Your Wish Is ...

William Carlton was a wealthy man who always got what he wanted – or nearly always. Things went horribly wrong, though, on the day that his beautiful young wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. 

She had been what is generally known as a “trophy wife” – regarded as yet another piece of property that was part of his rich man’s image. Her role had been to wear expensive clothes and drip with jewelry as she accompanied him to events and receptions with the sole purpose of enhancing his reputation as a man to do business with.

William faced a dilemma when the ransom demands kept coming. No – the dilemma was not whether or not to pay the ransom, which never entered his mind for a second. His problem was what to do with all those clothes and jewels after she had been murdered, which was clearly what was going to happen - and did.

She had to be replaced as soon as possible, but the ideal candidate was not easy to find. Eventually he struck lucky, and Eva became trophy wife number two. William had grown rich for various reasons, one of which was his refusal to spend money when there was no need to do so. He had already invested many thousands of pounds on all those designer dresses and he had no intention of letting that outlay go to waste. His new wife therefore had to be exactly the same size as his unfortunate first one, and Eva’s dimensions were perfect. She fitted the bill because she fitted the dresses.

Eva was Slovenian. Many of her forebears had been Holocaust victims, and her own parents had died in a ferry-boat disaster some years before. She had been an only child. She therefore came with no baggage metaphorically and very little physically. She was bound to leap at the chance to live in a big house surrounded by every luxury that her new husband considered suitable for enhancing his status. A marriage was duly arranged and Eva moved in.

William knew that one extra expense he would have to undertake would be to improve the security of the house when Eva was alone. A second kidnap would be an inconvenience that he was not willing to undergo, so the place soon bristled with CCTV, searchlights, and everything necessary to turn the place into somewhere that no potential kidnapper would dream of invading.

William did not go as far as hiring security guards – having other men on the premises struck him as an unsafe move. Eva was a very beautiful woman and surely a temptation to any red-blooded male. Apart from that, there was also the risk that a security guy might turn into a kidnapper.

Of course, there was one thing that never entered William’s head, and that was what Eva might have wanted. Not only did all that security make her a virtual prisoner, but she soon came to realise that this marriage was completely one-way. There was one thing that she really desired, and that was a child of her own so that she could have what she had never had in her past – a proper family life.

But that did not suit William. 

“You think I want you pregnant”? he said, when she broached the subject. “You wouldn’t fit into the dresses if you were pregnant. No way are you going to get pregnant.”

After many months getting nowhere with this request, Eva came to the conclusion that her only way of self-fulfillment was to get out of the marriage and find a man who would treat her as a real wife and not a trophy one.

“I want a divorce”, she said. “I want you to let me go.”

William laughed. “A divorce?” he said. “Don’t be stupid. How would you live without me? You’ve got no money, no way of supporting yourself, you’d starve in the street.”

And Eva believed this to be true. She was utterly dependent on William, who never stopped reminding her of that fact.

However, William’s real concern was that any divorce settlement would lead to him having to settle a large part of his personal fortune on his wife, and that was something that he could not possibly countenance. 

Every request for a divorce from Eva could always be rebuffed. She had no access to a divorce lawyer – William made absolutely sure of that – and so the only way the marriage could end would be if he divorced her.

“Tell you what”, he said to her one day. “I will divorce you.” 

Eva was suddenly very interested. “You will?” she said.

“Sure. When you are no longer beautiful, or the dresses are so far out of fashion that I’ll need to buy new ones. But that won’t be any time soon.”

“Please let me go”, she said, “Please.”

And then one day a letter arrived that changed everything. It was addressed to Eva and it told her that a great-uncle in Slovenia had died and that she had been tracked down as the only living relative and therefore the beneficiary of his entire fortune, which amounted to something like £25 million.

To say that this was a big surprise was an understatement. Eva had had no idea that this great-uncle existed, let alone that she was in line to become extremely rich when he died.

This was, of course, a great shock to William, who suddenly realised that he no longer had a hold on Eva, who would now be perfectly able to get the freedom she desired. He needed to think quickly, or he needed a slice of luck.

That morning they drove into town in William’s Lamborghini to visit the bank and discuss what should be done next. An account was opened in Eva’s name and she stared at the computer screen as the money was transferred into it. She was suddenly a very rich woman. 

