Novel Number Two will have to wait. I am producing plays (Unveiled Secrets to be performed in the Scottish Borders in September and October 2019) and looking after family. So, short stories it is. Below is one set in Basildon, Essex. It, too, deals with Unveiled Secrets. Hope to see you at the shows if you can manage it!
Just Another Ordinary Day
“I heard it was Thorrington Cross,” Shelley asserted, crossing her black tights which shimmered around a pair of pudgy legs.
“No, it was The Knares,” responded Ella snapping her compact closed and screwing shut her mascara. She turned and inspected her reflection in the long mirror, picking off imaginary fluff from her bottle green jumper and turning this way and that to see if she looked slimmer than yesterday.
“Are you sure? I thought he first spotted her as she passed the Owl and Pussycat. She was eating a bag of chips at the time and he asked her for one. That’s what I heard,” interjected Sophie, dabbing concealer on her acne-prone forehead.
“Does it matter?” Jess was agitated with all this speculation. “The fact is Red Riding Hood almost got herself gobbled up by The Wolf because her mother let her walk to school alone and we have to do something to stop that sort of thing. Start a movement. Get some placards!” Jess’s blood was at boiling point and if a wolf were to pass at that very moment it would have been taking its life in its hands. She’d had enough of this prowling menace picking off innocent teenagers as they made their way to school, stealing their bags and snarling and snapping. He always picked on the shy ones or the arty ones. The ones with chips. The latest, Red Riding Hood, had gone to primary school with Jess. Jess was convinced it was Red Riding Hood’s designer outfit that drew the wolf’s attention in the first place. That red cape was screaming to be hoodwinked, or worse still, deflowered.
“If we want to identify ourselves as individuals with a sense of style we ought to be allowed to do that, wear what we want, without some pervo sniffing up our hems. I swear it’s old Basildon Bond, the deputy, dressed up as a wolf,” Jess asserted. “He thinks it’ll keep us all in line. Menacing us with his hairy-faced snout and baring those ugly yellow teeth!” She drew a breath through her own long nose. “We need to make a stand. Stand together and protest outside the council offices. Protest that the streets aren’t safe for the under 21s.”
“Yeah! Let’s do it!” Shelley leapt to her feet and punched the air. She stood bold and brave, ready to take on any challenger. Then a moment of hesitation overtook her. “Um, Jess, where exactly are the council offices?” she asked. “It’s just that I’m not allowed Pitsea way, after that incident with the stone and the window, remember? If they’re in Vange then I can’t go.”
Jess flicked her hair. “No idea,” she responded, “but we can find out. I think it’s in the town centre so no worries.”
“Yeah, somewhere near the Towngate, I think,” added Sophie as she popped a Smint into her coral framed mouth.
“How comes you know that?” asked Ella suspiciously, stopping the mirror-pout for a hard stare at the new girl. Jess had invited Sophie, a tall blonde whose family had just moved to Basildon, but Ella didn’t feel comfortable with her. She was too smart. And she smiled far too much.
Sophie shrugged. “Lucky guess?” she offered. “It must be somewhere like that. They’ve got the job centre in there, haven’t they?”
“Job Centre. What you gotta do with the Job Centre? Your mum unemployed, is she?” Ella challenged. There was a moment of silence as the atmosphere froze. Sophie blushed and looked to Jess. Shelley squirmed uncomfortably. Ella stared in challenge.
The room filled with unspoken questions until Shelley, desperate to move away from this subject, queried, “And what will the council do, like, Jess? You know. About this problem.”
“Dunno, do I?” replied Jess, sucking her eyes away from Sophie, the unknown among them. “But it’s better than sitting here wondering if we’re next for The Wolf treatment. Better than our mums abandoning us to The Wolves when they decide it’s easier to go to work than to take us to school and make our dinners. I’ve not had proper chips for a month because me mum’s got a new job. She keeps buying ready meals from Asda and I’m sick of it, ain’t I? Them not being here to keep an eye on us is leaving us to be dinner for The Wolves.”
A knock on the bedroom door interrupted the girls mid-glamourising.
Jess rolled her eyes and sighed. “What is it?”
“It’s Dad, Jess,” Mr Lupus was politely waiting on the other side of the door. “I was wondering if you girls were ready yet.”
“Da-a-ad! Give us a break. We need a bit longer than that to get ready.” Jess, scratched her slender muzzle in irritation. Her father was so impatient. He would rather have had a son he could play video games with than be surrounded by women who he didn’t understand. He was very annoying.
“We’ll be ready in ten,” Jess called. “Chill. We just want you to drive us to the youth club, Dad. It’s no big deal.” She shook her head and looked at the others in exasperation. “See! If my mum wasn’t working evening shifts, she’d have my Dad whipped into shape.”
Ella nodded. “We’d have had carrot sticks at my house and my mum would have come to the taxi rank with us. Had a laugh. Your mum too, Shelley.” She shook her hair dolefully. “That new factory has a lot to answer for.” Ella fired Sophie an icy glare as she spoke, daring her to reveal her home situation.
