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Different this time

Martin was gone. When Katie woke up, eyes crusted with sleep, breath sticky with last night’s pina colada, the first thing she noticed was that Martin was gone. Fuck.

Katie pushed her face into the pillow as she pieced together the evening. Tequila. Taxi. A stumble, but not enough to wake the kids. Martin was there, definitely; she remembered holding him a while. Then haziness - had he been in the bed with her? Katie wasn’t sure.

She’d have to tell the kids. The thought dropped into the pit of her stomach, like a rock into a river. She’d promised them that this time it would be different. Christ, she’d done everything she could to make it different. She hadn’t brought him home until she was certain that they were all ready for this, that he wouldn’t run off, like the others. She’d thought he’d been happy with them.

And now, just like that, he was gone. Katie felt the crushing sense of failure again. She heard voices in the next room. She had two minutes max to wriggle out of last night’s dress and into her pyjamas. Act normal, she told herself.

And then they were there. Annabel, seven, carrying her library book to read in bed and Thomas, four, dragging Blanky behind him. They jumped into bed with Katie, who gathered them up in her arms.

Then she felt Annabel stiffen.

“Mum? Where’s Martin?”

“Annabelle, love…”

“You said this time was different. You said he’d stay.”

Katie felt their eyes on her, Annabelle accusing, Thomas sad, confused.

“Kids, I’m sorry…”

Katie’s eyes filled with tears. Great, she was going to cry in front of the kids. Again.

Annabel left in disgust. Thomas, however, stayed. He put his arms around her and snuggled close. That helped. She kissed his head and pulled herself together.

“Right, who wants eggs and soldiers?”

Hand in hand they went downstairs. While the kids ate Katie decided that activity would best cure her hangover. A fresh start. A clean house. She pulled the hoover from the cupboard and plugged it in. The noise filled the room and her aching head, but it was a cleansing pain - she was starting to feel better. Then she looked up and saw that Thomas was pointing at something on the floor. It was small and furry and scurrying, but Katie was looking at her son and she missed it.

“Mummy? I just saw Martin - he ran out from under the sofa! Look! He’s there, on the carpet! He’s ok after all!”

Katie couldn’t hear over the hoover, so she smiled and nodded, to please him. But Thomas’ face was distressed now, his hands waving, so Katie moved to turn off the hoover.

And then the hoover made a thick, choking sound, like when it inhaled socks. Only this felt like an exceptionally heavy sock. Thick. Maybe one of the furry ones that had lost its way between washing machine and clothes drier...

The hoover thudded, spluttered wetly, and stopped.

All's Fair

Holding hands they waded, dreamlike, through the crowds. The wind sniped vindictively at any exposed flesh, slipping between the wool of scarves and jumpers and pummelling their cheeks to red-raw rosiness, forcing blushes.

Ducking through candyfloss clouds and bustling families they made for the ferris wheel, he leading, laughing; she following, impossibly young inside her painted-on adulthood.

They had met in Maths last year. Three weeks later and she was scratching his name into her pencil case and practising cliches with her girlfriends in the school yard. Here they stood, nearly a year on, queueing together for the ferris wheel, glitter-eyed. Love’s young dream.

Balloons punctuated the winter night, drifting bubbles of red and yellow and silver-blue, clutched by muffled and mittened children. And all around the lights from the rides slashed at the darkness to rip it apart and reveal the life hidden within.

They stumbled excitedly into the seats, his hands guiding, insistent. He touched his jacket pocket repeatedly, checking, uncertain, determined. She suspected nothing. Good, he wanted the surprise. That would make it special.

The creaky ascent began. She feigned fright. He donned protectiveness like a cloak to wrap around them both and pointed out the sights, while she pretended to tremble and drank in the warmth and smell of his closeness. In the icy darkness they assumed their designated roles, her hands finding homes in the creases of his shirt; his stubble grazing her hair like velcro.

At the top, she was shocked to find that her feigned fright was suddenly startlingly real. She gripped him in earnest now, quelling the rushing in her stomach, the panic inching its way to her fingertips. She could hold it together if he could hold her and keep their little world still and safe.

But he was fumbling now, reaching into his pocket, rocking the little car that hung so high and so precariously...

She tried not to cling - her affected dependency transformed into a desperate, clawing thing that she strove to conceal with fluttering eyelashes and bambi eyes, but he wasn’t paying attention anyway. He was pulling something small and square from his pocket, but she focused on the solid, unmoving bar before them and willed herself to hold on for the few seconds before the ride moved them down again.

Only the ride didn’t move. A sickening, grinding crunch filled the air and the little car jolted and jerked about as the ferris wheel suffered some kind of fatal seizure. They dangled in mid-air, like tiny worms on a giant hook. But relentlessly he pressed on, opening the little box, urging her to open her eyes, ignoring her distress and holding his glimmering shard of hope out towards her.