On the way home, William was deep in thought about his next move, and was not really concentrating behind the wheel, when a large lorry emerged from the entrance to the local quarry. He slammed on the brakes and the car slewed sideways across the road, crashed through a wooden fence, and just stopped short of plunging down into the very deep quarry. The Lamborghini was precariously balanced right on the edge. Eva had not shut the car door properly on leaving town and it now swung open. She was flung out and was only prevented from falling to certain death by her seatbelt.

Her screams could be heard all across the quarry as she begged William to pull her back. However, William was aware that any move on his part to drag Eva back might be enough to send the car over the edge, killing both of them.

He was also aware that if Eva died, having not made a will, then he would be her sole beneficiary. That was not a panicking young woman hanging over the edge of a quarry but £25 million, less tax.

There was one thing that William could reach without any danger of unbalancing the car, and that was the release button on Eva’s seatbelt. This had to be the perfect solution – self-preservation and a nice wodge of extra cash. Thus the last words that Eva was ever to hear were those of her husband:

“What was that you keep saying you want me to do? Let you go? For once in your soon-to-be-truncated life, your wish is my command.”

© John Welford

Three Policemen Bitten: a story

Every week the Hinckley Scribblers writing group, to which I belong, sets a challenge, and this one was to make sense of the above newspaper headline, which is purely fictional. What could possibly have been the event that gave rise to it? Maybe something along the following lines - or maybe not!

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

Barry’s career as a journalist was – it had to be admitted – off to a slow start. As with all young cub reporters, he dreamed of becoming the editor of a major national newspaper, this being the culmination of a glittering career liberally spotted with earth-shattering scoops concerning the great issues of the day. It would be his digging and delving that revealed truths that the high and mighty would prefer to keep hidden, and his incisive analysis would cause dishonest businessmen to spend years behind bars and force government ministers to resign in disgrace.

But that was clearly going to be a long way into the future. In the meantime, his reporting skills had to be limited to telling the good citizens of Market Snodsbury who had won the prizes at the local flower and produce show. It was going to be difficult to attract the attention of the London dailies with headlines about dahlia displays and giant marrows.

As any reporter worth his salt would do, Barry had made contacts with local people who might be the source of good stories. Any local gossip that might turn into a few column inches was worth seeking out, and there were plenty of people in Market Snodsbury who would spill the beans for the price of a pint or two. Likewise, Barry had cultivated an old schoolfriend of his who was now working for the local police force. So, when PC Paul Smithers gave him a call one morning, Barry was ready to listen in the hope that his luck might change with something juicy on which to exercise his journalistic skills.

And on this particular occasion, Barry really thought that this was the moment he had been waiting for. Paul’s voice on the phone was almost a whisper, as though he was trying to make sure that he was not going to be overheard, which was indeed the case.

“Barry”, Paul murmured down the phone, “I’ve got something great for you here”.

“You have?” Barry replied, suddenly excited.

“Shh!” said Paul, “You need to keep this quiet. It’s top secret.”

“OK,” said Barry, “go ahead. What is it?”

“It’s only that the Pope is due to read his poems on Friday afternoon at Little Snodsbury village hall.”

“You what?” said Barry. “The Pope? You’re pulling my leg!”

“I’m not,”, said Paul. “I’ve got the note in front of me. It says ‘Pope poetry recital. Little Snodsbury. Friday, 3 pm’. The sergeant wants a vanload of us to provide security, but he says it looks like a big secret, because nobody has said anything about the Pope even being in the country, let alone round here.”

Barry’s emotions were suddenly all over the place. He knew that he had to contain his excitement at this astounding news, and that he could not let anyone else see how enthused he was. But this could be the one opportunity he needed to make a name for himself. He could picture the scene. His Holiness would land by helicopter on the field next to the village hall, he would be whisked inside to present his latest poems to an invited audience of local literature buffs, then hustled off back to the helicopter and away back to Rome. And only Barry, the ace reporter, would be any the wiser.

Of course, it would probably have been more sensible for Barry to make a few enquiries about what the Pope was actually likely to be doing on Friday, and he would then have known that Pope Francis was actually on a tour of Latin America at the time; and he might also have asked a few questions about the likelihood of His Holiness descending on an English village to do what PC Smithers had indicated he would be doing. But the chance of a major scoop of this importance was enough to put paid to any vestiges of commonsense that should have been to the fore in Barry’s brain.

So, at around half past two on the following Friday, Barry turned up at Little Snodsbury village hall in full expectation of the arrival of the Pope to give his poetry recital. When he arrived, the police contingent, including his friend Paul, was already in place, occupying the entire back row of seats in the hall. There were only two other people there, on rows one and nine, so Barry had plenty of choice among the many empty chairs. He assumed that the bulk of the audience would turn up in due time.

