Target by CLS Sandoval, home-brand cola

      It was at least the fifth time I had been to Target in as many days. The woman bagging my groceries smiled. Her name tag said Tina. I smiled back though through blurry eyes.

     “Is her dad Black?“ Tina tipped her head and Ella’s direction.

     “She’s adopted,” my smile was bigger, more genuine. I stood taller.

     “Oh I’m sorry.”

      “Sorry?”

      “I know that’s awful. It’s awful when you can’t have your own children. It’s awful when kids can’t have their real parents.”

        I took a deep breath, shifted from one hip to the other. Ella’s wide eyes and smiling face told me I would need to choose my tone and words carefully “I am adopted, too. The parents who adopted me are my real parents, and adopting my own children was always my plan A.”

The woman standing behind me had clearly been listening. She rolled her eyes and shifted back onto her heels. Tina bagged one item in silence, and then said “Well, I know a lot of adopted people, and they wish they knew who they really were.”

      “Adoption is not a monolith. Adoptees are all individuals with individual experiences. I wouldn’t try to take any of their experiences from them, nor should anyone try to take my experience for me.”

       A man in a Target name tag and red shirt with a full cash drawer was standing behind Tina. It looked like he was there to relieve her for a break, but she wasn’t finished with me. “Adoption should be illegal. It’s human trafficking. Child abuse.”

        I could feel how hot my face was now. I thought about the faces of the generations of women who came before me. They shared blood with each other, mine was different, but who they were was as much a part of me as they were a part of each other. I hoped that my daughter would feel similarly.  So, I did with my great grandma, Nana, and mom would be proud of. I said to Tina, “Child abuse is awful. Human trafficking is awful. Unfortunately, these things happen to children who are adopted and to children who are not adopted. My adoption is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am trying to pay it forward to my daughter. Thank you for bagging my groceries.”

        I put the rest of the bags into my cart, kissed Ella on the cheek, and headed to our car.

 

About the author

CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor accomplished in film, academia, and creative writing who performs, writes, signs, and rarely relaxes. She’s a flash fiction and poetry editor for Dark Onus Lit. CLS is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA. 

 

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Notes on Yellow Paper by Gill James, New World wine,

 As I put my hand into my pocket I can feel the paper there. They must not see that. If they read the note all will be lost. My mistress will be given away before we can make it to the harbour. I must take my time.

Lord Hartley and his men are brutes. 

"Come on girl," says Lord Hartley. "Empty your pockets and hold your hands in the air."

One of them, a fierce-looking man with a wicked scar across his face and an eye that remains permanently shut, is pointing a pistol at me.

I take out the three coins Lady Gwendoline has given me to pay the man who well take care of Frederick's fishing boat, the catapult that Jacob made me and the piece of string I always have with me. Just in case.

"Come on, wench. And turn out your pockets so that we can see. Then put your arms above your head."             

Good that Jacob has taught me a few of his conjuring tricks. I manage to crumple the note and pull it into my sleeve while my hand is still in my pocket.

"Ain't got nothing worth having, see?" I say as I hand over my meagre possessions. I screw my nose up and shut one eye. That always annoys the gentry. "That does you? Sorry I ain't got no more."

Scar Face looks over to Lord Hartley who shrugs. "Tie her up, anyway, and put her in the cellar. We'll soon make her talk.” 

That I'm not having.    

 

I can remember the first day she asked me to take a note to Frederick. She was all atremble and her face was flushed.

"Louisa," she said, "I've got something really important for you to do. I need you to deliver this note to Frederick Bowers. He lives in the cottage at the top of the cliff by Hollings' Cove. Do you know him?"

Oh, I knew him all right. He was a fisherman. And he indulged in another trade on dark moonless nights, just like Pa and Jacob. I nodded.

"Good," said Lady Gwendoline. "You must make sure no one sees you. Go through the woods after it gets dark. And wait for his reply."

She held out the note to me. It was on yellow paper. That was normally only used for writing grocery lists. So, she was just ordering fish? What was so upsetting about that? And why all the secrecy?  

She smiled. "Yes, that's so he'll know straight away that it's from me and it’s not a trick." Well of course he'd know it was from her. Yellow paper.  

I took the note from her and tucked it into my bosom. I would be less likely to lose it that way. I haven't done that today. Hartley's men would find that quicker, knowing them. I don't know what made me put it in my pocket today. It's just a good job that I did.  

That first time I set off for Frederick's as soon as it got dark. It didn't take me long to get to his cottage. I tapped at the door.

"Who is it?" he cried.

"Louisa Deakin," I replied.

A few seconds later he let me in. 

"Have you got something for me?"

I handed him the note and he read it. I was astounded at how well he could read. And then he surprised me even more by writing back to her.

"Make sure nobody sees you," he said. "And give this only to your mistress."                 

For weeks I thought I was just sending fish orders to Frederick and all the secrecy was because my lady wanted to surprise Lord Hartley. He is, after all, rather fond of fish. And indeed, every time Frederick comes to the big house, he brings some fish with him.

Then one day I heard the most horrific cries coming from my lady's chamber. Someone was hurting her, I could tell. And I could hear a man crying out as well. She must be fighting back.

