“I’ve tried everyone else. I’m desperate.”  Weekend, evening, call out fee, minimum charge, double time. Cash.  It was a Trust-a-Trader call I couldn’t turn down. 

I pulled into the drive of a red stone Victorian pile. Stone steps between armorial lions led to a recessed porch, flanked by columns, and an impressive oak panelled front door.  Overshadowed by trees, a weak single and naked light bulb above the door was barely strong enough to cast my shadow onto the tiled entrance floor.

I was wondering whether to clap the huge brass tiger’s-head knocker or ring the bell, but before I could reach for either the sound of locks and chains being withdrawn made either superfluous. The door creaked slowly open, but only just enough for a fingerless gloved hand, with broken and stained nails, to grasp the edge and hold it steady.  Half of a pale face, fringed by lank white hair, peered out, the piercing single eye scanning me up and down.

“Ah. I’m glad you called, we are let down so often”, the face said, and the door swung further back. “Come in, Mr…..Mr?

“Thank you”, I said, “James McIntyre.  McIntyre Plumbing and Heating at your service.  I take it you are Mrs Gill?”

The door opened fully to reveal the bent frame of a man.  A grease stained, frayed and crumpled, frocked coat and collarless open-necked shirt, hung limply from his gaunt frame.  

“I am not, as you can see, Mrs Gill” he said with a slight chuckle and not a sign of irritation. 

“I am Arnold.  You may call me Mr Arnold, as Mrs Gill does.  I am her housekeeper and general factotum.  She is unavailable at present, and it is me that called you. Please come down to the kitchen.  It is where the problem is, and where all tradesmen are…..received.”

As I picked up my tool bag and followed Mr Arnold I had hardly noticed a sickle shaped scar, half hidden by his flowing hair, before we were off along a series of dark panelled passages to a narrow stair and down to the basement kitchen, the passages wreathed in must and disinfectant, and lined with stuffed mounted animal heads. His stride, off kilter though it was, was surprisingly lithe and hard to keep up with, but on the way I asked him,

“What is the problem, Mr Arnold?”.

“The drains are blocked again.  I’ve had many plumbers to look at them, but it’s never fixed for long it, and they don’t come back to try again.  We hope you will have more success.”

Mr Arnold showed me a massive, antiquated butler sink, full of something disgusting, and pointed me to a large grating in the stone-flagged floor, also brimming over.  Outside the kitchen door a large manhole cover was similarly oozing at the edges, suggesting a very big problem. 

“I think this needs clearing all the way down to the main drain, I’ll need my drain rods, and the pressure jetter for after I clear it” I said, but as I turned to go back to my van, Mr Arnold had apparently read my mind: he stood in my way, holding two bags full of rods.

“I thought you might need these to start with.  Your colleagues always seem to, but then leave them behind. We have quite a collection if you need more.  I will leave you to your work, Mr McIntyre, it’s time for me to take Mrs Gill her morning tea.”

It was painfully slow going and I was going to earn my money.  Every now and again the end of the rod would grip on something solid, and then clear only to grip again, but eventually with a satisfying gurgle, and sucking noise, the residue from the sink and the grating disappeared. Result!

I was about to go up for the jetter when I heard footsteps on the stair and stood back.  A thin faced elderly woman, her white hair pulled up tight in a bun, hobbled down. 

“Mr McIntyre, I’m Mrs Gill.  Mr Arnold suggested you might be needing some assistance.  As you see, I am prepared.”

She had a plastic apron over her floral pinafore dress and was wearing pink rubber gloves.

“Indeed you are, Mrs Gill”, I said, “that’s kind of you but I’m almost finished.  I just need to wash everything down and that’s me, done.”

“You won’t mind if I check everything, will you, Mr McIntyre.  Mr Arnold dabbles with taxidermy, I expect you noticed his animal heads as you came in. He looks after me so well that I feel I have to allow him his hobby, but I do have such trouble with my drains.” 

Something had been niggling at the back of my mind, and while the old woman ran the sink taps, set about inspecting the floor grating, and the manhole, I realised what it was.  It was the way she and Mr Arnold referred to “me and we” as if they were interchangeable. A slip of the tongue perhaps, but when she bent over the floor grating, I saw a little scar peeping out at the edge of her bun.  It couldn’t be, could it?

But then, apparently satisfied with my work, Mrs Gill pulled off a rubber glove to reveal a thin hand with broken stained fingernails, and my blood ran cold.

“Now, as to your fee, Mr McIntyre.  I wonder if you are open to some sort of negotiation?”  She almost caught me by surprise, by moving un-naturally quicky, and produced a long kitchen knife.

