Betrayal, Heartbreak, Restitution by Jane H Fitzgerald, lemonade

 That night all mayhem broke loose!  Our mutt, Mike, had frantically dug up our neighbor’s garden. It appeared as though a herd of elephants had rushed through their property. They raced over, banging on our door. My timid mother ran in retreat to her bedroom and called my father to come home immediately. 

    My mother’s flight instincts prevailed as she declared, “Carl, we have to move!” 

    My father calmed her down, “Grace, stop, listen, I’ve just gotten a promotion and am being transferred to New York City.” 

    My mother threw her arms around him exclaiming, “Oh, Carl,  you are the best!” 

    Too bad, our move from a semi-rural area to a busy suburb only made things worse. Mike wanted out. He kept scratching at the door. To be on the cautious side, my parents kept him inside until my father came home to take him for a walk. Meanwhile, Mike started sitting at the window all day barking at passersby. This upset my mother terribly, as she was worried he was disturbing the neighbors, which, he was, big time. Hoping to silence him, she impulsively tied one of my father’s neckties tightly around his nose and neck. This made him go totally berserk. Just then, I came home from school and Mike raced out the door.  

She screamed, “What have you done?”  

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, he was like lightening!”  

She hurriedly called my father, but it went straight to voicemail.  At that point she fixed a drink and slumped onto the couch. 

On the loose, my dog, who was the heart of my childhood, who I loved more than anything, was about to commit an unforgivable crime.  A woman was nonchalantly walking along the sidewalk with a fur jacket over her arm.  Mike spotted the fur, made a mad dash for it, grabbed it in his jaws, and raced off.  The last glimpse I caught of him was a black and white streak disappearing into the distance.   

     My father couldn’t stop laughing when I told him about the fur jacket, but my mother had reached a breaking point with Mike. 

     The next day when I came home from school, Mike wasn’t there.  No more jumping dog giving lavish kisses. My world came crashing down. 

     My stressed out mother explained, “ I sent Mike to a farm where he will be much better off; it couldn’t be helped.” 

     I sobbed. “How could you do that, Mike is part of our family?” 

     I knew he would miss me as much as I missed him. I went up to my room and cried and cried. Could I ever forgive my mother?  I felt betrayed. 

     She never apologized, but a few months later, at Christmas, there were two adorable kittens under the tree. This was my mother’s way of trying to heal my doubt and pain. It worked. I loved the kittens. They slept on my bed, ate and played in my room. They lived for eighteen years, being true companions until well after I was out of school. I never really got over the bitter abrupt loss of my dog, but the sweet kittens filled my heart.

About the author

Jane H Fitzgerald is a retired middle school history teacher. Her four books of poetry are on Amazon. Jane has been published in; Still Point Arts Quarterly, Bright Flash Literary Review, and more. She loves writing, nature, colors, her six grandchildren, and helping others. Jane lives in Florida, USA.

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Saturday Sample: A Most Amazing Zoo by Linda Flynn and Linda Laurie, lemonade

 

 

 

 

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Saturday Sample: Making Lemonade, home-made lemonade

 

Prologue

October 13th

 

 

Who wants flowers when you’re dead?

Sometimes the last book we read; the last TV show we watched; the last thoughts we had, have a way of staying with us. You’d been reading The Catcher in the Rye. They found it amongst your things. The bookmark a few pages from the end. You never got to know how it ended. There’s something truly heartbreaking about that; about unfinished moments, like unspent coins in a purse, unturned pages on a calendar, unspoken words on lips.

It’s true – flowers are wasted on the dead just as youth is wasted on the young.

There would have been flowers for you last year – there are always flowers.

My fingers bend over the edges of the page – marking the place. They want me to say a few words. They want me to make sense of something broken.

 

The voices soften to an almost-whisper without anyone saying a word. People have a way of sensing things. The old woman, Maisie, in the bright colours, gypsy-like, seems to sense it first. She stops mid-sentence. She’s been talking to Abigail, probably telling her about her latest charity-shop acquisition: another doll she told me earlier. I wonder if she’ll tell her the part about how the hair being blonde and the eyes being blue reminded her of you.

