still hung over the meadows and fields that led into the High Street of Little Easton, in Essex. The air smelt of pine and damp grass.  Roddy Crocket, ‘Davey’ to his friends, ignored the early morning dog walkers and paper-boys as he strode purposely down the High Street towards the little cottage next to the bus stop, adjusting his large military ruck-sack as he went.

He knew not many people would recognise him.  When he left five years ago, he was a pimply, five-foot three-inch boy who was always being picked on in school.  Now he stood six foot two, sported a tan that some would die for and was well built.  He felt sadness creep throughout his body, knowing that his mother’s neighbour had written to him, to tell him that his mum was very poorly. Once his platoon sergeant heard about it, he was on the first flight out of Afghanistan.

When he reached the bus stop, he glanced down at the little cottage set back from the high street and was angry with himself. The peeling paint, sagging porch, and the rose bushes and shrubs that his mother cared for since his dad had passed, looked wasted and desolate.

He rang the door-bell, then realized that it didn’t work, so he banged on the door a couple of times.  Within minutes he heard the “ow-ee” from Mrs. Jones, her next-door neighbour.

“Can I help you young man?”

“Mrs. Jones. It’s me Roddy.  I have come home to see what’s the matter with Ma; I can’t thank you enough for your letter.”

“Come around the back.  The front door is a little warped.”

Roddy followed her around the side of the cottage and his eyes picked up more neglect; windows cracked and drain-pipes leaking, then he caught site of the once beautiful garden.  It now resembled some of the sites he’d passed through on patrol in the Helman Province.

Mrs. Jones pushed open the kitchen door and moved quickly into the front room.  The stench of body odour and dampness stung the back of his throat.  There sitting in his Dad’s old arm-chair was his mum.

“Angie.  I got someone who wants to see you.”

Roddy’s eyes filled with tears as he stared down at his mother. 

He had to really look into her face to find the woman who had brought him up, then cared for him when her soul mate and his dad had passed.

In a frail voice, Angie called out his name. “Roddy love, is that you.  What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come home to care for you Ma.  Help get you back on your feet, thanks to Mrs. Jones.” 

“Roddy love, I’ll let you get acquainted with your Ma.  If you want anything, I’m only next door.”  With that she quietly left.

True to military fashion he stood.  “Let’s get you a cup a tea, then we can talk.”

   It took him a few minutes to find a couple of clean tea-cups, then glanced around the kitchen and thought that the place needed a major renovation job.  Then his eyes fell on a bundle of unopened letters underneath her old green cardigan.

He scooped them up and put them on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, promising to read them once he had got his mum sorted.

Sitting down opposite her, Roddy gently asked what has been going on. Has she been poorly?

“Roddy Love, it’s the new land lord. He said that I had signed a new contract which gave him the right to take over the upkeep and maintenance of my home.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you sign the new lease?  Have you got a copy of this new contract?

He could see his mother struggling with question.”

“Don’t bother just yet Ma, Let’s get you sorted out.  Do you mind if I have a wander around the place and see what needs sorting first?”

She smiled with her eyes and nodded.  “Will you be staying long?”

“As long as it takes Ma. Don’t you worry.” 

It took him nearly two hours to have a good look at the damage that had been caused by neglect, then he came and sat down next to his Ma.

“Ma, it’s going to take me a little while to get this sorted, but I don’t want you to worry.  Who collects your pension?”

“Mavis, next door. Why”

Roddy had to think who Mavis was, but his thoughts were interrupted when she explained that Mavis was Mrs. Jones.

“And what standing orders do you have, like the gas and electricity?”

“Oh, its that nice man, Mr. Green down at the Natwest.  He sorts all that stuff for me.”

“What about the rent.  Do you pay for that through the bank?”

Her voice quietened and he could see fear in her eyes. “Ma, what’s the matter.  Don’t you like the man who comes and collects the rent?”

“No.  I don’t trust him.  Every few months he tells me that the rent has gone up.  I tell him that I won’t pay any more rent unless he comes and fixes the gutters and windows.”

Roddy was beginning to see where this was going and had to really control his anger.