I struck out with a drain rod across the thrusting hand, put my shoulder into her chest, and knocked her backwards with enough force to allow me to sprint for the stairs. I didn’t know if I was being pursued, but I didn’t stop until I was, breathless, at my van.  As I opened the driver’s door I thought I heard a chuckle, and then one of them call out,

“You’ve left your tools.” 

I did not go back.

1007 Words

Andrew Gold © 27 January 2025

(The prompt for this story, given at the writing group, was “The cold was a herald and I knew exactly what it meant. For once the Met Office was right. It was cold and snow had fallen. The other matter wasn’t so straightforward.”)

Sylvia stood in her dressing gown, absent mindedly flicking the last of her toast crumbs away before caressing a cup of hot chocolate and taking it to the living room window to look out at the fallen snow.  Her home weather station had already told her that it was cold but, as if confirmation was necessary, local radio had also repeated a Met Office warning of a prolonged cold spell.

She contemplated the day ahead.   Planting tulip bulbs was obviously postponed, but a minor inconvenience; in due course the temperature would rise again.  If the worst came to the worst, last year’s bulbs would eventually poke their heads through. Sylvia knew, though, that arctic air and high pressure meant little rain.  More important than delayed planting was that sustained dry weather threatened her fragile water supply.  Sub-zero temperatures could cut it off completely.

Water came to the house via a holding tank fed by old plastic pipes that ran from a crude dam on a meagre hill burn, high above Ivy Cottage.  They lay on the ground, sheltered in the abundant heather.  But when they thawed after a long freeze, lumps of ice travelled down to the tank scouring the pipes and dumping a black peat ooze into the house supply.  It had been Sylvia’s practice to regularly clean the pipes, but this involved climbing up to the dam, opening the pipe joints at intervals, and rodding them through.  In summer it was no more than a challenging hill walk through the ticks and bog myrtle, encumbered by wires and a bag of brushes and tools,.  Even supported by her trusty old cromach, in winter it was downright hazardous; the path was narrow and uneven, traversed by heather roots, and in places crossed rocky outcrops covered in snow or ice.  

After an early lunch, Sylvia wriggled into her orange overalls and her boots, pulled down the earflaps on her Shetland bonnet, grabbed cromach and tools and set off, over the stile in the boundary fence, and up the hill.  About halfway up to the dam, the path skirted the burn for a few metres, and rounded a contorted rowan tree clinging to the bank.  Whether it was carelessness caused by habit, bad luck, or just a bit of compacted snow in the cleats of her boots, Sylvia slipped sideways and in an instant found herself lying on her back in the burn, a trickle of ice cold water running down her neck.  She laughed at herself briefly but, when she tried to get up, was stopped by searing pain from a leg, which lay at an unnatural angle. 

Living alone for years had made Sylvia resourceful and not given to panic or prayer, but as she assessed her situation she realised she was in serious trouble. if not at risk of her life.  Her mobile phone was left at the cottage as there was no signal on the hill.  She was not expecting visitors, and nobody knew where she was.  Lying in the burn, despite her orange overalls, she would be all but invisible, even to someone looking for her.  The only clue to her whereabouts was the Tesco bag of tools that still lay where it had dropped by the rowan.  Then it began to snow again.

Sylvia lay there looking up, blinking through the snowflakes settling on her eyelashes, and thinking it would be a cold day in hell before she was found.  She began to wonder if there was any way she could stand the pain to manoeuvre herself to a dryer spot, when a voice from the bank above startled her.

“Well now, that’s a bit of a spot you’ve got yourself into.”

Flooded by relief Sylvia tried to see who it was, but her vision was obscured by the falling snow.  It was just the shape of a man leaning against the tree.

“Can you help me please, I need help, I think I’ve broken my leg.”

The man said “I don’t think I can move you.  I’m just up here on my own looking for sheep, I’ll have to go down for more help, the best I can do just now is throw my plaid over you.” 

The old rough plaid spread across Sylvia, and despite the water she immediately felt the calming warmth of it.

“I’ll leave your cromach by the tree to help people find you.  Be brave miss, I won’t be long.” 

Some hours passed.  The winter light began to fade, and along with it Sylvia’s hope of rescue.  She started to drift with the onset of hypothermia, which at least masked the pain from her leg.  She closed her eyes and prepared to give herself into the hands of angels.  But when she opened her eyes again it wasn’t heaven in front of her but the back door of an ambulance. and wrapping her in a foil blanket, paramedics were checking her over and splinting her leg. 

Sylvia asked them to save the plaid so that she could get it back to the shepherd with her thanks, but they said,

“What plaid is that? The rescue boys didn’t say anything about finding a plaid, or seeing any shepherd either.  I think you’ve been a bit delirious.”

