Category: Uncategorized

The Wedding of Lucy Lennox (part two)

Posted on by weeks4send

Lennie didn’t care what Ewan said- football was a lot more fun if you played it with Medieval rules.

Ewan looked down at Lennie and Wesley, who were wrestling for the ball, and sighed. “If this was a real football match, you’d have been sent off for about five different reasons by now.”

“Not if we were Medieval peasants,” said Lennie, twisting her head so she could look up at him, “They used to call it ‘balle’, with an e, and it was like a melee. They used to… Oi!” Wesley had managed to grab the ball and wriggle away while she’d been distracted. Lennie reared up, leapt, and pinned him to the ground again.

Ewan shook his head. “Guys. Guys. This is not professional behaviour. Do you think Harry Kane and Megan Rapinoe spend all their time trying to smash the other players into the pitch?”

He looked to Aunt Sammy and Camilla for support, but Sammy clearly wasn’t going to be much help because she was doubled over laughing. Camilla, who’d been sitting on the bench reading her book, looked over and frowned. “Ewan? You and Lucy definitely haven’t put any weedkiller down on the lawn today, have you?”

Ewan tapped his chest. “Scout’s honour. I’d never have let them play out here if we had.”

“Well, alright, then,” said Camilla, going back to her book.

Lennie relaxed her grip on Wesley, and hauled herself to her feet. “Back in a minute,” she announced, dashing into the house. She was going to fetch a packet of crisps, but if she told everyone else that, they’d all want one.

Unfortunately, when she got to the kitchen, Lennie found that Mum and Nana Celine were already in there, talking. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem (apart from the risk that Mum would tell her it was too close to dinner to have any snacks), but this time, they were talking about her.

“I don’t want him speaking to Lennie like that,” said Mum. Lennie’s hand froze, inches away from the door. Time to get some spying done.

“It was a joke,” said Nana Celine, “It was obviously a joke.”

“Well, I don’t want him making jokes about my daughter and her clothes. Alright?”

So that was what it was about. Lennie had told Mum about what Charlie had said yesterday, about her shorts, and Mum had shaken her head and told her not to listen to him. She hadn’t sounded angry then, but she did now.

“I just don’t see why you’re making such a fuss about this,” said Nana Celine.

“Mum, I wouldn’t even let Ewan speak to her like that, let alone some guy she barely knows.”

Lennie rolled her eyes. As if Ewan would have a problem with her wearing shorts. What else were you supposed to play football in?

“Charlie is not ‘some guy.’ He’s a member of your family!”

“Before this week, I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years! And Lennie’s never…”

Nana Celine interrupted, her voice rising into an injured wail. “Charlie was more of a father to you than anyone else, so don’t try and tell me he’s not family!”

“He…” Mum let out a heavy sigh, giving up. “There’s another thing, too. What’s Van going to think if he shows up at the wedding?”

“Well, I hope she’ll be happy for me…”

“Mum, she won’t. You know she won’t.”

Lennie hadn’t known for sure that Aunt Van was coming. Her pulse started to race at the news. Not that she knew Aunt Van well- she’d only seen her once or twice, usually at people’s weddings- but that didn’t matter. Aunt Van was famous.

About a year ago, Lennie and her Mum had been in Sainsburys, and Mum had suddenly stopped in the book aisle and picked up a book the size of a brick, with a black cover with a silver barbed-wire pattern. “Look at this!” she’d said, “One of your auntie’s books!” It had been called Branded by Van Kowalczyk, and Mum had brought it home and given it a position of honour in the bookshelf. Lennie had tried to read it a couple of times, but she’d always given up after a few pages. It was all creepy real-life stories about horrible things that had happened to people in prison. But Lennie was proud of her anyway.

She didn’t know why Aunt Van wouldn’t want to see Uncle Charlie at the wedding, but, if anything, it made her like her more. Giving up on the crisps (but glad that she’d got some useful information instead), Lennie headed back outside to continue the football game.

(To Be Continued)

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Isaac vs the Car Park (part one)

Posted on by weeks4send

November 2002

Isaac didn’t remember much of the walk home. Just that it was dark, and long, and seemed to involve a lot of wrong turns. But he got there in the end.

His parents were out. He had his own key. He walked into the house and went straight up to the bathroom to clean himself up. He didn’t bother to turn any of the hallways lights on. Just walked up the dark stairs as if he was on autopilot.

There wasn’t much damage. Just a few cuts and scrapes. Probably some nasty bruises, come tomorrow morning. Nothing huge. You’d think going through a windscreen would leave bigger marks than that, but apparently not.

Isaac patched up all the places that were bleeding, then went into his room. He didn’t bother to get changed. He didn’t bother to turn the lights on. He didn’t even bother to pull back the duvet. He just laid down on the bed, fully-clothed, and wondered what the fuck he was going to do.

