Last Day of the Month in Nohopia: a silly story

His Most Excellent Majesty King Magnifica, absolute ruler of Nohopia, had a great liking for neatness and order. This applied, in particular, to the means by which his subjects conducted their official and business affairs. Having noted that everyone got paid on the last working day of the month, which is an arrangement that is typical of many countries other than Nohopia, he did not see why the same rule should not be extended in many other directions.

In Nohopia, therefore, contracts could only be agreed and signed on the last day of the month. Postal deliveries were only made once a month, on the final day, and the same applied to collections. In effect, that meant that if you wanted to post a letter, or pay a bill by post, you had a wait a whole month between posting it and its arrival at its destination.

Shops and banks only opened on the last day of the month, which led to enormous queues. The same applied to railway and bus stations, although trains and buses were allowed to run on other days as long as they did not carry any passengers.

Nohopia had some excellent newspapers, although they only appeared on the last day of the month, and this was also true for TV and radio broadcasters who had to cram all their programming into a single day.

King Magnifica was especially proud of his policy as it applied to schools and colleges. Having not been all that good a school pupil himself, he was sure that everyone being educated would welcome having a whole month in which to do their homework and assignments, due to the establishments being closed on all days other than the last of the month.

Weddings and funerals all had to be delayed until the month was nearly over. King Magnifica was known to be working on a plan that ensured that babies were only born on the last day of the month, but this was proving difficult to arrange. There are some things that even kings have problems with, and this was one of them.

Everyone other than His Most Excellent Majesty was fully aware that this arrangement, despite its outwardly tidy appearance, presented huge problems to the social and economic life of Nohopia. 

It therefore came as a surprise to nobody, with one prominent exception, when the economy of the country came to a crashing halt.

Another of King Magnifica’s obsessions was the construction of huge statues of himself all over the country. Of course, he did not make these statues himself, but around half the working population of Nohopia was involved in the statue-building business in one capacity or another. This was never going to be an activity that contributed to the wealth of the nation, as no other country was ever likely to want to import a statue of His Most Excellent Majesty, so the wages paid to vast numbers of people could be nothing other than a huge drain on the economy.

On the 30^th day of May, the King’s private secretary felt compelled to tell him that all was not well.

“Your Most Excellent Majesty, it’s pay day tomorrow, the 31st”, she said, “and there’s no money left in the Treasury to pay the workers. What are we going to do?”

King Magnifica thought for a moment and then came up with the perfect solution, as he saw it.

“We only pay the workers on the last day of the month. Am I correct?”

“Indeed you are, Your Most Excellent Majesty. You are always correct about everything.”

“Exactly so.”, said the King, “In that case, we will declare that tomorrow is not the last day of the month. The day after tomorrow, which would have been the 1^st of June, will therefore be the 32^nd of May, and therefore the last day. Is that not a most excellent idea?”

“Of course it is, Your Most Excellent Majesty. Your ideas cannot be other than most excellent, as all your subjects know.”

So that is what happened. Unfortunately, no money flowed into the state coffers on either the 31^st or the 32^nd, so the following day had to be the 33^rd, followed by the 34^th, 35^th, and so on. It could not have been otherwise, given that no important decisions or business dealings could be concluded on any day other than the last of the month, and if that day was not allowed to arrive, then the situation could not possibly have been resolved.

This state of affairs was clearly completely crazy, and everybody realized this, apart, of course, from His Most Excellent Majesty King Magnifica, whose statues continued to be built despite the workers having to wait even longer to be paid.

There is no knowing how long this situation would have continued had not King Magnifica fallen ill. It was on the 142^nd day of the month that he took to his bed and the 145^th when he suffered a heart attack.

His private secretary was summoned to his bedside, where His Most Excellent Majesty was propped up on pillows and looking decidedly groggy.

“I don’t understand it,” said the King. “My doctors assured me that if I kept taking my medicine I would keep my blood pressure low and avoid any possibility of a heart attack. Can you explain it?”

“I think I can, Your Most Excellent Majesty. You see, your prescription could not be renewed, due to their being no end of the month, so when your pills ran out you were given a substitute.”

“A substitute? And do you mean that these other pills didn’t keep my blood pressure down?”

“Indeed so, Your Most Excellent Majesty”, said the private secretary. “For several weeks now you have been given sugar pills that look exactly like the real ones but have no medicinal content at all. The doctors say that another heart attack is likely to occur at any time, and when it does you will almost certainly die.”