She stops talking right there in the middle of all the bustle in the communal garden and gestures for Abigail to follow her to the rows of chairs. They’re lined up in front on a make-shift ‘stage’ area. Just along from the tree; the silver birch that stands alone showing off its overcoat, leaves predominantly oranges and browns but still retaining some green. It stands as if in salute for what is about to happen. Harriet Smallcroft, our local MP, will say something first. The other speakers are here. I see them talking to people. It’s a nice day for it, people say. And I know what they mean but is it, can it ever be, a nice day for it? There are clear blue skies, a day with crispy edges, but there’s a chill stirring the leaves of the silver birch – a chill that runs through everything.

Not everyone’s here yet.

 

Earlier Carol, she’s the one who sent out the invites, the one who’ll also speak today, was with Maisie and Abigail; they were sweeping leaves. I joined them. They said they were going to make cakes and sausage rolls and the WI wanted to help serve refreshments but Carol was the one who said it wasn’t that kind of thing. They didn’t need to make refreshments and what if it rained? It’s not about food or drink, is it, it’s about all being here.

So, we are.

We are all here.

There are a lot of people. We’re all here huddled in our winter coats. Hats and scarves, stomping our feet to keep warm. Carol asked me to be here. I don’t know how to answer all their questions.

 

I spoke to Edith earlier. Another old neighbour. She’s here with her husband George though she says he probably doesn’t really understand what today is. Made me realise how we’re all fighting our own battles. Edith is making her way to the front now to join Piper – Piper Marigold the actress – I recognise her from the paper. Today it seems she’s sitting alone with her head bowed. She looks glamorous in a long burgundy coat with a gold scarf. Her hair has grown since I last saw her photo. Calcutta Drake’s here too. The MMA fighter. He’s brought his black labrador along with him; the one you used to walk. He’s not exactly sociable but he did tell me about your walks. He’s sitting at the end of one of the rows. He feels it too; I see it in his anguished expression when he shifts his gaze from his knees, as if he’s wondering who else will come. He looks as if he’s expecting trouble. Always ready for a fight, I suppose. I did see him dip his head at Danny the postman, at least I think that’s who he is. I think it was Jada, the teacher, who told me that. He was hovering by the gate, but I don’t see him now. I look along the lines of young faces and I feel something stir.

They all carry a small part of what happened – young and old – and I see the way it adds weight to their smiles and droops their shoulders.

The press is here too, gathered at the edges with their notebooks and their phones; some with cameras. I hope they’re here for the right reasons. This is not about headlines and click-baits.

We are here for you.

 

I find my seat on the makeshift stage and look over at Harriet Smallcroft who is yet to take her position. The hush sweeps over heads and pushes their whispers into the corners of the kempt garden. I watch a solitary leaf fall from the silver birch and float gently to the ground.

And that thing – the thing that had hung between their words and their handshakes and their slightly nervous banter a few moments ago, rises like bubbles to the surface of a glass.

We’re nearly ready.

     

Jada – with her gorgeous braided hair – now raises her hands, ushering more people to take their seats. She also seems to be looking around. Checking if everyone came, I suppose. I see Elizabeth the lovely Greek lady. She lived next-door-but-one to you. She says she’s known you since you were a baby. The whole family is here, sitting right down at the front across from me; young people you used to play with. She has left four seats empty. Carol wrote them a letter. Elizabeth has spoken to them and so did I – but will they come? Will they be able to come?

Behind Elizabeth, I see the two Simons looking very serious in smart grey suits – matching. They were involved in publicising the event. I wonder how they feel living at number 11. Then there’s Adrian who said you were close friends. He’s sitting in the fourth row with his mum and dad and there are so many people I haven’t yet spoken to. Dimitri, the ice cream man, who I do know, is sitting with his daughter, Lucinda, right behind Adrian. I see the boy turn around and glance at her. Something seems to pass between them that makes me wonder. It’s like they’ve found some solace in one another remembering you. Adrian’s lips are pressed into a tight line, expression fixed, stoic and I watch Lucinda lean forward and gently squeeze his shoulder.

