Triveni Spotlight

 

Triveni Spotlight

From Rob Kingston

Copyright Robert Kingson

 THE LARGER PIE 

Peter Woodgate 

I hear that it must grow and grow,

The latest from Mis Trust and Co.

We all must have jobs that pay more

So why the strikes, are we so sure.

There are lots of mundane jobs to do

But poorly paid, is that a clue.

These basic jobs are our foundation,

They are essential in creation.

Tower blocks, they need a base,

They may be hidden, without a face

But we ignore them at our peril,

And our growth may well be sterile.

Each bud that blooms does so through roots

They must be fed or else they die,

And starved of their essential needs

The blossoms fall, alas you sigh.

Growth is structured and should ensure

There’s no huge gap between rich and poor.

This future pie, it must be made

Each ingredient with a proper measure,

The crust atop should share the glory

And when sliced, expose the treasure.

 

Of course, you may think,

That this is just barmy,

I look back to the slave trade,

The Miners, the Hierarchy.

 

 

 

Peter Woodgate  Oct 2022

 

 

 

Tylywoch ~ 27

 Tylywoch ~ 27 Captives III 

By Len Morgan

   When Vadeem entered the cell, it was dark cold silent, and empty.   "Galyx, It's me Vadeem," there was no answer.   He took a lamp from outside into the cell "Bengora's Blood!" he swore angrily, the cell was most definitely empty. He went out into the passage.   "Call for additional men, he's gone, we will have to search the entire area."

"How could that have happened do you suppose?" the Surbatt corporal smirked.

Vadeem hit him full in the face, and he fell to the floor in a semi-conscious state.

"I gave you an order Corporal, jump to it!"

He staggered to his feet yelling "You heard the captain, call for reinforcements, Now!" The two soldiers headed for the stairs at the double, the corporal six strides behind them.   Stealth quad took them out on the second flight but they never knew.   The corporal died seconds later, none the wiser. 

For the second time in forty-eight hours, Vadeem found himself a captive of the Tylywoch.

"This is getting to be a habit," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"The tables are turned," said Galyx appearing from nowhere. Vadeem was manhandled into the cell and the door slammed shut.

"Hey your not leaving me here are you?" Vadeem shouted at Galyx's retreating back. 

"Not afraid of the dark are you" Galyx taunted.

"Glamhorten is looking for you." He answered ignoring the jibe.

"How would you know that?"

"She sent me to get you."

"She owns you?"

He nodded "No!   aaagh  fee-oow!"

"Take me to her."

"Not a good idea aaagh!" said Vadeem in obvious distress "bitch!  "She will turn you if you go to her aaah! ah ah aaah.   She's p-un-nishing me f tell-ing…  ya ah aaah!!!"

"Save your breath and your strength friend, I know what she is capable of.   Just take me to her."

"You wittard!   I'm trying to save you!" he shook his head and left the cell, followed by Galyx. 

.-…-. 

"They're outside," said Galt "He has a dozen guards with him."

"Open up merchant!" an authoritarian voice yelled. banging hard on the door.

"Whoever is out there, go away and return in the morning during normal hours of business, between 7 & 7."

"Open or we will break the door down!   We are Guardians of the Empire, from the palace, on official business."

"Please do not start breaking things or you'll answer to my wife!   That door is ironwood from the Northern Mayam provinces, it would cost a fortune to replace it!   Have a modicum of patience I'm on my way."    The door was unbarred and a sleepy Galt peered out at the late callers, dressed in a long nightgown.   "How can I be of service to the Empress?" he inquired.

 

"You have an assistant…"

 

"Yes, Weilla, excellent worker strong, conscientious, honest, and cheap…"

"We do not require a character reference thank you," said Wilden "where is she?"

""She’s abed and asleep where every honest hardworking soul should be…"

"Take me to her," he demanded.   Four stayed at the door, the remainder followed Wilden inside.   "You four come with me, the rest of you search this place, you know what to look for."

Galt led them down to the cellar,

"There she is," said Wilden "Take her!" 

.-…-. 

She was dozing, when the dream recurred.   As always it was her mother's face, clear and detailed, yet on waking she could not even recall the colour of her eyes. 

