Sample from February 2019:
Monica
Monica lay stretched out on the sofa in
her dressing room, surrounded by candles whose flames flickered on the peeling
walls. The scents of cinnamon and vanilla wafted over her in sporadic waves,
overpowering the musty odour which had filled her nostrils when she first
entered this godforsaken place. She was sprawled on her side, with her head
propped up on her hand, her elbow sinking into the threadbare, lumpy cushion.
There
was a knock at the door and Clark, her agent, poked his nose into the room and
hesitated.
“Oh,
for heaven’s sake come in,” Monica said as she flung her pink satin robe over
her legs. Not that she was particularly modest, it was just that there was a
frightful draught which not only threatened to blow out a good number of the
candles, but brought cold air bearing the faint stench of rotting garbage.
“How
are we today?” asked Clark as he slithered into the room and sat on a dirty
plastic chair.
“I’ve
no idea how you are, but I have a migraine.
I don’t have any lights on. You might have noticed.”
“I’m
sorry to hear that.” Clark fidgeted with his collar and then wrung his hands.
“Are you too sick to go on?”
“Of
course I’m too sick. You do ask some stupid questions.”
Clark’s
face reddened.
“You
mean you’re going to miss opening night?”
“Don’t
over-react so. Anybody’d think you were the actor, not me.”
Clark
sat up straight and pulled out his smart phone. His fingers and thumbs danced
around it. Monica was fascinated by his complete and intense absorption in the
shiny thing, as well as irritated.
“Clark,
I don’t like being ignored. And, by the way, you told me that this part would
give my career the boost it needs.
That’s a joke.”
Clark
put the phone back in his pocket and turned towards her. His face was beet-red
and there was perspiration on his upper lip. His eyes were unblinking.
“You’re
the joke. You’re a throwback to the
good old days. You expect everyone to pamper you and wait on you, faun over
you. It’s especially ridiculous because you’re not a star and never will be. You’re a mediocre actor at best and will
never get roles in any theatres outside of this city, especially if you can’t
be relied upon to show up on stage. If I was you, I’d get out there tonight.”
Monica
threw back her head and laughed. Clark stood up as Monica clapped her hands.
“I
didn’t think you had the back-bone to say what you think,” Monica said. “I
can’t tell you how relieved I am that you actually have some guts.”
“What?”
Clark stared at her as she sat up on the sofa and fluffed up her hair with an
exaggerated flourish.
“I
thought you were made of mush. This is a nice surprise.”
“What’s
this all about?” There was a twitch under Clark’s right eye which amused
Monica.
“Oh,
it’s about me, or course. I want an agent who has some passion and drive, who
is honest and direct. I’ve now determined that you can be forthright, but I
don’t think you have my interests at heart. You won’t get me the roles I
deserve.”
Monica
stood up and let her robe slip off as she bent over to snuff out several
candles. She switched on the lights which surround the mirror.
“So,
you are going on tonight?” Clark asks through clenched teeth.
“Of
course I am. The show must go on. I just wanted to see how’d you react to the
possibility that I wouldn’t.” And, she thought, to my criticism of you as an
agent capable of representing me.
“Why
would you want to do that?”
“I
told you.” Monica stopped applying face powder with her fluffy puff and looked
at her pale reflection in the mirror. Her sparkling blue eyes gave away nothing
as Clark watched. He turned on his heels and strode out of the room.
Monica
had learned what she needed to know. His reaction to the suggestion she might
not perform had been as she suspected. She lit the candles again, switched off
the lights and lay on the sofa with her robe draped over her, waiting for the
director to show up.
That
night, her inability to conquer her
imaginary migraine prevented her from performing. It turned out to be
fortuitous for her but tragic for her understudy who, ironically, was murdered
during the death scene. The killer has still not been caught, but Monica was in
no doubt as to who had hired the assassin.
Her husband, Max, owed
over a million dollars to a crime syndicate and had to pay up, or else. Or
else, Monica supposed, meant he’d be at the bottom of a river with concrete
shoes.
Max’s mistake had
been his brutality. Despite his abuse, he had the audacity to demand that
Monica bale him out. She’d refused despite his ominous threats. In fact, she
was already one step ahead of him. She’d moved her funds and jewels to a bank
in the Cayman Islands and that’s where she headed as soon as the play opened
that evening. There was no doubt in her mind that she had to leave once Clark
had confirmed, by his behaviour, that she was destined to be murdered.
Two months later,
Max was found dead in a shower at his gym. Presumed to be suicide, but no note was
found. And Monica knows more than she’s ever going to divulge.
She’s now enjoying
a revitalized acting career in Europe where she is, indeed, a star, and has
been spotted driving around Milan in her shiny red Porsche.
Vicky Earle Copyright 2019
Sample from June 2018:
The Lighthouse
Jerry sat in his sunroom with binoculars in
one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. The predicted storm was building.
Frothy waves rolled in and unleashed their fury onto the pebbles below. He put
the binoculars down, resting his arm, but something red caught his attention.
He picked up the binoculars and looked westward
towards the lighthouse. With some
perseverance he found a familiar red dinghy tied up at the lighthouse rock,
being tossed about by the dark green swell.
