I Hope It Brings You Peace - A Short Story

I haven't put much of my writing up here lately so I thought I'd remedy that with a little something I wrote the other day. Feel free to comment and I hope you enjoy it.


I Hope It Brings You Peace

I stand in a plume of smoke watching you sip the bitterest of gin and bitter lemons, your squinty eyes watching him. He leans into the girl as they twirl around the dance floor, his hand resting on the rise of  young buttocks. You purse your lips, push the glass across the table and the last melting ice cubes clink together. The music ends, the trio take a bow and the dancers leave the floor. he escorts the girl to the bar, helps her onto a tall stool and nods at you. You grip the edge of the table, reach for the glass and drain it in one.

I glide across to join you, sit on the vinyl bench and stare closely at you. Time has not been kind. Close cropped iron grey hair, deep wrinkles around your eyes and mouth, complexion sallow. You look worn out, worn down, burnt out.

He approaches, leans in and a cloud of sickly aftershave engulfs you. I am pulled back to another party, Christmas and the same aftershave. A kiss beneath the mistletoe that lasted a heartbeat too long, a hand held behind a back, blushing and sweating over the whiskey and gin.

You blink away the tears, his hand clasps your elbow and he breathes in your ear. 'Contacts', 'business', 'jealousy'. You slump against the back of the bench and sigh. As he heads to the bar you tap your glass. Without a glance at you he gestures to the barman and your glass is refreshed.

I remember another you, a younger more vibrant woman in tailored suits with raven curls that tossed as you spoke. You laughed and everyone looked at you, alive and vivacious. Afternoons sprawled on sunny lawns as our children played and we chattered about everything and nothing. Chilled wine, brought back from your holidays in France where you recharged your batteries and spoke your native language, returning to sprinkle your conversations with 'd'accord' and 'peut etre'. Now you sit silently, a shade of that woman, monochrome and sad.

The band return, a slightly off-key piano, a skinny youth with bass guitar and an octogenarian who wheezes Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin standards. Some dancers fill the floor and you scan them. But he isn't there, neither is he at the bar. You clutch your drink, a cold tear teeters on your lashes and you grind it away. He is gone.

I smoke him out in the car park. leaning on a maroon Mercedes, cigar clamped between his teeth.
An angular man whose head juts out alarmingly is telling lewd jokes and he is laughing, slapping his thighs. He pulls the cigar from his mouth, a string of spittle joining them together for an instant. The angular man points towards the golf course where several pairs are plodding from tee to green tugging carts behind them. He stares at the taut linen backside of one woman who is pushing a plastic tee into the ground, a bead of sweat glistening on his brow. I notice how his hair is cut close to his pink scalp, smooth and shiny where the hair is long gone. I recall the younger man, raking his fingers through his hair, pushing it from his eyes, his wedding ring glinting in the sunshine. Nothing glints now as he runs a liver spotted claw across his sweating head. He pulls once more on the cigar, grunts at the angular man and moves through my smoke with an awkward, halting gait. When in the privacy of the club house he pulls the straining fabric from his crotch and rejoins you at the bar.

He plonks himself next to you, your gazes never meeting as the band crash their way through 'It's Not Unusual'. Together you watch the last few dancers stagger around the floor, the barman laughing as he polishes a wine glass, leaning in to the young girl and nodding in your direction. He waves at the barman, gesticulating drinking and grunts as he pulls a tatty leather wallet from his hip pocket. You move away a fraction, lips bloodless, a gin soaked sweat on your upper lip. Together yet alone.

I watch you during the afternoon, you drinking and judging, he wheeling and dealing, neither acknowledging the coldness that surrounds you. He pulls a picture from his wallet and shows it to a couple standing at the bar, You catch the mumbled phrases 'My children', 'very proud', 'doing well'. I know that you don't see them anymore, that they are embarrassed by what you have become. I smile knowing that for all you  have and all you both took from us you are lonely, tethered to a man and lifestyle you now despise. You took it all, you and him, left us with nothing but poisoned memories. Yet it is you who have nothing, while I have it all. And now I pull the smoke closer to me, wrap myself up ready to depart. I brush my fingers across your face, watch you shiver and grow pale. My short time here is over and I leave you both behind. Leave you to your sadness, your regret. I hope it brings you peace but I think it only brought you pain and loneliness.

Book Review - The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

I realised the other day that I hadn't posted a book review for a while. I suppose that this must mean that most of the books I have read recently haven't sparked enough enthusiasm to get reviewed.
However, I have just finished a wonderful read and felt that I had to put down my thoughts here.

