Don't Panic...

 

You know that fundamental thing, at the base of you? Whatever it is that makes you feel grounded and safe in the world? You got it from your nurturing; from your childhood; from your mother, perhaps…a safe base to explore the world from, a basic trust in other human beings.

  

You know what I mean, right? The thing that gives you a place of peace inside of you, that says it’s ok to wander away. It’s ok to roam and most things are safe to touch. And when they’re not, and you burn your finger, there’s someone, somewhere, to return to; to be held close and be comforted; and it’ll all be okay…it’ll all be okay…

  

It’s that thing that’s always grown within you, - go on, you can admit it, you’ve taken it for granted; didn’t know it was there, until I showed it to you – that thing that means you’ll always find the courage and the confidence to go back, to explore again, despite the thorns and the nettles that stung you.

  

Well, here’s the thing - I’m going to take that from you now. Not a bit of it. All of it. Every last internal attachment and scrap of core security – gone - in the blink of my eye, a single click of my fingers. Gone. Just like that.

   

And without it, see how nothing is true or certain anymore, how there is no feeling that anything is okay, or ever will be again, and how you will panic – oh, how you will panic, that you will not have to seek the thorns, but instead, they will come for you.

   

See now, how you hesitate at the menace of the first night of sleep in a strange, new bed, at the person who bumps in to you from behind, and sets a lump in your throat, a sea-sickness in your stomach…feel how your heart will hammer at the noises unfamiliar radiators stirring into life will make, at creaking floorboards on an unknown landing…not dangerous once, but now, horrifying - certain harm…see how sweat beads on your neck at someone walking behind you in the dark, at a firm knock on a door you cannot see through. Feel it grip you, like a claw to the chest, beyond any thought or rationale – nothing there to call upon to settle yourself, to soothe you – when the threats come close. And then, come closer... And they are everywhere.

    

I’m taking that part of you that knows, in those moments, that there is no danger, no peril. And you will not know, and you will panic so hard, and tremble with so many internal terrors that your core understands are nothing, nothing, nothing …but they’ll be everything now, everything that might…that WILL…get you, won’t they? Aren’t they? Every slow and sneaking thing that might creep up on you in the middle of the night, or on the bus to work, might pounce and grab you and back you up against stone prison walls, skin scraping, mouth suffocating, stomach nauseating…they might…they might…they WILL.

    

But you won’t be able to tell. No. No. Don’t tell. Don’t ever tell. Because all the world still has their safety, their nurturing, their born, human courage. And trust. And they’ll laugh at you. Laugh until you shake and sweat, and stand naked and terrified before them. And they’ll mock and pity you, all because of the things that I took from you tonight.

   

So, find a way. Find a way right now, to push it down, down into the dark, depths of where the safety used to be, where it dwelled in dead calm, inside you, before I had it. Yes, where something cold and shivering, now sits instead. That’s it. Push it there, and hold on to it. Live with it; right inside. The quaking, the churning…the fear. Yes…because I know, none of them mean you well now? Do they? Not without it. And I have it: I have it all for my own.

   

We have to talk...

 

I’m glad you’re here. We have to talk. You, and I, and the rest of the nation. We have to talk, about tea. You see, tea, is becoming a very serious business. And ultimately, a very problematic one.

Undoubtedly, whether you have a ‘cuppa’, a ‘char’, or a ‘brew’, you’re particular about how your tea is made. ‘Not too strong’, ‘not too weak’, ‘not too much milk’, ‘more milk’, ‘sugar please’… And it’s not just the liquid itself that concerns you – ‘No! Don’t stir it that way, stir it this way!’, ‘ you’re not using the right mug’…’too hot’, ‘too cool’, ‘fill it up a bit’… Yes, unless you’re one of those people on the edge of society – ‘no thanks, I don’t like tea’… - you surely have a recipe for your perfect cup. And largely, though you accept substandard versions politely (we are British after all), nothing but this honed and hallowed formula will really do.

I admit, I like to drink my tea, from a cup with a pale interior. No, not a cup, a mug…cups are too small. You can’t get your hands around them, and I like to ‘hug’ my tea. You see, if you’re going to have tea, I believe in HAVING TEA! Sipping a thimble full from a china cup, is far less satisfying than sloshing a brimming mug full against your wet lips and dribbling it on your chin. To me, mugs with dark colours inside, make tea look funny. You can’t get just the right tinge of orange to it, without a pale, preferably white, interior, to your cup. The tea bag then needs to be sufficiently squeezed, with just the right pressure, to obtain a brew of perfect strength. The dash of milk, not too much, just a dash, must be stirred in with a proper teaspoon. Somehow, a hasty Biro, produces far less satisfying a blend. The liquid must be stirred, gently, the cup being sufficiently full of tea that to stir vigorously, would spill it. No one likes half a cup of tea, do they?…or is that just me? This is my tea formula: (mug+pale interior) over (tea + splash of milk)+ (optimum volume) over (sufficient stirring) = perfect brew.

All of us know our tea formula so well, we could probably achieve it wearing a blindfold. And it is a good job, since it is the nature of tea, that much of it is made in haste. Tea is most often a quick and thoughtless process between the endless tasks of the day, a swift route to comfort, or warmth, or a five minute rest of a weary, working mind. The ability to apply due reverence to tea-making is an exception, rather than a norm. But even hurried tea is a very personal beast.

I have met people who, to my shock and disgust, leave the bag in, whilst they drink the tea. Imagine! I like my tea strong, but imagine its soggy paperiness brushing against your lips as you slurp?! No thank you! Not to mention what the prolonged presence of that bag does to a beautiful, white interior of a tea cup. And it is these differences of opinion, these variations in formulae, that lead to the problematic depths of tea that are the subject of this concern. You see, in their haste to make tea in their well-practiced way, every person is liable for the production of a personal ‘tea trail’… Like soggy Asaam snails and Earl Grey slugs, they slide over everything in sight, and forget, tea’s only fundamental flaw - it stains. And where tea unites us, tea-stains have the very real power to divide.