Jerry knew that Duncan
wouldn’t have a life jacket. Duncan believed he was invincible and had no fear
of anything, it seemed. But as Jerry watched him playing the oboe in the school concert a couple of
years earlier, Duncan’s knees visibly trembled as beads of sweat grew on his
brow.
Jerry should have
encouraged him to continue his lessons because the boy had natural musical
talent. But Duncan hadn’t played since.
Jerry put on his rain
gear, and walked down the steep, slippery path, now running with water and mud,
to the marina below his house.
The heaving and
lurching of the dock under his feet was unnerving, and he nearly lost his
balance more than once. Although the marina was in a bay, with the lighthouse
on an island of rock at its mouth, the storm’s rage reached here too.
Boarding his boat
went better than expected, but he could barely hear the fifty-horsepower engine
over the roar of the sea and the howl of the gale. Ironically, the force of the
wind took his breath away. It seemed to have increased a notch or two since he left home.
It took longer
than usual to reach the lighthouse and the spray made it hard to see the
landing spots. He threw out a couple of fenders and grabbed a large ring only
to have to let go. On his next attempt he got the rope through the ring and
made fast.
Duncan had seen
him and met him at the door.
“You shouldn’t
have come,” Duncan said as he climbed the metal stairs.
“What are you
doing here?” Jerry tried his best to sound interested rather than combative.
“I’m living here.”
“No-one’s allowed
to live here.”
“To hell with
that. If I want to live here, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Okay. This is
better for you then?”
“Sure is. Anything
would be better than the hell-hole I’ve been living in.”
Jerry stops on the
stairs. His heart misses a beat. His palms sweat.
“I didn’t realize
living with me was that bad.” No-one had stood up to him before.
“Sure is.”
“What will you do
for money?”
“I’ll find a way. And
I’m not going to end up a boring bookseller
like you. How could you give up teaching music to do that?” There was scorn in
Duncan’s voice which sent a shiver down Jerry’s spine.
“I’ve never
suggested you should be a bookseller.”
“I don’t want to
be controlled by you any more. I’m on the brink
of a breakthrough in my life.”
“What makes you
say that?” Jerry’s hands trembled.
“Because I can do
what I want.”
“And you can’t
when you live with me?”
“You got it.”
Duncan looked down at him with a sneer.
“Okay,” Jerry said
as he kept the lid on his fear and anger. “Just remember, you can come back
home any time, no questions asked.”
The way Jerry
remembered it, he turned around on the stairs and made the challenging return-trip
home. He told them that he had another drink of whisky and sat exhausted,
gazing at the lighthouse, and that’s when he saw something tumble onto the
rocks below. He guessed what it must be, and it turned out that he was right.
But he didn’t guess that his world would be shattered, that he’d be found
guilty of manslaughter and locked up.
An old man now,
Jerry looks at the lighthouse from his dilapidated sunroom as he drinks his
last whisky. He blames the lighthouse for everything, including the impending class-action
law suit. But he knows he shouldn’t have been a music teacher for boys. And he
knows he shouldn’t have lured them to his home. And he knows he shouldn’t have
nurtured his relationship with Duncan, a vulnerable and mixed-up teen,
searching for a father-figure.
Jerry’s memories
are muddled. He grew more anxious and haunted during his long stretch in
prison. He sometimes thinks he must have pushed Duncan.
They say the oboe
was found smashed on the rock near the boy’s body.
Duncan could have
been a brilliant musician.
The whisky isn’t
taking away the pain. He walks down the steep path to the marina and steals a
boat. He can’t get the engine started so he rows, and rows, and rows, leaving
the lighthouse behind him.
Vicky Earle Copyright 2018
Samples from December 2017:
Title: Cassie
Rosemarie Dawson-Hill
Relief Daisy
Pole-axed Temperamental
Bottle Lost
“The time is 8:03 a.m., New Planet time. The temperature outside is minus 160 degrees
Celsius. The temperature inside the ship
is 24 degrees Celsius. After taking your
antibacterial shower, today you will dress in your blue overalls and white
blouse. They have been degermed for the
requisite 72 hours. Your nutrient bar
and bottle of genetically modified
milk is in the vending machine beside your bed.
Wake-up Cassie. Welcome to a new
day.”
The little girl stretched, opened
her eyes and kicked off the sheet that covered her. It was pointless replying to the disembodied voice. It only belonged to a computer, after
all. She had tried striking up a
conversation many times, but had been informed by Voice that its limited
artificial intelligence did not allow it to participate in conversation that
required in-depth thought or human emotion.
The girl performed all the requisite
preparations to commence her day, including providing a blood sample in a glass
test tube, that she dropped into the cylinder beside the vending machine. She slid the glass door down and watched the
test tube disappear with a whooshing noise.
She smiled; it reminded her of the sound the wind sometimes made,
through a crack in her bedroom window, back on earth. She put her hand up to her mouth in
dismay. Had she said those words
aloud? She looked around guiltily and
felt a wave of relief when Voice did
not challenge her or chide her for even mentioning earth, or her old life on
the farm with Ma and Pa and Lucifer, her golden Labrador.
