About Grace Lessageing

I am writer of novels, short stories, flash fiction, blogs. I lead a creative writing group. I am an Ex infant teacher, living in Christchurch, Dorset, UK. My brand new novel, The Conways at Earthsend was published on January 28th 2021 can be found on Amazon, Waterstones, Hive and Goodreads and is available in either paperback or e-book versions. You can also read The Year of Familiar Strangers, available as an e-book from Amazon. You can visit my website: janedeans.com or my author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jane-Deans-Novellist-Short-Fiction-and-Blog-102757711838272 Happy reading!

Renaissance

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

Those who were children in the UK in the 1950’s and were lucky enough to have a tiny, wood-encased TV will remember the wonderful children’s programmes we enjoyed- albeit in black and white. For the uninitiated, a sample can be viewed here: [https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=The+Woodentops&mid=F5A95F8B27952BC4A7F0F5A95F8B27952BC4A7F0&mcid=05BDF3745CE94B47919BD6175DC52B5D&FORM=VIRE

She stirs. Her eyelids part in a narrow slit although it is still dark. What has woken her? She shudders and feels a sharp intrusive dig on her left side, wedged as she is between two others. There it is again; a blow to her ribs. Her eyelids widen as she gasps, feeling around with her right hand for the offending weapon. An elbow.

‘Jenny!’

She stiffens. ‘Get off me! What are you doing?’ Her small, high voice is thick and slurred from under-use.

‘There’s someone out there. I can hear sounds-steps. Listen.’

Jenny groans. ‘Leave me alone, Will. I’m asleep.’

‘You’re not asleep. You are talking to me.’

She lifts her head as far as the space will allow. In the oppressive darkness of their space there are rhythmic snores amid the sighing breaths and snuffles of sleep as well as an occasional whimpering yap from the dog as he dreams of biscuits and buried bones.

‘There!’

She feels her brother’s hissing breath as the sound of steps approaching and receding invades her consciousness. In the gloom she knows he is listening too just as she knows everything he is thinking. After a moment a thin strip of light appears below them along the floor. She takes in a sharp breath and needs to cough but stifles it, reaching instead for her twin’s hand. There is an abrupt rattle as the door knob is twisted which prompts rousing from the others and whimpering from the baby, who threatens to howl.

‘Did you hear the voices?’ Jenny can feel Will trembling. The dog is stirring, a low growl heralding what could become a tirade of barking.

‘Don’t panic. I’ve got him.’ It is their father who has wrapped a restraining hand around the dog’s muzzle.

They are all awake now and straining to hear. The footsteps have disappeared but the light remains. Jenny frowns, trying to think how long they’ve been here and what prompted them to have been banished to this dark, musty cell. She can remember someone saying they should be kept as she was brought in but none of them knew what they did to be banished and hidden away like pariahs. If the footsteps return they might find out. She allows herself to hope.

She tries to stretch her limbs but in doing so elicits an outraged ‘Oy! Watch yourself!’’ from Sam who is squeezed next to her other side.

Mrs Scrubitt’s voice is tremulous as she utters, voicing all their thoughts into the half- light. “What are they going to do with us? They might be having a clear-out, like. Will they be…doing away with us, do you think?’

Jenny trembles. Sam’s mum is right. They could be cast into a bin somewhere or thrown on to a bonfire. Mummy intervenes. ‘There’s no use in worrying what’ll happen. What will be, will be. Whatever they do we’ll be all together, like always.’

They are startled into silence then as the footsteps return, more this time. There are voices at the door and they hear a key in the lock. The door opens, deluging their small closet with blinding light, forcing them to wince and squint at the unaccustomed brightness.

Jenny swallows and lifts her chin as they prepare to face whatever fate awaits them. A large face looms into hers and she shrinks back into a space she does not have. There are two of them scrutinising, exclaiming.

‘Take care! They’re very old, you know-nearly seventy years!’ The voice booms like a fog-horn in the little cupboard until Jenny’s ears feel like exploding balloons.

‘They’re in good shape though!’ The second voice is softer. After a moment a warm, scooping hand envelops her and she is off the shelf, travelling outside the safety of the cubby-hole and along a bright, white corridor. She closes her eyes as the glare prompts tears to stream down her face. Then she is in a large room, comforted to be sitting on a surface she recognises as wood and mummy and baby are placed next to her.

The two giants discuss them. ‘Of course, if we’re going to remake it there will need to be changes. The show was made before political correctness was thought of.’

The other one chuckles. ‘Yes of course. We can’t have a Mrs Scrubitt and we’ll need to address the nuclear family issue. Plus the fact that they are all white, fully-abled and middle class.’

Jenny glances across at Mrs Scrubitt whose face has become an unnerving, chalky white and whose mouth is open in a silent cry.

‘I’m not so sure that they were middle class. He is a farmer.’

‘Yes but Mum doesn’t go out to work and they can afford to employ servants.’

‘OK. Well maybe we can use Mrs Scrubitt as extended family and Mum can be a farm worker, too? And how about giving one of the twins a disability? I don’t know about Sam Scrubitt though. There may not be a role for him.’

Jenny and Will exchange a stricken look as Mrs Scrubitt claps a terrified hand over her mouth.

Four months later they are on set. Jenny has become adept at the sign language she must use to communicate with her twin, they have all learned to call Mrs Scrubitt ‘Grandma’, Mum has had a new wardrobe consisting of overalls, has got the hang of the power tools she must use and they’ve all adjusted to their new, ebony colour as well as remembering to call Sam, who’s been given some exuberant dreadlocks, ‘Denzil’.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

All True

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

Tempus fugit. Time flies. And one of life’s biggest ironies is that it seems to accelerate as you age, so that, for the young, nothing can come fast enough, then at some point during adulthood it has all passed like speeded up film, then, I suppose there will be a time when it has all disappeared…Pfffttt! Out like a light; although I prefer not to linger on that thought.

For those of us who can no longer consider ourselves to even be middle-aged [a term that alters as the years pass to refer to an older and older age], there are often reminders of our elderly state.

There are the obvious health issues. Bits begin to wear out or become troublesome. Many people are spared doctor and hospital ministrations- the lucky ones, from having ‘good genes’ perhaps and/or having lived following a healthy lifestyle. Recent health crises in my own life lead me to believe that the genes are the stronger influence, since I’ve done my best with exercise and diet for most of thetime- if you ignore the student years…

And while I believe that genes have caused most of my own issues to date, I continue to exercise on a regular basis and eat the items we’re being told to and eschew the foodstuffs we should avoid [mostly].

For me, exercise must be enjoyable in order for it to be sustained. If it hurts [too much] or is boring, I don’t want to know.

My favourite activity has always been dance exercise. In the beginning there was aerobics. Then, along came step aerobics. I fell in love with leaping about on and over the step, probably doing untold damage to my joints in the process.

During this time, middle age, I also ran. I ran all the days I wasn’t doing step aerobics [ie 4 days a week], 5k or so on weeknights and longer distances at weekends. I had no days off.

I continued this way for years until an unnerving crunch sprang up in my leg, feeling like I could collapseat each step. As things worsened, I cut back on running and step aerobics. Then Zumba became a thing and I took to it straight away, joing in with gusto and enjoying the company of other, like-minded dance-exercise enthusiasts.

The pandemic came, killing off live classes. I searched Youtube to find online Zumba classes, of which there were many, though they varied in quality. I tried lots and found a few that suited, which was good enough when confined to home. But there’s nothing like a live class for enjoyment and motivation.

After we were released from confinement I continued with online classes until a new Zumba class popped up in a venue 5 minutes walk away from my house and I shot round there like a rat up a drainpipe. And this, lovely reader, is what I’ve been doing ever since.

EXCEPT; Here’s the thing. I realised my beloved trainers- the ones I went to the specialist running shoe shop for because I pronate, have worn out, demonstrated by the fact that my toe is poking up through the worn fabric and the plastic toeguards are coming away. How long have I had them? Certainly since my running days.

I venture to the specialist running shoe shop, where there is, allegedly a sale on, taking my elderly trainers with me. It’s only a small shop and manned by a single guy- young, dealing with a customer when I arrive. He leaves the customer on the treadmill and comes over. I show him my trainers, at which his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline.

‘These’ he says. ‘These went out of production when I was seven’.

Goodness. That long ago, then?

He sells me a later version of the shoes. 40% off. I’m happy, even if I’m old…EXCEPT: Now my hips are protesting blue murder and all exercise is suspended for the forseeable…bleurgh…

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

Caught

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

In melancholy mode today…

Trap! Paralyse! Consume! An unwitting moth flutters in an innocent, random pattern only to be ensnared, caught in a mesh of elastic threads, thrashing wildly but doomed as the predator pounces to inject the body with piercing jaws, stilling the spasms, rolling it with rapid efficiency into a food parcel; to be consumed later.

Here in my father’s back yard, in the still warm air of a September evening, I am glad of a distraction from my task. I light a cigarette and inhale, watching the curling twist of smoke wind upwards. Excitement over, the rotund spider withdraws to the shadows, out of sight until aroused by the next tweak.

Back inside I gaze around at the devastation I’ve wrought and think it’s enough for today. Amidst the piles of books, sets of musical scores, files of correspondence and personal papers in my father’s study there is a box containing old photographs and it is these I’ve been perusing, losing a sense of time both literally and figuratively as I delve back into his life; a jumble of grey-brown, faded and dog-eared images chronicling events and scenes, depicting some characters I remember and many I do not.

I realise I am hungry but have no wish to eat here, alone amongst the detritus. I will walk down through the village to the pub. Before leaving I slip a photo into my pocket, a picture of Imberton Village Dance Band on stage. In the twilight, the quiet of the somnolent village street is punctuated only by the last, retiring song of a blackbird as he defends his province and by the distant, mechanical hum of a lawnmower.

To stroll along this street is to walk in my childhood steps, the way I went to school; down along the hot tarmac, treading on the raised tar bubbles that erupted like sticky larva under the sun’s hot rays. Here in the gateway by the open field my brother and I paused to see who could pee the furthest as our exuberant, steaming fountains arced over the gate. On past St Mary’s where we languished, imprisoned at Sunday school, the time hanging heavy until we could loosen our collars and race back home to lunch, through the ivy clad churchyard, whose deceased inhabitants now play host to a newly interred inmate.

It is growing dark by the time I am level with the gravel track that slopes up towards Abbott’s, where a lone street lamp casts enough light for me to make out vestiges of the faded imprint on the side of the building; ‘Abbotts Grocery’. I pause for a moment, remembering. The old red brickwork had been painted yellow, the words in red and green, though now all that is visible is a faint square of flaking cream with a few pinkish lines. Old Ma Abbott, who’d seemed ancient to my seven year old self, must be long gone by now. But what of June? To my naive, infant scrutiny she had appeared grown up, although she couldn’t have been much more than sixteen when we plagued the shop in our crude, heedless bids for amusement. She would greet us, soft voiced, smiling with wide spaced, guileless eyes like a baby fawn’s as she tipped Rhubarb and Custards from a jar into a paper bag or ladled out ‘Eiffel Tower’ lemonade powder. I’d peer at her upswept, beehive hairdo and the way her wide skirt fanned out like daisy petals, buoyed up by layers of stiff petticoats as she climbed the step to replace the jar.

