Photo of a Victorian Sitting-room.
by Nicho
594 words

“Ohh..! the Master has had his artwork out again!”  Eliza threw her hands up in frustration. She’d only ‘bottomed this sitting-room two days ago, and it wasn’t as if Sir Alistair didn’t have a studio to work in…
Eliza got out her cleaning tools, pulled on her ‘dirty’ apron and her sleeve protectors and started on her Master’s sitting-room.

She dared not move the paintings which were stacked against one wall – God forbid she damaged one! – so she cleared away the tea-things that had been left out from earlier. She’d be having a word with young Cissie, the under-maid - they should have been cleared away as soon as Master had finished with them.

She’d not need to dust the wall-paintings or skirtings as she’d done those on Tuesday, all it needed today was a tidy up and a quick swipe with the duster, although why he needed so much furniture in one room, she couldn’t fathom! It’s not like they had a horde of children or anything. She could not work it out at all.
Left to her it would be very different!

It got so cold in here in the winter. Why the master had put that cabinet in front of the fireplace she knew not but at least she didn’t have a fireplace to clean out and reset.

She loved the little cabinet though – it was a golden yew wood and polished up beautifully.
Sir Alasdair had introduced another peculiar thing into the room. She had no idea how it worked but, apparently, it was meant to make the room warmer? She had no idea how, but she was going nowhere near it because it – once again apparently – was something to do with the mysterious ‘electrickery’.

He'd had that new-fangled ‘electrickery’ installed a few months ago, so at least she didn’t have to mess with the old gas-mantles or – even worse – oil lamps and candles.  Eliza wasn’t sure she trusted it but it was very useful in these huge dark rooms. This room did have a window to the side, but it didn’t let in a great deal of light due to the huge trees outside.

She gave the armchair a good wipe and polished the arms with beeswax so it smelled better – his pipe and cigar smell didn’t half pong!

She carried on cleaning the room until it shone to her satisfaction. She took pride in her work and actually enjoyed it, when it wasn’t too heavy. She was worried about when it did get too much for her. She didn’t know what would happen to her when she was dismissed, as she surely would be, when it became impossible to disguise her pregnancy any longer.

Sir Alasdair had been visiting her small attic-room for months now and would not take ‘no’ for an answer.   He would look after her, surely?   Her Mistress must already know – she’d been unnecessarily short with her several times recently, when she’d always been pleasant to her before.
Eliza just hoped she wouldn’t have to go into a home, or the Workhouse where they would just take the babe away from her at birth, yet what would SHE do with a babe? And no job?

She looked round the room – it was all spic and span and tidy again. She hoped it would be enough.

Sir Alasdair was a doctor – he would know what to do. She would ask him how the baby got out of her belly because at 14 years of age, Eliza certainly didn’t know….

 Phobia!

                                                            By Nicho

“I am going to make us rich, Rich!” Jed Grogan pulled on the spliff in his thin-lipped mouth.
Rich looked at his friend laconically, used to Jed’s grandiose ideas that never came to be.
“Really?”    Rich blew a lungful of weed-smoke from his already compromised lungs “how so?”

“I know of a certain old biddy with a fortune in jewellery and cash in her bedroom drawer…” Jed Offered.

“Yeah, “Rich offered, and my other car is a Porsche – you know zilch!”

“Oh, but I do though, my smokey little friend. With the cash we could get from this caper, we could set up a PROPER operation, instead of this piecemeal baggie dealing.”

“Ok so who is this ‘old Biddy’ of whom you speak so knowledgeably?” Rich affected a ‘posh’ accent.

“My Auntie Susan.” Jed stated.

“Your Auntie Sue? But she won’t have nothin’ to do with yer,  since you got into the skunk.” Rich remembered her parting shot at the time. “You, Gerard Grogan, will not see a penny of mine after I’m gone! I’ve seen you dealing that poison – I’ve had reports about your thieving too!  Don’t bother coming round here until you are totally clean!” and she shut the door in their faces. Not slammed – shut.    She was a lady, was Susan Grogan.