The very thought of her dog made her
feel lost and unbelievably
homesick. She understood that she should
feel honoured that she had been selected to make this journey to New Planet
with sixty other children of her own age.
The journey would take two years, New Planet time, and she surmised they
must be half way there by now. Days and
weeks blended into one with the monotony of space travel. After the first week, the children had been
separated and allocated their own pods.
In time, Cassie didn’t miss them or think about the others at all.
She began to work on a one-hundred-piece
cardboard puzzle, which was an image of a distant galaxy, or part thereof. Cassie quickly became frustrated with it. She swept the pieces off the table. Upon entering the ship, her Xbox and microelectronic
Tablet had been taken away from her. She
cried the first couple of nights; some of the children became frantic without
their electronic gadgets to sustain them and had to be tranquillized. Now, Cassie was content to paint pictures,
with a supply of acrylic paints she had access to in her pod. As long as those pictures were abstract, and
did not depict life on earth in anyway, then she was left alone. Punishment for disobeying orders, was a
series of electric shocks that vibrated through her brain and caused her to see
brilliant flashes of light, which were either inside or outside of her head,
she knew not. What she did know - she
would do anything – say anything – to make the pain and the flashing lights go
away.
Cassie heard a noise outside her
pod. Curiosity made her slide her exit
door wide open. She stared in surprise
at the man standing outside in the corridor, who was in the act of reaching up
to change a fibre optic cable above her door.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” exclaimed the man, dropping his screwdriver,
then bending stiffly to retrieve it. The man was old and grizzled, dressed in a red
plaid shirt and jeans. “You sure pole-axed me, little lady, seeing you
standing there. I thought that the pods
in the East corridor were all empty!”
“What’s your name?” Cassie
questioned him suspiciously. “I’ve never
seen you before!”
“I bet you’ve not seen any other humans
on this ship before!” he replied, with a deep chuckle resonating from his
chest.
“Of course, I have,” she replied, huffily. “There were
at least sixty other children who came on board the ship with me!”
“Oh them!” he said dismissively. “I don’t count them!”
She stamped her foot in frustration. Sudden anger
welled up inside her. “How silly you
are! Of course, you should count them!”
“Now, don’t go getting all temperamental on me,” he told her sharply.
“What’s your name?” she demanded again. “What do you
do on the ship?” She looked at him dubiously.
“You’re not one of those artificial intelligence devices, are you?”
“Do I look like one?” he hotly retorted. Then, his craggy face crumbled into a grin
and he reached out to shake her hand. “My name’s Jake. I guess you could call me a handyman. I do some of the manual work that the robots
aren’t able to do, or don’t know how to do, to keep this old tub afloat.”
“You make it sound as if we’re on water and not flying
in space,” Cassie said with a giggle.
“All one and the same to me, little lady.”
“Where’s your pod?” Cassie asked inquisitively.
“In the South wing.
The only wing where things can really grow.”
“What things?” Cassie questioned, her throat tight
with suppressed excitement.
Jake reached across and pressed on something behind
her ear. “You can switch it off, you know,” he told her gently. “They can’t hear you or read your thoughts
when it’s turned off.” He chuckled as he added, “They couldn’t hear you at this
hour, anyway. They’re making their
24-hour external link-up with Remote Space Station Six, so have to turn off all
internal communication channels.”
“Why?” asked Cassie, ever curious.
“Because they don’t have enough nuclear energy to run
both and power the ship!”
Cassie’s face lit with a grin. “Well, then, my name is Cassie. I have a dog.
A golden lab. When I get
fractious or ornery, Ma tells me to practice my breathing, but I know I just
have to put my arms around Lucifer and he knows how to calm me down. He’s the smartest dog in the world!”
They agreed to meet later outside her door, when the
ship was in night mode and the computers operating each station, had disengaged
for the six hours they needed to reboot.
Jake brought Cassie over to his own pod.
She gasped in delight when she entered and saw he had created a small,
verdant garden on the other side of a glass wall, that was nothing like the
gardens she remembered seeing on earth.
“Can I go in?” she whispered. She had caught sight of a small white daisy growing on its own, in a patch of
meadow grass. For some reason, she
yearned to touch it – not to pick it – no – not to destroy it – but just to
touch something small and fragile – and alive.
Jake hesitated, then nodded his head and indicated a
small door in the glass that she hadn’t noticed. Tentatively, Cassie opened the door and
slipped inside the garden. Welling up inside
her were feelings of such joy, she thought her heart would burst. She was unaware of the tears streaming down
Jake’s cheeks, as he watched her lie down on the grass and reach out her hand
to gently touch the daisy.
Death came peacefully to Cassie. Now, she would never discover that she was an
artificial intelligence device, herself, genetically engineered with the DNA of
a girl child. The top-secret experiment
was still in its infancy and only truly effective until the children reached
the age of puberty. After that, they developed
no further and the tantrums, uncontrollable anger and manic episodes escalated. Before it became a public relations nightmare
for the scientific community, the ‘robo-children’ were collected up, periodically,
and shipped to New Planet - there to be
crushed down into a thousand small pieces and, occasionally, if they had shown latent
promise, to be reengineered.
