F is for – Five Words

…

I’d heard about the show, one with a funny title that when people asked, they couldn’t quite get it exactly right, but close enough to “This was your life”.

I thought it was about dead people, odd, because I knew it was impossible to interview dead people, though those days, someone told me, anything was possible on television.

Then I thought it was about people almost at the end of their life, as a celebration of a celebrity, or someone famous.

It was a surprise to learn it was about ordinary people.

Like me.  You couldn’t find anyone more ordinary, or as several people told me, utterly forgettable.

That hurt, but in a sense, they were right.

Which made me wonder just how it was that I received a letter in the mail telling me I had been selected for an episode.

Of course, I thought someone was playing a hoax, and rang them, expecting to be laughed at, but no.  I was being asked to go on the show.

I have no idea why I agreed.

…

When I arrived at the studio, I was taken to an office where the executive producer told me what was going to happen: sign some papers to say I was not going to divulge details of the show before it was broadcast, and what my five words were.

They were different for each participant.

Today, they were recording five episodes.  I was going to be the last.

…

My words were Good, Afraid, Trouble, Look and Quiet.  I had plenty of time to think about them in relation to my story.

And that was the odd thing … I actually had a story.

“So,” the host said, in that mesmerising voice of hers that had both the audience and the participants entranced, “Tell us what the word Good means to you.”

Of course, it wasn’t just the word good, it was a better word that meant the same thing.

“It wasn’t just a good day, it was a fantastic, unbelievable day.”

I remembered it well, that last day of high school, when it was, in a lot of cases, the last time I would see my fellow classmates.

Most of them I never wanted to see again, because that final year had been marked by more lows than highs, culminating in my date for the Prom falling ill, and so I didn’t go.  Then I discovered she lied, went with my so-called best friend, and made last week unbearable.

So much so, I headed straight for the railway station and intended to hide at my grandmother’s house on the other side of the country.

The day started badly, arguing with my parents, arguing with my siblings, getting into three separate scuffles at school, then coming home and throwing a few things into a backpack and leaving before I saw anyone at home.

Every step from the house to the railway depot was a reminder of each betrayal, so by the time I sat in the waiting room, an hour before the train was due, I was mentally and physically exhausted.

I expected someone from home would come and try to persuade me to stay.

They didn’t.

Perhaps that was the final betrayal.  The fact that not one of my own family cared whether I stayed or left.

Very few people took the train.  Most people leaving town went to the airport and got a plane.  There was a bus, but it took forever to get anywhere, and the train was an acceptable alternative.

I was the only one leaving town by train.

Until I wasn’t.

Five students in that final year shared my disposition, in that we preferred to study, get good grades and then go to college.  The other three left a week before, gaining admission to an Ivy League university.

I hadn’t applied.

The other person was Alison Breton. 

She was one of those people who no one gave a second look at, or so much as a first.  She was clever, and all the boys didn’t like girls who were smarter than they.

She was also plain, or so it appeared, which caused most of the boys to point out her faults, such as how she presented herself.  Unlike the other girls who dressed to impress, wore make-up and looked stunning, even if it was an objectifying description, she preferred to be different.

I thought she was brave.

We barely spoke, though we were in the same study group with the three Ivy Leaguers.  Two of them were keen on her, but she was not the dating sort.  Or so they said.

Ten minutes before the train arrived, another person came and sat in the waiting room.

Alison Breton.

I ignored her for five whole minutes.  I mean, what could I say to her?

It was when the host mentioned the second word, “afraid.”

It was part of the truth and summed up how I felt about her.  I was afraid of her.  Afraid, or more to the point, literally terrified.

I had imagined many times what I would say to her, fabricating long, I thought, interesting conversations.

And if I let my imagination stretch a little further, I might have to admit I liked her, perhaps more than I should, but could and would never admit it.  One humiliation by a girl in a lifetime was enough, and my completely shattered ego couldn’t take another rejection.

Five whole minutes before she said, “So you’re leaving this dump too?”

It was obvious I was, though the dump was harsh.

And then words came out that were not my own.  “What’s your excuse?”

I knew the moment I tried to speak to her that it would be over.  Maryanne, the betrayer, was different.  I could speak to her, and because of that, I thought she was the one.

She smiled.  “Probably the same as yours.  James told me he loved me, but he didn’t.  Apparently, I’m the subject of a bet.”

I’d heard a rumour and couldn’t believe it.  Or perhaps I could.  Small town, small-minded boys, one ambition, to have what they couldn’t.

“Best get out of town then.”  My solution to the problem wasn’t a one-size-fits-all all.

But it was a response to the host dropping the word trouble.  And then looked and was quiet.  It seemed they were all intertwining in the narrative that was unfolding.

“That doesn’t explain your desire to leave, other than the Maryanne humiliation.  I guess a month away from here might make it go away.”

“It won’t.  I have brothers who will never let me forget.  You grow up in this place, no one forgets the trouble, or more appropriately, your legacy.”

“It’s always us quiet kids, eh, the ones who don’t make a fuss, who are studious and respectful, who don’t want to be noticed.  No matter how we look or feel.  I tried to be invisible.”

“It made you stand out more than the Maryannes.  I was just fodder for girls like her, pandering to the mores of the football team, and you know what they were like.”

Being smart didn’t make us immune to being hurt or hoping against hope that we had a chance.

We both heard the sound of the horn in the distance, a warning that the train was approaching the railway crossing, about two or three miles outside of town.

The train, like always, was running late.

She stood.  “Where are you going?”

“San Francisco.  My grandmother.  She has a large house and many unusual friends.  She was an actress once, when Hollywood was going through its black and white phase.”

“I’m going there too.  My mother’s sister, though I suspect she isn’t.  Maybe we can pretend we’re brother and sister, to be safe.”

I shrugged.  Why not?  Once we got there, I’d probably never see her again.

…

“Except,” Alison said, holding my hand, and talking to the host with that whimsical expression she had when telling others the story of how we met, “we talked and talked and fell in love, got married, have five amazing children, twelve equally amazing grandchildren, and just lived our lives.  Nothing special, and yet to us, very, very special.”

And then, surprisingly, our time was up.  I had expected it would take half the time allotted.  Instead, it was two hours later, and no one, not any of us, had noticed.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

F is for – Five Words

…

I’d heard about the show, one with a funny title that when people asked, they couldn’t quite get it exactly right, but close enough to “This was your life”.

I thought it was about dead people, odd, because I knew it was impossible to interview dead people, though those days, someone told me, anything was possible on television.

Then I thought it was about people almost at the end of their life, as a celebration of a celebrity, or someone famous.

It was a surprise to learn it was about ordinary people.

Like me.  You couldn’t find anyone more ordinary, or as several people told me, utterly forgettable.

That hurt, but in a sense, they were right.

Which made me wonder just how it was that I received a letter in the mail telling me I had been selected for an episode.

Of course, I thought someone was playing a hoax, and rang them, expecting to be laughed at, but no.  I was being asked to go on the show.

I have no idea why I agreed.

…

When I arrived at the studio, I was taken to an office where the executive producer told me what was going to happen: sign some papers to say I was not going to divulge details of the show before it was broadcast, and what my five words were.

They were different for each participant.

Today, they were recording five episodes.  I was going to be the last.

…

My words were Good, Afraid, Trouble, Look and Quiet.  I had plenty of time to think about them in relation to my story.

And that was the odd thing … I actually had a story.

“So,” the host said, in that mesmerising voice of hers that had both the audience and the participants entranced, “Tell us what the word Good means to you.”

Of course, it wasn’t just the word good, it was a better word that meant the same thing.

“It wasn’t just a good day, it was a fantastic, unbelievable day.”

I remembered it well, that last day of high school, when it was, in a lot of cases, the last time I would see my fellow classmates.

Most of them I never wanted to see again, because that final year had been marked by more lows than highs, culminating in my date for the Prom falling ill, and so I didn’t go.  Then I discovered she lied, went with my so-called best friend, and made last week unbearable.

So much so, I headed straight for the railway station and intended to hide at my grandmother’s house on the other side of the country.

The day started badly, arguing with my parents, arguing with my siblings, getting into three separate scuffles at school, then coming home and throwing a few things into a backpack and leaving before I saw anyone at home.

Every step from the house to the railway depot was a reminder of each betrayal, so by the time I sat in the waiting room, an hour before the train was due, I was mentally and physically exhausted.

I expected someone from home would come and try to persuade me to stay.

They didn’t.

Perhaps that was the final betrayal.  The fact that not one of my own family cared whether I stayed or left.

Very few people took the train.  Most people leaving town went to the airport and got a plane.  There was a bus, but it took forever to get anywhere, and the train was an acceptable alternative.

I was the only one leaving town by train.

Until I wasn’t.

Five students in that final year shared my disposition, in that we preferred to study, get good grades and then go to college.  The other three left a week before, gaining admission to an Ivy League university.

I hadn’t applied.

The other person was Alison Breton. 

She was one of those people who no one gave a second look at, or so much as a first.  She was clever, and all the boys didn’t like girls who were smarter than they.

She was also plain, or so it appeared, which caused most of the boys to point out her faults, such as how she presented herself.  Unlike the other girls who dressed to impress, wore make-up and looked stunning, even if it was an objectifying description, she preferred to be different.

I thought she was brave.

We barely spoke, though we were in the same study group with the three Ivy Leaguers.  Two of them were keen on her, but she was not the dating sort.  Or so they said.

Ten minutes before the train arrived, another person came and sat in the waiting room.

Alison Breton.

I ignored her for five whole minutes.  I mean, what could I say to her?

It was when the host mentioned the second word, “afraid.”

It was part of the truth and summed up how I felt about her.  I was afraid of her.  Afraid, or more to the point, literally terrified.

I had imagined many times what I would say to her, fabricating long, I thought, interesting conversations.

And if I let my imagination stretch a little further, I might have to admit I liked her, perhaps more than I should, but could and would never admit it.  One humiliation by a girl in a lifetime was enough, and my completely shattered ego couldn’t take another rejection.

Five whole minutes before she said, “So you’re leaving this dump too?”

It was obvious I was, though the dump was harsh.

And then words came out that were not my own.  “What’s your excuse?”

I knew the moment I tried to speak to her that it would be over.  Maryanne, the betrayer, was different.  I could speak to her, and because of that, I thought she was the one.

She smiled.  “Probably the same as yours.  James told me he loved me, but he didn’t.  Apparently, I’m the subject of a bet.”

I’d heard a rumour and couldn’t believe it.  Or perhaps I could.  Small town, small-minded boys, one ambition, to have what they couldn’t.

“Best get out of town then.”  My solution to the problem wasn’t a one-size-fits-all all.

But it was a response to the host dropping the word trouble.  And then looked and was quiet.  It seemed they were all intertwining in the narrative that was unfolding.

“That doesn’t explain your desire to leave, other than the Maryanne humiliation.  I guess a month away from here might make it go away.”

“It won’t.  I have brothers who will never let me forget.  You grow up in this place, no one forgets the trouble, or more appropriately, your legacy.”

“It’s always us quiet kids, eh, the ones who don’t make a fuss, who are studious and respectful, who don’t want to be noticed.  No matter how we look or feel.  I tried to be invisible.”

“It made you stand out more than the Maryannes.  I was just fodder for girls like her, pandering to the mores of the football team, and you know what they were like.”

Being smart didn’t make us immune to being hurt or hoping against hope that we had a chance.

We both heard the sound of the horn in the distance, a warning that the train was approaching the railway crossing, about two or three miles outside of town.

The train, like always, was running late.

She stood.  “Where are you going?”

“San Francisco.  My grandmother.  She has a large house and many unusual friends.  She was an actress once, when Hollywood was going through its black and white phase.”

“I’m going there too.  My mother’s sister, though I suspect she isn’t.  Maybe we can pretend we’re brother and sister, to be safe.”

I shrugged.  Why not?  Once we got there, I’d probably never see her again.

…

“Except,” Alison said, holding my hand, and talking to the host with that whimsical expression she had when telling others the story of how we met, “we talked and talked and fell in love, got married, have five amazing children, twelve equally amazing grandchildren, and just lived our lives.  Nothing special, and yet to us, very, very special.”

And then, surprisingly, our time was up.  I had expected it would take half the time allotted.  Instead, it was two hours later, and no one, not any of us, had noticed.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

E is for Empire State Building

…

Making a plan, having certain expectations, taking that leap of faith that all of us are destined to do at least once, I found myself standing at the top of the Empire State Building, on the last day of the twelfth month, exactly five years after making a promise in exactly the same place, I would be there.

There was a 3 pm in there, but that was flexible, because I always liked to be early.