Her lips formed a little ‘O’ of horror, instead of the delighted smile he had hoped for. His face fell. The lights of the fairground reflected in her eyes flickered and went out. Stranded, mid revolution there was nothing to do but wait, together, in the darkness.

Such a lot to do when someone passes. Family to call, friends, enemies even. Get things rolling with the undertaker, speak to the vicar, meetings at the bank. A whole list of trivial things needed to usher a man from this life to the next, and all that time it was pricking at my mind, the pencil case in the dresser with the medal Chunky Eddington said my Dad didn’t have.

His Dad got shot down over Berlin. His Dad with the Air Force medal, the Battle of Britain medal. Of course my Dad had a medal, he was in the war, wasn’t he?

Then Chunky said it. How come your Dad doesn’t wear his medal on Remembrance Sunday? You know the kind of people never talk about the war?

He didn’t say the word – coward – but it was all across his face. So were my fists a moment later, and that was goodbye to Chunky, my mate.

The pencil case is a box of wood, lid in runners that slides when you put your finger in the notch at the end. From this box Dad took Granddad’s pair of silver cufflinks on the morning of my wedding. To this box they returned, almost before I’d finished my speech.

This box of treasures is the only place Dad would keep a medal.

Inside the pencil case is Mum’s wedding ring, her engagement ring, a pair of ear rings. There’s the cufflinks, his birth certificate. It’s a box full of treasures, but no medal.

---

Come the funeral and Eddington is at his most chunky, especially in those cheeks home to little piggy eyes that look hard at Dad’s coffin with only flowers on top. He’s sorry for my loss. He says Dad lived a good long, happy, and above all, interesting life.

If he wasn’t so chunky I might have stuffed him in the coffin too.

The church is almost empty when a rapier in a suit with olive skin and oiled hair approaches. In front of me he clicks his heels and offers a tiny bow.

‘Allow me to name myself: James Oliveria, of the People’s Republic of San Fontonio. On behalf of the Republic, I offer you our sincerest condolences for your loss.’

We shake hands, and he continues.

‘Your father a man I never met, but I feel I know him from his deeds. He was one of many your country landed in the hills before the glorious revolution of forty-one. Men like your father turned fruit farmers and fishermen into the army that took the capital.’

He smiles sadly.

‘It pains me, the secret wheels of government that even now forbid the living from receiving their due. It pains me that only now can I pass this to you.’

From his suit pocket comes a bundle wrapped in blue woollen cloth. He presents it to me on upraised palms, and with his thumbs flicks the cloth away to reveal a small wooden box.

Paris 1795.

Madame Bouffant's pallid breasts perched over the whalebone corset straining to hold her portly torso above waist level. She perched awkwardly on the edge of the velvet chaise lounge, her plump hands playing with the jewelled wedding ring on her finger. On the other side of the room, a capped figure huddled behind an easel. Carbon dust fell from the cartridge paper onto the opulent wool rug beneath.

Nicolas-Jacques Conte had been painting portraits since the age of 14. He began each drawing in the same meticulous way of a scientist. Starting with the right eye of his subject, working outwards in the spiral of the golden ratio. Always preparing guidelines for his paint with sharpened sticks of plumbago that he carried with him at all times - in case of inspiration. Life behind the easel had always felt more comfortable than that in front of it. His love of science and all things technical had meant he stood out from his peers from an early age. Social interactions were painful and no one could understand his technical bullet point delivery anyway. Drawing and painting were his protection against the world where people and emotions could be transformed into sweeping lines and tonal palettes.

"Monsieur!"

The door of the studio Nicolas-Jacques had called home for 10 years swung open making way for a rotund, sweating man of his late 50's. Charles Rousseau had seen the young artists work years before and taken it upon himself to act as agent and mentor. His passion for art was only outweighed by his passion for the luxuries that Nicolas-Jacques' work could pay for. Luxuries that were harder and harder to come by since the trade embargoes and blockages brought about by six years of social and political upheaval.

"Monsieur! There is a crisis! Mon dieu! It is terrible!" "Charles, slow down. What is it?" "Monsieur, the English...they...no more plumbago" "What do you mean?"

Nicolas-Jacques' heart quickened, this could not be. He did not care for the revolt that was happening around him, not while he had the sanctuary of his drawing. The tumultuous world he had so carefully hid from melted away when he worked.

"But I will die!" "We will all die, Monsieur."

Totally ran out of steam with this as I hadn't got a clear idea of where the ending was going! All critiques gratefully received

The second hand ticked past twelve, once again, marking off the passing of another minute. Since the new regime had begun, seconds seemed slower. The tick, tick, tick, previously annoyingly perky, now felt like a dirge. But of course, even dirges were now forbidden. The clock provided the only rhythm in a depressingly non-musical reality. I sat at my desk watching the leaves outside gently ripple in the spring breeze.

