M is for – Memories can kill you

…

The thing about dreams, or more to the point, nightmares, and what may have happened in real life, is that to a child who had survived a terrifyingly traumatic event, there is no difference.

It was a story that no one believed, because it was so terrifyingly traumatic, it came from a young child, and what would he know about such things, and later, to escape those nightmares, he had invented himself so many different worlds and told so many lies, that no matter what I said, truth or fiction, no one believed me.

What tipped everything over the edge was a story about self-preservation. I already had the unenviable reputation of telling lies, and it had reached the point where everyone rolled their eyes and simply ignored me, including the family I was living with, all of whom finally sent me to that place called Coventry.

I mean, it’s not as if I invented a spaceship and told people I was an alien posing as a human sent to suss out Earth’s population before my planet sent a peace delegation.  Not that it wasn’t on my list of stories.

Except what everyone believed to be a lie turned into what was actually the truth and led to the police swarming around my parents’ house and everyone being roused from their beds at gunpoint.  For me, it was particularly brutal, being dragged out of bed, thrown to the floor, and having three burly policemen hold me down until I was cuffed.

Then, after a few extra blows to reinforce the notion that if I tried to escape, there would be worse to come, I was unceremoniously dragged from the house in full view of the other family members and, worse, the neighbours.

They were not horrified.  I heard one say, “That little shit finally got what he deserved.’  Others had similar sentiments.  My father was stony-faced, my mother was in tears, and my sister was furious.

The arrest had broken two of my ribs and made it very difficult to breathe.  My complaints fell on deaf ears until I spewed up a mass of blood and bile in the back of the police car.

Only then did they realise there had been excessive force used, not that it mattered, I was a dangerous criminal and had to be subdued because I ‘had put up resistance to the extent the arresting officer feared for his life’.

I couldn’t make that up even if I wanted to.  And worse, as the paramedics took me to the hospital, the police officer accompanying me had said no one would believe me if I told them the truth.

The sad fact about that statement is that he was right.

Stabilised and bandaged, but not given any pain killers, I was taken from the emergency room to the police station, tossed in an interview room, and made to sit in an uncomfortable chair for two hours.

The pain was unbearable, and I realised after the first hour in that small, overly hot room, that I was only at the start of the roller-coaster ride.

The bigger question I asked myself was why, after all this time, was I there?  It was not as if I wasn’t well known for living in a fantasy world.  My foster parents, as much as they were dismayed at the trouble I’d brought to their doorstep, knew just how troubled a child I was.

Seventeen years ago, I was found in a house with five dead people: my mother, my father, two brothers, and a sister.  I was a baby, barely a year old, who had been spared.

Why?  Because it was speculated in nearly every newspaper in the country, I was too young to identify the killer or killers.  There had been no motive established, and the half dozen suspects the police had on their list had all been cleared, and, years later, with no clues or evidence available, it had become a cold case.

The thing is, it had traumatised me, and for as long as I could remember, I had the recollection of the event, the gunshots that killed my family, and an image of a man or woman looking down at me. 

It was not anyone I could recognise and had wisely kept those details to myself because no one would have believed me.

But as long as I could remember, and after being placed in foster care, I had constructed a fantasy world for myself, the people I assumed to be my family.  Foster care did that to you, bouncing from one bad home to another, until you finally land in a good one, or you end up on the wrong side of the law.

I’d finally landed in a good one when I was fifteen, but by that time, learning to dodge and weave the brutal, neglectful and horrible people, I’d become so entrenched in a world of lies that even I didn’t know truth from fiction.

But as to why I was in that interview room?

Well, given the time and the need to concentrate on anything but the pain, I began to think it all started seventeen days ago, the seventeenth anniversary of the murders.  I was home alone, the real members of my new family out celebrating one of my cousins’ birthdays.

I had not been invited, having been grounded after another incident at school.  I was watching the TV news and saw an item about a man who was from my hometown, a man with a face that registered in the back of my mind.

My first thought was that I’d seen him before, which was not unlikely. He had been the Assistant DA who was in charge of the investigation into my family’s murder, or so I’d been told.

And then I thought nothing more of it until I went to sleep that night and, for some odd reason, relived the events of that night seventeen years ago.

Only I could not have.  I was only a few months old. There was no way I could remember any of it.  But that was not the worst of it.  Lying in bed, I woke suddenly, and before I could clear my thoughts, a face was staring down at me, clear as day.

The man who had been on TV.  It was not possible. 

The reason, I believe, as to why I was there, I told the sheriff I’d remembered something that involved Herbert W Winfield, and I needed to speak to someone in the FBI.

Seventeen hours later, I had the shit beaten out of me and awaited a fate worse than death.

Many years ago, when I had gotten into trouble as an on-the-cusp teen, I was visited by an FBI agent.  She was investigating a case that, she said, was of national importance.

I thought that the fact that she was visiting me meant that I had finally reached that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  She told me that it was not so much the crimes I’d committed as the fact that I was a person of interest in another crime, the murder of my family.

And the fact that she was currently looking at prospective candidates for President.  We had a president.  What did my father have to do with presenting investigations? She didn’t say, just that if I remembered anything, to call her.

She left a card.  Normally, when I bounced from foster carer to foster carer, I usually took nothing with me.  It seemed serendipitous that I still had it.

I was still thinking about that card when the door opened, and the sheriff came in.  Whatever I had done must have been very serious.

He closed the door and leaned against it.

I was breathing shallowly to ease the pain and sweating.  To say I was afraid was an understatement. 

“Lies, especially when they involve very important people, can have far-reaching consequences, Tim.  You and I both know that Mr Winfield had nothing to do with what happened to your family, and to involve him like this, well, I just can’t imagine why you would do so, other than it’s just another of your fantasies.  This time, however, there will be consequences.  Unless, of course, you go out there when we’re finished here and admit your lies and apologise for any harm you may have caused.”

“Then I’m free to go?”

“Unfortunately, not.  You have violated your last parole order, and that means the jail sentence is back on the table.  You will not be seeing daylight for at least five years, Tim.  As I said earlier, there will be consequences this time.  Enough is enough.”

Perhaps, I told myself, I might have been wiser not to share my thoughts, but I had assumed the sheriff would uphold the law.

“I’ll give you time to think about it.”

I had to ask.  “If I don’t agree?”

“You don’t want to go down that path, Tim.  Fifteen minutes.”

He pounded on the door, and a moment later, it opened.  I heard, “Sorry, Sheriff, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

He was almost pushed to one side as the woman came into the cell.  She stopped and gasped when she saw me.

“What the hell happened to him?”  She swivelled around to glare at the Sheriff.”

“He resisted arrest.”

“That’s one excuse, Sheriff, but not one that would hold up to investigation.  Come, Tim, I’m taking you out of here.”

“This is my problem, Agent…”

“Thomas, Agent Thomas.  This is my problem now.  You’d best find yourself a lawyer in case we come back.”  Back to me, “Tim.”

I stood, slowly, and winced.  It was not lost on her.

“Resisting arrest?”

Outside, in the fresh air, I couldn’t sigh in relief; it hurt too much.  There was another FBI type standing next to a black Suburban car, like the ones I’d seen on TV.

“Get in,” she said, her assistant holding the door open for me.

I climbed in, and he shut the door.  There was no escaping.

She got in and started driving.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Except we weren’t.  We drove past the exit and straight on up the road, heading for the next county.  I figured it wasn’t the time to start asking stupid questions.  My first thought, now, was they were not who they said they were, but agents working for Winfield, here to do what he should have done seventeen years ago.

At a railway station at the first town over the county line, she stopped the car.  She nodded to the man, and he got out and walked across the road to the diner. 

She turned around and looked at me.  “We’re supposed to put a bullet in the back of your head and throw you down a disused mine.   There are a lot of them around here, and no one would bother looking for you, not even that new family of yours.  There’s a bag next to you on the seat.  Money and a new identity.  You take it, get on that train and then disappear.  You show your head above water again, I will find you and do what I should be doing.  I get it.  You got a bad break.  Now, grow a brain and change your life.  Completely.  Think you can do that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m one of the good ones, Tim.  Now, you have five minutes before the train comes.  The ticket and money are in the bag; keep your head down, and no one needs to know.  Now, go.”

They had driven off before I reached the platform, just in time to see the train coming down the line.  The ticket was to the other side of the country.  My name was Jim Chalk.  Orphan.  There were the names of five restaurants looking for a general hand.  I guess any of the five would take me on.  There was an address for a boarding house and a lady’s name. 

By the time I arrived, Tim had gone, and Jim had taken over.  Finally, I could stop running.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

M is for – Memories can kill you

…

The thing about dreams, or more to the point, nightmares, and what may have happened in real life, is that to a child who had survived a terrifyingly traumatic event, there is no difference.

