My puppy wears a Christmas hat
is there something wrong with that?
He stares intently back at me
by the light of the Christmas tree
Two dark eyes and round back nose
what he’s thinking no one knows
But I think that I can guess
okay, boy, more is less!
Written in response to Sadje‘s What do You See #62 photo prompt.
Image credit: Rhaúl V. Alva @ Unsplash
The image shows a puppy wearing a Christmas hat, sitting in a bed. You can see the Christmas tree lit up in the background.
The first thing that Alys and Sparky noticed when they arrived in the secret Swiss valley was the lack of snow. Sparky puffed out his cheeks with an accompanying cloud of disappointed dark smoke. The ground shook slightly as George padded round the side of the Edelweiss Paradise factory but there was no sign of Otto and the rest of the gnomes of the valley.
‘Where is everyone?’ asked Alys, wishing she’d worn a warmer robe. Despite the lack of snow, it was still very cold in Switzerland.
‘I’ve already ferried two dozen of ’em up to Lapland.’ He shook his great green wings. ‘Here, put this on.’ He dropped a fluffy sheep’s wool cloak in front of her. ‘It’s freezing up there,’ he said, nodding towards the starry northern sky.
Alys donned the cloak gratefully and Sparky snuggled inside the collar. George stretched out his left wing. ‘Hop aboard and hang on!’ A moment later, the great green dragon launched himself into the air and they began climbing high into sky.
Sparky, of course, was used to flying, although not so high and not so fast, but dragon flight was new to Alys. She sheltered behind the scaly ruff on the back of George’s neck, grimly holding on, while they hurtled through the night sky so rapidly that the stars were just bright blurs. She tried to concentrate on what George was saying.
‘…it’s the lack of snow,’ he was explaining. ‘Santa’s Starlight Snowmobile can’t get off the ground’. His great wings flapped faster. ‘They’ve almost fixed it but now we’re running out of time for the Christmas deliveries.’
Sparky had crawled out from underneath Alys’s cloak and was perching behind George’s left ear. He stared open-mouthed at the glowing green of the Northern Lights arching high above them and a shower of silvery sparks issued excitedly from his nostrils. But there was no time to admire the view. George had already begun his descent, plunging through the inky blackness towards a big brightly-lit barn.
George glided to a graceful halt, extending a wing for Alys to climb down. Sparky flew to her shoulder and they hurried over to where Otto was working on a huge upturned snowmobile. Behind him the barn was a hive of activity with dozens of elves and gnomes securing piles of presents to a long line of waiting trailers.
Catching sight of them, Otto beamed. He called over his shoulder to the unmistakable figure who was standing on the other side of the snowmobile. ‘They’re here, Mr Claus, sir.’
Sparky let of an excited stream of scarlet smoke as Santa as approached them. ‘So pleased you’ve come,’ he boomed. ‘We’ve solved the problem with the snowmobile,’ he indicated a set of shiny silver wheels with big bouncy rubber tyres, which Otto was busy securing in place, ‘but we’ve lost so much time.’ He put his hands on his not inconsiderable hips and glanced up at a set of clocks, high up on the front of the building, which showed all the time-zones across the world.
Alys frowned. Every clock was set to midnight. ‘Surely it’s already Christmas morning in Australia?’
Santa grinned. ‘Ah, well, we do have a little bit of leeway in Lapland, but the tonttus can’t hold the clocks back much longer.’
Alys looked up again. Tiny white-bearded men in pointed red caps were holding onto the hands of the clocks. Suddenly there was a roar of alarm from one of them. The hour-hand on the Australian clock had broken free of his grip. Sparky shot up to his aid, jamming his tail between the hour-hand and the clock face.
Sparky winced through little puffs of purple smoke. ‘I can’t hold it for long, Alys. Try the spell we used at Agatha’s!’
Alys whipped out her wand. She closed her eyes, visualizing the pages of ‘Tweeking Time, a beginners guide’.
A loud groan came from the Japanese clock’s tonttu. More groaning, and the hands of the Indonesian clock broke free.
‘Hurry, Alys!’
Alys raised her wand and began the incantation. It was quite a long and complicated spell, but Alys’s memory didn’t fail her. She continued to utter the time-tuning words, speaking slowly and deliberately.