“But I’m the King!” yelled King Magnifica. “I deserve the best treatment, because I’m always right and make the best decisions for the country!”

“Maybe not always, Your Most Abysmal Majesty”.

“What did you say?” shouted King Magnifica, going very red in the face.

“I’ll repeat it”, said the private secretary. “You are a terrible King who has the stupidest ideas, and when your next heart attack arrives, which will probably be within the next five minutes, we will get a new King who might just possibly do a far better job than you. Of course, if insanity runs in the family, we might not be so lucky.”

The private secretary was not quite correct, in that the fatal heart attack arrived well within the five minutes she had estimated, but it certainly signaled the beginning of a new era in Nohopia.

The day of King Magnifica’s death was immediately declared, by his successor, to be the last day of the month.

©John Welford

Meeting of the Brotherhood

"Brothers, I hereby call this meeting of the Brotherhood of Brothers Ignored by the Bard to order. I am delighted to welcome a special guest today, but before I introduce him to you maybe it would be a good idea if some of you said a few words to give him an idea of your particular grievance. Can I start with the Brother to my left?"

“Thank you, Mr Chairman. My name is Eggslet, the result of a rare example of humour shown by my somewhat dour and gloomy Danish parents when I was born a year after my better-known brother.

“It was a huge mistake leaving me out of the play. I’d have sorted everything out in no time at all. For one thing, I’d have whisked that gorgeous Ophelia off her feet and out of Hammy’s reach, so that awful father of hers wouldn’t have spied on him and got himself killed. There are far too many nasty deaths in that play, and I’d have saved quite a few, you mark my words.

“Mind you, I’d soon have sorted Claudius out. None of that ‘To be or not to be nonsense’ from me, I can tell you. That’s one death that I’d definitely leave in.

“On the other hand, I might also have put paid to my dear brother. He’d have made a terrible king, and with me being next in line … ”

“Thank you, Brother Eggslet”, said the Chairman. Let’s move on, who’s next?”

“That’s me”, said the tough-looking guy sitting next to Eggslet. “My name’s Branwell Lear. It’s a great name, maybe it’ll set a trend for future brothers who have three sisters, who knows?

“I reckon Dad got it all wrong when he only visited his daughters after dividing the kingdom. If he’d turned up at my place with all his knights we’d have had a whale of a time, jousting, hunting, all that sort of thing. There’d have been no need for him to go bonkers and if either Regan or Goneril had caused any problems we’d have settled their hash pretty quickly.

“But Will Shakespeare chose to leave me off the cast list and we all know what happened as a result. Death and misery all over the place – who wants to go to the theatre and see that sort of thing? They can get their fill of that by watching Eastenders.”

The next Brother to speak was a suave Italian who introduced himself as Milaneo Montague, brother of Romeo.

“I should certainly have been in the play”, he said. “It was awful when Romeo topped himself, along with lovely young Juliet. I wept buckets when I heard about it.

“It was all so unnecessary. If they’d only left the wedding arrangements to me, instead of that stupid Friar Laurence, it would all have worked out so differently. I’ve got a mate who runs the perfect wedding venue just outside Verona, everything laid on – wine, cake, flowers, the lot – and all for a very reasonable price. My best man’s speech would have been wonderful, then I’d have whisked them off to start a romantic honeymoon in Sorrento with a short cruise round the Bay of Naples. They’d have loved it. If only I’d been in the play.”

“That was my problem too”, said the next in line, who gave his name as Brashlock. "Everything went wrong for my brother Shylock. We’re in the same line, namely moneylending, but he had a misguided notion about the best way of dealing with bad debts. Far too carnivorous, if you ask me. Now, if the Bard had let me give Shylock a bit of advice I’d have suggested that he adopt my vegan approach. I never demand a pound of flesh. A pound of carrots will suit me just fine, and the following day I’ll demand a pound of potatoes, then leeks and then parsnips. A different vegetable every day until I get my money back, plus interest. By the time the debtor is in the clear my larder is usually full enough not only to feed my family but allow me to stock a veggie stall in the local market. If Will Shakespeare had given me a part in his play, he could have called it The Fruit and Veg Merchant of Venice – much more wholesome if you ask me.”

“Thank you, Brother”, said the Chairman. “Before we go any further, I see that one of the Brothers is handing round a bag of sweets. Going by past experience, I would advise you all not to actually eat anything he offers you.”

“That’s a bit unfair”, said the Brother in question. “It’s months now since anyone has actually died from any of my products, which is more than be said for what my weird sisters turn out. Their death rate is starting to attract the attention of Health and Safety, which is why I reckon that the Bard should have let me have a role in their culinary offerings.”