“The shepherd that found me in the burn, he went for help.  How else did you find me?”

“A complete coincidence.  John Macritchie was up there looking for lost sheep, saw your cromach propped against the tree, saw your Tesco bag and looked into the burn.  John said his grandfather had a cromach just like yours; Tam Macritchie was a shepherd too, and apparently at one time lived in Ivy Cottage but he died years ago: fell into the same burn as you, looking for strays.”

960 Words

Andrew Gold ©                                                         4 February 2025

I woke up the morning after the party to find a snoring flatulent dog next to me.  I used to have a snoring flatulent boyfriend, Liam, and that’s a whole other story, but in my hungover reverie there was a horrible moment of déjà vu, because I don’t have a dog.

I would like another boyfriend, or a cat, but my landlord doesn’t allow pets. Apparently he tolerates the Burmese python belonging to the exotic dancer in the flat above, but I guess that’s a different other story.

In case you’re making a mental hair-of-the-dog observation, I should say I wasn’t completely legless. I hadn’t had nearly enough Casillo del Diblo, or whatever it’s called, to make me forget that someone brought a dog to my housewarming, but it was a fine night, the flat door was open, and he might just have wandered in.  Anyway, I had to go to work that morning, so I dragged myself upright, threw back the curtains, shielding my eyes from the sun, pulled on my ‘trackie’ bottoms and went through to forage for some breakfast.

Apart from his digestive tract the dog was personable enough, and quite clean.  He padded through behind me and enjoyed leftover falafels and pigs in blankets, while I reheated a slice of pizza and stuck a double espresso cartridge in the Lavazza.

He had no identity disc, so I posted a photo on the party’s Facebook group in hope that someone would claim him and meanwhile, for something more individual than “Dog” to call him, named him Dave.  Dave followed round the flat behind me, waited patiently outside the bathroom while I washed, and sat on the crumpled duvet at the foot of the bed while I dressed in pink tee, purple tights, non-matching legwarmers and my denim cut-off dungarees: the ones with the flower patches.

I couldn’t leave him in the flat, so I tied a bit of line to his collar, pulled on my roller boots and rainbow beanie, and we set off for the park where I litter pick every second day, and fill in assisting the pre-school playleader.

Dave seemed to know the way, so it was an exhilarating tow, red plaits flying in the wind, and ‘Deep Forest’ pumping through my headphones. Being downwind of a plume of falafel fuelled exhaust wasa bit distracting, so I was glad to tie Dave to a bench and fix my wind-streaked mascara before I set to, rolling round the park with my picker and bin liner.

It was a messy day.  I had to empty my bag twice before my first break, and my late start meant that elevenses was more like lunch time.  I grabbed a Jamaican vegan pattie from the ‘I and I Rastafari Trike’, by the park gates, and rolled back to share it with Dave.  He was not alone.

I slewed to a halt by a man who was talking to Dave and gently stroking his head while Dave, staring into his eyes, was so in love that he didn’t even notice me or the pattie.

“Oh, is this your dog?  I thought he’d been abandoned, no disc, tied up like he is.  It happens a lot round here.  Cost of living pressures, post-covid puppy, people chucking dogs out.  He seems sweet, so I’m glad he’s not alone.”

I sat on the bench.  The man stopped stroking, and offered me his hand to shake.  I took it, embarrassingly holding on for slightly too long, and Dave started nudging at our clasped hands with his nose for more attention.

“I’m David, most people call me Dave, but I prefer David.  I work at the animal shelter on the other side of the park.  I think I’ve seen you at the pre-school sometimes, when I’ve been dropping off my daughter. What’s your name?”

“Maggie” I said, “Margaret really, but I prefer Maggie.” 

“Spooky!  My ex-wife was called Margaret.  What’s your dog called?  By the way you really should get him an identity disc.”

I thought, “Oh God, I can’t tell him I called him Dave.”  I babbled. 

“He’s not mine really I just found him in my bed and I’m just looking after him for a bit in my flat but I’m not allowed to keep him ‘cos the landlord only likes snakes and he doesn’t have a name so I call him Dog, the dog that is not the landlord, the landlord has a name of course but I don’t know what it is ‘cos he never comes round and I’ve only just moved in without my boyfriend.”

I breathed, we both laughed, and I flushed like an idiotic schoolgirl, but it was nice.

“Well, if Dog is chipped, that should give you the last owner.  Why not bring him over to the shelter, we have a chip reader, let’s see if we can find his home.  And, by the way, I don’t think ethnic fast food is right for him.  It’ll probably make him fart big time.  I can advise on his feeding, but I have to get back just now so, tomorrow, Maggie.  Yes?”

And it was Yes,

and Yes,

and we did,

then “I do”. 