It was a story that no one believed, because it was so terrifyingly traumatic, it came from a young child, and what would he know about such things, and later, to escape those nightmares, he had invented himself so many different worlds and told so many lies, that no matter what I said, truth or fiction, no one believed me.

What tipped everything over the edge was a story about self-preservation. I already had the unenviable reputation of telling lies, and it had reached the point where everyone rolled their eyes and simply ignored me, including the family I was living with, all of whom finally sent me to that place called Coventry.

I mean, it’s not as if I invented a spaceship and told people I was an alien posing as a human sent to suss out Earth’s population before my planet sent a peace delegation.  Not that it wasn’t on my list of stories.

Except what everyone believed to be a lie turned into what was actually the truth and led to the police swarming around my parents’ house and everyone being roused from their beds at gunpoint.  For me, it was particularly brutal, being dragged out of bed, thrown to the floor, and having three burly policemen hold me down until I was cuffed.

Then, after a few extra blows to reinforce the notion that if I tried to escape, there would be worse to come, I was unceremoniously dragged from the house in full view of the other family members and, worse, the neighbours.

They were not horrified.  I heard one say, “That little shit finally got what he deserved.’  Others had similar sentiments.  My father was stony-faced, my mother was in tears, and my sister was furious.

The arrest had broken two of my ribs and made it very difficult to breathe.  My complaints fell on deaf ears until I spewed up a mass of blood and bile in the back of the police car.

Only then did they realise there had been excessive force used, not that it mattered, I was a dangerous criminal and had to be subdued because I ‘had put up resistance to the extent the arresting officer feared for his life’.

I couldn’t make that up even if I wanted to.  And worse, as the paramedics took me to the hospital, the police officer accompanying me had said no one would believe me if I told them the truth.

The sad fact about that statement is that he was right.

Stabilised and bandaged, but not given any pain killers, I was taken from the emergency room to the police station, tossed in an interview room, and made to sit in an uncomfortable chair for two hours.

The pain was unbearable, and I realised after the first hour in that small, overly hot room, that I was only at the start of the roller-coaster ride.

The bigger question I asked myself was why, after all this time, was I there?  It was not as if I wasn’t well known for living in a fantasy world.  My foster parents, as much as they were dismayed at the trouble I’d brought to their doorstep, knew just how troubled a child I was.

Seventeen years ago, I was found in a house with five dead people: my mother, my father, two brothers, and a sister.  I was a baby, barely a year old, who had been spared.

Why?  Because it was speculated in nearly every newspaper in the country, I was too young to identify the killer or killers.  There had been no motive established, and the half dozen suspects the police had on their list had all been cleared, and, years later, with no clues or evidence available, it had become a cold case.

The thing is, it had traumatised me, and for as long as I could remember, I had the recollection of the event, the gunshots that killed my family, and an image of a man or woman looking down at me. 

It was not anyone I could recognise and had wisely kept those details to myself because no one would have believed me.

But as long as I could remember, and after being placed in foster care, I had constructed a fantasy world for myself, the people I assumed to be my family.  Foster care did that to you, bouncing from one bad home to another, until you finally land in a good one, or you end up on the wrong side of the law.

I’d finally landed in a good one when I was fifteen, but by that time, learning to dodge and weave the brutal, neglectful and horrible people, I’d become so entrenched in a world of lies that even I didn’t know truth from fiction.

But as to why I was in that interview room?

Well, given the time and the need to concentrate on anything but the pain, I began to think it all started seventeen days ago, the seventeenth anniversary of the murders.  I was home alone, the real members of my new family out celebrating one of my cousins’ birthdays.

I had not been invited, having been grounded after another incident at school.  I was watching the TV news and saw an item about a man who was from my hometown, a man with a face that registered in the back of my mind.

My first thought was that I’d seen him before, which was not unlikely. He had been the Assistant DA who was in charge of the investigation into my family’s murder, or so I’d been told.

And then I thought nothing more of it until I went to sleep that night and, for some odd reason, relived the events of that night seventeen years ago.

Only I could not have.  I was only a few months old. There was no way I could remember any of it.  But that was not the worst of it.  Lying in bed, I woke suddenly, and before I could clear my thoughts, a face was staring down at me, clear as day.

The man who had been on TV.  It was not possible. 

The reason, I believe, as to why I was there, I told the sheriff I’d remembered something that involved Herbert W Winfield, and I needed to speak to someone in the FBI.

Seventeen hours later, I had the shit beaten out of me and awaited a fate worse than death.

Many years ago, when I had gotten into trouble as an on-the-cusp teen, I was visited by an FBI agent.  She was investigating a case that, she said, was of national importance.

I thought that the fact that she was visiting me meant that I had finally reached that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  She told me that it was not so much the crimes I’d committed as the fact that I was a person of interest in another crime, the murder of my family.

And the fact that she was currently looking at prospective candidates for President.  We had a president.  What did my father have to do with presenting investigations? She didn’t say, just that if I remembered anything, to call her.

She left a card.  Normally, when I bounced from foster carer to foster carer, I usually took nothing with me.  It seemed serendipitous that I still had it.

I was still thinking about that card when the door opened, and the sheriff came in.  Whatever I had done must have been very serious.

He closed the door and leaned against it.

I was breathing shallowly to ease the pain and sweating.  To say I was afraid was an understatement. 

“Lies, especially when they involve very important people, can have far-reaching consequences, Tim.  You and I both know that Mr Winfield had nothing to do with what happened to your family, and to involve him like this, well, I just can’t imagine why you would do so, other than it’s just another of your fantasies.  This time, however, there will be consequences.  Unless, of course, you go out there when we’re finished here and admit your lies and apologise for any harm you may have caused.”

“Then I’m free to go?”

“Unfortunately, not.  You have violated your last parole order, and that means the jail sentence is back on the table.  You will not be seeing daylight for at least five years, Tim.  As I said earlier, there will be consequences this time.  Enough is enough.”

Perhaps, I told myself, I might have been wiser not to share my thoughts, but I had assumed the sheriff would uphold the law.

“I’ll give you time to think about it.”

I had to ask.  “If I don’t agree?”

“You don’t want to go down that path, Tim.  Fifteen minutes.”

He pounded on the door, and a moment later, it opened.  I heard, “Sorry, Sheriff, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

He was almost pushed to one side as the woman came into the cell.  She stopped and gasped when she saw me.

“What the hell happened to him?”  She swivelled around to glare at the Sheriff.”

“He resisted arrest.”

“That’s one excuse, Sheriff, but not one that would hold up to investigation.  Come, Tim, I’m taking you out of here.”

“This is my problem, Agent…”

“Thomas, Agent Thomas.  This is my problem now.  You’d best find yourself a lawyer in case we come back.”  Back to me, “Tim.”

I stood, slowly, and winced.  It was not lost on her.

“Resisting arrest?”

Outside, in the fresh air, I couldn’t sigh in relief; it hurt too much.  There was another FBI type standing next to a black Suburban car, like the ones I’d seen on TV.

“Get in,” she said, her assistant holding the door open for me.

I climbed in, and he shut the door.  There was no escaping.

She got in and started driving.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Except we weren’t.  We drove past the exit and straight on up the road, heading for the next county.  I figured it wasn’t the time to start asking stupid questions.  My first thought, now, was they were not who they said they were, but agents working for Winfield, here to do what he should have done seventeen years ago.

At a railway station at the first town over the county line, she stopped the car.  She nodded to the man, and he got out and walked across the road to the diner. 

She turned around and looked at me.  “We’re supposed to put a bullet in the back of your head and throw you down a disused mine.   There are a lot of them around here, and no one would bother looking for you, not even that new family of yours.  There’s a bag next to you on the seat.  Money and a new identity.  You take it, get on that train and then disappear.  You show your head above water again, I will find you and do what I should be doing.  I get it.  You got a bad break.  Now, grow a brain and change your life.  Completely.  Think you can do that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m one of the good ones, Tim.  Now, you have five minutes before the train comes.  The ticket and money are in the bag; keep your head down, and no one needs to know.  Now, go.”

They had driven off before I reached the platform, just in time to see the train coming down the line.  The ticket was to the other side of the country.  My name was Jim Chalk.  Orphan.  There were the names of five restaurants looking for a general hand.  I guess any of the five would take me on.  There was an address for a boarding house and a lady’s name. 

By the time I arrived, Tim had gone, and Jim had taken over.  Finally, I could stop running.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

L is for – The last laugh

…

Sitting around the table in the lawyer’s conference room were seven very eager faces, and, at the other end, opposite Blanding, my parents’ lawyer.

It was time for the reading of the will.

The seven seated at the other end were, in age order, eldest to youngest: Jacob, John, Jesse, Julian, Judy, Jessica, and Jennifer.

Me, I was named Ferdinand.  Yes, that apparently was a name, but I usually used my middle name of Aloysius, or more often than not, the short form, Al.

There was a reason why I was sitting away from the others.  Technically, I was not a brother, but the only child of my stepfather’s brother, adopted by him after my parents died a year after I was born.