I have spoken to as many of them as I can.

Now it feels like a play is about to start. I wish that’s all today was.

You asked Adrian to keep your words safe. I feel the weight of those words now – of the responsibility handed to me.

 

Harriet Smallcroft fiddles with a microphone and taps the end once and then again to make sure. She looks at her wrist, glances at me and mouths, “Give it another minute?” I nod but the second I do, I catch a glimpse of them – so they did make it. It seems all heads turn and all gazes follow them as they make their way to the front – a mother, a father, a grandfather, a brother; all in their winter coats. I see Jada turn to look at the boy, Jimmy. Abigail nods at the old man. They shuffle into the seats Elizabeth saved for them. Now Harriet Smallcroft smiles in their direction. I can only imagine how they all feel.

I sense movement at the back: a man in a suit wearing a black tie. I think that’s the doctor from the old surgery on the corner. He’s standing by the railing with an older couple who I believe were an aunt and uncle. But I still don’t see him.

We’re about ready to start.

 

Today is important and that’s why there are so many people here: many of your friends from school and teachers and even the headmaster from Crompton Seniors.

There’s a sense of shifting feet and poised cameras as the press make ready. Harriet stands more upright now and begins her short introduction and the whole time I’m thinking about what to say, how to start. But I know. There’s only one way to start.

I look out at the sea of scarves and hats and solemn faces while Harriet talks about how it’s one year since the terrible tragedy… I try not to look at the family, not yet.

When finally, I hear myself being introduced, I stand, brush down my suit and I walk to the microphone. I see hope in all their expectant stares, like they need me to make sense of it – even when I know that’s impossible.

My fingers tremble as I open the page to the right place. I’m doing this for you – because you can’t and I wish to God I didn’t have to. I stare down at the neat black handwriting with the dainty loops and the slight lean to the right. There’s a soft muffle of hand taps as if they don’t know if they ought to clap or not. Now the hush returns.

“Hello. I want to begin with something Joanne Wilson wrote in her diary…”

I see their faces fixed on me, draw in a deep breath and begin.

“When I was a little girl, I had an idea that I’d make my own lemonade. I’d use fresh lemons – and mix them with sugar and water. Then I’d fill glass jugs and sell it by the cup. I’d do it during the summer holidays on the square. Only I never did do it because I used to be so shy and there were always too many other things to do with the school holidays.”

Your mum raises her head. I did ask her if I could do this and she gave me her blessing.

That’s when I think I see movement at the back by the railing and adjust my gaze.

He came.

He’s standing right at the back.

He’s here.

I look back down at the page and continue.

“I always wanted to be that little girl who made lemonade. I always wanted to be noticed.”

I see the gravitas of your words on their faces, think how there are many ways to be noticed – but this is not the way.

“Nothing will ever make it right – what happened,” I say, and I wonder for a moment as I look out at all the faces here today on the square, what you would make of all this, of all of these people here – now – for you.

 Then I draw in a deep breath and I continue.

 

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Sunday Serial: Seeing the Other Side by Allison Symes, sweet lemonade

 

One of Those Days

 

He ran the wrong way up the one-way street. He ignored traffic hooting - why care? He was on the pavement unlike the bloody joggers. He’d been mown down by three last month. No apologies to him. Plenty of swearing at him.

Today was a new start. No more being pushed around. He needed a symbol to show himself (and whoever cared to watch) he was finally thinking outside the box.

It was a pity he ran head first into the lamppost and was carted away in an ambulance to the sound of drivers laughing.

 

 

Vanishing Act

 

She disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The copper blinked. This was not supposed to happen (a) at all and (b) not on his watch. Besides which how would he explain to the Sergeant who’d sent him after this known thief? She’d stolen several cakes out of the bakery only that morning and in plain view of over half a dozen witnesses including him. The copper couldn’t see what she did with the cakes either. He’d never caught her eating them so what was the point?

Dejectedly, he walked slowly back towards the park and walked under the overhanging oak branch he swore someone should get around to pruning back before it fell on someone. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when he heard the laughter above him. Expecting it to be coming from kids, he looked up to see the fairy holding up a doughnut that seemed to be almost as big as she was.