 

One Hour Earlier

The car was weaving around on the road. Isaac didn’t know if that was because of the wind, which had got strong enough to blow entire metal rubbish bins across the street, or because of Barry, who was singing along to the radio and thumping the dashboard with his right hand as he tried to steer with his left.

“Barry, slow down,” said Shona, from the back seat. She’d swapped places with Isaac back at the service station, because Barry had said he wanted to keep an eye on him. Now Shona was squeezed in between Tommy and Chris, and Isaac was trapped. The only escape he could think of was if he opened the passenger door and rolled out onto the road, and at this speed he’d probably break every bone in his body.

He knew he might have to risk it anyway. Isaac kept his hand on his seatbelt button, braced for the moment when it got more dangerous inside the car than outside.

“Barry, slow down.”

“What? Come on, woman! The party’s just getting started!” He thumped the dashboard again. “Oh! My! Starry-eyed surprise! Sunlight to sunrise!”

The car swerved from one side of the road to the other. Isaac braced himself to undo his seatbelt. He’d decided- the moment he saw another car on the road, he was going to do it. He was going to take his chances with the tarmac.

But in the end, that’s not how it happened.

Just as Barry steadied the steering wheel, taking a breath so he could belt out another chorus, Tommy reared up behind him, put his hands around Barry’s neck, and squeezed.

(To Be Continued)

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The Warbeck Sisters Drive to their Uncle’s House

Posted on by weeks4send

Warbeck 2

Dear Ruby,

I’m so sorry to leave you and your sisters waiting- you must think that I’m the rudest man alive. Something came up at work, and there was no getting around it. Please find the front door key sellotaped to the back of the envelope. I’ve paid for your taxi to the house (complete with tip, so you don’t have to worry about that), and I hope to see you later this evening.

I know the circumstances aren’t the best, but, still, I’m very excited to have the three of you up at the house for the summer. There are a lot of people I’d like you to meet.

Yours sincerely,

Colwyn Ballantine

 

In the back of the taxi, Rube felt Jeanette nudge her arm. “I’m pretty sure that at this point, the Always logo is permanently stamped on my arse,” she whispered.

Rube made a face, and shushed her. She had a point, though- between the train and the café, they’d been sitting down most of the day even before the taxi had got stuck in traffic. It wasn’t comfortable for anyone, and Jeanette probably had it worst.

“Apologies for the delay, ladies,” said the taxi driver (who, thankfully, didn’t seem to have heard what Jeanette had said), “I think there must have been an accident up ahead.”

“That’s OK,” said Rube. Jeanette and Sally’s faces said different, but she ignored them.

“We shouldn’t be much longer. We just need to take the next left, and then it’s a straight line to Dovecote Gardens.”

Dovecote Gardens was the official name of Uncle Colwyn’s house, but apparently the gardens themselves were the really interesting part. There were statues, topiaries, plants from all over the world, all spread out over the hill and the surrounding fields. That was what Uncle Colwyn spent his life maintaining, and that was why Rube was a bit more sympathetic about his being held up than Jeanette was. ‘Working from home’ probably meant something a lot different when ‘home’ stretched out for half a mile.

Technically, Colwyn was Mum’s cousin rather than her brother, but she’d spent most of her childhood living with her aunt and uncle, so it more-or-less amounted to the same thing. They’d all moved to Dovecote Gardens when Mum was a teenager. Colwyn’s mother had inherited it from her father. Or, wait, maybe it was the other way round? Rube didn’t remember. Somebody had inherited it from somebody, that was the point. It had been in their family for over a hundred years.

Sally was leaning against the car window, her ear pressed against the glass as if she was trying to hear the sea. “I’ve worked it out,” she said gloomily, “Five weeks is thirty-five days. We’re going to have to wake up in Dovecote Gardens thirty-five times before we can go home.”

“Thirty-four,” said Jeanette, “Today’s Saturday. We’re going back on the Friday.”

“OK,” said Sally, “What’s twenty-four times thirty-four?”

“Er… Well, twenty times thirty is six hundred…”

Rube wanted to tell Sally to stop thinking about their holiday as if it was a prison sentence, but frankly, she didn’t think it was either. It felt more like they were being sent into hiding. She didn’t know exactly what Colwyn meant by, “I know the circumstances aren’t the best,” but she could make an educated guess that it had something to do with Dad.

Not long after the taxi driver turned left, they saw the hill in the distance. “That’s the house, right there,” said the driver, nodding towards the little blur of black and cream at the top, “You’ll have a good view of the sea.”