It had remained a well-kept secret until the day my stepmother, who died a few hours earlier than my stepfather, was conscious long enough to tell the eldest son of my adoption.

From that moment, I became persona non grata with nearly all the other siblings. It went from thirty-five years of harmonious sibling rivalry to me instantly becoming an outcast.  I don’t think it was what the mother had intended, but then she hadn’t realised just how greedy and insecure her children were.

I had, though it had taken time.  The two eldest boys thought I was different, not just the fact that my name didn’t start with a j, but the fact that I had red hair and that I had slightly different characteristics.

While the parents were alive, no one really questioned it.  After they died and there was a fortune at stake, it came down to being one less to divvy up the pot of gold.

But here’s the thing.  None but one, Jennifer and I stayed to look after them in their home when neither could look after each other or themselves.  The others left home as soon as they could and only came back for handouts to save them from their stupidity.

For them, the memories of what happened in that house were a stark reminder of everything they should have become.  They had been given every opportunity, but none seemed to like the idea of having to work for it.

Jennifer and I both got the intended message and understood.  I remember the number of times the father had said, if only the others had been like Al.  He made a point of it.  The others blamed me when the father started rejecting their demands for assistance, saying that I had made their lives impossible.  Nothing in that house, as far as they were concerned, had led anywhere for any of them except to catastrophe.

In turn, I never understood them.  From a very young age, they all believed they would be looked after, which is why work or tried to make their mark when, in the end, there would be a fortune waiting for each of them.

Or perhaps I did.  Their parents spoiled and indulged all of them.  Not me.  Perhaps that was the indication I should have seen that I was not really one of them.  The father never gave me anything, often telling me that he expected me to make something of myself, as his brother had.

I never understood what he had meant by that until the mother’s revelation.  Then everything made sense.

More than once, he had said, privately to me, that I was not one of them, that I did not have to be like them, that they, meaning the eldest two boys, would never amount to anything.

He was right.

But it was his fault they turned out that way.  His and their mother.

Now, a greater catastrophe was likely to befall them if the father had carried out his threat to cut them all off.

I was there when he told them they had six months to turn their lives around, during which time they would not be getting their usual allowances.

As far as he was concerned, it was time for all of them to sort themselves out.  His ultimatum had been met with stunned silence and disbelief.  I don’t think any of them had considered the well might run dry.

The fact that the parents died in an accident raised a few questions in my mind, so soon after the ultimatum, and the thought, however unbelievable or insidious, was whether one of them, or all of them together, had ‘arranged’ for their deaths.

Jennifer was more inclined to believe they had.  None had a story that would stand deeper probing. Each was vouching for the others, alibis were shaky, and as far as she was concerned, the police had closed the case too quickly.  As far as they were concerned, it was an accident.

I looked at Blanding and caught his eye.  He had his inscrutable face on.  It was time to begin

…

“Right,” he said after clearing his throat.  “Shall we start?”

He looked around the table at all the expectant faces.  No one could tell whether he was about to deliver good news or bad.  Even I didn’t know.

All I had was a phone call from the lawyer’s office, a request to be there. The others tried to have me excluded, but Blanding would have none of it.  He simply told them that the reading could only progress if all eight of us attended, an explicit condition stipulated by both parents.

The room went silent.

“Now that the investigation into the untimely deaths of your parents has been concluded and a result of death by misadventure recorded, the will can now be read.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that any benefits will automatically be payable at the conclusion of this reading.  There are formalities, and these will take time.”

Eldest son:  “How much time?”

“As long as it takes.”  That was it.  No more.  Blanding took the will document out of the folder in front of him and removed the first page.  The good stuff presumably started on the next.

The eldest son was going to ask another question, but then decided against it.  I got the impression he was kicked in the shin under the table.

Blanding continued.  “Your mother’s will has been read and wishes executed.  She died before your father, and her wish was for everything to go to her husband and several annuities for friends.  She never thought of her domestics as servants but friends.”

Eldest son:  “But she didn’t leave anything directly to any of us, not even the girls.”

“No.  Her intention was always to leave it to your father.  Had she, in fact, survived him, there was a small lump sum payment of approximately a thousand pounds each and the annuities.”

“What about the estate, the holiday houses, the apartments overseas?”

Yes, the eldest son had been doing his homework, listing all the places we went to, not realising that the property portfolio was largely smoke and mirrors.  I discovered the true nature of what they owned and what they rented, and it didn’t surprise me.

The father had been very clever to hide the fact that they were not as wealthy as most people believed, and having ready cash to give the children meant a gradual depletion of assets over time.

Being who they were didn’t mean they were filthy rich. The trick their father had told me once is to appear rich without anyone guessing what your true financial situation is.

Blanding put down the document and took off his glasses.  I thought he was going to massage his forehead like a person trying to assuage the pain of an oncoming headache.

Maybe he had one already.

He massaged the bridge of his nose. Maybe the glasses were new and weren’t sitting right.

Then he looked at Jacob.  “I’m sure you’ve been compiling a list of everything you believe should be in the estate.  Did you think to also compile a list of the sums of money you borrowed from your father?”

“Borrow?” Jacobs’s expression changed.  “We did nothing of the sort.  He gave us…”

He stopped abruptly when he heard, rather than watched, a thick folder land on the desk with a thud, perhaps more for effect than emphasis.

“Every time your father loaned each of you money, you had to sign a document to say that at the end of a specific period, you would either repay the loan in full or start paying the interest.  I daresay you didn’t read the fine print or look at or listen to anything but simply thought your father would never expect anything in return.  So, back to my original question, did you compile a list of all your borrowings?”

“Of course we didn’t.  Are you stupid?  The man is dead. There’s no one to pay it back to.”  John had the logic all worked out.

“Well, there’s the thing.  It became repayable when he died.  It’s stated very clearly in the documents, very legal documents, I might add.  But just for the sake of clarity, the aggregate sums borrowed by each child are: Jacob, 18 million, John, 9 million, Jesse, 6 million, Julian, 4 million, Judy, 15 million, Jessica, 7 million, Jennifer, zero, and Al, zero.  That’s close to 60 million pounds.  Where do you think that lot came from?”

The siblings were looking at each other, but mostly at Jacob and Judy.  I thought I heard a muttered, “What the hell did you do with 18 million, Jacob?”  If they asked me if would tell them.  Gambling.

“The old man was loaded.  Inherited wealth, he said.”

“I’m sure he said a lot of things to which you chose not to hear.  Giving you all you asked for over the years cost a lot, so much so, he was forced to sell all of the properties, including, in the end, the manor house.  There wasn’t much in the rest, the paintings of forebears were worthless, the furniture and fittings were all very old but not worth a fortune old. The manor house has been given to the new owner, who was gracious enough to allow your parents to remain in it rent-free until they decided to move on.  It was always going to revert back to him.  So, scratch any property off your list of assets.”

“Cash, shares, bonds?”  The confidence in the tone before had gone as the realisation of what had happen sunk on.

It wouldn’t be long before the others turned on Jacob and Judy, even though all of them together caused the problem.

“You know the answer to that question, Jacob,” I said

He turned to me.  I could feel the hostility.  “How come you didn’t get anything.  Bet he knew you weren’t one of us and was never going to give you a penny.”

Jennifer rounded on him.  “Like me, he didn’t seek to burden your father because staying home and looking after him, we knew exactly what the financial situation was.  You all should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Jacob jumped to his feet.  “If that’s all?”

“There is the matter of repayment of the loans.”

Jacob laughed.  “Good luck with that old man.”  Then he left.  The others quickly followed him out the door.

Blanding sighed.  “Well, that went better than I thought it would.”

Were you serious about the loans?” I asked.

“Your father was. We could take them all to court, but they don’t have anything, so it would be a meaningless exercise.  But at least they have no more opportunity to get anything more.  They have to make their own way now.  But, now for the rest of the will.”

“I thought all that was left was the three thousand odd pounds,” Jennifer said.

“After the sales of a few bonds, we found in the bottom drawer of your father’s desk.  No, that’s what your father left you two.  He was very glad you stayed to help.  Both of them were.  It was always his intention to leave the manor house to you, and the proceeds from the sale of a half dozen paintings that used to hang in the Paris apartment, about 40 million pounds.  He set up trust funds for the two of you, so you have somewhere to live, and enough to keep you going.”

“And if the others find out?”

“They can contest it, even get a slice of the proceeds, but the estate has first lien on the money in repayment of their debts, and the proceeds would barely cover the repayments.  No.  There’s no point, and no legal firm would take the case.  Now go and enjoy it.”

He put two sets of keys to the manor house on the table; the same two we’d given him when we arrived.

We shook his hand, and he left the room.  I may have been mistaken, but I think he had a smile on his face.  Jennifer was looking down the street, and I joined her.  Both of us saw the six other siblings exit onto the street, just as the heavens opened and dumped a heavy shower of rain on them.