I startled as my phone rang, or rather, buzzed, the ring had been decreed too tonal to be allowed, too tinklingly stimulating. I picked up.

“Saunders? You're out. You were heard whistling in the lift this morning. You have 20 minutes to vacate”.

A soft click, then silence. Fuck. I had been alone in that lift. The bastards must have cameras in there. Or at least microphones. I reached for my pencil case, and opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet to remove the itchy wool jumper I kept there for the days when the heating packed in. Such was the sum of my possessions in this drab place. I powered off my v-desk, rose, and left the building. I hoped that my impending reassignment would not be too awful – punishment was inevitable, but I prayed for manual labour, road laying or undertaking, anything but another shitty data entry position.

In the lift on the way down I resisted flipping the bird to the powers that be. Whatever I ended up doing next it had to be better than this. And at least it would only be 3 days a week. Since the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition had won the 2017 election in a shock victory, unemployment had plummeted to nearly zero, and wages were far more equitable. The prohibition of inheritance in 2020 had further levelled the playing field and the shift to a communist totalitarian state in 2025 had solidified the socialist utopia, a beautiful world indeed, but, alas, a tuneless one. Was it worth it? The only legal melodies I’d heard in 5 years now had come from the birds. The instruments had all been melted down or dismantled to create wind turbines, a green revolution had accompanied the socialist one, and we breathed fresher air for it.

But they couldn't monitor us everywhere.

That night I left my flat, glancing furtively over my shoulder as I mounted my hover board and flew silently down the streets. I kept my lights off, illuminated sufficiently by the waxing moon, near full. As I neared the abandoned church, I grew still more uneasy, something was amiss, but I could see or hear nothing. I put my nerves down to over-caffeinating all afternoon; having been dismissed shortly after lunch, there seemed little else to do but sit and drink coffee, eagerly awaiting the evening ahead. I entered the church, nodding hello to Dean and Jessica, seated at the drums and the double bass respectively. Hooking my mic up to my battery, I clicked the switch to ‘on’, as a wall of heat and light and finality encompassed us all.

Jeff led Maggie into the kitchen ‘Happy Birthday,’ he said, handing her a box. Maggie’s heart sank, and she struggled to form a response that didn’t sound accusing or mean. ‘A Nutribullet?’

‘This will revolutionise our diet’ he said, removing the chrome blender from its box, a shower of polystyrene falling onto the floor. ‘I saw in on TV, and thought, my Maggie will love one of those.’

Maggie squinted at the box. ‘Isn't it just a blender? Like the one you bought me last Christmas?’

Jeff stood back and gazed at the Nutribullet before turning to Maggie with a grin. ‘This is much more than a blender. Oh yes, much more.’ He started to read from the back of the box. ‘It has a powerful 800 watt motor. We’ll get all of our five a day in one delicious smoothie.’

Smoothie, Maggie thought, I've managed the first fifty six years of my life without a smoothie, I'll be damned if I'm starting now. She turned to Jeff and forced a smile. ‘Thanks love.’

Jeff’s obsession with buying the latest household gadgets had led to a revolution of sorts. These labour saving devices might have saved Maggie hours in the kitchen, but the drain on their bank account meant that she now had to work those extra hours for Nancy at the wool shop.

New washing machines, the latest Dyson, a state of the art American fridge freezer. Sandwich toasters, slow cookers, spiralisers. None of those came cheap, and Jeff’s salary as a stationary salesman barely covered the monthly repayments. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ he’d said whenever she raised an eyebrow at the credit card statement at the end of the month ‘Kids will always need pencil cases.’ But she did worry. It frustrated her that Jeff frittered away all of their money on this junk, items they didn’t need, each accompanied by the promise that it would revolutionise some aspect of their life.

And yet they had lived in the same house their whole married life. Jeff had been with the same firm in the same role the entire time. They had holidayed in the same caravan park on the Dorset coast every year for thirty four years. The ever changing landscape of electrical devices was the only sign of progress in Maggie’s life. If a revolution was coming, she thought grimly, it wouldn't be the result of something Jeff bought at Currys.

Two men from the house clearance company turned up that afternoon. One loaded the kitchen appliances into the back of a van whilst the other counted out ten pound notes into Maggie's hand. ‘That too?’ he said, pointing at the Nutribullet but Maggie shook her head. Whatever she thought of Jeff, she wouldn’t deprive him of his five a day. She slipped off her wedding ring and dropped it into the envelope alongside the letter for Jeff. Taking one last look around the empty kitchen, she headed outside to where Nancy was waiting.