‘Just tell me why you do it,’ the copper sighed. ‘Call it being nosey if you like, but why take cakes all the time when you don’t eat them?’

The fairy smirked. ‘It’s to slow business a bit, that’s all. I’ve been rushed off my feet with the influx of new people in the village lately.’

‘Are you saying there’s a Fairy of Confectionery and Cakes then? It’s what you specialise in!’

‘Don’t be silly, I’m the Tooth Fairy. When I fancy a night off (and who doesn’t every now and then?), I pinch all the sweets and cakes so the little blighters can’t scoff them and then need me to clear up their teeth for them. Gives me a chance to build up my funds too. So now you know what are you going to do about it, Mr Policeman? It’ll look silly arresting the Tooth Fairy.’

The copper nodded. ‘It’s got to stop. It’s not fair on the bakers.’

‘Fair? You talk about fair? Since when do humans do that, Mr Policeman?’

‘Don’t blame me for all of humanity’s faults. Just stop pinching the cakes.’

‘But…’

‘Couldn’t you take someone on to help you if you don’t want to be rushed off your feet all the time?’

The fairy gave him a shrewd look. ‘Clever thought, Mr Policeman, well done. Yes, I will get an apprentice.’ She took from her belt a shining wand and aimed it at him. ‘Time you had a job change, Mister. Welcome aboard!’

 

 

Wanting to Be Useful

 

She swept up into the tower where the old lady had said the spinning wheel would be. The last one in the Kingdom apparently and the old lady so wanted to ensure the old needlework skills didn’t die out when she did. But how to get around the king and queen’s absolute ban on the things?

Simple. Make friends with their naive princess, their daughter, who wanted to do her own thing - as they all did at that age - and who would still fall victim to the original spell as a result. It was a pity that meddling fairy godmother had modified it but a pillow on the girl’s face once she was asleep would take care of that problem. Sometimes the old simple direct methods were the best.

The old lady smirked as the princess came in. The girl’s eyes lit up on seeing the gold wheel and to be fair it was a quality piece of craftsmanship.

‘I’ve been thinking, old lady…’, the princess began.

The old lady frowned. Royalty wasn’t meant to think. And it annoyed her to be referred to as an old lady but she hadn’t dared give the game away in case the stupid girl blabbed to someone.

‘I need to show my parents they’re so mistaken about spinning wheels being dangerous. If I could make something on this and then take the cloth and spindle with me to show them,  that would prove my point.’

The old lady nodded. All that was needed was for the right royal silly ass to touch the thing. It didn’t necessarily have to be the needle point. Besides the girl would never lift the wheel. It was made from solid gold after all.

‘Do go ahead, dear,’ the old lady said. ‘You remember how I showed you?’

The girl nodded and pulled out from her pink gown’s pocket a piece of simple white cloth. ‘I’d like to stitch a nice motto on this, perhaps in red thread. It would make a nice contrast.’ She sat down at the wheel, as the old lady moved aside with an alacrity surprising in one of her age.

And which should have told the stupid girl something, the old lady thought. Still, where would I be without the downright gullible?

The girl reached out to touch the gold wheel and, as she realised there was no way she would be able to lift the spindle, it was far heavier than she thought, she began to feel sleepy.

‘And I suppose you think you were being so clever? Just what were you going to do with that pillow, Misrelda. Somehow I don’t think you were going to make sure HRH was comfortable!’

The cold voice made the old lady jump.

‘Ah, top of the morning to you too, Candrice,’ but before the old lady could whip out her wand, she felt the pillow in her hands turn to concrete, she dropped it on her foot and screamed in agony.

With a smile, the good fairy aimed her wand at Misrelda’s heart and both the witch and the pillow vanished. Now to ensure HRH really did sleep undisturbed until the proper time.

 

Missing Out

 

He was going to miss the end of the world. He was late. Of all the days this could happen, it had to be this one.

It was all over the media - the world would end at midnight on Wednesday, 3rd June.

