Red Letter Days - Part 1 by Chris Lloyd

Robert Kitchener, aged 48, was tossing and turning in his bed. He was striving to hang on to his dream but she was slowly disappearing once again.

He awoke with a start, banged his head on the headboard and cursed loudly. He was also acutely aware that his bladder was full so he leaped out of bed, trod on an empty vodka bottle as he did, fell over and pissed himself. His alarm clock was in full voice so he threw it at the half open bedroom door and it landed on the top step of his stairs and proceeded to bumpily but somewhat tunefully, make its way to the front door from where it kept up its tune for a further five minutes, ending with a weak squawk.

Robert sat in his wet pyjamas and wept floods of tears much like other days but this day was the worst for two weeks. How could this be happening? What had happened to his life? Of course, as he told himself every day, he knew full well what had happened to his life. In just three years of forced retirement, he had become a shadow of his former self. He had lost almost everything and everyone when he gave in to alcohol and self-pity; he was right and everyone else was wrong. He looked around, closed his eyes and remembered those heady days of a successful career in high end asset finance. London, Paris, Washington, Bonn. The houses, cars. Then, out of the blue, the hammer crashed down and he was “retired”. That’s what they called it, the bastards. After all he had done for them; he made the company what it is to this day. Something had to give and for once Robert Kitchener resolved to at least restore his dignity.

He stood up, shook his wet pyjamas off, stepped into the shower and stood for twenty minutes simply letting the water cascade over his large frame. He felt less horrible than he did twenty minutes earlier when he stepped out of the marble clad cubicle. He needed a makeover, a purpose but, he needed revenge more than anything. But despite the revenge dream that kept him alive it had never transformed further than a dream.

They had locked him out of the IT system, immediately he became ‘persona non grata’ but little did the Firm know that he had been given all the login details of the top men, by the head of IT, Antonio Rossi, before he had left the Firm and given that almost certainly some of the logins were still live because Antonio made sure at the time, he hatched his plan. He would have to enlist a techie in order to collaborate with Antonio, as the Italian was still employed and the very man he needed was recently “retired” from that idiot American’s messaging platform. This time he was determined to carry his plan through or at least give it his best shot.

He felt somewhat clearer in his mind and was musing over this plan as he cut some bread which he dropped into the toaster, just as he heard the plop of mail landing on the floor. He decided that his toast was more enticing than some double glazing “mega offer”, which was the most regular mail that he usually found when he could be bothered pick it up. He walked slowly around his kitchen as he alternately sipped tea and crunched his toast and a plan of action started to form in his head. As he was still thinking, he heard another plop of mail, sounding much heavier than the first. His curiosity got the better of him and as he entered his hallway he saw a large plain envelope with his initials written by hand in red felt tip. He bent as if to pick it up but took a step backwards. He could not understand why he did. He tried again, same result. His mouth was dry yet he was sweating. He backed further away, supported himself on the banister and stared at the envelope.

……..

Susie Campbell sighed as she folded the letter and the accompanying list of demands and slipped the lot in a large manila envelope, sealed the envelope and wrote his initials in red with a felt tipped pen. She had no wish to do this but he had not responded to any of the twenty five other letters she had pushed through his letter box previously. Therefore she decided to take a more demanding stance before she instructed her solicitor.

She was still in love him and his decision to ignore her was unfathomable. She had to assume that he had not read any of the other letters so she had no other course of action than to deliver the lot in one package. In her head she left three more days to let him read her latest letter and if there was no response, she would go legal.

She thought back to their early days; they were the couple everyone loved to be with. Since he suddenly fell off the face of the earth, or that was what it seemed to Susie and others, he had not been seen. She had considered hiring a private investigator but decided that he did not want to be found so she’d left him to it, hoping one day he would surface. She knew that he had lost his job and that was strange in itself because he was very good at it. There must have been a falling out but he had insisted there was no reason for him to be dismissed as he was a key deal maker.

All this was churning around in her head as she pushed the envelope through the letter box. She listened for it to fall to the floor. She heard nothing. She called his name – no reply. She called him again but the same outcome. In fact, just behind the door, he was he was clutching one of her bras and desperately trying not to alert her by crying out and asking her for forgiveness but he had been warned to make no contact with her on pain of death by her father.

