Trust Means Everything: a story

Steve knew all about trust. As a volunteer on the local lifeboat he trusted all his fellow crewmen and he knew that they trusted him. When the call came they all had to work as a team and lives were saved because they could rely on each other to put their training into practice and do exactly the right things. Lives depended on that trust – not only those of the people they rescued but their own.

That had been very apparent one day last year when a fishing trip had gone disastrously wrong for a local family. Their boat’s engine had failed and a squall had blown in from the southwest, taking the boat far too close to the rocks for comfort. The call for rescue had been responded to promptly, but as the inshore lifeboat approached the scene a particularly large wave carried the fishing boat on to the rocks and the three family members were thrown out.

Steve could see that two of the fishermen – a father and his elder son – had been thrown on to a higher level and were able to scramble to a position where they out of danger from further waves.

However, this was not the case with the younger son, aged about 12, who had landed awkwardly on a lower rock and was not moving. Not only that, but the rock in question was being washed by the sea and the next large wave could easily have taken him back into the water. This boy was clearly the first priority for the rescuers.

Steve’s task was to get on to the rocks and lift the boy to safety, but in order to do that he needed one of his colleagues to steer the inflatable lifeboat as close to the rocks as possible so that Steve could jump ashore. This required seamanship of the highest order so that nobody’s life was put at unnecessary risk.

Only teamwork could have saved the situation, and that was what was displayed on that occasion. Each member of the team trusted everyone else to do the right thing, and that was what they did.

When Steve reached the casualty he had a shock, because he recognized the boy as being Craig, a member of the Scout troop that Steve ran in the village. Of course, a lifeboatman acts in the same way whether he knows the people be rescues or not, but it must add an extra emotional tug when it is somebody that is personally known to him.

All three members of the family were taken to safety, but Craig’s injuries turned out to be serious and it eventually became clear that he might never walk again. From now on he would have to rely on a wheelchair.

However, that did not stop Craig from continuing to be a member of the Scout troop. Steve was delighted to see him turn up at the Scout hall as soon as he could after leaving hospital, and Craig continued to be a popular and valued member of the troop.

One aspect of the trust placed in lifeboatmen is that they will always respond to a “shout” as soon as it comes. When the pager sounds it is essential that they drop everything and get to the lifeboat station as soon as possible. Steve’s experience with Craig’s rescue had made that abundantly clear. Only seconds after he had been taken off the rocks another massive wave had come in that would have swept both him and Steve into the sea.

Steve was therefore never without his pager when he was on call, and the members of his Scout troop knew that. Fortunately, it had never happened that a call had come during a Scout meeting, but there was a first time for everything. If the pager went off, Steve would have to go, no questions asked.

One evening, about a year after Craig’s rescue, Steve decided to give his Scouts a demonstration of what trust involved. They would play the “fall over backwards” game that has been played many times in various contexts. One person stands immediately behind another and, at a given signal, the front person falls backwards to be caught by the back person before he or she hits the floor.

It is nothing more than an illustration of what trust means, because it would be unthinkable for the back person to stand to stand aside and break the trust. The ramifications could be quite serious! Even so, it is a game that makes the point quite well.

On this occasion, Steve had a small problem in that, although he had an even number of Scouts in the room, one of them was Craig in his wheelchair. He decided to give Craig the job of blowing the whistle while he made up the numbers by being one of the catchers.

The scouts arranged themselves in a semi-circle, divided between fallers and catchers, the idea being that they would swop over and change roles the second time round. Craig sat in the middle, armed with the whistle. Everyone waited for his signal.

Two things then happened at exactly the same time. From the far side of the room, in the pocket of Steve’s jacket hanging on a hook on the wall, came the unmistakable sound of his emergency callout pager.

The second thing was that Craig blew the whistle.

© John Welford

Time: a quad poem

(The challenge was to write a poem of four four-line stanzas, each of four four-letter words)

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Tick tock tick tock

Keep step don’t stop

Tock tick tock tick

Walk tall don’t trip

Must pace life fast

Zing zest dart dash

Trot trit clop clip

Tock tick tock tick

Time runs like sand

Rush past, take mind

Gone, won’t come back,

Tick tock tick tock

Tock tock tick tick

Such flux must tire

When will time stop?

Tick tick tock tock

© John Welford

The Waiter's Tale: a story

He was very good at waiting. It was something that he’d been doing all his life, in one way or another. His mother once told him that he’d kept her waiting for more than three weeks before he’d made up his mind to be born, so perhaps that had helped to set his life in its apparently inevitable course. Like Micawber, he had a definite idea that one day something worth having would turn up, and in the meantime he was prepared to wait. There seemed little point in taking hasty action to move things along.

His career choice, if it could be called that, was wholly appropriate. Here he was, in white shirt, black waistcoat and bow tie, waiting at table in a small, unfashionable restaurant that was just about staying in business. Tonight he was the only waiter on duty, which did not matter all that much, given that there were hardly any diners. 