The workplace is probably a good example of an environment in which to observe the production of a ‘tea trail.’ What in the morning, was a shiny, silver, stainless steel sink, throughout the day becomes a golden brown, jangling mesh of deeply tea-scarred spoons. Lying alongside are spent mugs, unrinsed and festering in the malaise, stains darkening by the minute. The body of the sink itself, has had all those who refuse to drink ‘the dregs’, believing tea to have some foul tasting sediment, pour together a soup of cold and congealing brews in its unfortunate base. The slick is now a quarter inch thick with teabags blocking the drain. Tea bags have also accrued on the edges of worktops, the corners of the sink, on the drainer, around the bottoms of taps. A dropped teabag on its way to the bin, lies forlornly on the linoleum. It won’t be long before someone stands on it – spreading its guts like road-kill across the non-slip surface. Brown drips have dried, mid-run, down the front of the kitchen cupboards, rings of over vigorous stirring and sloshing have appeared on the surfaces, and there are sticky patches of sugar, not to mention, brown staining on the tea towels from poor attempts at rinsing the forgotten spoons, and, worst of all, from a double-dipped teaspoon, in the driven snow of the sugar itself.

These are the daily tea-trails of a hundred people, crossing and double crossing and laying down one on top of the other like a gastropod party in a lettuce patch. And these are great sources of anger and division.     

Just as we all have a tea formula, we all also have a tea taboo. It might be, not rinsing the teaspoons that stands up the hair on the back of your neck. Perhaps it is the wet slap of a spent teabag from a colleagues mug, hitting the bottom of the sink, that sends your blood boiling to the surface of your skin. Whatever it is, it’s in you, and it lurks, read to explode in muttering complaints as you make your next brew.

*Tut* Why can’t people rinse the teaspoons? *Sigh* There are never any cups left! Why doesn’t anyone wash a cup round here? *Huff* Disgusting! Disgusting!!! The bin is two feet away – people can’t put a tea bag in it?

Without speaking, people take sides in these little protests. All present soundlessly judge and condemn either the complainer or the culprit. Comments become sly, seditious, in-jokes among tea sects with common irks… *hmmff * ‘I see the teaspoon fairy called in sick today’… ‘Hm, ‘bout time people noticed that their mother doesn’t work here’… This undercurrent of tea-related resentment, exists in every workplace…and probably every home…in the nation.

No one talks about it. No discussion takes place, and so grows the impotent anger, the gripping bottled vexation, caused by incompatible tea formulae…and tea taboo.

Yes. I’m very glad you’re here, because we have to talk. You, and I, and the rest of the nation. We have to talk about tea; our silent divider. Muttering and suppression is not the answer, I can feel the tension building to a dangerous proportion. Somebody is going to snap, and there will be an incident  – please, we have to talk about tea, before someone gets hurt.

   

The Sun and The Moon

 

The moon had been quite content; floating amongst all the stars. The stars were pretty, each one was different, and she never saw the same one twice. They never stayed long, the stars, they didn’t stop more than a brief moment on their journeys; and though they were shining and silver, the moon rarely followed them when they left. Sometimes, if they were particularly bright, she might stay up to watch them fading in the dawn light, gently sparkling on the edge of the blue.

    

One morning after she had stayed up late, quite by accident, the moon caught sight of the sun. She gasped, all in awe, when she witnessed his beauty. Tender and caressing, like her own light, at first, he shone over the edge of the horizon, but as he rose higher and higher in the morning sky, he became more fierce and intense, stronger and passionate. The moon almost cried. He lit up the darkness in a way no star had ever done. It took her by the heart and she floated; ghost-like in the morning’s haze, to get nearer to him.

    

The closer she got, the warmer she felt. It was funny; the moon had never realised she was cold before. She got so close she could feel him beating, not only upon her surface, but within her. She felt almost blinded by his brightness, and had to shield her eyes. Her body prickled in his heat. She felt she could go no closer, lest she be injured by the astounding light. And yet she could not go away. So the moon stood at a distance from the sun, and called across the darkness to him.

    

Now, the sun had been quite content, floating amongst all the pretty stars. He was often lonely in the day time; and lingered, long into the evenings, or rose early in the mornings, that he might catch a glimpse of the stars, shining around his bed. He liked the stars, but they faded too quickly, always leaving before he had chance to show them the day.

    

One morning the sun rose when it was still dark, in hope of spending longer with the stars. As he peered over the horizon, quite by accident, the sun caught sight of the moon. He was stilled and astonished by the way she shone. Not hot or fiery like his own light, but cool and patient, all tenderness and blue. She lit up the darkness like no star ever had, and all the smallest things, like the moths and the lace-wings, and all the largest, like the oceans and the whales, all wanted to be near her. She looked so delicate and precious…like a jewel in the early, azure sky.

     

The sun was certain that he loved the moon. He stayed late at night just to look at her. Rose even earlier just to see her light the dark. He watched her from far away, where he was sure his heat would not harm her.

    

Sometimes the sun was sure he had heard the moon calling to him, and that the sound of her patient words, her gentle breath, had cooled his burning for a moment. But he could not be sure. Perhaps it was wishful thinking? He dare not call back, for fear that he had been wrong.

     

“What would she, who is beloved by mighty oceans, followed by elegant lace-wings, and surrounded with cool serenity, want with a turbulent fire such as I?” It could not be true. The sun was sure and certain, he was not worthy of her beauty and the desire she commanded.

     

Sometimes the sun lost the moon for days, or months. Sometimes he could not see her for all the pretty stars, or worse still, for dark clouds in his eyes. He longed for her, but did not search. He felt she had gone away those days, just as he deserved; away from his tempestuous burning. But when his light softened, in the morning or the evening, she always returned, patient and present, constant, and it cooled him just to look at her.

    

Now, when she called across the darkness, the moon was certain the sun could hear her. Sometimes, she felt he even turned his head towards her. But he always ignored her; just as she deserved. The sun was all passion and excitement, and all things wanted to be with him, from the tiny flowers who tilted their petals towards him each morning, to the children who offered up their hands and their joy to his warmth. The flowers closed their petals when they saw the moon, and the children slept. She could never hope to be so captivating.

    

Said the moon: “Why would something so beautiful, to whom all the flowers and the children turn their faces and smile, answer to my chilled voice that dare not go closer for fear the heat shall harm me?”

    

So the moon watched the sun and gathered her courage, creeping closer each day, where she could feel his warmth grow raging. Sometimes, the moon lost the sun, for days, or months, behind thick clouds or a passing pretty star, but she always looked for him, and in the morning or the evening, she would find him again. Soon, the moon found she did not want the moths’ wings to kiss her anymore, nor the oceans’ waves to caress her. She recoiled from what had once been pleasure. There was no joy lest it come from him. She needed only to feel the heat of the sun. This was how the moon grew certain that she loved the sun.

      

One evening, the sun seemed restful, and so, the moon stood trembling before him. Right before him, as close as she could be. Suddenly, all his light was for her, and it did not burn; all his beauty was ceremoniously unveiled. The sun hid nothing, and the moon neither – both were naked and beautiful, and only for one another.