Susie decided to walk around the perimeter of the house to ascertain if there was anyone inside. She knew every inch of the exterior as well as interior for it was her who had designed them both. As she slowly walked and looked around, she could see nothing out of place and no sign of him but was convinced he was inside so she decided to call a colleague who had a knack of opening doors. She made several attempts to do so but left a message. She made to walk away when she heard a telephone ring and it was picked up straight away. She made her way slowly towards the large door through which she had posted the envelope. Drapes were drawn so she risked moving nearer. As she neared, she could hear his voice but could not clearly hear was being said. It sounded like a Spanish or Italian accent, certainly European. She was about move closer when she heard what sounded like a telephone being thrown to the tiled floor, followed by a rant about the EU.

She waited until it stopped and walked boldly to the door and shouted his name and banged on the glass with a stone from the rockery. The curtain remained drawn. She shouted him again, pleading him to open the door.

                “Robbie, please open. I can help you. I still love you, please let me in, please.”

She stayed still and calm and waited. It seemed like an hour but after five minutes had elapsed, Robert opened the door. She was trying not to look totally shocked as he came through the door, instead she made herself smile and she embraced him as she always had, lovingly with no apologies.

“Oh, Robbie, it’s wonderful to see you after such a long time." 

“Well thank you for that. I appreciate that I do not deserve to be talking to you in any shape or form, let alone embracing you. You must notice that I am just a little less, shall we say, less together, since we last met.”

“We’ve all changed, Robbie but inside we still have the same thoughts, same personalities whatever what we’ve done or not done. You and me, we are the same people as we were when we married.”

“Don’t give me that, Susie, it may be your life but it sure isn’t mine you only have to look at us. I’m just a washed up loser who drinks himself into a stupor every night and pisses it out in the next morning and not always in the toilet. There’s no saving me, Susie; I’m too far gone.”

“I don’t believe you, Robbie. I think you’re not telling me something; what is it? I want us to be a team again, you can do it. 'Back in the day' was only a short time ago. What do you say?"

“You’d better ask your old man why he warned me off before you get too excited."

“What do you mean? He thinks highly of you…..”

“As I said, Susie, you better ask him. Ask him about the Italians while you’re at it too. Not that he will tell you anything but if you want to really want to piss him off, say this to him: ‘It's all about the money’. He will know for sure you’ve been talking to me.”

“You are talking in riddles, what’s going on Robbie? Did something happen between you?”

“Ha ha, you could say that, yes. Before we get any ideas about starting again, you really must speak to him. I’ll leave it like that. And I’m sorry Susie but you need to go now before one of his goons sees you here."

“What are you talking about, ‘goons?’ it’s like listening to a gangster.”

“Exactly, but I am not the gangster. You have go now. Please, Suze. Here’s my secure number, it’s safe. Go.”

He turned toward the door and without looking back shouted “I love you Suze. Be careful.” He did not hear her reply if there was one. The door banged as he kicked it shut.

Twenty Before Twenty by Vivien Teasdale

 If you look online, there are loads of ‘things you should do before … such as the National Trust’s list for children under eleven and three-quarters. All very laudable, like getting to know a tree, camping, play conkers (with due regard to Health & Safety), play Pooh sticks and skim stones (loved doing that, before and after the above age).

Adults are also given instructions. Lists of twenty things you are expected to do before reaching the old age of twenty, and so on up the decades – thirty items before age thirty, fifty before your half century.

The problem is that the older you get, the more things you have to do and that does not suit my notion of growing old gracefully. I prefer the ‘three score years and ten’ version. Instead of matching the items to years, work backwards:

70 things to do before you’re 10

60 things to do before you’re 20

50 things to do before you’re 30

and so on until you get to

10 things to do before you’re 70

This is much more achievable and more efficient, matching the number of activities to the likely energy levels and keeping the kids quiet by finding them seventy things which will take up their time and stamina, without impinging too much on whatever activities you prefer. Make them learn ice skating, while you sit on the sidelines and knit/read/text as you choose. Transcendental meditation might be a good one: keep them quiet while you both chill out.

For the following decade, well, they have the challenge of GCSE and A levels, but why not add learning to clean the bath properly, standing on one leg while cleaning their teeth and repaying loans on time and in full before taking out another one from the bank of Mum and Dad.