It never occurred to him to ask about the oh-so convenient timing and how could anyone be sure of the exact date anyway when, even in the Bible, there were warnings against those predicting such things.

All he knew was he had to get to a good vantage point to witness first hand the last moments of the world.

It was a pity really. On the way to the top of St. Giles’ Hill in Winchester, he was run over by a bus that was also running late.

They put the time of his death as midnight, Wednesday June 3rd.

About the author  

Allison Symes, who loves quirky fiction, is published by Chapeltown Books, CafeLit, and Bridge House Publishing. She writes for Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative. 

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Blowfish, by Frank Haberle, Lemonade

 The boy wakes up to the screams of some other family’s lawnmower. He’s done something wrong. He lies in bed for some time, then slunks down to the kitchen. Little brother’s bare feet swing beneath the table. Captain Crunch pellets scatter the surface. 

The boy reaches for the box. ‘All gone,’ little brother says, looking into his bowl, filled with orange milk. The boy picks loose pellets, puts them into his mouth, and presses them against the back of his teeth.

‘Mom says you have to go with Dad,’ little brother says.

‘What?’ The boy panics. He did something wrong. Concerning Dad. 

‘She says you have to go with Dad in the car.’

‘Oh.’

‘You need to wake Dad up. Mom says so. He’s on the couch.’ Bowl to chin, little brother laps orange milk, like a cat.

*

The boy peers over the dashboard.  ‘Where are we going?’

Dad’s white hands grip the wheel. ‘I got to see some people.’

Dad pulls into a parking lot in front of a grocery store. Men in white butcher aprons march in a circle, holding red-lettered signs. The men watch Dad walk painfully to them, like his feet hurt. They all start talking at once. Dad shrugs. One big man looks angry. He waves his arms. Dad says a few things, and the big man’s arms drop. He smiles. He shakes Dad’s hand, hard. The other men clap Dad’s back. They return to their circle. Dad returns to the car.

‘Who are those men?’  

‘Some men I used to work with.’

‘What did you tell them?’

Dad swerves back into traffic. A truck just misses them. ‘I told them they should go back to work.’

The boy’s stomach aches with hunger. Maybe they’ll head home. He did something bad.  Maybe Dad doesn’t know yet. Dad pulls onto the Eastbound lane, toward the end of the island.

‘Where are we going now?’

‘Fishing.’ The boy’s heart sinks. ‘I think we need to go fishing.’

*

Now the boy remembers the bad thing. The huge stuffed blue marlin, covered in dust, standing above Dad’s desk.  There’s a photo next to it, framed in silver. It’s Dad, in a bathing suit, a grinning young man standing next to the marlin. The marlin hangs from a hook, on a dock, in front of a big white boat. Yesterday, staring at Dad’s smile, the boy pressed his thumb against the marlin, gently at first, then as hard as he could. It broke through, leaving a large hole in the tail. The boy tried to pull the piece back, but the dried flesh ripped. ‘I’m telling,’ little brother said, but did he?

*

  They drive down a two-lane road surrounded by potato fields. The sour potato smell overpowers the boy. The road ends at a pier. They drive onto the deck of a white ferry. 

The ferry blows its horn and pulls away from the dock. The boy wants to climb out and drink the ocean air. 

Dad’s eyes are pressed shut. The boy reaches for the door latch. Dad’s arm stretches out suddenly and presses the lock down. ‘It’s not safe.’ The boy can barely see tips of white sails over the ferry’s sides.  

‘Where are we going now?’  His eyes shut again, Dad doesn’t answer.

*

Dad stops at a dock-front store lined with lobster traps. Behind the store, tied to a dock, are a row of big white power boats. ‘Are you coming?’

The boy’s empty stomach folds over itself. He stares at the boats. ‘No?’

‘Suit yourself.’ In a minute, Dad hobbles out with two bamboo poles. Lines attach to little red bobbers. In the other hand he holds a white box coated in ice. Under his arm is a six-pack of Rheingold. 

‘What’s that?’ 

‘Minnows.’ Dad pulls a can opener from the glove compartment, pops two triangles in the top of the first can, and drinks. He tucks the empty can under his seat and opens a second one. 