Dave the Dog became Lentil, but that’s a whole other story too.

“Hiya, How was your girls night out?  D’you get blootered, as usual?”

“You came back!”

“What do you mean, came back?  I haven’t been anywhere!”

“That’s not remotely funny when you’ve been gone for 5 days.  D’you realise the police have you logged as a missing person?  I’ve been frantic.  Put flyers on lamp-posts.  Messages on Facebook. Where the hell have you been?” 

“What on earth are you on about?!  I went to work last night, as usual, and I’ve just come back, as usual. That must’ve been some hen night!”

“You went to work, yes, but that wasn’t last night, it was 5 days ago.  Where have you been?  Who have you been with? Who is she?”

“This is ridiculous!  Check with work. They’ll tell you.”

“I did.  Your so-called mates admitted you haven’t been to work all week, so that story is blown to hell isn’t it.  D’you know the police wouldn’t accept a missing person report for 48 hours, but they’ve been going door-to-door since Wednesday.  They’ve even looked up in the loft to make sure you weren’t up there!  Probably checking I haven’t done you in!  If you’re going to keep this up I might consider it!

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! I don’t understand what you’re on about, but I’m too tired to be bothered with the ravings of a hungover paranoid schizo.  I’m on shift again tonight, so I’m going to bed.  To be honest, if you’re still playing this lunatic game when I get up I think you should see the doctor and get some stronger pills, ‘cos the ones you’re on are obviously not working!”

“Me see the doctor?  Me see the doctor?!  I’m not the one who can’t explain where he’s been for the last five days!”

Later, somewhere else.

“He just breezed in as if nothing had happened.  I was beginning to think he’d left me, and he had the brass neck to accuse me of being paranoid.  I don’t know what to do.”

“What about his work?  Won’t they at least dock his pay?  Hard to deny that.”

“Nah.  He gets paid into his own account.  Anyway, it’s a massive place.  Supervisors are all on the take and they don’t care as long as the work gets done. His mates will have bunged them a few quid and covered for him.  Probably spun some family emergency yarn.”

“You’ll have to tell the police.  I can imagine what they’ll think.  Possessive wife on anti-depressants, husband out on the tiles, a bit on the side, she’s trying to get him into trouble.  Even if he got abducted by aliens you wouldn’t be able call on them again.”

“I’d better take down the flyers as well.  It’s so embarrassing.  I can’t stand it; I have to do something.  Maybe I should see the quack.  D’you think I’m going nuts?”

Later still, at home.

“There, all nice and tidy now.  It wasn’t too messy in the bathroom, really easily cleaned up.  That wet wall stuff is quite the thing isn’t it?  I’m really glad we had a walk-in shower installed.  So much more convenient. Now, a few doubled-up bin bags and up in the loft you go.  Well, some of you, anyway.  I can put a few of your smaller bits down to the dump.  No more awkward absences to explain or lie about.  Everyone will just think you’ve done one, finally escaped from your mental clinging wife.  Half of them will secretly approve.” 

Even later still, someone and somewhere entirely different

“I don’t think the mission is going too well.  We need to change the study parameters.  Perhaps five earth days is too long to hold them.  These humans are just too unpredictable.

“Z..y..z..z..y..v..a”

“43 points, two double letter scores, another 34 for adding to your word, that’s 77, and 50 bonus points for using all seven letters in one go.  127 and I win again, but tot up the scores, Claire love, just to be sure!”

“God, I hate Scrabble, Malcolm.  That’s not even a proper word!  I don’t understand why you have to win so badly that you’d cheat!?”  Talk about competitive, and you’re so smug with it! I bet you can’t even pronounce it!

“It’s pronounced ZeeZee Va.  It’s some sort of South American weevil and it’s the last word in the OED.  It is legit.  Look it up.”

“Well, isn’t it lucky for you there isn’t a copy of the OED in the cottage!”

“If you don’t believe me, Google it.”

“You know fine there’s no WiFi and no mobile signal here, so I can’t.  It’s why we chose this place.  ‘Lets get away from everything’, you said.  ‘If it rains, we can fire up the wood burner and play board games’, you said.  It’s why we’re playing this bloody game instead of watching Netflix.  I know why they’re called board games – trust me I’m bored.”

“What about LUDO then?  Snakes and Ladders? I think there’s a pack of UNO cards in the games cupboard.  Jenga?”

“I’d rather watch rain drops run down the window, thanks, or go to bed.  I think I’ll have a drink.  D’you want me to pour you one?”

Malcolm swept the plastic tiles off the board, ready to put them back into their little red velour bag, but went across to the log basket to put another lump of birch on the stove first, while Claire stopped to run her finger along the small and only shelf of books. 