The hands of the clock that governed the time in Pakistan began to spin, as its tonttu lost his grip.
‘Can’t she hurry up a bit?’ asked George in a loud whisper.
Sparky shook his head. ‘The time you take to make the spell is important.’
With a final flick of her wand, Alys completed her incantation. The shrill shriek of seizing cogs rang out, setting everyone’s teeth on edge, and the hands of the clock were frozen in time.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Bravo, Alys!’ Santa clapped his hands together. ‘Let’s get to work!’
Otto put a final turn of the spanner to the nuts of the shiny new front wheels and George gently flipped the Starlight Snowmobile over. Santa climbed aboard and revved the engine. He let out the clutch and felt the wheels gain traction. ‘Ho, ho, ho! We’re in business,’ he shouted gleefully as he reversed over to the line of trailers. The little army of elves and gnomes coupled up the highly-piled trailers and climbed aboard.
Santa drove carefully drove out of the barn. He looked down at Alys and Sparky. ‘Well, aren’t you coming?’ He looked down the long line of trailers. ‘Take a seat behind Otto, I’ll drop you home at midnight and you won’t miss a minute of your Christmas!’
Alys and Sparky exchanged glances and grinned. It was going to be the ride of their lives.
Even the combined efforts of the entire Western Witches’ Coven had failed to produce more than a light dusting of frost come Christmas Eve. Sparky stared gloomily out of the kitchen window, a sad stream of silver smoke issuing from his nostrils.
‘Come on, Sparky, cheer up,’ said Alys brightly, pulling ingredients from the store cupboard. ‘You can help me make the Christmas pudding.’
The diminutive dragon raised a small purple eyebrow. ‘You’re not going to make it from scratch are you?’
‘Of course,’ Alys replied with a slight frown, consulting her copy of Conventional Cookery for Witches.
While the light outside dimmed, they measured and poured and, stirring sunwise for luck, they both made a wish, adding a handful of small silver charms, which Alys had quickly conjured up. The charms fizzed and buried themselves in the sticky mixture. Alys poured it into the pudding bowl, sealed the top in waxed paper and gently lowered the bowl into the large water-filled saucepan that was bubbling gaily on the stove.
Sparky read from the recipe book. ‘It’s going to take a whole six hours to steam,’ he said, eyes widening.
Alys nodded cheerfully. ‘Then it should be ready by midnight. We won’t forget that.’
Later that evening, after a celebratory supper of mince pies and custard, they were relaxing by the festive fire that Sparky had conjured up from Alys’s Creative Christmas Spell Book, a slim volume that only opened on Christmas Eve and offered a brand-new yuletide spell each year. This year the dancing flames made memory pictures.
‘Look, Sparky,’ said Alys excitedly, pointing to a pair of pulsating pink parsnips that had popped up amongst the flames. ‘It’s those ugly vegetables that won us the Witches’ Institute Flower and Produce competition!’
A little stream of proud pink smoke flared from Sparky’s nostrils. He started to chortle and the pink smoke turned to green as the bewildered faces of the two botching builders appeared, grisly green hair sprouting from their heads. ‘That served them right, didn’t it?’
Alys blushed slightly. It wasn’t in her nature to harm anyone, but they had deserved it. She started to giggle.
The clock on the mantle stood to attention and cleared its throat, preparing to strike. Alys glanced up. ‘It’s nearly midnight, Sparky, which of one of your presents are you going to open?’
Sparky flew over to the shimmering Christmas tree, which the Retired Cauldron had generously sprouted that morning. The tree was now proudly bearing their presents on its outstretched branches. The diminutive dragon looked up, stroking his chin with a thoughtful purple paw. ‘I can’t decide whether to open the one that’s obviously a book or…’
He was interrupted by a loud ping from the Magical Messaging Machine. Alys and Sparky hurried over to the table, which still bore faint water marks from the recent Immersive-Experience incident. The Machine’s screen sprang to life and the big friendly face of George the Dragon appeared. His usually jovial expression was creased with concern.
‘Sorry to bother, but we’ve an emergency!’ His large yellow saucer eyes glowed glassily.
‘What kind of emergency?’ asked Alys and Sparky together.