*

On a causeway surrounded by grassy dunes, Dad pulls the car onto a sandy track. The wheels sink in the sand. Dad unbuttons his shirt, and drops it in his seat. The boy pulls his t-shirt over his head, throws it on his seat, and follows Dad onto a slick rock jetty. Dad’s walk is sturdier now. The last two beer cans dangle from his fingers. He pulls two minnows from the box. He pokes hooks through their eyes. He hands a pole to the boy. Dad swings the bait into the water. ‘Like this.’

 They stand on the rocks and toss their lines. Gulls fuss and tumble from the sky. The smell of rotting sea vegetation dizzies the boy. Thirsty and nauseous, he watches the sun sink lazily toward the sea. ‘Lord help them,’ Dad says.

The boy should tell Dad, but he can’t. His line tugs. He panics, afraid to be pulled in the water. His arm jerks. A six inch fish spins from the water and back onto the rocks at their feet. ‘Huh,’ Dad says. They put down their poles and crouch. The fish stares up at them, hook looped firmly through its lip. The fish is green and brown, and a little blue, and there’s a spot of red around the mouth. Maybe, the boy thinks, it’s a baby fish. The fish takes a deep breath, then exhales. It takes a deeper breath, and inflates like a balloon. It exhales, making a hissing noise. On its fourth breath, it pops like a balloon. Fish meat and entrails splash across the rocks. The boy jumps back, terrified. ‘What is it?’

‘Blowfish.’ The young man in the marlin picture is smiling down at the boy. Startled, he bursts into laughter. Dad laughs back. It’s a rare sound, the roar of the ocean, the tinkle of sea glass. 

‘It’s just a blowfish, son,’ Dad says. ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of.’

About the author

Frank Haberle is the author of two books: Shufflers (Flexible Press, Minneapolis, 2021), a story of transients moving through minimum-wage jobs in the 1980s; and Downlanders (Flexible Press 2023), following five lost souls into a fictional wilderness.

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Saturday Sample: Rare Stories by Liam Bell, apple-squire (noun): a male companion of a woman of ill-repute, lemonade

Glyn knew that they talked about his wife. Not just the houses immediately next door, but the ones either side of those too. And further. It was what came of living in a cul-de-sac. Gossip swilled back-and-forth, with no through-road.

She made it worse for herself, Joan, by staring out at the children playing on the street; the six-year-old from number twelve and the seven-year-old, with the three-year-old brother, from number seventeen. They saw her peering from the edges of the curtains and they squealed and ran to tell their parents.

He heard the kids talking in stage-whispers. The woman in number fourteen, they said, has three baths a day. Her recycling is all empty wine bottles. She eats spiders from the corner of the ceiling and snails from the plant pots. The hoover stands in the hall all day, unused. The lights are on at 3 am because darkness turns her into a creature with bat’s wings and dragon’s breath.

The parents were initially kind. That was quite a few years ago. They offered to do a shop, to save Glyn from going, and invited both of them over for a drink on New Year’s Day. Soon, though, there’d been a note through the door asking them to trim the front grass and then another suggesting the name of a man who could clear the gutters.

‘We could move,’ Glyn suggested. ‘A bungalow, maybe?’

‘I’m not ready.’

‘Of course not, love.’

Part of him was relieved. A bungalow was best saved for retirement. So he settled for calling the gutter-man and negotiating a fixed price that included repainting the back fence and fixing the cracks in the driveway.

‘She’s still young,’ Edwina from number six said to him, one evening as she took out her black bin bag. She’d also had notes through the door, because she overstuffed the wheelie bin and often left loose bags at the side. ‘You’re still young.’

‘Perhaps. We’ll have to see,’ Glyn said. ‘It’s Joan’s choice.’

‘Shall I call in for her, in the daytime? For coffee, maybe.’

‘I’ll ask her. Thank you.’

‘She has my phone number.’

The foxes would get at Edwina’s bins. There would be further complaints, the council might even be called. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Her house was at the curve of the street; she could see a slice of the main road.