The voice gave warning, "Beware the thirteenth warrior 'kebu master' for therein lies your demise." 

She awoke perspiring and distraught, tired, not refreshed by her slumbers.   She was frustrated by her inability to decipher the dream, was it a symbolic message or a warning from beyond the grave… 

Taleen stirred beside her, conscious of the agitating ripples in her mind; so finely was he attuned to her.  She threw back the bed coverers and admired his naked young body.   Fit healthy bronze and hard, he'd been hers since birth, ever since she'd poisoned his mother, shortly after cutting his cord.   She dove into his mind and turned him onto his back.   She smiled on witnessing his stirring; he always did that even as a child, he became hard whenever she entered his mind.   He slept on untroubled by her presence

as she roamed his mind, the busy routes and byways so familiar to her, like a well-thumbed map.   She smiled as she arrived at the twin houses of pain & pleasure.   She entered and he responded predictably - they always slept naked in the Blutt fashion - he rolled towards her his mouth and tongue lapping the perspiration from her neck and breasts as she desired.   She enjoyed physical pleasures with all her slaves, but most of all Taleen, he'd been her intimate since his early years, they were so close that she could experience the pleasures of sex in his mind, from the masculine perspective, and concurrently from her own feminine side.   She liked that, an instance of complete control, she looked down at him lapping between her loins, controlling and guiding his unconscious actions, he did her bidding at the speed of thought, as superior to the common carnal act, as a luxury fruit cocktail confection is, to plain oatmeal.

She lay still, closing her eyes, enjoying… 

She sensed the servant's approach and eased Taleen gently back to his side of the giant-sized circular bed.   There was a gentle knock.

"Wait!   I'm coming out!"    She spoke directly to the servant's mind, but it would seem to him as though she had called to him through the door.   She quickly skimmed his mind and discovered that Vadeem and the guards had returned with Galyx.

 

Jumping from her bed she donned a sheer full-length black silk kimono.   Taleen stirred, so she sent him soothing messages and he settled back to sleep.  She padded barefoot, to answer the door.   The servant delivered his message nervously and left.   She approached the adjoining room, scanning its occupants as a matter of routine.   Something was wrong.   Vadeem was agitated.   She didn't recognise any of the guards, or Galyx, whose mind appeared barren, blank, and unfathomable.   She didn't like that.   She was aware that Vadeem had been talking about her, probably to Galyx, but she didn't know what he’d said.   The guards minds were trained and disciplined, but they couldn't shield against her, so instead they all projected thoughts of happiness and well being, but the discipline told her, they were Tylywoch! 

"Where in Bedelocq's name was Wilden he should be back by now!" casting her mind around the city in ever-increasing circles she was unable to locate him, was he dead?

She cast her mind wide, "All slaves, To me - NOW!"

"She's calling for help, she knows something is amiss, she knows your TylywaaaaaaagH!"  He fell in a heap as if poleaxed.  

Glamhorten used the distraction to make her entrance.   "Galyx" she said in a husky distinctive voice, a welcoming smile on her face, "I have been so looking forward to meeting you.   Am I to fear you?"

 

"That could have been a very costly error of judgment on your part," he said nodding towards the unconscious Vadeem.

She turned to face him, eyes blazing with flecks of orange and yellow playing across the orbs.   "Come here!" she commanded.

Galyx was taken aback by the power of her word and stepped towards her.   One step led to another, each successively harder to resist, but his mind remained impassive and blank.  

.-…-. 

Wilden awoke in complete darkness, the only sound he was conscious of was his own breathing.   At first, he thought he'd been blinded by Glamhorten in a fit of pique for some real or imagined transgression on his part but, he was able to move his eyes without pain, it felt different.   There were ghostly shadows of grey passing before his retina, if he squeezed his eyes tight shut he could see flashes sparks and patterns of light. "Thank Bedelacq," he said and therein realised his hearing was intact, the lesser of his fears.   He tried moving his arms, they were bound at the wrist, as were his ankles, on moving he realised he was cold, he was naked and cold.   He fought manfully to loose his bonds, he struggled until they were badly chafed without success, they wouldn't yield.