Next come the challenges of the middle years with buying a house, starting a family and promotions at work. But what about that trip in a helicopter you always promised yourself? Have you ever tried donating blood, gone to a music festival, been to live theatre, gone on a retreat, eaten candyfloss or Pontefract cakes? Do something really mad like going down a zip wire, take a llama for a walk, jump in a puddle and/or make mud pies. Finish the year with a Moulin Rouge party – women in tuxedos, men in skimpy dresses doing the can-can.

By the time you’ve got through the years doing all sorts of strange and wonderful things which will, no doubt, have appeared on the decade’s list, (and on social media, if you are not careful), you’ll be so exhausted that the last ten before seventy can cheerfully encompass toasting marshmallows before the fire (if fires have not been banned by then), riding a steam train, admiring the night sky, feeding the ducks and, most importantly, seeing the sun come up.

And after seventy? That list is simple. Wake up. Do whatever you feel like doing, no matter what others tell you is more appropriate.

Headliners by Dave Rigby

 

‘Bonjour,’ says Beret, to a passing stranger,

As he flaneurs along the Seine embankment,

Happy to have no itinerary

Just to follow his nose

And see what turns up.

A bright orange beret, nothing dull, for him,

Worn at such a jaunty angle

You’d swear it would slip off.

But even as the breeze blows off Pont Neuf,

Beret stays in position, defying gravity, cocking a snook.

***

Baseball Cap, worn backwards, the essence of cool,

Or maybe not!

On her way to a gig,

She stares through the tube window into the darkness of the tunnel,

The brightness of the stations,

Counting down the stops,

Her barely moving fingers running through the keyboard riffs

Of their new number.

Jazz funk the music world calls it,

But she dislikes genres and refuses to be pigeonholed.

At Covent Garden, she rises to the surface,

Tall, erect, composed, shades on, Baseball Cap minutely adjusted,

And glides towards the venue,

Knowing her trusty roadies will have everything ready

And her unreliable bandmates will suddenly focus,

When she strides onto stage, snaps finger and thumb,

Hovers over the keyboard

And plays that intro.

***

Bobble Hat, in colourful stripes is pulled down tight over ears,

The easterly cold and cutting,

The sleet undecided as to whether to veer up to snow,

Or down to rain.

Should she raise the hood of her waterproof,

As further protection against the elements?

No, she decides,

As that would hide the evidence of her grandma’s permanently clicking needles.

She climbs further up the steep slope,

Passing hard-bitten sheep who continue to eat, ignoring her presence.

At the top she’s greeted by sudden shafts of sunlight, breaking through black clouds.

For just for an instant, she’s in another world, before the shafts close,

The snowflakes sting her eyes and Bobble Hat begins to turn white.

She gazes out over the valley she can no longer see

And thinks about her mother,

At rest.

***

Flat Cap tries to keep up with greyhound,

As it dashes across the recreation ground after yet another

Imaginary rabbit.

Flat Cap still hasn’t got used to magic-extending-dog-leads and the idea

That dog owner should be the one in control.

A treat does the trick.

Man and dog stand watching the local eleven as they traverse the heavy pitch,

Trying desperately to score their first in weeks.

Their shouts echo across towards the decaying bulk of the Green Dragon,

A dim light in the lounge bar window, a curl of smoke

Emerging from a chimney in need of a rebuild and drifting down towards

A solitary, flickering street light.

Flat Cap is raised, head scratched, Cap lowered. Hands are clapped together,

Not to celebrate anything as unusual as a goal, but simply to keep warm.

Within five minutes and thirty seconds, the greyhound has seen enough of the game

And drags Flat Cap away from the pitch and into the Dragon.

The logs are putting on a red-glow show and in the sudden warmth,

Flat Cap is removed, a pint glass is lifted and a bowl of water is lapped.

***

The soft felt of the Fedora sits comfortably on the retired bank manager’s head.

The brim provides much-needed shade. The retiree instinctively runs his hand

Over the Fedora’s lengthwise crease and gives it the slightest of pinches.

He stretches out in the warm sun, not reading the book placed face-down

On the glass-topped table by his side.

Instead, Fedora reads the dappled light on the slow incoming waves,

Stories from other islands, far out across the bay,

Unoccupied, unsullied, un-touristed,

No inappropriate noise.

Fedora stirs, rises from the sun-lounger

And walks slowly across to the harbour master’s office.

He’s expecting a delivery, a parcel.

Come back in a couple of hours, he’d been told.

The clerk hands him the parcel.