I rushed into the chamber and there was Frederick, lying on top of my lady. They were both naked. He was thrusting his body on to hers. He had his eyes closed, he was sweating and he was screaming. She was groaning and whispering "Oh come, my love. More, please, more." They looked as if they were doing something a bit like what the dogs do when the bitches are on heat. I was so naive back in those days that I didn't realise that humans do things like that as well.

Both at once, then, they cried out even louder and then stopped moving.

"Oh, my sweet," she said. "I love you so much."

He kissed her and muttered, "You are my life." Then he looked up and saw me. He jumped off the bed, grabbed his britches from the floor and pulled them on. 

My lady pulled the coverlet over her naked body and blushed deep red.

"What is it Louisa? Has Lord Hartley returned?"

I shook my head. "I thought someone was hurting you, ma'am."

Frederick chuckled. "It's called making love, Louisa. You should try it some time." He carried on getting dressed.

"So now you know," said my lady, "how important all of those letters have been. We are so grateful for all that you do for us. Quickly, help me to get dressed again."      

So it continued. I knew as soon as Lord Hartley was away my lady would send me with a note, always on the yellow paper. Sometimes she went to the cottage but more often than not Frederick came to the big house. I made a point of hovering near her chamber when they made love. I would watch out in case someone came by.

The noise they made and the thought of them making love quite excited me. I became curious and finally did what Frederick had suggested. I tried it with the stable lad and one of the gardener's boys. I even lay with Frederick himself one day. He was so sad. He had not been with my lady for over three weeks and I'd had to deliver another note that told him not to come anywhere near the big house yet.

"Oh, I miss her so much, Louisa," he said. "I think I'll die if I don't see here soon."

"Let me comfort you a little," I said. I embraced him and slid my hand over his crotch. He was soon aroused.

"Oh, Lousia," he said afterwards. "That was a comfort indeed. Thank you. But you do know don't you, that I am devoted to your lady and I will never leave her. We mustn't let this happen again."

Of course I knew it was unlikely that we would lie together often. And I too was grateful. He was such a competent lover compared with the stable boy and the gardener's lad. Even though he spilt his seed without entering me he so stimulated me that for the first time ever my cries were genuine.           

 It wasn't selfishness on his part. I was always careful never to let any of them into me. I knew enough now of how babies and diseases of the genitals came about. 

I can't say that my lady has been so careful. Over the last few weeks she has vomited much in the mornings. She has complained when I have fastened her bodice that her breasts were sore. I expect Lord Hartley has noticed something as well and the rumour is that he is impotent.   

     

So, here I am in the end cellar of the big house. It is dark and cold and smells of a damp earth and rotting vegetables. I know I have little time. Thank goodness Jacob has taught me how to free myself from ropes. That's why I always carry some string. 

"You really do have to practise this a lot," Jacob said.

So, whenever I've had a few minutes I've practised. 

Just as I am almost free someone comes in. They are carrying a lamp and I can see that it's Scar Face.

"Now then," he says. "His lordship thinks Lady Gwendoline has taken a lover and you -." He prods me in the chest. "You have been delivering notes to him. So who is it?" He fumbles in my breast.

I don't resist. Maybe I can use this to my advantage.

He sighs. "I'll give you one thing. Your breasts are as soft and sweet as Eider down. Lie with me and I'll set you free."

I don't say anything.

His hand finds its way down to my thigh. He lifts my skirt.

"All right then," I murmur.

His hand makes its way up my leg. 

"Let me come into you," he whispers and starts pulling down his hose.

I open my thighs and then pull his head towards me as if I'm going to kiss him. Instead I bite him on the cheek.

He then realises that my hands are free and they shouldn't be. "You bitch." He tries to pull my arms back behind me.

The note falls from my sleeve. 

He picks it up. "What's this? What does it say?"

At first I think it's because it's so crumpled that he can't read it. And then I realise he just can't read.

"It's an order for fish, you nitwit," I cry. I kick him in his private parts and grab the note back from him

He creases up in pain so I relieve him of his lantern and keys. And run.

And run and run. Out of the house, through the woods and along the cliff top. I hammer on Frederick's door.

"We have to be quick," I say. "She'll be waiting. And Lord Hartley suspects."

I am certain that I know most of what the note contains. She never tells me though.

"I can't ask you to take messages by mouth. It's better that you don't know all of the details. Or they'd be able to make you talk."

But I've seen her pack all of her jewels and hide some of the smaller valuable paintings from the hall. And in any case she has told me a little more this time.

"We'll be going on a long sea voyage, Louisa," she said. "And we'll need you with us. Please come. We'll look after you well."

Frederick reads the note. He goes quite pale and puts his hand over his mouth. "My poor love," he murmurs. 

I wonder whether he is ready to become a father.

"We must hurry," I say.

He nods and starts grabbing some clothes and a few supplies from his pantry.

And then we're both running towards the harbour. She is there waiting for us on his fishing boat with Dan Foster. When I tell them that I have had to give up the coins Dan shrugs.

"I do this out of friendship, not for gain," he says.  

"We must catch the tide," says my mistress, "if we are to escape my husband and his men and reach the Sarah-Anna in time.”

