Karen Regrets by Judith Skilleter, a glass of Argentine Malbec

Karen was born in the fifties. A good time to be born, a time celebrated in a song by the band The Police. She loved being a teenager in the seventies; in her opinion the seventies were when rock music was at its best. She loved the long haired heavy metal bands all of whom came to her town on tour to promote their latest LP. She saw them all, Ten Years After was her first big concert and where she fell in undying love with Alvin Lee, TYA’s amazing vocalist and lead guitar player. He, of course, was replaced in her affections by Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash, the first of many base players with whom she also fell in undying love. Then there were Free and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and Yes and the Moody Blues, not forgetting Dire Straits and so many more. Yes, the seventies were a good time to enjoy live music. It was part of growing up. It was part of enjoying something that was alien to your mum and dad.

But then things changed for Karen and music was no longer a priority. The eighties happened – marriage and babies, three babies in under five. “I must have been mad” she thinks. The nineties were also a blur – no pun intended, although she does remember preferring Blur to Oasis but why that choice had to be made escapes her.

In the nineties Karen enjoyed a developing career as a pharmacist and the demands of three teenagers who were nice kids most of the time.  Unfortunately, her husband left her for his glamourous secretary – size 8, long blond hair and no baggage. Yep, the nineties were a mixed bag of years. Some years were full of delight and accomplishment and some years were full of despair and anxiety.

The years after the millennium might have been an opportunity to enjoy music again.  Her children, when they were home, always had music playing but usually it was played with headphones and their vocal accompaniments were not always the best. 

“All my children are tone deaf,” she often said to herself. As the years progressed so did music technology. Reel to reel tapes had long since been replaced by tape cassettes which were themselves replaced by mobile personal devices. Then there were CDs and streaming and all sorts and nobody bought LPs anymore. No way was Karen going to get rid of her extensive LP collection and her Hi FI system.

Encouraged by her children, Karen dipped her toe into the future by buying a CD player and some CD’s. Her growing collection consisted of Dire Straits, Wishbone Ash etc etc most of which she had already in LP version, in well looked-after LP version, of course. She felt she was getting nowhere.

The problem was that Karen had not kept up with music trends for nearly fifty years and knowing what to listen to was not easy. She watched a music award ceremony on TV with her youngest. Her daughter knew the names of everyone who appeared on the screen, which band they were in, which bands they had been in, who they were married to, had been married to and the daft names of their children. Karen had no idea who they were or what they sang but felt that they really were unsuitably dressed (or was it undressed) for an award ceremony. She was also not sure she liked the music.

She shared her concerns with her eldest – that in the seventies she knew everything that needed to be known about pop music but now she knows nothing. And she would like to enjoy present day music if it was possible but where should she start. She admitted liking Alfie Boe and Michael Ball songs at which her eldest said “Muuuum” in almost despair left the room. “But I do” she called after the departing child.

The departing child came back “Look, just find a band or a solo singer, it doesn’t matter who, and there are plenty of radio programmes that will give you ideas. And once you have found a band you might like listen to other stuff by them. If they are good and you like them, that’s great, continue listening. But if you don't enjoy them, ditch them and start again with someone else”.

“Who is your favourite?” asked Karen.

“I like female singers like Dua Lipa and Rita Ora but knowing your taste in music you would be happier with a band, preferably with a bassist with long hair.”

Then one night late-ish Karen was channel flicking. She was waiting to hear from her middle child who needed to be collected from a concert.  “That was me years ago,” thought Karen. She found a band called Coldplay playing at a Radio 1 event in Luton. In the absence of anything else she left it on and reached for the Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword. But her eyes and ears kept being drawn to the screen. “Well he’s very bouncy” she thought to herself after watching Chris Martin hold the audience spellbound. And Karen found herself listening closely to the music and to her surprise she was drawn to it and found links to her 1970’s rock music. It was gorgeous. The audience thought the music was gorgeous too and they knew all the words – amazing. After only a few notes the audience were singing the song that was coming next. That is what she'd missed, the familiarity with and the emotional involvement in songs that she liked. And, of course, being able to sing along - even if she was tone deaf like her kids -whether she was at home alone or in a huge happy crowd doing exactly the same.”

