My first ever attempt at writing short stories was a short collection written for my mum's 60th birthday. As first audiences go, she was great and brilliantly supportive. This, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with my relationship with her, and everything to do with the strength of the writing, I'm sure.
Anyway, that's why Jan (said mother) appears in nearly all the stories. Peter is her husband, and David her son-in-law. Click on the title of the story to read the whole thing. Hope you like them. I promise I'll get better.
On Approach to Beijing
The train slowed to a halt beside the station platform. Looming large in Jan’s window was the dirty yellow and black station sign, with the train company’s omnipotent ‘M’ logo crouching on it like an angry insect. Jan’s mouth fell open. She tore her eyes away from the sign, stared suspiciously at her empty cocktail glass, then around the carriage at her fellow travellers, then back at sign. She peered closer, unbelieving.
Thinking about it, Jan still wasn’t completely sure how she ended up as part of the crew of a 18th Century pirate ship.
Just six weeks earlier, almost to the day, she had been sitting desolate on the Bristol quayside, watching absent-mindedly through her one good eye the ferry boats sail past towards the city with cargoes of tourists. She had fingered the black patch covering her right eye, drained the last of the rum, and sighed heavily.
In one long, graceful arc, the hawk swooped down from its perch at the top of a tall oak tree, gripped Janice tightly by the shoulders, closing its talons like a vice.
Meowington looked unconvinced. ‘Look’, continued Mr. Tibbs, impatiently. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We can’t stay here. We’re too exposed. Next time it won’t be just your arm Tinkerbell will try to rip off.’
Meowington stared gloomily at the floor. ‘So it’s come to this. Choosing between a cold-blooded killer who murders for shits and giggles, or a human sadist who just blind hates us and wants us dead.’
Mr Tibbs sniffed. ‘Well, you do crap in his soil, to be fair.
Well-behaved women seldom make history.
Birthdays
David moved over to the body. The old lady was lying on her back, wide-eyed, breathless, ashen-faced, her left leg at a terrible, crooked angle. It was too dark to see whether there was any blood. He was grateful for that much.
He knelt up on his haunches and looked carefully up and down the road, scanning for signs of people or movement. Nothing. So he glanced up at the sky and, with an almost imperceptible nod, placed his hands on the corpse’s chest, over her still heart.
Concerning the