It suited him, this un-busy lifestyle, as it gave him plenty of time to indulge his only hobby, which was the reading of great literature. He was not a particularly fast reader, but that did not bother him.  He was prepared to wait for a plot to unfold or a character to develop. Not for him the rush to the last page and the final denouement. A great book was like a fine wine or a gourmet meal, to be savoured and lingered over rather than swallowed at a gulp.

Over in the far corner, a middle-aged lady had had enough time to study the menu and was looking around for someone to take her order. He made sure that he could not be spotted easily and let her wait a little longer before he drifted over to her table.

He wrote her order down, slowly. He saw no reason for haste – he had all night, even if she didn’t. Fortunately, she seemed to be of a similar mind. She had caught the mood of this place and soon came to realise that she was probably in for a long night. This restaurant was relaxed with a capital R. There was no point in rushing things.

“What’s the book?” she asked. He had stuffed it inside his waistcoat when he had decided to stop reading and take her order, and the book was difficult to miss as he stood at her table. 

“Chaucer”, he said, “The Canterbury Tales. In the original Middle English”.

“I’m impressed”, she said. “It’s not what I would have expected a waiter to be reading”.

“I’d better get your order in”, he said.

“But come back when you’ve done so”, she called after him. “I’d like to talk”.

The lady must have been well into her 50s. He’d waited a long time to get chatted up while at work, and he could have hoped for somebody a little younger, but it was a quiet night and a little conversation would not be unwelcome. So he did what she asked.

“So what do you make of Chaucer?” she asked. “A bit heavy-going, surely? And please sit down – you’re giving me a crick in the neck”.

So they sat and talked about Chaucer, as he went back and forth between her table and the kitchen to fetch her meal. She asked him what he thought made Chaucer a great writer and what he liked and disliked about him. She asked him about his favourite tale, and about how he reckoned Chaucer might have got on had he been living today.

“And you?” she said, “What’s your tale?”

“I haven’t got one”, he said.

“Come on – everyone’s got a tale to tell. So why are you a waiter in this place when you’ve got enough brains to be reading Chaucer and to know what you’re reading? What are you – 30 or so? Why haven’t you made a better go of your life than you have?”

“I’m waiting”.

“I know. I can see that.”

“No. I mean that I’m waiting for my brother to give me what I’m owed”.

“I’m intrigued”, she said. “Tell me more”.

"My parents died in a plane crash about five years ago. They hadn’t made a new will since just after my elder brother was born, more than 35 years ago. My father often said that he would sort things out so that I would benefit as well as my brother, but he never got round to it. And I wasn’t all that bothered, because my brother said once that he’d see that I was OK in any case, so that’s how things stayed. Legally, I’m not entitled to anything, but my parents wanted me to have a share, and my brother knows that, so it’ll turn out fine in the end.”

“So how much money are we talking about?” she asked. “Ten thousand? Twenty?”

“Oh, more than that”, he said, “I reckon my father was worth about five million when he died”.

She dropped her wineglass on the table, where it deposited an appreciable quantity of house white. 

“Five million?” she almost shouted, “Think what you could do with only a fraction of that! It could change your life, set you free from this place and everything! And you’ve just been waiting five years for your brother to do the decent thing?”

“These things take time”, he said. “You have to be patient with a will of that sort of size. And there would have been death duties to pay, and things like that. So I’m grateful to him for taking all that off my hands. He’s not a bad man, and he’s going to pay me something when he’s good and ready, I’m sure”.

“Are you? I take it that he hasn’t spent any of his share of the money yet?”

“Well”, he said, “he did move into Miller’s Hall last year – you know, that big place down by the river. And he bought a Bentley about the same time. So presumably his money has come through, and mine won’t be far behind”.

“You know who you are, don’t you?” she said. “You’re Patient Griselda, from the Clerk’s Tale, always taking everything that’s thrown at you and never standing up for yourself. You know who you want to be? One of those guys from the Pardoner’s Tale, who saw the prize and went for it”.

“And ended up dead!” he replied. “They found a heap of gold and killed each other in trying to grab it all for themselves”. 

“They were fools!” she said. “Their friend had died and they went off seeking Death so that they could kill him. They sought Death and they found their own. But you are searching for Life. That money can buy you a real life, not this half-existence that you have now, getting all your living second-hand from the books you read! Get out there, go to your brother, and demand what’s rightfully yours!”

“But it’s not mine to demand”, he said. “I’m sure that if I wait a bit longer…”

“You’re not going a wait a minute more than you have to”, she said. “When do you finish here?”

“As soon as you’ve finished your meal and I’ve cleared everything up”, he said.

“Right! I’ve finished, so get clearing! You are going to go to your brother tonight and sort this out once and for all, and I’m coming with you to make sure that you do!”

So, twenty minutes later, they were in her car on their way to Miller’s Hall. As she drove there was a gleam in her eye as of someone who was determined to right an ancient wrong. If he was Patient Griselda, then she was Chaucer’s Crusader Knight, riding into battle. 

At the gates that fronted the driveway of Miller’s Hall, he spoke into the intercom device. “Hello”, he said, ”it’s me, I need to talk to you – now”.