And Karen was right. Not only had she missed the changes and development of popular music over the past forty years, she had also missed her personal involvement in and commitment to it. Seeing the joy of the audience, all of the audience, as Coldplay played their set brought Karen to tears. Their shared happiness and delight in being there and then was amazing to see. They were as she had been all those years ago. And like the majority of the girls there and probably boys too, Karen too fell in undying love with Chris Martin. “Move along Martin Turner and Alvin Lee, you have been replaced in my affections”.

How could there be regrets when her life had been so filled with happiness – mostly? But there were regrets and sadness that there was so much music out there about which she had no idea. The realisation that once again music meant so much to her was a surprise; for many years it had been a neglected delight. And if she wanted to find again that delight she had better be quick about it – she was coming to the end of her seventh decade and her body was slowing down. The mosh pit would now never again be an experience to be enjoyed.

Later that evening when she was returning home with her middle child she suggested that next year they do Glastonbury together. The middle child looked at her mother in disbelief

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mum; you would never cope with the loos.

 

About the author

 Judith Skilleter is new to writing fiction after a long career in social work and teaching. Her first children's novel The April Rebellion, has recently been published. Judith is a Geordie, who settled in East Yorkshire 45 years ago and is married with four grandchildren. 

 

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One Green Bottle

 

by Julia Wood

Malbec

Moon’s up tonight. Like a dirty great sixpence it is, all smirched and grimy. But it’s not moon. It’s the windows. I don’t have energy to clean them, not with Daddy coming.

Peggy from next door says my windows are the filthiest in Manchester and a dirty window is a sign of a soul that’s lost God. But I don’t mind her really. She’s Catholic, way she were brought up. And it’s not her fault ‘cos I haven’t told her about Daddy.

                                               

It’s a miracle, that’s what it is, a flamin’ miracle. I stare out into the garden, through the streaks of dirt and pigeon poo. There he is – my Arnie. I’m looking right at him. He’s laughing and waving, like he’s flagging down one of them Hansom cabs. I go downstairs, slowly with my hand clutching the banister. I’m weak but manage to open the door. I let myself into the small garden. I stand there, unable to believe my own eyes.

‘Mam, I’m home.’ Our Arnie’s blonde hair settles on the shoulders of his jacket, his green uniform all smart; makes me so proud. He smiles at me. I go all buttery and soft inside, like them crumpets I warmed on our Rayburn last winter.

‘Arnie! Is it really you?’ I look into his pale blue eyes; I take his wrist, feeling the roughness of the wool against my skin. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

‘It’s over, Mam. War’s over.’

‘I know. I heard it on the wireless.’

His hand grasps mine. I press my face in the heavy cloth of his jacket and it smells of that funny foreign tobacco and aftershave. To me he’s still a little boy, and I want to keep him safe from the shellfire of them nasty Germans - safe in his bed, all tucked up nice and warm.

‘Snug as a bug in a rug.’ That’s what Dad used to say. I used to love my Dad’s voice. It were all soothing and pink-sounding, like that calamine lotion he used to put on me when I got stung.

 ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ I said.

‘I’ve missed you too, Mam. I missed your vegetable broth and them cheese scones that melt in my mouth.’

I pull away. ‘You always did think with your belly, you.’

He grins.

I had Arnie in 1924. I were in the middle of scrubbing step. When my waters broke I thought it were soap suds, dripping all over the place. It took me three more pails before I realised - oh heck, here he comes, faster than a flamin’ Whippet Tank.

‘Pop kettle on then, make us a brew.’ Then he goes all coy and he says, ‘love you, Mam,’ as he follows me into the house.

‘You daft apeth.’

As I put kettle on I’m singing that song Mam used to sing when I were little, before she got bronchitis and passed on. ‘There is one green bottle standing on the wall. And if that green bottle should accidentally fall, they’ll be no green bottles standing on the wall...’

‘What you singing that for?’ Arnie says. ‘It’s a bit gloomy in’t it? We used to sing it in the trenches, like to say, “you could be next.”’

‘Your granny used to sing it, do you remember?’

Mam tried to come through once, in the privy, month after she passed but Dad said it were rats in the U-Bend. I think there’s something after death, me - someone waiting to collect you and take you home, like a child that’s just been let out of school.

