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