      

“I love you,” said the sun, “but I will destroy you. There are times you cannot be so close. I am too hot, too rough, too unpredictable. I will consume you. I love you. Don’t stay. Because I love you…don’t stay.”

      

Said the moon: “I move oceans; I am far stronger than I seem. Look carefully, you will see I too am rough and unpredictable. See the cold and the winds that blow on my surface? They grow quiet when I am with you. Your heat is not so blistering, it does not burn me.”

     

Said the sun: “It grows cooler when I am with you.”

    

“I love you…” said the moon. “And because I love you, I cannot…I will not go.”

    

There was no light on the Earth that day, as the sun and the moon stood gazing, face to face. But every heart saw, just the same, that love is strongest in the darkness, and in the ones who stay.  

       

An Awful Palaver

   

Mr Chichester-Fortiscue (exasperated): “Insert the pole here, Mrs Ramsey…do you see, into this hole. There should always be something in every hole. I can’t do it all myself and hold these ropes tight to boot!”

Mrs Ramsey: “Well…yes Mr Chichester-Fortiscue, I quite agree…it is most preferable to fill all the holes at once. I’m trying, but I seem to be having a little trouble with this one. You see the pole feels rather too large. It’s a terrible squeeze, and it’s very long. I don’t know quite how to handle it on my own and I’m not entirely sure the hole will accommodate it. I’m rather nervous to try whilst I’m entangled in these bonds. Do you think you could push a little harder from your end and we might manage it together? I simply don’t understand it…I’m really very experienced, I’ve never had such bother before. Do you think the pole could be bent Mr Chichester-Fortiscue? Perhaps it’s gone limp in the middle?”

Mr Chichester-Fortiscue: “Mrs Ramsey! I assure you, this pole is neither bent nor limp!!! There is nothing wrong with this pole at all! It’s a very fine pole indeed. It simply requires some careful manipulation to perform satisfactorily. I feel perhaps it is you who are being too heavy handed in your approach!”

Mr Gatesgill: “Heavy handed, Chichester-Fortiscue? Oh no. I’ve always had her down as very conscientious. Slow and steady, I grant you, but she gets the job done, and done very well in my experience. Do you require some assistance Mrs Ramsey?”

Mrs Ramsey: “Oh, thank you kindly Mr Gatesgill…that does make me feel so much better about the whole mess. We really are struggling… Mr Chichester-Fortiscue is trying to insert his pole into this rather tight hole and it’s become an awful palaver! We’ve been at it for at least twenty minutes and I can’t feel a thing at my end yet. Usually it’s been snugly in by now, with just a little wiggle either side, but this time…in and out, in and out…and not very far in at that! It keeps getting stuck. I’m afraid Mr Chichester-Fortiscue thinks it ‘s my fault, and he’s rather losing his temper.”

Mr Gatesgill: “Right-ho Mrs Ramsey… Ah  yes…it’s nothing to fret about. I’ve seen this happen many times. Quite normal. It’s easily sorted. Now then…you take hold of the hole here and hold it open like this…yes that’s it, that’s wonderful Mrs Ramsey…and we’ll feed the pole in gently, bit at a time. Are you quite ready? “

Mrs Ramsey: “As I’ll ever be gentlemen.”

Mr Gatesgill: “Very well…push Chichester-Fortiscue…ah yes, it is rather a snug fit, isn’t it? Harder man, harder…put some effort into it! That’s better!! I can really feel that now! Is it coming Mrs Ramsey?”

Mrs Ramsey: “Oh…oh…I say, do be careful! Not so roughly Mr Gatesgill…you’re going to tear something…ouch! Ow! Stop…stop, I say…don’t just ram it in! You’re being too forceful, that’s rather hurting me!!”

Mr Chichester-Fortiscue: “My sincere apologies dear…old Gatesgill here can be something of a beast and a brute…can you feel anything yet?”

Mrs Ramsey: “Yes, yes…I think so Mr Chichester-Fortiscue…I think I’m just beginning to feel the end of it. Push it faster now, that’s right, Just twist it a little to the left…oh  yes, YES! That’s it!!! …now back to the right…that’s it…here it comes…push! Push harder gentlemen! Oh, that’s just the ticket, it’s all the way in! …Now then…this part goes up the bottom. Come and pull these ropes tighter Mr Gatesgill! Oh that’s fantastic…there it is poking out the other side! What a joy to behold after all that effort!”

Mr Chichester-Fortiscue: “A joy to behold indeed, Mrs Ramsey…damn fine tent! The boy scouts will be thrilled!”

Mrs Ramsey: “I’m so glad I could be of assistance, Mr Chichester-Fortiscue, Mr Gatesgill. You just be sure to show the Scouts a good time this weekend.”

Mr Gatesgill: “Oh we certainly will, Mrs Ramsey…I’ve thought of nothing else all week.”

     

#Fridayflash - What The Darkness Is For

   

If you have ever lain alone at night, you will know what the darkness is for. If ever you have seen that deepest blackness, the sort that folds you in its soft embrace; I can say, beyond doubt, you will know. The darkness will have spoken to you some way. And the things that the darkness is for, will be different for everyone.

    

Your darkness may be for thinking, for fretting, perhaps, about the things you could not control… All the might-have-beens. Or it may be a velvet cloak of filthy self-analysis, criticisms of all the you that still feels uncontrolled. Your darkness may be for reliving old guilt, for chastising yourself in regret; or it may be for living in freedom and joy, with quiet conscience and the lessons of before… The purpose of the darkness, depends only upon the sway of your soul.

     

Perhaps your darkness is all for feeling - if you are not the analytical type. For the blind acceptance of the here. The now. And the you that is, and ever shall be. Perhaps, my friend, you are just like me, and that is what your darkness is for.

     

You see, I lie alone in the dark on purpose. I always have done. Ever since. It allows me moments of quiet, to remember, to taste my past and understand an inevitable future, that in a matter of time, I know, will come. It allows me to know myself, to admit my wants. The things I have desired and can take now, beyond the bounds of my egocentricity. I keep myself, a myriad of treasures in my chest; and it is the darkness that lets me open the lid.

     

In the embered blackness, I can take from the box, all of my selfish trinkets. Count, one by one, all the reasons that I lie alone. And I lay each one, before my minds eye, like the stones and seashells, that she placed, in rows on our garden wall.