Sometimes, Jake was lucky enough to find one of these
experiments, on the ship, and prevent it from needlessly suffering, when it
reached its destination. The forward-thinking
robots, that operated the space-ship, were tolerant of his intervention. They factored in that they needed his
knowledge and hands-on skills, too much, to punish him for one or two small
lapses. They were androids, with
superior artificial intelligence. It served
to remind them, when compassion drove Jake to take matters into his own hands,
that he was only human after all.
Doubt
George had one arm
lying across the dark, wooden bar as he leant to one side to watch the game on
the big-screen. The bottle was cold,
the pale ale like a cool, refreshing stream revitalizing every inch of his
body. The stress of the past few days had been almost too much for him and,
although he was still troubled by what had happened, the relief he felt was as if his
body was being released from a tightly-wrapped bandage, no longer taut, tense
and tight – the investigation was over. Six days ago he’d been
sent to a murder scene. It was the worst he’d ever observed. The body was in a
slaughter house for a start, and he couldn’t bear the acrid, putrid smells, the
death, the coldness. But, even more disturbing was the sight of the girl curled
up in a pool of blood, it appearing as if she’d been pole-axed like a beef-cow. Curiously, the murderer had placed a
freshly-picked daisy on her closed
fist, making it appear as if she was holding it.
The brutality of her
murder haunted George and drove his team to an almost supernatural level of
determination to find out who the person was who had committed this inhumane
act against an innocent, young girl, and to bring him to justice.
Despite the obvious
cause of death, an autopsy was required by protocol. That’s when things got
interesting. The results revealed to George that the girl had atrophied limbs,
unusual facial features, scars from numerous operations, a feeding tube and
other indicators pointing towards a diagnosis of severe brain damage. It was a
simple matter to determine the identity of the girl. Her name was Daisy
Millingford.
Daisy’s father was a
butcher at the slaughter house, and he confessed to her murder almost before
George had walked up the long ramp to his front door. Bert Millingford sobbed
into his hands as he stood in the doorway, but said he had no remorse - he did
what was right for his daughter and killed her the only way he knew how. He
couldn’t see her suffer any more.
George found the
interrogation of Bert disturbing. What he learned, along with the evidence
collected from the numerous and various health care providers, created a
picture that challenged George’s view of the world. As he developed a movie of
Daisy’s life in his mind, he grew more and more agitated. She had been
diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy soon after birth. At the time of her
death, she was twelve years old and couldn’t speak (and they’d not been able to
develop any alternative means of communication), couldn’t sit without support,
had serious pain, and had many complications - some of which arose from
surgeries which had attempted to straighten her back and release locked limbs.
And there were other, what appeared to George to be, extraordinary efforts to
improve her quality of life, according to her father and everyone else his team
interviewed.
George had enjoyed the
rigidity of his unwavering beliefs. They gave him comfort and a sense of
security, and some would say they gave him an air of self-righteousness. One
fundamental belief was that life must be preserved at all costs. But Daisy
challenged him to think differently - perhaps Bert did do the humane thing for
his daughter.
He watched two temperamental hockey players punching
each other, and shifted his body as a sense of unease spoiled the taste of his
beer. George wanted reassurance from his beliefs, but it wouldn’t come. He
wanted to feel angry at the murderer, to celebrate his confession and to move
on. But his mind kept returning to the possibility that Bert Shillingford had
indeed made the ultimate sacrifice in order to end his daughter’s suffering. He
must have known that his own life was lost
as he gazed down at his daughter’s body.
George felt queezy. Another beer would settle him
down.
It didn’t.
But if you ask George’s wife, she’ll say that this is
the time when George became possible to live with. She thinks that doubt is a
good thing.
Sample from October 2017:
Avarice
The man lay motionless
in the hospital bed, the muted beams of light reflecting off the myriad of
tubes which entered various parts of his body. Jeannie stood over her father,
looking down on his immobile form with its expressionless, but distorted, face.
It was a shock to see this powerful, imposing figure of a man lying as if dead.
Jeannie’s hands grabbed
the bedrails, turning her knuckles white, and clenched her teeth, making her
jaw ache. She was aware that the medical staff were concerned that there could
be brain damage from the beating. The puffy swelling around Max’s eyes and the
large lump on his temple, as well as the cuts and abrasions which were at the
center of each bruise, told the story of the brutality of the attack.
Jeannie understood the
concern about brain damage, but couldn’t quell an overwhelming conviction that
her father’s brain was fine. What she was truly anxious and concerned about was
what her husband, Mick, would do next. And this realization brought an emotional wave of regret and fear, which
washed over Jeannie, almost paralyzing her. She worked hard to try to ignore
the feelings, tried to argue that they were irrational. But she couldn’t.
Max was a successful stockbroker and savvy investor. He had
accumulated millions and was known to be a wealthy, as well as influential,
man. But he didn’t believe in giving hand-outs to his children. He wanted them
to build careers of their own, and to learn to stand on their own two feet, as
he put it.