I’d been the youngest, tolerated but not acknowledged, the tagger-along, more spectator than participant as we roamed the village in search of diversion. We built dens, made bows and arrows or rudimentary, wooden guns, climbed the hay bales in Worts’ barn, fished in the stream, spoke in hushed whispers about the mysterious Bryant sisters, whose nocturnal activities had provoked speculative gossip from our parents. We played endless games of Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers, when my involvement was accepted if I agreed to be the Indian, or the ‘baddie’ and submitted to the inevitable tying to a post to be danced around and jeered at or executed by bow and arrow or firing squad.

A few heads turn as I enter the pub, one or two nodding and murmuring in uneasy recognition. I am known to them nowadays only by association with my father. They are caught in the uncomfortable circumstances that accompany a meeting with the newly bereaved. I order my meal and take my pint to a lone, corner table, allowing them to continue their conversations unburdened by the obligation of sympathy.

While I wait I withdraw the photo and place it on the table. The band members are on a wooden stage flanked by velvet curtains in what looks like the village hall. My father is seated on a stool at an upright piano, to the right of the picture so that his face is only visible in profile, mouth open, his head tilted down, intent on his fingers as they depress the keys; one foot underneath pushing down on a pedal. To the left of the stage his brother Dib sits leaning forward to strum his banjo, a bowler hat perched at a jaunty angle, staring a broad grin into the camera despite the cigarette jutting from the corner of his lips. I guess that the slim, smiling woman in the centre at the microphone, dressed in a neat, dark frock with a lace collar is Doris Lampard. Behind them, less distinct are a guitarist and a drummer.

I am aware of someone standing at my elbow; a stooped, portly, elderly figure leaning on a stick, sharing my view, peering with rheumy eyes at the picture. I recognise him as Arnold Goodridge, one of my father’s friends, although I’m unsure of the connection. Perhaps he’d been a fellow parish council member, or they went to cricket matches together.

“That would have been a Saturday nighter,” he says, gesturing at the photo. “There’s your Dad, on the old Joanna, and your Uncle Dib up front. He was a lad, that Dib!”

The bloodshot eyes are lit with interest as he leans forwards to peer closer. I pull out a chair, inviting him to sit and he accepts my offer of a pint. He squints at the aged image, pinching it by the narrow, white border as he holds it up to the light.

“I know that Doris used to sing,” I tell him, “but who are the other two- the guitarist and the drummer?”

I wait while he examines the scene, his breathing rapid and wheezy, the sound my father’s piano accordion made when he was warming it up. He takes so long to answer his pint arrives and he lifts it to take a long draught before he speaks.

“That there,” he prods the guitarist in the picture with a thick, stubby finger, “is old Ernie Brabrook. He used to have the butchers, up on the Copseway. That’s up the road behind your Dad’s place. And that fellow behind the drums is Dick; Dick Abbott that had the grocers shop. You’ll remember that from when you was a nipper.”

I nod.

“I do remember. Walking past it tonight made me think of when we used to go up there for sweets. I’m afraid we went in more for the thrill than to buy anything. We were terrified of Mrs Abbott so we dared each other to enter.”

The old man smiles his understanding.

“Oh ah! She was a hard woman, Mae Abbott. Bitter, with a wasp sting for a tongue. Weren’t no one missed a tongue lashing from Mae at some point. ‘Course Dick got it the worst. He spent as much time as he could out of her way; he had his grocer’s round in the daytime, doing deliveries, then he’d be out with the band as often as you like, four or five nights a week sometimes. He played in the darts team, too.”

“So Mae didn’t go along to see the band? I suppose if Dick was on stage she’d have no partner for dancing.”

“Mae? No! She weren’t one for dancing. Back when they was first married she had June to look after. She only ever went out on a Sunday, to church, as I recall.”

“June must have been born quite soon after they were married, then.”

He scratches his head, frowning at his glass.

“Things was different then.”

For now the old man has completed his narrative. He drains his pint and hauls himself to his feet as my meal is delivered to the table with enquiries as to whether I’d like any sauces and another drink.

Arnold is shrugging his coat on, turning to leave then he stops to voice a thought.

“I might have one or two of them photos at home, the band and that. I’ll have a look and bring them round, if you’re interested.”

I am. I thank him.

“Arnold, before you go, can you tell me anything about June? Does she still live in the village?”

He grips the chair back as he faces me, his knuckles white, his breath whistling.

“I’d have thought your Dad would have told you. She passed away. Must have been twenty years ago; not that long after Dick, but before Mae. It were a sad business.”

The spiders have retired for the night when I go out to take a last cigarette in the cool air of the yard. This small space, illuminated by a shaft of light from the doorway is cluttered with accumulated rubbish and scruffy with weeds, neglected and unloved, another task to be undertaken before I leave. My father had been devoted to his small garden, growing gaudy dahlias and rows of fat onions, trimming the hedge and tending the pond, now relapsed into a murky, stagnant pool, clogged with choking blanket weed. When my mother died he’d withdrawn to the house, leaving his beloved plants to fend for themselves, as if the garden itself had been responsible for her death. Grief affects people in strange ways, driving them to relinquish lifetime habits and adopt new ones. I think how little I knew him in the later years, my visits short and peremptory and executed from a sense of duty.

I make my way to bed in the tiny, inhospitable guest bedroom, crawling between slippery sheets topped with unaccustomed, heavy layers of blankets and an eiderdown; the bedding a relic from when we were boys, although never in this cramped bungalow designed for retirement. The elderly bed springs creak and protest as I fidget, sleepless with memory. June Abbott; she’d have been in her sixties now. What had happened to her?

Next morning a stiff breeze has sprung up as I stroll up to the village store on the Copseway to buy a newspaper and a pint of milk. On the way I search for the old butcher’s shop that was Ernie Brabrook’s, but almost all the buildings that housed businesses have been converted to dwellings, either having been demolished and rebuilt or their big front windows bricked in and I no longer recall the exact location of Ernie’s place. All I remember is standing inside while my father waited for his order to be prepared, the sawdust floor dusty beneath my feet and the cold, raw carcasses dangling, white on their metal hooks, an odour of chill sweetness and the resonant thwack of the butcher’s cleaver as he prepared chops or steaks.

The store assistant is solicitous. My father will be missed by the community, she says, and how am I getting on with clearing up the house? Feeling heartened by her concern I ask if she knows anything about Imberton Dance Band and the various members. She nods as she packs my purchases into a bag.

“My parents used to go dancing every Saturday. A girl called Mavis used to come and babysit us.”

I take the photo from my pocket and place it on to the counter. She looks closely before shaking her head.

“I can see that’s your Dad, in his young days, and that was his brother. But I don’t know the others I’m afraid. I’d have been too young, I suppose.”

When I mention Dick Abbott a look of recognition springs to her face.

“I was in the same class as June at school. We were a fair bit older than you and your brother I think, so we’d have left to go to the secondary by the time you two were in the juniors’ class. She was sweet, but she was a bit soft, if you know what I mean; not the brightest, but always kind and smiling. It was awful, what happened to her.”

“I heard she died. What was it, illness?”

She purses her lips, looking grave.

“No, nothing like that; she drowned in the brook that runs along the bottom of the field behind the house. ‘Accidental death’ they said it was, although no one knew how she came to be there. She was in her night clothes when they found her; all a long time ago now.”

I take a diversion back to the bungalow, down an old, overgrown footpath that leads to the narrow rivulet behind what was Abbott’s shop, with a dwelling at the rear. We’d dangled jam jars on strings into the stream to catch tiny stickleback, bearing them home triumphantly then being made to return them by our stern parents. The brook is no longer the rushing torrent of my memory, rather a thin trickle, banks overgrown with tall, bushy nettles. I wonder how she could have drowned, here in the shallows where the water is inches deep and the gravel of the stream bed ruffles the flow. Further up the sloping field the back of the house is just visible, changed now; refurbished. A new wire fence provides a barrier before the brook, where none was before. Perhaps she sleepwalked down to the stream and fell, found herself tangled in the undergrowth or mired in some mud. I’ve an image now of her night clad body lying cold in the water under the moonlight, her dark hair loose and mingling with the eddying current, but surely she’d have called for help?

My father’s modest house, the pride and joy of his later life seems diminished now that his furniture and effects are packed up to be distributed or disposed of. The rooms are strewn with cartons of bric-a-brac, books or bin bags full of clothing ready to be taken to charity shops. The walls bear the ghostly shapes of the pictures and mirrors that hung against them. His upright piano awaits collection. This is all that remains of his life. We humans spend a lifetime accumulating objects only to leave them all behind us for another to discard.

I make tea in the ancient ceramic teapot my parents always used. It is lined with a crust of brown stain but to succumb to dunking tea bags into cups feels a betrayal here in their kitchen. While I’m waiting for the tea to brew I ring my wife to tell her I’m almost done with the clearance and I’ll be returning home tomorrow.

I’m about to pour the tea when I catch sight of Arnold Goodridge unlatching the front gate and labouring up the path towards the front door and I think he must have smelt the tea to have timed his arrival like this. He settles into the worn settee with the ease of one who has sat there, in that same spot on many occasions, leaning his walking stick against the arm and placing a bulging manila envelope on the seat beside him. He glances around the room at the bare walls and loaded cartons as he sips the tea, nodding in sage acknowledgement, his chest still heaving with the exertion of his walk.

“Going up for sale, is it?”

“I’m afraid it is, Arnold. The family is too far flung to keep it. I’m hoping to drop the keys with the agent tomorrow, on my way home.”

He puts his cup and saucer on the coffee table and opens the envelope to pass me a few photos. I move to sit next him while he describes each scene. There are more pictures of the band, of course, but also snaps depicting charabanc outings to the seaside, village fetes and family parties, many showing my parents and their friends, the most striking aspect their smiles as they face the camera. It would be easy to assume that their lives were one long holiday on which the sun never failed to shine.

I pore over one shot of the beach, where my parents and another couple, all dressed in their Sunday best, are installed in deck chairs on the sand behind a number of children of varying ages playing with buckets and spades. Amongst the offspring is a young girl of about eleven, with soft, dark eyes, clad in a typically substantial swimming costume of the era, her arm around a sturdy child who I recognise as my brother. He is looking into her face with an adoring smile.

“There’s June,” Arnold offers. “She always did love the littl’uns. She’d have made a good mum if she’d had the chance.”

“Arnold, how did it happen? How come she drowned in the brook? There’s so little water. And why was she wearing night clothes?”

He gazes at the photo as he begins to talk.

“It was like I said. When Dick started stepping out with Mae they was only young, so it weren’t really serious, if you see what I mean. Then she fell pregnant with June and it was all Hell let loose. In them days it was like the end of the world. It weren’t long before that a young couple had drowned themselves in the lake from the shame of it and the fear of being found out. There weren’t any choice for them. Dick had to marry her quick, so when the baby came they could just say it was a bit early, like.