“And there is no way, anytime soon, you are going to not smell of the skunk!” Rich laughed loud and long.

“Good job I wasn’t planning to then, so that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Okay then, genius, what were you thinking?”

Jed turned round to face his mate. “Well, since our little ‘disagreement’ the old bag has had a conservatory built onto the back of her house and I reckon, it would take my weight, if we stand on the re-enforced bit where it is attached to the brickwork. He gestured to his druggie-svelte body.  “and if you come with me and help, I think I could reach her bedroom window.”

“Oh, I dunno Bruv” Rich looked doubtful. “her house has three storeys and the rooms are real tall in those old houses.

“Yeah, Einstein!” Jed said exasperated by his friend’s lack of enthusiasm at his brilliant idea. “That’s why I need you – Dumbo – to bunk me up!”

Rich still looked unsure…

“I’ll share it all with you…”Jed wheedled, “ halfies on EVERYTHING…” lying through his teeth.

“But she has an alarm, don’t she?” Rich offered.

“Ah – but that’s the magic part and the reason why I want to do it this week. Her old alarm has packed in. She’s getting a better new one fitted but as of last night, she doesn’t have one. I heard Mum talking to her.”

Rich felt himself falter. He was perpetually skint and his own Mum was fed up with him and was rumbling about him finding himself his own gaff.“Go on then.” Rich said “I’m in!”

They made their plan for the day after tomorrow “No whacky Bakky though – not til after the job” Jed decreed, “don’t want you falling asleep in the job!   On Fridays, the old trout goes to one of her church clubs at tea-time and doesn’t usually get back until about 9:30 pm., so we have at least three hours clear. We’ll be in and out – no bother.”

“How will we get in?” Rich asked “ Can you open double-glazing?”

Jed smiled “Ah, my ignorant friend! There is the beauty of having a posh auntie – she doesn’t like it! Her windows are antique-style sash windows – she had them re-made some years ago – there’s some kind of conservation order on the house - and she likes to keep it as close to it’s original style and condition as she can. All her furniture is antique – from the 1820’s when the house was built. It’s just a shame we can’t empty the house! – we’d make a fortune” Jed rubbed his hands together and Rich slowly grinned.

                                                      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 Friday came and they watched as Auntie reversed her classic car out from the garage..nn”I wouldn’t mind that beautiful car!” Rich sighed.

“One day, Bruv – one day soon,”  Jed answered  “Now concentrate! You know what you’re doing - yeah?”

“Yeah!” Rich answered enthusiastically. “I bunk you up onto the conservatory then you’ll help me up. I can stand on the bin.”

“Then what?” Jed prompted.

“I stand on the supported bit of the conservatory roof and bunk you up again to the bedroom window.” Rich answered confidently.

“Great, lad – spot on!” Jed patted his mate on the shoulder, slipping the glass-cutter into his cargo-pant pocket.

Rich was much stronger and fitter than Jed and practically launched Jed up onto the conservatory roof then climbed on the bin and, with very little help from Jed, scrambled onto the roof.

“Boss job lad, “ Jed thumped Rich on the shoulder, told you it would be easy! I knew your gym-bunny past would come in handy one day !” He beamed..

“We’re not in yet!” Rich stated and Jed shot him a look.

 “We WILL be in a minute” he said ”and then we’ll be loaded!”
He climbed up onto Rich’s shoulders…..

 

                                            >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

"It’s a nice clean hospital though…” Rich lisped nasally, due to the tube up his nose and the fat lip where he’d lost a front tooth.  Jed had been the recipient of said tooth.
If looks could kill, Rich would be in his casket awaiting the conveyor to the flames….

“Really?” Jed gasped, “That’s all you can come up with…?” Jed really wanted, badly, to scratch his leg – it was driving him nuts -  but the cast on his arm was preventing it.