     

First, I can lay down her loaded words, the ones she gave to me, in a note intended as parting. All the things she asked me to be and to do in fine handwriting that didn’t quite say ‘goodbye’. Then I can lay down the bright, round buttons, of her favourite blue coat, and recall, how they matched her eyes.

    

I can run my fingers, smoothly over a lock of her hair, the one I cut, in the last hour, and tied carefully with a ribbon. Then, I can take her scent, from the chest of my memory, and stroke it the way I did her skin, in the final days, before it was dry, or thin, or pale...like paper…and when it almost still smelled of her.   

     

And I can think of the apple tree I planted above her, uninterrupted thoughts; as I take the most precious item from my box. The shrivelled heart she told me didn’t love me anymore, lies still now, and she could nearly be right. But my own heart still throbs when I hold its coldness…its desiccation, up close to my skin. It will never be over for me.

    

What she could not give, I took. To have…and to hold. Lest I die of its absence.

    

Her or me. Acceptance.

   

That, is what the darkness is for.

    

I sign and date it, and add this ode to my box, when I re-pack my cherished charms. When they come, I don’t want them to judge me. I want them all to know that I knew them, and all their darkness too. That we are the same, but for the sway of our souls.

     

I slide the box, with care, back beneath my bed…and in the velvet blackness, again, I lie alone.  

     

#Fridayflash - The Minotaur

    

Like the slow ooze of crude oil, it crept into his stomach; ice cold. Sat there, low and heavy, like he’d swallowed one of the sodden sand bags that had kept a primeval soup of leaves, cars, and the daily filth of other lives from his affluent, rural door in the floods last summer.

He welcomed back a reluctant friend in fear…shameful, most excruciating fear. The kind that warranted the clichéd cold sweat that soaked his collar. Rupert could feel himself start to shake, and tensed to avert the horror of it. Fine that he should be afraid…but that it should know him to be afraid? – Never!

All dripping yellow teeth and glowing eyes, it towered at him…an awful, yawning chasm in the corner of the rose garden, where it festered, and chased small things in torturous circles. Small things that could have been him.

Rupert had been told about things like this as a boy. The stuff of nightmares, that paralyses… The stuff that you never believed existed when your dad sat on the end of your bed at night and told you stories to make you afraid of the dark.

‘All boys should be afraid of something, son’…all boys had to live through fear, Rupert remembered. His Prep School headmaster had always agreed with his father when he said that…knarled old bastard…said it built a solid character. ‘Never trust a man who claims he isn’t afraid of something. He is dangerous, and a liar.’

Rupert could not lie, he had never felt less solid… His insides had putrefied to a thick liquid that he was certain was impending vomit. In the face of the beast before him, with its viscous claws exposed and flea-infested fur matted above a thrashing tail, he searched for any trace of the military focus his father had tried so desperately to breed into him by gene pool, by carrot, and by stick. 

As Theseus to the Minotaur, armed with a shovel and a ball of garden twine, Rupert prepared to do battle. Courage…he remembered, is facing that which terrifies you. Even if it is so terrible you can barely bring yourself to look…

As he swallowed rising bile and acid in his throat, a great warrior took the shovel from Rupert’s hand, and brought it swiftly and decisively down upon the Minotaur’s head. There was no sound…it jerked…once, twice…death throes, and fell still…bleeding from the ear. Rupert pursed his lips to contain the acrid liquid as he gagged and vomited into his mouth.

Sarah scooped the dead mouse onto the shovel and dropped it into the compost heap.

“Little bastard…”, she spat. “It was after my seeds”.  

   

Okay...maybe it's not quite 'horror' per say... ;)

#Fridayflash - The Sand Man

   

It is not yet light, and somewhere behind me, someone is laughing. They’re probably not laughing at me, but it feels like it. I do the last thing you should do when you’re trying to pretend something doesn’t bother you…I turn around, and look at what’s bothering me.

     

The laughing man meets my eyes…perhaps that’s pity I see in his, or he’s mocking me…or he’s trying to pretend I don’t bother him. I don’t know, but it’s making me very confused. The man laughs harder when he sees I don’t understand, and I suddenly feel very young and stupid and like he knows everything I should know, and realise, and he finds my naivety very funny. He laughs harder and harder then, louder, throwing his head back in superiority, until all his features melt together and he seems to dry out before my eyes, the power of his laughter exploding him into a choking cloud of sand. Even though I feel sick at the thought of it, and I deliberately don’t inhale, the sand somehow fills my eyes and my throat and I can’t breathe…and still, he is laughing at me, through the molecules and grains he has become, and his laughter penetrates, becoming a heavy part of me.

    

Barely awake, I stretch out my hand under the covers, searching for Joe, for the comfort and warmth of him. Needing, after such awful humiliation, to feel close and wanted, but he isn’t there. The bed beside me is cold, and I don’t look at the clock. Joe doesn’t sleep well, he will have gone outside so as not to disturb me. The laughter from my dream rings in my ears and I feel small and silly, and tearful…I almost get up to look for Joe, but it would be selfish of me. He likes to walk when he can’t sleep, be alone with his thoughts, and it turns out, as I move my head on to the corner of his pillow, that just his scent, and my memory of our early night, is enough to comfort me. I wipe my nightmare away with my tears and I go back to sleep.   

    

This morning, as I make the bed, I brush the sand from the sheets at Joe’s side, onto the silvered boards of our bedroom floor. Pushing open the glass doors to the terrace, I pad out through them in my bare feet, wearing one of Joe’s shirts. He must have come out here for air last night whilst I slept; my own feet are instantly gritty.

     

It’s fresh and warm outside this morning. I feel the early sun on my bare legs and the skin of my forearms, and I smile…and I feel like the luckiest woman alive. The scent of the sea and the noise of waves crashing on the beach envelopes me, and the coastal morning warmth caresses my skin like last night’s kisses. The breeze billows the curtains, and my hair, like tender fingers. Licking the salt from my lips, I wrap my arms around myself to hold on to this feeling. If I had a cup of coffee right now, with far too much milk in it, there couldn’t be a more perfect moment.

    

The paper-boy goes past, trudging through the sand in board shorts and a vest. He is pushing his bike through the remnants of a smouldering beach fire, not quite out, and tosses the paper through the terrace railings, at my feet. I breathe the acrid, spent cinders and heated tyres, as I look down at its headline: SANDMAN STRIKES AGAIN.

      

My dream flashes back to me for the briefest of moments and I push it aside. My day is too beautiful already, to spoil with bad news about recent, local misfortunes. Though half my heart wonders which family is grieving their daughter today, and which dune she was found buried in this time.