“OK Ma, but don’t you worry.  I will take care of things.  But I want you and Mavis not to say they have seen me to anyone who knows you, including people you don’t know.  I can sort all this out if the people who are hurting you, don’t know I am here, is that OK?”

For the first time his mother smiled and he knew that she was on the mend.

“Right then, breakfast.”

Later that morning, Roddy climbed over the back fence onto the road.  He walked for about half an hour until he came to a car hire garage and hired a non-descript hatch back. Then he went through the local paper and jotted down various tradesmen who could repair and redecorate his mother’s cottage.  He explained that it was a cash in hand job.

That afternoon, having done a mega shop at Liddle’s in Colchester, he drove home and parked his hire car next to the cemetery, along-side several other cars.  Then spent a couple of hours helping his mother sort out the laundry, bedding and clearing out the kitchen. After dinner, he sat down and started to go through the pile of letters that his Ma had received.

By ten, it was time to crash.  He had assembled those letters demanding payment; those from the land-lord’s company and those who were responsible for the upkeep of the cottage. he settled down to go over the letters. 

Something nagged him.  It was a name; Duggan. Then it came to him, Harry Duggan was one of the gang leaders who had made his life at school unbearable. He grinned as he read that Duggan was part of the landlord organization who took the rent. Then, to his surprise, he read that Bert Duggan, the younger sibling of the Duggan empire, ran the maintenance company responsible for the up-keep of the eight small cottages on the edge of the village.

He asked Mrs. Jones if she would act on behalf of his mother when any tradesmen came to repair things around the cottage or the grounds. He gave her the names of the companies who would be doing the job. She understood why the need for secrecy.

He then recalled that Ann, a girl he had a crush on in the senior year of his school, had taken an apprenticeship with a legal firm in Colchester, so he chanced his luck and once he’d found the firm on the internet, called her.  After a brief chat, he made an appointment to see her.

 They met at the Wimpey Bar and to his surprise they hit it off.  Once he had explained what had brought him back from overseas, she was angry and promised if there was anything she could do, all he had to do was ask.

“Ann, Can I ask you a huge favour?”

“From what you have told me you don’t need a favour, you need to hire my firm to represent your mother in court.”

Roddy took his time explaining what he wanted her to do, which she quickly agreed to.

Her first call, after checking with the Inland Revenue to see if the Duggan’s had submitted their tax returns for this year.  Within an hour they had called her back and explained that the firm had avoided any returns for the past four years.  Before hanging up, she warned the officer that the Duggan’s would almost certainly try to destroy their accounts, and leave the UK for Spain. The legal wheels had started to grind. Then she wrote to Harry Duggan.

It was three o’clock on Friday afternoon when Harry read the letter from Ann.  It was a very formal and straight forward demand:

‘It is noticed that your company has failed to present your accounts for the past four financial years. You are there for required to have all your accounts and supporting receipts for the past four financial years ready for inspection by Wednesday next week.’

Harry’s face went white and quickly lunged for the telephone and dialed Frank, his accountant. The phone was answered by one of the clerks who explained that Frank was away for a week; funeral of his brother or something.’

Harry, knew that he had to destroy everything and then warn his brother to do the same before Monday morning, then head off to Spain.

It was reported in the local newspapers that the two Duggan brothers had been arrested on Friday evening trying to destroy evidence required by the Inland Revenue.  They were expected to receive a lengthy jail sentence each.  It was also reported that the three local tradesmen who had been shut out of the village had now formed a new company who would care for and look after the original eight cottages in the village.

Roddy pushed the door open to his mum’s front room and was greeted by a smiling face; the face he remembered before he left home all those years ago.

Copyright Bob French

 

 A Hard Life

By Janet Baldey

“Between Tesco’s and the station, that’s where you’ll find me. Riding the pavement from dawn till dusk.  It’s a good pitch, the best. You get a steady stream of shoppers raiding Tesco’s and later there’s party goers back from an evening in Town.  But it’s hard being me.  I thought of getting meself a dog, for company as well as the sympathy vote, but I wouldn’t wish my life on any animal. For starters, it’d have to put up with the verbal abuse. Not that it bothers me, I’m used to it.  It was my lullaby when I was a kid. There’s nothing folk can say to me that I haven’t heard before.

