1st Prize 

Lost

by Anne Page

'I can't believe you could be so stupid.'

         Oh, but I think you can.

         'How could you do this to me, to us? What were you thinking of?'

         And.. she's off. Sobbing, gulping for air. Horrible snotty stuff running from her nose, still clutching the incriminating bank statement. Careful, it's in danger of disintegrating, with all the mucous it's being washed in.

         The wonder is that it took her so long to find. On Friday I made sure I left it on top of the bank savings account file, with the key to the cabinet drawer in the cup on the desk. Usually, she's like a terrier after a rat, going through every pocket, every letter, every statement. Nothing escapes her conviction that I'm up to something. So it was disappointing to arrive home in the evening and not be confronted.

         Then Saturday passed quietly, even though I kept popping out on spurious missions to give her the chance to 'come across it'. But the showdown came this morning, after 'a bit of dusting', while I was shaving.                

         Our marriage has been filled with scenes like this, her, accusatory and betrayed, me, guiltless and placatory. When we were first married I found all this rather endearing, thinking it evidence of the depth of her love. And back then I was able to reassure her and bring about passionate reconciliations, which were rather exciting. But her paranoia's grown with the years and it's hard, living with someone who has never trusted you, particularly when you've given them no cause. And I can say, with absolute truth, that I've not given cause. I've always played with a straight bat and all that.

         Well, more or less. There was just one occasion when I found myself getting close to another woman. Lovely Julie. It was like drinking down a tonic every morning, seeing her face across the office. And the joy of being around someone who didn't stifle every good impulse I had, who took me at face value, laughed at my silly jokes and was interested in things I had to tell her. But in the end I could see where it was going and pulled back. Did the honourable thing and gave her up, because I was married to Angela. So Julie left.  I've not seen her since but I think about her, often.

         'So. You used our savings. You put a bet on a horse. It lost. Fifty thousand pounds.' Her voice is level and she's speaking very slowly. Despite her outrage, I know she's relishing this. At last she has evidence of my untrustworthiness, her suspicions are vindicated.

         'Actually, it was an accumulator bet. I had a couple of tip offs and it went well until the penultimate race but that's where I lost it. Damn horse came in fourth.'

         Still she stares and I feel a quiver of unease. Her face isn't quite so damp looking, which is a relief, since she's not someone who cries well, despite all the practice. Unlike Julie, whose tears nearly broke my heart.

           'But you don't know anything about horses. You've never been interested in them. You were bound to lose. You  stupid, stupid, man.'

         Oh dear. Tears again.

         'And how are we going to manage the move to Norfolk, now you've thrown away most of our savings.' Her voice is rising, shrill and sharp, as the enormity of what I've done strikes home.

         Ah, but that's the nub of the whole business, although I can't tell her that. I don'twantto retire to Norfolk with her. God knows, it's been hellish enough while I've had a job to go to, but the thought of locking myself up in a cottage in Norfolk with Angela for the rest of my days is unendurable.

         Because I know what the pattern will be if I allow this retirement plan to come to pass. After all, it's happened with every one of the endless moves we've made over the years - so that Angela can make a new start, new friends, a new life. Believing that each new move will succeed where all previous attempts have failed. And itwillbe fine, at first. She'll rush around, meet people, join things, take pleasure in telling me I'm an unfriendly stick in the mud. But then it'll slowly unravel. First she'll come back with reports of things she thinks have been said about her, then there'll be imagined slights and unkind words people have meted out, and then will begin the slow retreat into suspicion and friendlessness all over again. And there we'll be, locked into a deathly isolation with no escape.

         I suppose you're thinking I'm an uncaring, callous sort. Well, perhaps you're right, but I promise you I've tried. In the early days I thought I could support Angela and that one day I'd mend her, but after a few years I persuaded her to seek professional help, arranging for her to see a psychotherapist, in the hope she'd be able to talk her way into some understanding of herself. Even while she kept telling me I was being absurd, I think she rather enjoyed the process, using it as sanction for her belief that the world and everyone in it was in league against her. But after her initial enthusiasm she gave it up, baulking as soon as she felt the psychotherapist probing her confusions and delusions. Naturally, she turned this into a conspiracy between me and the psychotherapist, although what we were conspiring to achieve was never articulated, like so much in Angela's life of nameless suspicions.

         'I'm sorry, Angela. No use crying over spilt milk, though. The money's gone, so we'll have to manage with what's left. This house might be worth a bit more than we've calculated. And I've got another few months to work and then there'll be my pension. We'll be fine.' Even as I tell her this I wonder why I'm bothering. She never really listens to anything I say.