     

With Joe left for work already, I throw open all the doors and windows to the sea air and let the perfect day seep into the bones of the house. I make that cup of coffee in the kitchen and pick up the paper from the terrace, placing it on the breakfast table on my way to the shower. The advertisement will be in it today - I have a concert on Saturday, and my piano bids me practice through the open doorway of my studio as I pass.

     

I pin my hair up, towel wrapped around me, and dry in the sea breeze as I eat breakfast…listening hard on my iPod to the notes in the piece I am finding most difficult to play. I flick through the paper, distracted by a notice for a weekend wedding fayre, and by my heart, and I look for my ad.

      

They tell you, when you’re a child, about the Sand Man. He brings your bad dreams, your nightmares; he sprinkles sand in your ear while you peacefully sleep, and he shatters your rest with unpleasant things. They tell you he’s the reason, to go quickly to sleep when your parents kiss you ‘good night’. Or at least to close your eyes, and keep them that way. You cannot look at the Sand Man, they say…if you see him coming, you die in your sleep.

    

I never do hear him coming above the music, but I see the Sand Man, as he covers my mouth and pushes me deftly, to the ground. He sits astride my body, huge and heavy, pinning my limbs, and I cannot move or fight. The Sand Man stuffs a rag into my mouth and slides a transparent bag over my head, and I wonder, if passing out will feel like sleep, before I die. And my dream comes back to me again, as the Sand Man is laughing at the fear in my eyes…and at the flickering recognition… You see, I know who the Sand Man is, and he was laughing all the time. 

   

Short Story - The Project

Too long to be a #fridayflash! :)

When I first met Alistair, he had the moon on a stick, or so it seemed. He held it above me one summer’s night, by the lakeside and told me he wanted to make films someday. We were fifteen, and I believed he might. He talked of Hitchcock and Hollywood…Beverley Hills…and the stars began to spin…the angels sang… …anything seemed possible and infinitely better than here.

We married as soon as we were able, Alistair and I, two months after my eighteenth birthday, in a rush before I started to show. My mother wasn’t happy…she’d wanted me to marry the son of a family friend. He was going to university, to be a doctor, and he’d always liked me, she said. I was a silly girl. Alistair was going to the ‘university of life’ I told her (in his words of course!)…you didn’t need an education if you wanted to create art. You just needed inspiration, and there was no better source of inspiration than being in love.

Fifty years, thousands of miles, and a small family later, I look at Alistair across a smoke-filled room, pipe hanging from the corner of sour, wet lips, and it’s hard to believe his smile had once held so much promise. Glazed and watery blue-grey eyes and too many ornaments, glare back at me, aimlessly, barely piercing the space between us. Alistair never did make films…he made sounds for films…or rather, he edited them after the Foley artists created them. And even that was too much for him in the end.

Shortly after we married, Alistair got a job at small, independent studio in Berkshire. They made art house movies, mostly horror, and I recall he came home from the interview all excited. Those cobalt eyes that had hooked me on the river bank, were still twinkling with the fever of youthful enthusiasm:

“It’s only in the recording studio Suzy, but I got it! I got it! We’re on our way…first step to Hollywood baby…” And why not? I was excited too, it really did seem he had his foot in the door now and the only way was up. Screw my mother, what did she know?

Our daughter was born in the summer of ‘61, and after that, my time became consumed with her. I was young and motherhood was all-encompassing. I kept house, I cooked and cared…a contented, if somewhat harassed, model wife. I prided myself on that, but it meant I had less time to notice Alistair. He came and went back and forth to work, as all good husbands should. He said the pursuit of his art shouldn’t make him careless, and we started paying a mortgage on a little terraced house. We struggled, but Alistair shoved a decent amount of housekeeping money into my hand every Friday, and walked to work so we didn’t have to go without meat any day of the week. He kissed me on the cheek every morning as he left our bed, and he spent the weekends with Eloise and I in the park or at the boating lake. We seemed happy.

I asked Alistair about work sometimes when he came home tense or quiet, but he rarely liked to discuss it. ‘Stress’ he said…it was very ‘stressful’ working with all those horror sounds, screams and thwacks and bone crunches…the kind of movies I didn’t like to watch, and we’d never want Eloise to see. I asked about Hollywood sometimes too…when Eloise started to walk, but Alistair said it wasn’t so easy as he’d thought…it might take a few years…then he rubbed his temples. I quieted down…it wasn’t a wife’s place back then to pry into her husband’s work, and it seemed to make it harder for him when I did. I just assumed I’d have to wait a little longer for the dream.

It wasn’t really until our son was born, in ’64, that I began to realise we weren’t going to Hollywood. I got Eloise into the local nursery school, and the second time round I was a little older and much more relaxed; a baby didn’t seem such hard work. I focused a little on Alistair then. I felt we’d disconnected while the children were being born and I didn’t know much about his life away from home. Maybe I’d been wrong about prying and I was the reason he hadn’t been promoted, perhaps I’d been unsupportive of his career. I resolved to try harder and began to ask him on an evening: “How was work?”

Alistair didn’t seem to like it. “Fine”, he’d say, tersely, his tone very closed. “Stressful.” I tried hard to be sympathetic, offered to listen, but Alistair rarely said much. Except in his sleep. He often made the sounds of his trade in his dreams, waking me at 3am with a witch’s cackle or a high-pitched scream. I raised the noises once at the breakfast table, but no matter how many times I asked him about it, Alistair didn’t seem to hear me. He just read his Sunday paper intently…until his hearing returned when I offered him a cup of tea and some toast.

I let it go, but when our son was around six months old, Alistair began to make a sound in his sleep I’d never heard before. It was a low, pitiful screaming, almost a bellow, as though something large were moaning in pain at the end of a long, narrow pipe. There were several sounds in the nocturnal catalogue that I was used to hearing…most of them I had even starting to sleep through, but I had never heard anything like this. I didn’t know much about Foley editing, or what Alistair really did at work, but this sound played in his dreams over and over, like a vinyl record that had got stuck on the needle and kept jumping back.

Around the same time, Alistair started buying pictures and models of elephants for the house. He liked them, he said. It reminded him of ‘The Project’, and kept his brain working on it when he got home from work. It was very important, he insisted, worth a lot of money if he could get it right, so I went along with it for a little while.

Alistair called all his elephants ‘Topsy’, and I wasn’t allowed to touch or clean them. When he came home with the 42^nd elephant, I lost my temper and pressed him for more answers, they were cluttering up the window sills – what would the neighbours think? Before he lost his temper and struck me in the side of the head, Alistair said something about Edison’s film and a Foley sound he just couldn’t get right.