Jeannie’s passion was
art, specifically watercolours. She had an eye for perspective and could draw
well, but her talents lay in the mixing of the vibrant colours of nature and in
the capture of the contrasting shades of natural light. Her pictures were
popular, but she lived modestly. Mick ran an art gallery in town and exhibited
some of her paintings, which is how they met.
It was soon after their
first meeting that Mick asked about her father. She remembered, as she stood in
the monochromatic hospital room, how Mick had taken a particular interest in
her after that. Max’s success was no secret of course, and Jeannie had made it
a practice to be cautious about relationships because she was acutely aware of the powerful allure of
money. But she allowed her infatuation with Mick to grow, and she became
besotted. Max had not been happy with the news that they were getting married
and, as he and Jeannie discussed it, she realized that there was a seed of
doubt inside her. But she quashed it. She now knew what a terrible mistake that
had been.
After the beating, for
which there appeared to be no motive, Max had been left for dead by the
attacker. The police believed that he had been beaten ruthlessly with a
baseball bat. But Max was a tough, fighting man - there was evidence that he
used his fists and feet to fight back. And, although he had been found
unconscious, there were no broken bones.
Jeannie had known that
Mick’s desperate greed for money had been fuelled by the feeling that wealth
was almost within reach, and had been exacerbated by Max’s decision to give the
newly weds “hand-me-down” crystal, as Mick put it, rather than a couple of
million dollars. Jeannie had been aware that this growing avarice threatened to
erupt.
As best she could, she
satisfied herself that her father was being well cared for and looked
comfortable. She unfurled her hands from the bedside rails. She gave her father
a light kiss on the largest lump on his forehead, and them picked up the sports
bag. She no longer felt as emotional
as she had in the morning because she’d made her decision as to how she was
going to act. As she entered the hospital corridor, she nodded to the security
guard she’d hired, and then walked to the police station.
She gave them Mick’s billy club, the clothes he’d worn the
night before, and a complete statement, including details about the physical
and emotional abuse she’d suffered. She had prepared most of her statement in
writing, using her journal as a reference, and did not stray from her purpose. They said Mick would be brought in for
questioning.
Jeannie returned to the
hospital again. She knew Max had been heavily sedated, so would not likely be
awake, but had hoped to say goodbye in person. She left a card standing on the
bedside table which simply said “I love you” and returned to her car. She
retrieved her suitcase and walked to the bus station. She has not been seen
since.
Vicky Earle Copyright 2017
Sample from September 2017:
Author:
Rosemarie Dawson-Hill
Haunted
Niggle complaint, criticism,
worry
Derringer gun
Journal diary, paper, weekly
Omnipotent Almighty, Invincible, Supreme
Melody
Tune, Phrase, Song
She woke abruptly, drenched in sweat,
her breath laboured, as if she had been running hard. The room was in complete darkness and she
estimated it must be many hours before dawn. She reached out blindly, feeling
for the switch of the small lamp that stood on the bedside table. Immediately, a soft rosy glow suffused the
space around her, leaving much of the room in deep shadow. She raised herself up on one arm and stared
across at the dressing table mirror. Her
reflection stared back at her, eyes wide with fear, her hair tangled and matted
around her face.
She had been having the dream again
and the melody still lingered in her
head. It was always the same tune that
she heard, played on a music box. As a child, she collected music boxes. Her favourite being a ballerina twirling
around on a mirrored stand, accompanied by the tinkling sound of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The haunting melody, that played in her dream, was not familiar but, somehow, it
was the cause of her overpowering feeling of fear and need to escape. What she
was running from, she had no idea.
Remnants of the dream continued to niggle and eat its way into her
mind. Tomorrow, she would do some
investigation and learn more about the house and its history. She had lived here for a month now, having
taken a one-year lease on the place. She
had looked for a refuge in the English countryside, where she could lick her
wounds and recover from an abusive relationship. A sense of foreboding, that intensified every
day she lived here, was telling her she had come to the wrong place to seek
peace and tranquillity.
“Mary Brown, get a hold of yourself,”
she admonished the face in the mirror.
Then she resolutely lay down and closed her eyes, preparing to get back
to sleep. She chose not to turn off the
lamp, however, preferring to keep the shadows at bay.
The next day, the real estate agent,
who had leased the fully-furnished house to Mary, sat opposite her at the pine
table, in the comfortable country kitchen.
Mary had brewed them coffee and, as she refilled their mugs, she
listened intently to what Sarah Jennings had to say about the previous owner.
Evelyn Haig had lived alone in the house for forty-five years, and she had
passed away last year. “Don’t worry, she
didn’t die here,” Sarah said, with a throaty chuckle. “She spent her last year in a long-term care
home, suffering from dementia. Considering she was over eighty, when she died,
that’s hardly surprising.”
“Did she have any family?” Mary
asked, curiously.
“A great niece who lives in Australia. She inherited the property and made
arrangements with my firm to lease out the house on her behalf, as she doesn’t
intend to come to England any time soon.”
“No husband?” Mary probed.
“Well, it’s all ancient history, but
this is a small village with a long memory.