They lived with Mae’s parents to start with. It must have been hard for Dick. He was always a bit of a one for partying, had an eye for the girls. He could of taken his pick of ‘em, too if he’d wanted. But he was stuck with Mae then, and didn’t he know it! She never forgive him for landing her with a baby so young and I don’t think she ever thought he was good enough for her neither.”

“But she must have loved the baby when she came along. June was so pretty and so sweet!”

“She were. She were a cracker! But she were never the brightest, if you get my meaning. She weren’t going to get to college or anything like that.”

“Is that why she ended up helping in the shop when she left school?”

He nodded.

“Mae hated the shop, like everything else. She thought it was beneath her to work behind a counter; didn’t think she should work at all. ‘Course the shop folded in the sixties and Dick retired then. It had never made much money. Customers preferred the stores up on the Copseway and you could see why. Mae drove them all off, with her spiteful tongue and her nasty ways.”

“So what did June do, when the shop closed down?”

“She took up hairdressing, somewhere down Hardwick way I believe it was. Of course she favoured her Dad for looks, so she weren’t short of a few admirers. I think she did do a bit of courting, while her Dad was still alive but nothing serious. Then Dick passed away, a bit sudden. After his funeral no one hardly saw Mae. She stayed indoors, kept herself to herself, and June stayed looking after her. There weren’t no more gentlemen callers because Mae wasn’t having it. She were too scared June would up and get married and leave her. Thing was, with Dick gone she only had her daughter and they used to say in the village that were when June changed, stopped smiling, like. Some said it were because of losing her Dad, but I reckon there were more to it than that. That bitter old witch made her life Hell, that’s the sum of it. She tormented her and bullied her until her life weren’t worth living. And June, she were caught, like in a trap. She’d nowhere to go and couldn’t leave her mother. It got so she couldn’t stand no more. So she took the only way out she could. There were more to the stream in them days, but most folks don’t need a lot of water if they’re determined to drown their selves. You know the rest.”

He puts the photo on the coffee table before looking up. When he catches my expression he puts his hand on my arm, his face softening.

“I shouldn’t of probably told you all that, what with your Dad and all. Not exactly a cheerful story, is it? But you got to remember it were all a long time ago.”

“No, I’m glad you did. And I’ve enjoyed looking at the photos and hearing all the other stories.”

On his way out Arnold stops on the path to button up his jacket.

“Know what I reckon?” There is a mischievous gleam in his eye as he adjusts the stick in his grip. I shake my head.

“Them lot in the band, they’ve been up there waiting for your Dad to join them. Now he’s got there they’ll be making heaven jump to the beat with all their tunes!”

Though I don’t share his conviction, the image is so pleasing I have to smile as I thank him again.

I wake to an overcast sky, feeling moved to make haste with loading my car and starting on the long drive home. There is little of any monetary value amongst the house contents and nothing of use or ornament to us, the next generation, for whom tastes have changed. I have wrapped and packed the few items my brother and I decided upon as keepsakes; one or two first editions, leather bound, a hand painted tea set, a couple of prints and the box of photographs, which I have volunteered to sort and annotate. Everything else will be removed by a clearance company, leaving the empty shell of the house ready for viewing by prospective buyers. Once I have locked up and pulled the front door shut behind me I know I will not be returning. I pocket the house keys in readiness for the estate agent.

Before leaving the village I pull into the lay by outside the churchyard. I want to spend a few minutes alone by my parents’ grave, an action I doubt my busy life will allow in future. The new plot, freshly piled with earth stands out like a brown scar among the neat, green mounds surrounding it. Soon the simple headstone will bear the addition of my father’s name informing the reader he is ‘reunited at last’ with my mother. There are, as he requested, no bouquets wilting on the soil, donations having been made, instead, to the hospice that cared for my mother. He’d been pragmatic to the last, made all his wishes clear; his only desire to be laid to rest here in the rustic setting of the village churchyard next to his deceased wife.

I have no faith in an afterlife. I believe that our allotted span above the earth is what we get. I know that my parents are not here, under the soil in this country graveyard, nor do they exist anywhere except, for a short passage of time, in my memory. But the shady, green space with its gentle hummocks, vases of chrysanthemums and trailing ivy is a peaceful spot for contemplation and remembrance. I wind my way through the graves, stopping here and there to read a name and a date where they are visible, not obliterated by algae and age. As I round the corner by the low stone wall I halt as my attention is caught by a simple, marble, upright slab with the inscription, ‘June Elisabeth Abbott, 1945-1978, ‘Resting where no shadows fall’.

I perch nearby on a neighbouring slab. Her plot is overgrown, a joyous carpet of daisies and dusky pink autumn crocuses. A light mist of drizzle has begun to drift down, lifting a rich, earthy aroma from the vegetation. Somewhere close by a robin begins to trill a jaunty song. Then, at last I feel the tears well up and course down my face in hot, salty tracks until I drop my face into my hands and I’m howling, there in the secluded churchyard with the ghosts of my past for company.

After a while, when the tears have drained away I stand and brush the moss from my clothing before walking back through the grassy mounds and ancient stones to the gate. In the car I pick up my phone and call my wife. She asks if I’m alright. I tell her I’ve missed them all; that I love them and I’m ready to come home now. I start the car. When I get home I want to hold them, my wife and children; catch them in my heart and never let them go.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

Bad

Posted on February 23, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

More brand new fiction in today’s post

They talked about him at the gate, huddled in groups as they waited. Sometimes I’d be on the fringe of a group, listening but contributing little as the gossip continued- anecdotes on the latest atrocity, hearsay over infringements and the ensuing punishments, intrigue about the family; how cruel it was, how unfair.

Often, Marcus and Callum would emerge together, entwined like lovers, grinning and yelling in spite of Mrs Ennicot’s admonishments. On those occasions I’d shrink and skulk towards the edges of the waiting parents as though, by my child’s association with Callum, I was somehow tainted.

Callum’s mum never arrived until the last minute, dismounting from an old, brown bicycle with a basket and wheeling it into the playground, past the chattering groups, craning her neck for a sight of her boy then reaching up in a vigorous wave. She was an older mum, a modest dresser in her habitual, long brown skirts and sensible shoes. Marcus would have run to me before she arrived.

‘Callum’s mum’s not here yet. Can we play until she comes?’

I’d nod and they would chase around, whooping, with no discernible organisation of a game, until the brown bicycle appeared, curtailing their play. A few of the mums’ heads would turn and glance at the boys, at me, and they would resume their discussions, melting away at last.

Callum’s mother never acknowledged our existence, Marcus and me; never looked in our direction, even when Callum turned to wave at his bosom buddie and shout ‘see you tomorrow!’

Marcus was always a quiet, timid boy. As a toddler he was frightened of his own shadow, shrinking into corners at parties, tongue-tied with strangers, preferring my company or his own to his peer group. He’d attended pre-school under sufferance and now he tolerated school but rarely participated in shared activities. At parents’ evening, Mrs Ennicot described his reluctance to join in, to put his hand up, to talk. With Callum, he was a different child- loud, gregarious, lively.

‘I don’t like assembly,’ Marcus told me, on the way home. ‘It’s boring. Callum doesnt have to go to it. Why do I have to, Mummy?’

Callum was part of a small group who were kept out of such gatherings because his family were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

‘What would you like to do for your birthday?’ I asked him. ‘How about a party? Shall we do that? You can choose some friends and make invitations.’ The birthday was the following week.

‘I want Callum,’ he replied, smiling up at me. ‘I only want him to come. He can come to our house and we can play Zombies.’ Zombies was the favourite game of the moment, involving leaping around with arms outstretched and trying to catch others.

I’d spent many nights awake and wrestling with the idea of Callum as Marcus’s friend. On the one hand he’d brought my son out of his shell, given him confidence and companionship. On the other, he led him into trouble and was not the best role model a small boy could have- especially a fatherless boy. But Marcus adored him. The play date posed a conundrum. Callum’s family was Jehovah’s Witness and they didn’t celebrate birthdays. How was I to get round this?

I tackled the question next day, after school, as she wheeled the bike in, approaching her as she drew to a halt and attracting an interested, collective gaze from the playground gang, whose eyes I could feel on my back.

‘Hello, I’m Marcus’s mum,’ I blurted. ‘Marcus was wondering if your Callum would like to come to ours to play and to have tea next Wednesday. He could come home with us after school.’ I paused, breathless and hot. The woman stared, unsmiling.

‘Is it your son’s birthday?’

I attempted my best, friendly grin and launched into my pre-prepared speech that the following Wednesday was not, in fact, my son’s birthday [which it wasn’t, the birthday having been on Monday] and it was simply a play date with a meal. She responded to this with a sceptical frown and said she would let me know the next day, presumably having dicussed it at home.

We each gathered our offfspring, prizing them from ‘Zombies’. Marcus skipped alongside me in excitement. ‘Is he coming, Mummy?’

‘We don’t know yet, my love. She’ll tell us tomorrow.’ I wondered if I should try and explain about Jehovah’s Witnesses to him, but it was a philosophy I didn’t understand myself, so I couldn’t find a way to make a five-year-old see it.

She stopped by me on Friday afternoon. ‘Callum will come on Wednesday’ was all she said, before moving on to call him. Marcus ran to me, wired with the news and shouting, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming! all the way home. ‘You can help me plan what we’re going to eat,’ I told him, ‘and tell me what he does and doesn’t like.’

‘Pizza! Can we have pizza? The other day, Mummy, he ate his rubber!’

‘What?’

‘He ate the rubber from the pencil pot and then he was sick; it went all over the table and sick got on my spelling book. It smelled nasty!’

I was accustomed to hearing tales of Callum’s exploits; how he’d climbed on the radiator, thrown wet toilet paper on to the lavatory ceiling where it had stuck, clipped paper clips on to the collar of Oliver Meaks’ shirt, punched the fire alarm glass in the corridor so that the entire school had needed to be evacuated. This child would be coming to our house next week.

‘I’ll fetch him at eight.’ she’d said.

‘I can bring him home if you like? Save you coming out?’

‘I’ll fetch him.’

As I left school with the two boys, I thought I heard a ‘good luck with that’ emanating from the gossip group, though I didn’t turn or acknowledge it. As soon as I opened the front door they darted, hooting, in and up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door. The next hour or so, thumping, thudding and shrieking drifted down, punctuated by eerie silences, then they exploded out, into the hallway and through to the garden where they chased around with arms outstretched, trampling in and out of flower beds, hanging from branches or rolling on the grass while I pondered Callum’s mum’s attitudes to cleanliness.

I managed to get them inside and supervise hand washing ready to eat. I’d made sure there was no evidence of Marcus’s birthday; no cards on display, no remains of birthday cake or shreds of wrapping paper. There was a lot of running around the table backwards and forwards before I was able to settle them on chairs, where they wriggled and shouted- Marcus barely recognisable as my quiet child who sat demurely to eat each day. The pizzas were eaten in gung-ho fashion, slices waved around and displayed in open mouths.

This being a playdate meal, I’d cast healthy eating out in favour of child-centred tastes, so I produced chocolate ice-sream sundaes once the remnants of pizza were cleared. I placed Callum’s dish in front of him, whereupon he took a spoonful, climbed on to his chair and pulled the spoon back, catapult-fashion before pinging it across the room, where it stuck to the wall for a moment before sliding down leaving a brown and white skid mark. Marcus sat in open-mouthed admiration then loaded his spoon and began to clamber up.