The final straw came one Saturday afternoon when I took the children into town. Alistair said he wasn’t coming…he was pretty sure he was close to resolving ‘The Project’ and he wanted to make some notes while the house was quiet. I wasn’t surprised, he rarely went anywhere with us by that time. When he wasn’t at work, he preferred to stay at home with the ‘Topsies’.

The children and I returned only hours later to a street full of fire engines and a special sort of ambulance at the curb. It appeared Alistair had attempted to wire all the ‘Topsies’ together and plug them into the mains. His eyes met mine as uniformed men led him into the back of the large white van, and I had never seen them look so dead.

“We made it Suze!” he declared, soot streaking his face and his hair on end like those photographs you see of Albert Einstein in science books. “I’ve got Topsy’s scream sorted! We’re off to Hollywood!”

We didn’t go to Hollywood. Alistair was committed to a mental health institution in rural Berkshire where I visited him year on year. There was never any improvement in his condition, and I kept the children away for their own sake. Shortly after his committal Alistair began making the low, bellowing noise he had once only uttered in his sleep, for hours throughout the day as well.

It later emerged through conversation with his colleagues and various therapies and shock treatments, that he had been working for over a year on the Foley sound edit for a clip of Edison’s 1903 film of the electrocution of Topsy, a rogue elephant on Coney Island who had killed three of her handlers. Alistair had spent hours every day in his editing studio, watching the clip on loop and ordering and reordering the sound of the elephant’s dying scream to be recorded by the Foley artists. It seems the sound of an elephant being electrocuted was notoriously difficult to make, and nothing had ever seemed to synchronise with the film or sound close to real. It had driven him to distraction, poor lamb.

I always felt for Alistair…he was an impassioned man and he suffered for his art. I continued to visit him, even after the doctor my mother had wanted me to marry had divorced his wife. Fifty years later and remarried (…living in LA as a matter of fact…Robert moved into cosmetic surgery…) I still come to see Alistair once a year. I bring him another elephant ornament for his room. These days it’s the only thing that makes him smile and brings the cobalt-blue back into his eyes.

#Fridayflash - Old Photos

Inspired by a Leeds Savage Club Writers' Meeting Task of the same title:

Time holds out her hand to touch me and I knock it away, old photographs spread out on the carpet before me.

I order them: before…and after. Two boxes lie marked and labelled, waiting to be filled. 

In the oldest pictures, I notice, we are always smiling. Ever grinning and excited, we hold hands beside a camel in Egypt (when it was still exotic to go to Egypt), and pull silly Flamenco poses beneath an arch of flowers in Spain. And then there’s you…on that beach in…oh where was it now? Who cares? You’re wearing that orange bikini you had in ’73, and despite the sun on the sea and the years, you’re still the only thing shining for miles…

                  *                            *                              *

I open another of the paper wallets and she smiles back at me from an early 80’s matt finish; a 10 x 8. Her eyes still startle me like the first time I saw them, such a beautiful, vivid green, and my heartbeat falters, the way it did the first time I held her. The corners of the picture are rounded, like they used to be back then. It makes the image softer somehow, and I realise, I miss that in the sharper, later ones, when the corners get square again and he starts to appear, sometimes, beside her.

As time goes on and the photos get glossy, the colours get brighter, and it seems they are always together…though I recall it became more difficult ever to catch them so.

The pictures of us have different expressions now…we look tired sometimes, vaguely anxious…the occasional one has us stern or angry…but mostly, we still smile – the biggest, gentlest smiles of joy, and pride…and a love like we’d never known. 

These photographs I place in the box I have marked: ‘The Kids’. The others, in the box marked: ‘Us’. Perhaps one day, the kids will want to meet us. For now I look forward to Sunday lunches, and the two sets of green eyes, like their mother’s, that meet mine across the dining table again.     

#Fridayflash - Missing

Inspired by a Leeds Savage Club Writers' Group Task, for which the prompt simply read: 'Writers' Group'.

     

She pushed her way between the hedge and the gatepost, squeezing by to avoid the tedious effort of the heavy gate. Tonight, air was all she needed.

The fields yawned out before her, with their long shadows and their evening sun, and she heard the faint hum of traffic, on the roads beyond the trees. The world was still out there, but somehow, this was a place where she could barely notice.

It had been warm today. The office had been stuffy and the phones had been hot, and she was tired of being polite. The thoughts had been stirring in her head all day...but she couldn't seem to find a moment to organise them. She knew she had something that needed to be said...to be shared...but she was running out of time. With a conscious effort, she suppressed the conditioned urge to wonder what time it was now...not because she thought she had any more of it, but because it seemed crass to think it mattered here.

The hares in the grass 20 yards away, began to scatter with her stirring footsteps, and she decided to sit, unwilling to disturb them further. She closed her eyes for what felt like a lifetime, and breathed, filling her lungs with air. The scent of the outdoors was like nectar, and it flooded her core, seeping into every , crackling fibre until she felt like a thirsty tulip drinking morning dew. With the sun setting, low on her back, and the soft voice of a lonely cricket chirping somewhere beside her, slowly...finally...she felt her thoughts begin to tumble into place. She sighed, and pulled a battered notebook from the back pocket of her jeans. Hunching over to rest it on her knee, she put her pen to the page, and began to write.

The pen was hasty, confident and sure, and it moved without a pause or a scribble... It was just as she'd thought. This was something that needed to be said, and it almost wrote itself.

She was so engrossed, scratching frantically at the paper, that she barely noticed when he sat down beside her. He had to touch her unoccupied hand, lightly, to alert her to his presence, and she turned her head, dipping it gently against his as a greeting. It was the very briefest of tender gestures, before she resumed her task. Her thoughts had taken so long to be coherent that she was now unwilling to disturb them, and despite his being there, she steadfastly completed her mission.

It didn't surprise her that he waited in silence, shifting only slightly as he stroked his thumb over the empty space on her wedding finger. He knew her well enough by now not to speak when he found her here.

"When you were late," he said, eventually, as she laid her notebook in the grass, "I knew I'd find you here."

She turned to him then, eyeing the finger he was stroking with painful regret, before she met his eyes.

"I'm sorry..." she frowned. "I know I should have called. It's just...with what happened this morning, I suppose I've felt lost all day. I couldn't get things straight in my head...the words wouldn't come. I just...I really needed some air." He nodded, acceptingly...always accepting...his eyebrows knitting a little, as he tried to understand her world.