     

The Fultons, in number fifteen, moved out and the teenagers were replaced with eight-year-old twins. The other kids migrated into their garden. There was a climbing frame and a trampoline. They kept one eye on Joan, at the window, and she was integrated into their games whenever there was a call for a villain: wicked witch, spy, assassin, Prime Minister. It would have been useless to explain that Joan was staring only at the bare, uneven flowerbeds in her own garden.

It all got worse in Autumn. Not only the nights drawing in, but also overactive imaginations at Halloween. No guiser called at number fourteen. They knew they wouldn’t get any sweets, any chocolate.

Two days into November, Joan sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a card. She sealed it, in a red envelope, before Glyn had the chance to read it or even glimpse the message on the front. Later, when she was in the bath, he opened the drawer beneath the kettle and found four other envelopes, one for each year that had passed.

‘Love,’ he tried the next day, ‘would you like to try for a job, maybe, or you could go back to studying? An exercise class, even…?’

‘I don’t need exercise, Glyn.’

‘It might help.’

‘You tell me I don’t eat enough...’

‘It’s not about weight.’

‘Quiet,’ she closed her eyes. ‘Please.’

The house deteriorated further. The quince bushes grew too big and pushed through the fence into next door. The twins started to lob the fruit up towards Joan’s window. The double-glazing rattled and she stepped away.

In the utility room was a disorderly regiment of glass bottles, upright among the chaos of cardboard and the towels which hadn’t made it into the dryer. Glyn felt he could only leave out a few at a time, with the recycling. One dark evening, he’d pile the rest of them into the quince bushes or bury them at the edge of the grass.

The young boy, from number seventeen, was now an inquisitive five. He ran lengths of the cul-de-sac in bare feet. As Glyn walked home, he sprinted up behind.

‘You’re the man from that house,’ he said, pointing.

‘Yes.’

‘My sister says there are cameras. That you record us.’

Glyn spluttered. ‘We record…?’

‘She says you write down every move we make.’

‘Certainly not.’

He shrugged, ‘I’m too fast anyway.’

The boy turned and ran off. Glyn found that it took three attempts to fit his key into the lock and when he tried to call Joan’s name there was a quiver to his voice.

‘What is it?’ she called back.

‘We need to do something.’

‘Like what?’

Glyn walked into the hallway. He lifted the hoover and set it back in its cupboard. Then he went to the kitchen and got a black bag from beneath the sink. He shoved all of the bottles from the utility room in it, then the cardboard and the mouldering towels. As he lifted the bag, there was a noise like a window shattering.

Five years ago, he would have eased the front door open only wide enough for him and the bag. He would have made sure it was closed behind. There wasn’t much traffic in the cul-de-sac, but the cars sometimes swung around the corner at quite a speed.

Glyn lifted the bag into the wheelie bin, the one for general waste. He tipped the bin onto its wheels and walked it to the kerb. Edwina was there, black bag in hand.

‘I never did hear from Joan,’ she said.

‘No, she still struggles.’

‘All of that though…’ Edwina avoided his eye. ‘Seems an awful fuss to make over a wee dog.’

Glyn looked back at the houses behind them. The twins at number fifteen were up at the window, looking out. The one from number twelve was there too. She didn’t duck away like the others.

‘The question that torments Joan,’ Glyn said slowly, ‘is how he got the chocolate? We should have been more careful.’

Edwina tied another knot in her black bag. ‘One of those things,’ she said.

‘We should have taken better care of him.’

‘No one blames you,’ Edwina replied. ‘I shouldn’t think.’

 

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About the author

Liam Bell is author of three novels, with the most recent being Man at Sea. His debut novel was shortlisted for the SMIT Scottish Book of the Year and he has featured as Paperback of the Week in the Herald and at the 2014 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Short stories and articles have appeared in publications including New Writing Scotland, Litro and Northwords Now. He was born in Orkney, grew up in Glasgow, and is now Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling, where he is Programme Director of the MLitt in Creative Writing. He lives in Scotland with his wife and two young daughters. More information at www.liammurraybell.com or on twitter @liammurraybell.