I pour tea into the cracked old teapot. I sit down and it’s just like old times, me and Arnie, sat around kitchen table, laughing and joking; war’s a million miles away, like it never happened and I’m so happy I want to get on my lumpy old knees on the stone floor and thank the lord for bringing him home safe.  

                                                                                             

Pain’s bad now. It’s sharp, right under my rib cage. I feel like some bugger’s trying to slice me open. Last night I dreamed about our Arnie. He were in yard playing with his pals. I couldn’t get him in. I yelled until my throat were all rough like one of them scouring pads I use to get grease off frying pan. But it were no flamin’ good.

Then I woke up and it were slicing into my ribs again. Doctor’s due today. I don’t see point, I mean, what’s he wasting his time for? I said to him, I says, ‘you’re better off helping them you can save, don’t go wasting your time on a clapped out old banger like me.’

He’s nice, is Dr. Brittlewaite. He’d not say a bad word he wouldn’t, not about anyone. He’s nothing like his name. He comes through the door with his little leather bag that has more creases than his face, and he sits down at the side of me. I’m on couch with the hot water bottle pushed up against my ribs.

‘How are you doing today, Mrs Winters?’

I laugh weakly. ‘I’ll not see another one of them, that’s for sure.’

‘How bad is the pain, on a scale of one to ten? Ten being the most severe.’

‘Flamin’ heck, twenty.’ I look at him, my hand pressed against my heart. I can tell what he’s thinking. ‘Daddy’s coming soon, in’t he?’

My Dad were a coal miner. He’d come back from the pit all black like he were death itself. But then he’d scrub it off nice and clean. I wish I could do that, scrub myself nice and clean- get the death off me. But once it gets on you, you never get it out.

When his turn came and he were lying in front parlour, wheezing like the north wind down our snicket, he made me a promise. He took my hand, leaned forward and he said, ‘Don’t be scared. When it’s your turn, I’ll be waiting.’ Then he fell back on his pillow and that were it.     

He’ll keep his promise. He always kept his promises, did my dad. He’s marching up our street, with his big boots on, I can hear him. Clump, clump, clump, clump, in time with the rhythm of my heavy old heart.  I were hoping he might stop off at The Crown, give me a bit more time with Arnie.

Dr. Brittlewaite looks at me all scrutinising, like. Then, he says, ‘how’s your mind?’

I’m happy as a sand boy, me, what do you bloody think? But I don’t say that, of course, ’cos he’s nice, is my doctor.

‘I’m getting by.’ It’s what you say in’t it? Even if your house has just been bombed by the Jerries, half the floor’s missing, and bits of privy are all over the garden in little white triangles. I’m not so bad, you say, not so bad.

‘Mrs Winters, I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions, okay. Take your time answering them. There’s no hurry.’

I nod.

‘Can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?’

‘Winston Churchill, don’t you listen to the wireless?’

He’s still looking at me and he looks worried. ‘Okay. Mrs Winters - what year is it?’

‘It’s nineteen forty-five.’

He gives me a funny look, like I’ve got jam smeared on me face or put a daft hat on. Then he does his kind face, the one where he goes all crinkly like that old copy of Beano I found under our Arnie’s bed, other week. He gives a little cough. I don't like it when serious people like doctors do that coughing thing. It makes me all quaky in my slippers.

‘The thing is...I’ve made enquiries-’

‘Enquiries about what?’

‘To see if you can be moved to a hospice. The thing is – you can’t stay here on your own. You need to be looked after.’

‘No, I can’t leave. This is my home. Any road, I’m fine. I’ve Arnie. He’s back from war. I’ll be right as rain, my lovely big handsome lad – proper spoiling me, he is.’

 ‘Please try not to get distressed Mrs Winters. We’re here to help.’ He’s got his soft voice on, the one he uses when he doesn’t really know what to say to make things better. He gives me a little injection of morphine and says goodbye. I don’t get up to see him out.

Ooh, it’s good, is that morphine. I feel all floaty like I’m drifting somewhere nice - not on the ship canal with all the bits of old rubbish and rusty prams at bottom, but an ocean somewhere foreign. I can hear the waves, I can see the ocean. Lovely it is, all fresh and clean, new as a baby.