My mum told me that Evelyn came here as a bride after the war. Her husband was in the British army and
rescued her from somewhere in Europe.
Austria or Germany. I forget now.
They lived quietly in this house for a few years, but then, Brian Haig unexpectedly
upped and left his wife. She remained
here, as I’ve told you, and kept herself to herself, my mother said. Evelyn never made any friends. But knowing the mentality of the locals from
these parts, she must have always been treated like a foreigner and been given
the cold shoulder.”
Mary found Evelyn’s journal a week later. She had been dusting and polishing the
furniture throughout the house and was amazed to find the hidden drawer in the
dressing table, that, she suspected, was designed to hide precious
jewellery. The treasures Mary unearthed,
from the secret compartment, were the leather-bound journal, a tarnished silver derringer
and a small cloth bag holding half a dozen bullets.
The journal entries were written in a combination of German and
English. Mary had studied German at
school, but was hard-pressed to recognize all the German words written in
Evelyn’s untidy scrawl. But it was clear,
from the early entries, that Evelyn considered her husband to be omnipotent. He had rescued her from starvation and worse,
from the Soviet-controlled sector of East Berlin. He had cut through red tape and
brought her safely home to England. He
was her hero. Her god. On their first
anniversary, he had bought her a music-box, made in the Black Forest, playing
one of her favourite German country airs.
Unfortunately, the relationship
slowly deteriorated. Mary surmised, from
the entries she read, that Brian must have been suffering from what is known,
nowadays, as post-traumatic stress. It
came to a head on the evening of their third anniversary. Evelyn was seated at
the dressing table mirror, pinning up her long blond hair, humming to herself
as she played her music-box. The couple had planned to go out to dinner to
celebrate their anniversary. She was dismayed when Brian staggered into the bedroom,
as it was obvious to her he had already been drinking heavily. When she
remonstrated with him, he became enraged, blaming her for all his pent-up
frustrations and depression. His inability to hold down a peace-time job he
laid at her door. Because she was
German, he even blamed her for all that he had endured fighting in the
war. He picked up the music box and
hurled it against the mirror, then began pounding her head and shoulders with
his fists.
That was the first of many beatings
Evelyn received from her husband, until she couldn’t take it anymore. She had no friends whom she could turn
to. She was completely alone to face a
man she now believed to be a monster.
One November night, when Brian had again beaten his wife, he lay in a
drunken stupor, on the living room couch.
Evelyn painfully dragged herself upstairs and took one of his collection
of guns, a two-barrelled derringer,
that her army husband had concealed in his armoire. Returning to the living-room, she placed a
cushion over his face and shot him twice. She must have used all her strength to drag
his body out of the house and throw it down an old, long-abandoned, well.
Mary put the journal back where she
found it. She took the gun and stripped
and cleaned it, as her ex-husband had once taught her to do with other
guns. She polished its silver surface
until it gleamed, loaded two bullets into the chambers, then hid the gun in the
bedside table drawer.
She knew he would find her. The police had notified her that the courts
had released her ex-husband from jail, and there was nothing they could
do. She had already received three
texts, with inconsequential messages, that she knew were actually threats from
him. But how could she prove it? Who would believe her? One night, he would come to kill her, but
when that time came, she would be ready.
Rosemarie Dawson-Hill Copyright 2017
Sample from July 2017:
Author:
Rosemarie Dawson-Hill
Singing the Writer’s Block Blues
Viking
Salacious: scandalous
spicy exciting sensational
Sentimental: mawkish
syrupy sloppy overly romantic
Stink: fuss
scandal uproar commotion smell stench reek
Seize: grab
grasp take hold of, appropriate confiscate remove commandeers
Indulgent: Permissive
kind lenient easy-going non-judgemental
Surreptitious: furtive
secret sneaky clandestine underhanded covert underhand
I tore off yesterday’s page of the daily
calendar that sat front and centre on my desk.
Every day had its own quote that was supposed to inspire me. The message was always scrolled across a sentimental picture of kittens at play,
or a happy couple walking hand-in-hand into the sunset, or some such maudlin
rubbish.
It felt satisfying to shred yesterday’s quote:
“Seize the Day,” into tiny little pieces. I considered putting them in my mouth and
masticating them up for good measure, but decided against it. Instead, I reached for the bar of Cadbury’s
chocolate and took an indulgent bite
of the soft gooey mess. Again, I reminded
myself, not to leave chocolate lying around near the radiator. Contemplating what I had done yesterday, which
admittedly was absolutely nothing worthwhile, I confess that the only thing I
had actually ‘seized’ was that chocolate bar out of the fridge.
What, you may ask, is a forty-something talented
female writer doing at half-past-eleven in the morning, sitting around in her
bathrobe, wearing yesterday’s mascara, staring at a blank computer screen? Shouldn’t she be putting the final touches to
her racy, salacious novel, The Viking
Warrior and His Virgin Bride or The
Norseman’s Harlot or Griselda, Viking
Queen: Slayer of Hearts?
Those are my short-list of titles for my book.
Titles designed to excite and titillate the reader, to plunge deeper into the
torrid pages of my bodice ripper romance.
