This is where I’ll post any random updates that I like. They may be about writing – or actual small pieces that I feel I want to create and share.
Enjoy!
Wow. Things are moving apace.
I’m delighted to be working closely with two new authors Alicia Best and Naomi Clunes, as well as a new publishing team at Mellow Publications. The aim is to produce fun, exciting and ‘happy ever after’ contemporary romance stories for everyone to enjoy.
I know their websites are undeveloped right now, but over the next few months, there will be lots of news as they develop their work and begin to publish.
I’ll keep you up to date with developments.
Brickwork was all that was between them these days, and little good it did, for they hadn’t spoken for over thirty years, for a reason neither chose to remember.
Now, each of them left alone in the world, they continued with their long-forgotten feud. Two women whiling away the dog days of their lives empty and routine, of no comfort to anyone, least of all themselves.
The doorbell rang on a Tuesday, much to Mildred’s surprise.
She woke from her mid-morning doze with a jump and hurried as best she could to the door, checking her hair and other presentation as she passed the hall mirror. Not perfect, but she would do.
“Hello, Mrs Jenkins, how are you today?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he bustled his way through his bag.
Soft blonde curls lay on their pillows. Two near-mirror images face each other with only a nightlight to see them, somehow making more of them, in that angelic light.
Every evening, Julia always feels a little choked when she walks in and looks at them. It would be ten years tomorrow she brought them home and she can never make sense of where the time has gone. She tip-toes over and pulls the cover up a little on Isabelle and pushes teddy back into bed with Melissa. She stops and smiles once more as she leaves them.
All is well. Continue reading
You see a flash of orange across the square, just for a moment.
It’s the first time that you’ve actually seen him, but you know there have been other times recently when you sensed him as well.
It was a him back then. Always a him. For that’s how you know they do it. Every time.
He’s gone now, after he knows you saw him. Not that he was anyone you actually knew.
~~~
But you did know of him, from the other times.
That one time in the back street in Siena. And the other time way up in Ravello, way across the valley from the restaurant. The pizza was the best you’d ever had and Michel was with you. He almost threw you off guard for a while. Those beguiling eyes that he used so much to his advantage, peering deep into your soul.
She tugged the elastic on her wrist once again as she stopped the car. A deep sigh as she focussed and made her decision. Her coat felt tight even as she released the seat belt and that caused a frown.
They said it was always worst at the start, but from experience, she knew every day was the worst until the new habits bedded in. She flipped the band again, this time so hard she winced. Like it was the penance she had to serve already. The punishment before the fact, she laughed.
She felt the neon drawing her in through the half-empty lot in the late afternoon gloom. As her hand touched the door handle, she questioned herself again. She reflected that even such awareness was a small positive.
He recognised her with a smile to put her at her ease as she pulled out her money. She looked around to make sure no one was looking and satisfied that the rain was keeping her secret, smiled a little nervous smile back at him.
“The usual?”
For a moment there, she might have chosen differently. She had that split second of control that might change her life.
“Yes.”
She missed her opportunity in that knee-jerk response. For just a moment, she had her buyer’s remorse.
“No can do.”
She looked at him in puzzlement. How could he do this to her?
“I’m right out.”
She scanned him closely and was met with two upturned palms of apology.
“Nothing showed up this morning.”
As she turned to leave, she reflected. The rain; the half-empty parking lot; the drive from home. They were all signs. She had been saved by out-of-stock pain au raisin.
She never wanted it anyway. Twang that elastic. Run from the coffee shop.
Diet back on.
“Goodbye darling. I love you.”
My little red legs are running to keep up with her as we scurry along, on that misty, cold morning. It’s a grey and brooding Victorian stone-built school and I’m feeling bad as we make our way through the crowd of bigger children and their parents. We walk up the steps, where a blonde, cheery woman speaks with my mother, sharing encouraging, sympathetic words. As she touches my mother’s arm, one last time, I look up at that face I love and she smiles a nervous smile and turns and leaves through the half-glazed door. I’m rooted to the floor in disbelief. My new red St James’ blazer is stained with bitter tears. “Come along Reggie, let’s hang your coat up here.” Continue reading
His earthy fragrance draws me to him once more. I cannot resist it. Ever.
I must be close for it to envelop me. To take me to his places and my places together. The innocent moments in my recall. The thoughts that are only forever mine. The thoughts that will die with me.
I remember his nectar on a beach in Texas. And on a funfair in Oklahoma. I seek it out every night in his bed. I eat with it; dance with it and belong in it.
Forever, as far as I know. But who am I to decide?
It was the smell that caught my attention first, that wet Saturday afternoon. I’d caught her out by arriving early and she was still drying her hair.
The sweet-shop smell of her shampoo still fresh in her warm hair as she came to the door.
Over the years, I’ve rarely experienced that delicate bouquet, and when I have, a vision of her, half-dressed in her bedroom when we were together.
And I smile inside a smile I secretly hold dear within me, all these years later.
And then, I chose to end it all, after all we went through.
The sunsets were dazzling, every day that I was with her. It was as though all the difficulties in the world faded from our perception on those days and we were filled with only delight.
When she left, on that cold November evening, that life ended, seemingly forever for me. I found a life that was only bleak and numbing. A life that has remained that way for the last 17 years and counting.
Until yesterday, when she returned at last. Even though she was broken, I could work with that and, once more, the sun rose each morning.
The ring of empty seats that surrounded him was an indication not only of the nits he was supposed to have in his wild red hair, but of how they all shunned everything about him. He had gotten used to being ignored by the others. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced ridicule and loneliness in a classroom.
As the fire alarm bells rang, Miss Dufour put in motion the well-rehearsed drill. It was not Friday at 11 am after all, it was Tuesday.
They didn’t do drills on Tuesdays.
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