Remembrance by June Webber, rosemary tea

As she walked up the garden path carrying a tray of sandwiches, Mary paused by the lilac tree. It had already clusters of deeply packed buds ready to burst open and release their heavenly fragrance. Bob had planted the tree when she had told him she was pregnant with Bobby.

          ‘It will grow with the baby.’ he had said.

Now the delicate sapling was a robust shrub, and Bobby was a sturdy boy about to start school in September. He had his father’s dark, curly hair and brown eyes and loved playing football in the street with the neighbouring children. Only the rich could afford cars then and petrol was rationed. They had planned to give Bobby a little sister or brother after the war, but it was not to be.

A row of oddly assorted tables and chairs spread along the middle of the street with tablecloths of red, white and blue. Bunting made from any scraps of materiel which people could find was strung between lampposts and telegraph poles. Children of various sizes in homemade paper hats were chattering excitedly as their mothers emerged from the houses with plates of sandwiches and cakes and jugs of lemonade. Mary placed her plate of jam sandwiches on the table and hands shot out to grab one. No fussy eaters amongst these war babies, and cakes were kept back until the sandwiches had all been eaten. Food was too precious to leave.

Mary had met Bob at the local Amateur Dramatics Society, where he was the pianist and she was in the chorus, never quite good enough for a main part but then she only had to learn the songs and was happy to merge into the background. They had put on productions of Ivor Novello’s Glamourous Night, and Careless Rapture as well as Gilbert and Sullivan.  There had been no more performances since the outbreak of war, and the men and young people were in the services leaving the mothers, children and grandparents behind.

Ivor had written a new song, ‘We’ll gather Lilacs in the Spring again’ for a musical Perchance to Dream. Mary softly hummed it, wiping a tear from her eye. Bob would never see the lilac tree grow or his son grow into a man. He had never been abroad, but as soon as his feet touched the sand of Normandy, he was shot down. Mary’s emotions were a mixture of grief and relief that the war was over, as she spotted some khaki uniforms amongst the parents and was thankful that no other wife would share her loss. Bob was buried in a military cemetery, and as soon as she could save enough money Mary would take Bobby and make him proud of the father he would scarcely remember.

About the author

June Webber is a great grandmother living in Dorset. She is a member of a local creative writing group and Zoom writing and poetry groups. She has had poems published, and stories in CafeLit and The Best of CafeLit. 

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A Strange Experience, by June Webber, Real Ale

This was not the town I had left five years ago, a thriving manufacturing centre with full employment. Now it was looking shabby and down-at-heel, with litter blowing down near deserted streets. I said goodbye to my mates outside the Cat and Fiddle and crossed the street to take a shortcut through the shopping mall. I remembered it as gleaming white concrete, packed on Saturday afternoons when we used to hang out, eyeing the latest fashions and the pretty girls. Now the concrete was grey and crumbling, covered in graffiti. Most of the shops had closed or moved to the new shopping centre on the edge of town. My head was spinning with a combination of jetlag and three pints of real ale – or was it four?  I had forgotten how strong it was. I turned a corner and heard strange music like wind chimes and smelled a powerful aroma of herbs and eucalyptus. In the former Body Shop, there were tea lights burning along the edge of the shop window in front of gold figures of Egyptian gods. A middle-aged woman in a long kimono beckoned me.

 ‘Come in.’ she said in a sultry voice, ‘We are expecting you. We are giving free massages this afternoon.’

They must be desperate for customers, I thought, but the prospect of a massage was appealing and maybe I could buy something for my mum. In a back room was a leather couch with two girls either side with long, black hair, dressed in sequinned bras and loose baggy trousers.  It seemed I had been mistaken, and it was no longer a perfume shop. The two girls removed my shirt and trousers, revealing my scarlet underpants. I could feel the blood run to my cheeks and felt embarrassed about my pot belly. I lay down on the couch on my front, and the young maidens sank their fingers into my flesh, kneading and pommelling. I felt all the stiffness from the long plane journey melt away and drifted off into a sort of trance. I woke and remembered I had promised to be home for dinner. I jumped down from the couch and grabbed my phone. ‘Sorry but I have to go now.’

'No, stay longer, stay, stay.' chimed the girls like a Greek chorus, holding on to my arms.

I began to panic. Was I being prepared for a ritual sacrifice, or was I supposed to satisfy these maidens?  I broke free and ran out of the shop, through the main door and straight into the bus station! Lines of passengers waiting for buses stared at me, some sniggering, some nudging others, and mothers covering their children’s eyes. I held my phone in front of me in an effort to cover myself. Just then a patrolling policeman arrested me and took me to the police station, where I was breathalysed.