“I think,” Jennifer said, “Mum and dad just got the last laugh.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

L is for – The last laugh

…

Sitting around the table in the lawyer’s conference room were seven very eager faces, and, at the other end, opposite Blanding, my parents’ lawyer.

It was time for the reading of the will.

The seven seated at the other end were, in age order, eldest to youngest: Jacob, John, Jesse, Julian, Judy, Jessica, and Jennifer.

Me, I was named Ferdinand.  Yes, that apparently was a name, but I usually used my middle name of Aloysius, or more often than not, the short form, Al.

There was a reason why I was sitting away from the others.  Technically, I was not a brother, but the only child of my stepfather’s brother, adopted by him after my parents died a year after I was born.

It had remained a well-kept secret until the day my stepmother, who died a few hours earlier than my stepfather, was conscious long enough to tell the eldest son of my adoption.

From that moment, I became persona non grata with nearly all the other siblings. It went from thirty-five years of harmonious sibling rivalry to me instantly becoming an outcast.  I don’t think it was what the mother had intended, but then she hadn’t realised just how greedy and insecure her children were.

I had, though it had taken time.  The two eldest boys thought I was different, not just the fact that my name didn’t start with a j, but the fact that I had red hair and that I had slightly different characteristics.

While the parents were alive, no one really questioned it.  After they died and there was a fortune at stake, it came down to being one less to divvy up the pot of gold.

But here’s the thing.  None but one, Jennifer and I stayed to look after them in their home when neither could look after each other or themselves.  The others left home as soon as they could and only came back for handouts to save them from their stupidity.

For them, the memories of what happened in that house were a stark reminder of everything they should have become.  They had been given every opportunity, but none seemed to like the idea of having to work for it.

Jennifer and I both got the intended message and understood.  I remember the number of times the father had said, if only the others had been like Al.  He made a point of it.  The others blamed me when the father started rejecting their demands for assistance, saying that I had made their lives impossible.  Nothing in that house, as far as they were concerned, had led anywhere for any of them except to catastrophe.

In turn, I never understood them.  From a very young age, they all believed they would be looked after, which is why work or tried to make their mark when, in the end, there would be a fortune waiting for each of them.

Or perhaps I did.  Their parents spoiled and indulged all of them.  Not me.  Perhaps that was the indication I should have seen that I was not really one of them.  The father never gave me anything, often telling me that he expected me to make something of myself, as his brother had.

I never understood what he had meant by that until the mother’s revelation.  Then everything made sense.

More than once, he had said, privately to me, that I was not one of them, that I did not have to be like them, that they, meaning the eldest two boys, would never amount to anything.

He was right.

But it was his fault they turned out that way.  His and their mother.

Now, a greater catastrophe was likely to befall them if the father had carried out his threat to cut them all off.

I was there when he told them they had six months to turn their lives around, during which time they would not be getting their usual allowances.

As far as he was concerned, it was time for all of them to sort themselves out.  His ultimatum had been met with stunned silence and disbelief.  I don’t think any of them had considered the well might run dry.

The fact that the parents died in an accident raised a few questions in my mind, so soon after the ultimatum, and the thought, however unbelievable or insidious, was whether one of them, or all of them together, had ‘arranged’ for their deaths.

Jennifer was more inclined to believe they had.  None had a story that would stand deeper probing. Each was vouching for the others, alibis were shaky, and as far as she was concerned, the police had closed the case too quickly.  As far as they were concerned, it was an accident.

I looked at Blanding and caught his eye.  He had his inscrutable face on.  It was time to begin

…

“Right,” he said after clearing his throat.  “Shall we start?”

He looked around the table at all the expectant faces.  No one could tell whether he was about to deliver good news or bad.  Even I didn’t know.

All I had was a phone call from the lawyer’s office, a request to be there. The others tried to have me excluded, but Blanding would have none of it.  He simply told them that the reading could only progress if all eight of us attended, an explicit condition stipulated by both parents.

The room went silent.

“Now that the investigation into the untimely deaths of your parents has been concluded and a result of death by misadventure recorded, the will can now be read.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that any benefits will automatically be payable at the conclusion of this reading.  There are formalities, and these will take time.”

Eldest son:  “How much time?”

“As long as it takes.”  That was it.  No more.  Blanding took the will document out of the folder in front of him and removed the first page.  The good stuff presumably started on the next.

The eldest son was going to ask another question, but then decided against it.  I got the impression he was kicked in the shin under the table.

Blanding continued.  “Your mother’s will has been read and wishes executed.  She died before your father, and her wish was for everything to go to her husband and several annuities for friends.  She never thought of her domestics as servants but friends.”

Eldest son:  “But she didn’t leave anything directly to any of us, not even the girls.”

“No.  Her intention was always to leave it to your father.  Had she, in fact, survived him, there was a small lump sum payment of approximately a thousand pounds each and the annuities.”

“What about the estate, the holiday houses, the apartments overseas?”

Yes, the eldest son had been doing his homework, listing all the places we went to, not realising that the property portfolio was largely smoke and mirrors.  I discovered the true nature of what they owned and what they rented, and it didn’t surprise me.

The father had been very clever to hide the fact that they were not as wealthy as most people believed, and having ready cash to give the children meant a gradual depletion of assets over time.

Being who they were didn’t mean they were filthy rich. The trick their father had told me once is to appear rich without anyone guessing what your true financial situation is.

Blanding put down the document and took off his glasses.  I thought he was going to massage his forehead like a person trying to assuage the pain of an oncoming headache.

Maybe he had one already.

He massaged the bridge of his nose. Maybe the glasses were new and weren’t sitting right.

Then he looked at Jacob.  “I’m sure you’ve been compiling a list of everything you believe should be in the estate.  Did you think to also compile a list of the sums of money you borrowed from your father?”

“Borrow?” Jacobs’s expression changed.  “We did nothing of the sort.  He gave us…”

He stopped abruptly when he heard, rather than watched, a thick folder land on the desk with a thud, perhaps more for effect than emphasis.

“Every time your father loaned each of you money, you had to sign a document to say that at the end of a specific period, you would either repay the loan in full or start paying the interest.  I daresay you didn’t read the fine print or look at or listen to anything but simply thought your father would never expect anything in return.  So, back to my original question, did you compile a list of all your borrowings?”

“Of course we didn’t.  Are you stupid?  The man is dead. There’s no one to pay it back to.”  John had the logic all worked out.

“Well, there’s the thing.  It became repayable when he died.  It’s stated very clearly in the documents, very legal documents, I might add.  But just for the sake of clarity, the aggregate sums borrowed by each child are: Jacob, 18 million, John, 9 million, Jesse, 6 million, Julian, 4 million, Judy, 15 million, Jessica, 7 million, Jennifer, zero, and Al, zero.  That’s close to 60 million pounds.  Where do you think that lot came from?”

The siblings were looking at each other, but mostly at Jacob and Judy.  I thought I heard a muttered, “What the hell did you do with 18 million, Jacob?”  If they asked me if would tell them.  Gambling.

“The old man was loaded.  Inherited wealth, he said.”

“I’m sure he said a lot of things to which you chose not to hear.  Giving you all you asked for over the years cost a lot, so much so, he was forced to sell all of the properties, including, in the end, the manor house.  There wasn’t much in the rest, the paintings of forebears were worthless, the furniture and fittings were all very old but not worth a fortune old. The manor house has been given to the new owner, who was gracious enough to allow your parents to remain in it rent-free until they decided to move on.  It was always going to revert back to him.  So, scratch any property off your list of assets.”

“Cash, shares, bonds?”  The confidence in the tone before had gone as the realisation of what had happen sunk on.

It wouldn’t be long before the others turned on Jacob and Judy, even though all of them together caused the problem.

“You know the answer to that question, Jacob,” I said

He turned to me.  I could feel the hostility.  “How come you didn’t get anything.  Bet he knew you weren’t one of us and was never going to give you a penny.”

Jennifer rounded on him.  “Like me, he didn’t seek to burden your father because staying home and looking after him, we knew exactly what the financial situation was.  You all should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Jacob jumped to his feet.  “If that’s all?”

“There is the matter of repayment of the loans.”

Jacob laughed.  “Good luck with that old man.”  Then he left.  The others quickly followed him out the door.

Blanding sighed.  “Well, that went better than I thought it would.”

Were you serious about the loans?” I asked.

“Your father was. We could take them all to court, but they don’t have anything, so it would be a meaningless exercise.  But at least they have no more opportunity to get anything more.  They have to make their own way now.  But, now for the rest of the will.”

“I thought all that was left was the three thousand odd pounds,” Jennifer said.