 Have you ever been lonely?   I don’t mean like if your family are away for a bit, or you’re on your tod in a strange town - I mean really lonely.  Like when you know no-one in this world gives a toss about you.  You could die in your sleep and no-one would care, or even notice, except they would because the pavements have to be kept clear of dead bodies, ‘cos it would never do to have commuters tripping over them. 

Sometimes I watch little kids going in and out of the supermarket, clutching their Mum’s hand or swaying on their Dad’s shoulders and feel I could kill for a childhood like that.  My mum never loved me. Not in the slightest.  I often wonder why she never got some pills and flushed me down the toilet when she first realised she was up the duff.   Too stoned, I suppose, or drunk, and eventually I popped out of her fanny. 

         My gran took care of me.   She loved me – when I was little she used to take me to the park to feed the ducks, only I didn’t understand and ate the bread meself.    

‘No, lovie, that’s for them fellas over there, the ones with the feathers.’   Then, she’d roar with laughter and give me a hug.

 Sometimes we made gingerbread together. I mixed the ginger in with the flour and when she’d rolled out the mixture, I cut out shapes of little men.  Lovely, they were. We ate them straight out of the oven, warm and crumbly they melted in yer mouth. I remember their taste and me mouth fills with water.  Yeah.   My gran loved me.   Although sometimes she’d cry and stroke my hair and call me her ‘poor little lamb’, but she’d never say why although, looking back, I think she knew. Then, she died and left me all alone.

 I lived with Mum afterwards.  At first, I didn’t understand why Gran wasn’t there and kept crying for her. Mum use to yell at me, said I was getting on her nerves.  She’d throw me in a bedroom and lock the door.

There was a constant stream of men coming in and out but I never knew their names.  I reckon Mum didn’t know either ‘cuz she told me to call them all ‘Uncle’.  When there was a special ‘Uncle’ expected, Mum didn’t want to let on she had a kid so she shut me in the cellar.  It was pitch black and I was terrified at first.  Later though, I got used to it, at least no-one screamed or hit me down there.

         I was always hungry but it was easy to scavenge in our house.  There was always bits of pizza lying around and occasionally an ‘Uncle’ would send me to the chippy.

         ‘Don’t bother hurrying back.’  He’d add.  So now I reckon I know every nook and cranny of this shitty town. That’s come in handy now.

         At school, no-one wanted to sit next to me.   ‘He smells, Miss….’    I reckon they’d smell if their Mum didn’t bother to wash them or change their clothes.  But I always wanted a friend.  I hated break times when I had to hang around alone and look as if I didn’t care.   Then I noticed that all the kids were on about their latest ‘designer’ trainers so I thought if I  got some then maybe I’d fit in.  That’s how I first learned to steal.  I’d tag onto a family in a shoe-shop, follow them around, then when no-one was looking, I’d sneak some trainers and scarper.   The trainers didn’t always fit and anyway, they didn’t make any difference - I still had no friends.   Later, I graduated to nicking jeans and that’s when I got caught.  From then on it was Remand Home, Children’s Home and now the streets.  Story of my life.  

         It was about a month ago, I first noticed her. A little girl of around five, standing looking at me.  Normally, I hate kids. They pinch my money, or kick my tin over. Others will cling onto their Mum’s arm and pretend to be frightened.  But this kid wasn’t like that and when I looked at her, I recognised the signs - fading bruises, stained, too-short dress and no coat.   She smiled, whispered ‘Hello’, then scuttled back to where her Mum was yakking on her mobile.  Sometimes she seemed to be completely on her own and she’d sit down beside me and we’d talk.  Not much, but enough to realise I’d found a friend.  She’d show me stones she’d found and I’d say they were pretty. Eventually, her Mum’d show up and yell at her.  It used to make me so sad to see the cowed way she’d slink back.

         One day she turned up with a fresh bruise on her face.  

         ‘What’s that?’  I said.

         ‘I was naughty,’ she whispered, and that was when I made up my mind.