‘Have you been driving, sir?’ he asked.

‘No, I left my car in Australia,’ I replied, ‘I came on the bus. Can I phone my mum and tell her I’ll be late for my dinner?’

‘Where are you, still in the pub?’ she asked.

I decided not to admit I was at the police station.  I was given a blanket and gave my statement. The police officer rolled his eyes and sent a young constable to the shopping centre. He returned with a pile of my clothes, which I identified.

‘I found these in an empty shop,’ he confirmed.  ‘It was unlocked, but there was nothing else inside other than some burnt out candles and old brass ornaments.’

 I was released with a warning and caught a bus home. My mother didn’t believe me either. ‘It’s time you grew up lad and stopped making silly excuses, and your dinner’s burnt!

About the author

June Webber is a great grandmother living in Dorset. She is a member of a local creative writing group and Zoom writing and poetry groups. She has had poems published, two stories in The Best of CafeLit 11 and one in CafeLit13.

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.) 

She Stole My Book, by June Webber, bitter lemon

I helped myself to a latte from the machine and scanned the room for an empty seat.  All around were groups chattering excitedly, and each new arrival was greeted by hugs.  I knew no-one at the Crime Writers’ Weekend and had never felt so alone.  I spotted a spare seat at a corner table, where an older woman was absorbed in her phone.

‘Is anyone sitting here?’ I asked.

‘Not unless they are invisible,’ was the curt reply.

‘May I join you then? I’m Abbie,’ I said with a smile.

‘I can read,’ replied the other woman, looking at my name badge.

‘Of course, and you are Jane I see,’ I continued.  ‘It’s my first time here and I’m so looking forward to hearing Felicity Fanshawe tomorrow.  I’ve read all her books and I’m hoping she will sign her latest one for me.  So clever to change genre.  I think it’s her best one yet.’

‘Do you really?’  Jane walked out of the room leaving a half-drunk mug of coffee.

I shrank into the corner, but Emily, a member of the welcome committee, came over.

‘Don’t mind Jane,’ she began.  ‘She’s got a chip on her shoulder because she’s never been published.’

‘Well neither have I.’

‘Yet,’ added Emily with a smile, and soon we were chatting like old friends.

‘Are you coming to the Flappers evening?’ asked Emily.

‘Yes, I’m so looking forward to it. I’ve hired a costume.  I love the twenties music and of course the Charleston.’

     I finished my coffee and went back to my room to change.  It was halfway along a corridor in Lake House, a functional sixties rectangular block of no architectural merit, at odds with the beautiful old manor house I had just left.  I put on my fringed blue dress, long beads, matching headdress, and long gloves and practiced the Charleston in the full-length mirror.  As I opened my door, Felicity was emerging from her room along the corridor looking very glamorous in a shocking pink sequinned dress. with a feathered headdress and a matching feather boa.

    I enjoyed the evening, chatting and drinking more than I was used to and danced with a young man called Steve, who was a reporter from the local paper. I avoided Jane, who was dressed all in black with a matching feather boa.  Felicity left early, saying she had to look through her talk for the next day and Jane left shortly afterwards.

     I slept soundly and was just coming out of the bathroom the next morning when I heard a piercing scream.  I opened the door to see the cleaner running along the corridor and speaking to the other cleaner in some Eastern European language.  They both abandoned their trollies and hurried across to the manor house.  As I went to breakfast, I noticed a black feather on the stairs.

     The main hall was full, and there was an excited buzz, waiting for Felicity Fanshawe.  We waited and waited.  After ten minutes the chairman came to the rostrum, looking pale and nervous.

‘I am sorry to inform you that Felicity will not be giving her talk.  Lake House will be closed for the day, but all facilities will be open in the Manor House.  This is all I can tell you for now, but please stay on site and report anything unusual you have seen or heard.’

     As we made our way to the bar, everyone was stunned and speculating why the main speaker was missing.

‘Perhaps she’s got Covid or a hangover,’ suggested Steve.

‘No, I noticed she hardly drank anything and left early. I hope she’s not ill, although I did notice an ambulance in the car park outside Lake House after breakfast,’ I told him.

‘And there’s a police car there.  Why would they close all of Lake House if she was ill?’

     The police set up an interview room in the main lounge and questioned all the 100 guests, examining photos of the previous night’s event.  It emerged that the cleaner had knocked on the door of Felicity’s bedroom and, hearing no response, had entered and found Felicity lying on the floor motionless.  I had heard nothing apart from the cleaner’s scream but remembered the black feather on the stairs.  Only one person had worn a black feather boa.

     As Jane was taken to the police station, she called out, ‘She stole my book!’