It had been after high school graduation, after the prom, every bit the magical moment it was meant to be, with the girl of my dreams, Margaret Cates.  We had spent those last years of high school together, studying hard, each helping the other achieve the grades needed to enter the best University.

There was no talk of romance, of a life together, or anything other than of being brought together, almost inseparable.  We were voted the most likely to be married and living contentedly in a house with a picket fence and three children.

Expectations were what parents had, and both of our parents were best friends, who simply chose to believe the inevitable would happen.  Graduation, a combined family trip to New York to see the sights, culminating in New Year’s Eve at the top of the Empire State Building.

That was where we made the promise, no matter what, we would reconvene, that was Margaret’s word, at the same time.  It was also the first time we kissed, and I think it took a week before my heart rate went back to normal.

Soon after that, Margaret left.  She had been accepted into her university of choice.  Her parents were surprised, and my parents were in shock. 

I was not.  It was the plan.  Margaret had a plan for everything. There was no plan with me in it.  Not in those first five years.  I was sad but not devastated.

I said to my parents, if we were meant to be, she would come back.  I had to set her free.

…

My plan was there was no plan.  I got the grades, and I got accepted into my University of choice.

At the end of the second year, I was in a what could only be described as a car crash, and was badly injured, to the extent that I had to put my life on hold.

I would recover, not one hundred per cent but enough to continue whatever path I’d chosen, but with some limitations.  The doctor was upbeat, and my parents were upbeat.

I went home, not quite in the manner I’d intended.  I was assured that life was like that, and I had to accept, accident or no accident, life was full of unexpected challenges.

…

Summer Atkins was probably the most irritating, aggravating, and ingratiating person on the planet.

She lived next door, one of five girls, the eldest, and coincidentally in my grade at high school.  In fact, she was in all the grades from Elementary.

She was gawky, awkward, loud and clumsy.  It was not her fault.  She had a kind heart, always the first to volunteer for the worst jobs, and suffered a lot at the hands of the boys and the girls, too.

I was not pleased to say when I looked back at my time that I was one of them, and probably the only one who apologised after the prom for what had been, at times, unforgivable.  The prank for the prom was probably her lowest point.

It took a week before she would come out of her room, and I came over every day to join the few who actually cared about her.  After Margaret left and before I followed, we spent time together, where she asked me what she needed to do to just get to talk to a guy like me.

I thought it strange.  She was talking to me, I was talking to her, we had coffee and cake at the diner and hung out.  She had no aspirations to go to college, just to help her parents look after her siblings and work in the diner.  I had suggested she might want to do something for herself, and she looked at me strangely.  I did not, she said, understand her.

We parted awkwardly, with this thing I had done, but what it was, I had no idea.  It ended when she told me that if I was waiting for Margaret, I would be waiting a long time.  How did she know anything about what my expectations were?

…

I came back home under the radar.  I didn’t want anyone to know because I had set myself a high bar, and I was never going to reach it.

I felt that I had become a disappointment to my parents, and while they put on a brave face, and my siblings were polite, it was clear that they were happy for me to hide away, and my siblings were happy to see the high flyer crash and burn.  Kid would be kids, I expected no less.

So when Summer unexpectedly knocked on the door, a certain element of panic went through the house.  Upstairs, I heard that voice drift up the stairs with mixed emotions.  I wanted to see her, but I didn’t want to see her.

Not like this.  It was an odd feeling, and I couldn’t understand what fuelled it.  It was Summer, she wouldn’t care, more likely revel in the fact.  How the mighty had fallen.

My mother answered the door.

“Mrs Abercrombie, you look tired?”  The grating tone had gone, her voice had softened, and there was genuine concern in it.

“It’s…”

She caught herself before mentioning my name.  It had been a secret for about a month.  I was surprised Summer had not called earlier.

My mother shifted the topic.  She was good at that.  “How is your father?  That latest bout of chemotherapy cannot be helping the diner.”

“He’s responding to the treatment, and we’re managing.  How are you faring without Allen?  I’m sorry I should have come over more often.”

“It’s fine.  We’re all coping with life as best we can.”

“How is Allen, if I may ask?”

That was Summer.  Gets the bit between her teeth and doesn’t let go.

My mother was not one to lie.  Obfuscate but not lie.  Not outright.  But confronted…

“Something’s wrong,” she said in a hushed voice, so low I couldn’t barely hear her.  I could virtually see my mother’s face.  It had always been expressive.  It’s why she could never play poker.

It went quiet for a minute or two, and I knew it was time to brace myself.  Summer was the last person I wanted to see, perhaps the only one other than Margaret, not that I expected her to drop everything.

Again, I couldn’t explain why, other than showing vulnerability. 

A few minutes passed while I was hoping my mother would explain that I didn’t want to see anyone, that I wanted to be better before facing the outside world.  Whether Summer would accede to a request if leaving me alone was moot.

If she knew I was there, she would not hesitate to come up and remind me of the Allen of old, with the shoe now firmly on the other foot.

I tried hiding under the covers, but she had X-ray eyes.  I knew she was in the room; I could feel her presence.  And the scent she used was a hint of primrose.  Once it was far stronger, but I suspect she had mastered the art of cosmetic use.

“You will suffocate long before I leave, Allen.  I’m not the same girl you left behind.  I don’t hate you.  I did for a while, but then I realised you cared when all the rest didn’t.  I’m sorry we parted angry.”

She sounded reasonable, far more reasonable than I expected.  She should have still been angry, if not with me, but with the others.

“OK.  If you don’t come out, I’ll get in there with you.  You know me well enough to know I will.”

Did I know her well enough?  I never took the opportunity.  No one wanted to because she didn’t fit the other girls’ profile.  It wasn’t like that at University, there it was simply a competition.  There was dating, but it was more convenient than romance.  There were not many hours left in a day for extracurricular activities.

When I peeled back the covers, it was like seeing an angel, the sun shining in the window, throwing a glow over her.  Summer had changed from the awkward, ugly duckling into a graceful Swan.

A look of concern crossed her face.  Just lifting the covers was a difficult task, like most normal movements we all took for granted.  It was getting easier and less painful, but it would take time.

“What happened to you?”

“A car and I had a disagreement.  It won.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me.  How long have you been here?  What do you need? Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”

…

Summer basically glued me back together.  It was, she said, one of her projects, others minding the children of silly sisters, nursing her farther past cancer, keeping up her waitress job at the diner, and just being Summer, the girl who always pitched in.

Such was the value of her help that my mother said I should marry her before someone else snapped her up.  Just before I was to go back to University, I did just that, but she rejected me.

There was someone else, and he was going to propose any day.

I could respect that.  Whatever I thought she might think of me, I would forever be one of those boys who made her life hell.  I didn’t deserve someone like her.  I just got on the train and left.

But the truth was, I was never the same again.

How could I?

I had tried to tell Margaret, but the terms of the pact were clear.  5 years, do your thing, meet and discuss.  If feelings were the same, who knew what might happen?

I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to find her, but I had a story to tell.

A year after returning, I gave it up.  I didn’t have the same enthusiasm, and feeling like a failure, I didn’t go home.  I simply pretended everything was fine and moved to New York and found work in a rather offbeat bookshop in Queens.

It fuelled my love of literature, and after reading anything and everything, I started writing my version of the Great American Novel.  Small-town boy makes it big in the big city.  A bit like my life, really.

Which brings us back to the Empire State Building.

3pm.

And Margaret.

I saw her and thought she was coming to the spot.  She looked different, older, smarter, and with a touch of elegance and sophistication.

Halfway, I saw her smile and then wrap her arms around this bear of a man whom I instantly recognised.  I mean, you would have to live under a rock not to know him.

Her parents were there, and a bunch of media people.  The oohs and ahhs told me it was the moment he went down on one knee; it was going to be a News At 6 moment.

I was but a distant memory, forgotten in her moment of agreeing to be Mrs Albert Johnstone Gerythorn III.

I guess the employee of an eclectic bookshop was hardly a match for a multi-billionaire, or one who was soon to be.

“Sucks to be you.”

It did.  That voice, the one that had grated on my nerves nearly all of my school years, came from behind me.

I knew who it was.  I didn’t turn around.

“I knew it was a mistake to tell you my innermost secrets.”

“Oh, I would not have missed this for the world.”

I felt her hand slip into mine and her body move closer. 

“Five years is a long time.  People change.”

“People like us change, Allen.  People like her do not.”

“I thought you were getting married?”

“So did I.  I guess we were both wrong.  Found that cute little bookshop of yours.  If I didn’t know you better, I’d be guessing you’ve started that great American novel.  Am I right or am I right?”

“You know me too well.  You want to stay, or shall we find another circus, something a little more our style?”

“Do we have one?”

“Of course.  Everyone has style.”

Then I noticed Margaret was coming towards us, a rather serious expression on her face.  Had she finally recognised me?

“Excuse me, but the photographers would like to get some photos of my fiancée and me by this corner.  It would be most appreciated.”

No.  No sign of recognition.

Summer instead smiled sweetly, ” Of course, Margery Mugmouth, the pleasure would be all ours.”

It was Margaret’s nickname among those girls she trashed, and she instantly recognised Summer, and then me.

“Five years, to the day.  You came.  Have a happy life, Margaret.”

With that, we left.

A reporter, or just someone with a notepad, was scribbling frantically and then tried to head us off at the elevator.  Just too late.  The doors closed.

“The nerve,” Summer said.  “That was our corner.  Or I hope it will be.”

“So did I.  Would you like to marry me?” I asked.

The elevator went silent, except for the whishing sound of it going down.

“She made a face, quite amusing, and then said, “Yes.”

People outside the elevator when it arrived thought something bad had happened, given the roar and applause which followed us out into the foyer after it arrived.

Five years, on the last day of the last month at 3 pm, something did happen.  I proposed to the girl of my dreams.  I just hadn’t realised it until then.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

E is for Empire State Building

…

Making a plan, having certain expectations, taking that leap of faith that all of us are destined to do at least once, I found myself standing at the top of the Empire State Building, on the last day of the twelfth month, exactly five years after making a promise in exactly the same place, I would be there.

There was a 3 pm in there, but that was flexible, because I always liked to be early.

It had been after high school graduation, after the prom, every bit the magical moment it was meant to be, with the girl of my dreams, Margaret Cates.  We had spent those last years of high school together, studying hard, each helping the other achieve the grades needed to enter the best University.

There was no talk of romance, of a life together, or anything other than of being brought together, almost inseparable.  We were voted the most likely to be married and living contentedly in a house with a picket fence and three children.

Expectations were what parents had, and both of our parents were best friends, who simply chose to believe the inevitable would happen.  Graduation, a combined family trip to New York to see the sights, culminating in New Year’s Eve at the top of the Empire State Building.

That was where we made the promise, no matter what, we would reconvene, that was Margaret’s word, at the same time.  It was also the first time we kissed, and I think it took a week before my heart rate went back to normal.

Soon after that, Margaret left.  She had been accepted into her university of choice.  Her parents were surprised, and my parents were in shock. 

I was not.  It was the plan.  Margaret had a plan for everything. There was no plan with me in it.  Not in those first five years.  I was sad but not devastated.

I said to my parents, if we were meant to be, she would come back.  I had to set her free.

…

My plan was there was no plan.  I got the grades, and I got accepted into my University of choice.

At the end of the second year, I was in a what could only be described as a car crash, and was badly injured, to the extent that I had to put my life on hold.

I would recover, not one hundred per cent but enough to continue whatever path I’d chosen, but with some limitations.  The doctor was upbeat, and my parents were upbeat.

I went home, not quite in the manner I’d intended.  I was assured that life was like that, and I had to accept, accident or no accident, life was full of unexpected challenges.

…

Summer Atkins was probably the most irritating, aggravating, and ingratiating person on the planet.

She lived next door, one of five girls, the eldest, and coincidentally in my grade at high school.  In fact, she was in all the grades from Elementary.

She was gawky, awkward, loud and clumsy.  It was not her fault.  She had a kind heart, always the first to volunteer for the worst jobs, and suffered a lot at the hands of the boys and the girls, too.

I was not pleased to say when I looked back at my time that I was one of them, and probably the only one who apologised after the prom for what had been, at times, unforgivable.  The prank for the prom was probably her lowest point.

It took a week before she would come out of her room, and I came over every day to join the few who actually cared about her.  After Margaret left and before I followed, we spent time together, where she asked me what she needed to do to just get to talk to a guy like me.