 

We have now been on the high seas for three months. We have found our sea-legs. The Sarah-Anna is a robust and comfortable vessel. My lady's belly continues to swell. They are as loving as ever. I think their love will last.

We are on our way to the New World where we will carve out a new life. 

I sometimes wonder, though, what if she dies when this baby is born? Or when she has another? Might there then be a chance for Frederick and me? We're nearer in status to each other than they are.

It doesn't matter, though, either way. I know I'll be safe and cared for. All because an idiot couldn't read a crumpled piece of yellow paper.

I'm going to learn to read and write. And when I'm either their housekeeper or mistress of my own home I shall forever write my grocery lists on yellow paper. As a reminder of a great love story.                       

 

About the author

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown. She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. 

http://www.gilljameswriter.com 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE 

https://twitter.com/GillJames 

 

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There’s Something in a Train’s Whistle By Gavin Kayner, cold brew

 There’s something in a train whistle that haunts night. An ache. A sense of loss. A lingering lament.

Some nights that lament brought Cate Franklin to quiet tears as she lay in her childhood bed in her parent’s clapboard house outside Enid, Oklahoma. That long, melancholy calling across the prairie pulled at her.  She wanted to go, but needed to stay.

Wanted.

Needed.

Did those two compulsions ever converge? Ever conjoin?

She hears the whistle now, fading, leaving layers of silence building between Paul and herself as they linger on the Franklin’s front porch. Well after one a. m.

Bathed in white lamplight.

Suspended between what was and what is. What will be hanging in the balance.

Inside the house it’s cave dark. There Cate’s mother lies abed missing her husband who died in a grain elevator--smothered in wheat kernels. The weight of that sort of death debilitated her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your mother but a broken spirit,’ the doctor told Cate.

Unfortunately, Cate knows, there’s no cure for that sort of malady. Time, perhaps. And if not time, then its companion--death.

 

Cate and Paul had been to the county fair—and stayed far too long. In her mother’s opinion. She had chastised Cate upon their return, but it was lovely being free of her despondency. Strolling the midway with its tawdry games, shrill music and pulsating multi-colored neon lights.

Paul held her hand. A familiar gesture. Cate allowed it though he had been gone for nearly seven months and seldom wrote or called. Too busy with his air force career. And other foreign women Cate suggested which Paul chose not to deny.

‘You’re still my girl. You know that. Right?’ he said as they sat high up in a Ferris wheel car.

The possessive ‘my’ rankled Cate. One more claim on her life meant to be her own.

Paul arrived late to her house. He had been listening to the opening game of the World Series—Yankees verses the Dodgers. So had Cate. It was an historic event. The first integrated Series with a Black man—Jackie Robinson—at 2^nd base for the Dodgers. The first Series televised though there were only 250,000 televisions sets in America and the few in Enid didn’t receive the signal.

Cate played baseball. And she was damn good at it. Her muscular thighs testimony to her ability to play catcher and hit with power. She played with the Fort Wayne Daisies, part of the eight team All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Until her father’s accident and Mother’s deterioration.

She had been living out of a suitcase and making $85 a week doing what she loved.  In the world far beyond Enid.

The front porch of her childhood home was a much smaller universe.

And while Paul’s proposal moments earlier promised her broader horizons, it was on his terms.

‘So, what?’ Cate had said. ‘I follow you from one air base to another while you live your dream?’

‘We live our dream.’

‘Things change.  I’m playing professional baseball for money.’

‘Women’s baseball and how long is that going to last?’

‘Three thousand in the stands and sometimes more. Mostly men.’

‘Of course. Those short skirts and compromising positions.’

‘Which base are you talking about, Paul?’

‘All of them and especially home base.’

‘Was that clever?’

‘Sex sells.’

‘Is that what you learned in the Air Force?’

Cate regretted having said that. A remark born of her frustrations. With Mother. Paul. Enid, Oklahoma. And the long summer night elongated by the train’s whistle—her own mythical siren—both promise and plaintive.

Life seemed so small caged in other peoples’ hands. A slow suffocation till you couldn’t make out the difference between living and dying.

Until too late. Until they became the same thing.

Until she became her mother.

In baseball, Cate never took a strike three pitch.

 

Cate and Paul have known each other since high school. Their first time together, Cate led the way. She was never shy about her body. About the heat and intensity of her desires.

Nor about condoms. She always carried two.

Even now, wearing her bandeau top and short split skirt, leaning back on her hands, most of her charms on display, as her mother would say, Cate remains unabashed. And far away from Paul who had turned toward her and she from him.

They’re moving in different directions. Still, Paul continued to pursue her.

‘Don’t share this,’ he confided in Cate, ignoring her disconcerting attitude, ‘but the brass are reopening the airbase outside of town. Korea’s in their gunsights. I could be stationed in Enid.’

‘I want out of Enid, Paul. I only came back because of Mother.’

‘So, you won’t stick by me here or away?’

‘We’re so young, Paul. Commitment so—final.  What’s our hurry?’

‘We promised one another.’

‘You went away.’

‘And you. To Cuba.’

‘Yes! And it was fantastic.’

And it had been. In 1947, Havana, Cuba was a vibrant, boisterous city. Old world narrow streets bordered by Spanish/Moorish architecture were aswarm with pedestrians and street vendors hawking food or fortune. Every lottery ticket a winner.