“You see,” he continued, “those recipes of theirs, with newts’ eyes, dogs’ tongues and the rest, always lacked a certain something. They could have made it big in the world of catering if they’d only listened to their brother’s advice and got the taste balance right.

“You see it’s all very well sticking Turks’ noses and dragons’ scales into the pot – the latter are very difficult to get these days, I can tell you. Sainsbury’s hardly ever have them in stock – but where’s the seasoning? No salt or pepper, and the closest they get to herbs are yew slips and hemlock roots, which do the digestive tract do good at all.”

“I think we’ve heard enough now”, said the Chairman. “So let me introduce our guest, who I think might be able to satisfy most of you with his proposed scheme. Given that you are all ignored brothers, it is only appropriate that he should be another one. He wears flowers in his hair, he writes potted versions of his twin brother Bill’s plays, and his name is Ben Shakespeare.

© John Welford

Taxed to the Hilt: a Piece of History

Taxes! So many taxes! They make my blood boil. Will anything ever change, or will we all just go on being driven into the dirt by all these taxes?

I am a poor French peasant, trying to make a living off the land to feed my family. I have to admit that that there are others who are worse off than me – at least we’re not actually starving – but sometimes it almost comes to that. There have been food riots round here, which should have surprised nobody.

Let me put you in the picture. Nearly everyone in France is a peasant. They reckon that there are 25 million French people, of whom 23 million are peasants. Above us are the bourgeoisie, the lawyers, doctors and teachers – people with an education. And above them are the nobles, the rich ones who own the land and charge us rent to scrape a living off it.

You know what? Those nobles, the filthy rich, they don’t pay anything like the taxes that we do.

I’ll spell it out.

First of all, there’s the “taille”. You pay that if you have any property or earn any money. If you get lucky and earn enough to buy something of your own, you pay more “taille”. So where’s the incentive to better yourself, then? It’s no wonder that agriculture is so backward in this country – why buy a horse or a plough if you have to pay the government more in tax when you do?

Next in line is the poll tax. The head of the household pays this – no exemptions. Unless you’re a nobleman of course. They can find ways of not paying it. Do you know, somebody has worked out that we peasants pay eight times our fair share in poll tax and the nobles only one eighth. Where’s the justice in that?

The third tax we have to pay is the “vingtième”. That means one twentieth, and you pay it on the value of all your property, on top of the taille. Did I say one twentieth, five percent? If only that were true! One sixth would be nearer the mark! And do the nobles pay it? Do they Hell! There are all sorts of loopholes they can squirm through to get out of it.

That guy who worked out what we pay in poll tax has also calculated that the total tax bill for a peasant, however poor he might be, is around 50 percent of his income. That can’t be right and just, can it?

And do you know who has to collect these taxes for the Government? We do! We have to appoint one of our own people to go round and demand the money from all of his neighbours. Not surprisingly, this does not make him very popular, and quite often we have to gang up on somebody and force him to do it. If you’re the poor mug who gets the post you have the devil’s own job to get everyone to pay up, and if you don’t you have to pay the missing tax out of your own pocket. If you can’t do that, you go to jail.

It has been known for a group of villagers to use this as a way getting rid of somebody who they really don’t like. They make him the tax collector, refuse to pay him, and he gets sent to chokey. It’s a nasty trick, but that’s what the system does to people.

I’ve just been telling you about the taxes we have to pay direct to the Government, but that’s not the end of the miseries we peasants have to put up with. The list just goes on and on.

Have you ever heard of the “gabelle”, the salt tax? It’s a scam of the first order and the peasants are its victims. The law says that everyone over the age of eight has to buy at least seven pounds of salt from the government every year. You don’t only have to buy it, but you also pay purchase tax on top of the price. Salt is useful stuff, don’t get me wrong, but you have no choice about buying government salt. If you live near the sea you’re not allowed to use sea salt or let your cattle get salt from the marshes.

If you try to avoid the gabelle you are in big trouble. You can go to jail – thousands do every year, including children. Some people have been sent to the galleys, and some have even been hanged.

They have special people to collect this tax. They get to take a cut of the proceedings and actually pay the Government to be allowed to be tax collectors. They are nasty people, these tax farmers. I’ve heard stories about them banging on doors in middle of the night to demand payment and ransacking houses to seize anything of value they can find. There was a case in a village not far from here where one of these devils cut off a woman’s hand as she tried to keep hold of her cooking pot.