         And she doesn't now. Her voice rises, her voice falls, the tears come, the tears go, the interminable minutes tick by, the interminable hours tick by. It's going to be a long, long Sunday.

         So while she talks, and I fill the occasional gaps with meaningless excuses, I calculate exactly when I'll be able to leave her for ever. My preparations are complete; the change of name by deed poll, new documents issued, and a bank account in my new name. And just before you might start to feel too sorry for Angela, I would remind you that she'll get this house, which I've signed over to her, all my pension, which I've worked pretty hard for over the years, and the rest of our savings. Once I've gone I'll get the solicitor to send my letter which explains all that to her. So she'll be more than comfortable and I will have become what she's spent our whole marriage suspecting me of; a cheat, a liar and a loser. It's a win-win situation for her.

         And she'll be thrilled to think of me managing on virtually nothing and can spend her time picturing the great reconciliation, when I crawl back to her from my hovel, pleading forgiveness, so that she can pardon me, but have me forever in her debt. Such thoughts will sustain her for quite a time, until it dawns at last that I'm never coming back.

         And why am I so certain of this? Because there's one crucial bit of information that Angela doesn't know and won't be given. She can see that £50,000 left our account and seems to believe what I've told her; that it was put on an accumulator at Cheltenham. This much is true. But the bet wasn't lost. Not a bit of it. I did my homework, took the risk, and in they came, one winner after another.

         Ok, there was luck in it as well, and I must say I wouldn't want to go through an afternoon like that again. By the last race I couldn't even watch and when I heard them announce it was a photo-finish and subject to the steward's decision I was so clammy and sweaty I really thought that I might be carted off in an ambulance. And, of course, I wasn't the most popular person with the bookies that afternoon, let alone carrying that amount of cash from the meeting, and imagining every dodgy eye was on me.

         But now it's all safely salted away, so I can go whenever and wherever I want. A bit of travel maybe, or perhaps I'll buy a little place and live out my days in the peace of a bee loud glade. What a lovely thought. And none of it at Angela's material expense.                      

         Which means we're both winners, since whatever it was that was lost between us was lost so long ago I can scarcely remember what it was.

2nd prize

Twenty Eight Pairs of White Socks

by Sharon Birch 

My mother-in-law never understood. She would come and visit and shake her head and say, 'Why do they have so many socks? They can't possibly wear them all!' She'd huff and puff and shake her head. 'Isn't a dozen enough?' she would ask me again.

         I knew she didn't understand. She was brought up in the war. In those days, they made do. Excess was a sin. But this wasn't about excess. It was about something different altogether. But how could I explain? How could I begin to tell her?

         I remember the shame, can't forget the burning face, the red eyes filled with hot tears, and a stomach that curled inside out and wanted to swallow me up. She makes me feel like that again when she questions, 'Why do they need twenty eight pairs of white socks? Each?' And I can't bear to watch as she starts to count the different coloured rolled balls bulging from the bottom drawer.  

         I would often wash a pair of socks by hand at nine o'clock at night when I realised there were no more clean ones. I might have worn the current pair for two or three days in succession but there weren't any more, waiting patiently, curled up into a neat ball, ready to be worn. Those that I did have were in the damp, smelling pile in the bathroom waiting to be bundled into the washing machine at some point when mother remembered. So I would hang the wet socks over a cold radiator and the next morning I'd put them on, cold and still wet. I'd go off to school and by ten o'clock, it was okay. They were usually dry by then.

      I did the same with my pants.

         It was a Monday. It was lunchtime. My class were in the schoolyard waiting for our turn in the dining hall. One person in my group of friends had been given the task of telling me but it didn't work out like that. I don't know how long they'd talked about it, how they decided what to say, or picked the person to tell me. In the end, they all took part.

         The crowd seemed bigger than usual, maybe ten or twelve instead of the usual half a dozen. Perhaps the others wanted in. Perhaps they wanted to see my reaction. Perhaps they were all very genuine and really cared.

         I was caught unaware. In fairness to them, I was always going to be unaware even though I had immense awareness inside. I just didn't want to know, to realise, to face up to what I knew was the truth.'

         There's something we have to tell you,' one of them said.

         'It's for your own benefit,' said another.

         'We don't get anything from telling you this. But you need to know -'

         'Now don't be upset. We're all your friends'

         Then one of the girls I considered to be one of my best friends said,

         'It's difficult ... difficult to say this -'

         'We have to tell you ...' interrupted someone else.

         'You smell of wee.'

