50 Short Stories

by Martin Bourne

  The journey into town was exciting enough as I had never been on a bus before. The conductor even let me ring the bell to make the bus stop and start. I really thought that I was in control.

  When we were in town, Gran never went near the supermarket but bought everything that she wanted from tables in the main street.

  Everybody who had a table was trying to shout louder that the man next to him. “Ripe bananas shillin a pound” while someone else would shout “Mine are only tenpence.”

  I was frightened at first but afterwards a bit it was fun.

  When we got home again we had a picnic under the apple tree. Bramble jelly sandwiches and home made lemonade. It was great but I was so tired that I had to have a sleep afterwards.

  I woke up at about four o-clock with Gran saying,

  “I suppose it is time to be thinking about dinner, Granddad will be home in a couple of hours.”

  “Can we send out for a pizza?” I pleaded.

  “Not likely. Don’t forget, we are living like when I was little. Nobody had even heard of pizza in those days. We used to cook everything at home.

  I’ll mince up the left over meat from the weekend. You can turn the mincer handle. We’ll have minced beef and bubble and squeak, it’s your Grandad’s favourite. Then we can have blackberry and apple pie after for pudding, I picked the blackberries while you were asleep.”

  I had to agree, it was a fabulous meal.

  After our meal I was waiting for them to switch the telly on but Gran said,

  “There was no telly when I was young. We made our own

  amusement. We can either have a game of Ludo or snakes and ladders. Or maybe Granddad might teach you a card game.”

  Granddad had other ideas. Reaching for his pipe he said,

  “Maybe later but I’ve got to spend a bit of time in the garden first and I could do with some help from young Mary”

  We went into the garden and after showing me what to do Granddad put me .picking peas. He had a fork and was digging up potatoes.

  Then I heard a familiar voice say,

  “What are you doing out here?”

  I looked up and it was my dad.

  Granddad answered him.

  “I might ask you the same question. What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to tell our Mary that she now has a baby brother.”

  I was so excited that I jumped up and down and trod on all the potatoes that Granddad had just dug up.

  But I was so happy. I can’t wait for my brother to grow up so that I can tell him what it was like to live in the olden days.

  The Empty Flat.

  “That’s it Maisie, no more driving for you.

  Your eyes are not good enough. . . . Quite simply, you ain’t safe.”

  I’d known for some time that it was coming, but when old Doc Savage said those words, it was like the end of the world to me. Living alone, as I did, two miles from nowhere, how could I manage without my trusty Morris Minor? To put it bluntly, life wasn’t going to be difficult, it would be impossible. I kept my worries to myself for a few days whilst my problems mounted.

  Then my nephew Jeff paid one of his rare visits. Naturally I poured out all my troubles. (rather tearfully I admit)

  Jeff had the easy way out. At least, to him it was easy.

  “You could move into one of the new warden controlled flats that have just been built in town. Shopping would be no problem,

  especially,” Then, he emphasized, . . .

  “If you use the shopping bag on wheels that I bought you for Christmas two years ago.”

  I blushed. It was still pristine, unused and buried beneath a pile of junk under the stairs, in the glory hole, as we used to call it.

  The idea of moving weighed heavily on my mind all weekend, but on Monday morning a telephone call to the housing office made the decision for me.

  It was highly unlikely that I would qualify for one of the new flats. Actually, the man said,

  “Next phase quite likely, but that will be two years away.”

  In other words I would not be moving.

  That’s how I thought it was going to stay.

  But I was wrong yet again.

  Surprise, surprise, Jeff made his second visit in three days

  This time he had his girlfriend in tow. Stacy wasn’t my cup of tea and she knew it. She had tattoos on her arms and pierce buttons everywhere, No. She wasn’t right for Jeff.

  Having said that, she had a good position in the council offices. Every time her job was mentioned,

  she wasn’t doing that any more, she’d had a promotion.

  Well, to cut a long story short, it was now her job to allocate the new flats. One was mine for the asking.

  Now, how does one fit everything from a four bedroomed cottage into a one bedroom flat?

  My treasures and memories of the last fifty years.

  “You’ll have to be ruthless Auntie,” I was told.

  Eager to take things at a faster pace than I would have wished,

  Jeff turned up on Saturday with a big trailer behind his car.

  “Right Auntie, I’ll sort out the shed and garage then I’ll take all the junk to the tip for you first thing in the morning.