At this point I intervened. I swept up the two dishes and took them out, returning to find them once more chasing round, arms out, shrieking. As Marcus neared me I grasped his arm, stopping him. His face was flushed, eyes wide and he was panting, almost in a trance as his small chest heaved in and out. Callum continued running and whooping until he reached us and came to a halt.

‘C’mon Marcus!’ he yelled.

I stood holding on to my boy. ‘That’s the end of that game,’ I said, maintaining a smile. ‘We’re going upstairs to play another one now.’

‘Yaaaay!’ Callum screamed with pleasure and ran out of the room and up to the bedroom. I held Marcus’s hand and led him up. He’d come to and was sporting a subdued expression.

‘Don’t come, Mummy,’ he murmured, realisation spreading through his veins and inducing anxiety. ‘It’s alright,’ I said.

The entire room, of course, resembled a bomb site, all of Marcus’s belongings strewn across the carpet or heaped on his bed, which was concealed under a mountain of books and toys, some of which were broken. While Marcus hung back, clinging to me, Callum bounded across the sea of destruction, gathering items and tossing them into the air until I called him.

‘Callum! That’s enough now. It’s time to tidy up. We’re going to do it together’

He began to make for the door but we were standing in front of it. I put my free arm out and stopped him escaping. I allocated jobs- one to pick up books, the other to collect toys. At last, even Callum seemed to have calmed.

‘Mummy- my transformer broke.’ Marcus held up some pieces of his toy as tears welled up. Callum took one of the bits of plastic and waved it. ‘Get a new one!’ he grinned; and Marcus sobbed.

After a time, some areas of carpet and bed appeared. I relented and allowed them downstairs to wait for Callum’s mum, telling them they must sit still and not move until the doorbell went, which it did a few minutes later.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, as he descended the steps to where she stood. She spoke nothing- not a ‘thank you’ or a ‘did they have a good time?’ or ‘alright?’.

‘Goodbye then,’ I said, as she gripped his hand and walked him away towards her bike.

Marcus hadn’t moved from the sofa and sat looking mournful. I joined him and held him tight until he began to yawn, then we went upstairs and he got ready for bed.

‘I don’t want a story tonight, Mummy. I’m too tired,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to choose a different friend to come next time.’ I nodded.

‘Of course,’

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

A Matter of Time

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

Another vintage story in today’s post…

Frith steps out into the grey, depressing familiarity of the patch she still thinks of as a garden at a time she knows is morning from her ancient alarm clock. She glances up into the hazy fog as she does each day, to assess the extent to which a semblance of light may be penetrating. This morning, within the billowing folds of damp cloud a sulphurous, bilious glow hovers like a searchlight beam, providing little in the way of illumination and no warmth, although Frith allows a small thread of encouragement to weave into the start of her day.

Along the cinder pathway fresh layers of fine dust display the prints of the girl’s boots as she moves towards a network of raised beds rising like ghostly islands in the gloom. She pauses by the first rectangular slab, a dark oblong mound constrained by timber planks, crumbling a little now from prolonged exposure to damp and housing what would have been a robust crop of potato plants. Frith adjusts the filter masking her nose and mouth before bending to inspect the nearest plant. A few dark, brittle leaves have struggled to the surface of the dusty heap of soil. She peers at them, unsurprised by their insidious coating and searches for any sign of a flower. They will need to be earthed up again, she decides, grimacing at the idea of the task; digging into the tainted earth will produce a storm of silver powder pluming up and coating all in its descent, including herself.

She walks to the apple tree, a spectral giant in the mist hung with fringes of dull spores and remembers her grandmother describing summer afternoons as a child lying in the shade of it with a book or clambering to the top to teeter on a spindly branch and marvel at the view across the sunlit valley. She shivers, conscious of the oppressive silence that hangs over the garden like the fog. On the tree’s lower branches one or two tiny, misshapen fruits cling in a valiant effort to perpetuate.

Beyond the tree, by the low stone wall that once marked the boundary with a neighbouring property there is a brave, rebellious clump of brambles making a stand against the suffocating effects of fungal invasion, producing fierce, protective thorns and exuberant, wet foliage tinged with hints of green amongst the smoky coating. Frith allows herself to hope for blackberries later on, in the time that used to be called autumn when there were seasons marking changes in climate; months when days were warm, hot even, and periods of fierce cold when the land lay dormant.

The greenhouse is barely visible at the end of the monochrome garden until Frith is near enough to touch its damp and slimy surface. She pulls the door open and steps inside. The tender plants here have not escaped the blight and she surveys the spindly pepper bushes, brittle stalks smothered in grey and moves slowly on towards the end of the small structure where she’s been nursing the tomato seedlings. She stops; holds her breath.

There is a diminutive, amber globe attached to one of the plants, glowing like warm, evening sunlight. She bends to peer at its parent plant. There are two more ripening fruits clinging to the foliage, shining with impudent optimism. Frith stares then throws her head back, an almost hysterical laugh erupting from her lips and her eyes wet with tears.

The sound of footsteps crunching on the path causes her to turn and see the tall, bulky figure of Cal approaching then he is there filling the doorway, his woolly hat jammed tight over his dreadlocks and long scarf wound around his face and neck.

“A brace of coneys,” he tells her. “Not much meat on them but they don’t look to be in too bad a state. We’ll get some broth out of them anyway.”

Her eyes, turned to him are radiant. She shows him the tiny tomatoes illuminating their corner of the greenhouse. “Should we move the plant, do you think, Cal? We could take it inside the house. It might be special, have some immunity. And if we kept the seeds maybe they’d grow into stronger plants still!”

Cal reaches out to pull her to him, enclosing her in his arms, her cheek against the rough tweed of his overcoat. He looks over the top of her head towards the little plant with its defiant tomato warriors and thinks of the children he and Frith might have had. Her face, when it turns up to his, still damp from tears is itself reminiscent of a child’s.

“We’ll leave it be, love. If it is going to resist the blight it’ll do it here. Moving it will make no difference. Come back to the house now and help me skin the rabbits.”

He watches her later, staring at the flames flickering blue around the remnants of decaying logs in the fireplace and knows she is allowing herself to dream of a future.

“Frith love,” he murmurs. “Don’t get your hopes up. I know it was good to see, but not enough to signal any kind of recovery.”

She looks up, frowning, irritated; the extinction of possibility is hard to bear. He takes her hand. “We’ll keep watching it. It could be resistant. Only time will tell.” And he turns back to where the flames are ebbing in the fireplace, reducing the logs to glowing, flaky ash.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

Dark Encounter

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

A sound; footsteps- intruding into my late evening semi-doze. I blink and sit up, mute the TV. Have I been fully asleep and dreaming?

I am alone in this house, children with their father for the weekend and no paying guests at present. I glance at my phone. It’s ten-thirty pm.

A louder sound. The first, a key in the front door, then through the second door into the hallway. I hold my breath and stand, pause before padding to the living room door and listening, my steps carpeted and silent. Even so, I think my breathing must be audible and my pounding heartbeat detectable through the wall. I inhale, then yank open the door and step into the hallway, confronting the intruder. I stare at him. Knowing my face is drained of colour and my eyes are blazing, I force my breathing to slow as I stare at him.

He’d left two weeks ago in a fit of pique, brimming with angry, perceived slights and petty grievances. I hadn’t been ‘welcoming’. I hadn’t done enough to make him feel at home. I’d asked him not to park his car in front of my garage. I hadn’t left enough cupboard storage in my kitchen cabinets for his bulk-buys. The list of my shortcomings as a host had gone on and on. I’d suggested, then, that perhaps he might like to look elsewhere for somewhere to stay, only for him to storm out and slam the hall door with enough velocity to shake the handle loose.

I’d returned from work to find he’d taken me at my word, clearing his belongings from his room and from the kitchen, a discovery that had induced a profound sense of relief.

Now, here he is, back in the house, a look of defiance on his round, shiny face and the medallion he wears glinting in the light as he stands facing me- a short, squat figure.

I’m frowning. ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask him.

He’s twirling keys round and round in his fingers. They are the keys to my house, keys that should have been returned to me when he left. But of course, I wasn’t here when he left. I’m eyeing those keys as they swing around his fingers.

‘I just might have left a few things.’

I remember that when he arrived I’d thought his American accent quirky and interesting. I look up. ‘And you chose ten-thirty pm to come back and get them? As far as I can see, there’s nothing of yours left here in the house.’ I’m forcing my voice to stay low and calm, even as I feel panic rising, my gut churning as I stifle an urge to shriek.

‘You went in my room.’ He takes a step towards me, chin stuck out. I draw back.

‘I assumed you had gone. You haven’t been here for two weeks. Your things, as I said, had all been removed. I needed to go in to clean and prepare for the next guest.’

‘No. You’ve been going in my room all the time.’ He pauses. ‘You’re sick!’ he says.

For a tiny moment I have an urge to laugh, since it’s clear now, if not before, that he has some mental health issues and is the sick one. But I’m also aware that I am alone here with him and must tread around him with light steps. At the same time, however, he needs to see that I’m not about to turn into a shivering jelly under his accusations.

I take a small, casual step sideways so that I’m in touching distance of the landline telephone, which sits on the hall console table.

‘You need to leave. And you need to leave your keys behind.’

He leans closer still. his face glistening and the medallion swinging in the V of his T-shirt. ‘You don’t tell me what to do!’ he hisses, emitting a few specs of spittle and I’m preying they didn’t reach me.

I extend my arm until my hand is hovering over the phone. ‘You need to go,’ I tell him, ‘or I’ll ring the police to come and get you removed.’

He stands stock still, glaring, before lifting his hand and throwing the keys on to the table by the phone, where they gauge a small scrape then slide off on to the parquet with a jangle. Then he turns, walks to the door, yanks it open and slams it behind him, repeating the action with the front door. It feels like the entire house shudders and I hear his footsteps recede down the path, a car door, the loud, coughing, spluttering engine of his clapped out sports car. Then- blessed silence.