“Jilly Cooper, Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins.  Dear God!  Oh, here’s a good one, “First Steps to Forever – The Life of Justin Bieber”.  Shaking her head, she moved on to the drinks tray and poured herself a large glass of Shiraz, showing it to Malcolm who nodded his agreement.

“There must be something there you haven’t read. Jilly Cooper’s OK isn’t she?”

Claire snorted her disdain, and rejoined Malcolm on the sofa.  They sat in silence for a while, except for murmured appreciation of the wine, until Claire licked her lips, and spoke. 

“Well, I haven’t read any of them, and I’m surprised that you have.  I’m even disappointed that you would think I might.  When have you ever seen me with airport fiction?  I sometimes wonder if you actually know me at all.” 

“Look, what is it Claire?  Seems like you’ve got something other than losing at Scrabble on your mind.  What is it?  Come on, spit it out.”   

Claire put down her glass, sat up and turned towards Malcolm, placing a conciliatory hand on his.

“You’re right.  It isn’t about the Scrabble, but you do always have to have the last word.  You can never let anything I say or do pass without a smart comeback.  But no, it isn’t that.  We came here, well I originally agreed to come here, because I thought getting away from everything, with nothing much to do we might, you know….”

“Bonk our brains out”?

Claire smiled, and lowered her gaze briefly, almost embarrassed.

“Well, yes, though that’s never been a problem, but if you must put it that way.  I thought we might talk as well.”

Claire drew a deep breath and went on.

“I want to have a baby.  You know I’ve wanted us to have a baby for ages.  I’m getting older.  If we don’t start a family soon it may be too late for me.”

“Claire, please stop it.  Stop. Please.  We’ve discussed this over and over.  We’ve agreed there’s all sorts of reasons why it isn’t the right time. The house isn’t big enough, my job takes me away a lot and it’s not that well paid or secure.  We just can’t.”

“I know all the reasons, but we haven’t discussed it.  You’ve talked.  And we haven’t agreed.  You decided and I’ve gone along with it. Well, now I’ve decided.  I’m pregnant.”

Malcolm withdrew his hand as if he’d been electrocuted.

“What?!!  How?  When?  It’s just not possible.”

“Truth is I stopped taking the pill months ago, and I suppose all the bonking’s finally worked.  Yes, I know it’ll be challenging at first, but we can work it out.”

Malcolm got up, went across to the coffee table with his wine and sat staring into it for a while.  Then he began distractedly flicking through the Scrabble tiles.  Claire joined him.

“Do you want one more game, then, before we turn in?  I won’t mind, if you really want to.”

Malcolm didn’t look up.  Instead, he began to form a line of letters across the rotating board.  When he’d completed it, he spun the board towards Claire and looked into her eyes. 

“How about this for a last word Claire?  Not much of a score.  Only 19 points.”

V..A..S..E..C..T..O..M..Y.” 

(with apologies to Hans Christian Anderson)

The conference room was silent, except for the ponderous ticking of an ormolu mantel clock.  Tension in the air almost palpable, the grave expression on the face of the Director of the National Security Agency was reflected in the faces of a select few gathered around the table as he began to speak.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a situation.

What I am going to tell you now must, for the time being at least, remain in the room, but be in no doubt that we face a potent threat to the stability of the nation, and its international reputation.

A few months ago, the President’s favourite technology adviser had an unscheduled meeting with him.  Also in attendance were the head of the special coatings division of Boeing, and the CEOs of 3M Adaptive Fabrics Division, and the prime suppliers of spacesuits for Space X. 

Collins Aerospace, who make space suits for NASA, were apparently not invited.

There are no minutes of the meeting, but we know that they came to the President with an idea so fantastic that I can barely believe I am saying this.  The technology adviser’s team came with a fully developed proposal for a material that would allow the president to be, for all practical purposes, invisible.  In short, a stealth suit.”

A gasp of disbelief rippled round the room, punctuated by a few guffaws, until it became clear the Director was deadly serious.  The head of the President’s security detail groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“I know, I know.  It’s completely nuts. Except that, apparently, it is technically feasible. The technology adviser was promoting the idea as a countermeasure to assassination attempts, but the President has seen other possibilities.

He has ordered two prototypes to be ready for the upcoming G20 meetings, one each for him and his adviser.  It appears he truly believes that he will be able to pass invisibly around the delegates and hear what their negotiating positions might be.  However, being the man he is, the possibility of discovering what they really think about him, of being undetected in female delegates’ hotel rooms, of wandering amongst the press corps on the presidential aircraft, even of checking up on the First Lady, is also attractive to him. 

So, I’ve called you together because we need to stop this madness or, if we cannot, we’ll need a plan for protecting us all from a President who we may not always be able to see.  Go to it, people.”