Not only do we get taxed on everything we earn and have to buy salt, but we have to pay for everything we need to do our work. There are dues to be paid for using the mill, the wine-press or the communal oven. We have to pay the landowner to use the roads and bridges, or to take our cattle through his estate.

By the way, those roads are the same ones that we are forced to keep in good repair – they call that the “corvee” – and that work time is time we can’t use to work on our farms.

And just for good measure, we have to pay tithes to the priest.

Is there justice in France? Not for the peasant, there isn’t. We can’t complain to the landlord because he’s never here – he lives in a swanky big house in town. We can take him to court, but he appoints the judge and the lawyers, so guess who wins every time?

We are the only class in France who can’t appeal against military service, which lasts for six years. We pay for the King’s wars through our taxes, then we have to fight and get killed in them.

Will things ever change? I’ve heard rumours that something might happen, but I’m not holding my breath. Will tomorrow be any different from today? It’s unlikely.

It’s time for bed. Let’s see what tomorrow brings. What’s the date tomorrow? Oh yes – it’ll be the 14^th of July, 1789.

© John Welford

Clean Up: a story

The noise of the crash in the distance sickened everyone who heard it at the railway station, because they knew it was going to happen and they could do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Several members of the railway staff also knew that they had played a part in causing the disaster which was bound to involve heavy loss of life.

The date was 10th September 1874 and the scene was Norwich railway station, which at the time was known as Norwich Thorpe. Trains left from here for Great Yarmouth on a line which was single track, although plans were well advanced towards making it double track. Indeed, the extra rails had already been laid but had not yet been inspected and approved for use. The disaster would not have occurred only a few weeks later.

Trains also arrived at Thorpe from London, and on the evening in question an express was due from Liverpool Street that would then proceed to Great Yarmouth. It was customary for the express to cross with the mail train from Great Yarmouth at Brundall, which was the next station down the line, but on this occasion the express was running a few minutes late and there was therefore the option of letting the mail proceed to Thorpe and making the express wait for it.

The communication system in use at the time was an electric telegraph, by which staff at the two stations would tell each other what the train movements were and act accordingly so that trains could cross in safety.

At 9.16 the night inspector, Cooper, who had just come on duty, went to the stationmaster’s office to get his orders. The two men were notorious for not getting on with each other, and there had been strong words between them in the past. Mr Sproule, the stationmaster, was a strict Wesleyan Methodist who never drank alcohol and who loathed what he regarded as immoral conduct on anyone’s part, and was never reluctant to tell them so.

Cooper was well known to be fond of a drink or two, although he was always perfectly sober when at work, and his flirtatious behaviour towards pretty girls was far from what Mr Sproule regarded as acceptable, as was Cooper’s habit of using colourful language when the occasion demanded it.

Mr Sproule had had a tiring day and was keen to get home. He had no intention of talking any longer to Cooper than was absolutely necessary, so when asked if he should let the on-time mail train come through he was short in his reply.

“Certainly not”, he said. “We will not have the Mail up”.

“We could delay the Express as late as 9.35”, Cooper offered, hoping to get Mr Sproule to change his mind, which was something that the stationmaster very rarely did.

“All right”, Mr Sproule snapped, as he got his hat and coat off the peg, “We’ll soon get her off”.

He glared at Cooper as he swept past him in the doorway.

“Bloody hell, you’re in a mood tonight”, Cooper muttered under his breath.

“I heard that”, said Mr Sproule, turning back. “You’d better clean up your language, Cooper. I’ll have none of that talk in my office.” And with that, he was gone.

But Cooper had got what he wanted. The stationmaster had said “All right”, so he reckoned that he was therefore authorized to have the Mail sent on from Brundall. However, that was certainly not what Mr Sproule had meant. He had also not been referring to the Mail train when he said “we’ll soon get her off”.

Cooper made his way to the telegraph office, where Robson, the young clerk, was on duty. His job was to send and receive messages to and from neighbouring stations, but he could only do this if he had a signed authorization.

Robson had not had a great deal to do, and he had been whiling away the time with four of his mates, who were on their way to the pub and had popped in to see Robson and wait for him to come off duty. They had brought fish and chips with them and were happily sharing them around and making a bit of a mess in the process.

Cooper, still smarting from his telling off by the stationmaster, saw an opportunity to pass his resentment down a level. “What a tip!” he said “You’d better clean up this office before Mr Sproule gets to see it” – although he knew that the stationmaster was no longer on the premises.