“Well hello there, little bro!” came the reply, with laughing female voices in the background. “Long time, no hear! What on earth can be so urgent that you need to talk to me at this time of night?”  However, before the question could be answered the gates swung open. Big brother was clearly in a good mood, presumably brought on by champagne and female company.

“Right”, she said, as the car moved up the long gravel drive, “this is where we get you a life!”

The elder brother was waiting for them outside the open front door as they arrived. He had a glass in one hand, a bottle in the other, and an elegant woman pressed against each shoulder. Loud music came from within the house. The party was clearly over and the guests had gone, except for the host’s partners for the night. 

“Well look who’s here!” he said as his younger brother stepped forward. “The waiter himself!  You’re a bit late to serve the drinks, but you can clear up if you like”.

The two women laughed at the weak joke, but this only served to annoy still further the former diner from the restaurant, who now emerged from the shadows at the waiter’s side.

“So you think it’s all a big laugh, do you?” she said. “You have all this wealth and luxury and your brother has nothing but a dead-end job as a waiter. You owe him, and he’s come to collect.”

“Oh, so that’s what this is all about, is it?” he said, turning to his brother and ignoring her. “You want some of daddy’s cash, do you? Well, that’s just tough luck, little bro, because I’ve got it all, and I rather like things as they are. I don’t have to give you a penny, unless you’ve got something in writing?”

“You know he hasn’t!” she spat back at him. “But you promised to see him right, and now it’s time to keep that promise. He deserves a real life, and the only thing standing in his way is you and your selfishness!”

“Oh, I’m not standing in his way”, the brother said. “He can go wherever he wants, any time. Down my drive and out of my life will do for starters”.

“But you know what your father said”, she shouted, “you were both intended to share the money.  And the new will would have said so”.

“New will?” he said. “I know nothing about a new will. But I do know about the one that the solicitor read out. Everything was left to me, and I’m keeping it.  Goodbye”.

With that, he was about to turn and go back into the house when his younger brother suddenly sprang into action. Having said almost nothing during this conversation, he found himself experiencing something that was new and disturbing – anger. All his life he had waited. He had waited for something to turn up and for his brother to keep his promise. And now he could see that this was not going to happen. His elder brother, whom he had admired and trusted, was going back on his word and leaving him in the dirt. A real, fulfilled life had been denied him. He had spent his life reading about other people’s lives and imagining himself in their place – experiencing love, adventure, mystery and wild emotions – but second-hand life was all that he was ever going to have.

Never having been angry in his life, he did not know how to handle anger when it arrived. It now controlled him completely and he found himself screaming and shouting as he charged at his brother, his hands aiming for his neck. When they arrived they squeezed harder than he knew how, and the pressure on his brother’s windpipe did not relent until long after all life had been extinguished from the man who had cheated him of his own life.

He had come here tonight looking for Life, and Life is what he got. The judge recommended seventeen years before parole could be considered.

© John Welford

The Tale of Dr Todd

Dr Todd was a senior lecturer at a college in the South of England that trained teachers for both primary and secondary schools. One of his roles was therefore to visit students in schools as they underwent their teaching practice, with a view to assessing their progress. So that is what he was doing on a sunny morning in February at a primary school somewhere in West Sussex.

As was his usual practice, he slipped into a classroom after the lesson had started, so that the young would-be teacher could get the class settled down and start teaching before he appeared. She had told the class of 9-year-olds that a visit would take place that morning, so they showed only a passing interest as he made his way to an empty chair at the side of the room.

The chair in question was next to the well-stocked classroom aquarium – a reasonably large fish tank in which an assortment of guppies, tetras, rainbowfish, and much more besides darted in and out of the caves and sunken pirate ships that the children had artfully made and placed in the tank. Fronds of weed moved to and fro in the stream of bubbles produced by the aeration pump that hummed gently away. 

Dr Todd removed his papers from his briefcase and, as he searched for a pen with which to make his notes, placed the sheaf of notes on top of the aquarium.

Or he would have done so had there been a top to the aquarium. There was normally a perspex cover with airholes that fitted over the top of the tank, but on this occasion the cover was propped against the wall. The child who had the responsibility that day for feeding the fish had forgotten to replace the cover, with the net result that Dr Todd’s papers were now either floating on the surface of the tank or starting to sink towards the bottom.

Not surprisingly, Dr Todd jumped up in alarm and did what he could to rescue the situation. This meant plunging his hands under the surface and grabbing hold of all the papers he could reach. He soon found that it was impossible to do this without attracting quite a lot of attention from the class of kids. For their part, their initial state of alarm at the sudden splashing and cursing coming from the side of the room soon turned to amusement. Any sight of an adult making a complete and utter fool of himself, especially one who had such an air of authority about him but who was not in any position of authority over them, was fair game for ribaldry, and that is exactly what Dr Todd got.

Dr Todd’s quandary was that he had to salvage his papers and at the same do as little as possible to attract attention to himself, while also trying to ensure that the student teacher could get on with her job of conducting the lesson that Dr Todd was there to observe. 