"I’m really, really sorry…” Rich mumbled miserably. “It wasn’t my fault…”

“No? “Jed croaked. It was surprising how threatening a croak can sound…”Then whose fault was it then?”

“It was the spider’s fault!” Jed wailed, conscious of the Police Officer sitting at the entrance of their two-bed ward.

“Spider? What spider? What you banging on about, Bruv? Spiders?” Jed, it could be said, was slightly cross.

“Oh Bruv – it was MASSIVE!”

“What?” Jed was dangerously quiet and in shock, in more ways than one.  “So we’re in here, about to be nicked for “going equipped, attempted burglary and malicious damage to property”, because – what? – you saw a SPIDER?!!”

Rich looked shamefaced.

“Bruv – I’ve seen you face down three Hell’s Angels, you used to box for the county! And you ‘saw a SPIDER’??”

Rich was almost in tears. I’m so very sorry – I can’t help it – I have a phobia of spiders – it’s got a name and everything… arachnophobia!”

Jed was dangerously quiet for a minute “When I get out of these casts and bandages, you’d better develop a phobia of me – ‘cos I will come looking for you and a fall from a third-storey widow, through a conservatory roof will seem like a happy little memory!!!”

 

                                   >>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Not Quite Déjà vu…

by Nicho

I can’t even begin to explain it in any sensible fashion, in a way any normal person would willingly accept it, but explain it I must, even though, well, I can’t!

Two days ago, I was minding my own beeswax, washing my knickers in the sink (I didn’t trust them to that infernal colour-changing demon in the kitchen…) and was singing to myself, as you do, when, suddenly, I heard my name called...” Enya…!” (which would be fine, that being my name and all), but I was alone in my flat!

I did a quick run round the flat (it didn’t take long – it’s not a big flat…) to check and, yes, I was entirely, extremely alone.   I kinda shook my head and thought no more about it.

Now, I’m not a fanciful girl, you understand – far from it, after all, I’m a cosmetician and that’s almost a scientist…  But when it happened again, I can tell you it put the heebie jeebies up me – it did so!

Once again, I looked around (it was in work this time and I was in my cubicle, alone, so I very gingerly, pulled back the curtain to make sure none of the other girls were calling me. Nope – it was all quiet.  Then it happened again – not a soul around – just this disembodied voice calling my name with what now sounded to me like entreaty!  “Enya!”

A thought struck me! My much-loved grandmammy, for whom I was named had passed to the great beyond only a matter of weeks before and was it my imagination that gave the voice calling our name, my Nanny’s inflection?  I had shivers down my spine, at the thought that my Nanny was calling to me from beyond the veil – what an honour!  I HAD always been her favourite though. I was the only one who would ever cut her toenails and pluck her chin hair!

My Nanna had not been rich but she had left me some little mementoes including the silver locket I wore at all times with a lock of her hair, taken from her head in her casket…. (I didn’t know until later that it was, in fact a wig to hide her alopecia.. but still….).

I wondered what my Nanny was trying to say to me and decided to consult a spiritual medium.

That evening I was preparing for bed when it came again but this time it said “Enya , for the love of God, speak to me…!”
I was so happy and said “I’m right here Nanny – I can hear you!”

“Oh, for pity’s sake Enya” the voice sounded tired and exasperated “Fix yer feckin’ phone will ya? You’ve been bum-dialling me for two days!”

Well, she supposed her Mammy DID sound quite like her Nanny used to…….

                                                              Love Thine Enemies…

By Nicho

            “…those bloody snails again…!”   Sheila was incandescent. Her beautiful Sunflower seedlings she’d nurtured like her babies had been stripped of every leaf.

            “Not again…?” her husband sympathized. His wife loved their garden and had green fingers. Everything she planted came up beautifully, at the right time in the correct position but this battle with the slugs and snails was an ongoing war. “I’ve told you – slug pellets are the only way. All this ‘coffee grounds and crushed eggshell’ nonsense does not work – I think you’ve tried everything, haven’t you?”