They drove up to a ten-foot hedge with an arch carved into it to allow the road to go through. Once they’d passed it, Rube glanced behind, half-convinced that the arch would have closed up behind them. It was a lot neater than the thorn bushes in ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but Rube didn’t know if that meant they could trust it. A lot of things were neat.

At first, all they passed were tall, conical trees that made Rube think of the spade symbol you got on cards, spaced out along the side of the road at two-yard intervals. As they went on, though, there was more.

(To Be Continued)

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The Wedding of Lucy Lennox (part one)

Posted on by weeks4send

(This is a semi-sequel to a few of the stories in From the Rooftops and The Things in the Cellar, as well as The Six Daughters of Celine Cooper.  It should make sense on its own, though.)

Her name was Eleanor Colleen Lennox, but her friends usually called her Lennie. Two days before her mother’s wedding, she was sitting on a wall outside the Rose Hotel and thinking about an artist she’d heard of who’d had little deer horns grafted onto her forehead. When Lennie got older and became a famous artist, she was going to go one better. She was going to have reindeer antlers, with blue hair (maybe in spikes, maybe not) and green stripy snake tattoos coiled all around her arms. (“But you didn’t even want to get your ears pierced,” Mum would say, “How are you going to get a tattoo over your whole arm?” Lennie would figure out a way. It was always worth it for art.)

Lennie was waiting for Aunt Sammy to show up. Nana Celine had booked practically the entire hotel for their family this weekend. Mum said they only needed it for the reception on Saturday, but Ewan (who was going to marry her in a few days) said that they shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If Nana Celine wanted to practically buy an entire hotel so that both their families could descend upon it and make a nuisance of themselves, then why stop her? Lennie agreed with him. She was just sorry there wasn’t a pool.

Ewan was a PE teacher at William Gladstone High School, and Mum worked in the kitchen there, so that was how they met. They’d told Lennie that it was a really good school, but she didn’t have to go to secondary school there, not if she didn’t want her mum and by-then-stepdad breathing down her neck all the time. Lennie hadn’t quite decided yet. They’d start looking at all the other secondary schools in September, and then she’d see.

Lennie was looking out for a grey Ford Fiesta, because that was the kind of car Aunt Sammy had. She’d be bringing her girlfriend, Camilla, who was the most beautiful woman Lennie had ever met and was always wearing about five hundred different-coloured bits of jewellery that you could never spot all in one go, and Camilla’s son Wesley, who was Lennie’s usual partner in crime at big family events. Last Christmas, they’d played Secret Agents and managed to hide from the rest of the family for a whole hour. Maybe they could do that again.

Lennie tapped her fingers on the stone beneath her, thinking about codenames and invisible ink and deadly laser pens, until she heard a noise just to her left. She looked up and saw Uncle Charlie standing over her with a cigarette in his mouth. She hadn’t even seen where he’d come from- it was as if he’d magically appeared in the courtyard. He’d probably make a good secret agent.

“Alright?” said Uncle Charlie. Actually, it was more like “Mm-murr?”, like a grunting groan more than an actual word, but Lennie knew what he meant.

“Yeah,” said Lennie, sitting up properly. She didn’t know Uncle Charlie that well yet. He’d been married to Nana Celine back in the olden days, when Mum had been a little girl. He wasn’t Mum’s dad, but he was Aunt Angel and Aunt Love’s, which was why they were all back in town for the wedding. “Just waiting for Aunt Sammy.”

Uncle Charlie didn’t say anything, just carried on staring at her and smoking his cigarette. Lennie knew that those grey bits under his eyes and in his five-o’-clock shadow probably weren’t cigarette ash, but it was hard to believe it when he smoked so many of them. “Going to be some changes around here,” he said. It sounded like he’d kept his teeth clenched when he talked.

“Really?” asked Lennie.

Uncle Charlie nodded. “When I move back in with your grandma. Going to be some changes. Won’t be having you running around in those skimpy shorts, for a start.”

Lennie looked down at those shorts, feeling suddenly very protective of them. They were patterned in blue and green and turquoise, like army camouflage but brighter. “I only wear shorts when it’s hot.”

Uncle Charlie carried on staring at her, slowly smoking his cigarette. “Going to be some changes,” he repeated, then went back inside.

Lennie smoothed down her shorts, wondering what Uncle Charlie’s problem was. She didn’t even know what “skimpy” meant. It sounded like it had to do with fish.

She drew her knees up, and went back to watching the road. After a few minutes, she spotted a grey Ford Fiesta.

(To be continued)

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The Warbeck Sisters Wait for Their Long-Lost Uncle

Posted on by weeks4send

(“Maybe even over Christmas, if things go really well.”  I’m hilarious.)