‘The gnomes had a magic-missive from their elf cousins in Lapland.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’m not at liberty to say over the witch-waves, but think you can guess who it involves.’ George’s scaly green ears waggled anxiously. ‘Will you come? Please.’
Alys and Sparky looked at each other, then turned to the screen and nodded vigorously.
George’s face relaxed. ‘Come over to my place and we’ll go together. Please hurry,’ he urged.
The screen went blank.
Excited emerald smoke issued from Sparky’s nostrils. ‘Come on, Alys! Lapland. You know what that means!’ The diminutive dragon hovered by the doormat, while Alys snatched up her wand and hurried over to join him. ‘Edelweiss Valley, Switzerland,’ Alys enunciated.
As they disappeared, the clock cleared its throat again and began to strike midnight. The saucepan on the stove spluttered in response.
to be continued tomorrow…
Image credits: clipart-library.com, clker.com
My inner child cowers, confined by conformity
Yearning to be let out, unshackled and free!
Iridescent, uninhibited
Not contained and
Not restrained, she’d
Engineer enjoyment, frivolity and fun.
Raging and rebellious
Chortling and
Howling, craving
Instant satisfaction, but no! Quietly she
Lurks beneath the veil of decorum
Dwelling in the darkness, sadly unfulfilled.
Written in response to Sadje’s What Do You See #61 photo prompt.
Image credit: Tim Hüfner @ Unsplash
The image shows wall art. A woman is dressed in 1950’s style. A speech bubble next to her says, ‘Listen to your inner child’. There are cartoons and graffiti on the wall too.
Today’s stop on our literary tour through my novels takes us to a specific location in South Liverpool. Grade 1 listed Speke Hall has a fascinating history, and a whole novel could have been constructed around a number of events associated with the house and its inhabitants. However, it purely serves as a backdrop to my story.
My familiarity with the building is connected to the tea-rooms there, and not just for the coffee and cake, although as any writer knows, that would be reason enough. It was, among a number of venues, where I used to meet with members of my team to conduct their appraisals. We were all home-based workers, probably some of the first back in the early noughties, and following a remark from one of my neighbours about the number of ‘gentleman callers’ I’d had to my house, I realised that having home-based meetings was probably not such a good idea. Hence I came to know the nearby tea-rooms at Speke Hall rather well. Not all the meetings were easy, but the lovely setting made the whole business a little less stressful, and allowed my reputation to recover.
Speke Hall is a beautiful old manor house, with parts dating back to Tudor times, and it’s just the kind of place that wicked Lord Childecott, the antagonist in Following the Green Rabbit, might have lived, although I had to whisk it away to the next county for the purposes of my story. In addition, the estate’s former farm buildings, which were converted into the tea-rooms, could quite easily have served as one of the outbuildings in which Mr Eyre was imprisoned by the evil Lord, if you picture them without windows and with a thatched roof, as they probably would have been in the past.
I was deliberately vague about the time-period in which the novel was set in order to avoid becoming embroiled in too much historical research, but we’re somewhere in the late sixteenth century. Like William Norris, a Royalist, who lived in Speke Hall at the time, Lord Childecott would be suspicious of both the French and the Jacobites. Of course, my antagonist is suspicious of any stranger, but to tell you more would give the game away if you haven’t read the novel.
I had in mind the Great Hall with its grand fireplace and oak paneling, as the setting for the scene below.
Excerpt from ‘Following the Green Rabbit‘
Up at the Manor House, Lord Childecott was getting nowhere with his new prisoner. Despite his best efforts, Mr Eyre was failing to co-operate. True, he hadn’t resorted to violence yet, and that was always a possibility. His chief enforcer, Smiler, so named because of his lack of teeth, was a dab hand with the thumb screws and other less than dainty tools. However, he had a feeling that such methods would only work if Eyre was to watch them being applied to someone he cared about. If local gossip was true, then he knew just who that would be.
Lord Childecott paced the room while Mr Eyre sat patiently on the chair to which he had been bound. Since his capture that afternoon, he’d been locked up in a dusty outbuilding. He had tried to find a way out, but although he’d succeeded in freeing himself from the ropes which tied his hands and feet, escape from the building had proved impossible. Now it was evening. He was hungry and thirsty and he was facing his captor and his questions.