            Sheila looked sad and nodded her head. “Pretty much.” She agreed. “but I don’t want to use poison – my garden is all organic – nothing in the way of chemicals in it and anything you kill with poison, poisons another little critter who you might not want to kill.  I mean look at Mrs. Andrews and her rat poison – she killed three owls with that stuff!  No, poison is too indiscriminate.”
             Sheila sat down in her armchair, and took the proffered cup of tea from her husband, Norman.  “So, what are you going to do? You can’t keep just feeding the little blighters, can you?” he asked.

 Sheila nodded absently.  Then she looked up and smiled.”I’ve got an idea!”

Norman looked worried – he was used to his wife’s ideas….. “Hmmm…?” he swallowed his tea, non-committaly

            “We’ll do a nightly snail- hunt!  Okay – we won’t get them all but we should make a dent in the numbers at least…?”  She looked askance at her hubby.

            Norman drew out his “yes” so it sounded more like an elongated  ‘yearse’ “and when you’ve got them, in your little bucket, I presume, what then? What do you do with them – bin them?”
            “No – they’d just climb back out. I suppose we could keep them until the  green bin was collected?”

            Norman looked unsure “ and just have them squished in the chopping machine the green stuff goes through…?”

            Sheila looked horrified, “What chopper?”she said, open mouthed.

            “Well what do you THINK happens to your garden waste? They chop it up and make mulch and compost out of it.” Norman spread his hands in the universal gesture for ‘what?’.
            

            “Ooohh… I didn’t know that. “  Rethink needed….”

Two cups of tea and a plate of chocolate HobNobs later, she had the answer. Chocolate is ALWAYS the answer!

            “That field at the back of us – it’s just grazing for those lovely horses, isn’t it?”
             “ Yerse…” her husband intoned.

                "Well, what about if, as we pick them off the plants – we sling them as far as we can into the field!  That way no-one gets hurt and the snails have a new home!” Sheila smiled with triumph.
 Norman raised his eyebrows. “Well, he said,” at least they’ll be a while finding their way back!”
            “We’ll start tomorrow night!” Sheila beamed. With this plan in mind, they switched off their day and went to bed.

 The next day, Sheila found more casualties in her greenhouse.  “My lobelias!” she cried, inspecting one poor specimen with only one stalk left and the other six not much better.   “That’s it ! This is WAR!”

Sheila spent the rest of the day emptying her greenhouse, hosing it down and scrubbing everything scrubbable and then sprayed the whole structure with Jeyes fluid. 
           

            “There were dozens of the little buggers Norman!” slinging her slug and snail filled bucket in front of him and between him and his newspaper. “LOOK!”

            “Hmmmm!” mumbled Norman, rather more interested in the test-match scores in his paper.
            “I’ll sling them over right now!  ”and she retreated to the garden, much to Norman’s great relief.

The job done, Sheila put her greenhouse back to rights and got on with the rest of her day.

That evening out into her garden she went, torch in hand.  She had been hoping for a bit of help from Norman but he was less than enthusiastic about the idea of actually touching slugs and snails – even wearing gloves – so she just left him to his TV and went out herself.

She found so many slugs and snails….! Her arm was almost sore from slinging the little creeps over the fence, but she decided she’d found most of them and headed toward her kitchen.

On the way back to the house, Sheila picked some cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce from her salad bed by the kitchen door and took them in and popped them into the washbowl in the sink to wash, ready for the fridge.