I thought it strange.  She was talking to me, I was talking to her, we had coffee and cake at the diner and hung out.  She had no aspirations to go to college, just to help her parents look after her siblings and work in the diner.  I had suggested she might want to do something for herself, and she looked at me strangely.  I did not, she said, understand her.

We parted awkwardly, with this thing I had done, but what it was, I had no idea.  It ended when she told me that if I was waiting for Margaret, I would be waiting a long time.  How did she know anything about what my expectations were?

…

I came back home under the radar.  I didn’t want anyone to know because I had set myself a high bar, and I was never going to reach it.

I felt that I had become a disappointment to my parents, and while they put on a brave face, and my siblings were polite, it was clear that they were happy for me to hide away, and my siblings were happy to see the high flyer crash and burn.  Kid would be kids, I expected no less.

So when Summer unexpectedly knocked on the door, a certain element of panic went through the house.  Upstairs, I heard that voice drift up the stairs with mixed emotions.  I wanted to see her, but I didn’t want to see her.

Not like this.  It was an odd feeling, and I couldn’t understand what fuelled it.  It was Summer, she wouldn’t care, more likely revel in the fact.  How the mighty had fallen.

My mother answered the door.

“Mrs Abercrombie, you look tired?”  The grating tone had gone, her voice had softened, and there was genuine concern in it.

“It’s…”

She caught herself before mentioning my name.  It had been a secret for about a month.  I was surprised Summer had not called earlier.

My mother shifted the topic.  She was good at that.  “How is your father?  That latest bout of chemotherapy cannot be helping the diner.”

“He’s responding to the treatment, and we’re managing.  How are you faring without Allen?  I’m sorry I should have come over more often.”

“It’s fine.  We’re all coping with life as best we can.”

“How is Allen, if I may ask?”

That was Summer.  Gets the bit between her teeth and doesn’t let go.

My mother was not one to lie.  Obfuscate but not lie.  Not outright.  But confronted…

“Something’s wrong,” she said in a hushed voice, so low I couldn’t barely hear her.  I could virtually see my mother’s face.  It had always been expressive.  It’s why she could never play poker.

It went quiet for a minute or two, and I knew it was time to brace myself.  Summer was the last person I wanted to see, perhaps the only one other than Margaret, not that I expected her to drop everything.

Again, I couldn’t explain why, other than showing vulnerability. 

A few minutes passed while I was hoping my mother would explain that I didn’t want to see anyone, that I wanted to be better before facing the outside world.  Whether Summer would accede to a request if leaving me alone was moot.

If she knew I was there, she would not hesitate to come up and remind me of the Allen of old, with the shoe now firmly on the other foot.

I tried hiding under the covers, but she had X-ray eyes.  I knew she was in the room; I could feel her presence.  And the scent she used was a hint of primrose.  Once it was far stronger, but I suspect she had mastered the art of cosmetic use.

“You will suffocate long before I leave, Allen.  I’m not the same girl you left behind.  I don’t hate you.  I did for a while, but then I realised you cared when all the rest didn’t.  I’m sorry we parted angry.”

She sounded reasonable, far more reasonable than I expected.  She should have still been angry, if not with me, but with the others.

“OK.  If you don’t come out, I’ll get in there with you.  You know me well enough to know I will.”

Did I know her well enough?  I never took the opportunity.  No one wanted to because she didn’t fit the other girls’ profile.  It wasn’t like that at University, there it was simply a competition.  There was dating, but it was more convenient than romance.  There were not many hours left in a day for extracurricular activities.

When I peeled back the covers, it was like seeing an angel, the sun shining in the window, throwing a glow over her.  Summer had changed from the awkward, ugly duckling into a graceful Swan.

A look of concern crossed her face.  Just lifting the covers was a difficult task, like most normal movements we all took for granted.  It was getting easier and less painful, but it would take time.

“What happened to you?”

“A car and I had a disagreement.  It won.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me.  How long have you been here?  What do you need? Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”

…

Summer basically glued me back together.  It was, she said, one of her projects, others minding the children of silly sisters, nursing her farther past cancer, keeping up her waitress job at the diner, and just being Summer, the girl who always pitched in.

Such was the value of her help that my mother said I should marry her before someone else snapped her up.  Just before I was to go back to University, I did just that, but she rejected me.

There was someone else, and he was going to propose any day.

I could respect that.  Whatever I thought she might think of me, I would forever be one of those boys who made her life hell.  I didn’t deserve someone like her.  I just got on the train and left.

But the truth was, I was never the same again.

How could I?

I had tried to tell Margaret, but the terms of the pact were clear.  5 years, do your thing, meet and discuss.  If feelings were the same, who knew what might happen?

I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to find her, but I had a story to tell.

A year after returning, I gave it up.  I didn’t have the same enthusiasm, and feeling like a failure, I didn’t go home.  I simply pretended everything was fine and moved to New York and found work in a rather offbeat bookshop in Queens.

It fuelled my love of literature, and after reading anything and everything, I started writing my version of the Great American Novel.  Small-town boy makes it big in the big city.  A bit like my life, really.

Which brings us back to the Empire State Building.

3pm.

And Margaret.

I saw her and thought she was coming to the spot.  She looked different, older, smarter, and with a touch of elegance and sophistication.

Halfway, I saw her smile and then wrap her arms around this bear of a man whom I instantly recognised.  I mean, you would have to live under a rock not to know him.

Her parents were there, and a bunch of media people.  The oohs and ahhs told me it was the moment he went down on one knee; it was going to be a News At 6 moment.

I was but a distant memory, forgotten in her moment of agreeing to be Mrs Albert Johnstone Gerythorn III.

I guess the employee of an eclectic bookshop was hardly a match for a multi-billionaire, or one who was soon to be.

“Sucks to be you.”

It did.  That voice, the one that had grated on my nerves nearly all of my school years, came from behind me.

I knew who it was.  I didn’t turn around.

“I knew it was a mistake to tell you my innermost secrets.”

“Oh, I would not have missed this for the world.”

I felt her hand slip into mine and her body move closer. 

“Five years is a long time.  People change.”

“People like us change, Allen.  People like her do not.”

“I thought you were getting married?”

“So did I.  I guess we were both wrong.  Found that cute little bookshop of yours.  If I didn’t know you better, I’d be guessing you’ve started that great American novel.  Am I right or am I right?”

“You know me too well.  You want to stay, or shall we find another circus, something a little more our style?”

“Do we have one?”

“Of course.  Everyone has style.”

Then I noticed Margaret was coming towards us, a rather serious expression on her face.  Had she finally recognised me?

“Excuse me, but the photographers would like to get some photos of my fiancée and me by this corner.  It would be most appreciated.”

No.  No sign of recognition.

Summer instead smiled sweetly, ” Of course, Margery Mugmouth, the pleasure would be all ours.”

It was Margaret’s nickname among those girls she trashed, and she instantly recognised Summer, and then me.

“Five years, to the day.  You came.  Have a happy life, Margaret.”

With that, we left.

A reporter, or just someone with a notepad, was scribbling frantically and then tried to head us off at the elevator.  Just too late.  The doors closed.

“The nerve,” Summer said.  “That was our corner.  Or I hope it will be.”

“So did I.  Would you like to marry me?” I asked.

The elevator went silent, except for the whishing sound of it going down.

“She made a face, quite amusing, and then said, “Yes.”

People outside the elevator when it arrived thought something bad had happened, given the roar and applause which followed us out into the foyer after it arrived.

Five years, on the last day of the last month at 3 pm, something did happen.  I proposed to the girl of my dreams.  I just hadn’t realised it until then.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

D is for – Delores

…

She spent the first weekend of the month dreaming about the things she was too afraid of doing every other weekend of every other month of her life until one day, something happened…

It was just another one of those dreams, of dressing up, going out to a bar, sitting at the counter sipping on a long, cool cocktail when a tall, dark, mysterious, handsome man slipped into the seat beside her…

“Doris!”

The grating sound that resembled her name came from another room, a voice that was the product of a lifetime of smoking 50 cigarettes a day, a voice belonging to her mother, the woman who was stealing the very days of her life away from her.

Doris was never going to see 30, well 35, alright then 41, again.

“What?”

She should not have yelled back, but it was the umpteenth time that day, and she was tired.  Her mother’s hacking cough had kept her awake all night, and it wasn’t getting better.  She refused to go into palliative care where they could look after her, preferring to burden her youngest daughter with her care.  Payback, she said, for all the years she had to look after Doris.

Not the two older sisters who were married with children, who also got the same care as Doris, which basically amounted to zero.  The other two couldn’t wait to get away from home, knowing what was going to happen.

“I need my pills.  Where are they?”

“In the yellow bottle next to the bed.”

The old woman knew exactly where they were.

“There isn’t any cold water!”

Doris shrugged.  It would be the third time she had refilled the water bottle.  What was she doing with it?

She waited another minute, and then went to the refrigerator, got the jug of water, and then went into the room.

It was hot and stuffy, and the window closed.  When she had last been in the room, it had been open.  There was also a slight hint of cigarette smoke in the room.  She had been smoking again, very much against doctors’ orders.

It meant her mother could move around and quite easily have come out.  Certainly, if she could go to the window and put her head out, she would attempt to disperse the smoke outside.

Doris filled the bottle.  “Next time, come out yourself.  You’re quite capable of walking, and the exercise will do you good.”

“You heard the doctor.  No excessive movement.”

“Doesn’t stop you from breaking the rules and smoking.  You have emphysema, and smoking won’t help it.”

“I’m dying anyway. What do you care what I do?”

“More than you can obviously comprehend.  Do whatever you’re going to anyway.”

She turned and walked towards the door.  This battle of wills was never going to end, and she knew neither of them was going to win.

“What’s for dinner?”

She stopped and turned around.  At first, she was sympathetic, but that was before she realised her mother could be very manipulative.   “What do you care.  You won’t eat it anyway.”

“That’s because it tastes horrible.”

“That’s because of your treatment.  I’m just giving you what the doctor and dietician recommended.”

“Then I’d rather starve to death.”

Doris gave her a glare and left.  There was no point arguing with her.  All that would do was upset them both.

Respite came once a month when Doris was able to escape for a weekend, which inevitably ended up just staying at a small hotel not far from home, dining in the restaurant, and rising late to have breakfast in bed.

Just not having to wake to the barked sound of her name, “Doris,” reverberating through the passageways of their tiny house was reward enough.

But away from home, she could give free rein to her imagination and wondered what adventures she could get up to in just the course of one day.

This Saturday, she had arrived at the hotel, and the proprietor, Jason Prederfield, greeted her in his usual cheery manner, asked her the same question she had no doubt he asked all the guests on arrival, then gave her the key to the room.

It was the same room each week, overlooking the park and playing fields, which in summer hosted cricket matches and in winter soccer matches.  Sometimes she told herself she should go over and watch, but more often, she just sat in the very comfortable old leather lounger chair near the window and read.

She was an avid reader of Mills and Boon romance novels and had brought three with her. 

More than once, she had wished that her life would be like a Mills and Boon, but there was no fairy godmother, as there wasn’t a three-wish-granting genie.

If only there was.

She woke with a start, the sound of the book plopping on the ground after it slipped out of her hands, waking her.

It was just beginning to get dark, and soon night would set in.  Time to dress for dinner.  This time, instead of going down to the hotel dining room, she was going to treat herself at an upmarket fish restaurant not far from the hotel.

She had seen it when out on a morning walk the last few months and decided it was time for something different.

She showered, went through the rigours of applying her ‘face’ more carefully, added style and a ribbon to her hair, then brought her special occasion dress, her version of a little black dress that was less revealing than it could be but just enough to make her feel at least five years younger.

An examination of the finishing product in the mirror told her that her life was not over yet, and maybe something might just happen.

And, even if it didn’t, she had at the very least felt a spark of excitement she hadn’t for a long time.

At the bottom of the stairs, she collected her coat from the rack, and Jason helped her put it on and said that he had not seen her look better, in a tone that sent a shiver down her spine.

At the restaurant, she had made the booking in the name of Delores Sparks, using her surname but a change in the first.  Doris sounded plain, the name of a woman who would never frequent this restaurant.

While being escorted to her table, she noticed there were about a dozen other diners, married or not, couples, and she could feel the eyes of the men on her.

She ordered a glass of French Champagne, Bollinger, one she had seen advertised, and perused the menu.  For some odd reason, it was written in French, perhaps a mistake, but she smiled to herself.

She had taught herself French back in school and was now fluent.  One of those dreams was to visit France, but she never quite found the courage to go alone. 

Perhaps, after tonight…

The waitress came, stood beside her, and waited patiently.  She gave her order in French and then had a quick conversation with the waitress, surprisingly able to speak the language.