“I’ll ask you again, Eyre, where are you from?”
“And I’ll tell you again. I came from the other side of the wood.”
“You were on my land and that’s forbidden.” Lord Childecott glared at him. What do you want here?” He strode over and fingered Mr Eyre’s jacket. “And why are you so strangely dressed?”
Had his hands not been bound to the chair, Mr Eyre would have raised them in a gesture of exasperation. “If I told you where I’m from, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Lord Childecott snarled, an inch from Mr Eyre’s face. Mr Eyre tried to avoid grimacing at the stench of Lord Childecott’s rotten-toothed breath.
“I believe I’ve come from the future. More than two hundred years in the future, judging by what you’re wearing and the style of the buildings here,” Mr Eyre replied glancing around the room.
“Don’t trifle with me, Eyre.”
“I’m not. Look, you say I’m strangely dressed. This is how gentlemen are accustomed to dress in the first decade of the twentieth century. Look in my pocket” he indicated his jacket pocket. Childecott didn’t move. “Well, go on, look.”
Childecott reached into Mr Eyre’s pocket and brought out the Box Brownie.
“That’s called a camera. It’s a new invention. Something from the future,” said Mr Eyre. “It takes pictures, likenesses if you will.” Mr Eyre thought for a moment. “Like an automated artist.”
Childecott turned the camera over in his hands. He put it to his ear and shook it. “In this little box?”
“Do be careful with that,” Mr Eyre pleaded.
Childecott tossed the camera onto a nearby couch where it rolled over and came to rest on its side. “I don’t believe you. Some foreign toy, no doubt,” he sneered. “Now, who are you working for? The Jacobites? The French?”
“I’ve told you. I’m not working for anyone and I’m not a spy. I’ve told you what I believe has happened.”
“Enough! You are trying my patience.” Lord Childecott thought for a moment, then turned to one of his men who was standing by the door. “Lock him up again and fetch Martha Stebbins, I’m sure we can give you an incentive to talk once you see what Smiler here can do to your friend Mistress Stebbins.”
Two of Lord Childecott’s enforcers untied Mr Eyre, then taking him firmly by the arms, frog-marched him from the room.
“No! No!” He struggled against them wildly. “You leave Martha out of this. I…” At Lord Childecott’s signal one of the guards stuffed a grubby piece of material in to Mr Eyre’s mouth and he could speak no more.
As the two enforcers dragged the struggling Mr Eyre across the courtyard and back to the barn, he noticed a flash of movement behind the Manor House. The guards, however, were too preoccupied with trying to manoeuvre their resisting captive to notice the two boys watching from the other side of the yard. Mr Eyre was manhandled through the barn door, all the time protesting through his gag. One of the men yanked it out of his mouth.
“Go on, you can yell all you like out here. No one will hear you.” He laughed and heaved the door closed, dropping the heavy wooden plank into place and barring the door shut.
Mr Eyre got to his feet and started to hammer on the door with his bound hands, bellowing at the top of his voice to be released.
“Right then, we’d better go and fetch old Martha,” the guard said to his companion as they stomped off, leaving Mr Eyre cursing and yelling and banging on the barn door.
Image credits: Rodhullandemu, wikiwand, countrylife.co.uk
What do you see when you look up at the stars?
A chance remark I made the other day in response to Frank Prem’s illustrated poem, Southern Stars for Christmas, raised a question or two about what we see in our night sky, depending upon where we are in the world. If you follow the link you’ll see the thread, and as a special bonus, you’ll get to read Frank’s poem and see his southern star pics.
We can all see some of the same stars
If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can see all of the constellations in the northern part of the sky and some of what is visible from the southern hemisphere. As you travel downward towards the equator, you’ll be able to see more of the sky from the southern hemisphere’s perspective, while also losing more of what you’d normally see in the northern hemisphere. And vice versa, of course.
There are some stars that you can only see from one hemisphere, which is why if you’re in the North, you’re so familiar with the Polaris (the North Star) and conversely, if you’re in the South, you know the Southern Cross.
But some constellations, like Orion, look different!
Coming originally from the northern hemisphere, I’d say Orion is upside down here in the South, but maybe it’s the other way around. I guess it depends on what you’re used to. Either way, you can still make a huntsman out of the two-dimensional pattern of distant stars, which form the constellation.