He listened again for an age but heard nothing.   He shouted and yelled at the top of his lungs a lot of the sound was absorbed, but what came back was deflected from close by.   He was in a small room or a crate, but the absence of outside influence…   Then suddenly it came to him in a rush of panic, it was a coffin!   He had been buried alive!

There had been a dozen guards accompanying him when he entered the premises.   He recalled following four of them into the cellar to apprehend the girl, then the lights went out.  

"Guards!    To me now!" he'd yelled up the cellar stair well.   He'd heard the rush of approaching feet.   "In here" he yelled.   They had rushed down the stairs in answer to his call, then silence.   There are twelve of them, he'd thought before the world went black and he lost consciousness.    He again tried to loosen his bonds, without success.   He called out again then tried mind contact with Glamhorten or anybody but, if he was more than a few feet below ground it severely restricted the range over which he could communicate.   His mind slipped back to his period of training when she had punished minor infractions by locking him inside a wooden trunk, for hours until she judged from his mind that he'd learned his lesson and displayed sincere contrition.    But, he always knew she would free him eventually, now nothing was guaranteed.   He redoubled his effort to escape, soaking the ropes in his own urine in the hope it would soften, stretch or loosen his bonds.   He didn't want to die like this!   He didn't want to die slowly fighting for every breath…

He slept and woke alternately, not knowing if he slept for minutes or days.   At odd times he lapsed and found himself at the mercy of his own mind, and being unable to escape, was near to panic and likely to go completely mad.   Instead, he became calm and resigned to his fate.   He was going to die, that was inevitable, be it now or in fifty years.   He examined himself critically, physically, mentally, emotionally, and in retrospect.   Surprisingly his mind and his conscience were clear.   He awaited comment from his constant companion the guiding voice that had been with him since that first night in Blutt central, it was absent.   His mind flew back thirty years.   That first night he had slept on his stomach, naked on a thin blanket in a wicker basket, it had seemed a luxury.  He was warm and dry and the bedding was soft and resilient.   For the first time in months, he’d slept without constant fear of attack in the night from one of his own, or from the seekers.   He slept soundly and well.

.-…-. 

He awoke instantly alert and ready, as the older boy approached him in the early hours to begin his training.   He didn't move, instead, he waited for the second timid tap on his shoulder before sitting up.

"It's time."

Wilden rose from the pallet, as the boy scurried behind him, talking all the while as you would to a highly strung horse.   He gently rubbed something onto the dry blood-encrusted welts on Wilden’s back.

"Salt helps wounds to heal without scarring, mistress doesn't like scars." He explained, wiping off the extraneous crystals with a soft cloth.   He then applied a soothing balm, massaging it into the wounds.   "This will make your skin supple, so the wounds do not burst open when you stretch suddenly.   Don't make any sudden moves over the next few days." He warned.   "Your duties are simply to see to her needs.   You will go to the market each morning to obtain fresh produce.   We need vegetables milk herbs and meat; she is particularly partial to fresh bloody meat.   She likes her steaks rare, seared on the outside, and warm on the inside.   Vegetables must be cooked but crisp and herbs are used for tisanes and teas.   We will have to fight to get the best produce; the strongest always take the best, whilst the rest of us get the pick of what is left.   Come on!"

Wilden followed him to the market and was surprised to note that all the boys hurried to queue for meat.   So, he went to get their vegetables and was pleased to see he had a wide choice.    He walked in and took the best that was available, and more than he needed.

"If we have to cook for her, who cooks for us?" he asked.

The boy looked at him as if he was stupid.

"What is your name?" he asked the older boy as he demonstrated the finer points of boning a joint of meat.

"Slave," he said, “I am Slave!”

"My name is Wilden…" he began offering his hand.

"It's better not to get close to people" the boy explained ignoring the proffered hand. 

"Why?" he asked.

"People come and people go." Was the cryptic reply.

Two weeks later, another boy was serving, 'Slave' was gone.   Wilden never saw him again. 

"Slave!   Where is my food." She called.

He ran to pander to her needs, then, and from that day on…

(to be continued)

 

Copyright Len Morgan

 DREAMS

Peter Woodgate

They both had a dream

miles apart, it would seem.

One who spoke up

for a beautiful change

the other who spoke

about cruelty, how strange.

One who spoke out

against racist abuse

one who spoke out

with a feeble excuse.