I double lock. I push the console table until it’s against the hall door. I make a mental note to call the locksmith in the morning.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

Margaret from the Bakers’

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

Here’s an even older story, inspired by my own father’s fall down the stairs at our house!…

I was even later than usual last night. I take my time getting home, dawdling, unlike setting out in the mornings, when I rush off like a rat up a drainpipe, to use one of dad’s expressions. It’s not that I’m ever late. It’s that my workplace, well, that’s my favourite place in the world. I can never wait to get there. I love everything about it, from the warm, homely smell of the fresh baked bread, to the cackling laughter of my two workmates, Pam and Vi; from the noisy bustle and jangling shop bell to the colourful rows of regimented doughnuts and cherry Bakewells standing to attention in sugary limbo until bagged and ready for action.
Like I said, I was a bit late and as soon as I stepped into the porch I could tell he was rattled, as normally he calls out to me.
“Is that you Margaret?” he will say, which is daft for a start, because who else is it going to be?
If the BBC news at six begins in my absence my dad has no one to share his disgust and outrage with, no one to acquiesce to his views, nod in conformity and admire the wisdom of his analysis. I put on my cheeriest smile before opening the living room door.
“Alright, Dad?” I asked him, realising, of course, that he wouldn’t be. He was scowling at the TV set, a bitter cloud of resentment hanging around his Parker Knoll armchair.
“Why are you so late?” he growled, still fixed on the screen.
“We were short of a few things, so I stopped off at Palmers. I’m getting your tea now. A bit of fish do you tonight?”
Ducking into the kitchen before hearing the inevitable moan I grabbed an apron and began peeling potatoes. I couldn’t explain to Dad what had delayed my homecoming, because he’d be bewildered that the allure of the travel agent’s window could be more powerful than the contents of the six o’clock news, especially when accompanied by his own, insightful comments. Those advertised destinations stir me with their exotic promise; their glamorous names resonate in my mind: Goa, Madeira, Indonesia, Bali, Madagascar. Whilst there is no question that I will ever journey beyond the boundaries of this country I am at heart a traveller, voyaging wherever a travel guide, a brochure, my armchair or my dreams transport me.
An urgent ring of the telephone jerked me from my reverie, so that I dropped the peeler into the saucepan to answer it.
“Hello Margaret. How are you? Is Dad there?”
As usual I noted the lack of pause between enquiry into my wellbeing and the unnecessary query as to Dad’s whereabouts. I took the phone through, mouthing ‘Frank’ as I passed it to him. From the kitchen where I’d resumed supper duties I could hear my father pontificating on the failings of this government and the dreadful consequences of not reintroducing National Service. When I returned to retrieve the handset I was surprised to learn that my brother was still on the line, wishing to speak to me, an occurrence likely to contribute further to Dad’s displeasure.
“Yes Frank. What’s up?”

“What did he want then, Frank?’”
“Oh, he was just asking what you might like for your birthday”. Taking a moment to absorb this he shook his head.
“Frank knows what I like. Dunno why he’d need to be asking you!” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Shall I put one of your Dad’s Army’s on? You like those.’”He grunted in the affirmative and was soon engrossed in his favourite DVD, part of a box set Frank had bought him for Christmas.
Settling down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the latest ‘Hercules Tours’ brochure I ran my fingers over the glossy cover where a photo of the Taj Mahal at sunset called to me like a siren to a sailor.

At work next morning we were sorting out the delivery, stacking the shelves, lining up the pasties under the counter when the door opened and Hot Rod walked in. That isn’t his real name, not the ‘hot’ part anyway; just what Pam and Vi call him. He’s working on the shop conversion next door. Vi nudged me, an ostentatious wink distorting her round, pink face.
“Customer, Margaret!”
I put Rod’s custard Danish into a bag and gave him his change, waiting for him to leave before turning to look at the girls, who were leaning against the loaf slicer, undiscarded tears of laughter welling up and about to flood the shop.
“Tell you what”, declared Pam, “If I was single there’d be no stopping me. You could do a lot worse Margaret, couldn’t she Vi?”
Vi nodded, adding an ambiguous “Or even if she wasn’t single”. Vi never made a secret of her unhappy marriage to Den, whose unsavoury exploits she’d frequently described.
“Have you thought any more about the quiz night on Friday, Margaret, up at the snooker club? We could do with you on our team, with you knowing so much about countries, capitals and all that. Do you good to get out, too. Your dad can cope for a couple of hours, can’t he? My Kevin will come and pick you up. “
These two women have invited me out more times than I’ve made ham sandwiches and I’d always declined, citing my father as a reason, but for once I felt a bubble of rebellion growing inside and heard myself say, “Alright. Why not” to the flabbergasted looks of my friends.
At home I scrutinised the contents of my narrow wardrobe, hoping to discover some forgotten item that might be suitable for an evening out, but the occupants of the hangers retained a resolute familiarity in their service as work clothes. I could not recall the last time I’d been to a social gathering, still less the outfit I’d have worn. Perhaps I should buy something new, although I was forced to acknowledge that dressing for Friday’s outing was the least of my problems.
I waited until Thursday evening to broach the subject. I made sure I was home before six, made his favourite liver and bacon for supper, agreed that Frank had done very well for himself and was the best son anyone could have. Once this eulogy had subsided I took a breath.
“I’m going out tomorrow night, Dad. Pam from work’s invited me to a quiz. She and her partner are picking me up at seven.”
Although I’d taken pains not to blurt it out in a rush, my announcement rang with triumphant accomplishment as if I’d entered into high society, like Eliza Doolittle going to the races. I felt myself redden as he turned to look at me, something he rarely does, a small, perplexed frown knotting his brow.
“Pam from work?”
Keeping my resolve, I maintained the cheerful smile I didn’t feel, nevertheless I began to bluster in an attempt to mitigate the awful consequences my absence would bring about.

“I’ll do your supper, Dad, before I go and I’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need to hand. You can always phone me if there’s an emergency. I won’t be late back so I’ll be here for bedtime as usual.”
He turned away, seeming to sag and shrivel in the chair like a cushion with the stuffing pulled out.
“I’ll be going to bed now, Margaret, if you please.” That was all he said, but whilst I couldn’t escape the feeling of portent his silence carried I was filled with a bullish determination, so that I muttered ‘I AM going out’ repeatedly while I got his Horlicks and made his hot water bottle.

There was a skittish, party atmosphere in the shop next morning as the girls teased me about the evening to come, a flippant suggestion from Pam as to whether ‘Hot Rod’ might like to join us and a cross-examination from Vi over the intended outfit. The pleasure I normally derived from these exchanges, however was tempered by nagging anxiety, as my morning ministrations had been met by stony, grim faced silence from my father, prompting me to whisper ‘I’m STILL going out’ as I left the house.
Later, dashing homewards it was difficult to say whether my feverish nerves were due to the impending, unaccustomed jaunt or uneasiness about my father. Letting myself in I sensed a barely perceptible alteration in the atmosphere as if the air held an electrical charge, even though the television was burbling away as usual and Dad ensconced in front of it. I got no response to my ‘alright, Dad?’ or when I brought him the tray bearing his supper, upon which I’d lavished great care and attention.
“Right Dad, I’m going up to get ready now”, I said, but might as well have told it the TV screen. I went up and began attempting to squeeze myself into a black skirt I’d last worn about eighteen months ago and which had seemed a good idea for the quiz outing until I tried the recalcitrant zip. Gearing up for one last tug I was holding my breath and wrenching in my girth when I caught the sound of a thud from below. I let go of the zip and nipped out to the landing, skirt sagging round my hips. Beneath me at the foot of the stairs lay my father, prone, limbs flopping like a rag doll’s. I ran down. My heart beat with a strident pounding that throbbed in my chest and ears. Leaning down I noticed a liquid red line emerge from under his head and flow along following the join in the laminate floor. I straightened, stepped over him and into the kitchen. On the table the ‘Hercules Tours’ brochure remained, impassive, bearing a picture of the Taj under a blood red sky. I grabbed the phone and the kitchen towel, sat down on the hall floor. I lifted his head gently onto the towel, then my lap, observing the pale, waxy pallor of his skin, the shallow rasp of his breathing. I punched 999 into the phone, gave all the details.
“It’s alright Dad. There’s help coming” I said, as I smoothed the wisp of baby soft hair from his face. His eyelids, papery and almost translucent, trembled and his thin lips jerked to produce a word.
“Margaret?”
“Yes Dad. I’m here. You’re safe. Stay still now, till the ambulance comes.”
His voice quavered as a glint of wetness materialised in the corner of his eye.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Margaret.”
There was a distant sound of a siren now, as the ambulance approached. I looked away from him.
“I know Dad, I know.”

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

Unmanned on a Wednesday

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

So here’s another vintage short story, in which two women meet in a laundrette…

Muriel stood outside on the pavement and examined the information on display, mouthing the words: opening hours, the management accepts no responsibility…

Shielding her eyes against reflection, she peered into the gloom, scanning for signs of life, hoping for an efficient counter assistant to relieve her of her bulky bundle; someone who was familiar with the machines and the vagaries of washing one’s dirty linen in public. Inside she could make out a figure, bending to pull open a circular door.

She inhaled, grasped the handle of the bag with one hand and pushed the door with the other, hearing its incongruous jangle as she dragged the holdall in through the entrance to the launderette.

The figure straightened, turned to acknowledge her presence with a smiling ‘Hello’ then continued to feed clothing into the open mouth of the washer, flicking items or turning them inside out.

Muriel looked around. The atmosphere was oppressive with the stifling damp of detergent fumes and hummed with churning dryers and the whirring of front loaders as they went into intermittent, furious spins. She approached an idle machine warily as if it were a stray dog and studied the instructions. It needed some pound coins. She dug into her bag for her purse.

A voice hailed her from the row of chairs opposite.

“There’s a coin dispenser if you need change. It’s on the wall by the service counter.” It was a lilting, youthful voice, the words coloured with a tint of accent.

Muriel turned to face the voice, the young woman having sat down, a dog eared magazine unopened on her lap.

“A coin dispenser?” she replied, “Oh, I see-for pounds to go in the slot. Sorry! You must think I’m an idiot! I’m not used to these places. I thought there would be someone here, to take the laundry and deal with it.”

In the ensuing pause she became aware that she’d spewed out her inadequacy like an over indulgence of champagne.

The seated woman smiled again. She had an elegant, restful face; a long nose above a wide mouth accustomed to laughter.

“It’s unmanned on a Wednesday and in the evenings,” she informed the older woman. “Don’t worry. It’s quite easy when you get the hang of it, as it were.” She grinned, extracting an inadvertent smile from Muriel, who negotiated the change machine, returned to the washer and stuffed as much of the contents of the bag as she could into its gaping aperture.

“They don’t like being overloaded,” cautioned her companion. “It might be better to split the load between two machines.”

Once the two appliances were humming in harmonious tandem Muriel sat down next to her mentor and the two watched the revolving drums in a shared trance.

“You must be a regular at this,” she ventured. “You seem to be an expert.”

The young woman shrugged. “I’ve no washing machine in my tiny flat. I don’t mind it; in fact I enjoy coming. I get to read the trashy magazines I wouldn’t buy or admit to enjoying.”

“Except for tonight!”

She laughed; a light, infectious laugh.

“Oh no, I didn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying some company for a change! I come from a large family back in Ireland so talking is what I’m used to. But what brings you here? Has your home machine broken down?”

Muriel sighed. “The new one can’t be delivered until next week. I may have to visit a second time before it comes. You might have to suffer my company again.”

“I’d like that! What’s your name?”

“Muriel.”

“I’m Niamh.” She put a slender hand out to shake.

They watched the circulating fabrics in silence. Muriel thought it curious how an item would present itself at the front in the spotlight for a few seconds then withdraw to make way for a different article’s display. One of the dryers ground to a halt, prompting Niamh to stand, pull the door open and inspect the progress of its contents. Muriel continued to watch the revolving laundry behind the doors, her attention drawn to an item, the colours of which seemed familiar. Perhaps she had an identical tablecloth or bed linen; a coincidence. The piece of laundry came and went, teasing her in its intermittent exhibition.

