My sister’s lover
The snow is thick on the ground. Four or five inches of it have built up around the window frames. It is piled up on top of the car and over the roofs, lit up by the sulphurous yellow of the street lamps. It gives me an excited child like feeling in the base of my belly. Ellen and I used to love playing in the snow, but there weren’t many years in our lives with enough snow to play in properly. Continue reading “Short story for Bilby’s Competition: My Sister’s Lover”
Thinking of being creative in some way over the weekend? Cooking, or constructing something? Sculpting the hedge, cutting the grass, sewing in name tags to the new school uniforms, maybe? Continue reading “Bank Holiday Weekend”
Betty sighed heavily. This gawky, nineteen-year-old with limp ginger hair and a pungent nylon parka was offering her a massage. It wasn’t easy running a valleys hairdressing business where people thought £8 for a shampoo and set was daylight robbery. Could the day get any worse?
Nigel’s sister Sian was a good little hairdresser; sassy and stylish and the elderly customers who still remembered the heady excitement of jitterbugging with GI’s in the Memorial Hall liked hearing what nights out with the girls were like these days.
Betty hadn’t believed it when Sian told her Nigel would ring her with a business proposition and now, looking at him standing there in her office, with acne capable of independent life and fingers fidgeting in his pockets, the prospect of him being able to give a massage, let alone a decent one, was about as unlikely as a Lionel Blair and a troupe of trained fruit bats tap-dancing their way across the Newport transporter bridge. Continue reading “The Business Plan”
“Mum! Nooooooo.”
His scream was shrill and distraught. My heart beat hard against my chest. What on earth was wrong, this time? But before I could call back, an angry shout came towards me accompanied by footstamps on the stairs.
“What have you done? I can’t wear this.”
I quickly unlocked the bathroom door, still doing up my flies.
“You know Mum’s not here; I’ll be there in a moment, James.”
But he was already standing outside the door, waiting for me.
“Look, Dad.” He held out two articles of clothing. Two pink articles of clothing, still wet from the washing machine. Continue reading “No Solution”
Boadicea's Chariot 