         There. It was said. Like a big fat rain drop waiting to splat in my face and drown me. It was a sudden downpour of pain. I pushed my way from the crowd. I skipped my lunch. I couldn't have eaten, my tummy was all a jumble, like a wormery.  I kept to myself for the rest of the day, burning face and eyes that teetered on the brink. At the end of lessons, I gathered my things and made a hurried escape. My face was still red-hot with embarrassment, a bright ripe peach about to split, to burst open into tears. Of shame, humiliation and pain.

         Free from the confines of the prison that was school, I walked up the hill, down the other side, through the park with the pond where mothers with toddlers fed dried bread to the ducks. And I cried. Tears of anger, tears of sorrow, tears of an adolescent's self-pity. And hatred. Hatred for myself. I wanted the pond to create waves that would rear up and swallow me whole, and take me down, down, down to the murky depths were the fronds and weeds would bind me, tight, never to let me go.

         As I left the park and walked down the busy main road that took me to my front door, I dreamt of a lorry driving up onto the pavement and carrying me along underneath it, oblivious to the almost-but-not-quite teen that smelled of wee and wore wet, non-white washed-out dirty pants and dirty socks. I didn't want to see anybody. Ever. Especially those that said they were doing me a favour. Out of friendship.

         I went indoors to my too warm house that smelt of stale cigarettes and pets and I lay on top of my bed. And I knew. They were right. I did smell of wee. I wore dirty knickers. Dirty knickers that I tried to wash out on a night and put on again in the morning whilst they were still damp. And they were never properly clean, except for when they went into the washing machine. Which wasn't that often.

         After tea that night I had a hot bath. I cried as I scrubbed myself raw. My parents voices filtered through the bathroom door.

         Mum called and asked, 'Are you all right?'

         'Yes,' I struggled through tears, trying to make it sound like I wasn't crying.

         'Are you sure?' she asked again.'Yes.'

         'But you had a bath last night?'

         'I know,' I sighed. What could I say? We had a bath on Sunday nights and that was it, no more until the next Sunday unless there was a special occasion or reason otherwise. And sometimes, we shared the bath water between us.

         I could hear them discussing me, wondering if something had happened. If somebody had touched me. Mother continued to ask me questions when I was out of the bath, dressed in a clean pair of pyjamas that had been fresh the night before. But I couldn't tell her. I couldn't bear the shame. I couldn't bear being me.

         I couldn't wash my socks one night. Somebody had noticed I'd worn them on Monday, Tuesday, and again on Wednesday. They also knew my toes poked through holes like fat potatoes in a mesh bag and where the material was held together, they were threadbare. Everyone knew because we had P.E. and they had seen, despite my efforts to hide my feet.

         I had no other socks. This was my last pair. I had to put on the only things I could find. A pair of my mother's tan coloured pop-socks. The fashion was for longer skirts back then, back in the late seventies. I hoped I could disguise my legs and nobody would notice. I hoped they would think I was wearing tights.

         I was naive. I was foolish.

         But I knew.And I never forgot. 

3rd prize

Waiting

by Frances Smith 

The room is clean and neat.  Prints of bland landscapes in wide frames hang at regular intervals.  A mock Victorian doll watches from the dressing table.  Perfumes and face creams, long unused, are regimented on the dressing table.  A silver and white fan trimmed with fluffy pink feathers hangs from a brass hook and lolls against the mirror.  A single bed with brightly patterned bedding is backed against a wall.   In the bed an old lady’s head interrupts the pillowcase’s busy pattern.  Her arms lie on top of the duvet, her milky blue eyes are half open.

            A middle-aged man is sitting beside the bed holding her hand.  The hand is pale and worn, the wedding band thinned to a whisper of gold.  Annie likes her hand being held; she especially likes it when he rubs his thumb along her palm, finding it comforting and reminiscent of some faded childhood memories.  James, her son, talks to her about the decking he’s building in his garden and the new trellis along the back wall and the Virginia Creeper he’s training to cover it.  She’d like to speak to him but she can’t; even to try is beyond her.  James is a good man, but weak.  His wife, fortunately, is strong and capable – the powerhouse of the marriage.  He’s her first born, the repository of all those foolish hopes new parents have.  As the years passed each expectation went unmet.  Good scholar?  Not quite.  Fine athlete?  Not at all.  Sensible?  Only occasionally.  Feckless?  Frequently.  Over the years she’s put her hand in her pocket countless times to get him out of the mire.  Strangely, she never felt used.  His good nature, warm companionship, his genuine puzzlement at the complexities of life, had endeared him to her.

                 Sounds of movement.  The hand is removed.  Now Alice’s voice.

“She can’t hear me.  Look at her eyes; you can see her cataracts very clearly.  She’s not long for this world, I’d say.” 