    Well, I had lent books to people who had not returned them, but surely that was not a motive for murder.  At the police station, Jane confessed all under questioning.

     ‘I had written my first crime novel.  I knew Felicity from school, and she was already an established writer, so I sent it to her for a critique.  She sent it back with a note that it needed a complete rewrite: the plot was too thin, the characters were not believable, and the dialogue stilted.  I hadn’t the heart to rewrite something I had struggled with for so long, so I put it in a drawer.  Felicity had already had ten romantic novels published, so I was interested to read her first crime novel.  Imagine my surprise and anger when it was my book, almost word for word.  She had only changed the title and names.  It became a best seller and won the Agatha Christie prize.  I came to the crime weekend to confront her.  I followed her to her room and asked for half the royalties or I would go to the press and expose her.  She laughed in my face and said nobody would believe me, a complete unknown.  I grabbed her feather boa and pulled hard, and she fell to the floor, banging her head on the metal bedpost.  I hadn’t meant to kill her, just frighten her.’

    Jane got ten years for manslaughter. In her defence she produced her original manuscript, complete with Felicity’s damning comments.  Steve reported on the trial, appeared on the national news, and was promoted to chief reporter. In prison Jane ran the prison library and wrote a series of crime novels, which became best sellers. I wrote romantic novels published by Felicity’s publisher with great success, but I never again attended the Crime Writers’ weekend.

About the author

June Webber has written stories for CafeLit, some of which have been included in The Best of CafeLit 11 and 13. She attends Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, where she had a play performed. She is a member of two writing groups and one poetry group. She lives in Dorset and is a great grandmother. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Weeping Willows by June Webber, Crème de Menthe

The sky over Bluebell Wood darkened to a leaden grey and there was a distant growl of thunder. The birds fell silent, the trees waved their branches, and the willows wept into the stream.  Jack Greenwood their hero was dead.

                Jack had grown up on the edge of the wood in a village, which had since been swallowed up by the nearby town. He and his friends loved to play hide-and-seek, climb the trees, swing on the branches and paddle in the stream. In the spring the ground was a carpet of bluebells; in the summer shade from the sun; in the autumn the wood was a mass of russet and gold, and in the winter, snow lay on the branches and crunched underfoot.

                Years later he would take his own children and dog Luna to the wood, where they would splash in the stream and Luna would shake herself all over him.  They picnicked sitting on tree stumps, whilst Luna chased squirrels. During the Covid lockdown of 2020 it was a refuge, although limited to an hour a day. Soft toys appeared in the hollow of an oak, and people added to them until there was a collection of bears, elephants, squirrels and rag dolls.

                One day Jack was reading the local paper, when he threw it across the room.

 ‘The Council are planning to cut down our wood to build flats!’ he exclaimed to his wife Hazel.

‘Can they do that?’ she replied.

‘Over my dead body!’ he retorted.

Jack wrote to his councillor and M.P., stressing the importance of woodland for recreation and the environment. The Councillor replied that the Council were under pressure to build more housing. Jack attended the Council meeting and the motion to redevelop the wood was narrowly passed. He held a meeting of residents, where they formed an action group to protect the trees.  One of the members, a printer, produced posters and leaflets which they delivered to every house.  Posters saying ‘Save our Trees’ appeared in windows, and Jack was interviewed by the local paper.  Letters supporting the group poured in from ex-pats in America and Australia, as well as all parts of Britain.

The Council brought in the bulldozers, and the residents formed a cordon blocking the road. When they were dispersed by the police, Jack chained himself to the mighty oak.  They appeared on national television.  People brought Jack food and water, and blankets against the cold night air. An ancient document was discovered, which protected the wood in perpetuity, and the bulldozers were called off.  Jack was freed, but the exposure to cold and rain had taken its toll. He caught a cold which turned to pneumonia, which resisted the antibiotics he was prescribed. His funeral was packed out and his ashes were scattered round the base of the mighty oak. A wooden plaque was placed at the foot of the tree:

 Jack Greenwood, 1975- 2023, who saved this wood.

About the author

June Webber writes short stories and poetry and was included in The Best of CafeLit 11.  She is a member of two writing groups and one poetry group and attends Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. She lives in Dorset and is a great grandmother.

 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

V.E. Day by June Webber, champagne

 

After a cold start to the month of May, a southeast breeze had brought warmer air to London.  We had emerged from a long, cold winter, and could look forward to longer days and our first summer of peace in 5 years.  We had spent the last five years on board ship with precious little shore leave wondering whether we would survive the war.