I confess that this book has languished on my desk for a while, being passed over as I picked up other books, always thinking that I would get round to it. And eventually I did pick it up and settle down to read. Thank goodness I did for it is a wonderful, inspiring uplifting story of love, fortitude and the endless power of the human spirit. I confess to being in tears at the end of the second chapter and was worried that I would be unable to carry on. But this is not a sad or weepy book. So don't let my emotional response put you off!

Raynor Winn and her husband Moth find themselves homeless after a business deal goes bad and they fail to save it through the courts. The decide to use this 'freedom' to walk the South West Coast Path, initially from Minehead to Land's End but with the option to walk on. This book chronicles their journey, sharing the wonderous wildlife they see, the landscape they pass through and the interesting characters they meet.

Underplaying this travelogue is Moth's terminal diagnosis, delivered just as they decided to set off on their epic walk. The love that binds Moth and Raynor together is beautiful and strong. Without each other I think they would have soon fell apart as their safe lives unravelled. Moth finds the walk arduous at first but as the miles tick off he begins to gain strength and we are left optimistic about his fate. No spoilers here!

I loved getting to know Moth and Raynor, a pair of 'old walkers' who embrace an opportunity and learn so much about themselves through adversity. I was reminded of the saying 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. This journey in this book is a living illustration of this and I loved ever bit of it.

It Can't Just Be Me

I wonder if I over-think these things sometimes, unable to switch my brain off and worrying away at things until I'm not sure which way is up. I seem incapable of making a decision and being content that I have made the correct one, going over and over things until I feel really despondent about everything.

Having decided what I was going to do with my manuscript I have had a few discussions with people and changed my mind about self publishing. So, traditional publishing it is then. Yes?

Well, if only it was that easy. I finally plucked up the courage to enter the Curtis Brown First Novel Contest and with only a few hours of procrastination I pressed 'Submit' and took a deep breath. Seconds later I was sure it was a mistake but it was done so no point worrying about it. Advice I failed to take and spent too much time obsessing about what I had done.

What was the problem? Imposter Syndrome of course!

I managed to convince myself that I had made a dreadful mistake, my manuscript was going to be laughed at and passed around at secret publishers meetings so everyone would know what a terrible writer I was and how dare I presume to submit that drivel to anyone. Coz that's how it works, right? There's a secret publishers cabal who spend their evenings cackling at the cheek of us deluded writers.

Anyway, back in the real world I worried that I had been premature sending the manuscript out when I had yet to hear back from my beta readers. But it is too late to worry about that so now I'm worrying about whether to send it out to agents before I hear from Curtis Brown. And down another rabbit hole I vanish …

So I'm trying to stay sane and balanced while my reptilian hind brain has kittens and gives me sleepless nights! Back to the short story I am writing for another contest and let the manuscript alone for a while or I'll scratch the scab off it.

Nominative Determinism

I've yet to meet a Miss Baker who turns out splendid cakes or a Mr Plummer who can fix a leak in a trice but I have always been fascinated by nominative determinism. You know, the phenomenon whereby a person's name fits their chosen path in life. So when a perfectly fabulous name crossed my path yesterday I knew he had to be the subject of a piece of fiction.

So here is a short piece about a character named Dangerous!

I tried so hard not to roll my eyes as the five millionth person asked the same question.
'So, are you strong and dangerous?'
This was the question everyone I had ever met had asked me and as I had done every time I was asked it I cursed my stupid family for landing me with the name Armstrong Dangerous.
If you're being picky about it I'm Armstrong Dangerous III but as I'm not from Miami I don't use the numbers. In the Midlands if you were to use numbers at the end of your name you'd spend the whole time explaining away the Chinese Burn marks or pulling your underwear from your arse. So I leave that part out until I know someone well enough for them not to snigger when saying my name.
Why my father decided to stick me with a name that had cursed his childhood years I have no idea. Maybe he thought as he'd had to suffer so should his eldest child. Yes, that's right. Even if I'd had the good fortune to be born a girl he was planning to land me with Armstrong. Possibly as a middle name according to my mother but I'm not sure I believe her. After all, she didn't stand up to him when he decided that I was to be called Armstrong without even a middle name to fall back on.
Anyway, back to the story.
I failed to avoid rolling my eyes and I think I even sighed dramatically when the hulking new boy asked if my name really was Armstrong Dangerous. I managed to get the first two syllables of my standard explanation out before his massive right fist forced all  the air out of my lungs and dropped me to my knees. I sucked air in, wiped the tears from my eyes and looked up into his lard face.
'Loser! My baby sister is more dangerous than you.'
He pushed an open ham hand onto my forehead and applied enough pressure to knock me onto my back. I lay on the grass, winded and humiliated and listened to the laughter. Another day, another set of bruises. Being called Dangerous is no fun when you aren't.


So there he is, my new friend Armstrong Dangerous, laying in the dirt and wishing he was called John Smith. I wonder is there are other adventures I can take him on?