“After the sales of a few bonds, we found in the bottom drawer of your father’s desk.  No, that’s what your father left you two.  He was very glad you stayed to help.  Both of them were.  It was always his intention to leave the manor house to you, and the proceeds from the sale of a half dozen paintings that used to hang in the Paris apartment, about 40 million pounds.  He set up trust funds for the two of you, so you have somewhere to live, and enough to keep you going.”

“And if the others find out?”

“They can contest it, even get a slice of the proceeds, but the estate has first lien on the money in repayment of their debts, and the proceeds would barely cover the repayments.  No.  There’s no point, and no legal firm would take the case.  Now go and enjoy it.”

He put two sets of keys to the manor house on the table; the same two we’d given him when we arrived.

We shook his hand, and he left the room.  I may have been mistaken, but I think he had a smile on his face.  Jennifer was looking down the street, and I joined her.  Both of us saw the six other siblings exit onto the street, just as the heavens opened and dumped a heavy shower of rain on them.

“I think,” Jennifer said, “Mum and dad just got the last laugh.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

K is for Katerina

…

Sunday lunch could be the best of times or the worst of times.  Any family gathering at my parents’ house was a trial, one that eventually drove me away.

I had stopped turning up at the family residence for the weekly gatherings simply because the ritual cross-examination of why I was not like my brothers and sisters, married with three point two children, got too exhausting.

It meant that I rarely, if ever, got to see my nieces and nephews or my brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and well-meaning but over-the-top parents.

Moving to the other side of the country had a lot to do with it.  The rest of my family had stayed put, making their lives in the one place they all professed they could never leave.

Only one other sibling had attempted an escape, my younger sister Eileen, but two months after she left, she came home.  I knew something bad had happened, but she never said anything and never left again, except for the odd trip to the state capital for work.

But like all good things that came to an end, it was approaching that time when I would have to go back, if only once, because it was time.

…

I might have returned home earlier had it not been for an entirely unforeseen event.

I never had any intention of looking for, or becoming involved with, any other person, not to the extent that it would require explanation of my rather odd, to me anyway, circumstances.

Yes, I harboured the same hopes and dreams of meeting ‘the one’ as everyone else had, but the idea of subjecting them to the rigours of the family third degree was the single limiting factor.  I could not say I was an orphan, but then I didn’t think it would be a selling point that I was the second youngest of fourteen children, with twelve of the thirteen others married, with a collective thirty-six nephews and nieces.

What was probably the worst aspect, this group turned up every Sunday for lunch, all sixty-four of them, unless a major calamity prevented their attendance.  As you can see, with odds of sixty-four to one, the Spanish Inquisition would have been a kindergarten outing by comparison.

But to say I missed them may have been the case, but that they missed me more was becoming very hard to ignore or put off.

Perhaps they had missed making my life hell, because over the past three years, there had been many phone calls and messages and one visit by my eldest brother, the self-elected spokesman, he said, the peacemaker, who had come to take me home.

It was the last time we spoke. Civilly, anyway.

That was a year ago.

Things had changed during that year, though I was not sure whether for the better.  I had met someone, yes, a woman named Catherine, Katerina if I wanted to call her by her Russian name, which I didn’t, one who was perhaps as skittish as I was at the whole dating and sharing your life thing.

Our first meeting was fascinating because her Russian accent was intoxicating, and I told her at the end of the night that she could read me War and Peace, and I would listen to it all night.  I think that I realised she used her Russian heritage to put off potential suitors.  I told her it wouldn’t work with me.

We both started out playing the orphan card, and as the dates piled up and the little pieces of our sad lives leaked out, it became apparent we both had suffered the small-town, large family, endless expectations things.  She had been expected to marry her high school sweetheart until she found out he was secretly cheating on her.

When she told her parents, and they confronted him, he denied it and made her look like she was just spiteful because she didn’t want to marry him.  The other girl could have him, and she left on the next bus out.  It was no surprise to learn the other girl hadn’t married him, nor had any other.

From there, with cards on the table, we just clicked.

But like all good things, it, too, should have ended because I was one of those people who never finished what they started.

…

A Saturday morning, not generally a workday and the day we set aside for everything that couldn’t get done on a weekday, came after an extended evening in the pub.

We rarely stayed beyond a drink or two, but others we knew, just back from a long holiday, dropped in on the off chance we would be there, and it turned into dinner and more drinks.

It never affected Katerina. I was guessing it was something to do with her Russian heritage and vodka, and the explanation I missed when I had to go to the bathroom. I was not so lucky.

She was up and about, and I heard the buzzer, usually someone trying to get in after they forgot to take their key, and I thought no more about it.

Five minutes passed, and then Katerina was standing in the doorway, her half-hostile, annoyed expression glaring at me. It was one of those expressions you could feel.

“Some silly girl at the door says she is your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“I say this, and she says, ‘Go tell that annoying bastard Eileen is here’.  So, annoying bastard, who is this Eileen?”

“One of the thirteen other siblings I try very hard not to admit I have.  They’re like debt collectors. You can never really escape them.”

I climbed out of bed and went out.  She stayed back at the door but was still visible from the front.

I opened the door, and there was Eileen, my youngest sister, the last born and the most spoiled.  Given the age differences between my other siblings and me, she was the only one I could relate to.

“What the hell, Robert?”

“What the hell, yourself?  Didn’t I make it clear to Prince Walter that I had disappeared through a portal to another dimension?”

It was an attempt at a joke that he couldn’t and wouldn’t understand.  He had no sense of humour at all.

“That dumb shit doesn’t work on me.  Are you going to leave me standing in the passage?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, Robert,” then brushed past inside.

Katerina was watching with a bemused expression.  Perhaps this was her family, too.

I could see Eileen giving her the traditional family female death stare.  “Who is she?”

“She is standing right here, and I can hear and see you.  A warning word, my other job is a bouncer at a nightclub, and you may, depending on what you say next, find out how I treat recalcitrant customers.”

That notion of not wanting to meet her in a dark alley was right.  Katarina was a gym freak.

It was amusing to see Eileen think before she spoke next.

Then, with a glance over my shoulder at Katarina, she said, “As I said at the door, I’m his sister, Eileen.  I’m surprised he didn’t mention me.”

Katerina looked her up and down.  “He mentioned all of you, but I think his description may have been a little harsh.  You only seem a little bit bitch from hell.  I am Katarina.  Bigger bitch from Siberia.”

I smiled.  She could be a fascinating companion, more so after a bottle of vodka, and especially when she related tales of being in the Russian army.  I could never tell if they were true and never dared to ask.

Eileen didn’t know what to do or say at that point. She was a hugger, and for the first time, I saw her hesitate.

Instead, she said, “Wow.  The others are going to shit their pants when they meet Katarina.”

“And you know that’s never going to happen.  That unappreciative, condescending collection of hypocrites doesn’t deserve anything from me and nothing from Katerina.”

She switched her death stare back to me.

“Dad’s dying.  Earlier in the week, the final diagnosis gave him four to six months, if he’s lucky.  We don’t believe he’s lucky.  He must go to the hospital next week, and I honestly believe he won’t be coming out, Robert.  We gave him a wish, the one thing he wanted most of all, no matter what it was, and we would grant it.  He wants to see you one more time before he dies.”

That was saying something. When I left, he told me I could die in purgatory, after hell froze over, before he wanted to see me again.

“You were there when I left?  He was the one who drove me away.  Along with everyone else, including mother, who, I might add, spent every last breath making you the spoilt brat you are.”

“You need to get over it and yourself.  I was not spoiled.  When I left, I made a fool of myself and was raped.  It was the worst experience of my life, and my mother nearly fought a losing battle when I tried to kill myself.  I thought I knew everything, but I knew nothing.  Perhaps I should have told you, and you wouldn’t have left.”

Well, if nothing else, it was typical of how my family handled trouble.  My brother could have explained everything when he came, but he chose not to.  He was the same man as my father, uncompromising and a hard task master.  I was sure that if my father, and in turn my eldest brother, could whip us for our sins, he would have.

I shook my head and looked at Katerina.  She went up to Eileen and hugged her. 

“It is a terrible thing, what men can do to women.  We go find this lowlife and teach lesson, no?”

“Too late.  God has a way of sorting out these problems. He was killed in a crash, chased by the cops while kidnapping an underage girl he had got pregnant.  Leopards and spots, my father says.”

That would be him.  A saying for everything, not a solution.

“There is no God, just karma.  But the story doesn’t change people, as you say, like leopards and spots.  Nor does death. They are still the same people as in life.  You need more compelling reasons.  I have the same family, which is why I left Russia.”

Eileen glared at me.  “Who is this woman?”

Katerina put her angry face on again. “When you live my life, you can dare ask.  You have delivered a message.”  She went to the door and opened it.  “We will discuss; let you know.”

“Robert?”

“Where are you staying?”

“The hotel up the road, not far from here.”

“Good.  I’ll call you.  I assume your cell number hasn’t changed?”

Her annoyance changed to surprise. I was not sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the open door.

“Is that it?”