One spoke of love

To end inequality

one spoke of a dark land

over the sea.

Martin Luther King – a Brave man.

Suella -------------just a Braverman

 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent

about things that matter.

 

Copyright Peter Woodgate Oct 2022

 

 MISSPENT YOUTH

Peter Woodgate

If only I knew then,

what I know now,

a time before these lines

were chiseled on my brow.

Knowledge,

oh, you come too late,

we can’t regress,

that is our fate.

A wasted youth in many ways

as all the minutes, hours, and days

turned into years of tender bliss,

oblivious of, just what I’d miss.

It was just I, against the world,

my future, it would be unfurled.

No thought for others, just my dream,

a common trend, so it would seem.

And when I fear that I will cease to be,

before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

I will look back on errors now I see

And think, why was I so insane?

 

Copyright Peter Woodgate Oct 2022   

Gus (2nd & Last)

 ENCROACHMENT (2^nd & Last) 

by Richard Banks 

         The weather was fine and Ewan sat almost invisible, in the deep shade of a Horse Chestnut tree. On the third day of waiting his patience was finally rewarded by the sight of Gus ambling through the arch and sitting on the garden bench. He picked-up the cigar that Ewan had left on the table and gave it an appreciative sniff.        

“You will need these,” said Ewan, emerging from his hiding place and tossing a box of matches onto the table. If Gus was surprised at his host’s sudden appearance he hid it well. Indeed he seemed pleased to see him and politely acknowledged both cigar and matches.        

“Aren’t you having one?”        

Ewan confirmed that he was, and reaching into a pocket produced one ready cut like the one on the table. They lit up and for a few seconds puffed away contentedly as two plumes of smoke drifted up into the sky.        

“Do you want to go first?” asked Gus. “After all this is your meeting.”        

“My meeting?”        

“Yes, of course it’s your meeting. You’re the one who wanted it. So, what do you want to say? No complaints I hope.”        

For a few moments Ewan felt anger. He had every reason to complain but would be losing his temper make things better? He thought not. He would do what he intended: a good natured negotiation in which the mystery of Gus’s incursions would become clear and rules set for future visits.        

“I was hoping I might persuade you to knock on my front door like a normal visitor. This is our house, you know, private property.”        

“Your house? Are you sure?”        

“Of course it’s mine!” The words came out in an angry rush before he could stop them. This was not how he wanted to sound. “Yes,” he continued in a quieter voice, “it’s my house. I purchased it two months ago from the previous owners, Mr and Mrs Campbell. They moved out on the twentieth of October and we moved in on the same day. The deeds are with the Land Registry. If you don’t believe me do a check.”        

“Oh yes, the Campbells. A great loss to the village. That’s why their name is above the door. The Management Committee wanted something pastural that emphasised the house’s rural location. Meadowside Court it nearly was. Then the local history society became involved and the Campbells got the remembrance that the villagers wanted. Have you seen the plaque in the wall?”        

Ewan shook his head and tried not to be thrown off course. “And did the Campbells hold open house for everyone who wandered uninvited onto their home and garden? This is private property, you know. Only Maisie and me have a right to be here.        

“But what about the others.”        

“The others?”        

“Yes, the people who work and live here. No matter how hard you ignore them they will never be far away.”        

“Servants you mean. Of course we have one or two servants. Couldn’t maintain a large house like this without a few servants. Village people mainly, in before breakfast and home for their tea.”       

“So, who cooks your dinner?”        

“Maisie of course, my wife.”        

“Maisie?” Surely not? A captain of industry like yourself would have married a Tamsin or Cressida, the usual union of new money with old. A Maisie? No, that would never do. Even in your younger, less opulent days you would never have settled for a Maisie.”        

“Of course I’m married to Maisie. Do you think I don’t know my own wife?”        

“Well then, where is she? Introduce me to her. How is it I have never met her?”    

 “She’s out, she’s often out. Of course she exists. Didn’t you hear the racket she made  getting past the new security system?”        

 “I remember you setting it off when you were attempting to escape. At least that’s what we thought you were doing. But if you were trying to let someone in then I’m sure that’s how it was, or at least how it seemed to you.”        