“Yes, Mr Cooper”, said Robson. “Was there something else?”

“There certainly is”, said Cooper. “Tell Brundall to send the Mail on to Norwich”. And with that he went on his way before Robson could write down the order and get Cooper to sign it.

Meanwhile, the Express from London had arrived. Parker, the day inspector, had expected the train to arrive on time and had already signed an authorization for it to proceed to Great Yarmouth. Cooper came up to him and Parker asked, “Have you arranged for the Mail to come on?”

For reasons known only to himself, Cooper said “No, certainly not. Let’s get this train away as soon as possible.” Parker then handed the authorization ticket to the driver who promptly got his train moving.

Cooper suddenly had second thoughts and went back to the telegraph office, where he said to Robson, “You haven’t ordered the Mail up, have you?”

Robson had done precisely that, as instructed by Cooper. He rushed to his telegraph instrument and sent a message to Brundall: “Stop the Mail”. The reply came back in seconds: “Mail left”.

Robson placed the original message in front of Cooper and asked him to sign it.

“I never gave you that message”, Cooper shouted. “Bloody Hell, I did not, I did not.”

“In that case”, said Robson, “Why have you come back here to cancel a message that you say you never sent?”

There was no answer to this.

They all knew what this meant.

When the trains met head-on 25 people were killed, including the crews of both locomotives. There were 73 serious injuries. This was the worst head-on collision ever to happen on the British railway system.

At the subsequent enquiry the Board of Trade inspector placed the blamed on both Cooper and Robson, the first for giving conflicting information and the second for sending an unsigned order and entertaining his friends in the telegraph office. He was also highly critical of the procedures in place for single-line working at Norwich Thorpe which could lead so easily to disaster thanks to human error.

As he said to all the people involved: “You have no choice but to clean up your act all round”.