She locked up the back door and put on the alarm and turned to the sink to wash the salad stuff. The tomatoes were beautiful – Sheila couldn’t resist popping one into her mouth – delicious! She dried them and put them into their bowl then the magnificent cucumber! She didn’t think she’d ever grown a better one!  The lettuce looked great too – nice and firm…… Eeek!  What was that!  A snail on her lettuce! She looked closer. It was only a tiny one -  just a baby really….  He couldn’t have done much harm to it…
Well, she wasn’t unlocking and de-alarming just to chuck out one little snail – she’d see to him – and any others tomorrow.
She had a plastic punnet some strawberries had come in so she put the outer lettuce leaves, which she always discarded anyway, into the punnet along with the ‘top and tail’ of the cucumber and one squashed tomato and delivered the snail into his hotel for the night, placing a place-mat on top to stop him escaping – not that he would with all that food in there!
Having ridded herself of her unwelcome guest, she joined Norman in the tv room to finish off their evening.

            Next morning, Norman went off to work and Sheila got on with her day. She had lots to do today –the washing had piled up over the week-end and she had shopping to do and also her Mum was unwell so she would need to go check on her, and to see if she needed anything.

            By the time she came home it was gone one o’clock and she was starving, so she made herself a lovely chicken salad with her favourite dressing and a custard tart for afters – mmm!
             After she’d eaten, he went to her cupboard where she kept their kitchen bins to scrape the leftover salad into the compost bin and her eye caught the little box in which she’d incarcerated the little snail the evening before.

            “Oh! “ she exclaimed, “I’d totally forgotten about you!” and lifted the box out, meaning to take into the garden for the ‘fence-flinging’ ceremony.

She removed the placemat from the top to leave it behind on the drainer and as she did so she came eye to antennae with the tiny snail. He had been busy munching on a bit of cucumber, sitting on the top of all the cast away lettuce

He stopped munching and just, it seemed, looked at her.  Was it her imagination, or was he smiling? .    She looked a little closer and he was quite cute, really – not ugly like she had imagined.  His shell was in pretty stripes of shades of amber, sepia and parchment and his little body was a shade of pale grey-green – almost transparent in parts. 
            At this moment – Sheila was confused. She’d never REALLY looked at a snail before – she just assumed they were slimy ugly nasty creatures but this little chap was none of those things. He was just a little animal, minding his own business, carrying his home around with him – no different than her pet tortoise really.

            Sheila was now very conflicted…  She couldn’t bring herself to project this little soul up into the air, to land who knew where – not after he looked at her with what appeared to be gratitude and innocence.

            The placemat was replaced whist she foraged in the cupboard under the stairs and, eventually, she emerged carrying what appeared to be a fish tank.

            Ten minutes later, Brian, as she had been calling him in her head, was in his new home with fresh veggies and a couple of small twiggy branches from the garden - and the remains of her last two sunflowers……

Brian was going nowhere anytime soon….

                                                                              Freedom

                                                                               by Nicho

            Les was looking back on his life.  It had been relatively uneventful – no World Wars in which to be a hero, no huge uprisings to take part in – in fact Les had pretty much kept his head down, stayed in his lane and worked hard.

           Not that it had done him much good. Yes, he’d had a steady, but hard, job for over 40 years, and yes, it paid the bills, just about. Yes, it had got his kids through school and college and into their own jobs. He’d even managed, along with his wife’s wage – they’d have never managed without her pittance from the government office in which she worked – to buy a modest house.

           They’d been very thrifty – no posh foreign holidays for them – just Yorkshire or Scotland once every other year and their cars had always been five years old at least when they acquired them.

            So yes, he’d had a hard but fruitful life, his two sons becoming Police Officers and his daughter a nurse.

             He’d had few notable times – the best ones just in that couple of years when his eldest son produced a baby daughter and his other son a son of his own. This had been happiest time of Les’s life, becoming Granddad or ‘BamBam’, as the littlest called him

             Les had been besotted with both of his grandbabies and he had been in his element when asked would he and Dierdre, look after the babies, a couple of days a week whilst Mummy went back to work.   It had been great fun! Les and Deirdre had taken some days out of their work week and they managed.