Music blared from open-air cafes. And something stirred in the crowds. In Cate.

A revolution.

Cate had flown there with all the other women in the League for Spring Training. The stands teemed with men cheering them on in their melodious Spanish. They loved their baseball and loved, even more, women baseball players.

The women had to be escorted wherever they went in Havana. The Cuban men uninhibited and forthright about their intentions.

Raul was different. His accented English as exotic as his European charm. Classic manners. Understated demeanor. Cate understood he existed as a fantasy. A singular moment. But made certain it was a moment she would cherish.

 

She thinks of Raul now—poised on her childhood front porch, her body all urgent with memory.

Havana throbbed with exuberance. Enid lay flat and grey in a vast expanse of wheat.  Cate’s mother had lived here all her life. And look what it’s gotten her. Nowhere near Cuba, Cate thinks and arches her back.

Paul has been to places more prosaic. His current assignment is piloting the newly developed straight-wing F84 in which he had once strafed the Franklins' house on his way to a base in Arizona. Strafing citizens was against military protocol and could result in severe penalties and scared the bejeezus from Mrs. Franklin.

Cate never told her it was Paul expressing his affections.

He commanded his plane more ably than his emotional landscape.

‘What happened in Cuba?’ Paul asked not wanting to know.

‘I drank too many cuba libres,’ Cate answered dampening her enthusiasms for Paul’s sake.

‘During Spring Training? So much for the chaperones. And those mandatory charm classes.’

‘Those came in handy.’

‘Damn-it, Cate, I didn’t fly all the way out here to be toyed with.’

‘How is it you can fly all the way out here anyhow?  On the tax payers’ dime to drop in on an acquaintance?’

‘It’s maneuvers, Cate and you’re more than a mere acquaintance.’

‘It’s maneuvers, all right. But they have little to do with protecting this country.’

‘Protecting this country and proposing to you. Both of which I’m dead serious about.’

‘That’s too high a price to pay for at least one of those.’

‘Cate,’ Paul said and his voice trailed away.

Cate understood he loved her. The body of her. Her fiery passions that exhilarated and exhausted him. An affection steeped in their fierce couplings on scratchy blankets and under the one eye of a lit and drunken moon. Deep in those soft Oklahoma nights when trains bound for one coast or the other barreled through the ebony dark—the passenger car windows lit and framing silhouettes of folks on their way to the same destination.

Each a victim of their own mortality.

But she also understood that was the past. And their present needed time to accommodate their divergent futures. And while Paul played from a script made of memories -

Cate had turned the page.

Lived to play baseball where the next pitch was all that mattered. Not the expectations and demands of parents, boyfriends—society. She thrived on the field. Captain of her team. Calling the pitches. Chirping at the opposing players. Leaping up from her crouch to throw out the runner at second.

The satisfying thwack of ball into glove. The exquisite choreography of athletes engaged in their art. That’s what compelled her.

Everything else served as a distraction.

Cate’s father never made $85 dollars a week. Neither does Paul even now. Protecting his country.

‘I’m a good baseball player, Paul. One of the best,’ Cate reminded him.

‘You’ve got a hell of an arm, believe me, I know. But what about all those plans we made?’

‘Fools make plans—isn’t that what the philosophers say?’

‘Which makes folks who believe in them -?’

‘Brave? Trustworthy? Faithful?’

‘Fine qualities. Who couldn’t love a guy like that?’

‘I don’t love you any less, Paul. I just don’t love you any more.’

Paul stood and jammed a fist into his hand ‘Damn, I wish I understood that, Cate! I really do.’

‘It would be so much easier if you did. Paul. So much easier.’

That deflated Paul. He sat back down on the porch railing—one foot off the ground. Speechless.

 

This is where they are now. Together and apart.

There’s a cough from inside the house. Raspy, dry. Cate’s mom used to bake the damnedest rhubarb pies. They won contests at the county fair—year after year. When her husband slipped from his ladder into the wheat kernels breathing in first the dust, then the kernels themselves—horror must have seized his last fleeting moments. This thought paralyzed Mrs. Franklin. Constricted her own breathing as if it was happening to her over and over again.

No wonder she has trouble sleeping.

They had plans. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin. Repaint the living room. Plant a winter garden. Visit her sister in Tulsa. Plans.

Cate is hitting .330 and leads the league in RBI’s. A superstar. Grounded now.

But Cate has seen too much of the world. And Enid. Both.

And while at present she’s bound to one, thereafter she’ll be bound for the other.

Paul flies high for the Air Force. The news from Korea ever more troubling. His job puts him in harm’s way.

He’s seeking a safe place to land.

Together they used to race each other across their high school football field. Cozy up round harvest fires. Their lives stretching out like the surrounding prairie. Endless. Far-reaching. Every direction away.

And finally, from each other.

And there’s something in a train’s whistle that haunts night.

An ache. A longing. A lament.

Listen.

Cate does.

 

About the author 

Kayner's plays, prose, and poetry have won numerous awards and appeared in a variety of publications. 