 “Seemed to….? What are you blithering on about? Are you mad? Yes, of course, you’re mad. You’re the man who invades my garden and house, steals my cigars, and then disappears, lord knows how without as much as a goodbye. If that’s sanity then I have more of it than you!”         

           The sound of raised voices was carried in the breeze blowing gently towards the house. A smartly dressed woman of middling years closed the notebook in which she was writing and clicked her tongue in disapproval; loud disagreements belonged to private, soundproof, places not the back garden where they would be overheard by neighbours. This must be stopped before it got worse. She strode across the lawn towards the arch in the straightest of lines ignoring the garden path that reached the same place in a meandering curve. Her entry through it stunned both men into silence, but not for long.        

         Ewan was first to speak. “So you want to meet Maisie, do you? Well, here she is. Maisie introduce yourself to this man. Tell him who you are, my wife of ten years. And after that phone the police, tell them we have a mad man on the premises who needs to be taken to a sanatorium.”

         “Yes dear, I’m very happy to confirm who I am, but please stop shouting, we don’t want everyone knowing our business. Now Gus, I am indeed Maisie. Yes, it is a very silly name but it’s Ewan’s pet name for me. It is something that has, unfortunately, stuck: it is my penance for marrying a leading financier. If Ewan wants me to call the police and have you committed to the care of a mental hospital that is what I must do. As the dutiful wife of a rich man how could I do otherwise? But then, as we both know, that would be absurd. After all you are the Senior Consultant at Campbells, one of Europe’s best-known sanatoriums.”

         “What, him! A Consultant! At Campbell's? That’s our house, our home. What’s the matter with you woman. You’re as mad as he is. And how do you know his name? Did I say it? I don’t think I did. No, I didn’t, I definitely didn’t. So, how do you know?” 

         “Because I wrote it, dear. At first it was Hector, then Arthur, but finally I settled on Gus, my grandfather’s name. Gus and you are characters in a novel that’s gone wrong and got hopelessly confused. Not sure if you’re fact or fiction, a bit of both, I think. What I do know is that I can’t stitch it together like I used to, like my publisher expects me to. It should be finished but it’s a month late, and no matter how hard I try I can’t find a way through to the end. I had a plan, I’m sure I had a plan, but it’s gone. What is happening now makes no sense, none whatsoever. And that, strangely enough, is my only consolation; if I know it has no sense I can’t be without sense myself, not completely.

         So, you see, I must abandon you both and everyone else in this story, snap shut my writing book and plunge you all into a dark void from which you will never escape. It’s either you or me. The doctor thinks I should have it burnt; there’s no going back on that he says, but I can’t do that, not to you; so he has agreed to hide my manuscript in their basement where it will never be seen again. No, there’s to use in protesting I’ve made up my mind. There! It’s done! All I have to do now is walk back to The Campbells and hand it to the Doctor. So, here I go. I’m sorry, so sorry, but there really is no other way. For you, if not for me, this is The End.” 

 

                                                                                          Copyright Richard Banks                                                                                                                                               

Gus (1 of 2)

   

 ENCROACHMENT (1 of 2) 

by Richard Banks 

        The first time that Gus came by the house Ewan was pulling weeds at the top of the garden. There was a muddled conversation during which Ewan assumed that his visitor had been let through the house by Maisie. They were expecting a man in to fit some blinds but when these were mentioned Gus looked as puzzled as Ewan.

         “So you’re not from Barlows?” said Ewan, when a better question would have been, who are you? But that would have sounded brusque. There was no need for that, the man gave no cause for concern. Perhaps he was a near neighbour calling in to pay his respects, a retired gentleman; clearly, he was too old to be fitting blinds. In the time it took him to take in and briefly process these thoughts his visitor had turned towards the potatoes in the vegetable patch and was expressing his opinion that there would be a good crop this year. He recommended ‘Strong-Grow,’ “best fertiliser by a mile.” That’s when he introduced himself as Gus and, on Ewan responding with his own name, they shook hands as though a mutually agreeable bargain had been struck. What that bargain was Ewan was less than sure but any doubts he had about his visitor were all but swept away. He had a good feeling about this man. In the context of the village, he might be a useful man to know.