He therefore decided that this emergency situation could best be resolved by drying his papers on a nearby radiator, so he moved in that direction while trying to assure the teacher that all was well. He therefore took a large step backwards so that he could look in her direction while moving towards the radiator.

That was the reason why he didn’t see the large wastepaper basket that was positioned between the aquarium and the radiator. His right foot went straight in and promptly got jammed at the bottom of it. He may not have seen the wastepaper basket, but all the children on that side of the room had seen it, and they had a ringside seat as Dr Todd’s foot went into it and stayed there. This was slapstick comedy of a high order, and they responded accordingly.

Dr Todd had no choice but to drop everything and use both hands to extricate his foot from the wastepaper basket, which he eventually managed to do. The peals of laughter from the kids showed no sign of abating, despite the teacher’s attempts to make this happen. To be frank, she was hard pressed not to join in.

With his foot free and his soggy papers gathered together, Dr Todd realized that he had no choice but to beat a retreat. Any hope he may have had of retaining his dignity had long since vanished, so he uttered a quick apology to the teacher, opened the door, went through it and closed it firmly behind him.

So did the children immediately calm down and concentrate on their lesson, with a feeling of regret that the comedy show was over? Not exactly. What they knew, and what Dr Todd did not but had presumably just discovered, was that the door he had gone through was not the door to the outside world but to the classroom’s walk-in store cupboard.

There was therefore a moment’s shocked silence, followed by another burst of laughter. The teacher did her best to silence the class, as she knew that embarrassing her assessor any further was not a good idea. Her main worry was that Dr Todd would soon emerge from the cupboard and the laughter would resume. Presumably that was also Dr Todd’s fear, because he simply did not emerge from the cupboard.

Indeed, he did not reappear until the lesson was complete and everyone had left the room. His emergence only took place when the coast was clear and he could creep away unseen, his foray into comedy being a one-off event that he had no intention of repeating.

© John Welford

The School for Scoundrels: a story

When Miranda and Ferdinand were looking for a suitable place to educate their son Edward they did the rounds of a number of possible schools in Shakespeareville and eventually happened across an institution on the edge of town that looked as though it might just fit the bill. 

This was the intriguingly named School for Scoundrels, proprietor and head teacher S Hylock. They asked for an interview with the man in question, which he was only too pleased to grant. 

“Do come in”, said Mr Hylock, “take a seat and let me tell you all about our wonderful institution”. 

“This is the first I’ve heard of the School for Scoundrels”, said Miranda. “Is it a free school?” 

“Free?” said Mr Hylock, who looked somewhat offended at the very idea, “Free? I should say not. Our fees are substantial, not to say extortionate, but worth every pound, although I stick to sterling pounds rather than fleshy ones these days. I had a little run-in with the authorities in Venice some time ago, which you may have heard about.” 

“I’m not sure we did”, said Ferdinand, “We were stranded on my father-in-law’s enchanted island at the time, and there was something of a news blackout.” 

“Perhaps that was just as well”, said Mr Hylock, “otherwise you might have heard things about me that could have put you off coming here.” 

“Such as what?” asked Miranda. 

“No matter, no matter”, said Mr Hylock, “let’s just stick to getting your little treasure into my clutches ... I mean into my school, shall we?” 

“Do you teach the National Curriculum?” asked Ferdinand. 

“I prefer to call it my Notional Curriculum”, said My Hylock. “Of course, we offer the three Rs, as you might expect.”

“The three Rs?” 

“That’s right – Roguishness, Rapscality and Racketeering. We take the latter right through to A-level. I teach the classes myself”. 

“Are your members of staff properly qualified?” asked Ferdinand. 

“They certainly are”, said Mr Hylock, “I’ve got Julius Caesar himself teaching Latin, and real kings on the payroll. King Henry V gives fencing lessons, and King Richard III is on the domestic staff of the boarding side of the establishment – he tucks the little darlings up in bed at night, and most of them are still alive in the morning.”

 

“What about lunchtime?” Miranda wanted to know. “I hope your catering arrangements are of a suitable standard?” 

“We have an excellent team of caterers”, said Mr Hylock. “They were recommended to me by my Scottish friend Beth, known as Mac for obvious reasons. Blasted Heath Catering use a range of unusual ingredients that can be locally sourced – newts, bats and suchlike – and do remarkable things with them. I can honestly say that you will never have seen anything like the meals they produce.” 

“And what about physical education?” Ferdinand wondered. “I want our Eddie to be given every opportunity to develop into a fit, healthy individual.” 

“I can give you every assurance on that score,” said Mr Hylock. “None of our children are overweight, although I must admit that the fact that nobody seems to eat much at lunchtime might have something to do with that.” 

“Let me also say”, he went on, “that our general educational ethos in the School for Scoundrels, namely to ensure that our charges get rich quick by foul means and even fouler, might sometimes result in them having to scarper pronto from the scene of the crime, so physical fitness is very high on our list of priorities.” 

“Well, that all sounds pretty reasonable,” said Miranda. “Just tell me, though, where do you rank on the educational league tables?” 