  If you like, Stacey will take you into town and you can do your shopping and have a look at curtains in the co-op furnishing section at the same time.”

  I duly went, did my shopping and even chose and ordered my curtains. Stacey already had the measurements.

  I must admit, she made quite good company which proves,

  looks don’t really matter that much. We got on really well.

  I was tired that evening and didn’t feel like sorting stuff. However, I did go out to the garage to see how Jeff had got on.

  To say that I was horrified would be putting it mildly.

  What I saw, meant that I had to get up early on Sunday morning to take things off the trailer that definitely were not going to the tip

  No way. The first thing that I saw was my old meat mincer.

  I thought back. It was always my Ted’s job when he got home from work on a Tuesday night: mince up the remainder of the weekend joint ready for Wednesday’s pie.

  Then I saw the Acme wringer and remembered the first row that we ever had, Ted bought it for my birthday present the first year after we got married. I wouldn’t have minded except that he had been building my hopes up for weeks, saying that I was getting something very special.

  Just think, now it was an antique already. I bet it would make a few pounds in the sale.

  But, . . . I didn’t need a few pounds. One thing that I am very thankful for: I left the ‘short of money’ stage behind a good forty years ago. ----The wringer stays. ----- One of my memories.

  After that I decided that I would have to go through the entire load to save treasured possessions.

  Jeff sulked a bit when he came to pick up the trailer but he couldn’t stay long as he and Stacey were going to Spain for a two week holiday.

  The rest of Sunday was dedicated to sorting junk.

  I say that guardedly. My definition of junk isn’t clearly defined.

  My dear friend Mary always says,

  “If you haven’t used it for two years you don’t want it.”

  As I looked round, I thought,

  I haven’t used some of this stuff for fifty years, but I still want it.

  It was so cold outside, that I decided to look at Toby’s room. After all these years it is still exactly the same as it was the day that he died. His teddy bear, still lying on the pillow, patiently waiting for his master to return.

  I couldn’t face it, so the sorting was directed at the back room,

  the one with three names:

  Either, the study, the office or the spare room.

  The first thing that I looked at was my old typewriter.

  My Ted bought it for me from an auction for half a crown, but it was priceless to me. Half the time you couldn’t get capital
s and there were three letters that didn’t work, But, I taught myself to type on it, then I got my job at Burgess’s and life changed for ever.

  Bye-bye to domestic work and not a day too soon.

  No way on this earth was I getting rid of the typewriter.

  Then, the biscuit tin with all our love letters. First when we were courting, then when Ted was in the army. Even before I started looking at them, I knew, that was something else that I was keeping, come what may. Three hours and a few tears later I decided that I’d had enough for one day.

  After a good night’s sleep, I was ready to apply a bit more common sense to the sorting on Monday morning.

  However, when the postman came, things took a drastic turn.

  A registered letter informed me that Great Aunt Maud had died and left me some items that had been promised for many years.

  I had yearned for that grandfather clock since I was a toddler.

  And the china cabinet with all the Doulton figures, . . I had mentally pictured that in the middle room for as long as I could remember.

  There was me; trying to downsize, yet about to increase my assets at the same time.

  That called for some drastic thinking:

  ‘Now if, . . and I said if, . . . Jeff and Stacey were to get married and came to live with me, it would save them having to get a mortgage on their own house. And it would mean that there would be someone to take me on shopping trips and other outings’.

  Maybe? It was worth a try.

  I suggested the idea to them when they returned from Spain.

  That is what happened in the end.

  And the flat?

  The contract had already been signed and the first years rent paid so it was mine.

  It is now standing empty except . .

  Please don’t tell anybody, it has been so useful as a storage place for some of my unsorted junk.

  Just Acting.

  When I was a schoolgirl, I always wanted to be a famous actress. It was only when it happened that I realised the difficulties. Mainly, the lack of privacy, indeed, the inability to control my own life didn’t suit me. Actually, I don’t regard myself as famous. Well known would be a better expression.

  For my sins, I’m an actress in ‘Feet First’. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a popular soap opera on one of the lesser known tv. Channels. I knew before I accepted the job that I would be the character hated by everyone but that didn’t matter. I regarded it as a first step on the ladder. As it turned out, it was more like an escalator with no turning back. But that isn’t what I want to tell you about. Most actresses have many tales to relate, but my favourite memory surrounds one of my script lines from years ago. Of all the lines that I have ever learned there is just one that will never be forgotten.