           But ,eventually, the babies grew and had to go to school, and they developed and grew into beautiful children and, later, teenagers.

            Still Les worked hard even though it was getting harder, and he looked forward to his retirement when he could relax and take things easy, looking after his, now, frail wife, and do a bit of gardening.

            He had been heartbroken when his Deirdre had passed away. She had been the love of his life, and he wasn't sure he wanted to go on without her.

            She had been his rock - she had organized everything - so much so that when she went - he didn't need to do a thing about the bills - they were all - except the food shopping - on direct debits.  She'd been shrewd, his Deirdre, and had also, unbeknownst to him, arranged the finances so that if one of them popped their clogs, the mortgage would be paid off. That definitely wouldn't have crossed HIS mind - nor would he have known how to do it, if it had.

        A further blow had come two weeks previously. Their little dog, a Bichon Frise called MoMo had gone downhill quickly with age-related COPD - he had been approaching his 16th birthday so had had a great life and a very good run. Sadly, that took none of the sting away from losing the little mutt. Les believed MoMo missed his Mum too much and it had broken his heart when she had died.

        Their children and grandchildren no longer lived on the Wirral and although they'd each asked Les to come to live with them, it was too much upheaval for him - he was used to grey old Wirral. He had great views over the Dee - he needed no more. Besides, he felt closer to D in their home.

        The arthritis and heart trouble Les had now, were very debilitating, so the retirement they'd dreamt of together was not ever going to happen. He had wanted to go hiking in the hills of Scotland and Yorkshire. He could hardly drive there now.  He wished again that he could have gone with his beloved.  It's not like either of them were that old - only in their 60's and he had read that 60 was the new 50!  He felt more like 80, with his aches, pains and hospital visits where the doctors had insinuated that his working life at the docks had paid no small part in his poor health now.  That did not surprise him - the work had been hard and hazardous. There had been spills and accidents - hushed up of course and a few bob bunged here and there -so no compo was going to be fought for.  He'd already decided, years ago, that he was not going into any nursing homes - the government  were not getting his house - he’d take it down brick by brick before that happened.

            The discomfort he'd been in recently had been more severe than usual but, as always, he soldiered on.

            The dishes were done, the living room Hoovered and tidy, Les climbed the staircase painfully and straightened the, slightly, rumpled bedclothes before getting showered and shaved and dressed in his best suit and tie.

        Deirdre's full-length mirror showed a ,still, handsome man of later years but with pain etched across his high cheekbones and around his once twinkling blue eyes.

        Les sat down on the side of the bed and reached into his bedside drawer where he kept his meds. He always remembered his night-time meds, so it made sense to keep them there. His daytime ones he kept downstairs by his chair and set his alarm for the same time every day to remind him to take them - he'd forget otherwise, without his wife to remind him.

        Taking a sip of water from the nightstand carafe, he downed the tabs all in one go with the practiced movement of a long-time medicated person. and threw the empty bubble-packs and boxes into the bin on the back of the door. That was Deirdre's idea - a cotton tote on the door-handle - stopped MoMo foraging through bins looking for tissues.

         Feeling a bit unsteady and still tired from the night's bad sleep, he lay down on top of the covers and picked up the photo of him, Deirdre and MoMo from the nightstand and hugged it to his chest.

        "I miss you so much my love and I want so much to see you and MoMo and our other dogs and the baby we lost the first time, but I will be there soon, please hang about for me - you know I've always been slow on the uptake..." 

        "Oh, you haven't got any better with age, have you...?" his Deirdre's voice came to him quite clearly but he still double-checked. "Is that you D?"

        "Who else would bother with a daft old bugger like you?" she answered with a giggle.

         Les opened his eyes, or so he thought - he was no longer sure what was happening. His beautiful Deirdre was in front of him! Not totally clear but good enough to know her.           

        “You waited!" he slurred, no longer able to control his mouth properly.       

        "Of course I did - where would I go without my rudder?"