"And do you have them straight now?"

She smiled sadly.

"Yes, I think I do."

"Can I see?" She turned to the notebook and smoothly tore out the page...there were other things in there that she wasn't ready to show him yet. Folding the paper twice so it fit in her palm, she pressed it gently into his. She didn't watch him unfold it, and got up to pace, nervously, as he read:

Missing

I miss you today,

like water,

like rain,

that harnessed and poured on,

swept away the only beacon that has ever

truly retained the most treasured

moments

of my life - remembered for me

our mornings, my dreams,

our nights - heated and love-drunk; tender circle

of fire it seems I only pay note to

when I feel that it

is lacking.

And here

the knife

twists now,

withdrawing and plunging back in,

for I have only regrets...

of where my apathy greeted and met my

wantoness

and I lost you...

...I lost you through nothing

but inattention, and my own carelessness.

"So what do you think?" She finally asked, when he stood up and wandered over to join her. "It's the Writers' Group Open Mic tonight and I wanted to have something to read...but I think I've left it too late, haven't I? I've rushed it...it needs more work...?"

"No," he smiled, "you haven't...and it doesn't. I think it's perfect, beautiful...I think you're beautiful!" He pushed the paper back into her hand. "Go. Please." He told her. "Read it. They'll love you."

"Perhaps," she smiled, feeling suddenly and uncharacteristically shy, "but I think you're biased on that front. And besides...what will you do tonight? ...If I go?"

"Me?" he smirked and pulled her close to kiss her forehead. "I'm going to take the U-bend off, darling... You're not the only one who misses your ring, you know!"

#Fridayflash - Unbeaten

    

She had been leaning on the fence for a while when she finally felt him approach her. Alissa sighed with relief…she’d been waiting for him, and somehow, he always knew that.

Despite her terrible mood, she found she rolled her neck and tipped her head back, welcoming the sensation of his breath in her hair. She smiled as the warm, humid breeze, stirred her dark curls. How on earth did he do that? She surely had nothing to smile about now… Well…nothing but him.

He stepped a little closer, chest pressed against her back now, and made no sound when he laid his cheek to her temple. Alissa felt him breathe against her, his chest swell and fall, and it was almost as though he breathed his strength right through her. Standing got suddenly easier as she reached to bury her fingers in the hair behind his ear. He was warm and safe and solid, and it didn’t take words to tell her why he had come. He was offering understanding… He knew exactly how this felt.

He pressed his chin into her shoulder then, comforting her, and returned her sigh as Alissa squeezed her eyes shut, wiping her tears. The bruise around her left eye, stung, from the flowing salt…but there was nothing left to cry for. Whatsoever she had lost, she still had him… And he knew her like no one else could; he listened to her very thoughts, trusted her with his life…and she trusted him with hers. It was so much more than she could ever say for Steven.

Alissa turned to face him then, and cupped his velvet nose in her hands.

“I want a divorce, Othello.” She told the great, black horse. “That’s the last time that man lays hands on you or I.”

The Leeds Savage Club E-Book - Now Available for Free Download!

  

As many of you will already know, I am the current Press Officer for the Leeds Savage Club, a society for writers and artists in the District of Leeds and the surrounding area of beautiful West Yorkshire, in the north of England, UK.

Yesterday, the Leeds Savage Club launched their very first e-book...and not only is it FREE to download, and bursting with no less than 55 pages of stories and poems by our very talented writers (including uber-modest moi!), but there are also 59 images of brilliant artwork by our amazing sketchers.

Below is a portrait of myself (and Lydia, the horse I ride!) by Steve James, a founding member of the Leeds Savage Club and a long-term member of the sketchers' group - it's just a taster of the level of aptitude and ability you can expect to find in our publication... and of course, it's just to tease you...just to lure you in...'cause if you want to see (and read!) more, well...you're just going to have to download A Very Savage Affair, here, aren't you?

#Fridayflash - Thrills

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?!” he said, staring at her incredulously, over the top of his sunglasses as they waited for the lights to change. Martin’s leather-gloved hands gripped the steering wheel of the low sports car a little harder in irritation. “You’re doing it again!”

Felicity was slow to respond. She dragged her eyes, lazily, from the buttocks of a workman who was filling a pothole outside the passenger window. She frowned, as though Martin had been rude to interrupt her.

“What..? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said, half-heartedly…and quite obviously aware of exactly what he was talking about.

“Oh, Flick, please, don’t try to be cute!” Martin said tersely, biting out his words. “It doesn’t suit you. Just put your damn tongue in, will you?!” Felicity’s mouth fell open in stunned disbelief and she felt her skin bristle with annoyance.

“Well! I am sorry, darling…” she feigned sweetness, rolling her eyes. “I hadn’t realised how much you dislike it when I admire something pretty.”

Martin ignored her, trying to be dignified…but as he pulled away from the lights with gusto, the revving of the powerful engine betrayed him.

“At least I only admire things…” Flick continued, deliberately provoking. “I mean…when they’re not mine… I don’t just go and take them…I’m not like you…”

“Flick…” Martin finally bit the hook. “That’s different! You can’t start complaining about that now! You knew what I was like when you met me…I’ve never lied to you. And let’s face it, you don’t exactly refuse the benefits I bring home, do you?”

“Maybe not…,” she smirked wickedly for a moment. “I’ll admit it, I do enjoy those… But I could live without them, Martin. The problem is, I really don’t think you could…and someday, your luck’s gonna run out. You won’t always be this young and in demand, you know!”

“Maybe I won’t…” he replied, pulling the car into the mouth of an industrial estate. “And then, maybe I’ll try and live without this…but would you really want that now? I’d be bored and grouchy all the time, Flick! I need the excitement…the danger! I have to have the thrills, the variety, or it’s like I can’t breathe!” He sighed heavily at the sight of her sceptical frown. “Please…don’t look at me like that! It’s just what makes me tick, that’s all. I don’t do it to upset you, Flick…I do it because I need to. I’m not me without it…and if the truth be known, you wouldn’t be you either.”

Martin pulled the car against the curb outside what looked like an empty warehouse. Felicity raised an eyebrow at him when he reached for the door handle.

“We’re not done here.” She said, pointedly.

“Just stay in the car,” he told her. “I’ll only be a minute.”

Watching Martin disappear into the warehouse, Felicity considered the things he’d said. It was true, she had always known, and she really did like the benefits of his ‘danger’ and ‘excitement’. Martin was always so wired afterwards…he literally came alive! But she wasn’t always sure it was worth it. Lately, Flick seemed constantly worried. Every time Martin left the house, her thoughts were consumed with where he was…and what he was doing! Someday she wanted to settle down, have a family…and they’d never be able to do that whilst he was still so…wild!