A new night sky can be a little disorienting
I remember, not long after first moving to South Africa, getting up in the middle of the night and looking up at this strange, unfamiliar sky. It was a clear night and here was very little light pollution compared to what I was used to back in the well-lit city of Liverpool. The huge velvet sky, pin-pricked with the brightest, densest stars I’d ever seen, was magical. And in that part-way point of being half asleep and properly awake, when all around me was silence, I thought for a moment that I’d been transported to a completely different planet.
We’re all looking at the same moon…
…but we might not be seeing the same part of her.
Click here for the ‘sciency’ bit.
In the northern hemisphere you have the famous Man in the Moon. But for me, here in the South, one of the loveliest sights is of the African moon lying on her back. I think of Karen Blixen’s words every time I see our beautiful moon reclining languidly in our night-time sky.
The African moon has influenced my writing. Just last week, when I wrote Home for the Holidays in response to Sadje‘s What Do You See? prompt, our lovely moon popped up in the second verse. She also puts in an appearance in Trance, one of the lyrical pieces from my San Man series written earlier this year. Moving hemispheres, countries and cultures has had an increasing impact on my writing journey and now, ten years on, the British author has become a South African one, and my soon-to-be-released novel, rather then being set in England, is set in my adopted country.
Frank suggested I post some pictures of my African sky at night. Unfortunately there’s been a lot of high cloud about in the past week, but if I eventually get some good ones, I’ll post them to my Instagram feed on the sidebar.
What do you see when you look up at the stars?
Reaching out across the airwaves
tuneful voices high and sweet
echo brightly from a distant chapel
of vaulted ceilings and flickering candles
She sings along, only slightly out of tune
picturing pews of fresh-faced choirboys
with golden halo hair and snow-white surplices
wide-eyed and open mouthed
Smiling, she chops and slices
as the voices transport her
while her hands work busily
preparing for the feast
Now the warm summer wind drifts
through the open kitchen window
while wintery hymns
embrace her in nostalgia.
It’s my special festive tradition to listen to the carol service from King’s College Cambridge while cooking on Christmas Eve. This year will be no exception. Some particularly fond memories of mine come from the years when my husband had a bike shop and used to go out late on Christmas Eve to deliver the children’s bikes to their houses after they’d gone to bed, just like Santa Claus, while I made us a late supper of fishy treats.
Written in response to Sadje’s What Do You See #60 photo prompt.
Image credit: Shche-Team @ Unsplash
(The image shows an outdoor scene. An old fashioned radio is placed next to a couple of candles and a wicker basket. Behind the radio is a pot full of blooming red flowers)
Next on our literary journey through the pages of my novels, we’re going to hop over to the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea, which lies between northern Great Britain and the north of Ireland, where we’re going to catch up with Pierre, our handsome leading man from You’ll Never Walk Alone, who’s treating Lucy to a little break away (although, if you’ve read the book, you’ll know he has another agenda).
I have fond memories of the Isle of Man, even though I only ever visited as part of my job as an insurance surveyor. I used to go there for three or four days at a time a couple times a year, but unlike Pierre and Lucy, who travel on the Isle of Man ferry, I used to fly over from Liverpool on a little Shorts 360 airplane.
Although I was working, I still managed to see quite a lot of the place between appointments. The island is probably best known for the notoriously hazardous annual TT motor cycle race. On one occasion I drove my hire car around the famous circuit, although at a considerably more modest pace than the TT competitors, of course. During the initial draft of the book, I’d been planning for Pierre to take part in the race, but the logistics became problematic. Maybe he’ll return to the island to do just that in a sequel to You’ll Never Walk Alone that my characters are still begging me to write.
I was also tempted to take Lucy and Pierre on a grand tour of the island, but it would have got in the way of the story, so I contented myself with a brief interlude in which they drive out to Peel Castle on the west coast of the island. It’s a partially restored Viking ruin, and a pretty, peaceful location where once I sat overlooking harbour to dictate a report. My typist (yes, it was that long ago) told me she wondered why she could hear seagulls in the background.