“The only one who’s home is your Mum, Sophie, and that’s only because you’ve just moved here,” intersected Jess, protective of her new find. She patted the new girl’s forearm. “Give her a month or two and you’ll be joining us lot in ready-meal-heaven. Or hell.” Jess fluffed her hair and criticised her reflection, deliberately avoiding Ella and her pursed lips. She was more concerned to know if Paul would be at the youth club.
“Jess, can you come on? The football’s starting soon and I don’t want to miss it,” called Mr Lupus from the foot of the stairs.
Jess rolled her eyes and the girls gathered their bags and checked themselves in the mirror one last time before following their leader along the landing and down the stairs to the front door. They all bundled into the car. Jess in the front and the other three squashed into the rear. It was only a five minute drive, but walking in heels was out of the question.
“Thanks, Mr Lupus,” clacked each little chick as she stepped out of the scarlet vehicle. Mr Lupus watched them totter off through the metal gateway before licking his lips and baring his teeth. He parked his car at the local shops and waited. Life had changed since his wife had started work. She’d said they needed the money, that it would make their lives better. But no. It had all gone to pot. There was no decent food in the house. His daughter hardly spoke to him. Even watching the telly was lonely without Doreen. His beautiful Doreen.
Mr Lupus had taken to “patrolling” the streets when he wasn’t responsible for dropping Jess off anywhere. He was constantly hungry. The money his wife made seemed not to stretch to a proper, filling, meal. Sure, she now had nice clothes, but he never got any time to see her in them or take her anywhere because she was tired all the time. She had her own bank account and he couldn’t access the cash. The poor man felt deprived and very hungry. Oh, so hungry.
From his seat in the car park, Mr Lupus had a great view of the chip shop. He could see who went in and who came out. He was patient. There was nothing else to do and it was only Scunthorpe versus Leicester on the telly. Hardly worth your while. Better to watch the punters with their vinegar and pickled eggs than watch that drivel. Mr Lupus took a deep breath. Yes. The chips and chicken smelled good. The scent of battered fish floated wispy and faintly golden into his nostrils. It was tempting. Where else could he possibly wish to be?
The light was beginning to fade and so far it had only been young, fit men and couples he’d seen going in and out of Big Ed’s fish shop. There had been a man about his own age, fat and greasy looking, who’d come out carrying a family load of fish and chips. Mr Lupus’s heart fell. If only he’d had more kids. If only his wife was at home right now, waiting for him to bring her chips with brown sauce. If only.
Then his luck changed. A young girl, about Jess’s age, alone, walked into the chip shop. He got out of his shiny car, pinging the lock on his key ring and waited at the corner to see where she might go once she left the shop. He hoped she’d get cod and chips with lots of vinegar, salt and brown sauce. Don’t skimp on the condiments he repeated in his head, hoping that thought would travel along the grubby pavement and up her trouser leg to her head. Salt, vinegar, brown sauce. His mouth began to dribble in anticipation. The soft featured girl reappeared, carrying just a can of coke. Mr Lupus was more than disappointed. He was raging. How dare she tempt him like that! The disappointment! He was torn. Should he wait for another potential chip donor or let this let-down know how he felt? He was so hungry! So hungry his mind had stopped functioning.
Before, he’d simply given them a scare – enough to get them to flee while leaving whatever they’d been tucking into so he could hoover it up. It had been harmless fun. What all the press were saying was nonsense. Everyone knows they exaggerate. They’re hacks, just after a good headline. But, you know, give a dog a bad name and what do you get?
Carnage. That’s what the next day’s headline said. Lilly Snope had met her end down a dark alley, explained The Echo. She was such a good girl. Her gran wasn’t well and she’d popped along to the shop to get her some coke because gran couldn’t keep any food down and needed something to give her a little energy.
“Be a good girl, Lilly, will you? It’s just along the road and your old gran will feel better for it,” Lilly’s mother had pleaded.
Lilly didn’t deserve this. No-one did. Had she been attacked by a wild dog? The face was torn off her. The police were appealing for anyone who had seen a savage-looking dog to let the force know. They suspected a gang from Braintree who held illegal dog-fights – or that was the rumour, in any case. There was an extended centrespread about what a wonderful girl Lilly had been. She went to the same school as Jess. She was a champion sprinter. If she hadn’t been trapped down an alley she’d probably have got away.
Mr Lupus read the headlines. Nothing more. He read them over his Asda cornflakes coated with skimmed milk and no sugar. It was never enough to satisfy him. He was still starving. His wife was up and out already – gone running. She’d returned from her evening shift, tired, at eleven. He’d already gone to bed. She watched some TV and went off to bed herself. Jess had found her own way home, along with a young, handsome, slightly dangerous suitor, and she too was tucked up dreaming of Paul and wolves and weddings by the time Mum got home.
Now, the morning sun was creeping along the grass in the garden, making its way cautiously, carefully, and inevitably up to the window where it could peek in to where Mr Lupus was lifting his mug to his empty, hollow, mouth.
It was just another ordinary day. Another ordinary temptation in the Lupus household.
While God Was Sleeping
While God Was Sleeping
Kathleen Mansfield 