                                                 

Arnie’s not been back. I don’t remember him leaving. He were here and then he weren’t. Like it were a dream, him waving at me from the garden. And what did Dr. Braithwaite mean, asking me who Prime Minister was? I’m feeling a bit funny today because I put telly on for first time in ages and there was some broadcast thingy, it seems like the Prime Minister is someone called John Major. Who the heck’s he, I think to myself, and where’s Winston Churchill buggered off to?

                                                  

Pain stabs through my chest. Even though my legs are heavy with all that morphine I stumble upstairs. I go to the wardrobe in the spare room and open the door. It’s hanging there, our Arnie’s jacket - he had a spare, see. The arm swings as I pull it out and it’s like he’s still in there, marching, alive.

I take it down and gather it in my arms, putting my face in it, breathing it in, breathing into it like I can breathe back the life I gave him, like I can kiss him - there, there, all better now. But it doesn’t smell of him anymore. It just smells of them moth balls I put in the pockets.

I fall back onto the candlewick bedspread, letting the jacket sip to the floor. It’s empty, all emptied of Arnie. I feel something inside me cracking. Tears run into my mouth. They’re all salty like the chips Mam and Dad used to get from the shop down the road when I were a nipper. I’m right back there, laughing and running in the alleys of the old back-to-backs in my battered hobnails and my cotton dress, middle of winter; laughing and young again.

I close my eyes, let the tears come. Floating in front of me is the telegram from War Office. Arnold Joseph Winters, Killed in action. June 1944. He were my one green bottle, my lad - in his mossy uniform. I only had the one. All I wanted to do was take him off wall and tuck him up in bed, nice and safe.

Pain’s gone now. I open my eyes and look up.

‘Daddy?’

 

About the author

Julia Wood is a published author of non-fiction and fiction. She is also a performer of her own work and has her won You Tube channel. She is currently working on her Lockdown novel, The Adventures of Jenny Bean, Aged 49 and a Lot.

 

 

Looking for the Colonel

by Robin Wrigley 

a large glass of Malbec

Stopping to unlatch my garden gate I was momentarily relieved to rest one of my shopping bags. As I pushed the gate open I dropped the bag this time in shock because my front door was wide open and I could make out the shape of a person standing in the hallway.

     It was the hat that caught my attention as I drew closer and I realised I had seen it before at the market on Tuesday. It was black, seen better days and the type I had seen Colonel Gaddafi wearing on the news. This wearer was a young man with a pale face dressed in rather grubby white clothing one associates with Arabs.

     As I approached the doorway I noticed he had a half empty bottle of milk in his hand and the traces of milk on his upper lip. My mind was competing with anger, shock, fear and confusion as to what to do in this extraordinary situation.

     ‘Excuse me young man what on earth do you think you are doing in my house?’

     ‘I didn’t break your door it was open, missus,’ he replied putting his left hand over his heart as a sign of apology I presumed.

     ‘You mean it was unlocked? I’m quite sure it was not open as I leave it unlocked for my son who will be here in a moment,’ I lied. That must be the second time recently that I walked off to the shops leaving the house unlocked.

     ‘Is that my bottle of milk you are drinking?’

     ‘I didn’t know it was yours.  It was standing on the path outside the door. I’m sorry if you think I am bad man but I was told at school that the colonel said that when we came in from the oasis we could live in any house if the door was open.’

     I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Who on earth ever heard of such an excuse or explanation?

That was three months ago and I’m still as undecided the long-term answer to this conundrum created by this young Libyan called Omar Abdul Hamid walking into my house and now my life.

     It transpired he was the son of a minor diplomat in the original Libyan embassy whose father mysteriously disappeared one day and left him effectively an orphan at the age of seventeen. It was at the time that Libya was in the throes of a devastating civil war and rumours were rife about the fate of all the members of the Libyan government and its followers, so Omar decided to make himself scarce.

     His main excuse he offered me that day I found him in my front hallway was that he was looking for the colonel, Gaddafi that is. What could I say in reply to that I ask you? Apparently when his father was first called from his home town of Sabha for service in Tripoli he and others like him were told by the colonel they could live anywhere they liked if the door of the house was open. It seemed my house fitted the bill for young Omar.