“Like the rest, your expectation is that I would just fall into line. You could have called me.”

“You wouldn’t answer.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.   But I will call you.”

“We can talk now.”

“No.  You can’t just turn up on my doorstep and expect me to drop everything.  I now have a life, one I like, free of all that obligation and expectation.  I don’t have to meet anyone’s standards other than my own and of Katarina, as it should be.”

“He’ll be very disappointed if you don’t.  Everyone will be.”

“And there’s the emotional blackmail.  Go now before I simply refuse, and you will have wasted your time and money.”

She looked at me with anger and just a little of what my brother had in his eyes the last time I saw him.  Hatred.

“I don’t understand why you hate us so much.”

“You should be asking them, not me.”

A final shake of the head, and she left.  It was not what I wanted, but it was the right thing to do.  Something I had learned while away from home was that decisions were not mine alone when there were others involved, something my father never practised.  It had always been his way or no way.

I leaned against the door and sighed.

“You think her story is true?  She is quite manipulative, as you said.”

“Maybe.  My father taught them well, her especially.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Go back to bed and pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Shopping or bed, I know which I prefer, but it doesn’t resolve the problem.”

“Then I make a call to a friend who will know what’s really going on.  Then bed, then we talk, then we take her to dinner and send her back with the good or bad news.  It’s up to you, too.”

“It is, after all, your family.”

“And yours for better or worse, if or when we decide to make this permanent.”

“Does that mean we have to go to Siberia to see mine? It is not something I would ask of you.”

“I’d love to see Siberia.”

She laughed.  “You are funny, boy Robert.  No one loves to go to Siberia, especially Siberians.  Make the call, and then I will make you forget Siberia exists.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

K is for Katerina

…

Sunday lunch could be the best of times or the worst of times.  Any family gathering at my parents’ house was a trial, one that eventually drove me away.

I had stopped turning up at the family residence for the weekly gatherings simply because the ritual cross-examination of why I was not like my brothers and sisters, married with three point two children, got too exhausting.

It meant that I rarely, if ever, got to see my nieces and nephews or my brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and well-meaning but over-the-top parents.

Moving to the other side of the country had a lot to do with it.  The rest of my family had stayed put, making their lives in the one place they all professed they could never leave.

Only one other sibling had attempted an escape, my younger sister Eileen, but two months after she left, she came home.  I knew something bad had happened, but she never said anything and never left again, except for the odd trip to the state capital for work.

But like all good things that came to an end, it was approaching that time when I would have to go back, if only once, because it was time.

…

I might have returned home earlier had it not been for an entirely unforeseen event.

I never had any intention of looking for, or becoming involved with, any other person, not to the extent that it would require explanation of my rather odd, to me anyway, circumstances.

Yes, I harboured the same hopes and dreams of meeting ‘the one’ as everyone else had, but the idea of subjecting them to the rigours of the family third degree was the single limiting factor.  I could not say I was an orphan, but then I didn’t think it would be a selling point that I was the second youngest of fourteen children, with twelve of the thirteen others married, with a collective thirty-six nephews and nieces.

What was probably the worst aspect, this group turned up every Sunday for lunch, all sixty-four of them, unless a major calamity prevented their attendance.  As you can see, with odds of sixty-four to one, the Spanish Inquisition would have been a kindergarten outing by comparison.

But to say I missed them may have been the case, but that they missed me more was becoming very hard to ignore or put off.

Perhaps they had missed making my life hell, because over the past three years, there had been many phone calls and messages and one visit by my eldest brother, the self-elected spokesman, he said, the peacemaker, who had come to take me home.

It was the last time we spoke. Civilly, anyway.

That was a year ago.

Things had changed during that year, though I was not sure whether for the better.  I had met someone, yes, a woman named Catherine, Katerina if I wanted to call her by her Russian name, which I didn’t, one who was perhaps as skittish as I was at the whole dating and sharing your life thing.

Our first meeting was fascinating because her Russian accent was intoxicating, and I told her at the end of the night that she could read me War and Peace, and I would listen to it all night.  I think that I realised she used her Russian heritage to put off potential suitors.  I told her it wouldn’t work with me.

We both started out playing the orphan card, and as the dates piled up and the little pieces of our sad lives leaked out, it became apparent we both had suffered the small-town, large family, endless expectations things.  She had been expected to marry her high school sweetheart until she found out he was secretly cheating on her.

When she told her parents, and they confronted him, he denied it and made her look like she was just spiteful because she didn’t want to marry him.  The other girl could have him, and she left on the next bus out.  It was no surprise to learn the other girl hadn’t married him, nor had any other.

From there, with cards on the table, we just clicked.

But like all good things, it, too, should have ended because I was one of those people who never finished what they started.

…

A Saturday morning, not generally a workday and the day we set aside for everything that couldn’t get done on a weekday, came after an extended evening in the pub.

We rarely stayed beyond a drink or two, but others we knew, just back from a long holiday, dropped in on the off chance we would be there, and it turned into dinner and more drinks.

It never affected Katerina. I was guessing it was something to do with her Russian heritage and vodka, and the explanation I missed when I had to go to the bathroom. I was not so lucky.

She was up and about, and I heard the buzzer, usually someone trying to get in after they forgot to take their key, and I thought no more about it.

Five minutes passed, and then Katerina was standing in the doorway, her half-hostile, annoyed expression glaring at me. It was one of those expressions you could feel.

“Some silly girl at the door says she is your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

“I say this, and she says, ‘Go tell that annoying bastard Eileen is here’.  So, annoying bastard, who is this Eileen?”

“One of the thirteen other siblings I try very hard not to admit I have.  They’re like debt collectors. You can never really escape them.”

I climbed out of bed and went out.  She stayed back at the door but was still visible from the front.

I opened the door, and there was Eileen, my youngest sister, the last born and the most spoiled.  Given the age differences between my other siblings and me, she was the only one I could relate to.

“What the hell, Robert?”

“What the hell, yourself?  Didn’t I make it clear to Prince Walter that I had disappeared through a portal to another dimension?”

It was an attempt at a joke that he couldn’t and wouldn’t understand.  He had no sense of humour at all.

“That dumb shit doesn’t work on me.  Are you going to leave me standing in the passage?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, Robert,” then brushed past inside.

Katerina was watching with a bemused expression.  Perhaps this was her family, too.

I could see Eileen giving her the traditional family female death stare.  “Who is she?”

“She is standing right here, and I can hear and see you.  A warning word, my other job is a bouncer at a nightclub, and you may, depending on what you say next, find out how I treat recalcitrant customers.”

That notion of not wanting to meet her in a dark alley was right.  Katarina was a gym freak.

It was amusing to see Eileen think before she spoke next.

Then, with a glance over my shoulder at Katarina, she said, “As I said at the door, I’m his sister, Eileen.  I’m surprised he didn’t mention me.”

Katerina looked her up and down.  “He mentioned all of you, but I think his description may have been a little harsh.  You only seem a little bit bitch from hell.  I am Katarina.  Bigger bitch from Siberia.”

I smiled.  She could be a fascinating companion, more so after a bottle of vodka, and especially when she related tales of being in the Russian army.  I could never tell if they were true and never dared to ask.

Eileen didn’t know what to do or say at that point. She was a hugger, and for the first time, I saw her hesitate.

Instead, she said, “Wow.  The others are going to shit their pants when they meet Katarina.”

“And you know that’s never going to happen.  That unappreciative, condescending collection of hypocrites doesn’t deserve anything from me and nothing from Katerina.”

She switched her death stare back to me.

“Dad’s dying.  Earlier in the week, the final diagnosis gave him four to six months, if he’s lucky.  We don’t believe he’s lucky.  He must go to the hospital next week, and I honestly believe he won’t be coming out, Robert.  We gave him a wish, the one thing he wanted most of all, no matter what it was, and we would grant it.  He wants to see you one more time before he dies.”

That was saying something. When I left, he told me I could die in purgatory, after hell froze over, before he wanted to see me again.

“You were there when I left?  He was the one who drove me away.  Along with everyone else, including mother, who, I might add, spent every last breath making you the spoilt brat you are.”

“You need to get over it and yourself.  I was not spoiled.  When I left, I made a fool of myself and was raped.  It was the worst experience of my life, and my mother nearly fought a losing battle when I tried to kill myself.  I thought I knew everything, but I knew nothing.  Perhaps I should have told you, and you wouldn’t have left.”

Well, if nothing else, it was typical of how my family handled trouble.  My brother could have explained everything when he came, but he chose not to.  He was the same man as my father, uncompromising and a hard task master.  I was sure that if my father, and in turn my eldest brother, could whip us for our sins, he would have.

I shook my head and looked at Katerina.  She went up to Eileen and hugged her. 

“It is a terrible thing, what men can do to women.  We go find this lowlife and teach lesson, no?”