The Fedora is raised slightly in thanks.

Outside, clattering over cobbles in a donkey-cart,

He removes the wrapping and checks the contents.

The drugs are there.

Another month’s medication.

Another month of life.

***

She wonders about the collective noun for Fascinators.

A fascination perhaps?

Her own displays feathers, not real ones, though they do look real,

Dried flowers, dried berries and beads which sparkle as the sun sets.

The whole creation, is attached to her hair with a mother-of-pearl clip,

Which has its own sparkling qualities.

It’s an evening of celebration. Her 60^th birthday.

But she stands by herself on the veranda, at peace,

Unwilling to rejoin the throng inside and the chattering, drinking

And dancing to tunes she’s heard too many times before.

She feels like walking away.

And suddenly she is.

Along the lake shore, pleased with her comfortable, un-fascinating shoes,

Past the beached rowing boats

And the now-closed knick-knack stalls.

She buys herself a hot dog.

The vendor compliments her on the Fascinator.

She spills tomato sauce on her dress,

But is not bothered in the slightest.

Sometime soon she’ll have to turn and amble back to the party.

But not just yet.

The Address Book by Judy Mitchell

I flicked quickly through the untidy pages of crossings-out, garish ink and poor writing, eager to replace them with entries reflecting my family and friends. The old book symbolised those early years when we started out together. A rush of new names, new faces, growing families. Divorce and distance had created casualties along the way. Now I wanted to start afresh.

There was a pile of letters and notes at my elbow which I had saved from the Christmas cards, each containing some change, news of illness, new addresses for those who had downsized or moved nearer to family, leaving behind old familiar house names.

I copied out the address of a distant cousin onto a new page of B’s. The house name as beautiful as the Arts and Craft house it described.

            ‘Do you remember that house?’

Her face turned towards me and I saw her smile.

            ‘Yes, lovely place. Beautiful garden. All those roses. I think she’s still there.’

I watched her eyes move towards the window, retracing in her mind the visit we had made to Kent many years before.

Her address book was still here in one of the drawers. This had been her desk. Walnut, Victorian with delicate marquetry and always the smell of beeswax. I put her book next to mine, its index thumbed carefully by her short, neat nails.

I had reached the C’s in my new pages and suddenly remembered her theory.

            ‘What was it you used to say about the B’s and the C’s?’ I asked her with a tinge of cynicism in my voice.

            ‘They always seemed to be the ones to go first,’ she replied seriously. ‘Look at my address book. The Blakes, Browns, Clarks and whole pages of Dodds and Denmans. All gone long before the Moorhouses and the McIntyres and the Taylors. Cowed by the passage of time, I reckon.’

‘What happened to Helen McIntyre?’ I asked her, thinking about the entry in her book for Helen and Peter.

‘The marriage fell apart in the 70’s.’ Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper as she leaned towards me. ‘She found him in bed with her best friend’s husband. Wouldn’t do in those days, of course. One of her girls still lives near her but we didn’t see them for years.’

I put her address book on the desk and turned to the T’s. Her finger pointed to the open page.

            ‘Look at them. The Taylors, the Thornleys. All still upright, tall and broad-shouldered, not like we Blakes.’

I returned to my neat pages in my best writing and suddenly I had misspelt a Welsh address confused by that language’s absence of vowels.

            ‘Write in block capitals,’ I heard her telling me, her eyes looking over the top of her glasses. ‘Easier to read.’

I ignored the advice and continued along the second part of the alphabet wanting to escape the pages of short-livers. At the letter S I left out Aunty Sarah Smith who had died before Christmas and for a moment, I could hear the swell of the voices of the choristers as their words soared into the cold November air at that beautiful service only weeks ago. I had missed having mum at my side that day. Outside the Cathedral, the rain and wind had flipped the last of the autumn leaves into auburn spirals as I left the Cathedral Close, my shoes clattering on the worn cobbles.

I picked up my pen again and added new names to my pages and realised I had reached the last letters. I had never understood why Mum hadn’t crossed out the names of all those who had gone before her.

            ‘They’re part of my journey,’ she had insisted. ‘Mostly happy memories. Lives touched. I hope I have stayed on their lists.’

I looked at her handwriting; bold extravagant. Each letter upright, dancing on an invisible line. Then there was her signature – defiant and steady even in the final years. Diana Blake who had died just before her 97^th birthday.