“Right at the top, of course”, said Mr Hylock. 

“Why ‘of course’?” asked Ferdinand. 

“Because”, said Mr Hylock, “the tables are compiled by one of our brightest ex-pupils. There are School for Scoundrels alumni all over the place, especially in America. Wherever there’s dodgy dealing going on, there’s an excellent chance that our thorough grounding in everything that’s underhand could be behind it.” 

“So are you saying that our little Eddie could turn out to be a complete scoundrel?” asked Miranda. 

“Absolutely!” said Mr Hylock. “Honesty gets you nowhere these days. Your son will be far better off lying and cheating his way through life, and this is just the place for him to learn the necessary skills, for a substantial fee, of course. 

“If I might misquote a certain famous playwright, ‘All are born straight, but pay me the agreed rate and I’ll soon extract the straightness from them’”.

© John Welford

A Nip of Firewater: a story

This piece was written as a Writers' Group exercise to include the line “He took another sip of whisky as he stared into the flickering fire”

*************************************

At first, the business went well. Jake and Melanie had been introduced by a mutual friend, some twenty years ago, and decided not only to become friends but to go into partnership in a commercial sense as well. When the opportunity came along to rent a small shop in a row of similar premises on the edge of town they jumped at the chance and opened for business, as a general hardware store, shortly afterwards.

This was the 1960s, before out-of-town shopping centres had become the norm, and that made it perfectly possible for a small enterprise like theirs to succeed. This was also the time when DIY was becoming more popular, and there was therefore a local demand for basic tools and supplies for the average have-a-go plumber, carpenter and decorator. 

But times moved on, and the profits began to decline over the years, particularly after B&Q opened up on a trading estate not far away. 

Jake had a shock one day when an invoice arrived from a supplier that was for considerably more than he was expecting, and which could not be covered by the previous month’s takings. Melanie had not seen this invoice, and Jake hated the thought of admitting to her that the business was in trouble. He therefore decided to go to a man he knew and see if he could borrow the money to pay the invoice.

Jake realised that this was a slippery slope. He could not simply raise a loan every time a big bill arrived and hope to pay it off from future receipts, especially if the money coming over the counter was not enough to pay off the loans plus their steep interest charges. He needed another source of income.

Down in the basement of the shop was a small room that the partners had never used. The door to it was blocked off by piece of furniture, and they had both forgotten that it was there. Jake was down in the basement one day when he decided to move a few things around and he came across the door to the hidden room. Once he was inside the room he had his big idea.

It did not take long for him to assemble all he needed to start his new venture, namely a small distillery. From basic ingredients he found that he could produce a colourless spirit that had to be high in alcoholic content, something like poitin or American moonshine. 

He told Melanie that he had decided to volunteer at a day centre on the other side of town, and that he would need to leave the shop in her capable hands at frequent intervals in order to carry out his voluntary work. This was perfectly OK as far as Melanie was concerned, and the shop rarely needed two people to run it these days, what with business being nothing like as brisk as it had been in the past. 

However, this was simply a ruse on Jake’s part to sneak down to the basement and work at the distillery, where he soon built up quite a substantial stock of his firewater.

Jake’s next problem was finding a market for his product. He thought that he might have a word with Murphy, who ran a small bar in the premises next door to his shop. He had to be careful how he broached the subject, but he need not have worried. Murphy had no problems at all with taking supplies of Jake’s product, of which a sample had been provided for Murphy to taste, in a small hip flask.

Murphy reckoned that he only needed to add some colouring to it in order to pass it off as whiskey. He had some bitters behind the bar that would do the trick, and was able to show Jake how this would work, by adding a dash to the hip flask, giving it a small shake, and pouring a small measure into a glass. It looked just like the real thing. Murphy explained that he would sell it to customers who had already had a drink or three and so would not notice the difference.

Not only that, but Murphy knew a few other possible customers for the stock that Jake was accumulating in his basement room. They sealed the deal. Jake was at last convinced that he could solve his financial problems and pay off his debts, with Melanie being none the wiser.

However, Melanie’s knowledge was increasing at the very time that Jake was doing business with Murphy. Two men walked into the shop and approached her. They asked to see Jake, and were told that he was not available.

“We’ll have to talk to you, then”, said one of the men. “Your partner owes us money, and we’re here to collect it. In cash.”

“Owes you money?” said Melanie. “How much?”

“Fifteen thousand pounds”, said the second man. “Have you got that in the till?”

Of course she had not. She blurted out that she had been to the bank that very day to deposit all the cash that had been kept in the safe, so there was nothing she could do until tomorrow. 

“We’ll be back tomorrow, then”, said the first man. “We’ll expect to collect it when we call”.

To say that Melanie was shocked was an understatement. She knew that business had not been good, but she had no idea that Jake had been borrowing from loan sharks to keep it afloat. She also knew that the bank account had nothing like fifteen thousand pounds in it.

In short, she panicked. She ran to the office at the back of the shop and grabbed hold of the box file that contained papers relating to the shop’s insurance policy. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the policy was up to date and covered accidental fire damage including total loss of stock.