My shipmates and I headed into London towards the Mall.  The noise was tremendous, but we had been used to being bombed, shelled, and torpedoed.  This was the cheering and singing of thousands of people celebrating the end of the war.  We had scarcely seen a woman and now they were thronging the streets in uniform or dresses.  We were swept along by the crowd, all making their way to Buckingham Palace to see the King and Churchill.  Then I spotted her, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with dark curls and ruby red lips.  We had drunk a few beers, which perhaps made me bolder than I would normally be, and my emotions were roused by the celebrations.  I grabbed her round the waist and kissed her tasting her lipstick.  A photographer caught the moment, and the photo was in the paper the next day.  I bought a copy from the newspaper office.  She did not slap my face or report me for sexual assault, as she might do these days, but she and her friends linked arms with us and danced down the street.  We were so far back we could only see the Royal Family and Winston as specks on the balcony, but we cheered with everyone else.  Little did we know the two Princesses were in the crowd.  I managed to ask her name and address before we were separated by the crowd.

The next day, after I had sobered up, I called on her.  The door was opened by a slightly older girl, who resembled Irene but not as pretty.

‘So, you’re the drunken sailor, I’ve heard all about you,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.  Irene came running to the door and the rest is history.  I left the Navy, and we were married soon afterwards.  Money was tight, but we were happy and had three lovely children.

During the last two years we have been fighting another war, but this time against an invisible enemy.  We were cut off from the world like being back on the ship, with no visitors allowed, yet the deadly virus managed to invade the Care Home.  I was not allowed to see Irene in her last days in hospital, surrounded only by nurses looking like astronauts in their full PPE protection, and she could not even have a proper funeral.  They are giving me a party tomorrow for my 100^th birthday, and the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will all be coming.  There will only be one person missing.  I so wish Irene was here.  I have asked for a new silver photo frame for the photo of our first kiss.  It is on my bedside table, and I kiss it every night.  Goodnight Irene.

About the author 

June Webber is a great grandmother, lives in Dorset and is part of three writing groups.  She writes short stories and poetry.

Magic Dust

 

by June Webber

pink champagne

 

    Tina adjusted her tiara and scowled into the full-length mirror.  A petite figure in a pastel pink tutu with diaphanous wings, pink tights, and sparkly ballet shoes, looked back.  Tina wrinkled up her nose.  A young man in a Lincoln green belted tunic, with matching tights and jaunty hat peered over her shoulder.

‘Wave your magic wand and make my lottery numbers come up,’ joked Peter Pan.

‘Stop pestering me,’ she retorted.

‘Magic me a tall, dark, handsome man,’ added Wendy.

‘Find your own,’ snapped Tina tetchily.

Tina would love to be principal boy in the pantomime, but at 4 foot 11 she was the shortest in the company.  Last year she had been a dwarf in Snow White, and the year before a mouse in Cinderella.  ‘I suppose Tinker Bell is a step up,’ she thought, but she still hated the costume.

‘All the best presents come in small packets,’ her grandmother, shrunken with age, had told her.  This was little consolation when she could not see over heads in a crowd and could not reach the top shelf in the supermarket.  She waved her magic wand, wishing she could grow another 6 inches or so, but knew she was stuck at being ‘cute, sweet and dainty.’

‘We’ve got to put on an especially good performance this afternoon,’ reminded Wendy.  ‘The kids from the hospice are coming.’

‘Yes, poor kids, they don’t have much joy in their lives. I only wish we could make them better,’ added Tina feeling guilty about being absorbed in her own problems when she was fit and healthy.  Their lives were a painful struggle with rounds of hospital visits and operations, and never being able to run around, play football or dance, as other children did.

The carers were wheeling the children to the front of the theatre and helping those on crutches to their seats.  The children were all flushed with excitement and chattering away before the orchestra started playing.

Tina attached her flying harness over her costume.  She had been very nervous the first time she had flown and was quite dizzy, but now she enjoyed floating in the air above the stage, and out over the audience, arms outstretched.  When she made her entrance, there were gasps of delight from the children.  Pale faces, often racked with pain, broke into smiles, and eyes opened wide as Tinker Bell flew above their heads scattering magic dust from her hollow wand.  The silver dust sparkled in the spotlights, and the children reached up to catch some.  When she was safely on the ground, the children clapped loudly and cheered.

At the finale, Tinker Bell received the biggest applause of all, as she curtsied, smiled, and blew kisses.  Peter Pan squeezed her hand affectionately, and whispered, ‘Well done.’

She had brought some magic into the lives of children whose lives were a daily struggle and who, like Peter Pan, would never grow up. At that moment she felt ten feet tall.

 

About the author 

June Webber is retired, lives in Dorset, and writes short stories and poetry.