A twist of rage knots Annie’s stomach but she can’t translate it into any kind of response.  Not that she doesn’t know she’s about to die, no, not that, but for Alice’s crassness, her typical insensitivity.  She’d like to slap that over made-up face that now hovers inches above her own, the breath slightly sour, fanning her cheek.  No doubt Alice is anxious, counting the seconds until she can get her hands on her inheritance. Small though it is, it’ll help pay off those credit card debts that plague her.  Yes, she’d thought of cutting her out of the will, tempted to send her a message that way.  But she couldn’t do it.  She was her daughter, her late husband’s little princess.

                 Now Joseph is beside her. 

“Don’t know if you can hear me, Mum.  It’s Joseph, here.  Remember me?”

“Of course I remember you.  I gave birth to you,” she wants to say, but her mouth is incapable.   Her body is shutting down.  It’s annoying but that’s all.  Studious, serious Joseph.  As a toddler he’d reminded her of a miniature man.  His quizzical expression and solemn eyes had given the impression that he wasn’t cut out for this childhood business with all its petty traumas: he should have come into the world as a fully-fledged man.  She had thought he’d never marry, that his intensity would put women off.  But, no, he’d surprised her and married a brittle beauty whose cold and distant manner had meant minimum contact between them.  He had fathered twin girls, now fifteen, total flibbertigibbets whose main concerns were clothes and boys.  Strange how things worked out in totally unexpected ways.  Well, she wouldn’t be here to find out what future events would unfurl.

She was so tired.  Joseph should move back and let Hugh sit beside her.  Hugh, her baby, her beloved one.  So like his father, dead these forty years, yet risen from the grave alive and well in his son.  She adored him, though he unwittingly filled her heart with pleasurable pain.  She couldn’t, and didn’t, see enough of Hugh.  It was his job, and the distance.  Always so busy.  But she needed him now before she set off on this next journey.  A touch at her cheek – he was here.

“Gran, it’s me, Lisa.”

Lisa, James’s daughter, not Hugh.  The only one of her grandchildren who had time for her. 

“Gran, I was just thinking the other day about…..Dad, give me one of those lollipop things for Gran’s mouth.”

Bliss, a fruity wetness rolled over her tongue, gums and lips.

“That’s better, Gran.  Your mouth was dust-dry.  I was remembering that day we went to the park when you were looking after me and I got scared because a duck chased me and when we got back to your house we were locked out and you climbed in the kitchen window.  And you put your foot in the sink full of dishes.”

Yes, she remembered.  Lisa in her little red jacket with the furry trim.  She sprightly, able to climb up a drainpipe.  Lisa down below, anxious, saying, “Gran, Gran, watch you don’t fall.”  Then the giggling when she opened the door, shoe squelching from the dishwater.  It spooled in her head like a film.  A scene from her life.  That’s what her life had been – a series of scenes and acts. She’d been daughter, wife, mother, grandmother – so many roles she’d acted as she’d travelled forward.  But she’d never grasped the essence, the essential meaning of it all, had always been passive, just letting things happen.  She needed to see Hugh.  Somehow seeing him always reassured her.  Why?  She tried to clear her mind.  Yes, he was vibrant, charismatic, charming and proof that she had achieved something.  He was undiluted by life.  She needed him now, couldn’t hold on much longer.

James’s voice now.  “So Hugh’s not coming?”

Alice tossed her head.  “No, he phoned me, said he’s too busy in the office and that if Mum was that far gone she wouldn’t notice his absence.  Said it was a pointless long journey and seeing her like this might upset him.  Precious Hugh musn’t be upset, though it’s fine for the rest of us.”

“Gran, are you OK?”  Lisa stroked her Gran’s forehead.  “Dad, she gasped there and I think she’s stopped breathing.”

Alice leaned over her mother.  “Fetch the nurse, James.  She should be here doing her job.  We’re paying plenty for this place.”

James hurried out.  Joseph glared at her. 

“Well, Mum’s paying plenty, but so are we now if she’s dead and it’s our money.  Oh, you know what I mean…” 

James arrived with the nurse who checked for a pulse. 

“I’m very sorry, but she’s gone.  She’s slipped away.”

Lisa was crying.  “She looked…stricken as if she was in pain, her face sagged, then she gasped and didn’t take another breath.”

The nurse put her arm around Lisa’s shoulders.  “Truly, she couldn’t have been in pain - we made sure of that. Sometimes when people die their muscles relax and that’s what you saw.”

Alice took out her mobile.  “I’ll ring Hugh and tell him she’s gone.”