It seemed to captivate some of the people around her.

A few minutes later, the maitre d’ came over.  “Excuse me, madam.”

She looked up, wondering what the problem could be.

“We have a slight problem which you may be able to help us with.  We are fully booked and just realised we have a regular guest whom we cannot accommodate…”

She glanced over to the front door and saw a middle-aged well-dressed man who looked on her opinion, either a banker, a lawyer, or an accountant.  He was a rather good-looking man at that.  Probably married, the good ones she discovered early on were always taken.

“Would it be possible to share a table?  He says he is prepared to pay for your dinner.  I will be happy to cover your drinks.  He has been here many times, and I can vouch for his good character.”

Another glance, then back to the maitre’d.

“Of course.  I accept your kind offer.”

“Very good.  This will not be forgotten, Madam, when you return.”

She deliberately didn’t turn around to watch as he was escorted to the table, but as he appeared in front of her, she rose to greet him.  In that moment, she felt a little weakness in her knees, a strange reaction indeed.

“I must thank you, Miss, Mrs…”

“Just call me Delores.”

“Delores, what an interesting name.  My name is Jackson Courtney, Jack for short.”

They shook hands, a rather peculiar thing to do for her, perhaps not him, but the touch of hands was almost electric.  She had to quell her imagination, or she might start blushing.

“Please, sit.”

They did, and the waitresses came over for his drink order.

“I’ll have what Delores is having.”

The waiter nodded and left.

Delores smiled inwardly, noticing how he pronounced her name had that edge to it that might give a little shiver.

“What brings you to this restaurant?  I have to say I am somewhat surprised that you are dining alone.”

Oh, God.  She hadn’t quite thought that far ahead that she would have a proper and sensible conversation, one that didn’t include her telling him she was a full-time carer for her sick mother.

Delores was far more sophisticated.  She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  “I try to find a small hotel and a different restaurant every so often after the hustle and bustle of London.”

“There’s no Mr Delores?”

“Is there no Mrs Courtney?”  Better to answer a question with a question and work on that air of mystery.

He smiled, and it made all the difference to his expression.  Tanned, signs of being an outdoor type, hair lightly receding, but no greying.  There was more, but that would do for now.

“Touche.  We should not dance on the boundaries.  Do you prefer the weather or our health as suitable topics?”

A sense of humour.  “Latest movies perhaps, a book, news that doesn’t involve politics, religion or that swamp on the other side of the Atlantic.”

“You don’t like America?”

“Oh, I love the country, I just don’t like half the people.  But that’s a woman’s perspective.  I suspect a man’s opinion would be different.”

And she swore to herself she was not going to talk politics.  “Sorry.  My personal opinions are mine and best left in my head.  Sometimes I speak without thinking, or perhaps it sounded better in my head.”

“You and me both.  I can and have put my foot in my mouth.”

His champagne came, and they decided to focus on the menu.  He didn’t speak French.

…

The conversation was at first centred around interests. She did not think that she could tell him that she preferred to sit quietly and read, so she embellished the truth, that she liked taking long walks in the countryside, weekends in towns or cities by the sea, easily accessible by train, as she didn’t drive.

There was a stutter in the flow for just a moment when he learned she did not drive, and it led to a diversion about motor cars, and it seemed he had a passion for expensive vehicles.

She did not ask what type of car he drove.

He liked long walks and seaside towns, with piers.

He liked reading thrillers, adventure, and detective novels, and oddly, he thought, gardening magazines.

It led to the discovery that he lived only a few villages across, closer to London, and he took the train to work each day, and sometimes stayed in London overnight, if he worked late.

Oops, he said apologetically, he nearly stepped over one of the invisible boundaries.

Soup was followed by fish, followed by chicken, followed by bread and butter pudding. He selected the white wine, and she selected the after-dinner port they had with coffee.

Food, wine and coffee tastes were the same.

The restaurant had emptied, and the owner was hovering. It was time to leave.

He stood and helped her with the chair, then accompanied her to the door, where he helped her with her coat. They thanked the owner and left.

Outside, he said, “I must thank you for an excellent evening. I have not enjoyed myself for such a long time.”

“And I, too.” There was a question on her mind, one she wanted to ask but did not have the courage.

“I know this is perhaps impertinent of me, but perchance do you come here very often?”

She was going to say, as many times as you would ask me to, but instead had to temper he reply, taking into account the reality of her situation. “About once a month, though not necessarily here, but not far.”

“Do you stay at quaint hotels. I rather want to believe you have that sort of whimsical nature. I find staying in those modern concrete and glass building have no soul. Creaking stairs and floorboards, strange noises in the night, muffled conversations as they pass your door.”

She smiled. “I can see why you like mystery novels. But yes, I do. I’m staying at one tonight, the Railway Hotel has been there forever. My room is like it has been preserved from the 1800s.”

“What a remarkable coincidence. I’m staying there too. Please allow me to escort you there.”

If he had been anything other than the perfect gentleman, she might have refused, but he had. And why not? Ten minutes more with him would give her enough time to imagine what it might be like…

No… It could never be possible. Once he found out about her mother, the truth of her situation, that would be the end.

It was perhaps fortuitous that he was on the second floor and she was on the third. They bade each other good night in the lift, she stepped out, the door closed, and she was taken up to her room.

Once inside, she leaned against the door and smiled.

“Delores and the retired Captain” was practically writing itself, right there, in her head.

….

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

D is for – Delores

…

She spent the first weekend of the month dreaming about the things she was too afraid of doing every other weekend of every other month of her life until one day, something happened…

It was just another one of those dreams, of dressing up, going out to a bar, sitting at the counter sipping on a long, cool cocktail when a tall, dark, mysterious, handsome man slipped into the seat beside her…

“Doris!”

The grating sound that resembled her name came from another room, a voice that was the product of a lifetime of smoking 50 cigarettes a day, a voice belonging to her mother, the woman who was stealing the very days of her life away from her.

Doris was never going to see 30, well 35, alright then 41, again.

“What?”

She should not have yelled back, but it was the umpteenth time that day, and she was tired.  Her mother’s hacking cough had kept her awake all night, and it wasn’t getting better.  She refused to go into palliative care where they could look after her, preferring to burden her youngest daughter with her care.  Payback, she said, for all the years she had to look after Doris.

Not the two older sisters who were married with children, who also got the same care as Doris, which basically amounted to zero.  The other two couldn’t wait to get away from home, knowing what was going to happen.

“I need my pills.  Where are they?”

“In the yellow bottle next to the bed.”

The old woman knew exactly where they were.

“There isn’t any cold water!”

Doris shrugged.  It would be the third time she had refilled the water bottle.  What was she doing with it?

She waited another minute, and then went to the refrigerator, got the jug of water, and then went into the room.

It was hot and stuffy, and the window closed.  When she had last been in the room, it had been open.  There was also a slight hint of cigarette smoke in the room.  She had been smoking again, very much against doctors’ orders.

It meant her mother could move around and quite easily have come out.  Certainly, if she could go to the window and put her head out, she would attempt to disperse the smoke outside.

Doris filled the bottle.  “Next time, come out yourself.  You’re quite capable of walking, and the exercise will do you good.”

“You heard the doctor.  No excessive movement.”

“Doesn’t stop you from breaking the rules and smoking.  You have emphysema, and smoking won’t help it.”

“I’m dying anyway. What do you care what I do?”

“More than you can obviously comprehend.  Do whatever you’re going to anyway.”

She turned and walked towards the door.  This battle of wills was never going to end, and she knew neither of them was going to win.

“What’s for dinner?”

She stopped and turned around.  At first, she was sympathetic, but that was before she realised her mother could be very manipulative.   “What do you care.  You won’t eat it anyway.”

“That’s because it tastes horrible.”

“That’s because of your treatment.  I’m just giving you what the doctor and dietician recommended.”

“Then I’d rather starve to death.”

Doris gave her a glare and left.  There was no point arguing with her.  All that would do was upset them both.

Respite came once a month when Doris was able to escape for a weekend, which inevitably ended up just staying at a small hotel not far from home, dining in the restaurant, and rising late to have breakfast in bed.

Just not having to wake to the barked sound of her name, “Doris,” reverberating through the passageways of their tiny house was reward enough.

But away from home, she could give free rein to her imagination and wondered what adventures she could get up to in just the course of one day.

This Saturday, she had arrived at the hotel, and the proprietor, Jason Prederfield, greeted her in his usual cheery manner, asked her the same question she had no doubt he asked all the guests on arrival, then gave her the key to the room.

It was the same room each week, overlooking the park and playing fields, which in summer hosted cricket matches and in winter soccer matches.  Sometimes she told herself she should go over and watch, but more often, she just sat in the very comfortable old leather lounger chair near the window and read.

She was an avid reader of Mills and Boon romance novels and had brought three with her. 

More than once, she had wished that her life would be like a Mills and Boon, but there was no fairy godmother, as there wasn’t a three-wish-granting genie.

If only there was.

She woke with a start, the sound of the book plopping on the ground after it slipped out of her hands, waking her.

It was just beginning to get dark, and soon night would set in.  Time to dress for dinner.  This time, instead of going down to the hotel dining room, she was going to treat herself at an upmarket fish restaurant not far from the hotel.

She had seen it when out on a morning walk the last few months and decided it was time for something different.

She showered, went through the rigours of applying her ‘face’ more carefully, added style and a ribbon to her hair, then brought her special occasion dress, her version of a little black dress that was less revealing than it could be but just enough to make her feel at least five years younger.

An examination of the finishing product in the mirror told her that her life was not over yet, and maybe something might just happen.

And, even if it didn’t, she had at the very least felt a spark of excitement she hadn’t for a long time.

At the bottom of the stairs, she collected her coat from the rack, and Jason helped her put it on and said that he had not seen her look better, in a tone that sent a shiver down her spine.

At the restaurant, she had made the booking in the name of Delores Sparks, using her surname but a change in the first.  Doris sounded plain, the name of a woman who would never frequent this restaurant.

While being escorted to her table, she noticed there were about a dozen other diners, married or not, couples, and she could feel the eyes of the men on her.

She ordered a glass of French Champagne, Bollinger, one she had seen advertised, and perused the menu.  For some odd reason, it was written in French, perhaps a mistake, but she smiled to herself.

She had taught herself French back in school and was now fluent.  One of those dreams was to visit France, but she never quite found the courage to go alone. 

Perhaps, after tonight…

The waitress came, stood beside her, and waited patiently.  She gave her order in French and then had a quick conversation with the waitress, surprisingly able to speak the language.

It seemed to captivate some of the people around her.

A few minutes later, the maitre d’ came over.  “Excuse me, madam.”

She looked up, wondering what the problem could be.

“We have a slight problem which you may be able to help us with.  We are fully booked and just realised we have a regular guest whom we cannot accommodate…”

She glanced over to the front door and saw a middle-aged well-dressed man who looked on her opinion, either a banker, a lawyer, or an accountant.  He was a rather good-looking man at that.  Probably married, the good ones she discovered early on were always taken.

“Would it be possible to share a table?  He says he is prepared to pay for your dinner.  I will be happy to cover your drinks.  He has been here many times, and I can vouch for his good character.”

Another glance, then back to the maitre’d.

“Of course.  I accept your kind offer.”

“Very good.  This will not be forgotten, Madam, when you return.”

She deliberately didn’t turn around to watch as he was escorted to the table, but as he appeared in front of her, she rose to greet him.  In that moment, she felt a little weakness in her knees, a strange reaction indeed.

“I must thank you, Miss, Mrs…”

“Just call me Delores.”

“Delores, what an interesting name.  My name is Jackson Courtney, Jack for short.”

They shook hands, a rather peculiar thing to do for her, perhaps not him, but the touch of hands was almost electric.  She had to quell her imagination, or she might start blushing.

“Please, sit.”

They did, and the waitresses came over for his drink order.

“I’ll have what Delores is having.”

The waiter nodded and left.

Delores smiled inwardly, noticing how he pronounced her name had that edge to it that might give a little shiver.

“What brings you to this restaurant?  I have to say I am somewhat surprised that you are dining alone.”

Oh, God.  She hadn’t quite thought that far ahead that she would have a proper and sensible conversation, one that didn’t include her telling him she was a full-time carer for her sick mother.

Delores was far more sophisticated.  She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  “I try to find a small hotel and a different restaurant every so often after the hustle and bustle of London.”

“There’s no Mr Delores?”

“Is there no Mrs Courtney?”  Better to answer a question with a question and work on that air of mystery.

He smiled, and it made all the difference to his expression.  Tanned, signs of being an outdoor type, hair lightly receding, but no greying.  There was more, but that would do for now.