The most elegant solution came from the female head of the science department.  She used her backdoor channels with NASA, MIT, and the disgruntled scientists at Collins Aerospace, to devise a way of disabling the cloaking properties of parts of the suit’s material.

The President and his tech adviser tried the suits in public for the first time on the evening before the opening G20 plenary session. Delegates attending a cocktail and canapes reception were dumbfounded by the sight of two disembodied pairs of boxer shorts drifting around the room. 

Nobody wanted to admit to what they saw for fear that they would be ridiculed, or the governments they represented embarrassed.  However, the fact that one carried a red, white, and blue “Make America Great Again” slogan, while the other declared “Put your tush in a Tesla”, was noted by a zero-hours agency waitress.  Unafraid she playfully slapped a passing buttock, and said “I see your booty, Mr President, yes I do!”, and the floating underwear wobbled, hurriedly, towards the door.

The moral of this tale is that, however powerful, the mind of a narcissist is vulnerable to the influence of sycophantic conmen.

I boarded the train for Kings Cross – London, and as it moved I sat back.

Late, I’d had to sprint down to the platform at Edinburgh Haymarket, taking the steps two at a time, and I had only just got to the last carriage, next to the guard’s van, as he blew his whistle, so I got in.

My decision to get into the first available compartment, rather than walk further along the train, was a mistake but I was tired, and somewhat out of breath.  The train was tired too.  The state of the threadbare antimacassar was only surpassed by the grease-stained brocade fabric on the armrests.  I could almost hear my pristine Burberry raincoat protest.

It was my second mistake. The first was in not reserving a seat, and preferably in a first class compartment nearer to the restaurant car. 

I was alone, but the cigarette smoky fug, mixing with the condensation that obscured the window, made the presence of previous occupants almost palpable.  With my suitcase securely on the overhead rack I was ready to settle, but first got up again to prize open the window, stiff from lack of winter use.  I quickly changed my mind: sulphur laden smoke and grit billowed in as we passed into a tunnel just outside the station.  I had forgotten about it; it had been a long time since I caught the London train at Haymarket.

The rhythm of the train increased from a slow cha cha cha to a dissonant jolly rumba as we swayed across the points towards Waverley, but as I slumped back into my seat I noticed a parcel wrapped in newspaper on the netting of the luggage rack above the seat opposite.

Ordinarily I would have pointed it out to the ticket inspector, or waited for the call for dinner to do it but, by the time we had reached the first stop at Dunbar, no-one had come, no-one had got in at Waverley and my curiosity got the better of me.  I decided to lift it down.  Perhaps only 18 inches long and 6 or 8 around it was surprisingly heavy, 3 or 4 pounds at least, and a little thicker at one end than the other.  Soft to the initial touch, but then firm when squeezed, it had a vaguely earthy smell.  The newspaper sheets, from the Glasgow Herald, were slightly damp, and it had been there long enough to have taken the criss-cross imprint of the luggage rack netting.

Tied across the middle, and round both ends, with blue binder twine, there was no label.  The only way to explore it further was with a knife, and I had the one I used for trimming my cigars, but not the confidence to back up my curiosity so I decided to put the parcel back.

By the time the train was slowing for Berwick-on-Tweed I was in the more salubrious comfort of the restaurant, and trying to spoon Mulligatawny soup with a degree of decorum.  I should have taken more notice of the starched and white-coated waiter, bracing himself.  It was a jerky deceleration; the clanks and jerks, as the carriages knocked into each other, had my soup slopping back and forth over the rim of the bowl and onto the catch-plate underneath. The waiter and I exchanged looks, me with frustration and he with a mixture of pity and barely suppressed amusement.

Sighing, I wiped my mouth with the stiff linen napkin and then used it on the window to look out on the dimly lit platform, checking to see if there were enough passengers waiting for the train to threaten my unreserved seat at the end of the train.  There weren’t many, but as my anxiety subsided and my eyes began to drift back towards my dinner table I noticed a small man hurrying away from the train towards the exit, bent into the wind and collar turned up against the cold, carrying a parcel under his arm.  Unmistakably my mystery parcel.

As it hadn’t really been my parcel I had no grounds to raise the alarm, and, anyway, what could I tell the authorities or the guard?  I finished my meal, returned to my compartment and, after briefly looking at the now vacant space on the luggage rack, quickly forgot about it and went to sleep.

A week later I was on my way back north. Late again, I found myself running onto the platform at Kings Cross and, gasping, into a seat in the same compartment in the same last carriage.  When my ticket was being checked I remembered the parcel and the man, and mentioned it.