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Sunday Serial: The Story Weaver and Other Stories, by Sally Zigmond, SPILT INFINTIES, Bordeaux red,

 

Morag grabbed her purse and a coat from the rack by the door. She pushed her feet into the nearest pair of shoes and marched out from her flat into the grim reality of a damp and blustery night.

            She seemed to remember there was a shop nearby that was always open. Not that she'd ever been in it. She didn’t need ‘convenience’ stores. She never ran out of anything, let alone food for Pier Gynt and Solveig. But the moment she had got home she had reached into the fridge and found every shelf empty. Not just of the cats’ dinner. Everything. No Caesar Salad, no yoghurt with bio-active enzymes, not even that bottle of 1982 Bordeaux Red. She couldn’t understand it.

            Now standing within the grubby confines of Rani’s All-Nite Stores, rain dripping from her coat and forming puddles about her feet, she couldn’t begin to fathom what she’d come in for. She had been working too hard. That’s what it was. But at what exactly? She ran her own business she knew that much. But what exactly was it she did?

            She wandered up and down the shelves. Bleach, soap, scouring pads. No that wasn’t it. Something for dinner. People were coming round. But who? The store with its cracked concrete floor and ‘Fine Wines for the Discerning Shopper,’ scrawled in black felt-tip on cardboard dangling at eye level appalled her. She hated dirt and disorder and loathed bad spelling. The place stank of earth and mouldy vegetables, but the cats were hungry. Cat food. That was it. Concentrate. She grabbed a large tin of something meaty and hurried to the checkout. Delving into her coat pocket out fell a grubby handkerchief screwed up with a five pound note. Where was her purse?

            The man behind the counter accepted the note with a toothless smile. He wiped the dust from the top of the tin with his elbow and dropped it into a hideous canary-yellow carrier bag. No sooner had she stepped out onto the pavement than the handle broke and she found herself scrabbling in the gutter for the tin.

            She was straightening up when a car screeched to a halt alongside her and the passenger door swung open.

            ‘Hop in.’

            She stared at him. She’d heard of kerb-crawlers but had never known they frequented this neighbourhood. Perhaps she ought to move. Thameside Villas was clearly no longer the best address in Maidenhead.

            He spoke again. ‘Hurry up, Mo! Neil will be arriving any minute and you said everything would be ready in good time.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, you said that on our wedding day and even then you were half an hour late.’

            The man was clearly mad. And yet he seemed familiar, his face as comfortable and warming as these old boots she never knew she had. An image; a name floated into her mind and fluttered away again. She had vague recollections of standing on a bridge contemplating her future when a young man with hair the colour of rope came sculling downstream. He had looked up at her and grinned. Why had she remembered such an irrelevant detail? Then a silly thought struck her. Had she allowed herself to get to know him she might not be here now. She might even have become some dowdy housewife in the suburbs. She’d never have become Morag Melville, who ran her own…ran her own what?

            Somehow she found herself climbing into the car. She noted the rust under the door-sill with distaste. The springs sagged. Tins of paint and unboxed cassettes rolled about at her feet plus something squishy she didn’t dare investigate. The car moved off with the roar and splutter of a clapped-out carburettor, the windscreen wipers wobbling in time to some tinny pop tune.

            ‘So what you got us, then? I’m starving.’

            Unable to articulate any of the inchoate thoughts tumbling around her head, she plunged her arm into Mr Rani’s hideous yellow bag and fished out the tin. ‘Pheasant in a Rich Red Wine Sauce,’ she read aloud.

            ‘Bloody Hell!’ he laughed. ‘Can we afford it? Mind you, this girl Neil’s bringing might be the one and then we will be celebrating. The first of the kids to get off our hands. And the last. Can’t see any one ever wanting to marry Gail, can you?’

            She smiled weakly.

 

The car splashed on through the greasy back-streets. A monotonous succession of street-lamps zoomed past, each one exploding like a yellow firework then falling away, marking a step further from everything she knew. The more lamps she counted, the more she had to force herself to hang onto reality. She had two cats, but what were their  names? Something Norwegian. So why did the ridiculous name, Pussikins, keep rising to the surface of her mind?

            ‘Go away,’ she muttered to the silly name. It slunk back into the shadows and stared at her balefully through narrowed eyes.

            ‘First sign of madness, you know.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘Talking to yourself.’

            That was it. She was going mad.

            The windscreen wipers rocked. Her head reeled. The music rolled. ‘Do I know this tune? It’s awfully familiar.’ The man grinned but said nothing. She wanted to hit him.

            They came to a roundabout and he slowed down. Here the street-lamps changed from sodium yellow which distorted everything in their glow to a more realistic white. This was her first chance to examine him properly. He was about the same age as her, about forty, reasonably slim, but with the beginnings of a paunch. He had probably been handsome once and although he wasn’t by any means bald, his hair line was creeping away from his forehead. She imagined that it was once the texture and colour of rope, the sort you tie up boats with.........

            She must have gasped. The man turned. Concerned. ‘You Okay?’

            She swallowed and nodded, but she wasn’t. She could remember running her fingers through such hair. When? It was a long time ago. He was young. She was young. They were lying together looking up at a blue sky peeping through a canopy of overlapping leaves, golden-tipped with sunlight. She was happy. She loved him. She knew his name.

            ‘Tim Frazer!’ she cried out.

