I am late leaving the shops. As I walk slowly up the rotunda-style stairs to the car park, I realise how late I am. I fumble for my keys at the top of the stairs and finally find the right one.

The car is on the floor I enter the car park on and as I cross the open deck, I feel the bottle of perfume in my pocket.

“The costliest perfume in the world,” the advert said. I open the car door and get in, settling down and start the engine. It’s my Dad’s car of course. At seventeen, I’m not going to have my own for a few years I realise, as I first reverse and then make my way across the deck to the down ramp. Continue reading →

I hear the curtains blowing around upstairs in the breeze like they always do. I don’t really like it much, for it reminds me of Lundy.

I think a lot about Lundy and our time there. Every afternoon, like clockwork, as I hear the wind, that farmhouse by the cliff comes to mind.

Julie-Ann comes in, at last. She looks freezing cold. With the wind and the bright sharp overnight, the temperature has been minus five, or thereabouts, all day. Continue reading →

“I ain’t goin’.”

“Why not? Why ain’t you goin’ for the Lord’s sakes?”

“’Cos Jimmy ain’t goin’.”

“So you ain’t goin’, cos Jimmy ain’t goin’. That right?”

“Yea.”

“You allus gonna do what that Jimmy Wright does then?” Continue reading →

James had known all along that this was to be the most challenging moment of his life. However many times he tried, he could not see where Eliza was coming from, but he knew where he was going with it.

The day began slowly, with an easy breakfast and a subtle agreement that they would meet later. In her mind, this was clearly agreed, though she had a bit of a doubt where James was concerned. His ability to remember exactly what they had agreed was not a strong point of his.

Still, he had said what he had said and in his thinking, it was a commitment to be there. Continue reading →

He looked around himself, furtively, perhaps because he was still afraid of them from the night before.

Yet he wasn’t sure why, for he had beaten them, of that he was sure. Still, a chap can’t be too careful these days, he said to himself, almost out loud.

He came to the enclosed coach park now. By day it was as busy as hell, what with all the tourists, as well as quite a number of nosy folks, coming to see the damage that had been caused by the earthquake. They had been coming for years, he sneered to himself. Continue reading →

You walk into a room and, as usual, everything stops. It’s been a pattern for a while now and you have begun to wonder if it’s you, or them.

Of course you blame yourself, that’s simply your style, but eventually, they will realise that it’s actually them – all of them – and they are going to have to lump it, for you are staying. Continue reading →

I don’t know what made me go there that day, baby, I really don’t.

But the thing is, I couldn’t wait any longer for you, and I had to come get you from there. It just didn’t seem right, that you were there and I was here, for God’s sakes.

Many the time I thought you were coming home to me, but you didn’t, and yet, I knew deep down you wanted to. That was the weird thing, you were coming back, but then you didn’t and, in the end, I saw that was the reality of the situation. Continue reading →

To Mammy

I just thought I’d write you a letter, to let you all know how we are doing over here. I know I’ve not been very good at it, so here’s a bit about my day.

The boys and me, we start at 7. It takes me an hour to get in from the Bronx on the subway. Jimmy gets on one stop before me and little Mikey two stops down the line.

We have our lunch pails with us that, for me at least, Eliza made the night before. It’s filling, as always, because we boys work hard, real hard. So we need it. Continue reading →

He only saw the merest of shadows, but that was enough.

He ran.

Immediately he saw an open door and entered.

The man in residence chased him off.

The shadow followed.

He loved her, yet not that much.

And he had seen the warning signs before.

It wasn’t about the money, he was sure.

They were closer now.

He could see the light and it was ahead.

A shot rang out and he now knew that the end was here.

He took off his hood and she laughed.

The game was over.

He would be paying this time.

(If anyone ever reads this – the exercise was to write a story in 100 words!)

By the time the news reached Idaho, it was several weeks old. Communication in those days was pitifully slow and, what’s more, it was the unlikeliest of news anyways, especially in these parts.

Without the benefits of YouTube and instant messaging, no-one had the opportunity to verify what they heard or read in the newspapers anyways.

Seth, on hearing that there was now a ‘flying machine’ over on the East coast, was more than dismissive. He had twenty acres of potatoes to plant and such fripperies that those two boys in Carolina had been wasting their time on, was simply an irritant. Continue reading →