The guard, obviously a little embarrassed, slid the compartment door closed, as if to not be overheard, and came nearer.

“That would be the wife’s cousin, Donald.  He stays near Coldstream.  He’s an amateur taxiwhatsit, you know, stuffing dead animals and mounting them for display?  He’s pretty good, I think, and sometimes sells them at game fairs and the like.  He finds some animals but mostly people send them to him.  They sometimes bring them to me, and I take them on the train. Because it’s all very unofficial, like, it wouldn’t be very good to be seen handing parcels over, so I put them on a luggage rack in a compartment next to the van and he nips in and picks them up when we pass through Berwick. Last week I believe it was a couple of pine martens.

Now, then, there’s plenty of room nearer the restaurant car, if you want to move along there. Will you be taking lunch today?” 

Sitting in a bothy, on successive autumn solstice nights Aurora watching, was not Kirsty’s idea of fun. Quite why she had volunteered to be secretary of the climbing club was a mystery, to her at least, given that at the time she didn’t even own a pair of walking, never mind climbing, boots, but it’s the sort of thing that can happen if your live-in boyfriend is club president, and the AGM is barely quorate.  She had only gone to the meeting in the first place because Alistair was wearing a surgical boot and couldn’t drive himself, but then had allowed herself to be co-opted before she could even stand for unopposed election.  Somehow she felt that supporting Alistair, if not the club itself, was expected of her, and she had spent her life, to that point, doing what was expected of her.

She was the late arriving and only child of older parents, but the pressure to repay their well-meant but overbearing and unctuous affection, by being compliant, had taken its toll on her independence of spirit and any thoughts of putting herself first.

A better than fair fiddler, she had wanted to be a musician, but they had been against what they saw as the uncertainties of a working musician’s life and, though they had never said so, fearful of the doubtful associations she might find there.  “You need something steady to fall back on” they’d said, and enrolled her on a secretarial course instead.  An ember of individuality smouldered, and she still managed to drop in on pub gigs and ceilidhs without them knowing, and that is how she had met Alistair. 

Big Al, as he was known in the club, was more subtle than her parents in manipulating Kirsty, he may not even have realised he was doing it.  He was certainly not a misogynist, or even sexist per se, but at 6’5” his physical presence alone was enough to be persuasive to his point of view.  He was not a violent man, in fact he was rather gentle, but he just assumed that he would lead and she would follow, and she needed his affection.

So, here she was, waiting for Alistair to come down from the tops with his photos of the Aurora; he would be excited and sure that she would be too.  But the waiting for hours, with only cocoa and shortbread for company, had effected a damascene moment for Kirsty. She knew she was invisible, unless in roles defined by others. 

Alistair was nonplussed by the incomprehensible note, very deliberately propped up against a cold cup of cocoa in a bothy also chilled without someone to keep the fire going.

“Al, I’m sorry but I’ve decided to pack it in. TBH I’m not really interested in the lights, pretty though they are.  We’ll talk about it tomorrow, but there are going to have to be changes.”  The only part he understood was her signature, and the three Xs at the bottom.  The rest was in shorthand.

Bedford Michaels was born an outsider.  Uncertain of himself, he’d learned to cling to anonymity on the fringes, cloaked by the indifference of a society that had limited peripheral vision. Free to observe, and comment in his own headspace without engagement, he left no mark, no breadcrumbs to betray his existence.  He was safe until, that is, he acknowledged his loneliness. 

It was not loneliness from lack of love, or company.  It was a feeling, not a thought, from somewhere deep inside. A loneliness perhaps born of being on what people called “the spectrum”.  The neurons in his brain seemed to fire randomly, free associating across synapses, making arbitrary connections between thoughts and words.  It made his train of thought hard for others to follow.  It made it hard for him too, sometimes a thought would flash and be gone before he could catch it.  Whatever it was, he marched to a different drumbeat. 

Bedford wasn’t functionally impaired but, when relating to others, he made a point of checking that what he saw, or heard, was what everyone else saw or heard.  Because of it he’d been regarded as a difficult child. Not angry, not violent or moody, but unintentionally disruptive by being frustratingly obtuse and unpredictable.  First his parents, and then his schoolteachers, became irritated by the need to explain to him what, to everyone else, was obvious and therefore should’ve been to him.  Actions had consequences that he couldn’t always see.  He was made to feel stupid. It was as if life itself was a painting by numbers, of a picture to which he didn’t have the key.

Childhood friendships were snuffed by exclusion, except when his inclusion provided opportunity for hilarity at his expense, because of his misunderstanding, or some malapropism.  Truth be told, he learned to play up to being the joker in the pack, even seemed to enjoy being the butt of a joke.