The shop contained plenty of inflammable items that could be spilled accidentally and set alight by a carelessly dropped cigarette, for example. She could definitely get away with it, and she had to do it now.

She loosened the cap of a large can of paint thinner which she allowed to fall from a high shelf, splashing all over the floor at the rear of the shop. Her story would be that she had been having a crafty smoke between serving customers and had rushed to the scene when she heard the crash, dropping the lit cigarette in the process. She had narrowly escaped the blaze as she rushed outside. 

As a piece of quick thinking it was flawless.

However, what was not flawless was the state of the floorboards at the rear of the shop. Some of the spilled paint thinner found its way through the cracks into the room below, where the distillery was bubbling away. When the flames reached the stock of highly volatile moonshine the whole lot exploded, bringing down the building and blasting Melanie out into the street. She was badly injured but survived. 

Of course, Jake and Murphy heard the explosion and were soon on the scene of devastation. Jake rushed over to Melanie to comfort her and wait until the ambulance arrived. When it did, he accompanied her to the hospital, with Jake wondering how on earth he would explain everything to her when she recovered.

The fire brigade was also quick to arrive and soon brought the flames under control, watched by a shocked crowd of local people.

Naturally, everyone wondered how on earth this tragedy could have happened, and all sorts of theories started circulating among the watchers.

These included Murphy, who had a better idea than most as to what might have caused it. He still had the hip flask in his hand, which he reckoned was the best clue of all. 

He took another sip of “whiskey” as he stared into the flickering fire.

©John Welford

Pursued by a Bear: a story

In Act 3 Scene III of The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare, there is an interesting and unexpected stage direction. A character named Antigonus exits the stage “pursued by a bear”. Antigonus’s role has been to take the baby daughter of Queen Hermione to – would you believe – the coast of Bohemia and abandon her to the wild beasts of the region. What actually happens is the baby survives but Antigonus does not, and we are given to believe that it is the bear in the stage direction that is the cause of Antigonus’s demise.

But where on earth did the bear come from? There is no earlier stage direction to say when the bear enters, and are stage managers really supposed to arrange for a live bear to appear on stage – however briefly – at every production of the play? What happened at the original performance, both onstage and off? This last question has never been satisfactorily answered – until now, that is.

Will Shakespeare had a problem, as did the owner of the entertainment venue bang next door to the Globe Theatre on the south bank of London’s River Thames. They decided to have a meeting to see if their difficulties could be solved in an amicable way, over a beer or six.

The next-door establishment was a bear pit, run by a guy named George. He offered bear-baiting as his way of drawing in the crowds, who delighted to see dogs attacking a chained bear who would get his own back by swiping a few with his sharp claws. This was a necessarily noisy process, what with the yelps of the dogs, the roar of the bear and the shouts of the crowd.

It was the noise that bothered Will. It was not easy to get his audience emotionally involved in a tender love scene when it was constantly interrupted by the noise of animals – human and otherwise – letting loose only a few yards away.

George’s problem was that the plays at the Globe were so popular that his audience numbers at the bear pit took a nose dive whenever Will Shakespeare staged his latest blockbuster. It was hardly worth opening his doors on such occasions, especially if more blood was being spilled at the Globe than in the bear pit. George had never got over the time when Titus Andronicus nearly drove him out of business. 

Will had let on that he was also having a problem over how to despatch one of his characters, namely Antinogus, who had nothing more to offer to the plot after he had done his baby abandoning. It was George who offered the solution:

“Buy me another beer and I’ll lend you my bear”, he said. “He’d love to have something to do. He could chase your man offstage and everyone will think that he has been eaten by the bear.”

“But what about my actor?” said Will. “What will he say when I tell him that a hulking great bear is going to chase him off stage? He may decide to go on strike, and then where would I be?”

“Don’t tell him”, said George. “Just stick ‘exit, pursued by a bear’ into the stage manager’s copy of the script but not the actor’s. He never know until it happens. Tell you what, I’ll bring the bear along – his name’s Cuddles by the way – just before the opportune moment, then release him when the stage manager gives me the nod. Your actor will do the rest.”

“What about Health and Safety?” asked Will. “Won’t they have something to say?”

“That’s unlikely,” said George. “This is 1610 – Health and Safety won’t be invented for at least another 300 years”.

And so that is how the famous stage direction got into the script of The Winter’s Tale. As to what actually happened on the night – well, that’s a different story, which might have been something like this:

Will Shakespeare visited his actor in hospital on the day after the opening night.

“You OK, Tom?” he asked.

“What do you think?” Tom replied. “Have you seen my leg?”

“It looks all right from here”, said Will, “judging from what I can see poking out from underneath the bedclothes.”

“That’s not what I meant”, said Tom. “I was talking about my other leg, and when I said ‘have you seen it’, I meant ‘have you seen it’, because I certainly haven’t – not since I lost consciousness, that is.”

“I have to say,” said Will, “that your offstage shouts and screams were extremely good. You really are a brilliant actor, you know.”