Having reinvigorated the dryer with more coins, Niamh returned to sit.

“I see you’re married,” she said. “Do you have children?”

Muriel flushed. Accustomed to her own company or the stilted, polite society of her husband’s associates and their wives she was unused to striking up spontaneous conversations with strangers on subjects of a personal matter. Not for her the inconsequential chatter of the supermarket queue or the doctor’s waiting room. Her groceries were delivered, her healthcare private. But she was both flattered and warmed by this beautiful young woman’s attention and besides, she’d brought nothing to do or to read, not having considered she would have to undertake the task of washing the laundry herself.

She nodded. “I do, though they’ve flown the nest. The youngest is at university.”

“So you’ve more time to spend with your husband now, is that it?”

The older woman raised her eyebrows. “You would think so, but no. My husband spends more time at work since the children grew up and left; late evenings and overnight to different cities, for training sessions, he says. So I’m on my own most of the time.”

“This is a night out for you then!”

Infected by her familiarity, Muriel felt emboldened.

“You are not married yourself?”

She hesitated. “No. I am kind of seeing someone though.”

“Kind of?”

She gazed into the gyrating turmoil of clothes. “It’s complicated.”

“You mean he’s married.”

Muriel stared at the circulating washing. She realised now what the familiar item was. She was sure it was a shirt; one that her husband used to wear, but hadn’t for some time. She could remember where he’d bought it, when they’d been on holiday in Italy. It was an expensive, designer shirt; flamboyant, the colours an unusual mix of purple, red and cream, the design vivid and abstract like a Picasso painting.

A machine to the right of them jolted into an angry whirl as it prepared for its rinse cycle. Muriel continued to gaze into the enigmatic circle where the mingling colours jostled for prominence.

“I’m not shocked,” she said, once the raging machine had settled for a quiet, resentful simmer, “but it makes me sad. I’m guessing he’s an older man? I’d say you were too good for him, too young and lovely to waste your life on him.” She hauled her eyes away from the washer, from which a trickling sound issued.

Niamh drew out a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose. “I don’t know why I’m opening up to you like this. I’ve not told anyone else. You must be easier to talk to than most people. I would never be able to confide in my mother like I’m confessing to you. Can we chat again next time you come? We could go for a coffee or something.”

Muriel was silent, contemplating the revolving drum. It turned this way and that as if undecided. The younger woman stood abruptly and began pulling articles from the dryer, which had churned to a grumbling halt. The Italian shirt tumbled out into a pale blue, plastic basket, pock marked with cigarette burns. She had her back to Muriel, speaking harshly into the cavernous cylinder.

“I’ve been too personal, haven’t I? I’m always like this with people; not reserved enough, nattering like we’ve known each other for years. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. Say something. Please.”

She turned around. She had the shirt in her hand. Muriel nodded at it. “I see you don’t send his washing home for his wife to do.”

Niamh held the hot garment against her cheek as if the spirit of her lover was bound within its vibrant folds. “I love to do things for him,” she said. “I pretend I’m married to him. I spend hours finding new recipes to cook for him. I like to open the wardrobe and see some of his clothes hanging next to mine. That way I’ve got some small part of him when he’s not with me.” Facing the dryer as she closed the door, she missed the fleeting look of weary scorn that passed over Muriel’s face. A stab of cruelty thrust out, threatening to pierce the friendly bubble of shared confidences.

“He won’t leave his wife, you know. They never do.”

“He is going to leave. He’s waiting for the right time to tell her. He’s sensitive to her needs. I love that about him.”

She was folding garments now and placing them into a rectangular laundry bag. There was a brisk manner to the way she was pushing the clothes into the bag, as if she could press her conviction into the still warm fabrics.

“I wonder if he knows what her needs are.”

“She’s been occupied looking after the children all these years and now they’re growing up and leaving-like yours are. He has to wait for her to find a new direction in her life; something to fill the void her children have left. You must know how that feels. How have you coped with the extra time on your hands?”

Muriel smiled an enigmatic, knowing smirk. “Oh I like to travel. I’m always planning the next holiday and preparing for it. I like comfortable hotels in beautiful locations with wonderful, scenic views. I enjoy eating in expensive restaurants, shopping in exclusive stores and finding exquisite, original art works.”

She paused to observe the effect her words were having.

Niamh stared, transfixed as she listened then nodded, grinning, her creamy skin pink with enthusiasm. “My man is well travelled. He’s going to take me on exotic trips once he’s free.”

She lifted the strap of her leather satchel over her head and gripped the handle of the chequered bag. She looked at Muriel.

“Shall I see you at the same time next week?”

“It’s possible.”

“Go on, you know you want to! I can give you an update on progress. I’m seeing him tomorrow night. He might have told her by then! Bye for now!”

She pulled open the door and stepped out, leaving the bell jangling. Muriel watched as she crossed the road, negotiating the passing traffic, tossing her head to rid the glossy, dark fringe from her eyes. Then she disappeared round a corner. Although the two machines had stopped, Muriel continued to sit in the silent laundrette. Outside the light was beginning to fade and glare from the headlights of passing vehicles cast intermittent flashes into the scruffy room.

It would soon be time to start packing, she thought, wondering what she would need this time.

She was jerked from her thoughts by the strident ring of her phone.

“Ah, I’ve got you. Where are you, Mu? I got home hours ago!”

“I had to come to one of those laundry places. The new washer won’t be delivered until next week.”

“Good God, Mu! Don’t these places collect and deliver or something?”

His voice crackled. “Anyway, never mind that now. I’ve found us some flights to Geneva. Thought we’d do the Swiss lakes. Fancy it? The flights are on Friday morning. I’ve just got a meeting tomorrow night to tie up some loose ends then I’ll be free.”

Muriel stood, pocketing the phone, savouring the anticipation. Last time they’d stayed at the Grand Hotel Kempinski on the lake. Their room had overlooked the Jet d’eau fountain. She would have to contact an ironing service in the morning, one that could do a rush job. She could spend tomorrow evening researching excursions and places to eat.

She crammed her laundry items into the holdall in an unceremonious bunch, stuffing recalcitrant clothes down into the corners, heedless of the creases that would form as they dried. When the zip gaped in an obstinate refusal to close over the bulging, newly laundered items she capitulated and grasped the handles, leaving it open in her haste to be away. She pulled the door, hearing its accompanying clank for the last time as she tugged the bag through to the outside. Trudging past the window she glanced back in at the stark, Spartan room, the plastic chairs and the worn lino and exhaled a profound, heartfelt sigh of relief.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

The Group

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

A brand new fiction short occupies today’s post.

Stella Tutton and her younger friend, Samantha are already seated at the table Beth reserved when she arrives. She sits opposite them in the circle, which still has room for four more members.

‘So how are you both?’ Beth begins and they respond with nods and ‘OKs’. Beth makes an internal sigh while maintaining her smile. Stella will have brought her customary, poetic offering, having made no attempt to act on any of her suggestions and Samantha will have written nothing, although ‘had some ideas’.

The library, contrary to traditional values and expectations, is not a quiet, contemplative haven. Across the large, open space, in the newspaper and magazine area, a large man with an exuberant beard is guffawing whilst patting a smaller, older man on the back. Meanwhile, away in a distant corner which houses the children’s books, toddlers and pre-schoolers are arriving for their ‘sing and play’ session with Tracey, the beleaguered librarian who runs it. They are running around the bookcases and squealing while Tracey tries to muster them and doll out instruments, before they sit down in their circle.

Beth turns back to her two companions. ‘It’s not the quietest day, is it? This is the most private table I could find.’ She’s aware then, of a figure standing at her shoulder,casting a shadow on to her laptop case. Without turning, she knows it’s Christopher. Christopher is unable to arrive and sit downwithout a rigmarole of some sort. He is ensuring he is seen and remarked upon before he settles, a strategy Beth has learnt to ignore, saying ‘Hello Christopher. Come and join us’, while opening her laptop.

He launches into a description of his jottings of the month. Beth halts him with her hand.

‘Christopher’, she interrupts, mustering a grin, ‘we haven’t quite started yet. Give it a couple of minutes. We’re expecting two new members today.’

This means, of course, that one new member may turn up, or that no one will turn up. Stella opens her folder at a page on which she has written her new poem. A quick glance assures Beth that it is the usual offering of four-line verses and she can predict with unwavering certainty that it will be in rhyming couplets. Stella will have bent over backwards so far that the back of her head touched her heels to make sure the lines rhyme. Should Beth ask Stella to begin today? And get it over with? Or should she give in to Christopher’s twitchy impatience and have him start? He is tapping his blue biro on the table now, a staccato morse code leaving circles of tiny blue dots on the formica top.

A portly, elderly man arrives at the table. wheezing. He places a clear zippy-bag down and pulls out a chair next to Samantha. Beth greets him.

‘Roger?’

‘Yes. Roger Pullen; or you can call me by my pen name: Hayden Chandler. You can call me Rog or Hayden. I don’t mind!’ He chuckles, thrusting out a hand, which Beth takes, glimpsing down at the zippy-bag, which contains a a paperback inside its clear plastic. Oh. Roger intends to treat everyone to an extract from what is, almost certainly, a self-published novel. Her heart sinks to an even lower part of her stomach.

‘Can I go first today? I’ve got to go in half an hour,’ Christopher always says this. Beth has explained many times that he needs to listen to others’ contributions to help with the critique and that he will benefit from this as much as he will from hearing other’s opinions on his own offering. But it is hopeless. He wants compliments, praise, a soothed, pampered ego. Then he will stand up and leave.

‘I’m going to ask Samantha to start us off today, if you would, please? What have you got for us?’ Beth knows the answer will be ‘nothing’ but asks her anyway. Samantha grins, unabashed.

‘I don’t have nothing on paper.’ She indicates the brown exercise book on the table in front of her. ‘But I got some ideas. I’m going to write about my cat, Cissy.’

Beth nods, trying to block out the furious biro tapping on her right. ‘Good- will it be like a kind of diary, then?’

‘Er…yeah. Yeah- like a diary.’ Samantha looks delighted.

‘So- Roger.’ Beth turns to the newcomer. ‘Have you brought something to read to us? Or would you prefer to sit out and listen today?’

He leans back, a smug smile on his face as he unzips the bag and withdraws his book. He clears his throat. ‘I can read you a passage from my latest novel, if you like.’ He holds it up so that everyone can see the book jacket. It bears a picture of a screaming woman’s head with a hand holding a knife at her throat. The book is entitled ‘Murder at the Office’ in blood, red letters. Beth attempts a faint smile. ‘Right. Can you give us a brief synopsis then, Roger?’ He obliges and as far as she can recall, the storyline owes much to the plot of a Philip Marlowe story she read as a teenager.

Roger turns to the middle of the book and begins to read:

‘Her soft, creamy skin split apart as the knife slid across her white throat and a river of blood gushed from the wound. The killer stepped back, smiling as he…’

Christopher leaps to his feet, purple faced. ‘I can’t listen to this!’ he yells. ‘It’ll start my turns again, bring back memories of my attack! I’ll have to go!’ and he snatches up his notebook and storms away across the library, leaving them all to stare after him.