“Touche.  We should not dance on the boundaries.  Do you prefer the weather or our health as suitable topics?”

A sense of humour.  “Latest movies perhaps, a book, news that doesn’t involve politics, religion or that swamp on the other side of the Atlantic.”

“You don’t like America?”

“Oh, I love the country, I just don’t like half the people.  But that’s a woman’s perspective.  I suspect a man’s opinion would be different.”

And she swore to herself she was not going to talk politics.  “Sorry.  My personal opinions are mine and best left in my head.  Sometimes I speak without thinking, or perhaps it sounded better in my head.”

“You and me both.  I can and have put my foot in my mouth.”

His champagne came, and they decided to focus on the menu.  He didn’t speak French.

…

The conversation was at first centred around interests. She did not think that she could tell him that she preferred to sit quietly and read, so she embellished the truth, that she liked taking long walks in the countryside, weekends in towns or cities by the sea, easily accessible by train, as she didn’t drive.

There was a stutter in the flow for just a moment when he learned she did not drive, and it led to a diversion about motor cars, and it seemed he had a passion for expensive vehicles.

She did not ask what type of car he drove.

He liked long walks and seaside towns, with piers.

He liked reading thrillers, adventure, and detective novels, and oddly, he thought, gardening magazines.

It led to the discovery that he lived only a few villages across, closer to London, and he took the train to work each day, and sometimes stayed in London overnight, if he worked late.

Oops, he said apologetically, he nearly stepped over one of the invisible boundaries.

Soup was followed by fish, followed by chicken, followed by bread and butter pudding. He selected the white wine, and she selected the after-dinner port they had with coffee.

Food, wine and coffee tastes were the same.

The restaurant had emptied, and the owner was hovering. It was time to leave.

He stood and helped her with the chair, then accompanied her to the door, where he helped her with her coat. They thanked the owner and left.

Outside, he said, “I must thank you for an excellent evening. I have not enjoyed myself for such a long time.”

“And I, too.” There was a question on her mind, one she wanted to ask but did not have the courage.

“I know this is perhaps impertinent of me, but perchance do you come here very often?”

She was going to say, as many times as you would ask me to, but instead had to temper he reply, taking into account the reality of her situation. “About once a month, though not necessarily here, but not far.”

“Do you stay at quaint hotels. I rather want to believe you have that sort of whimsical nature. I find staying in those modern concrete and glass building have no soul. Creaking stairs and floorboards, strange noises in the night, muffled conversations as they pass your door.”

She smiled. “I can see why you like mystery novels. But yes, I do. I’m staying at one tonight, the Railway Hotel has been there forever. My room is like it has been preserved from the 1800s.”

“What a remarkable coincidence. I’m staying there too. Please allow me to escort you there.”

If he had been anything other than the perfect gentleman, she might have refused, but he had. And why not? Ten minutes more with him would give her enough time to imagine what it might be like…

No… It could never be possible. Once he found out about her mother, the truth of her situation, that would be the end.

It was perhaps fortuitous that he was on the second floor and she was on the third. They bade each other good night in the lift, she stepped out, the door closed, and she was taken up to her room.

Once inside, she leaned against the door and smiled.

“Delores and the retired Captain” was practically writing itself, right there, in her head.

….

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

C is for – Coming home

…

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “but this is the end. You have done your bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

Sitting next to Barnaby in the back of the limousine, I could not believe what I was hearing. “This is the end?”

“No. Just the end of your service. You have gone above and beyond. We are grateful, very grateful. But now it’s time to reintegrate into the world.

“Where are we?”

“In the city we picked you up from all those years ago.”

“Cinnamon Falls?”

The limousine slowed and then stopped. The shades went up on all the windows of the car, and I could see a park, the bandstand, and a row of dead-looking rose bushes. There was a layer of snow on the ground and piled up by the side of the road.

“Your hometown.”

Was it? I was sure I came from some small backwater place, but it was so long ago, and I’d been to so many places, what I was looking at was as alien as if they had dropped me off on Mars.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like anywhere I’d come from.”

“Well, our records don’t lie. You have your ID, which is your real name, documents to prove it, and a bank account with enough funds to tide you over till you find a job.”

“Job?”

“Yes. You know. A place where you go, toil for eight hours and then go home. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Impossible. You’ve been trained to be anyone, anywhere, and do anything. I have complete faith in you.”

“Will I see you again, anyone again?”

“No. When you get out of the car, that’s it. We never existed. Now, it’s time to go.”

I could see there was no arguing with Barnaby. He had said, a long time ago, this time would come. It had. I opened the door. A cold blast of air came in.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the ride.”

In more ways than one.

I got out, took a last look at the old man, then closed the door. I watched the car drive off, until it turned the corner and disappeared.

It was the first day of the rest of my life.

…

Cinnamon Falls was one of those small, forgettable little towns scattered about the Midwest.  My parents had been ranchers, as had their parents before them and so on.

Other family members were shopkeepers, soldiers on the frontier, and immigrants before that. 

Now, I had no idea who they were.

My parents had died very recently, my older brother, Sherman, and his wife, Madeleine, the proverbial childhood sweetheart he’d known from grade school, who were the ranchers now, were the only family I knew.

The rest had died out or moved on.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bandstand.  My first kiss was under that roof, with a girl called Amy Deacon, the minister’s daughter.

He was a fire-and-brimstone preacher of the old school who castigated his flock every Sunday about sins and the wrath of God.  Everyone was too scared not to turn up.

I wondered what had happened to her.  Married to Archie, her prom date no doubt.  I was going to ask her, but somehow never got around to it.  She was my first love, the one who really hurt when it didn’t work out.

The first flakes of snow that had been chasing us into town started to fall, and it was going to get cold.  There was no time to look up whether Sherman, my brother, was still on the farm; that was a tomorrow job.

Today I’d get a room at the hotel and decide what to do tomorrow.

The Falls Motel was old and decrepit when I left 20 years ago and hadn’t improved except for a coat of paint.

The sign had a missing ‘l’ in Falls, and the no vacancy sign had no ‘ancy’.  There were three cars outside the 20 rooms, which meant it was not full.

Darkness was setting in as I reached the front door, and it opened with a screech from unoiled hinges.  Perhaps that was how the receptionist knew there was a customer.

Or not.  After a minute, I banged on the desk bell, the one that had a handwritten sign that said, ‘ring for service’. 

Not immediate service anyway.

A girl about 15 or so came out of the back room, swaying to music that I couldn’t hear.  Ear buds.

She pulled one out and said, “What do you want?”

The obvious, I thought.  “You do have rooms for the night, don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet.  “Duh.  You want a room?”

“Please.”

She shoved a book in front of me with a pen without a lid.  “Sign in.”

I put my name and no address because I didn’t have one, then scribbled a signature.

“Card or cash.”

“Cash.”  I pulled out my wallet.

“A hundred bucks.”

It was a bit more than the last time I stayed there.

She slapped a key with the number 10 attached to it.  “You want breakfast, the diner’s 200 yards up the road.  Leave by 10 am.”

By the time I got to the door, she was gone.

The snow was falling harder by the time I reached the door.  Two rooms I passed that had cars out the front had TV’s blaring. 

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a combination of disuse and disinfectant.  It could be worse.  It could be better.

The bathroom had soap and shampoo, the bed had clean sheets, and the TV had CNN.  It was as much as anyone could hope for.

…

Like any time in a new or different city, I woke slightly disoriented.  It took a minute or two to remember who I was and why I was there.  Not on an operation, but as a cast-off.

It was still dark, but early, about the time I usually woke.  The snow had stopped, but the cold had become more intense.  I put the air conditioner on, but it only blew cold air.

I dressed and headed up to the diner.

It was once owned by a relative, but it was clear that someone else owned it now.  None of my relatives was Chinese.  I sat at the counter, and a middle-aged lady who looked like one of my grade teachers served coffee.

There were a half dozen customers, some sitting in booths, and the chef behind the servery was looking busy.  He shoved two plates of fried stuff on the servery and banged a bell.  The middle-aged lady collected and delivered them to a man and a woman in a booth.

They had been arguing quietly as I came in and were now looking at me.  Townspeople trying to identify a stranger, perhaps.

The middle-aged lady returned.  “From outta town?”

“Yes and no.  I’ll have the special.”

It didn’t say what it was, but it was one of three items on the menu board above the servery.

She wrote it down and gave it to the chef.

The coffee was oddly good.

A police car pulled up outside the diner in a specially marked parking space, and a Deputy got out.  He was slightly older than me, bigger and stronger and in his tailored uniform looked good.

Ben Frasher.  Dad was a sheriff; his dad was a sheriff, it was how things worked.  Ben, though, has been a wild youth, so it was a surprise to see he had followed in his father’s footsteps.

He adjusted the uniform after getting out, holstered the gun, looked at his reflection on the car window, and then came in.

A younger girl, a waitress come bounding out of the back.  “Deputy Frasher, the usual?”

He smiled.  “Of course, Daisy.”  A nod to the middle-aged lady, a quick look around at the customers, and then stopping at me.

I’d changed considerably in 20 years, and he might not recognise me.

“Jack Dawson?”  There was incredulity in his tone.

“It might not be.”

“But there again it might.  When did you get back?”

To him, it seemed like it was only yesterday I left town.

“Last night.”

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine.  I would have preferred he hadn’t, but he was the law.

“Been home?”

“No.”

“Going home?”

“Depends.”

My brother was either going to welcome me or shoot me.  He had threatened the latter when I told him I had to go.  It wasn’t for the reasons he thought it was, and not the lies certain people spread after I was gone.

20 years was a long time, maybe they’d forgotten, but knowing this town, I doubted it.

“You won’t be welcome.”

An understatement.  “It’s been a long time.”

“I can take you, of you like.  It might help prevent trouble.”

It might, or I might not get there.  The Frashers, father and sons, never liked us.  “I’ve got to collect a car and take myself.  Thanks for offering.”

The young waitress put a takeaway cup of coffee on the counter in front of him and smiled.

He nodded in her direction.  “Thanks, Daisy.”  He picked it up and walked slowly towards the door, then stopped and turned.  “No trouble, Jack.  This is a peaceful town now.”

…

It was odd that he thought that I would be the one to start any trouble when, in the first instance, in what could only be described as an ambush, father and son Frasher came after my brother and me based on a lie.

And if anything, the only one in our family who had the right to pick up a shotgun and use it would be me, not my brother.  We both knew who the problem was and who took the fall, but it was how they spun the story after I left.

I was never expected to come back.  I never expected that I would be deposited back in my hometown. 

Maybe Barnaby didn’t know what he had done, but that was hard to believe when he often bragged that he knew everything and could be trusted.  This was just the sort of stunt he would pull, either as a test or an active scenario.

It was not a test.

It was a scenario that was designed to take a problem off his hands.

The middle-aged server dropped a takeaway coffee on the counter in front of me.  “It’s cold out, and you’ll need it.”

“You weren’t one of my grade teachers, were you?  Miss Penman?”  I thought I recognised her.

She smiled.  “My mother.  You’re Jack Dawson.  She always said you were one of the good ones.  I didn’t believe for a moment you were the one who burned the Frasher barn down.  They haven’t improved over the years, doubt they ever will.  You were lucky to escape this place.”

She picked up the empty plate.  “Don’t hang around.  Go see your brother, then leave quietly.  The town is not the same one you left behind.”

I’d seen that expression before, many times.  Fear.  And sadness.

“I’m not planning on staying.  I wasn’t planning on visiting, but sometimes shit happens.”

“That it does.”

…

The car rental place had three cars out front.  The storefront had been recently painted, and the windows looked new.

It looked to me like they’d been replaced, and a closer look, before going in, showed glass fragments inside, under the ledge.

Intimidation?

The man behind the counter was not a local.  The car company was a branch of a well-known brand.  He looked up as I came in.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a car booked.”

“Name?”

“Dawson.”

He looked at his computer and frowned.  “This tells me you cancelled the booking.”

“Ten minutes ago?”

He looked at the screen.  He shook his head and didn’t look at me.

“Frasher called you.  Which car was set aside?”

“The red Acura.”

I held out my hand.  “Don’t mess with the people who made the booking.  Frasher is about to find that out.”

He took the key off the wall rack and gave it to me.  “There’s no excess if you have an accident.  Try to return it in the same condition as you picked it up.  A full tank of gas would be appreciated.  Have a nice day, Mr Dawson.”

Before I got in the car, I looked up and down the street.  Next block, tucked in behind a Ford, was a cruiser.  Watching and waiting.