It’s nearly dark and the first stars are out.  In the surrounding fields, pinpricks of light jitter in mad circles and above the sky is full of the machine gun rattle of helicopter blades.  They’re searching hard but I grin, ‘cuz they’re way off course.   As I said, I know all the rat runs in this town and they’ll never guess where I’ve hidden her.  She’s mine now and I’ll never be lonely again.”

    Copyright Janet Baldey

 Riddles 21

By the Riddler 

The Riddler has three puzzles for us today:

No 1.  What can go all around the world but stay in the corner? 

No 2.  What can you not see, that never was, but always will be? 

No 3.  There was a girl half my age when I was 10.  I’m now 56.  How old is she?

 

Keep em coming Riddler

 

A NEW BEGINNING

 A NEW BEGINNING                                                                                                 

by Richard Banks

It was Sarah’s idea to buy the Old House. She had had enough of London. It was, she said, time to make a new start while we were still young enough. It would be our project, one we could do together. We would be a team again like we were before my job became more important to me than her. That is nonsense of course, and she knows it, but what I can’t deny is that my ascent up the corporate ladder had left us with little time to ourselves.

         It was, I told myself, the price to be paid for a salary that allowed us to reside in a part of London that would have seemed impossible when we were students living together in a scruffy bedsit above a burger bar. But like any upgrade there was a price to be paid. Was there ever a moment, day or night, when I wasn’t hard at work or half expecting the telephone to ring with problems that would have me rushing back to the office. Even the freebie tickets they gave me for big showbiz and sporting events were never free from the obligation to network and chase new business. Then there was the merger and that was when enough became more than enough. Time to leave. So, now my time is my own. I’m on a gap year. Well, if the kids can do it, so can I! Not that I’ll be short of things to do, Sarah will see to that, but this time it’s about us. She deserves that, and so do I.

         The Old House has definitely seen better days. Sarah says that when her grandmother was a girl it was the grandest house in the hundred, a mile out of town and with well tended gardens the size of three or four fields; but that was then, and many years of decline have reduced it to the near ruin it is today. The main advantage in buying a ruin, probably the only one, is that the asking price goes down rather than up. Already low enough to be within our price range I learned that the local council was considering compulsory purchase with a view to replacing the house with a housing estate. There was no time to lose, and when I offered a sum well below the advertised price, the owners - a distant offshoot of the minor nobility that once lived there - realised that a low offer was better than an even lower one they couldn’t say no to.

         On completion we put our furniture in storage and moved into a caravan in the front garden. From there we would sally out and do everything that was needed. At least that was the plan, but when it became obvious that the roof was letting in almost as much rain as it was keeping out we had no choice but to pay a roofer to replace it with a new one. Unsurprisingly our next discovery was wet rot, and another job for local industry. But after that it was us, all us, learning the skills that were needed to do everything else that had to be done.

         Even our slow start had not been time wasted. While the professionals were at work so were we, clearing the long neglected gardens of chest high brambles, nettles and every other weed known to man. We slew all before us, including a half dead birch tree which I felled within a foot of the spot I was aiming at.

         Sarah was nervous seeing me, axe in hand, but she had nothing to be concerned about. As I have told her, the destruction of my desk was a symbolic act of defiance, nothing more. No harm was meant, not even to that vulgar, little Yank who was taking my place. I couldn’t stop him taking my job but he wasn’t having the desk I had sat at for fifteen years. Some of the old guard cheered me. They stood well back when they saw what I was about to do, only the Yank came running over and tried to stop me. Did I mean to hit him when I swung the axe back over my head? Of course not. I was looking at the desk, not him.

         It was all hushed up, of course, for the sake of the firm, and I received the severance pay that had been agreed, but the Yank put it about that I was unfit for future employment, and that ended my career in financial services. But what do I care. Like every man worth his salt I won’t be kept down; I will come again, reinvent myself, find a new niche in life. Until then I will restore this house, make it better than ever, no effort spared, and with new hydraulics throughout the house we were now ready to install the new kitchen that Sarah had seen, and just couldn’t do without. Us, just us. Who would have thought it. Even the builder who came round touting for business could find no fault with what we had done.