‘Yes- well…thank you Roger. I think we’ve got the idea. ‘Stella- what did you think of Roger’s extract and his ideas?’

Stella looks up from her poem. ‘Yeah- um- good’, she mutters..

‘Samantha?’

‘Yeah. It’s quite good; not my kind of thing though.’ Beth pursues the remark. ‘What’s your kind of thing then?’

‘Well, you know, animals and stuff.’

Unable to put it off any longer, Beth looks at Stella and is about to ask her to read when Christopher reappears, plonking himself down and grunting. ‘It’s me now, isn’t it?’

‘I’m asking Stella to read next, Christopher. We thought you’d left.’

His face reddens to dark magenta but he says nothing, rather takes up his biro and resumes tapping. Stella begins.

‘Bells ring out this time of year

To bring us all some festive cheer

Carol singers at the door

With voices that we can’t ignore‘

The poem, two and a half pages of it, comes to an end. Stella has stopped and is looking expectant, though Beth’s mind has wandered and she’s taken nothing in since the first verse. She looks at Roger.

‘What do you think, Roger?’

He looks startled. ‘Er…of course I don’t know anything about poetry, but it all rhymed, didn’t it?’

‘Yes, yes, it does rhyme. Samantha,how do you feel about Stella’s poem?’

‘I loved it.’

‘What did you love about it?’

‘The words. I loved the words.’

Beth stifles a yawn. ‘Christopher?’

‘Yeah?’

‘What did you think of Stella’s poem?’

He shrugs. ‘Dunno’,

Beth explains their next assignment, packs up her laptop and bids them goodbye. She goes to the reception desk, where Alex smiles and, as she does each month, tells her what a great job she’s doing for the community. Beth takes a breath- she’s been meaning to give up leading the group for the last six months.

‘Actually, Alex, I…’

‘I don’t know what we’d do without you, Beth!’

She steps outside into the cold, night air and walks home.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

A Neighbourly Manner

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Grace Lessageing

So here’s another, ancient, long–short story– apologies to those who’ve read it before!

‘I wonder what she sees in him?’ I kept saying.

‘Leave it alone, can’t you?’ Richard grumbled, or he would shake out a new page of his newspaper in a crackling signal of finality. But one month on the events following that afternoon dogged me as I weeded the border or strolled along the lane to the farm for eggs.

After we’d received the invitation I’d been full of excited zeal, wanting to make a reciprocal gesture before we’d even taken a step along the wide sweep of their driveway, but Richard had curbed my ambitions by frowning,

‘Let’s wait and see how it goes. We haven’t met them yet. We are only neighbours, nothing more. By all accounts they are society people so I don’t suppose we will be of any interest to them except as a kind of ‘country bumpkin’ story for their London friends.’

Despite my husband’s dashing of cold water, I continued to harbour fanciful thoughts of what might transpire. I knew that the manor house next door received a constant flow of visitors despite the seedy state of its accommodation. Some were well known figures in publishing, the media or the arts, invoking thrilling fantasies of meeting someone famous. Who knew what might transpire? This could be the beginning of a series of gatherings to which we were part. I began to run a mental inventory of the contents of my wardrobe and concluded it was lacking in some areas.

The previous occupant’s attempt to run Chiddlehampton Manor as a hotel had failed in a gurgling whirlpool of bankruptcy, depression and alcohol dependency. Villagers who had worked there told of stained carpets and mouldy en suites in the twenty three bedrooms; slimy, brown grease covering kitchen surfaces, dwindling bottles in the wine cellar, failed initiatives such as ‘poker breaks’ or ‘murder mystery weekends’ attracting a desultory handful of revellers and resulting in increasing event cancellations.

The parlous nature of the building lent even more urgency to my desire to see it and to meet the latest occupants, who wanted it for a country retreat, no less. A country retreat! Twenty three bedrooms and bathrooms, a ballroom, eight acres of grounds containing stables and seven cottages for staff plus a vast, walled garden with endless greenhouses-all now fallen into disrepair; disintegrating into the chalky, Dorset soil from which it had risen.

There was a blustery March wind gusting across the fields as we walked through the open gate into the driveway; gaps in the two rows of elegant beeches that bordered the sweeping drive, and fallen branches. Weeds punctuated the centre of the crumbling tarmac as it curled around to reveal the yellow stone manor house nestling in a dip below.

I stopped for a moment to admire it, tucking the box of homemade shortbread under my arm. Richard had scoffed.

‘They won’t want that. Their sort is used to posh nosh; Fortnum and Mason, Harrods, all that sort of thing’. I’d ignored him of course, as only one who is shackled to a curmudgeon for thirty two years can.

Even in a decadent state the manor is beautiful. A graceful old house whose romantic symmetry complements the rustic setting of rolling Dorset countryside. As we approached the columns of the grand portico I shivered, hanging back as Richard strode up to the vast, oak door and pressed the bell in his no-nonsense way.

In the ensuing hiatus my misgivings expanded. ‘Do you think they’ve forgotten?’

Richard snorted. ‘Let’s hope so! Then we can go home and have a cup of tea.’ But steps could be heard echoing inside.

I’d heard plenty about him from villagers, in the pub or at the community shop but I was still unprepared for the experience of meeting Jackson Agnew. That he was ‘upper class’, ‘stinking rich’and ‘ponsy’ was circulating the public bar of The Cuckoo, with ‘a bleeding, towny nob’ thrown in by Noah Barnes, Bendick Farm’s cowman, who was not known for holding back on his opinions. Little had been expressed about Dr Agnew’s companion; whether she was partner or wife or daughter no one knew, only that she was ‘posh totty’ [Noah Barnes again] and thought by some to be a model or an actress.

The door was not so much opened as flung wide and filled with him; with Jackson Agnew. His frame crammed the doorway, everything broad, everything extended, from his lengthy arm and thin fingers reaching out to shake Richard’s to his gaping grin and booming ‘Hello hello-Welcome to my humble abode!’

Once I’d followed my husband into the hallway my own hand was enveloped and squeezed. ‘We meet at last!’ he said and his voice was like a deep, mellow gong echoing around the cavern of a hall with its bare walls and floorboards. After I’d glanced around the barren space I noticed he was scrutinising our faces, hungry for our reactions.

‘I expect you’ve been in here hundreds of times, haven’t you?’

Richard was peering up at the ceiling, eager for a sign of damp, death watch or woodworm. He avoided Jackson’s gaze as he replied.

‘We haven’t lived in the village all that long ourselves; retired here from Bristol eighteen months ago. We had no cause to come to the hotel. If we want a drink we go to the pub.’

‘We met the Judds, of course, out and about, you know, when walking the dog,’ I added.

Jackson grinned. ‘Yes. Pour souls. What a state they got into. Shall we move into the lounge and we can rustle up a cup of tea, or something stronger if you like?’ He looked beyond us to an open doorway, calling, ‘Darling, our neighbours are here.’

We walked through into what had been the hotel bar but was now being used as a makeshift kitchen and dining room. Here, overhead the ceiling was adorned in an ornate series of murals decorated in gold leaf portraying rotund cherubs cavorting with plump maidens in diaphanous robes. Jackson caught me scrutinising it and barked in noisy mirth.

‘What do you think of that? Someone went to town, didn’t they? Are you familiar with the Baroque style at all? Ah, there she is! Darling! These are our nearest neighbours, Richard and er…’

I broke in. ‘Lena’

‘Lena, of course. Richard and Lena.’

She was standing behind the bar, motionless, an almost smile on her lips; eyes that had been fixed upon him moving in a slow turn towards Richard and myself. In that moment I understood why all of the descriptions of her had been correct and at the same time wrong, because while she was young and undeniably beautiful there was no element of Hollywood style; no trappings that could be considered cosmetic enhancement. And one thing was clear. She could not in any way be mistaken for his daughter, since no daughter in the world would ever look at her father like that.

She moved around to join us, extending a hand, first to me.

‘Imogen.’

Her voice was soft and low and her neat features dominated by intense, deep blue eyes that held mine; her short, glossy cap of black hair a stark contrast with the near translucent pallor of her skin. She took my proffered shortbread, murmuring ‘how kind’ before placing the plastic box on the bar.

While Richard’s responses are never obvious I noticed from the widening of his eyes and a slight flare of his nostrils when she took his hand that he was impressed.

‘Now’

We swung towards the master of the estate. He had a look of Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp mustering his numerous children as he addressed us.

‘Shall I take you for a tour before we have tea?’

I nodded before catching my husband’s expression, which was set into ‘I don’t want to be here much longer’ mode. He glanced at his watch.

‘Perhaps just a short tour’ I suggested, and we followed Jackson through the connecting doors at the end of the bar into the adjoining drawing room; another vast, empty space with tall windows facing on to the grounds and adorned with only a huge, stone fireplace.

As we wandered through the network of rooms I hung back to allow Richard and Jackson to get beyond earshot and Imogen to draw level with me as I pretended to examine a carved mantel.

‘It’s all so big,’ I began, gesturing at the room. ‘Whatever will you do with it all? Do you have a large family to fill it up?’

‘Oh no,’ she shrugged. ‘I have one son and Jackson has a stepdaughter. But he loves large rooms and he wants a project now that he is semi retired.’

‘And how about you?’ I asked her.

‘I won’t be retiring any time soon.’ She gave that enigmatic half smile, yet I was undeterred.

‘And do you work in the same field, in art dealing?’

She smiled a little wider then, as if enjoying a private joke. ‘Oh no, no-nothing so glamorous; I am a nurse.’ Though my surprise must have registered on my face she was disinclined to elaborate. I pressed on. ‘It will be difficult for you to spend so much time here then.’

She began to walk in the direction of the men’s voices, speaking swiftly, clandestine-voiced, over her shoulder.

‘We don’t live together, Jackson and I. He lives in Kensington and I am not so far from here, in Dorchester. We meet at weekends.’

I caught her up, wanting to know more but she was intent on reuniting our group.

Jackson was explaining his plans to Richard, his long arms waving about and his cultured vowels bouncing around the bare walls. When we approached my husband gave me a meaningful stare, which I chose to disregard.

‘We thought we’d make this our kitchen as it’s so sunny. Imo would like to turn it into a monument to Monet-all yellow walls and blue tiles, but I like a bit of sexy steel and glass myself.’ He beamed at us, ruffling Imogen’s glossy hair and she closed her eyes, liquefying under his touch. Throughout the remainder of the tour she stayed close to her man as if every moment without him was wasted.

All attempts to engage Richard in feedback regarding the visit were quashed, his only remark being ‘bought himself a trophy wife.’ I knew better than to argue, but it was obvious to me that beautiful Imogen was infatuated with her distinguished, older lover, wealthy or not.

We saw nothing of our new neighbours in the ensuing two weeks, but before we’d left that afternoon I’d elicited permission from Jackson to walk our dog, Molly, in the grounds of the manor and for Richard and me to continue to walk across them as a short cut to the pub.

‘Do as you like, my dear!’ he’d roared, throwing a gangly arm around my shoulders, ‘It’s Liberty Hall!’