The Frashers were worried.  My return caused them more angst than my family simply because I was the one who knew the truth.

…

I got in the car, pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road that passed through the town, and then on to the crossroad five miles outside of town.

The police cruiser followed me, keeping pace.

At the intersection where the lane to what used to be my home and the main road in and out of town, two cruisers and a large Suburban, the vehicle of choice for the current sheriff, blocked the three roads.

Another cruiser joined the one behind me, and when I stopped, about five cars from the roadblock, they stopped a similar distance behind me.

An odd thought popped into my head: if I had a gang, they could be robbing the main street shops right now because all the police were here.

I typed a message on the phone and sent it to the one number in my contact list, then got out of the car.  I did not have a weapon like I would usually, so it was an unusual feeling.

It is, I thought, what it is.  not the time to be worrying about consequences.

The sheriff and his mentors did likewise; those other than the sheriff waited by their cars, weapons drawn but not pointing them at me.

Yet.

I walked to the front of my car and leaned against the bonnet, hands where they could see them.  Deputies in this county had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

The sheriff walked five steps towards me and stopped.  He took a moment, then took off the dark glasses.  He looked old and tired.

“Sheriff Frasher,” I said in my most congenial tone.  What came out sounded like I was being strangled.

“Jack.”  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if his boots were new and hurting his feet.  Then, “You need to turn around and go back to the airport, and back to where you came from.  This town doesn’t need or want you.”

“I think that’s more about you not wanting me here, Sheriff.”

“I want what’s best for the town.  That means not having you here to stir up trouble.”

I looked around at the deputies by their vehicles.  Three of them were Frashers.  I guess anyone could be a Deputy these days.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble.  I’m just here to see my brother, but with all this attention, I have to wonder why you don’t want me to see him.”

“He might not want to see you.”

True, but the sheriff could not know that for sure.  “Well, be that as it may, I will still be visiting my brother.”

“Just… ” His cell phone started ringing. 

I saw him look at the screen with a perplexed expression before answering.  The stiffening of the shoulders and the almost standing to attention told me this was neither a conversation he wanted, but, most of all, wasn’t expecting.

To tell the truth, neither was I, nor at least not as soon as this.  But then Barnaby always knew how to put the wind up people, people whom others never dared to try.

I heard the sheriff distinctly say no several times, and ‘of course’ once near the end of the conversation.

A few seconds later, it was over.  After another long, mournful glare at the screen, he put the phone back in his pocket.

Then he looked at me with a curious expression. 

“Just who the hell are you?”

“No one.  I’m sure if you looked me up, you would find no trace of me from the day I left this town till I arrived back yesterday.”

“Then how…”

“That is a long story.”

A sudden gust of wind came from the north, bringing with it the promise of more snow.  It was not the time to be standing around talking.

I shivered, partly because of the cold, but mostly from a momentary memory of another time, in another country, with similar people, people obsessed with wealth and power.

Frasher was either too stupid or too stubborn to let this go.

“Enlighten me.”

I sighed.  Light snow started to fall out of the sky.  The wind picked up, and a blizzard was in the offing.  I left in a blizzard, to me it was an omen.

“Giles Bentley, Sheriff.”  I held up my cell phone.  “You have a choice.  Now.  In five minutes, you won’t.  I’m sure you and your deputies have better things to do.”

He still didn’t look happy, but then, once I mentioned the name that had not been mentioned before, he didn’t have much of a choice.  And given his expression, he knew he had overstepped.

“Wrap it up, boys, and get back to work.  Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.  The snow was coming down much thicker and settling on everything.  Another half hour we would be snowed in.

I got back in my car and started the engine.  By the time I was ready to drive, all but the Sheriff’s vehicle had gone.  A last look at me, he got in his vehicle and moved to the side of the road.

As I drove past, I could see him on his cell phone, talking and gesturing, like a man who knew his time was up.

…

Everybody had a piper they had to pay.  Frasher was no exception.  Barnaby was no exception.  Neither was I.  There was always someone above our pay grade pulling strings.

My father made a mistake 20 years ago, and I paid the price for that mistake.  No one but my father and Giles Bentley knew exactly what it was, and Frasher had been the one to oversee it.

Lies had been told by all three to cover it up.

I was never supposed to return to Cinnamon Falls, but Frasher senior and my father had both died recently, and Barnaby decided that I should not be punished any more.

It was the subject of a text I received just as I was about to finally fall asleep.  Typical poor timing that was Barnaby’s modus operandi.

I hadn’t been retired.  I had been released, my sentence over.  My troubles were over. 

I drove those last five miles wondering if I could ever just close my eyes and sleep peacefully, the sort of sleep where you weren’t expecting trouble, where you no longer had to look over your shoulder.  A 20-year habit that would be hard to break.

I drove under the sign that announced you were entering the Excelsior Ranch, the Dawson family home for over a hundred and fifty years, reputedly won by Alexander Dawson in a card game.

Such stories were told and retold until they became just that, stories with no basis in fact; they just sounded good on paper.

The thing is, it was true, we had the piece of paper, signed by the hapless Bentley, the gambler and wastrel relative, who lost it in a card game, a document witnessed by a Frasher.

It was a story that changed depending on who told it.  Now it didn’t matter.  All promises and obligations were discharged.  The Excelsior belonged to the Dawsons.  The County Sheriff would always be a Frasher, and the Bentleys had a presidential candidate who didn’t need a scandal.

I felt sorry for Sheriff Frasher.  Well, maybe not.  The Frashers always were dumb as dog shit.

I stopped the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the veranda where Sherman and Madeleine were waiting.

I got out, and for a moment, the snow stopped swirling.  Long enough for me to get up the stairs and under cover.

“Jack.”  Sherman held out his hand.

“Sherman.”  I took it, and we shook hands like two men sealing a deal.

Then it was hugs all round until I saw Amy Deacon standing back.  She smiled and said, in her usual laconic manner, “You are a sight for sore eyes, young Jack.”

I was home, once and for all.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

C is for – Coming home

…

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “but this is the end. You have done your bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

Sitting next to Barnaby in the back of the limousine, I could not believe what I was hearing. “This is the end?”

“No. Just the end of your service. You have gone above and beyond. We are grateful, very grateful. But now it’s time to reintegrate into the world.

“Where are we?”

“In the city we picked you up from all those years ago.”

“Cinnamon Falls?”

The limousine slowed and then stopped. The shades went up on all the windows of the car, and I could see a park, the bandstand, and a row of dead-looking rose bushes. There was a layer of snow on the ground and piled up by the side of the road.

“Your hometown.”

Was it? I was sure I came from some small backwater place, but it was so long ago, and I’d been to so many places, what I was looking at was as alien as if they had dropped me off on Mars.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like anywhere I’d come from.”

“Well, our records don’t lie. You have your ID, which is your real name, documents to prove it, and a bank account with enough funds to tide you over till you find a job.”

“Job?”

“Yes. You know. A place where you go, toil for eight hours and then go home. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Impossible. You’ve been trained to be anyone, anywhere, and do anything. I have complete faith in you.”

“Will I see you again, anyone again?”

“No. When you get out of the car, that’s it. We never existed. Now, it’s time to go.”

I could see there was no arguing with Barnaby. He had said, a long time ago, this time would come. It had. I opened the door. A cold blast of air came in.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the ride.”

In more ways than one.

I got out, took a last look at the old man, then closed the door. I watched the car drive off, until it turned the corner and disappeared.

It was the first day of the rest of my life.

…

Cinnamon Falls was one of those small, forgettable little towns scattered about the Midwest.  My parents had been ranchers, as had their parents before them and so on.

Other family members were shopkeepers, soldiers on the frontier, and immigrants before that. 

Now, I had no idea who they were.

My parents had died very recently, my older brother, Sherman, and his wife, Madeleine, the proverbial childhood sweetheart he’d known from grade school, who were the ranchers now, were the only family I knew.

The rest had died out or moved on.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bandstand.  My first kiss was under that roof, with a girl called Amy Deacon, the minister’s daughter.

He was a fire-and-brimstone preacher of the old school who castigated his flock every Sunday about sins and the wrath of God.  Everyone was too scared not to turn up.

I wondered what had happened to her.  Married to Archie, her prom date no doubt.  I was going to ask her, but somehow never got around to it.  She was my first love, the one who really hurt when it didn’t work out.

The first flakes of snow that had been chasing us into town started to fall, and it was going to get cold.  There was no time to look up whether Sherman, my brother, was still on the farm; that was a tomorrow job.

Today I’d get a room at the hotel and decide what to do tomorrow.

The Falls Motel was old and decrepit when I left 20 years ago and hadn’t improved except for a coat of paint.

The sign had a missing ‘l’ in Falls, and the no vacancy sign had no ‘ancy’.  There were three cars outside the 20 rooms, which meant it was not full.

Darkness was setting in as I reached the front door, and it opened with a screech from unoiled hinges.  Perhaps that was how the receptionist knew there was a customer.

Or not.  After a minute, I banged on the desk bell, the one that had a handwritten sign that said, ‘ring for service’. 

Not immediate service anyway.

A girl about 15 or so came out of the back room, swaying to music that I couldn’t hear.  Ear buds.

She pulled one out and said, “What do you want?”

The obvious, I thought.  “You do have rooms for the night, don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet.  “Duh.  You want a room?”

“Please.”

She shoved a book in front of me with a pen without a lid.  “Sign in.”

I put my name and no address because I didn’t have one, then scribbled a signature.

“Card or cash.”

“Cash.”  I pulled out my wallet.

“A hundred bucks.”

It was a bit more than the last time I stayed there.

She slapped a key with the number 10 attached to it.  “You want breakfast, the diner’s 200 yards up the road.  Leave by 10 am.”

By the time I got to the door, she was gone.

The snow was falling harder by the time I reached the door.  Two rooms I passed that had cars out the front had TV’s blaring. 

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a combination of disuse and disinfectant.  It could be worse.  It could be better.

The bathroom had soap and shampoo, the bed had clean sheets, and the TV had CNN.  It was as much as anyone could hope for.

…

Like any time in a new or different city, I woke slightly disoriented.  It took a minute or two to remember who I was and why I was there.  Not on an operation, but as a cast-off.

It was still dark, but early, about the time I usually woke.  The snow had stopped, but the cold had become more intense.  I put the air conditioner on, but it only blew cold air.

I dressed and headed up to the diner.

It was once owned by a relative, but it was clear that someone else owned it now.  None of my relatives was Chinese.  I sat at the counter, and a middle-aged lady who looked like one of my grade teachers served coffee.

There were a half dozen customers, some sitting in booths, and the chef behind the servery was looking busy.  He shoved two plates of fried stuff on the servery and banged a bell.  The middle-aged lady collected and delivered them to a man and a woman in a booth.

They had been arguing quietly as I came in and were now looking at me.  Townspeople trying to identify a stranger, perhaps.

The middle-aged lady returned.  “From outta town?”

“Yes and no.  I’ll have the special.”

It didn’t say what it was, but it was one of three items on the menu board above the servery.

She wrote it down and gave it to the chef.

The coffee was oddly good.

A police car pulled up outside the diner in a specially marked parking space, and a Deputy got out.  He was slightly older than me, bigger and stronger and in his tailored uniform looked good.

Ben Frasher.  Dad was a sheriff; his dad was a sheriff, it was how things worked.  Ben, though, has been a wild youth, so it was a surprise to see he had followed in his father’s footsteps.

He adjusted the uniform after getting out, holstered the gun, looked at his reflection on the car window, and then came in.

A younger girl, a waitress come bounding out of the back.  “Deputy Frasher, the usual?”

He smiled.  “Of course, Daisy.”  A nod to the middle-aged lady, a quick look around at the customers, and then stopping at me.

I’d changed considerably in 20 years, and he might not recognise me.

“Jack Dawson?”  There was incredulity in his tone.

“It might not be.”

“But there again it might.  When did you get back?”

To him, it seemed like it was only yesterday I left town.

“Last night.”

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine.  I would have preferred he hadn’t, but he was the law.

“Been home?”

“No.”

“Going home?”

“Depends.”

My brother was either going to welcome me or shoot me.  He had threatened the latter when I told him I had to go.  It wasn’t for the reasons he thought it was, and not the lies certain people spread after I was gone.

20 years was a long time, maybe they’d forgotten, but knowing this town, I doubted it.

“You won’t be welcome.”

An understatement.  “It’s been a long time.”

“I can take you, of you like.  It might help prevent trouble.”

It might, or I might not get there.  The Frashers, father and sons, never liked us.  “I’ve got to collect a car and take myself.  Thanks for offering.”