The only problem with this scenario is - there aren’t any pages to
plunge into – yet. So far, I haven’t written
ne’er a one.
What led me here to this day? What drove me to quit my day job at the
supermarket, to stay at home and embark on a writing career? I can only blame it on my writer’s circle who
encouraged me to take this irrevocable step.
I should never have listened to any of them!
I can’t even go back to the grocery store and
plead for my job back. I raised quite a stink when I left. As I walked out, I yelled to the customers
that the meat department manager, whom I detest, was changing the best before
dates on the sausages, if he hadn’t sold them by the original best before
dates.
Thinking about dates, made me recall; I hadn’t
looked at today’s inspirational quote. It read: “Take
care of the Pennies and the Pounds will take care of themselves.” I cast a jaundiced look at the bright yellow
piggy-bank perched on my desk. “This
one’s for you, buddy,” I told it, tempted to smash in its cheerful piggy face.
Boredom drove me to take a surreptitious look at tomorrow’s
calendar quote. The picture of a bottle of wine, and a loaf of
crusty bread, looked more appealing than any of the pictures I had seen so
far. The quote read: “Life is too short to drink bad wine.” Well, I was in full agreement with that
message. I had an unopened bottle of
Pinot Gricio in the fridge. I noticed it
yesterday, when I went hunting for that chocolate bar.
I felt so inspired, I decided to head to the
kitchen to pour myself a generous glass of icy white Pinot. “Vino! Delectable
Nectar of the gods!” Mmm – that
sounds like a great title for a novel!
Rosemarie Dawson-Hill Copyright 2017
Sample from July 2017:
Illegitimate
The
stink of the seaweed washed-up and
left to rot on the pebbled beach overpowers all other aromas as I walk along
the slippery cliff path. But the noise of the waves crashing on the red rocks below
is quieter, now that the inclement weather has passed and the tide has receded.
I have walked this path since I was a young child, often with my Grandfather
striding by my side with a store of legends to be told. My late mother forbade
him to tell me these tales, so he chose the private time of our walks together
to share them.
His
favourite story was about Oscar, a Viking
from Scandinavia who was a brilliant seafarer and avid trader. After a terrible
voyage through unprecedented high seas which capsized his longship off-shore,
Oscar was dumped like a piece of driftwood on this very beach. He’d lost his
men, the spices he’d purchased with slaves, and his bearings. A fisherman
rescued him and gave him shelter. The story goes that the fisherman had a beautiful,
young wife called Luella. Grandfather makes particular note of her sparkling
green eyes.
He
would stress that the fisherman was the salacious
one, not the Viking as one might assume. Luella was abused and desperately
unhappy, and Oscar was smitten. The Viking could be quite sentimental and charming, and pulled at Luella’s heartstrings.
One
early morning, when the sea mist hung to the cliffs and the water was calm,
Oscar seized the fisherman’s boat and
he and Luella left the coast of Devon behind. Oscar hoped to persuade Luella to
settle in Scandinavia, but she couldn’t bear to leave her country, so they landed
at a small port on the North Sea coast. Grandfather would point out how indulgent Oscar was, building a castle
for her which overlooked the sea, so that she could watch for him returning
home from his trading and conquests. Luella was never seen outside of the
castle, and there are no pictures of her. They had two illegitimate sons who
built on their father’s trading success.
Grandfather
would add new details from time to time, but, even though it appeared to be a
passion of his, I didn’t find the story particularly exciting.
I’m
nearing the end of the cliff path, but I have to tell you what I found out
yesterday.
Grandfather
died last week and I’m the only family around, so I’m going through his things
as I clear out his home ready for sale. In a drawer of the large, dark oak,
roll-top desk I found a locked box. Once I managed to pry it open, I discovered
a thick, spiral-bound book filled with Grandfather’s writing – his memoir.
Curious, I curled up in a chair and read, and am still reeling from what I
learned. This is a synopsis of the parts that interested me the most.
My
Grandfather, Orville, when a young man, entered a race across the English
Channel, from France, in his fifty-five-foot yacht. A violent storm stirred up
enormous waves which smashed the boat, and his crew was lost overboard. He
managed to cling onto the mast, and was eventually tossed up by the foaming sea,
like a piece of driftwood, onto the same red, barnacle-covered rocks I can see
from this cliff path. Exhausted, he was crawling through the rotting seaweed which
covered the pebbled beach when he saw a fisherman approach, who guided him to
his cottage.
The
fisherman had a beautiful wife, Lilian. Grandfather fell in love with her, and
it wasn’t difficult for him to convince her to leave with him. He couldn’t
persuade her to live in France, so they stayed in a hotel for a while,
overlooking the sea. But her husband found her, and, when Orville was absent
one day, he visited. Grandfather was not away long, and when he returned, he
discovered the fisherman wielding a sharp filleting knife, about to stab Lilian
who had been brutally beaten and cut. Orville mustered all his strength and
wrestled the knife away from the husband, and stabbed him in the neck, killing
him.
Grandfather
built a mansion for Lilian, providing every comfort he could think of. She
could always be found there. No mirrors were allowed, so that she would never
have to see her disfigured face. I had been sceptical of the reason Grandfather
had given for Grandmother’s scars. I was told that she had fallen down the
stairs.