“Guess what”, said Tom, “that wasn’t acting”.

“Are you all right for tonight?” Will asked. “We could have sold all the tickets three times over, going by the interest generated by the reviews after last night. Everyone wants a repeat performance.”

“By which”, said Tom, “I suppose you mean that they want to see that hairy monster eat the leg he neglected to consume the first time round? I think not!”

“No matter”, said Will, “I’ll get one of our spare actors to stand in – there are not too many lines to learn – and I’ll make sure that it’s not someone who was at the first night or has read the morning papers. I’ll also make sure that Cuddles has a decent meal just before the show so that he doesn’t feel tempted to eat too much of the actor in question.”

“Just one question”, Tom said. “Are you anticipating a particularly long run for this play – given the preference most actors have for retaining all their body parts after they come off stage?”

“Can’t say that I am”, said Will. “It’ll probably be Titus Andronicus again next week.”

© John Welford

Prince Hamlet, Dimly Lit: a story

(This story was written in response to a writing group challenge, which was to begin a story with the words: The room is dimly lit, one bare bulb swaying slightly in an invisible draught.)

*****************************************************

The room is dimly lit, one bare bulb swaying slightly in an invisible draught. In a corner, on the floor, sits a man who gives every impression of having just woken up from a disturbed night’s sleep.

He looks just like the sort of man who might suddenly start talking to himself, for no apparent reason.

Which he does.

“Good Heavens”, he says to nobody, “why is there a glass thing swinging on the ceiling, giving a dim light to the room? Considering that this is the 16^th century, I haven’t got the faintest idea what could possibly be causing it to glow like that. On the other hand, there are very few things about which I have got the faintest idea, so there’s nothing new there.”

“I have”, he continues, “got lots of questions to which there may or may not be answers. For example, here I am in a room that seems to have a door that is almost certainly locked. I ask myself whether it might, or might not, be worth my while to find out if it is locked, and if so, whether there is a key that I can use to unlock it and get out of this room. 

“In other words, should I see, or not see, if there is a key, or not a key, and – if there is – whether I can be free, or not be free. That, quite clearly, is the question. Or is it?

“I really do need to make a decision here, and the best way to decide something is to debate all the pros and cons with someone else. But there’s only me here. So I have to talk with me, or not with me. I could do that to a degree and then agree, or I might disagree – to a degree. And that’s another question.

“If there is a key, and I set myself free, would I then become an escapee? To flee or not to flee? 

“And what then? I could climb a tree, despite my bad knee, and maybe see the sea, or not the sea. I could go to the port and take a boat from the quay, but where would I go then? To Capri or Dundee, that is the …

“I’ll then tell my story as I sit in a marquee, as an interviewee, to a reporter from ITV, or should it be the BBC? 

“He – or it could be she – might offer me a hot drink, and then I’d forced to say: ‘tea or coffee, coffee or tea?’

“Oh dearie me. My poor brain can’t cope with all this repartee. And I’m almost sure that I need to take a leak. To pee or not to pee?

“I seem to be in a cell - an internee. If someone comes to me, should I make a plea or should I not make a plea? They might set me free, but there’s no guarantee.”

The imprisoned Prince will sit there all day, doing nothing but talk to himself. Invisible draughts of rhyming thought will continue to wend their questionable way though the bare bulb of Hamlet’s brain, which is always dimly lit. 

© John Welford

Love is a Roast Potato: a story

Or, to be more accurate, love is at least three roast potatoes. Four would be fine.

I suppose one could also say that greater love hath no married woman than this - that she abandon the habit of a lifetime to take note of her husband’s unsubtle hints as regards what ends up on his plate at Christmas dinner.

I can see that this might need a word or two of explanation.

One thing I have learned during more than thirty years of marriage – and I hasten to add that it is not the only thing – is that culinary habits are acquired down the female line and, once acquired, they are extremely difficult to shift.

This was made very clear to me during a family occasion a few weeks ago. My wife (Sue) has a female cousin (Carly) whom she meets only rarely. They are the daughters of two sisters, both of whom have now died, and the occasion in question was the funeral of one of those sisters.

It had been agreed that everyone would bring something for the buffet lunch to be served after the funeral, and it so happened that both Sue and Carly supplied a home-made ginger cake as their contribution. 

It was impossible to tell the difference between the two cakes, both of which had been made according to the family recipe that had been handed down from the two bakers’ mutual grandmother via the two intermediate sisters. Neither Sue nor Carly needed to consult a written recipe when making their cakes – it all just happened the way that the family had always made their ginger cakes over a period of getting on for a century or possibly longer.

But I digress.

The fact is that what families do for Christmas dinner tends to be according to similarly ingrained habits that go back many years, and my contention is that such habits are like recipes for ginger cake in that they go down the female line.

What a husband gets for Christmas dinner will therefore be exactly what his father-in-law got, and his father-in-law before him.

In my case the pattern has been broken in quite a serious way, in that I don’t eat turkey and cannot stand bread sauce or sage and onion stuffing. My Christmas dinner therefore consists of a nut roast and assorted vegetables, and has done so on at least thirty occasions to date.