     I hadn’t the heart to tell him that Gaddafi’s government had fallen and that the whereabouts of his dear colonel was unknown. So then I faced a choice of throwing him out or offering him a place to stay. Looking at his forlorn face I chose the latter.

I covered the situation by telling everyone who noticed his presence that I had taken a lodger. It was all very simple. In the meantime I scoured the internet for useful information that invariably offered me no help unless I contacted the authorities and made his presence known. Charities were also no help other than being a source of cheap clothing to put him in which was essential if he was to avoid any awkward questions when outside the house.

     It was at this point having exhausted all the legal ways I could help this lad whom I had become attached to, I hatched a plan. You see I lost both my husband and twelve year old son nearly five years ago almost to the day that Omar came into my life. It was a sign that God had given me a new, replacement son.

     My plan was very complicated in many ways but the boys’ similarity in ages made it simple in others. The fact that both Henry my late husband and I were both only children with no close relatives also helped.

     First thing was to put the house on the market and start looking for a new home in Cornwall. Money was no object as the insurance money from Henry's and David’s accident was sitting in the bank, plus London property prices would go a long way in Cornwall.

Omar had everything he needed; a loving parent, a birth certificate and a National Health number all he needed now was to remember that his name was David and his father’s name was Henry.

    

The Guest House

By Lynn Clement

 a full-bodied Malbec

There was that fluttering again. She wasn’t sure if it was in the room, or her heart beating in her ears. She looked up to the loft space in the attic, not that she could see much, now the power had failed. Where was the proprietor with the promised candles? The only light was from her mobile phone.

This was just typical of the day she’d had. She’d given a crap presentation to the brewery company, the hotel she thought she had booked had no record of her reservation and now here she was in this ramshackle B and B in the middle of nowhere - with a power failure. She thought about checking her phone to make sure it wasn’t Friday the 13^th .

There were footsteps on the stairs.  Great, Mr Brown the owner must have found the candles. The footsteps stopped…but no knock at the door? She heard a latch being drawn back in the corridor and almost a whoosh as something dropped, but it didn’t hit the floor.

She felt almost blinded by the darkness. Now her other senses were heightened. There weren’t even any street lights to help. Her breathing became rapid and she struggled to control it. She decided to phone Derick and tell him what had happened and where she was, hearing a human voice would help.

Beep, beep…beep, was the only sound she heard - her mobile had run out of battery. Oh no, please no. She moved away from the window. The dark was now all consuming and she was disorientated. Hitting her leg against a chair, she cursed her luck again. She knew she shouldn’t have used the phone as a sat nav. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have found this ‘god-awful’ place and the battery wouldn’t be out of power too.

The fluttering was there again, this time directly above her. She realised she must be under the loft hatch. Maybe a pigeon had got in there and couldn't escape?

Beads of sweat formed on her top lip. The salt worked its way into the corners of her mouth. The fluttering she thought was in her ears was now a pounding. She tried to find the door. Feeling for the chair she knew the bed would be next, her fingers touched the duvet. Okay she thought the door is opposite the bed. With arms reaching out, she slid one foot in front of the other, in the direction of door. It seemed like an age but she found it. Exhaling, she quickly turned the brass handle one way, then the other. She rattled the door, pushing and pulling it at the same time.

Behind her she heard the loft hatch being slowly slid back and that familiar whoosh from the hole in the ceiling.

She screamed.

Banging on the door, she yelled to be let out.

At the back of the room there was flapping, followed by the sound of feet landing on the carpet. She turned to the sound but could see only black. A warm trickle made its way down her legs.

She was sure she was still screaming but there was no response to confirm it.

She felt a cold breeze heading towards her. Her back was against the door. Her eyes wide, searching, but she saw nothing.

It was upon her in an instant. She put her hands up to her neck but strong talons prised them away. Its evil looked her directly in the eyes. The drumming in her ears became louder. The screaming stopped. She fainted.

There was a guttural gurgle, as its teeth tore at her throat, it opened her trachea and that hiss was her final sound.

Sated, it left her to be disposed of like the others. It unfurled its wings and ascended the loft ladder, pulling it up behind.

Mr Brown; its alter ego was practised at covering its tracks and playing the innocent with the police - if he needed to. They had done this several times before, and in a couple of months, they would move to another town, find a little county guest-house and bide their time; when he knew his urge would come again.