I
feel like a fool for not picking up on the clues in Grandfather’s story of
Oscar.
I have
wondered where Grandfather’s wealth came from, and he would give a different,
incredible answer each time I asked. And the tale of Oscar doesn’t help me. But
earlier in his memoir he writes of his birth into a wealthy, aristocratic French
family living in opulence in the outskirts of Paris. I now realize I’d been
oblivious to his muted accent and to the origins of much of the contents of his
mansion.
Grandfather
and Grandmother never married, which makes my mother illegitimate. It must be a
family tradition, because my mother didn’t marry my father, and I have no idea
who he is or was. And that’s a story my Grandfather doesn’t tell.
Vicky Earle copyright 2017
Sample from May 2017:
Cowboy
Brandy
sat tall on his chestnut quarter horse, holding the reins in one hand, with his
hat tipped back on his head. Despite the outward appearance of nonchalance, he
felt as if he had a bunch of macramé in his abdomen. He’d hoped and prayed that
it had been his imagination, which can be vivid at times. The flashing lights,
the whirring and the hissing - it had all of the characteristics he would have
expected a flying saucer to have, as
it landed with a whoosh in his corn field the night before.
In
the early morning light he could see a distinct circle, about sixty feet in diameter, where the corn stubble was
crushed. He could smell scorched earth and burnt stalks, the acrid scents
overpowering the smell of his horse’s sweat.
He
dismounted, landing softly on the ground, and looped the reins over the pummel
of his well-worn saddle. Perhaps all these years of being a cowboy, out in the elements, had addled
his brain. He shuddered and told himself that he had seen, heard and smelled
evidence of this thing, whatever it was.
Brandy
scoured the ground, looking for some tangible physical evidence, something he
could hold in his sweaty hands – something to back up his story. He kicked at
the roots of the burnt stubble, not
knowing what he hoped to find.
An ATV veered off
the road, churning up dust as it tore towards him. The man wore sunglasses and
a black shirt which billowed as it captured the hot air. Brandy could sense the
man’s intensity, as well as his determination to reach him. He grabbed his
horse’s reins, assuming that the man had no horse-sense and was likely to skid
to a halt right under his horse’s nose. The ATV stopped, in a cloud of corn
bits and pieces and brown dust, just five feet from them.
“Hi,”
Brandy said, without moving a muscle.
“Hi.
You have a meeting with Brigadier
General Smythe.”
“You
have the wrong guy.”
“I’ve
been given orders to get you to the air force base, pronto.”
“Can’t
be me.”
“You
must follow me on your horse to your house, and then ride with me from there.”
“How
do you know where I live?”
“Part
of my orders.”
Brandy
wanted to ask if it had anything to do with the flying saucer, but thought
better of it.
“Identification?”
The
man handed Brandy his identification card, which appeared authentic.
“We
have to go,” the man said. “It’s a matter of national security.”
“What
happens if I refuse?”
“You’ll
be arrested.”
“I’ve
done nothing wrong.”
“You
will have if you don’t come with me.”
Brandy
mounted his faithful and trusting horse, and followed the ATV back to his
house. As soon as he got behind the man he had a sinking feeling in his
stomach. He felt a loss of control which set off feelings of anxiety. He was
being taken somewhere he didn’t want to go, and his imagination began to
created various scenarios. One being that, because of what he’d seen, he would
be incarcerated in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. He was a cowboy, for God’s sake. He lived for the
open air, the freedom, the peace and yes, the hard work. His horse was his constant
companion.
He
was on the verge of having a full-fledged panic attack by the time he met with
the Brigadier General in his large office. But there was an atmosphere of
professionalism and dignity, which calmed his racing heart and quelled his
alarmist thoughts.
The Brigadier
General politely asked questions about what he’d seen the night before. He
wanted specific details, including sounds and smells. Brandy’s memory was clear
and he volunteered everything he remembered, including what he’d observed just
before the ATV charged into his field.
Feeling utterly
relieved, he left the office and was escorted by the man dressed in black, back
out through the gates.
“Aren’t you going
to give me a lift back to my house?” Brandy asked.
“No. Orders.”
“I have to walk?”
“No, your horse is
waiting for you at the corner ahead.”
Brandy was
incredulous. Some of the alarmist thoughts returned and intensified as he
walked the two miles to the intersection on the hot, dusty road, with sweat
pouring down his back. He half expected a fighter plane to dive out of the sky
and finish him off. But, sure enough, his horse was waiting obediently for him.
He set his horse
off at a lope toward his house, but it had gone. The ground was levelled. The
corn field behind where the house had stood, was ablaze. It was as if he’d been
evicted from his own property.
He knew why they’d
done it. It was a warning not to say anything to anyone, and in the process,
they’d got rid of any evidence that might have been there.
Brandy put his
fingers round the curious piece of metal, which felt a bit like rubber, that he
had in his pocket. He picked up his horse’s reins and turned their heads
towards town. He would chat with his girlfriend, who was a darn good
journalist.
Vicky Earle copyright May 2017