Lucy and Pierre stay in the fictional Royal Hotel, where Pierre ‘has a bit of business’ to attend to. It’s loosely based on the Palace Hotel and Casino, one of the places I stayed in during my visits to the island. It made a fine and fitting backdrop to the story, although I never went to the casino itself where much of the action in this part of the book is set. Nor did I visit the ‘back of house’ areas in that particular hotel. Trust me, it’s not always a good idea to stay, much less eat, in a place where you’ve inspected the kitchens. However, my knowledge of hotel security did come into play.
Excerpt from ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’
Pierre crept along the second floor corridor. He’d left Lucy sleeping. As far as she was concerned, they were just going to help Verushka get away from the abusive Russian. Pierre hadn’t mentioned the jewels again. He decided he was going to make sure he got his hands on them himself, and since he still had the passkey and d-lock, what could go wrong? Provided he was careful.
He counted off the room numbers until he reached 287. Even from outside the door he could hear the Russian snoring. Pierre took out the passkey and ran it through the slot next to the door handle. The indicator light changed from red to green and the lock clicked open. Pierre paused and listened again; satisfied, he opened the door gently and slipped into the room. He closed the door quietly. The room was shrouded in darkness. The Russian snored on. Pierre could also hear Verushka’s slow, quiet breathing; she was also asleep.
Pierre moved silently over to the wardrobe and took out the pen torch he’d borrowed from behind the bar downstairs. As he opened the door, the Russian spluttered and muttered something. Pierre froze and killed the torch beam. He heard Denisovich turn over. Minutes passed. He heard the Russian breathing heavily again.
All clear, Pierre thought. He switched the torch back on and fitted the electronic device into the lock of the safe. The little door swung open. Pierre reached in and drew out a thick, velvet covered jewel case. He eased back the little golden clasp and opened it. There was the necklace, with the matching earrings and a brooch; the complete set.
As Pierre stood up he felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun press against the back of his head. ‘Turn around slowly and give that to me,’ said Verushka softly.
Image credits:
Isle of Man Tourism Board, Isle of Man Newspapers (David Kneale); jetphotos.com (Fraser McLachlan); Trip Advisor; Best Western Hotels
Returning to our literary tour through the pages of my novels, let’s pop over to the romantic city of Paris, where we’re going to join our main character, Laura and her boyfriend, Greg from The Silver Locket. The city of Paris is rather special to me, being the first overseas place to which I travelled with my husband, when we were very young, back in 1985. In a similar way, Paris is special to Laura, being the first place Greg took her for a weekend away.
Specifically today we’re going to tag along with them on their visit to Père Lachaise, the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world. You may remember from the first stop on our tour that I share Laura’s fascination for old graveyards. You can’t get much more fascinating than Père Lachaise with its catalogue of famous decedents including Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Gertrude Stein and many, many more, so naturally Laura would choose to visit the place during her weekend away with Greg.
It’s a fascinating place where you can wander for hours amongst some of the most incredible funerary monuments. I’ve been drawn to the cemetery during several subsequent visits to Paris, which was an easy hop from Liverpool on Easyjet by the late 1990s.
The narrow lanes and twisting paths are the perfect place for another eerie encounter with the mysterious woman in the brown coat, whom Laura first meets in the Rufford graveyard, although on this occasion, Laura’s mistaken and it’s someone else. Greg’s reaction to her erroneous confrontation and, a little later on, to the silver locket with its naively-drawn picture and odd little talisman inside, show us how dismissive he can be of Laura. We start to see that he’s on different trajectory to her, scorning simple pleasures, like picnics by the river, which Laura continues to enjoy (as do I, provided there’s a nice bench to sit on).
I have to say that I’m in rather good company with this particular choice of setting. Alexandre Dumas references the famous cemetery in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo as being ‘alone worthy of receiving the mortal remains of a Parisian family…’ and the protagonist of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is buried in Père Lachaise. More recently, in the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the eponymous dark wizard convenes his followers at Père-Lachaise towards the end of the film.
Excerpt from ‘The Silver Locket’
Laura and Greg stood together poring over the plan of the famous Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise.
“Okay,” said Greg, “we’ve seen Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, the Belgian poet who’s climbing out of his grave…”
“Georges Rodenbach.”
“Yeah, Rodenbach, who else do you want to visit?” Greg looked around at the lines of gravestones and monuments stretching off in all directions. “We don’t want to spend all day here do we?”