 

         His assumption that he was a near neighbour had now acquired a certainty that required no confirmation. This is what neighbours did out here. In the City, people kept to themselves, but in the sticks, folks were more welcoming and took the time to look in on a new arrival. Perhaps he had brought a gift, some flowers that Maisie was busy arranging in a vase. This deserved a cup of tea and, having ascertained that Gus was partial to Earl Grey, Ewan returned to the house to alert the chief tea maker to their guest’s choice of beverage. Strangely there was no sign of Maisie or flowers but the kettle was half full of water and by the time it was boiled he had set out a jug of milk, two mugs, and a teapot on a tray. He returned to the top of the garden to find Gus sitting on the bench they had just bought.

 

         “Shall we give it a few minutes to brew?” suggested Ewan, trying to remember the etiquette of tea making. Did Earl Grey require a few minutes extra or was that the other stuff from China?  He looked sternly at his watch and decided to go for four.

 

         “Lived here long?” he asked, meaning the village. There was no doubting from his speech that Gus was a Suffolk man and always had been. Nevertheless, the question was a good conversation starter and once Gus got going he would, no doubt, prove a useful informant on local affairs. And so it proved. Within ten minutes Ewan found out more about the village than he ever knew about the London suburb in which he had previously been living.

 

         “Retired then?” said Gus, evidently deciding it was Ewan’s time to do some talking. He considered what to say. Whatever he told him would almost certainly be repeated up and down the village, but that was OK providing he kept to the stuff he wanted them to know. The rest of it they would no doubt discover for themselves but by then he would be on first name terms with everyone who mattered. There were two sides to every story and when the time came for him to tell him they would understand that he had not been at fault.

 

         He had got to the point in his narrative where he had been appointed a Vice President at Swift Erikson when to his irritation the doorbell rang and being unanswered – evidently Maisie was still out - he was obliged to abandon his visitor and let in the man from Barlow’s who having delivered the blind declared that the fitter was unwell and would phone to make a new appointment. While this was yet another irritation it at least relieved Ewan of the need to be in two places at once. He could now resume his life story and bring it up to date, but by the time he returned to the top of the garden Gus was nowhere to be seen.

 

         His disappointment was soon overtaken by puzzlement. How had Gus left when the only way out was past him at the front door? The mystery deepened when Maisie returned home professing no knowledge of their visitor.

 

         “Have you been taking your tablets?” she asked.

 

         He felt insulted she had said that; even though he didn’t need them anymore he still took two twice a day. Determined to prove that there was another way into the garden other than by the front and rear doors he commenced a thorough inspection of the perimeter fencing, including the wooden gate at the side of the house. Finding the gate securely bolted, with the additional security of a padlock, and the fencing firmly attached to concrete posts he concluded that Gus could only have gained entry by scaling the gate or fence beside it. If this was the case it seemed that Gus was remarkably fit for an elderly man who made light use of a walking cane.

 

         Nonetheless there appeared to be no other explanation until Maisie had what she called a light bulb moment which Ewan initially dismissed as “poppycock”. “Perhaps,” she said, “this man has a key to the front door.” While this explained his entry into the house it did not, said Ewan, account for Gus’s exit while he was at the front door taking delivery of the blinds. Then, Ewan also had a light bulb moment. What if Gus had followed him back into the house and, while he was busy with the blinds, hidden somewhere inside until Barlow’s man had gone and Ewan back out in the garden. What was to stop him then leaving through the front door?

 

         “Nothing,” agreed Maisie, and after a sleepless night they wasted no time in phoning an emergency locksmith who arrived within the hour to fit new locks, back and front. Secure in the knowledge that their defences had not only been restored but strengthened by the installation of a  Triple Plus Locking System their main concern became in persuading it to let them in and out. A week of anxious readjustment was followed by another week in which the intrusion of their uninvited visitor dropped down the Richter Scale to an inconsequential two.

 

         He thought he would meet Gus again in the village, on neutral territory, when another conversation would no doubt make sense of their first meeting. If there was a logical explanation to what happened he certainly wanted to hear it. But Gus was nowhere to be seen and when Ewan mentioned his name at the Wheatsheaf no one there, from the publican to the village postman, knew anyone of that name. Perhaps, he thought, it was the tablets at fault. From now on he would only take them once a day. No one would know but him. He needed to rely on his own good sense not the quackery of doctors in league with the pharmaceutical industry.