         It was on returning from Wickes one afternoon that we came across the new Volvo of my former employer parked at the top of the driveway outside the conservatory. Any thoughts I had that he had come with a job offer were soon put to rest. This was a social visit; he was in the area and thought he would drop by to see if I was, “all right”. Better than him, I was tempted to say, but didn’t. Even he could see how fit I was, how I had shed the corporate flab for a leaner, more active me. Sir, or JT as he likes to be called by senior management, once had a brief fling with my wife. At least that’s what he thinks happened. The truth is somewhat different.

         I first noticed he was attracted to Sarah at the firm’s annual dinner and dance. It was while I was dancing with his wife, Lady Yiewsley – surely a sign that I was under serious consideration to replace my old boss in accounts – that they discovered a mutual interest in the opera. He had a pair of tickets for Figaro at Covent Garden, and as his dear wife was out of town that evening and unable to attend, he wondered whether Sarah would like to fill a seat that otherwise would be unused. Knowing his reputation Sarah played for time. She would, she told him, have to check her diary and promised to get back to him on the mobile number he gave her.

         Having reported all this to me we thought a night at the opera was not an unreasonable price to pay for what would hopefully be another step up the greasy pole. With the promotion still not decided the opera was followed by dinner at the Ritz when Lady Yiewsley was again out of town and I was in Switzerland on company business. I arrived back ahead of schedule the next morning to find Sarah not at home. When she returned an hour later in her fur and evening dress it was only too obvious what had happened. To her credit she made no attempt to deny it. Indeed she could not have been more forthcoming on what she regarded as an experience akin to being smothered by a dead sheep. The good news, however, was that she had taken every opportunity to stress my suitability for said promotion and that Sir had agreed I was the best man for the job. When this was confirmed a week later I wrote an unsigned letter to Lady Yiewsley informing her that her husband had been seen leaving the Savoy with a woman, somewhat younger than himself, at 7am in the morning. With JT brought back to the straight and narrow and on the tightest of leashes his texts and phone calls to Sarah ceased and, to the best of my knowledge, they only saw each other at corporate events where Lady Yiewsley was always at his side.

         So, what is he doing here unchaperoned - not to see me I wager? Does he really think that after all these years he can rekindle their imagined affair? What a pathetic, deluded little bore he is and yet Sarah’s surprise at seeing him has no trace of the deep distain she should be feeling. Indeed she appears perfectly at ease in his company. Has she forgotten all that happened; how when the merger was agreed he abandoned me, cast me aside like I was of no value or use, while he stayed on as Chairman. Betrayal it was, brutal betrayal!

         Sarah casts an anxious glance in my direction. This is dragging me back when I was doing so well. I take a deep breath. Sarah slips a pill into my hand and suggests that I show JT the garden. She knows I’m better outside. More deep breaths. It’s going to be OK I tell myself. Inadvertently I say this out loud. He thinks I’m referring to the garden. He raises an eyebrow at the pyramid of wood and other combustibles towering over what was once the bowling green. Finding nothing, OK or otherwise, to say about it he turns his gaze towards the shed I have constructed from flatpack. He makes an idiot remark about it being my hideaway from the ‘trouble and strife’ who will always have something for us to do. How dare he be so slighting to the woman I love, the woman he would take from me, just like he took my job!

         The door is open and I invite him in for a glass of the double malt I say is inside. There is no malt, nothing inside but my garden tools and the axe.

                                                                          

                                                  *****

         Sarah says that I must steady myself, that it wasn’t my fault. He had no right to be here. What has happened is unfortunate, a setback, but nothing that need do us any harm. No one heard him scream and, more than likely, no one saw him turn into the driveway. It will be our secret and, if we don’t panic, no one will ever know but ourselves.

         She has already moved his car into the garage where it can’t be seen and checked his mobile to make sure there’s nothing on it about us. With luck he will have told no one of his intention to visit. If the police should come we will say that JT paid us a courtesy call and departed within an hour. If they don’t, we do nothing, nothing at all but enjoy our new life. Anyway, what can they do without a body?

         Already we have doused it with petrol and pushed it into the mounting tip of rubbish that will be his funeral pyre. Tomorrow we will set it on fire and reduce everything to dust and ashes. It will be yet another step in our new beginning. In death, as in life, we triumph yet again. 

 

Copyright Richard Banks