“Too late.  God has a way of sorting out these problems. He was killed in a crash, chased by the cops while kidnapping an underage girl he had got pregnant.  Leopards and spots, my father says.”

That would be him.  A saying for everything, not a solution.

“There is no God, just karma.  But the story doesn’t change people, as you say, like leopards and spots.  Nor does death. They are still the same people as in life.  You need more compelling reasons.  I have the same family, which is why I left Russia.”

Eileen glared at me.  “Who is this woman?”

Katerina put her angry face on again. “When you live my life, you can dare ask.  You have delivered a message.”  She went to the door and opened it.  “We will discuss; let you know.”

“Robert?”

“Where are you staying?”

“The hotel up the road, not far from here.”

“Good.  I’ll call you.  I assume your cell number hasn’t changed?”

Her annoyance changed to surprise. I was not sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the open door.

“Is that it?”

“Like the rest, your expectation is that I would just fall into line. You could have called me.”

“You wouldn’t answer.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.   But I will call you.”

“We can talk now.”

“No.  You can’t just turn up on my doorstep and expect me to drop everything.  I now have a life, one I like, free of all that obligation and expectation.  I don’t have to meet anyone’s standards other than my own and of Katarina, as it should be.”

“He’ll be very disappointed if you don’t.  Everyone will be.”

“And there’s the emotional blackmail.  Go now before I simply refuse, and you will have wasted your time and money.”

She looked at me with anger and just a little of what my brother had in his eyes the last time I saw him.  Hatred.

“I don’t understand why you hate us so much.”

“You should be asking them, not me.”

A final shake of the head, and she left.  It was not what I wanted, but it was the right thing to do.  Something I had learned while away from home was that decisions were not mine alone when there were others involved, something my father never practised.  It had always been his way or no way.

I leaned against the door and sighed.

“You think her story is true?  She is quite manipulative, as you said.”

“Maybe.  My father taught them well, her especially.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Go back to bed and pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Shopping or bed, I know which I prefer, but it doesn’t resolve the problem.”

“Then I make a call to a friend who will know what’s really going on.  Then bed, then we talk, then we take her to dinner and send her back with the good or bad news.  It’s up to you, too.”

“It is, after all, your family.”

“And yours for better or worse, if or when we decide to make this permanent.”

“Does that mean we have to go to Siberia to see mine? It is not something I would ask of you.”

“I’d love to see Siberia.”

She laughed.  “You are funny, boy Robert.  No one loves to go to Siberia, especially Siberians.  Make the call, and then I will make you forget Siberia exists.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

J is for – Just when you think…

…

The way I saw it, the grass was always browner on the other side.

Josh was not particularly interested in my assessment of having affairs, as I had told him long ago that all they would cause was unnecessary grief.

And for what?

That aspect he had never explained in a manner that would convince me that the grass was not brown but green.

It was yet another Friday night in a bar renowned for what Josh called hook-ups, his description of married men and women looking for something on the side.

His specialty was one-night stands.

I went along only for the beer and to watch the machinations of people who were not satisfied with what they had.

Over and over again.  The only thing that didn’t surprise me was the jaded expressions.

“When you’re finally married, Robert, you’ll know exactly how I feel.”

He never got tired of telling how much he adored his wife, that he would never leave her, and that his Friday night was just to remove the boredom.

If I were married to Lucy, Josh’s wife, there would be no boredom or straying.

“I could not imagine being unsatisfied with the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

Of course, the opportunity to find the one hadn’t yet presented itself, and I sure as hell didn’t want to partake in what was on offer in this bar.

Not that I hadn’t been propositioned on numerous occasions.  I had found their reactions amusing when I declined.

“That might just about sum you up, Robert.  No sense of adventure.”

Be that as it may, it never stopped Josh from trying to hook me up with a double date.  Some had been interesting, but I had a rule not to date married women.  Being accosted by an angry husband was not on my wish list.

And a pity Josh had not got the memo.

“Well, that lack of adventure is about to be tested.”

He looked in the same direction as I was, to the end of the bar where two women were sitting, sipping drinks and surveying what was on offer.  I’d caught them looking at us more than once.  Well, Josh, maybe.  I doubted I’d raise an eyebrow.

“I’d go and introduce myself,” I said.  “They keep looking in your direction.”

Since I was there to provide an opinion on the participants, act as a wingman when necessary, and generally help his case, he knew I was not giving him a bum steer.

“Which one?’

“Redhead, though I doubt it’s her natural colour.  She’s more your type, sassy.”

That was his go-to type, brazen or sassy, the exact opposite of Lucy.

The other, younger, like a sister, cousin, or office junior, did not look like she was a willing participant, but then, what would I know?

“She is.”  He drank the rest of the Scotch and soda for the courage, slipped off his seat, and sauntered down to their end of the bar.

I didn’t watch after he reached them.  I didn’t want to know. 

The bartender came over, and I ordered another bottle of beer. A voice next to me said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

A glance sideways told me it was the redhead’s friend.  Brunette, short, with a fringe.  There were, now she was closer, blue tinges through her hair.

Not sassy, but rebellious.  In other words, trouble.

I looked down at the end of the bar, and the red head and Josh were gone.

“What happened to your friend?”

“Went with Josh, possibly to a hotel.  He said you would take me home, but you don’t have to.”

“If Josh said I would, I will.  Do you want to go home?”

“Not yet.  The night is young, and I’m glad I don’t have to help Erica in her quest.  Please tell me you don’t either?”

So, either happily married, in a steady relationship, or like me, still looking, or not.

“No.  I come here just for the amusement of guessing who will end up with whom.”

The bartender put the bottles in front of us and moved on.

She looked at the label, took a sip, and then made a face that changed her whole demeanour. “How’s that going?”

“Like my own ability to pick who might be the woman of my dreams?  It seems I don’t understand the randomness.”

“Desperation, Robert, it’s called desperation.  And if you ask me, there’s an element of sex addiction.”

She knew my name.  Josh probably told her all about me, according to Josh, which was about as far from the truth as anyone could get.

“I’ve not yet reached the point of desperation.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to meet the one.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for.  And I don’t understand women at all because if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be here.”

“Odd.  I feel the same way.  Erica has no problem finding guys to do her bidding.”

“Is she married?”

“She says she is in an open relationship, whatever that means, but I know she’s unhappy with her husband.  He’s not adventurous at all.”

There was that word again.  Perhaps that was a prerequisite to visiting a place like this; you needed a sense of adventure.

“Why does that matter?”

“You should ask Josh.  Apparently, Erica thinks I need to find one, or I’ll be left on the shelf.”

More beer, more interesting changes in expression.  I don’t think she drank beer, which raised the question, why did she ask for one?

Then she added, almost randomly, “I do weekend rock climbing.  That’s all the adventure I need.”  Then the sudden switch in topics.  “So, tell me your criteria for what you think would be the one.”

OK.  I didn’t see that coming.  Usually, by now, the girl had moved on. 

“As I said…”

“You don’t know.  My belief is that you do, so hypothetically, what’s on the list?”

Surprisingly, she ordered more beer.  I wondered for a moment if she was one of those women who could drink a lot and not show any signs of it.  Unlike me, I could survive perhaps four bottles if I drank them slowly.

I had a feeling that whatever I might guess about this woman, chances were high I was completely wrong. 

Except that she was the opposite of the red head she had been with.

Or she was a very good actress.

“Does it matter what I think?”

“No.  But humour me.  The evening has not turned out the way I expected it would.”

What was she expecting?

“OK.  One.  She must be footloose and fancy free.”

“Not married or straying?  This, then, would hardly be the place to find such a partner?”

“Not my first choice, but I’m beginning to see that I should stop spending Friday nights with Josh.”

She smiled, and facets of her personality shone through.  “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes, now I think about it.  Two.  She must like to try different cuisines at least once.  I try to, at least once a week.

“That should be on my list, you know, mothers’ old sayings, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Does anyone cook these days.  I have an apartment with a kitchen, but nothing in the pantry, and beer and juice in the refrigerator.”

“No wilting celery or mouldy cheese?”

“No.  It happened at the start when I had the best of intentions, then I started working twenty-hour days.”

“No rest for the wicked, then.”

“Except Friday night, and sometimes the odd weekend.”

“This weekend?”

“As it happens.  But, to continue…”

She liked driving conversations sideways.  I would have to pay more attention.  “Three.  She should not be afraid to travel second or third class, where the real adventure is.  I’m not necessarily cheap, just careful so I can do and see more.”

“Well, aren’t you the party pooper.  I couldn’t bear to travel in anything less than first class, or better still, the private jet.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, such was her serious expression.  Then she burst out laughing, perhaps in response to my bewildered expression.

Then, inexplicably, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.  “You had me at one, Robert.  If you so desire, I would like you to take me to a new dining experience, one you haven’t been to before, and then, depending on your list and my list, maybe we could talk about this affinity you think you have with travelling third class.  What do you think?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“Elizabeth.  Liz, for short.  Call me Lizzy, and I’ll turn into the axe murderer you’re thinking I might be.”