The young waitress put a takeaway cup of coffee on the counter in front of him and smiled.

He nodded in her direction.  “Thanks, Daisy.”  He picked it up and walked slowly towards the door, then stopped and turned.  “No trouble, Jack.  This is a peaceful town now.”

…

It was odd that he thought that I would be the one to start any trouble when, in the first instance, in what could only be described as an ambush, father and son Frasher came after my brother and me based on a lie.

And if anything, the only one in our family who had the right to pick up a shotgun and use it would be me, not my brother.  We both knew who the problem was and who took the fall, but it was how they spun the story after I left.

I was never expected to come back.  I never expected that I would be deposited back in my hometown. 

Maybe Barnaby didn’t know what he had done, but that was hard to believe when he often bragged that he knew everything and could be trusted.  This was just the sort of stunt he would pull, either as a test or an active scenario.

It was not a test.

It was a scenario that was designed to take a problem off his hands.

The middle-aged server dropped a takeaway coffee on the counter in front of me.  “It’s cold out, and you’ll need it.”

“You weren’t one of my grade teachers, were you?  Miss Penman?”  I thought I recognised her.

She smiled.  “My mother.  You’re Jack Dawson.  She always said you were one of the good ones.  I didn’t believe for a moment you were the one who burned the Frasher barn down.  They haven’t improved over the years, doubt they ever will.  You were lucky to escape this place.”

She picked up the empty plate.  “Don’t hang around.  Go see your brother, then leave quietly.  The town is not the same one you left behind.”

I’d seen that expression before, many times.  Fear.  And sadness.

“I’m not planning on staying.  I wasn’t planning on visiting, but sometimes shit happens.”

“That it does.”

…

The car rental place had three cars out front.  The storefront had been recently painted, and the windows looked new.

It looked to me like they’d been replaced, and a closer look, before going in, showed glass fragments inside, under the ledge.

Intimidation?

The man behind the counter was not a local.  The car company was a branch of a well-known brand.  He looked up as I came in.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a car booked.”

“Name?”

“Dawson.”

He looked at his computer and frowned.  “This tells me you cancelled the booking.”

“Ten minutes ago?”

He looked at the screen.  He shook his head and didn’t look at me.

“Frasher called you.  Which car was set aside?”

“The red Acura.”

I held out my hand.  “Don’t mess with the people who made the booking.  Frasher is about to find that out.”

He took the key off the wall rack and gave it to me.  “There’s no excess if you have an accident.  Try to return it in the same condition as you picked it up.  A full tank of gas would be appreciated.  Have a nice day, Mr Dawson.”

Before I got in the car, I looked up and down the street.  Next block, tucked in behind a Ford, was a cruiser.  Watching and waiting.

The Frashers were worried.  My return caused them more angst than my family simply because I was the one who knew the truth.

…

I got in the car, pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road that passed through the town, and then on to the crossroad five miles outside of town.

The police cruiser followed me, keeping pace.

At the intersection where the lane to what used to be my home and the main road in and out of town, two cruisers and a large Suburban, the vehicle of choice for the current sheriff, blocked the three roads.

Another cruiser joined the one behind me, and when I stopped, about five cars from the roadblock, they stopped a similar distance behind me.

An odd thought popped into my head: if I had a gang, they could be robbing the main street shops right now because all the police were here.

I typed a message on the phone and sent it to the one number in my contact list, then got out of the car.  I did not have a weapon like I would usually, so it was an unusual feeling.

It is, I thought, what it is.  not the time to be worrying about consequences.

The sheriff and his mentors did likewise; those other than the sheriff waited by their cars, weapons drawn but not pointing them at me.

Yet.

I walked to the front of my car and leaned against the bonnet, hands where they could see them.  Deputies in this county had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

The sheriff walked five steps towards me and stopped.  He took a moment, then took off the dark glasses.  He looked old and tired.

“Sheriff Frasher,” I said in my most congenial tone.  What came out sounded like I was being strangled.

“Jack.”  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if his boots were new and hurting his feet.  Then, “You need to turn around and go back to the airport, and back to where you came from.  This town doesn’t need or want you.”

“I think that’s more about you not wanting me here, Sheriff.”

“I want what’s best for the town.  That means not having you here to stir up trouble.”

I looked around at the deputies by their vehicles.  Three of them were Frashers.  I guess anyone could be a Deputy these days.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble.  I’m just here to see my brother, but with all this attention, I have to wonder why you don’t want me to see him.”

“He might not want to see you.”

True, but the sheriff could not know that for sure.  “Well, be that as it may, I will still be visiting my brother.”

“Just… ” His cell phone started ringing. 

I saw him look at the screen with a perplexed expression before answering.  The stiffening of the shoulders and the almost standing to attention told me this was neither a conversation he wanted, but, most of all, wasn’t expecting.

To tell the truth, neither was I, nor at least not as soon as this.  But then Barnaby always knew how to put the wind up people, people whom others never dared to try.

I heard the sheriff distinctly say no several times, and ‘of course’ once near the end of the conversation.

A few seconds later, it was over.  After another long, mournful glare at the screen, he put the phone back in his pocket.

Then he looked at me with a curious expression. 

“Just who the hell are you?”

“No one.  I’m sure if you looked me up, you would find no trace of me from the day I left this town till I arrived back yesterday.”

“Then how…”

“That is a long story.”

A sudden gust of wind came from the north, bringing with it the promise of more snow.  It was not the time to be standing around talking.

I shivered, partly because of the cold, but mostly from a momentary memory of another time, in another country, with similar people, people obsessed with wealth and power.

Frasher was either too stupid or too stubborn to let this go.

“Enlighten me.”

I sighed.  Light snow started to fall out of the sky.  The wind picked up, and a blizzard was in the offing.  I left in a blizzard, to me it was an omen.

“Giles Bentley, Sheriff.”  I held up my cell phone.  “You have a choice.  Now.  In five minutes, you won’t.  I’m sure you and your deputies have better things to do.”

He still didn’t look happy, but then, once I mentioned the name that had not been mentioned before, he didn’t have much of a choice.  And given his expression, he knew he had overstepped.

“Wrap it up, boys, and get back to work.  Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.  The snow was coming down much thicker and settling on everything.  Another half hour we would be snowed in.

I got back in my car and started the engine.  By the time I was ready to drive, all but the Sheriff’s vehicle had gone.  A last look at me, he got in his vehicle and moved to the side of the road.

As I drove past, I could see him on his cell phone, talking and gesturing, like a man who knew his time was up.

…

Everybody had a piper they had to pay.  Frasher was no exception.  Barnaby was no exception.  Neither was I.  There was always someone above our pay grade pulling strings.

My father made a mistake 20 years ago, and I paid the price for that mistake.  No one but my father and Giles Bentley knew exactly what it was, and Frasher had been the one to oversee it.

Lies had been told by all three to cover it up.

I was never supposed to return to Cinnamon Falls, but Frasher senior and my father had both died recently, and Barnaby decided that I should not be punished any more.

It was the subject of a text I received just as I was about to finally fall asleep.  Typical poor timing that was Barnaby’s modus operandi.

I hadn’t been retired.  I had been released, my sentence over.  My troubles were over. 

I drove those last five miles wondering if I could ever just close my eyes and sleep peacefully, the sort of sleep where you weren’t expecting trouble, where you no longer had to look over your shoulder.  A 20-year habit that would be hard to break.

I drove under the sign that announced you were entering the Excelsior Ranch, the Dawson family home for over a hundred and fifty years, reputedly won by Alexander Dawson in a card game.

Such stories were told and retold until they became just that, stories with no basis in fact; they just sounded good on paper.

The thing is, it was true, we had the piece of paper, signed by the hapless Bentley, the gambler and wastrel relative, who lost it in a card game, a document witnessed by a Frasher.

It was a story that changed depending on who told it.  Now it didn’t matter.  All promises and obligations were discharged.  The Excelsior belonged to the Dawsons.  The County Sheriff would always be a Frasher, and the Bentleys had a presidential candidate who didn’t need a scandal.

I felt sorry for Sheriff Frasher.  Well, maybe not.  The Frashers always were dumb as dog shit.

I stopped the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the veranda where Sherman and Madeleine were waiting.

I got out, and for a moment, the snow stopped swirling.  Long enough for me to get up the stairs and under cover.

“Jack.”  Sherman held out his hand.

“Sherman.”  I took it, and we shook hands like two men sealing a deal.

Then it was hugs all round until I saw Amy Deacon standing back.  She smiled and said, in her usual laconic manner, “You are a sight for sore eyes, young Jack.”

I was home, once and for all.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

B is for – Bullies can be beaten

…

It was the sort of stuff spy novels had in abundance.

But it was my imagination, fuelled by scores of those very same stories all rolled into one, that I used to explain why I was missing from school to classmates who thought I was the most boring and uninteresting person they had ever known.

I knew what they’d say, so I was going to take them on a journey, and in my childish mind, I was going to make it as believable as I could.

Of course, what a child imagines to be true and what is are two very different things.

But, like everything that ever happened to me, it didn’t start out as an opportunity to do the right thing; it was at the end of some very stinging barbs from Alistair Goodall, my tormentor and school bully.

…

I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster, which, considering he was a foot taller and about 50 pounds heavier than I, was really a waste of time.

He had just told everyone within hearing range that my absence had simply been because I was too scared to come to school, because he had threatened to beat me up.

It was true, but I wasn’t going to let that be my defining moment. Instead, I blurted out, “The whole family had to go into hiding because of things my father knew, and his life was in danger.”

Yes, we had gone away, but it was to another country, where my mother’s parents lived, and they had been killed in an accident. It was quite sudden; my mother and sister had gone first, and then my father and I followed. He had difficulty getting away, and it had been a last-minute decision.

He had to come back, and despite my pleas to leave me with my mother, he dragged me back, oblivious to the predicament I was in with Alistair Goodall.

Goodall looked at me incredulously at first, then with a smile. “Good try, squirt. You almost had me believing it. Your dad an informer? My dad’s a cop, so I’ll ask him, but we both know what he’s going to say.” He took a step closer. I braced for impact.

But then, realising I was digging a bigger hole, one that I might not get out of, “Your dad wouldn’t have a clue about witness protection. It wouldn’t be witness protection if everyone knew about it. This is stuff beyond his pay grade.”

I remembered a TV show I had seen while away, about witness protection, and how it was supposed to be secret, but the witness was sold out by the bad guy’s man in the police force.

“My dad’s very important,” he said, his voice raised an octave, a sure sign he was losing this war of words.

“Then if you went home and started asking questions about witnesses who are supposed to be in protection, then he would lose his job, or worse, go to jail for blabbing secrets.”

“Your blabbing secrets.”

“You’re threatening to beat me up if I don’t tell you where I’ve been. Just threatening me into telling you is going to get you into a heap of trouble. I suggest you let it go, and we keep this between us. Or can’t you keep secrets?”

“I can too.”

The whine in his voice told me that I had bested him, but for how long was a moot question. He was not going to keep this a secret.

…

The school term ended in an uneasy truce between Alistair and me, and the whole school broke for the summer holidays. It meant I could escape Alistair’s persecution, at least for a few weeks, time enough for the rest of the family to return, and a semblance of normalcy to return.

I had just about put the great lie out of my mind when Alistair turned up outside my house with a smug smile. That idea of keeping secrets was not one of his strong points.

“You’re really for it, now, squirt. My dad knows nothing about this crap story of yours. In fact, he copped a serve at work, and he’s coming around to put the pair of you straight.”

Damn. Why could the miserable twisted arse just let it go?

“You want to be anywhere but here when he gets here.”

He walked off laughing, thinking he’d bought me a whole new world of pain.

My father was home for a week, which was a shame, because he was never home, always busy, too busy to be bothered with any of us. It would have been better if he hadn’t, or my mother was here, which she was not, still delayed in her return.

I spent a good hour trying to think of how I was going to get out of this one, but whatever I did, there was no chance I was not going to get a beating for this. Goodall was a copper, and although my father said he was a bully and a terrible excuse for a local plod, as he called him, he was still the law. Previous infractions I had been accused of were all true, and it had got me into trouble and a warning; there had better not be a next time.

This was the next time, and it was a doozy.

There was only one path I could go down.

My father was in his study when I went to look for him. He was always working on something, with books and charts all over the desk. I never asked, and he never volunteered what his job was, but I would have to ask one day.

I knocked on the door and waited a minute or two before he asked me to come in.

“Did I hear you talking to someone before?”

“Alistair Goodall, bully son of the local copper. As bad as his father, he uses him as a shield. I’d complain about him, but you keep saying I have to man up. There’s no manning up against the likes of him.”