This is the first in a series of illustrated posts about the Warbeck sisters and their eventful summer.  “The Warbeck sisters” is actually “las hermanas Warbeck” in Spanish, so don’t ask me where I got “los sors Warbeck” from when I drew the picture.  Well, actually you can ask me- I got it from being bad at Spanish.

Anyway.  Onward!

*

Warbeck 1

Sally and her sisters were marooned, cut off from any human contact and stranded in the icy expanses of deep space. Sure, to anyone watching from the outside, it would have looked like they were sitting on a sunny terrace in front of a nice café, but Sally knew how she felt.

“I still don’t know why he couldn’t have met us at the station,” said Jeanette, shielding her eyes from the sun. They’d got to that stage in waiting where Jeanette suddenly forgot how to keep still. She’d been shifting about on her seat, playing with her empty drink bottle, and examining her nail varnish for any chips that might have appeared in the last thirty seconds. Sally didn’t know how long they’d been there exactly. All she knew was that it had been enough time for her to drink four bottles of Pepsi. If Mum had been there, she’d have made her stop at two, but she wasn’t, so Sally was going to make her own fun.

“I’m sure he would have if he could have,” said Rube, who was meant to be in charge and looked like she really, really wished she wasn’t.

“But he works from home, right? How hard can it be to get away?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Rube. She’d had her hair cut short a few weeks ago, and her face looked really lonely without it. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
“How soon is now?” muttered Jeanette, which didn’t make any sense, but at least she wasn’t moaning anymore.

Sally stayed quiet and looked at the trees on the other side of the road. Strange, alien-looking trees, too thin and too light a shade of green. Not like the trees at home.

She’d never been to Uncle Colwyn’s place. None of them had. He’d been round theirs for Christmas a couple of times, but they’d never actually seen the house.

Until today.

If he ever actually showed up to take them there.

Mum had said it was a wonderful old house with a lot of personality. That probably meant it was full of spiders. They’d probably burst out of your mattress if you wriggled too much in your sleep.

“What does Uncle Colwyn do for a living, anyway?” asked Jeanette.

“He maintains the grounds and things around the house,” said Rube, “I think Mum said some of it was owned by the National Trust.”

“Oh yeah, sounds really demanding. Obviously he wouldn’t be able to spare fifteen minutes to drive down and pick us up. I completely understand now.”

“Look, I’m just telling you what Mum told me.”

“I know, but you’d think she’d have told us more, right?” Jeanette wrapped a strand of long blonde hair around two of her fingers, and gently touched them to her lips. “Like why we had to go off to the other side of the country for the whole summer. And would it have killed her to tell us about it before the last week of term?

Rube shrugged unhappily.

They’d had three days to get ready. Three days to pack their worldly belongings before leaving their hometown behind and going into outer space. And Uncle Colwyn hadn’t even been here to meet them. The least he could have done was be here. At least he’d have been familiar.

Jeanette let out a short burst of air, and smiled a little sheepishly. “Ugh. I don’t even know why I’m complaining. A whole summer away from that jackass Monessa is a whole summer away from that jackass Monessa.” She rolled her eyes. “And who names their daughter Monessa anyway?”

“It’s a saint’s name,” said Rube.

“Why do you hang out with her if you hate her so much?” asked Sally, who’d had to listen to Jeanette whingeing about Monessa for the last six months.

Jeanette waved her arms. “It wasn’t my decision! Soraya had clarinet lessons with her, they hit it off, and now suddenly she’s part of our group and we all have to listen to her repeating jokes from KFC adverts all day.”

A taxi parked on the corner nearest the terrace, and a man got out and looked around. He checked a piece of paper in his hand, and walked over to them. “Excuse me- is one of you Ruby Warbeck?”

Rube raised her hand as if they were still in school. “Yes?”

“I’ve got a letter from your uncle.” He handed her the piece of paper, which turned out to be a little white envelope. Rube opened it daintily with one fingernail (a trick that Sally had always envied), and took out the letter inside.

“Colwyn says he’s been held up at work,” she told Sally and Jeanette, after skimming it for a couple of seconds, “He’s paid for a taxi to take us to his, and he promises to be there by this evening.”

Jeanette let out an exasperated snarl. “Goddammit, I thought he worked from home!”

The taxi driver shrugged.

Jeanette might have been disappointed, but Sally wasn’t surprised in the least. This was exactly what she’d come to expect from deep space. She reached down, picked up her suitcase, and headed for the next galaxy.

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Woe to the Giant (pg 205- THE END)

Posted on by weeks4send

Woe to the Giant- pg 205

Two years of drawing this (following three and a half years of trying and failing to write it as a novel), and it’s DONE.  See, I do finish things!

I’ll have some new projects up on here in the new year, or possibly even over Christmas if things go really well.  Until then, though, I’m going to sit back and have a nice drink.

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