© John Welford

My Hero: a Story

There was no doubt about it. Of all the women on Andrew’s university course, Melanie Davies was the one to go for. She was everything he could wish for – great face, great body that went in and out in all the right places, definitely the one that got his hormones racing. There was only one problem, which was that her attractions had attracted just about every other red-blooded male within sight. Getting Melanie to succumb to his chat-up lines was not going to be easy. He needed a plan and it had better be a good one. It was while he was sitting alone in the bar one evening that he got his bright idea. Melanie was also there, but so was Simon Fletcher, and Melanie seemed to be annoyingly keen on Simon’s company. He could see them there on the other side of the room. Whenever Simon said something, Melanie grinned and laughed, clearly lapping up everything he said. Andrew could see where Simon had his hand resting casually on Melanie’s leg, and he could also see that Melanie was making no attempt to brush it away, even when the hand crept a little higher. If Andrew took no action, Melanie’s charms might well be unveiled privately in male company in the foreseeable future, but the male in question was unlikely to be Andrew. The piped music piped away at full volume. The song in question was Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero” with its deathless lines: “He's gotta be sure, And he's gotta be soon, And he's gotta be larger than life” That was it! Melanie needed a hero, even if she didn’t know it herself. He – Andrew Plumstead – was the hero she needed – sure, soon, and absolutely larger than life. That was what women wanted - men who would leap across chasms and march through fire to rescue them from monsters and demons. What woman – by whom he meant Melanie – could possibly resist Super-Andrew when he charged into action? The only problem was working out how Andrew’s heroism towards Melanie was going to present itself. Clearly some situation would need to be manufactured that involved placing Melanie in some sort of danger, from which Andrew would rescue her. That could be tricky – suppose the danger ending up causing Melanie real harm? A better plan might be to make the danger happen to Simon, then Andrew would show himself to be the one who was stronger and fitter to cope with the dangerous situation and therefore a much better bedtime companion for Melanie. Suppose he accidentally on purpose made Simon fall into the swimming pool while Melanie was there, and Andrew dived in and saved his life? There was only one problem with this idea, quite a big one in fact, this being that Andrew couldn’t swim and Simon would probably end saving him rather than the other way round. Suppose Simon were to drop a lit cigarette into a wastepaper basket and set fire to Melanie’s room, after which Andrew crashed through the door with a fire extinguisher and saved the situation? On reflection, this plan had plenty of flaws, not least the fact that Simon didn’t smoke and neither did he, so getting a lit cigarette to miraculously appear in Melanie’s wastepaper basket was going to be a real challenge. That was the problem with great ideas – they might be great as ideas, but in practical terms they were often of no use at all. At least Melanie had not fallen for Simon’s blandishments just yet. Andrew could see that the two of them went their separate ways as they left the bar, which meant that Andrew had a bit more time in which to work out his hero scheme. During most of the following morning they all had lectures and seminars, but were free in the afternoon. Andrew needed to do some work in the Library, but he kept finding his attention drifting away from thoughts of heroism in Greek Mythology to the more pressing issue of heroism in Andrew Plumstead. A voice interrupted his reveries. To his immense surprise the voice belonged to Melanie Davies. Unfortunately, it was not saying: “Andrew Plumstead, I find you incredibly desirable and I want you to tear my clothes off at the earliest possible opportunity” but was addressed to anyone in that part of the library who was willing to listen. The words spoken were: “I’ve got a flat tyre on my car. Can somebody help me change the wheel, please?” That was another reason why Melanie was so attractive. She had her own car. This was clearly the opportunity that Andrew had been waiting for. As heroic actions go, it was not quite in the rescuing damsels in distress from fire-breathing dragons category, but if a wheel change was what the damsel wanted, then a wheel change was what she was going to get. Despite having never changed a car wheel in his life before, Andrew jumped to his feet and followed Melanie out to the car park where her flat tyre awaited him. Andrew did his best to disguise his lack of expertise in car mechanics and somehow managed to work out how to get the car jacked up, remove the old wheel and put the spare one in its place. Although he got his hands extremely dirty, and trapped his fingers in the car jack at one painful point, Andrew felt that the beaming smile he got from Melanie when it was all over made the inconvenience extremely worthwhile. Unfortunately, the half-hoped-for invitation to jump into the passenger seat and be whisked off to Melanie’s place for an evening of passion did not materialize. But at least she now knew who he was and might be more easily persuaded to fall for any future suggestions towards intimacy that Andrew might make. What a hero! After getting cleaned up, Andrew had no option but to hop on the bus for his journey home. There was a hold-up along the way and the bus went very slowly as it passed the scene of an accident, which was attended by a fire crew. Andrew realized to his horror that the car in question was one that he had good reason to know well. It was Melanie’s! He got off the bus at the next stop and ran back to where Melanie’s car had clearly veered off the road and hit a lamppost. It seemed to have caught fire as a result, which was why the firemen were still there, dealing with the smoking remains of the car. There was no sign of Melanie, but still plenty of bystanders, some of whom had witnessed the whole incident. “That was unbelievable”, said a man whom Andrew could overhear. “The way that guy leapt off his motorbike and got the girl out of the car when it caught fire.” “He saved her life”, said the man’s companion. “I don’t think she would have got out by herself. That man had to practically tear the car door off to rescue her.” Andrew suddenly had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly who that knight in shining armour might have been. The next thing he heard made his feelings descend even further. “Did you hear what she said when he carried her out? About what made the car crash?” “Something about a wheel falling off because some prize idiot didn’t put the nuts back on properly?” “That was it. I wouldn’t want to be in that guy’s shoes when she gets hold of him.” Melanie and her hero Simon became a firm fixture from that point on. They moved in together as soon as Melanie’s injuries were treated and they announced their engagement a few weeks later. They got married not long after they finished at University and their first child was born only six weeks after the honeymoon. Andrew was not invited to the wedding © John Welford

Cruises Can Be Costly: a story

Rosetta Mary Swinburne. Born 7th July 1993. Died 23rd January 2015. Aged 22. Our Rosie - A Bloom That Faded Too Soon.

“How tragic”, Vicky thought to herself as she read the gravestone in a small village cemetery in Norfolk. “But Rosetta is about to rise from the grave and make me a lot of money”.

Vicky’s trade was conning rich and stupid people out of their money. She did this by pretending to have inside knowledge of investment opportunities that had to be seized at the earliest possible opportunity. This was best done by pretending to be someone else, and the best candidate for “someone else” was a dead person whose birth certificate could be obtained and used to get a fake passport and open a bank account in the false name.

Vicky’s scam was performed on cruise ships that hopped from port to port, such as around the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. All she had to do was buy a ticket, get on board, swindle a few victims out of several thousands apiece, get them to wire the funds to her fake bank account, then disembark before anyone could make too many awkward enquiries. 

It had worked several times in the past, with a new identity taken for each of her ventures. The expense of setting up the scam was always rewarded many times over.