A knock on the window beside her, jolted Flick from her silent frustration. Martin smiled at her through the glass…a beam that lit the air around him and filled it with electric sparks. She found her own mouth twitching involuntarily as he waved a stuffed brown envelope at her, and his dark eyes grew luminous…

“C’mon! C’mon, get out!” he panted, pulling the door open. “Quick!” Flick stood up out of the low, sleek car and into Martin’s radiating cloud of exhilaration. Her eyes were fixed on the envelope.

“They’re gonna take her?!” She tried, and failed, to push down her own glee as her stomach flipped with anticipation. “How much?”

“Of course they’re gonna take her! Look at her, Flick! I’ve got great taste in other people’s cars!”

“Martin! How much?!” Felicity reached for the envelope, but he pulled it back, stuffing it into his pocket.

“£23,000!” He hissed, leaning to kiss her mouth, hurriedly. “Not bad for a day’s work, eh?” Flick caught the back of his neck, and pressed his lips to hers in a longer, heated assault. It left them both breathless, toes curling…not bad indeed! God, she loved him like this! It was contagious!

“Just wait ‘til I get you home,” she gasped, dragging her nails slowly between his shoulder blades. “…I’ve just remembered how much I love those…benefits!”

“Home?!” Martin grinned, teasing and sexy. “Oh honey…now you’ll just have to be patient! I work nine to five…I’m still at the office!” Felicity let him take her hand and started running…

“Quick!” he told her. “We’ve got a bus to catch…there’s a business conference in town…and apparently, the hotel has a hell of a car park!”

Felicity picked up her pace…just a couple more couldn’t hurt.

#Fridayflash - Ladies Who Lunch

  

“How is your vanilla slice, Lucie?”

Evangeline tried hard not to sneer, as she tucked into her fruit salad with a dainty fork. It wasn’t as though Lucie had scope to be eating a cream cake…she was at least four pounds heavy in the hips!

“Oh, it’s wonderful, Evie!” Lucie declared with genuine enthusiasm, blissfully oblivious to the sly glances and smirks that passed between her companions. “Simply delicious! You girls really ought to treat yourselves now and again!”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Evangeline smiled, though there was nothing pleasant about it. “I’m watching my figure…image is everything these days, isn’t it? And I wouldn’t want to show Daniel up at the next charity ball by looking a porker in my gown, now would I?!”

Jessica snickered at the thinly veiled insult, but Lucie seemed yet to be ignorant.

“I don’t eat dairy…” Jessica smirked, in an effort to confound Evie’s subtle nastiness. “It plays havoc with your skin tone…and, apparently, foreigners can smell you if you’ve consumed anything containing milk proteins! Stinks to high heaven, so they say! Just imagine…if Matthew’s overseas clients could smell me at dinner?! I would simply die of shame!”

“Smell you?!” Lucie looked thoroughly amused and entirely sceptical. “Jess, that’s ridiculous! It’s like thinking all French people smell of garlic!” Lucie’s delight in the notion’s absurdity bubbled over, and she gave a hearty chuckle. The other women around the lunch table grimaced notably at Lucie’s frivolous, tinkling tones – her laugh was too loud, too crass…and it illustrated just one more way that she didn’t fit in to their world.

Lucie had married Richard last year…and everyone had been against it. There was simply no denying, the woman was from the wrong side of town!

Richard had clearly been smitten from day one…brainwashed, some might say… Lucie was so incredibly real, he’d asserted when he met her, suddenly strangely enthusiastic, his gusto rivalling that of a teenage boy. She was free – and totally unlike anyone he’d met before. Lucie did just as she pleased…was totally honest, and never apologised for being herself…

But everyone else could see, the marriage had obviously benefited Lucie far more than it aided Richard – he had got himself a shameful wife…a genuine disgrace, who wore inappropriate, short dresses at every occasion and never had the right thing to say. Lucie had earned herself a small fortune overnight…not to mention that gigantic country house in Hampshire! Oh yes…Lucie was very ‘new money’…and goodness, it showed!

Lunch, to Lucie, was about ordering the most expensive cream cakes, and drinking too much champagne.

“Let your hair down, girls!” she’d say, and have Evangeline and Jessica cringing, as she talked too loudly, ate too much food, and had the whole restaurant looking their way. Lucie simply couldn’t see that class and decorum were about less, not more…but less, in the most…well…respectable way possible. For the money Lucie paid for champagne and cream fancies, Evie and Jess could drink a £40 bottle of Appalachian spring water and eat organic rocket and crayfish salads – with no dressing, of course. Now that was classy…

With Lucie’s laughter reaching a crescendo, the women made their usual, untrue excuses, and left the Wednesday lunch in various executive models of Range Rover.

As she tottered to her own Barbie-pink version, on too-high Jimmy Choos, and watched Evie and Jess climb into matching, sleek-black examples, Lucie felt her diamond-studded Blackberry vibrating in the pocket of her designer jeans. As she worked the device out of the tight denim on her hip, she wondered which department store bathroom Evie and Jess would stop at on their way home, to purge what little lunch they had eaten.

Although Lucie knew how they felt about her…rude and loud, an embarrassment…she couldn’t help but feel sorry for these women. Evie and Jess were raised in this world, where nothing was expected of them but decorum, beauty and unconditional support for their husbands…so long as they were rich and successful, of course. Evie and Jess had never had the chance to know who they really were or what they liked.

Lucie read the message on her Blackberry. It was Matthew…again. It seemed Richard’s business partner was developing something of a liking for her. Poor Jess… Lucie wondered if she ever suspected her husband spent his lunch hour propositioning other men’s wives?!

Part of Lucie wanted to return Matthew’s message…something naughty and encouraging…as revenge for Jess’s suggestion that she smelled! But then, Lucie couldn’t do that to Richard…and she really wouldn’t want to.

Lucie smiled at just the thought of her husband, and wondered if he’d be finished with meetings early today. She’d bought steak for dinner. Climbing into her pink Range Rover, she threw the Blackberry on the passenger seat. Lucie stroked the pink leather gear-stick as she turned the key in the ignition, and slipped on her flamboyant sunglasses.

You might not be able to buy class, Lucie thought…or taste…but you can’t buy love or happiness either. Everything I need is free… she grinned to herself, still unable to believe her new life… and for everything I want, there’s a credit card!