They did not. 

Barry also assumed that the Papal helicopter would also make its presence felt before long.

It also did not.

Instead, as the clock moved to the stroke of three, the man who had been sitting on the front row stood up and climbed the three steps to the stage to stand behind the lectern that was already in place and on which was placed a number of ominously thick volumes. 

He cleared his throat and began:

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I was hoping for a few more people here this afternoon, but I am glad to welcome Mrs Walters who represents the Guinness Book of Records”. He duly pointed to the lady sitting in Row 9.

“I am hoping today to set a new world record by reading aloud, in a single session, the complete poetic works of Alexander Pope. This is a special occasion, marking as it does the 330^th anniversary of his birth, and I believe that this feat has never been attempted before.

“As you will know, Pope was a prolific poet whose works ran to several volumes, and this attempt will clearly take a long time to complete. I am grateful to the Village Hall Committee for allowing me to occupy this stage for as long as I like, and I fully anticipate that we will still be here well into the night.

“I shall therefore begin with ‘The Essay on Criticism’. It took Pope three years to write this – hopefully it will not take me quite so long to read it.”

And off he went. 

After the first hour, it was quite clear that everyone in the audience had clearly had about as much of this as they could stand. Barry’s eyelids felt distinctly heavy as he took note that the same was true of most of the Police contingent. When he was next aware of anything, he could see that three of the policemen, and two policewomen, were no longer there. Mrs Walters from the Guinness Book of Records gave two or three gentle snores. The man at the lectern ploughed on relentlessly, now well into “Eloisa to Abelard”.

Barry needed a change of air, so he slipped out of the building as quietly as he could manage. 

The village hall was adjacent to a large open field in which several horses were grazing. Leaning against the fence, and admiring the horses, were the five missing police officers.

The sergeant in charge of the police squad now took the view that their presence was a complete waste of time. This had obviously been the case after only the first five minutes, but the sergeant reckoned that abandoning the task so soon after it had started might not look too good when it came to writing up his report. Apart from that, having a bit of a rest on the back row of the village hall was preferable to doing the paperwork that awaited him back at the station.

He therefore led the rest of his team out of the hall just as the five absentees headed back to join them.

“Bloody horsefly”, said one of them, rubbing his arm.

“You been got?” said another, “Me too”.

“And me” said the third victim.

The police contingent got back in their van and headed off. Barry, meanwhile, had a quandary. The event had not proved to be anything like as newsworthy as he had hoped, given the complete absence of anyone worth writing about, and he did not even know if the world record had been achieved, but the journalistic streak in him was not to be thwarted so easily. He could still get an eye-catching headline if he put his mind to it.

By abbreviating his name and leaving out a full stop, the answer was there sure enough. Hence the posters for the Saturday edition of the Market Snodsbury Telegraph read:

B RAWL AT POET’S RECITAL. THREE POLICEMEN BITTEN

© John Welford

Maybe Not

Have you ever wished that you could really tell what your cat or dog was saying to you? You may be an expert at reading their mews, miaows, growls, barks and gestures, but what if they could actually use words? Wouldn’t that be so much better?

Well – maybe not! Perhaps something along the lines of what follows might be the result.

Montmorency, the talking cat, was sunning himself by the back door one Tuesday morning when there was a furious banging on the front door. Claire - Montmorency’s owner - opened the door to find Mrs Bailey from over the road standing there with a particularly unfriendly expression on her face.

“That cat of yours!” she began.

“You mean Montmorency?”

“I do indeed.”

“Has he done something bad? If so, I’m sure …”

“Something bad?” Mrs Bailey interrupted. “I’ll say he has. He’s been teaching all the kids in the street to use the foulest language you can imagine. It’s ‘effing this’ and ‘effing that’ all day long. They can’t say anything these days without sticking at least one ‘effing’ into every sentence, and if I tell them off all I get back is a series of ‘eff offs’.”

“And you say it’s all my cat Montmorency’s fault?”

On hearing his name, Montmorency had got up and was now next to the two women at the front door.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he enquired.

“You are!” said Mrs Bailey. “I’ve heard you in the street having furious rows with that cat from Number 11. You use the most terrible language, and all the kids can hear you too. They gather round and watch you two spitting and swearing at each other, and then copy every nasty word that comes out of your mouth. Why can’t you just be a bit nicer with each other and stop polluting the street with all that vile garbage?”