Vicky liked to make sure that her false identity was believable. She was 28, which was only three years older than Rosetta would have been now, had she not been the unfortunate victim of a car crash on an icy Norfolk road that took her car into a water-filled ditch from which she could not escape. Vicky found this out from researching back issues of the local newspaper, which also had a colour photo of Rosetta. With the help of the right shade of hair dye, Vicky could easily pass for Rosetta. Although this was not strictly necessary for the task at hand, it was an added touch that pleased a consummate professional like Vicky.

Terry had been a steward on the Tourmaline Star for two years, having previously worked at a top London hotel. He enjoyed the work, not least the added bonus of visiting so many interesting places. Having customers who were there purely to enjoy themselves rather than be in town for important business reasons was also an advantage.

When Terry glanced down the passenger list before leaving port he had a shock. There was a name on it that he had had no occasion to remember for at least ten years, but he had clearly not forgotten it entirely. Just how many Rosetta Swinburnes could there be? 

The cruise of the Tourmaline Star on this occasion was a winter trip along the coast of Norway. The passengers would fly to Bergen and then be taken all the way to the North Cape and back, stopping off in various fjords and with an excellent chance of seeing the Northern Lights.

From Vicky’s perspective this provided many opportunities to work her scam as well as plenty of escape routes should anything go wrong.

For Terry, there would clearly be many chances to talk to his long-lost friend and renew his acquaintance with her, which had ended when her family had moved to Norfolk and he had stayed put in Southampton.

And so it was, on the first night out of port, that Terry was able to speak to “Rosie” on an otherwise deserted promenade deck. The average age of the passengers was well over 50, so a single woman in her 20s stood out from the rest and was easy to track down.

“Are you Rosie Swinburne?” he asked.

For a second, Vicky was about to say “No”, but remembered in time who she was pretending to be.

“Yes”, she said. “I am”.

“Do you remember me? I’m Terry Muldoon.”

Of course, the name meant absolutely nothing to Vicky, who was suddenly aware of her mistake in choosing a name that was unlikely to belong to anyone else. Had she chosen to impersonate “Claire Smith” or “Ruth Jones” a stout denial would have been perfectly acceptable. But as it was, this was not going to be possible.

“How are you?” asked Terry. “I often wondered what became of you.”

Clearly Terry had not heard about Rosetta Swinburne’s untimely end in a Norfolk ditch. But it was not going to be easy to play along with the deception for long, especially as Vicky had no idea just how well Terry had known Rosie ten years previously. And Vicky’s researches had not been thorough enough to allow for the possibility of meeting someone from Rosie’s past and getting away with it. 

“Have you been in touch with any of our old friends? Alan Bostock, for example? Or Bobbie Randall? You were great friends with Natalie Watts, if I remember. Did she end up marrying that guy from the bakery? You must know if anyone does”.

This was getting far too dangerous for Vicky. Getting into a conversation about people of whom she knew absolutely nothing would soon reveal that she was not who she said she was. Stewards on cruise ships were used to the activities of con artists such as herself, and once she aroused this man’s suspicions it would all be over for her.

She wondered about feigning an illness and leaving the scene without saying anything further, but that would have meant moving from the dark near the ship’s rail to a much brighter area. Although someone’s appearance can change a lot in ten years, she could not be sure that Rosie’s former schoolfriend would not have been able to see that she was not who she claimed to be. 

There was no-one else about. There seemed to be only one solution to Vicky’s problem. She had had some training in wrestling in her youth, and she knew that if she could take Terry unawares she could throw him clean over the rail and into the sea. What other alternative did she have?

Not being the woman she said she was, she was not to know that Terry had been the captain of his school’s judo team, and that he had kept up his training ever since. This would not be a one-way fight.

It did not last long. There was a single splash and then silence. 

The original Rosetta Swinburne had ended her days drowning in ice-cold water. Sometimes history repeats itself.

© John Welford

Mother Was

Mother was standing on the back doorstep, calling me in for supper. I was down the garden, putting out some food for the birds, which at least added a modicum of joy to an otherwise depressing scene in a garden that had never had much in the way of tender loving care.

I looked across to The Patch, which had always mystified me. This was an area of bare soil, about the same size as might have been occupied by a garden shed or a small greenhouse, but there had never been either of these during the 15 years of my existence.

Nothing grew on The Patch, not even weeds. I had tried to brighten things up by planting a few bulbs, but nothing ever came up. My efforts at growing radishes and leeks had all been complete failures. We had no pets, but the cats that came into our garden, and the occasional dog that broke through our apology for a fence, all avoided The Patch, either for digging holes or doing their business.

Even the birds, who were happy to take breadcrumbs off what pretended to be a lawn, never hopped on to The Patch to take any that might fall there.