And so it was the next weekend, while walking with Molly down the driveway, pausing to admire the view of the house with infinite swathes of daffodils surrounding it that I spotted a figure striding along ahead of me, dressed in a voluminous raincoat, wellington boots and a sou’wester hat; a vigorous, purposeful gait, head erect, hands in pockets.

‘Not Jackson Agnew’, I surmised, since he was taller and I’d the distinct impression that it was a woman; yet the figure lacked Imogen’s neat style, from the rear at least.

Our gregarious Jack Russell terrier had rushed ahead to greet the walker, who stopped and bent to the little dog. I could see from the profile it was indeed female and not Imogen. As I drew close the woman grinned as she made a fuss of Molly.

‘Good Morning! Friendly dog! I am Kristina and I guess you must be our neighbour-Lena, perhaps?’

I may have looked as confused as I felt, for she waited for my response, continuing to grin in an abstract, good natured way. Since she appeared older than Imogen I assumed she must be a relative, possibly a sister of Jackson’s, except that she spoke in a heavy enough accent to demonstrate that she was not of British origin, perhaps Scandinavian. She had a flamboyant, Bohemian look; red curls escaping from the sou’wester, bare legs between the Mac and the boots.

We strolled on together. A scud of spring rain began to sprinkle us. ‘Are you here for long?’ I asked her. She tilted her head to the sky, allowing drops of rain to fall on to her face and into her open mouth.

‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ she laughed. ‘I love English weather! We are just here for the weekend. My daughter must not be left alone for too long. She is supposed to study for her exams but without supervision, well I guess you know what teenagers are like. But these builders, they must also be supervised.’

We were almost at the house, which was encased in the cage of scaffolding that had arrived and been erected during the week in readiness for the replacement of the roof, a renovation that had prompted Richard to describe Jackson Agnew as having money to burn.

I remained silent, absorbing the ‘we’. Imogen had also used ‘we’. Was she here at the manor too? Who was Kristina? She was surely too old to be the stepdaughter Imogen had mentioned.

We parted company with a ‘see you again’ from Kristina as I made my way around to the rear of the manor, where Jackson’s BMW was parked, though not Imogen’s Fiesta. ‘She could be out’, I thought, ‘she could be shopping or running an errand’ but I felt this couldn’t be true. The most likely thing was that she was working.

Richard, when I described the events of my walk declared that he was neither surprised nor interested in ‘that man’s affairs’, but I was disappointed not to have seen Imogen, who I’d hoped to involve in village life. I’d saved some literature for her about parish activities and was hoping to have a conversation with her about the village History Society. I couldn’t help wondering if she knew Kristina was there, or even if she knew of the other woman’s existence.

We left Chiddlehampton and the UK a few days later to spend April in Marbella with our son, who works there as an architect. We prefer to visit in spring or autumn when the Spanish temperatures are less sweltering than in summer.

On the day following our return I collected Molly from some friends in the village who look after her when we are away and decided from her disgruntled expression and affronted manner that I should offer a brisk walk as a placatory gesture, so I combined this with a route through the estate. I was keen to learn what changes had occurred and who might be in residence.

In our absence the mature trees in the grounds had taken advantage of the balmy May sunshine to burst into blossom so that intermittent drifts of white or pink petals showered across in a light breeze. Scaffolding was still in place around the creamy walls, although the roof replacement looked to be almost complete.

Around the back in the car park area I noticed that an unsightly, corrugated pergola had been removed to reveal a semi-circle of elegant columns, a stunning feature. Jackson then had not been idle. His car was parked next to one of the sets of French windows facing the lawns. I loitered for a few minutes in hopes of spotting him or Imogen, or even Kristina, but with no obvious signs of human activity I continued through to the meadows with Molly.

That evening, when Richard suggested we stroll down to the pub and catch up with some village news, I needed no persuasion. Since the evenings had drawn out and drawn the locals out, the garden of the Cuckoo was as busy as the two bars, making it tricky work getting to buy a drink. I noticed that most of the tables were occupied with diners, too.

We’d just managed to gain access to the counter and the attention of the bar staff when I felt a rangy arm clamp around my neck and winced as a deafening voice boomed in my ear.

‘Well, well! The wanderers have returned! Welcome back you two. Did you have a good time? You must come down and see all the changes we’ve made. You won’t recognise the place! We have a table over in the alcove. Come and join us. You will let me get those, won’t you, old chap?’

This was addressed to Richard, who’d not turned his head during the greeting, but responded while taking a note from his wallet and handing it across the counter.

‘We only came in for a quick one.’

I could have predicted my husband’s reply, however I was not about to allow an opportunity to talk with one of the two women pass me by.

‘But we’ll come and say Hello. Where are you sitting?’ A quick scan of the tables revealed no one resembling either of them.

We picked up our drinks and followed Jackson through the throng to the alcove. A woman was seated there, not Imogen, not Kristina; a young woman with a mane of dark curls and a heavy pasting of make-up, dark, sooty eyelids and a scarlet gash of lips. Jackson introduced us. When she stood she revealed a swell of cleavage above the line of her blouse.

‘This is my friend Liliana. She is an architect and has come to help with the interior design plans.’

The woman placed her hands on Richard’s shoulders and kissed his cheek, one side followed by the other, continental style. Her fingers, resting on my husband’s upper arms were long and tapered, nails topped with the same livid red as her mouth; as she leaned to offer the same treatment to me I caught a whiff of sweet, pungent perfume.

‘I am happy to meet you’ she breathed; her speech coloured with a strong Latin accent which was confirmed by Jackson’s adjunct.

‘Liliana is Italian.’

Beside me on the bench, Richard was silent, concentrating his attention on his pint of Best as Jackson continued.

‘She is also a terrific artist. We’ve brought some of her canvases down to see where they’ll hang. You must come and take a look.’

As he spoke the woman’s lips smiled in their red slash, her eyes narrowing until I thought she might purr like a pampered cat stretched on a hearthrug. To fill the conversational void I murmured something non-committal and took a sip of my wine. Richard lifted his glass and tipped it back it in uncharacteristic gulps before turning to me.

‘We can’t be too long, Lena. Don’t forget Bob is coming round this evening.’

As we walked back along the lane I asked him, ‘Who on Earth is Bob?’

‘No one. Anyone. What does it matter?’ he replied, ‘I just couldn’t spend any more of my time with that insufferable man.’

The May weather turned unsettled as some gusty showers blew over in the middle of the next week and it was during a heavy downpour on Wednesday evening that the bell rang. I’d been clearing up the kitchen and Richard was upstairs in the study editing his latest batch of Spanish photographs. I hadn’t heard a car pull up so I assumed it was someone from the village as I opened the door.

It was Imogen, though barely recognisable as the radiant girl of six weeks ago. With her hair plastered to her head and her thin shirt stuck to her, soaking, she looked bedraggled. She also appeared to be in some distress, from her red-rimmed eyes and stricken expression. I reached out and all but tugged her inside the hallway, where she stood dripping, her thin shoulders shuddering. I wasted no time.

‘Whatever has happened?’ I asked her. ‘Come into the lounge. I’ll put the fire on!’

Her mouth opened to speak and produced only a shivering sob as she allowed me to tow her into the living room.

‘Wait here,’ I told her, ‘I’ll get you something dry to wear.’

I went upstairs and hissed at Richard’s enquiring face as I grabbed a towelling robe then I dashed back and pulled it around her before sitting her down in an armchair like a child. ‘I’m going to put the kettle on,’ I said, and by the time I’d returned my husband had seated himself in the chair next to her. He glanced at me.

‘Let’s all have a cup of tea,’ he suggested.

As I left the room she began to mumble in halting sentences dotted with ‘sorrys’ and ‘thank yous’ until Richard leaned forward, put his fingers together and asked her, ‘Can you tell us what is wrong?’

By the time I’d set the tray down she was into her dismal story, which was no less depressing for being predictable; a whirlwind, fairy tale romance rising from a chance meeting with a charming, wealthy, practised, older suitor who’d promised the world before exposing her fully to the circles in which he moved. Circles which included a whole host of other women; ex-wives, of which Kristina was one, ex-partners, ex-girlfriends, ‘friends’ who would like to be girlfriends, ‘friends’ who were ‘helping with the designs’ like Liliana, married women, single women and all with one purpose-to be Jackson’s wife.

Having swapped a ward shift and wangled a couple of days off Imogen had planned to turn up without warning and give her intended a surprise, but when she left the car and approached the house she looked in at the un-curtained window and saw him with Liliana; the two of them dancing in the stark emptiness of the drawing room, one of his long arms around her waist, another with a glass of wine in hand. She’d stood in the rain and watched them, watched as they laughed together at the intimacies he whispered in the woman’s ears making her throw her head back in delight. She didn’t know how long she stood in the rain watching. She’d felt panic rising, welling up, threatening to overflow into a scream and then she’d run, back along the curving drive and through the gateway up the lane to our front door. The girl’s breathless narrative ground to a halt as she sniffed; taking another tissue from the box I’d placed beside her.

Richard sat back in his chair, crossing one of his legs over the other and turning his head a little in Imogen’s direction without looking at her face. He began to speak in a quiet monotone. He told her that she may feel distraught now, but that she would recover. He reminded her that she was a strong, independent woman and had proved it by raising a child on her own and following a responsible, highly valued career. He said she must remember that she’d led a good, happy life before Jackson and would do so again; that she must never allow any man to control and manipulate her feelings or treat her as an object to be owned and cast aside like a painting or a house; that a relationship should be based on mutual love and respect and she should look at me, Lena for an example of a resilient, capable woman; that our marriage might not look glamorous but he’d never been in any doubt that he’d chosen the right person. Throughout this monologue she sat motionless, her shuddering sobs subsiding, her narrow shoulders lowering, her eyes fixed hard upon Richard as if he were dragging her from a swamp.

‘Right,’ he concluded, ‘it’s far too late for you to be driving back tonight. You can stay in our guest room, which is always ready’. He looked up at me. ‘My wife can lend you anything you need. Shall we open that bottle of brandy we brought back with us? This would seem to be a suitable occasion to try it.’ He winked. I have a feeling my mouth was hanging open.

He asked Imogen for her car keys, declaring that he would fetch her car from the Manor.

Later on, I ran a hot bath for our guest, after which she was subdued enough to submit to being tucked up in bed.

I extracted a promise from Imogen as she left next morning that she would under no circumstances email, ring or visit Jackson Agnew, neither should she respond to invitations from him, all of which she agreed to with a solemn nod. Her puffy face and red eyes showed that she’d wept the night away, but as she drove off Richard assured me it would pass.

‘Let’s go out for lunch,’ he said and I knew the subject was closed.

Some unspoken agreement kept us from cutting through Chiddlehampton Manor’s grounds for a couple of weeks and we were relieved to see no sign of Jackson or any of his paramours in the pub, or anywhere else in the vicinity.

It was June when we returned from a week in Torquay and saw the sign on the gate at the end of their drive. ‘For Sale- Grade Two listed Manor House with OPP for eight apartments’, it read. It was to be sold by the agent ‘Knight and Rutter’ who are known for their upmarket properties.

Doctor Jackson Agnew and his entourage, it seemed, had moved on.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com

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Author Archives: Grace Lessageing

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