“It’s his fault”, said Montmorency. 

“What do you mean?”

“My territory is the even numbers, from 2 down to 32. His patch is the odds, from 1 to 29. If he starts encroaching on my side of the road, he’s going to get what’s coming to him, and I’ll use what language I choose to tell him so. 

“And by the way”, he continued, “Has anyone ever told you it’s time you went on a diet? You really are extremely fat”.

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Pardon granted”, said Montmorency. “I always tell the truth, in every circumstance, and the truth is that you are beyond fat – you are obese. You are also incredibly ugly.”

Mrs Bailey could take no more of this and turned on her heel to storm off across the road back to her own house.

Claire turned to Montmorency as she closed the door and went back her chair. “You are bad sometimes”, she said. “I do wish you weren’t quite so unpleasant to people.”

“But I’m never unpleasant to you,” said Montmorency, as he rubbed himself against her leg before jumping up onto her knee. “You’re a nice person who does exactly what I want, feeds me when I want to be fed, and lets me sleep on her lap when the need arises.”

“That’s true”, said Claire as she tickled him under the chin. “I could never be cross with you, Montmorency. You look at me in such a special way, and say all the nicest things when we’re alone.” 

However, a worried look crossed her brow.

“What’s up?” said Montmorency. “Are you ill? It can’t be a furball – only cats get those.”

“No, I’m not ill”, she said. “It’s just that there are some things you can’t do for me, Montmorency, however good a cat you are. You have to understand that women like to have men in their lives as well as cats, and I don’t want you to be jealous if I bring him home and want to spend some private time with him.”

Montmorency now looked considerably less friendly.

“Is this likely to happen?” he asked in an inquisitorial tone of voice.

“Well, yes”, said Claire. “I’ve met this really nice guy named Nick. He’s asked me out this evening, and if things go well I might invite him back here for coffee.”

“Coffee?” said Montmorency. “I know what ‘coffee’ means. Coffee gets made in the kitchen and drunk in the lounge, so how come you’ve been tidying your bedroom and changing the sheets? You do that on Thursdays, not Tuesdays.” 

There was silence before Montmorency spoke again.

“His name’s Nick, you say?”

“That’s right”, said Claire.

“Do I know him?” he asked.

“You might do”, said Claire. “He lives in Rushey Close, Number 12. Tall guy, with a short black beard. I bumped into him a few days ago when I was shopping at the Co-op. He reached me down a packet of pasta from a top shelf that was too high for me and we got chatting. He told me that his divorce had come through and that he was now looking for company, and suggested we might go out one night. He was really nice, so I thought why not, and …” 

She continued in this vein for some time, but it was all lost on Montmorency, who had left the room and slipped out through his cat-flap shortly after the word ‘Co-op’. 

It was several hours before he returned.

“Where have you been, Montmorency?” asked Claire.

“I’ve just been over to Rushey Close”, he said. “There’s a lovely little lady cat over there at Number 10 that I happen to know. I use the word ‘know’ in the same sense that you use ‘coffee’. I really hope that her owners will find good homes for all the kittens when they arrive.”

“You’ve been to 10 Rushey Close? Next door to where Nick lives?”

“That’s right. After Trixie and I had renewed our aquaintanceship we slipped across the fence to Number 12 and had a good look round.”

“A good look round?” asked Claire. “How did you manage that?”

“You pal Nick was out, but he’d left a bathroom window half-open and we soon got in. You say he’s divorced?”

 “That’s right.” His wife left him for another guy. He was heart-broken.”

“When did she leave?” Montmorency asked.

“Over a year ago. He’s been on his own ever since.”

“He doesn’t have any interesting hobbies that you know about, does he?”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, he doesn’t perform as a drag artist, does he?”

Claire stared at Montmorency. “Why on Earth would you say that?” she asked.

“It’s just that the false eyelashes and lipstick that we found in the bathroom suggested that that was a possibility. But I agree with you, it’s a not a very likely scenario, especially after what Trixie found in the bedroom.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was absolutely convinced that the discarded pair of frilly knickers had last been worn by a woman, and quite recently too.”

Claire’s shocked expression told Montmorency that he had said enough. The angry phone call that followed, cancelling the evening date, was proof of this.

Before long, Montmorency was back where he wanted to be, on Claire’s lap, looking forward to his next meal.