            ‘Now what have I done?’

            ‘Nothing.’ She tucked her head inside her raincoat and the journey continued in silence.

            They were driving along a suburban road of identical Tudor-gabled houses. He signalled too late, braked too late and swung left almost colliding with a pair of battered gates. He may have missed this time, but judging from the rusting dents that pock-marked the posts, he wasn’t always as successful.

            A light flashed on from behind the glass-paned front door. A teenage girl emerged. On her feet a pair of lop-eared rabbit slippers; on her face, the obligatory teenage scowl. ‘What took you so long? Neil’s phoned. Said they’ll be here in ten minutes. Pussikins is being a right pain. There’s no crisps and I’m starving. Honestly, Mum! How could you forget to go shopping? You must be going senile.’

            ‘Don’t speak to your mother like that! Come back this minute! Gail!’ An upstairs door slammed shut.

 

‘Feeling better after a good night’s sleep?’

            She opened her eyes a fraction and found the strange man bending over her with a mug of strong tea with ‘The World’s Best Mum’ printed on it.

            Oh for a china cup of Lapsang Suchong, she pleaded silently. She had also been hoping that when she woke she would find it had all been a dream, like in one of those awful TV soaps she never watched.

            She took a cautious sip. The tea wasn’t as bad as she had feared. She drained the mug.

            ‘Want another?’ She shook her head.

            ‘It’s not like you to refuse a top-up. Sure you’re okay? You weren’t yourself last night. A bit quiet. Shall I make you an appointment with Dr Jones?’

            Again she shook her head.

            ‘If you’re sure. But take it easy today. I really have to get to work now, but phone me if you need me.’

            ‘Of course,’ she smiled. The sooner he was gone the better. Then she could leave. But what if she wasn’t alone? ‘Where are - um - Neil and his girlfriend?’ she added cautiously.

            ‘Fiancée. Have you forgotten the big announcement already? They wanted to get off early so they could tell her folks. They didn’t want me to wake you.’

            ‘What about Gail?’ Tim frowned. Had she got the name wrong?

            ‘It’s ten o’clock. She’s at school.’

            ‘Ten!’ she shrieked. She was always at her desk by eight. ‘I must call Howard.’ She leaped up, searching for her mobile phone, lifting knickknacks and other artefacts around what must have been the most hideous bedroom she had ever seen. The furniture was a flat-pack build-it-yourself job and to top it all, on the dressing-table sat a teddy bear clutching a crimson satin heart between its paws with the words, ‘I love you’ embroidered on it. Suddenly enraged, she grabbed it, intending to sling it across the room. Instead, she pressed the soft white fur to her cheek and held it there.

            ‘Who the hell’s Howard?’ said Tim, hopping from one suede shoe to the other as he tied the laces. Was she married to a man who wore suede shoes?

            She sank back on the bed, still cuddling the bear, her mind a swampy mass of mud. She thought quickly. ‘A new hairdresser.’

            ‘Hairdresser? You? You hate hairdressers.’

            ‘Someone told me he was very good.’

            ‘Who?’

            ‘Rita.’ The name came from nowhere. Fortunately it satisfied Tim. He pecked her on the cheek and left.

            Time to think hard. She tossed the bear aside.

            Going over the events of the night before, what amazed her was how she managed to get through it without any of the strangers around her batting an eyelid. In this mad world, she was Tim’s wife and Neil, a shambling scarecrow who towered above her was her son. Sulky Gail was her daughter. Luckily, she wasn’t supposed to know anything about Helen, so she was able to direct most of her questions to her, even if it did make her sound like the future mother-in-law from Hell.

            But what had put the tin lid on it was not so much theirs, but her own unfathomable acceptance of the situation. Not only that, it had been fun, in an unsophisticated sort of way, like playing Trivial Pursuit with a group of friends and a large bottle of wine. She hadn’t laughed so much in years. There’d been a series of humorous toasts. ‘To Gail’s sweet smile!’ ‘To Dad and his vile taste in music.’

            ‘Phil Collins, I ask you,’ Neil had explained to Helen. That was it, she thought. That tape in the car. ‘Easy Lover.’ Tim was always singing it. One day she’d threatened to throw the tape in the river, but hadn’t.

            Tim had remained unabashed. ‘It’s better than your Mum’s taste. I wish I’d never taken her to see Pavarotti. You know that night when it pissed down all night and we all caught colds. She was happy with Tom Jones before that. Now she thinks she’s an opera buff.’ And everyone had looked at her and laughed. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was like being attacked by a soft pillow.

            At one point over pudding; Peach Pavlova, apparently one of her specialities, the scarecrow with the big smile, sorry, Neil, started reminiscing about a holiday cottage on the Suffolk coast they used to rent every August. ‘Remember that crab I caught in a bucket and you found it in the kitchen next morning when you got up to cook breakfast and you screamed so loud, the neighbours called the police because they thought someone was being murdered?’

            And the odd thing was she did remember. Clearly. She could see those bead-like black eyes peering out from under the sink. And she remembered Tim pouring her a tumblerful of brandy.