“No, but can’t we just wander around for a bit? Oh, but we should see the wall where the communards were executed, that should appeal to you,” Laura laughed. “Round up the anarchists and shoot them.”
“Mmm, very amusing,” said Greg consulting the plan. “The Mur des Fédérés, as it’s actually called, is along here,” he said pointing to the map. “We can go there and then loop back along here towards where we came in.”
They wandered along in silence, Laura veering off the path to take a closer look at some of the more intriguing or quirky-looking tombs. A large ginger cat was happily curled up on the step of Rossini’s tomb. Laura stopped to stroke it. It purred loudly.
She looked up; Greg was already some distance away further down the path. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement. At first she thought it was another cat, the cemetery was full of them, but then she saw a figure emerge from inside one of the tombs. It was a large woman wearing a brown coat. It was her, Laura was sure. And this time she’d followed her all the way to Paris. Laura moved stealthily towards the woman. She wasn’t going to get away from her a third time. Laura crept as quickly as she could after the woman, keeping out of sight. The woman was on one of the main pathways now, heading towards the gate. Laura broke into a trot. She was almost on her when she heard rapid footsteps catching up behind her. She ignored them as she drew level with the woman and caught her by the arm.
“Got you,” Laura cried triumphantly. “Now you can tell me who you are and…” Laura’s voice trailed off. It wasn’t her. “Oh, sorry. Pardon, madame,” she said, letting go of the woman’s arm. She continued her apology, explaining in her fluent French that she’d mistaken her for someone else. Laura stepped back and bowed her head. “Pardonnez-moi.”
“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Law?” It had been Greg behind her.
“It was a mistake,” Laura said to Greg, then turning to the woman: “Une erreur, Madame.”
The woman brushed her arm in an exaggerated fashion, snorted, and headed off towards the gate.
“Do you think I should go after her?” asked Laura.
“No, I don’t. Just leave it. But what in heaven’s name were you doing? You virtually assaulted that poor woman.”
“I know, I feel awful. But this woman in a brown coat keeps following me. First I met her in the churchyard in Rufford. But then she was in Preston, and then I saw her by the park in Liverpool and then at the train station there too.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” said Greg. “There was a café near we came in, let’s go and have a drink and maybe you can explain what this is all about.”
Laura did her best to explain, but under Greg’s critical gaze, it did seem that her bumping into the mystery woman a couple of times was probably no more than coincidence. Laura took out the locket and handed it to him, telling him where she had found it and showing him how it opened.
“What’s this scruffy bit of paper?” he said, pulling out the little drawing. Laura was only just quick enough to stop it blowing off the table where Greg had dropped it in disgust. “And this stamp inside, it doesn’t look like a proper jeweller’s mark to me. Is it worth anything? At least you’ve not been tempted to wear such a naff little object.”
Laura snatched it back from him and carefully replaced Thomas’s drawing over the little talisman which still looked up at her imploringly. There was clearly no point in explaining anything further about it. As for the dreams, she decided she should keep those to herself. It was all very well trying to find out about the history of the house she’d inherited, but to try to get Greg to understand that she’d been trying to trace the existence of someone she had just dreamt about, however strangely and vividly, was really not a good idea.
The sun was high in the sky; it was past noon and people were leaving their offices for their customary long lunch breaks.
“Come on,” said Laura. “Let’s get a picnic from the boulangerie over the road there and take it down by the river.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to go to a nice bistro somewhere?”
“Not if we’re eating tonight. Oh please, Greg, let’s have a picnic. It’s what we always used to do.”
“That’s because it was all we could afford. But okay, if you like. I’ll leave the choice up to you, as long as you promise not to attack any more old ladies.”
growing up on distant continents
without a common tongue
lives so seemingly different
rich north, poor south
experiences diametrically opposed
.
and yet
sharing corresponding smiles
weeping mutual sorrows
our hearts are touched
by the same love and loss
.
because, in the end
we are all
sisters under the skin
Written in response to Sadje’s What Do You See #58 photo prompt.
Image credit: Cheryl Holt @ Pixabay
(The image shows very two young girls heading off together, holding hands. One is of African heritage and the other seems Caucasian).
luna's on line 