Later, as an employee, his somewhat skewed way of analysing problems, of asking questions that nobody else had thought of, that challenged assumptions, occasionally bore fruit.  His quest for clarity was mistaken for intellectual rigour and, for a time, he was rewarded with congratulation and advancement.  Eventually, though, even this wore thin as bosses and co-workers, under pressures of their own, would want him to just stop faffing about and get on with it.

Once he had admitted to himself “I am lonely”, he free-fell into a void.  An insatiable hunger to conform overwhelmed him.  He had to do something fundamental to assert control on his life, beyond having his cup handles face the same way, or repeatedly rearranging his sock drawer. 

Church didn’t help.  Counselling didn’t help.  Responses to “I am lonely” only elicited practical suggestions to join things, to sign up to dating websites, to volunteer. It eventually dawned on him that since the root of his loneliness was hard wired, it wasn’t fixable except by some radical intervention in his brain.  He began to research. 

Replete with charlatans and medical snake oil salesmen, Google offered little but, eventually, Bedford found a German clinic whose results offered a way of modifying his brain’s function with implanted electrical stimulation. Science-based trials seemed to offer a treatment more targeted at what ailed him than, say, ECT had been for depression and psychosis in some. Once the electrodes were placed, and supervised testing without side effects carried out, unlike ECT it would be under his control, something Bedford would do to, and for, himself at home.

It was a successful operation, his clinic tests had been encouraging, but it was months later that he plucked up the courage to start.  Even so he sat for a full hour in front of his dressing table mirror, staring into his reflected eyes, silently questioning, fingering the control switch, hovering between what had been and what would be.

Decided, finally, he said to his old self “If you do this, you will be dead to me” and, smiling, pressed the switch.

Catherine had been puzzled for more than a year. 

Puzzlement had niggled its way into doubt, and doubt had become suspicion.  The thought that Daniel was having an affair insinuated itself into the vacuum of a non-communicative, childless, marriage thirty years in the making.  Insinuation had become insistence.

He explained the late night office meetings, and attending an increasing number of conferences, as the inevitable price of advancing his career.  He was just “getting on”, climbing the corporate ladder and, as he frequently reminded her, to the benefit of them both.

She managed to dismiss his sudden interest in more colourful and younger casual clothes as an attempt to stave off a mid-life crisis.  It was less obvious why he now occasionally joined her shopping, because he had always said that shopping with her was mind numbingly boring.  However, as he seemed to be genuinely interested in her choices, she had taken it as evidence that, however late in the day, he was showing her that there was still something about her that he found attractive.  By far the most surprising change was that there had been signs of a sex drive that had lain dormant in him for years.  Once or twice, though, when sending his suits to the cleaners, she thought there had been the faintest hint of a perfume not hers, a smudge of lipstick on a lapel, and once a stray red hair, but these were easily explainable as innocently transferred at post-conference dinner-dances.

But then, in the week before her 49th birthday, there was no room left for doubt. 

When he was supposed to be at work, she saw him in Next buying a dress and, anticipating her present, she had excitedly bought herself some matching accessories.  He did not give it to her.  He gave her life membership of the National Trust.  Visiting dusty old buildings with her was another thing he had always avoided, so she suddenly felt like she, and their marriage, was also dusty, roped off, “do not touch”, history.

It was an affair.  A younger woman.  Perhaps younger women.  She was briefly hurt, but only briefly.  Then she was furious, incandescent, vengeful but, once calm, steely.  She realised that the next conference provided her with a golden opportunity to find him out.  She would catch them “in flagrante delicto”, and she would be done with him.   

It wasn’t difficult to find out from his office which hotel he was registered in.   Waiting for him to return at the end of conference business was the most difficult part, keeping the lid on simmering rage while she rehearsed an eviscerating tirade.  By midnight she assumed that whatever was going on would be going on.  Being able to prove her relationship with the occupant of room 242, on the pretext of surprising him on his birthday, a romantic and understanding night porter was persuaded to give her the electronic key.

Standing outside the room, holding her breath, she listened intently.  There was no sound.  They must already be in bed.  Catherine slowly eased open the door, but in the soft lighting she could see that the only thing on the bed was a pair of high heels and a pashmina.   She picked it up and crushed it against her face, and there was the perfume she had smelled weeks before.  The bastard had never bought her Jaeger.  The Lauren dress she had seen him buy was draped across a chair, and jewellery lay on the dressing table.  His discarded clothes lay in a trail to the bathroom door, from behind which came the unmistakable sound of giggling.  Gotcha!

But, on opening the unlocked bathroom door, Catherine’s boiling fury completely drained away.

Daniel, standing in front of the mirror, was now red-headed Daniella, and in pants, tights and a rather nice bra, she was applying her mascara.