            ‘And it wasn’t even nine-o’clock in the morning!’ she exclaimed to the assembled company and she knew she always said this whenever the story was repeated and everyone always laughed. Not at her. With her. With shared remembrance. It was like nothing she had ever experienced and had sunk gratefully into this strange soft quilt called family. She could see how too much of it could be suffocating, but there was enough air to keep her sharp.

            Some of that feeling still lingered annoyingly as she concentrated on re-establishing her true identity. She hated quilts, cushions and other fripperies. Her flat was a lofty expanse of hardwood and paint. She recited a verbal CV. My name is Morag Melville. I am forty three years old. After graduating from Reading University with first class honours in Estate Management, I began work for a major agricultural insurance company, leaving that after ten years to set up my own consultancy advising on forestry investment. It’s a specialist field and I’ve built up a good business. I employ Howard as my deputy and a PA called Shirley. I have never married. Never felt the need. I’m happy in my own company. I live in a deluxe riverside apartment in Maidenhead and I lead a fulfilling, busy life. I attend concerts, operas and read good literature. I have two Siamese cats called Solveig and Pier Gynt.

            Something brushed past her legs. She picked it up. It was that fat scruffy tabby, Pussikins. She fondled its ear. It was torn and misshapen, but completely healed after his brush with next door’s greyhound...... She stopped. How the hell did she know that? Things were getting worse. She pushed the creature from her lap. It strutted from the bedroom its tail a vertical token of dented pride.

            She dialled the office number. ‘Melville Consultancy.’ It was Howard.

             ‘I’m running a bit late,’ she said. ‘I’ll be with you in about half an hour.’

            Howard sounded puzzled. ‘Who are you?’

            ‘It’s me, you idiot. Morag.’

            ‘Morag who?’

            ‘Cut it out, Howard. April Fool’s Day’s been and gone.’

            ‘If you give me your surname I’ll check our records.’

            She decided to play along. ‘Put me through to your boss immediately.’

            ‘I’m afraid Mr Melville is in a meeting. Can I take a message? Miss er...’

            She slammed the phone down. If he was expecting a bonus this year, he’d have to think again. Mister Melville! Howard hadn’t even the gumption to think up a different name.

            The first thing to do was return to her flat and change. She always worked more efficiently in tailored clothes. What she found herself in now was reserved for lounging about at home. She telephoned for a taxi and hoped she had enough change in her raincoat pocket to pay the fare.

 

Her key that let her into the building jammed in the front door lock. It wouldn’t turn however much she tried. As she struggled, she spotted the woman who lived in the next-door flat approaching. She didn’t know her name. They kept themselves to themselves in Thameside Villas.

            ‘There’s something wrong with my key. It’s a good thing you came along when you did or I’d be locked out.’ She affected a stiff laugh and was reminded of the hilarity of the previous night. The scent of loss drifted by and was gone.

            The woman gave her that look of a headmistress watching a cockroach scuttle across the Axminster. ‘Do I know you?’

            ‘Yes, you bloody well do,’ Morag shouted back as the woman took her own keys out of her bag, let herself in the front door and slammed it shut in her face.

            Get a grip, Morag, she told herself. Think again. The cleaner. Of course. She employed one through an agency. Her hours were nine to twelve. She’d be inside now.

            She pressed the intercom.

 

 

Later she found herself wandering along the river. Yesterday’s rain had cleared and the blue sheen of the sky was reflected in the sleek launches bobbing on their ropes. A coxless four slid through water like a knife through mercury, their shoulder muscles rippling, their faces grimacing with the effort. By now it was lunch-time and shoppers and office workers alike were taking advantage of the early spring sunshine to eat outside. A fitful breeze teased the flags on the opposite bank. Muted traffic crossed and re-crossed the stone bridge.

            It wasn’t her fault she mistook the girl who answered the intercom for the cleaner. Her estuary English was as broad as Southend beach at low-tide. It turned out that not only was she a famous model but she insisted it was her flat, that she’d lived in it for two years and if she didn’t leave her alone she’d call the law.

            ‘If anyone calls the police, it will be me,’ Morag had snapped back. ‘You’re squatting.’

            ‘And you’re mad, that’s what you are. You want fucking certifying.’

            ‘Well really!’

            She hadn’t called the police. She knew she’d have trouble making them understand. She had no proof of identity whatsoever. She thrust her fists into the pockets of the raincoat she was beginning to loathe with a murderous hatred and marched on. What a scruff she looked. What if she met someone she knew?

            ‘Mo! What are you doing here? You don’t usually come into town on Fridays.’

            It was that man again. The one called Tim - her husband. Sitting on a bench facing the river, stuffing a white roll into his face, scattering crumbs much to the pleasure of a group of noisy ducks, paddling around his suede shoes. This was the man who’d slept alongside her last night but had fortunately kept to his side of the bed, otherwise she shuddered to think what might have happened. He quickly finished his meal and made room for her on the bench.

            She sat down, slowly warming to his friendly and non-judgemental expression. In fact, she realised, she had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life. He smelled of cheap aftershave and hard-boiled eggs. She took a deep breath. ‘I just felt like getting out of the house,’ she explained. Which was true.

            Tim seemed to accept this. ‘You’re looking more like your old self,’ he said. ‘A bit more colour in your cheeks. I never thought you’d be worried about entertaining your future daughter-in-law. She’s perfect for Neil, isn’t she?’