I had considered whinging about the kid, but I knew my father wouldn’t accept that as trying hard enough to find my own solution, and it was useless telling him there wasn’t one.

He looked at. “Your mother said you were being bullied. Why didn’t you come and see me?”

“You’re never home, and you reckon I have to sort it out myself. Bit hard when he’s taller and heavier than I am. And I don’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him with a baseball bat.”

“Drastic but effective, no doubt, but not worth the jail time. Why are you telling me this?”

“He wanted to know why I was away recently. I couldn’t tell him; he threatened to beat me up, so I made up a lie. The truth was too lame for a moron like him.”

“What lie?”

I told him and watched the already dark features go a lot darker.

“And you expected he wouldn’t take it to his father for confirmation?”

“Plods don’t get told anything, of course, he wouldn’t know, and even if it was true, no one from up the chain would share that with a fool like Goodall. Even I know that much.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Reading. I’ve read a lot of books, seen films and TV shows. I know a lot of it is make-believe, but there has to be elements of it that are true. The point is that I told Alistair that it was a secret and asked him to keep it. I mean, in real circumstances, we would be trusting him, which you would think from all the bluster that he could. If it had been a test, he failed spectacularly. As for his father, sure, he would understand the nature of witness protection and the necessity for secrecy, so blabbing it to his superiors was wrong on so many levels. I’m sure they would have said they knew nothing about it, even if they did.”

My father thought about that for a minute, perhaps looking to point out the flaws in the logic, but I couldn’t see any.

“I don’t like Goodall. Got on my wrong side when he first became a Sergeant. Too smug by half, and, as you say, a bully who uses his position. You were wrong to lie. Now, go upstairs. I’ll deal with Goodall.”

…

I was sitting behind the wall at the top of the stairs, waiting for Goodall to come. I wondered if he would bring the toad Alistair with him.

The pounding on the door almost made my heart stop. My father took his time to answer the door, and then, “Sergeant Goodall, what do we owe the honour of this visit?” It was the most pleasant tone I’d ever heard my father use, to anyone.

“Mr. Laramie…” Goodall senior only had one level of speaking, loud and confrontational.

“Sergeant Goodall, there are two things I expect from any visitor who comes to my door: that the visitor addresses me in a civil tone and the other, not to make their cases on my doorstep. Now, if you give me your word you will be civil, I will invite you in.”

He must have nodded because I heard footsteps and the door closed. His office was on the ground floor, up the passage. I would be able to hear them if the door to the office weren’t closed.

“Now, Sergeant Goodall, what exactly is the problem?”

“Your son is telling preposterous lies.”

“Your son is a bully, and my son fears going to school because of him. I think you should be attending to your son’s proclivities rather than worrying about what my son says. Most kids his age speak utter gibberish at the best of times.”

A moment’s silence before, “It’s not the fact, it’s lies, it’s the nature of the lie.”

“Oh. The fact that we were away. Well, there’s something else you should be admonishing that wretch of a child of yours for. My son told him the truth. and gave him a warning that it was not to be put about, in fact, as I understand it, he told your son that it was to be kept secret, and because he believed your son, being the son of a respectable policeman who understands the nature of these sorts of secrets, could keep it. The fact that he couldn’t keep that simple secret disappointed my son, disappointed me, and disappointed the people who arranged our sojourn, while some very nasty people were put away. They are, at the very least, extremely disappointed that you were poking around in matters that were way above your pay grade. If my son comes home any time in the new year complaining about your son, I will forget about being magnanimous this one time, in the hope you can address the issues you have; if he comes home with a complaint, all bets are off. Do I make myself clear?”

“He was not lying?”

“He was trying to avoid being beaten up by a thug, Goodall. He trusted your boy, and he let him down badly. This matter should not be discussed, here or anywhere, and I expect by the time you pass through my front door, the matter of our sojourn will be forgotten, and the problem with your child will be on the way to being resolved. Now, if that’s all….”

A few seconds later, I heard Goodall being bundled out the door, and it closed firmly behind him.

…

My father took a risk, but it paid off.

By the end of the summer holidays, Goodall had moved on to another station and taken his wretched son with him.

Goodall wasn’t the only bully at that school, but I learned a new way to deal with them, one that didn’t include elaborate lies. Those I saved for the stories I started writing.

…

©  Charles Heath 2025-2026

B is for – Bullies can be beaten

…

It was the sort of stuff spy novels had in abundance.

But it was my imagination, fuelled by scores of those very same stories all rolled into one, that I used to explain why I was missing from school to classmates who thought I was the most boring and uninteresting person they had ever known.

I knew what they’d say, so I was going to take them on a journey, and in my childish mind, I was going to make it as believable as I could.

Of course, what a child imagines to be true and what is are two very different things.

But, like everything that ever happened to me, it didn’t start out as an opportunity to do the right thing; it was at the end of some very stinging barbs from Alistair Goodall, my tormentor and school bully.

…

I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster, which, considering he was a foot taller and about 50 pounds heavier than I, was really a waste of time.

He had just told everyone within hearing range that my absence had simply been because I was too scared to come to school, because he had threatened to beat me up.

It was true, but I wasn’t going to let that be my defining moment. Instead, I blurted out, “The whole family had to go into hiding because of things my father knew, and his life was in danger.”

Yes, we had gone away, but it was to another country, where my mother’s parents lived, and they had been killed in an accident. It was quite sudden; my mother and sister had gone first, and then my father and I followed. He had difficulty getting away, and it had been a last-minute decision.

He had to come back, and despite my pleas to leave me with my mother, he dragged me back, oblivious to the predicament I was in with Alistair Goodall.

Goodall looked at me incredulously at first, then with a smile. “Good try, squirt. You almost had me believing it. Your dad an informer? My dad’s a cop, so I’ll ask him, but we both know what he’s going to say.” He took a step closer. I braced for impact.

But then, realising I was digging a bigger hole, one that I might not get out of, “Your dad wouldn’t have a clue about witness protection. It wouldn’t be witness protection if everyone knew about it. This is stuff beyond his pay grade.”

I remembered a TV show I had seen while away, about witness protection, and how it was supposed to be secret, but the witness was sold out by the bad guy’s man in the police force.

“My dad’s very important,” he said, his voice raised an octave, a sure sign he was losing this war of words.

“Then if you went home and started asking questions about witnesses who are supposed to be in protection, then he would lose his job, or worse, go to jail for blabbing secrets.”

“Your blabbing secrets.”

“You’re threatening to beat me up if I don’t tell you where I’ve been. Just threatening me into telling you is going to get you into a heap of trouble. I suggest you let it go, and we keep this between us. Or can’t you keep secrets?”

“I can too.”

The whine in his voice told me that I had bested him, but for how long was a moot question. He was not going to keep this a secret.

…

The school term ended in an uneasy truce between Alistair and me, and the whole school broke for the summer holidays. It meant I could escape Alistair’s persecution, at least for a few weeks, time enough for the rest of the family to return, and a semblance of normalcy to return.

I had just about put the great lie out of my mind when Alistair turned up outside my house with a smug smile. That idea of keeping secrets was not one of his strong points.

“You’re really for it, now, squirt. My dad knows nothing about this crap story of yours. In fact, he copped a serve at work, and he’s coming around to put the pair of you straight.”

Damn. Why could the miserable twisted arse just let it go?

“You want to be anywhere but here when he gets here.”

He walked off laughing, thinking he’d bought me a whole new world of pain.

My father was home for a week, which was a shame, because he was never home, always busy, too busy to be bothered with any of us. It would have been better if he hadn’t, or my mother was here, which she was not, still delayed in her return.

I spent a good hour trying to think of how I was going to get out of this one, but whatever I did, there was no chance I was not going to get a beating for this. Goodall was a copper, and although my father said he was a bully and a terrible excuse for a local plod, as he called him, he was still the law. Previous infractions I had been accused of were all true, and it had got me into trouble and a warning; there had better not be a next time.

This was the next time, and it was a doozy.

There was only one path I could go down.

My father was in his study when I went to look for him. He was always working on something, with books and charts all over the desk. I never asked, and he never volunteered what his job was, but I would have to ask one day.

I knocked on the door and waited a minute or two before he asked me to come in.

“Did I hear you talking to someone before?”

“Alistair Goodall, bully son of the local copper. As bad as his father, he uses him as a shield. I’d complain about him, but you keep saying I have to man up. There’s no manning up against the likes of him.”

I had considered whinging about the kid, but I knew my father wouldn’t accept that as trying hard enough to find my own solution, and it was useless telling him there wasn’t one.

He looked at. “Your mother said you were being bullied. Why didn’t you come and see me?”

“You’re never home, and you reckon I have to sort it out myself. Bit hard when he’s taller and heavier than I am. And I don’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him with a baseball bat.”

“Drastic but effective, no doubt, but not worth the jail time. Why are you telling me this?”

“He wanted to know why I was away recently. I couldn’t tell him; he threatened to beat me up, so I made up a lie. The truth was too lame for a moron like him.”

“What lie?”

I told him and watched the already dark features go a lot darker.

“And you expected he wouldn’t take it to his father for confirmation?”

“Plods don’t get told anything, of course, he wouldn’t know, and even if it was true, no one from up the chain would share that with a fool like Goodall. Even I know that much.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Reading. I’ve read a lot of books, seen films and TV shows. I know a lot of it is make-believe, but there has to be elements of it that are true. The point is that I told Alistair that it was a secret and asked him to keep it. I mean, in real circumstances, we would be trusting him, which you would think from all the bluster that he could. If it had been a test, he failed spectacularly. As for his father, sure, he would understand the nature of witness protection and the necessity for secrecy, so blabbing it to his superiors was wrong on so many levels. I’m sure they would have said they knew nothing about it, even if they did.”

My father thought about that for a minute, perhaps looking to point out the flaws in the logic, but I couldn’t see any.

“I don’t like Goodall. Got on my wrong side when he first became a Sergeant. Too smug by half, and, as you say, a bully who uses his position. You were wrong to lie. Now, go upstairs. I’ll deal with Goodall.”

…

I was sitting behind the wall at the top of the stairs, waiting for Goodall to come. I wondered if he would bring the toad Alistair with him.

The pounding on the door almost made my heart stop. My father took his time to answer the door, and then, “Sergeant Goodall, what do we owe the honour of this visit?” It was the most pleasant tone I’d ever heard my father use, to anyone.

“Mr. Laramie…” Goodall senior only had one level of speaking, loud and confrontational.

“Sergeant Goodall, there are two things I expect from any visitor who comes to my door: that the visitor addresses me in a civil tone and the other, not to make their cases on my doorstep. Now, if you give me your word you will be civil, I will invite you in.”

He must have nodded because I heard footsteps and the door closed. His office was on the ground floor, up the passage. I would be able to hear them if the door to the office weren’t closed.

“Now, Sergeant Goodall, what exactly is the problem?”

“Your son is telling preposterous lies.”

“Your son is a bully, and my son fears going to school because of him. I think you should be attending to your son’s proclivities rather than worrying about what my son says. Most kids his age speak utter gibberish at the best of times.”

A moment’s silence before, “It’s not the fact, it’s lies, it’s the nature of the lie.”

“Oh. The fact that we were away. Well, there’s something else you should be admonishing that wretch of a child of yours for. My son told him the truth. and gave him a warning that it was not to be put about, in fact, as I understand it, he told your son that it was to be kept secret, and because he believed your son, being the son of a respectable policeman who understands the nature of these sorts of secrets, could keep it. The fact that he couldn’t keep that simple secret disappointed my son, disappointed me, and disappointed the people who arranged our sojourn, while some very nasty people were put away. They are, at the very least, extremely disappointed that you were poking around in matters that were way above your pay grade. If my son comes home any time in the new year complaining about your son, I will forget about being magnanimous this one time, in the hope you can address the issues you have; if he comes home with a complaint, all bets are off. Do I make myself clear?”

“He was not lying?”

“He was trying to avoid being beaten up by a thug, Goodall. He trusted your boy, and he let him down badly. This matter should not be discussed, here or anywhere, and I expect by the time you pass through my front door, the matter of our sojourn will be forgotten, and the problem with your child will be on the way to being resolved. Now, if that’s all….”

A few seconds later, I heard Goodall being bundled out the door, and it closed firmly behind him.

…

My father took a risk, but it paid off.

By the end of the summer holidays, Goodall had moved on to another station and taken his wretched son with him.

Goodall wasn’t the only bully at that school, but I learned a new way to deal with them, one that didn’t include elaborate lies. Those I saved for the stories I started writing.

…

©  Charles Heath 2025-2026