I had mentioned The Patch to some of my friends at school, who had plenty of ideas about what might account for its strange properties. There was an ancient curse on it, one of them said, the result of terrible crimes that happened centuries ago, when Laburnum Avenue was the site of a grim castle owned by an evil baron whose victims had been burned at the stake on this very spot.

I even went to the library to see if there had ever been a castle here at any time, but it appears that this area had always been farmland before being taken for housing back in the 1920s.

One of my friends reckoned that there was a body buried in The Patch, maybe more than one, and it was ghostly apparitions that made it what it was. Only today this friend had even suggested that I should get a spade and start digging for evidence. I wondered how I was going to explain that to Mother if I actually did so.

There were just the two of us living here, and that had always been the case for as long as I could remember. I had no brothers or sisters, and I had never known my father, who had been lost at sea in a yachting accident very soon after I was born. Mother had never remarried, or shown any sign of wanting another partner.

She could in no sense be regarded as a brilliant mother, although she let me get on with just about everything I wanted to do, which was fine by me. She wasn’t around much – always there to cook my meals and that was about it. She was at work during the day and usually went out in the evenings, only coming home after I had gone to bed. It was a lifestyle that suited both of us.

I sat at the dining table and had just started to eat when there was a knock at the door. Mother went to answer it, and was clearly shocked by the sight of the person who stood outside. I heard her say, “What the Hell are you doing here?” but could not hear the reply.

The dining room door opened and Mother ushered a man towards where I sat. He was tall, gaunt and balding, reminding me strongly of the farmer in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” painting. When Mother stood next to him I could easily see her as the farmer’s wife. 

The man ignored me, but said to Mother: “We must talk. Now. Alone.”

I had no choice but to leave the room. I reached for a drawer in a chest against the wall, explaining that I wanted to take a radio with me to my room. The man nodded at this, clearly reckoning that if I was listening to music I wouldn’t be eavesdropping on their conversation.

What I actually took with me was one half of my walkie-talkie set. I turned the other half to “on” and left the drawer slightly open, unseen by either of the others. This business sounded important and I saw no point in missing out on anything.

What I heard was a lot more than just important. It was dynamite.

“The Boy suspects something” said the man.

"What do you mean?” said Mother. “We’ve always been so careful.”

“Someone I know down the pub is the father of one of the Boy’s schoolmates. Of course, this man has no idea who I am, but he started telling me that his son had been told by his friend that he was going to buy a spade and start digging for a body in his garden. From the details he gave it could only have been this garden. The guy seemed to think that this was all some huge joke – he was laughing fit to burst, but he had had a few by then.”

“He could have been right”, said Mother. “I saw the Boy looking long and hard at The Patch this evening. I’ll bet that’s what he had in mind.

“We’ve got to stop him”, she said. “We’ll both be in trouble if the body ever comes up”.

“You mean you’ll be in trouble”, said the man. “I’m at the bottom of the English Channel, if you remember, along with your twin sister if I recall. How naughty of me to go sailing away with my wife’s twin, leaving wife and baby son at home. How unfortunate that the yacht was run down in the night by an oil tanker and no trace of it ever found.

“It was quite a neat trick for you to assume her identity ever since and carry on living as a grieving widow. Not even your parents noticed the switch.”

“So what do we do?” Mother asked – or, from what I had just heard, was this my mother at all?”

What came next was even more shocking.

“We’ll have to arrange another little accident”, said the man. “It sounds as though he intends to buy a spade after school tomorrow and start digging when you’re not around. He’ll head off towards town down a main road that he’ll have to cross. I’ll steal a car, run him down at high speed, then drive off and torch the car. I’m dead already, so I can’t be traced. 

“If the Boy dies straight away, all well and good. If not, you’ll be able to visit him in hospital and finish the job if you’ve still got some of the stuff left that you used on your sister.”

“I probably have”, said the woman I should now refer to as my aunt. “It was pretty powerful, which is why The Patch is the way it is to this day.”

I’m sure they had plenty more to say to each other, but I had heard enough. I was in danger, and had to escape. I packed some necessaries in my backpack, intending to head for my grandparents’ house after slipping out my bedroom window and down a drainpipe. I had every intention of visiting the Police Station as my first destination.

I now knew so much more than I had done only a few minutes before. I knew that I had been sold a lie for all my young life, that I had a father after all, although he was an evil scumbag, and – of course – I knew for certain exactly where Mother was.

© John Welford