 

         Three days into his new regime the sight of a crow strutting towards the garden arch alerted him to another movement. Through a border of tall headed Delphiniums, he glimpsed two green boots lift off the ground and come to rest on the wickerwork table in front of the bench. Then a gust of wind made a gap in them and he saw the whole picture, what he was hoping not to see: Gus, sitting on the bench, dressed in the same hat and jacket as before. There were a few moments of confusion verging on panic as Ewan attempted to open the garden door before finding it locked and the key in the kitchen along with the other keys to the house. He arrived there unsure which one he needed. Was it number eighteen? He decided it was, and on applying it to the lock felt the door jolt and then open. He charged out, running for the first time in years, but to his horror, the only sign of Gus was a sliver of dark soil on the table from one of his boots.

 

         But how had he got away so quickly? Even taking into consideration the delay in opening the door there was little time for Gus to make his escape, unless, maybe, he hadn’t. There was a  shed against the back fence, perhaps he was in there? He flung open the door letting in the light that swept away the darkness inside. For good measure, he switched on the strip light, but no one was there. His disappointment or relief, he wasn’t quite sure which, was quickly replaced by panic. The back door was open. He could be in the house! Lord knows what he might be up to. He rushed back slamming the door shut and slipping the key into his trouser pocket.

 

         Armed with a poker from the fireplace, he carefully searched each room finding everything in order, nothing missing, nothing out of place. He needed a Scotch but knowing this was something they no longer kept settled for a cup of tea. He had just boiled the kettle when the clicking of a key in front door informed him that Maisie had returned from the shops and was attempting to let herself in. Her pleasure in eventually doing so was all but erased by Ewan’s agitated account of Gus’s latest intrusion.

 

         “There he was,” he said, “sitting on the bench, feet up on the table, smoking one of my Havana’s,” This last detail he remembered for the first time. He felt cold, almost in shock. So Gus had been in the house! Thank goodness he had only taken a cigar or was it more? He looked into the silver plate box where they were kept. Three light, he thought, maybe four.

 

         Maisie was her usual calming self. “It would,” she said, “all be better once they had a cup of tea. Was it Twinings in the pot?”  He confirmed that it was. “What could be better,” she said,   “Twinings was as good as a tonic.” As usual, Maisie had saved the day; she often did, he wondered what he would do without her.

 

         Another week passed in which the police eventually arrived, departing as soon as they established that nothing had been stolen. They did, however, leave a leaflet about home security, particularly the conspicuous fitting of burglar alarms. The locksmith was re-engaged and took much pleasure in fitting his top-of-the-range alarm which he proudly claimed would be loudly audible to everyone in the village. In this, he was as good as his word and although the Securosiren X2 never knowingly repelled a burglar it could always be relied on to burst into noisy protest whenever anyone passed by on the pavement.

 

         The Police returned at the urging of local residents and it was agreed that in exchange for the alarm being disconnected they would make the capture of Gus their number one priority. As Ewan’s description of him went little beyond him being an old chap in a tweed jacket there was no shortage of suspects who were paraded up and down the High Street while Ewan observed them from a first-floor window in the Parish Hall.

 

         Rumour spread that Gus was not just an intruder; if the Police wanted him that badly he must surely be a terrorist or a deranged serial killer. Urged to pick out someone, anyone, to allay public anxiety Ewan eventually chose old Mr Cummings who was confined to a cell in the Police station until he could be persuaded to lie low at his daughter’s house in the next county.

 

         The world had gone mad, or was it just the village? In a place where nothing much happened, it was, perhaps, inevitable that when something did go wrong local residents would be more troubled than they had reason to be. He, Ewan, had allowed himself to be drawn into this mindset, to lose all sense of perspective. After all, what was he afraid of: a man, six or seven years older than himself, who had twice ventured into his garden with no obvious intent to do harm? Indeed on the only occasion they had actually met they had got on well. As for the manner of his coming and going there was surely a logical explanation that, when known, would blow away all his concerns. The best thing to happen would be for them to meet again in the garden, to sort things out, once and for all.

 

(To be continued)

Copyright Richard Banks