            Les looked again and swore he could see - in the mist round D's feet, their little dog. "Is that MoMo?"

            "Yes, and the others are waiting patiently at the Bridge - they can't cross until we get there. You've kept us waiting long enough. Come on now slowcoach!"

            It was then Les realized and he rose from his bed, there was no pain. None! By gum those painkillers had really worked this time!

            Deirdre got hold of his hand "Come on you old duffer - I've been waiting for you, and I wanna get on with the rest of eternity now - we're free! No more work, no more anything unless we will it. We have an adventure to go on now and I won't go on it without you.”

        The pair along with their happy, yappy little dog, walked straight out into the ether, off to the unknown, but it didn't matter because they were together, and they were free!

                                                                    ~~~~~~~~

 

Weds 07-02-24
10 Sentences for  Prose poetry

 

My 1st Day At School

My heart was beating very fast.

I didn’t want to leave my new puppy and my Mummy.

I went in the very last

I didn’t have a dummy

Teacher was so very kind

We had sandpit tables to play in too

And we had a nap to help unwind

I missed my Mummy and my puppy new

I don’t like school

I don’t like school…….

 

Elusive Package
(working title)
by Nicho

“It must be here somewhere….!”   Marion was on the verge of panic . Where the hell was it?

She looked at the detritus around her. The table was strewn with the contents of her handbag – which said item was at present lounging languidly on the floor with the lining hanging out forlornly.
Once again, she went thought the contents of her pockets – that took less than twenty seconds, women’s clothes being notoriously short  in the pocket category.

What HAD she done with it? Marion was now over the ‘verge’ and well on the way down the slope to despair!  How COULD she have been so careless with such an important item!

Marion very carefully picked up her sad handbag and started to replace her items minutely. It HAD to be SOMEWHERE…!  She really didn’t want to allow herself to imagine the results of her not finding it – they were too terrible to contemplate!
Apart from any other consideration –what would Donald think? More importantly, what would Donald DO…!

Marion sat down at the table with her head in her hands. The loss would be disastrous – her credibility gone and the financial repercussions didn’t bear thinking about!

Someone came up the stairs into her part of the little bistro.
“Are you Mrs. Duck?” a voice spoke, She jumped, startled out of her self-absorption.

“Yes..?” Marion looked at a young man of about twenty, holding her coffee in one hand and something else ion his other.  “You left this on the counter””

Marion nearly fainted with relief.

“Oh – thank you so much! I’d just missed it!” she exhaled the breath she was holding and thought the lad must think she was having an asthma attack!

“You’re welcome, “ he smiled and returned to his work.

She clutched at the small leather case holding her passport and papers to her new life abroad.
Marion sipped at her coffee, trying to calm herself before she could function in any sensible way.  She looked at her watch. The train was due in a very few minutes so she finished her coffee and left a £10.00 note under her coffee cup for her saviour.

Thank God she would be far away before Donald found out what she was up to.  He’d get the bank statement and he would open it, as she was not there to intercept it this time.

He would find out that she had run up about fifteen grand on one ‘secret’ card and removed approximately fity grand from the joint account.
She also had a small nest egg she had been saving from her ‘allowance’ for a couple of years which, she had told Donald, was for cosmetic surgery that he had wanted her to have so he had allowed her to keep that..
           
The bruises from their last ‘disagreement’ had all but faded now, but had that passport been lost, Donald would have found her out and would have scoured the UK for her. She shuddered at the thought of what injuries she would sustain should that have happened….

As she stepped onto the cross-channel train, she heaved a small sigh of semi-relief – she wouldn’t relax or be relieved until she landed in Wiesbaden in Germany, where, with the help of the Domestic Violence group, she had managed to secure a small house to rent.
She had nothing but what she stood up in and the contents of her handbag – which now included her passport and papers, safely zipped into it.
She was so glad she had never changed the name on her passport to her married name. She had never liked Donald Duck anyway….