Claire was just thankful that she had been spared a terrible disappointment at the hands of a local philanderer who would be bound to let her down when his next pretty victim came along. She remembered what Montmorency had said to Mrs Bailey, namely that he always told the truth in all circumstances. 

As for Montmorency, as long as Claire went on in that belief, that was fine by him.

© John Welford

Seeing Red

Dear Regan,

I am absolutely furious, not to mention seething. Daddy has gone too far this time, and I’m sending you this email to warn you that he is on his way to your place with every intention of being as unreasonable to you as he has been to me.

As you no doubt recall, when he gave that poor sap Cordelia no more than she deserved, Daddy decided to divide his kingdom between the two of us and pay us the occasional visit when he felt like it. What he did not say was that he was going to turn up with a full entourage of a hundred knights and expect us to feed and entertain the whole damned lot of them. But that is just what he’s done.

If you remember, Albany and I decided to go in for a low-key economy monarchy, so we downsized to a three-bed semi in Oadby. We therefore had to hire an enormous marquee for the garden to accommodate all the knights.

I have to admit that the knights themselves are not a bad bunch of guys, although Albany is unhappy that they are all knights and there’s not a single dame among them.

Richard Branson laid on a special train to South Wigston, which arrived horribly late. Mo Farah decided to run instead, and beat the train by over half an hour. Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins came on a tandem bike and Matthew Pinsent and Steve Redgrave rowed up the Grand Union Canal.

Feeding them wasn’t a problem – one of the knights runs John Lewis, which includes Waitrose – and  clearing up was a doddle – James Dyson ran round afterwards with his latest machine.

The entertainment side was also dead easy – the concert given by Cliff Richard, Elton John, Tom Jones and Paul McCartney went down very well, although Mick Jagger expressed dissatisfaction with some aspects of it. The comedy turn by Lenny Henry was also well received.

However, things started to go amiss when the actor knights did their party pieces. Mark Rylance, Michael Caine and David Jason were fine, but then Antony Sher and Derek Jacobi started claiming that each was a better King Lear than the other, and proceeded to prove the point, completely forgetting that the actual Lear was sitting in the front row of the audience. When Daddy stormed out in a rage that was far more convincing than anything that Sher or Jacobi could manage, he got a standing ovation, which annoyed him even more.

But that business with the knights is only the half of it. It’s what Daddy is turning into that really annoys me. For one thing, he’s gone an odd shade of orange, and he’s done something very strange with his hair.

You know that comedian who always goes around with him? The guy he calls his little fox? Well, it turns out that he’ll only believe what the little fox tells him, and everyone else is lying. It’s “Fox’s news or fake news” according to him.

Daddy just loves to tell everyone else what he thinks of them, sending out dozens of tweets every day, and I’m not at all sure that he’s correct with his facts. Somebody told me that Daddy tells six lies every day, and I’m not convinced that it isn’t even more.

I asked him yesterday if he would like me to spread marmalade on his toast. He said he would, but when I handed the toast to him he threw it on the floor, saying that he meant to say that he wouldn’t like marmalade. Everyone knew full well that he never had marmalade, so how could anyone possibly imagine that he would ever say that he would?

He has now decided that his knights are not as trustworthy as he thought they were. Some of them are out to get him. Not only that, but there are “illegals” among them who are capable of committing horrible crimes if they are allowed out of the marquee.

I think he`s particularly worried about Tony Robinson. As you know, Daddy spends hours every day watching TV, and he tells me that he has seen Sir Tony digging holes in the ground. I’ve tried telling Daddy that “digging the dirt” does not always mean finding incriminating evidence against him, and that it might have far more to do with Tony’s interest in archaeology, but I don’t think that I’ve won the argument.

Anyway, last night I was woken up by strange noises outside. When I looked out of the window I could see Daddy with a wheelbarrow full of bricks, which he seems to have taken from the neighbours who are having an extension built. I went downstairs to ask him what he was up to.

“I’m building a wall”, he said. “We’ll keep all this nasty people away from us. It’ll be a truly beautiful wall, and that Robinson man will pay for it”.

So – not only has Daddy stolen from the neighbours and lost me all my friends with his awful insulting tweets about them, but he has also made me a laughing stock with the whole town. I’m the daughter of the stark staring mad father. Can you imagine what this will do to local property prices?

Hence my anger. I’m sorry, dear sister, but once he realizes that’s he’s no longer welcome here he’ll up sticks and head in your direction.

I wish my news was as fake as Daddy’s tan, but it’s not.

Your loving sister,

Goneril

© John Welford