            ‘I agree,’ she replied slipping her hand into his, enjoying its rough warmth. ‘She was very nervous though, wasn’t she?’

            ‘Do you remember when I took you to meet my parents for the first time?’

            ‘I was terrified,’ she said suddenly seeing an oak-panelled dining room and a table set with a multitude of knives and forks she hadn't a clue which to use when.

            ‘But they fell in love with you just like I had.’

            The ducks had waddled back into the river. Two swans were cruising not far from the bank, trailing two perfect interlocked Vs behind them. ‘Can you remember when we first met?’ she said.

            ‘Remember? How could I forget? There I was single-skulling under Caversham Bridge, not a care in the world....’

            ‘In Reading?’

            ‘No, Venice, Silly. Venice, Berkshire.’

            She found herself replying, ‘Silly yourself.’ What sort of expression was that?

            ‘And there you were above me leaning over the parapet, chucking books into the river. I thought you’d dropped them by accident and tried to fish them out for you....’

            ‘And your boat capsized!’

            ‘And when I was suffering the first stages of pneumonia you told me you’d chucked them on purpose because you were, “sick of bloody boring estate management”’

            ‘Did I say that?’

            ‘The language was probably much worse, knowing you, but that was the general drift.’

            ‘All that pneumonia rubbish was to get me to your flat to seduce me!’

            ‘Seduce?’ he said as they began to walk back up the steps away from the riverbank. ‘You were a willing partner, I seem to recall.’

            ‘Oh yes? It seemed pretty much like a seduction to me. You filled me with wine and I told you how I was at a cross-roads with my life and needed advice.’

            ‘And I said if you carried on with estate management you’d turn into a boring old maid stuck in one of those hideous luxury flats they were putting up along the river, with only two snooty Siamese cats for company.’

            She shuddered. ‘Cold?’ he said with renewed concern. ‘Tell you what. Let’s go home. Gail’s staying at Avril’s overnight, isn’t she? So it’ll be just us. I fancy seducing you all over again.’

            ‘How about the other way round?’

            ‘We’ll do it whichever way round you like.’ She punched him playfully on the arm. He kissed her.

            In the short walk to the car-park, everything fell into place. She had given up estate management and moved into Tim’s Reading flat next door to Huntley and Palmer’s factory where she worked boxing cream crackers. When Tim graduated he took a job in a bookstore and they married. Later he was promoted to be the manager of the Maidenhead branch. They left Reading and bought an affordable semi in a tree-lined avenue. They didn’t have any pets because Neil was allergic to them. Pussikins only came along after he’d left home. Gail was a surprise. Now aged fourteen with a strange taste in footwear they couldn’t imagine being without her. Mo tucked her arm into his as they strolled past the Indian supermarket just before the car-park.

            ‘Shall I buy a bottle of cheap plonk to remind us of old times?’ she said suddenly.

            ‘Good idea. I’ll get the car and meet you outside.’

            She pushed open the door and was immediately assailed by the mingled aroma of cardamom, turmeric and cinnamon. From somewhere, eastern music jangled, overlaid with commentary from a live cricket match. At first she found the smell exhilarating and breathed deeply. After a while it began to make her feel sick.

            Her footsteps took her further into the depths of the shop to where a rough painted sign swinging from the ceiling proclaimed, ‘Fine Wines for the Disserning Shopper,’ in black felt-tip. She winced at the spelling error. Her eyes briefly ran along the shelves. Lambrusco, Soave, Chianti. What rubbish was this?

            She marched up to the shopkeeper just as the commentator screamed, ‘He’s out! Caught in the slips for a duck.’

            ‘Where are your vintage wines?’ she demanded.

            ‘Wine there,’ he pointed. ‘Very good.’ He pressed his ear to the radio on the shelf-behind him from where the cricket commentary still trickled on.

            She looked around her. What on earth was she doing here? She always ordered her wine from a highly reputable company in Windsor who delivered it promptly.

            She left the shop. Her head buzzed as if it were tuned into a distant radio station. She felt weak and ever so slightly sick. She’d been working too hard. That was the trouble. She dashed across the road toward Thameside Villas. Just then a car emerged at a reckless speed from a nearby car park and almost ran her over. She stepped back quickly and scowled at the driver - a scruffy individual with hair the colour of rope. The car careened around the corner and was gone.

            She had forgotten about the incident by the time she was slipping her key into the lock. She took a shower, fed the cats a slice of poached salmon each, opened the bottle of 1982 Bordeaux red and after slipping ‘Don Carlos’ into the CD player sank into her leather sofa.

            Outside dusk was painting the river with grey shadows and one by one the lights strung along the river bank came alight, throwing out bright streamers across the water. A rippling skein of geese flew overhead, their wings stained pink by the setting sun. This was her favourite time of the day; a moment for reflection. It had been another profitable day. She had acquired two new clients. Her accountant had agreed her tax-projections for the next financial year. ‘Here’s to me,’ she said aloud, raising her glass to Pier Gynt and Solveig who, arranged tastefully on the windowsill, remained indifferent to her triumph.

            And for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, a single tear as round and perfect as a pearl rolled down her nose, and splashed into the blood-red wine.