“If I call you Elizabeth?”

“You would be confusing me with my mother.  So, sweep me off my feet.”

Challenge accepted.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

J is for – Just when you think…

…

The way I saw it, the grass was always browner on the other side.

Josh was not particularly interested in my assessment of having affairs, as I had told him long ago that all they would cause was unnecessary grief.

And for what?

That aspect he had never explained in a manner that would convince me that the grass was not brown but green.

It was yet another Friday night in a bar renowned for what Josh called hook-ups, his description of married men and women looking for something on the side.

His specialty was one-night stands.

I went along only for the beer and to watch the machinations of people who were not satisfied with what they had.

Over and over again.  The only thing that didn’t surprise me was the jaded expressions.

“When you’re finally married, Robert, you’ll know exactly how I feel.”

He never got tired of telling how much he adored his wife, that he would never leave her, and that his Friday night was just to remove the boredom.

If I were married to Lucy, Josh’s wife, there would be no boredom or straying.

“I could not imagine being unsatisfied with the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

Of course, the opportunity to find the one hadn’t yet presented itself, and I sure as hell didn’t want to partake in what was on offer in this bar.

Not that I hadn’t been propositioned on numerous occasions.  I had found their reactions amusing when I declined.

“That might just about sum you up, Robert.  No sense of adventure.”

Be that as it may, it never stopped Josh from trying to hook me up with a double date.  Some had been interesting, but I had a rule not to date married women.  Being accosted by an angry husband was not on my wish list.

And a pity Josh had not got the memo.

“Well, that lack of adventure is about to be tested.”

He looked in the same direction as I was, to the end of the bar where two women were sitting, sipping drinks and surveying what was on offer.  I’d caught them looking at us more than once.  Well, Josh, maybe.  I doubted I’d raise an eyebrow.

“I’d go and introduce myself,” I said.  “They keep looking in your direction.”

Since I was there to provide an opinion on the participants, act as a wingman when necessary, and generally help his case, he knew I was not giving him a bum steer.

“Which one?’

“Redhead, though I doubt it’s her natural colour.  She’s more your type, sassy.”

That was his go-to type, brazen or sassy, the exact opposite of Lucy.

The other, younger, like a sister, cousin, or office junior, did not look like she was a willing participant, but then, what would I know?

“She is.”  He drank the rest of the Scotch and soda for the courage, slipped off his seat, and sauntered down to their end of the bar.

I didn’t watch after he reached them.  I didn’t want to know. 

The bartender came over, and I ordered another bottle of beer. A voice next to me said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

A glance sideways told me it was the redhead’s friend.  Brunette, short, with a fringe.  There were, now she was closer, blue tinges through her hair.

Not sassy, but rebellious.  In other words, trouble.

I looked down at the end of the bar, and the red head and Josh were gone.

“What happened to your friend?”

“Went with Josh, possibly to a hotel.  He said you would take me home, but you don’t have to.”

“If Josh said I would, I will.  Do you want to go home?”

“Not yet.  The night is young, and I’m glad I don’t have to help Erica in her quest.  Please tell me you don’t either?”

So, either happily married, in a steady relationship, or like me, still looking, or not.

“No.  I come here just for the amusement of guessing who will end up with whom.”

The bartender put the bottles in front of us and moved on.

She looked at the label, took a sip, and then made a face that changed her whole demeanour. “How’s that going?”

“Like my own ability to pick who might be the woman of my dreams?  It seems I don’t understand the randomness.”

“Desperation, Robert, it’s called desperation.  And if you ask me, there’s an element of sex addiction.”

She knew my name.  Josh probably told her all about me, according to Josh, which was about as far from the truth as anyone could get.

“I’ve not yet reached the point of desperation.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to meet the one.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for.  And I don’t understand women at all because if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be here.”

“Odd.  I feel the same way.  Erica has no problem finding guys to do her bidding.”

“Is she married?”

“She says she is in an open relationship, whatever that means, but I know she’s unhappy with her husband.  He’s not adventurous at all.”

There was that word again.  Perhaps that was a prerequisite to visiting a place like this; you needed a sense of adventure.

“Why does that matter?”

“You should ask Josh.  Apparently, Erica thinks I need to find one, or I’ll be left on the shelf.”

More beer, more interesting changes in expression.  I don’t think she drank beer, which raised the question, why did she ask for one?

Then she added, almost randomly, “I do weekend rock climbing.  That’s all the adventure I need.”  Then the sudden switch in topics.  “So, tell me your criteria for what you think would be the one.”

OK.  I didn’t see that coming.  Usually, by now, the girl had moved on. 

“As I said…”

“You don’t know.  My belief is that you do, so hypothetically, what’s on the list?”

Surprisingly, she ordered more beer.  I wondered for a moment if she was one of those women who could drink a lot and not show any signs of it.  Unlike me, I could survive perhaps four bottles if I drank them slowly.

I had a feeling that whatever I might guess about this woman, chances were high I was completely wrong. 

Except that she was the opposite of the red head she had been with.

Or she was a very good actress.

“Does it matter what I think?”

“No.  But humour me.  The evening has not turned out the way I expected it would.”

What was she expecting?

“OK.  One.  She must be footloose and fancy free.”

“Not married or straying?  This, then, would hardly be the place to find such a partner?”

“Not my first choice, but I’m beginning to see that I should stop spending Friday nights with Josh.”

She smiled, and facets of her personality shone through.  “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes, now I think about it.  Two.  She must like to try different cuisines at least once.  I try to, at least once a week.

“That should be on my list, you know, mothers’ old sayings, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Does anyone cook these days.  I have an apartment with a kitchen, but nothing in the pantry, and beer and juice in the refrigerator.”

“No wilting celery or mouldy cheese?”

“No.  It happened at the start when I had the best of intentions, then I started working twenty-hour days.”

“No rest for the wicked, then.”

“Except Friday night, and sometimes the odd weekend.”

“This weekend?”

“As it happens.  But, to continue…”

She liked driving conversations sideways.  I would have to pay more attention.  “Three.  She should not be afraid to travel second or third class, where the real adventure is.  I’m not necessarily cheap, just careful so I can do and see more.”

“Well, aren’t you the party pooper.  I couldn’t bear to travel in anything less than first class, or better still, the private jet.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, such was her serious expression.  Then she burst out laughing, perhaps in response to my bewildered expression.

Then, inexplicably, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.  “You had me at one, Robert.  If you so desire, I would like you to take me to a new dining experience, one you haven’t been to before, and then, depending on your list and my list, maybe we could talk about this affinity you think you have with travelling third class.  What do you think?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“Elizabeth.  Liz, for short.  Call me Lizzy, and I’ll turn into the axe murderer you’re thinking I might be.”

“If I call you Elizabeth?”

“You would be confusing me with my mother.  So, sweep me off my feet.”

Challenge accepted.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

I is for – Indecision

…

So, there she is, standing on the corner of the street, under a flickering streetlamp, smoking a cigarette. You’re watching the tendrils of smoke drift upwards until a burst of air blasts them away, and then the whole process starts over again.

The burning question in your mind: Will I go up to her and ask if she’s free for a drink?

She might be waiting for someone, or she might be waiting for someone like me to go up and ask her. What have you got to lose?

That voice of the devil sitting on your shoulder chimes in, perhaps she is waiting for a chump like you so she can fulfil an order for a kidney or liver.

And that face, all the innocence of Mata Hari rolled into the epitome of the girl next door.

The thing is, I’d never seen the typical girl next door to know what one looked like.

What am I looking for, a whirlwind romance, a walk in the park, or a quick and painless death?

I took two steps in her direction, determined to make the move, and stopped as a car pulled up beside her. A flick of the butt, a smile, she gets in the car, and it drives off.

Oh, well, I guess I’ll be drinking on my own. Again.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

I is for – Indecision

…

So, there she is, standing on the corner of the street, under a flickering streetlamp, smoking a cigarette. You’re watching the tendrils of smoke drift upwards until a burst of air blasts them away, and then the whole process starts over again.

The burning question in your mind: Will I go up to her and ask if she’s free for a drink?

She might be waiting for someone, or she might be waiting for someone like me to go up and ask her. What have you got to lose?

That voice of the devil sitting on your shoulder chimes in, perhaps she is waiting for a chump like you so she can fulfil an order for a kidney or liver.

And that face, all the innocence of Mata Hari rolled into the epitome of the girl next door.

The thing is, I’d never seen the typical girl next door to know what one looked like.

What am I looking for, a whirlwind romance, a walk in the park, or a quick and painless death?

I took two steps in her direction, determined to make the move, and stopped as a car pulled up beside her. A flick of the butt, a smile, she gets in the car, and it drives off.

Oh, well, I guess I’ll be drinking on my own. Again.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026