However, when it comes to potatoes, Sue’s family diverged from the usual pattern many years ago and refused to bother with them. Instead, they warmed crisps in the oven and served these as a potato substitute. The tradition, not surprisingly, has dropped down a generation and it has always been crisps instead of spuds every year since I married Sue. 

But this year I just happened to let slip that I was really fond of roast potatoes. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it might have been something like:

“There’s nothing better than a roast potato”.

Or perhaps it was:

“If you were to ask me what my favourite way of cooking potatoes is, I would have to say ‘roasting them’”.

Another possibility might have been:

“When did we last have roast potatoes?”

Come to think of it, it may well have been all three, and just possibility a few more just for luck. 

These comments would have been made a few days before Christmas, so they were clearly in Sue’s mind when it came to doing the food shopping, including the usually necessary crisps. 

She just came out with it:

“So would you prefer roast potatoes to crisps this year?”

To which I naturally said: “Yes”.

One possible reply to that might have been: “Well you can jolly well do them yourself, then!”

But that wasn’t Sue’s reply. Instead, she just ordered extra potatoes and they were duly roast for Christmas dinner.

I knew it already, but this only confirmed my conviction that I made the right choice 30-odd years ago when I said “Will you marry me?” and she said “You what?” but did so anyway. 

As I said in my title, love - apart from many other things - is a roast potato.

But Sue still had crisps for her own Christmas dinner.

© John Welford

Lady Macbeth Does a Deal: a story

It is well known that William Shakespeare often twisted the facts in order to get a good story, so that what is presented as history on stage may well be far removed from what actually happened. This is a situation that must not be allowed to prevail any longer.

It is high time, for example, that the truth about Macbeth is told. Did Lady Macbeth really go mad and kill herself out of guilt for the murder of King Duncan? Of course not! Here is what really happened.

It is true that Macbeth killed Duncan at his wife’s prompting, and that he then became King. However, what is not generally appreciated is that Lady Macbeth paid a visit to Banquo’s DIY stall in Inverness market the following day.

“Good morning, Banquo,” she said, “It’s a lovely day today.”

“It is indeed, your ladyship”, said Banquo.

“Not so much of the ‘ladyship’”, she said. “It’s ‘Your Majesty’ now, you know, with Duncan being dead and Macbeth being offered the job. Now that he’s the King, that makes me Queen.”

“So what service can I offer Your Majesty?” Banquo asked.

“Well, the thing is that we’ll need to upgrade the castle a bit now that it’s home to royalty. For one thing, the dungeons will need a makeover because we’ll be torturing a completely new class of prisoner from now on. We’ll need a new set of thumbscrews and the rack we have at present is simply not up to the job. Can you help us with anything from your stock?”

“Thumbscrews I can do, but I don’t keep racks as standard”, said Banquo. “Mind you, I’ve just had a big thick catalogue from some guy in Sweden who can supply all sorts of torture kit in self-assembly form. I’ll see what he has in the way of racks and get him to send one over.”

“From Sweden, you say?”

“That’s right. He tells me that he has the answer to every castle equipment challenge you can throw at him. In fact his business slogan is ‘I Know Everything Already’, which strikes me as being a bit boastful, to be honest. I can’t see that sort of claim lasting long.”

“Well”, said Lady Macbeth, “that sounds like one problem solved, but I’ve also got a problem with the guest bedroom that you might be able to help me with.”

“Which is?”

“It’s the bloodstains on the walls. When Macbeth stabbed Duncan there was blood everywhere. His late majesty was only a thin rake of a fellow, but who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

“You know”, said Banquo, “that’s not a bad line. If anyone ever writes a play about all this he might like to use that.”

“That’s as maybe”, said the new Queen, “but it’s the way it’s ruined the décor that bothers me. There are damned spots of the stuff everywhere and I can’t get them out. Have you got any ideas?”

“It’s funny you should mention that”, said Banquo. “One of those weird sisters from Blasted Heath Cottage was down here last week and she offered to supply me with a new stain remover that they’ve just concocted – I don’t know what ingredients they used, and to be honest I don’t think I want to know. However, it looks to be very powerful against just about anything, blood included. 

“The problem is that the price they’re asking is a bit steep and I don’t see myself being able to sell it with any kind of profit margin.”

“I might be able to help you there,” said the Queen. “If I can persuade my husband to murder a king I can surely get three old women to drop their price. Suppose I can arrange a decent discount that allows you to buy in bulk and bottle the stuff as a universal stain remover, do you think we might be able to come to some sort of long-term business deal?”

“What do you mean?” Banquo asked.

“We go into partnership. Your business would get the massive advantage of royal patronage, and I would get everything I needed to run the castle as a first-class centre for torture and murder, with maybe a little bed-and-breakfast concern on the side.”

“I like it”, said Banquo. “But what would we call our joint venture?”

“It’s your business, so your name would come first. How about Banquo and Queenie – unless you wanted to abbreviate it of course.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

© John Welford