  I was very young, naive, and you could say frightened.

  After playing extras and a few minor roles, my induction to Feet First was traumatic. You know the expression, ‘Thrown in at the deep end’ that was me.

  Feet First commonly referred to as FF. is set in a boot and shoe factory up on the north west coast. Me, I’m a southerner, cast adrift in what I had always believed to be the strange world of cloth caps and mufflers, strikes and woodbines.

  As you can imagine, I wasn’t at all welcome as the new boss at the factory. By the way, that meant both me, Rosie Black, the actress, and Patricia Stone, my soap character. My first day seemed to be a total disaster. Through no fault of my own I did not arrive till early afternoon so there was no time for introductions, I just had to go straight on stage, be the overbearing Patricia and get on with it.

  The recorded rehearsal went fairly well and afterwards the cast decided to go to the White Lion in town for a meal. Obviously, out of professional courtesy they asked me to join them.

  Just as we were about to leave, I had a phone call from my agent. It was relatively unimportant, he was merely checking that I had arrived safely, but it delayed me.

  The rest of the crowd rushed out and someone shouted,

  “See you downstairs at the bus stop, there should be one due anytime now.”

  Being a complete stranger to the area I knew that I would have to hurry and I was only a few moments behind them, but had to wait for the lift to come back up to my floor.

  In no time at all the lift arrived and myself and one other passenger boarded.

  We had descended about four floors when the lights went out and there was a dreadful whirring noise. The lift had stopped abruptly between two floors.

  My immediate thought was Oh no, not that old chestnut.

  To be trapped in a lift with a dishy young man.

  I’d read about it far too often in fiction, even seen it scripted in a play that I’d once auditioned for, but for it to actually happen, oh no.

  Nobody would believe it anyway.

  My second reaction was panic.

  Especially when my fellow passenger said,

  “May I squeeze past you into that corner? That is where the emergency phone is located.

  A deep voice at the other end of the phone line was reassuring.

  “The secondary motor will winch you up to the next floor, then as soon as you are safe, repairs to the main system will only take about four minutes. The computer has already located the fault.”

  Once I was out of the lift with my fellow passenger, who I learned was Jim, we located two arm chairs and waited in luxury. The conversation was mainly monosyllables at first but by the time the lift was fully operational again it was like we were old friends. Jim invited me to the local cheap and cheerful eating place as it would have been impossible to locate the pub where my colleagues had gone to in town.

  Naturally, the conversation soon turned to jobs. In answer to my question, “What do you do”? he firmly replied,

  “I empty dustbins in Salford, does that matter to you?”

  “Not at all.” I said.

  Although I had grown up in the snobbish south, after time at College, Uni, then RADA, all the ‘edge’ had been knocked out of me.

  How anybody earned their living was quite low on my list of priorities, so when Jim invited me out a second, then third time, I was delighted to accept. Of course, he didn’t need to ask about me and my career, in fact, he seemed to know rather more than I did about the activities of Patricia Stone, or as I was known behind my back, ~~ Pat Granite.

  I mentioned earlier that there was one script line in my career that I would remember for ever.

  Within the script of Feet First, there was the works foreman, a horrible character who was certain that he was made for me, always sucking up and making suggestive remarks. One day, he blindly ended an argument by saying,

  “Let’s get engaged then.”

  My scripted response was very flippant, but still it annoyed me.

  “Ok if that’s what you want, my ring size is K.”

  Maybe it was just coincidence but my ring size actually is K.

  It was just a line, at the time it was no more than a niggle and I thought no more about it.

  Back to my friendship with Jim, he always seemed to be hanging about the studios and asked me out whenever I wasn’t filming. So often in fact that one day I had to ask,

  “When the hell do you go to work, emptying your bins?”

  He told me that he had only worked part time following an accident and the idea had suited both him and management, so the arrangement had become permanent.

  It suited Jim as he had another part time job as well. When I enquired about his other part time job he just said,

  “I just help out at one of the television studios.”

  It was much later before I found out any more.

  The way that I found out was ironic. We got on so well that for quite a while, I could foresee a future for us both. Indeed, one day, he was in a particularly romantic mood and asked me to marry him.

  Without waiting for a reply, he slipped a diamond ring onto my finger, making the comment,

  “Yes
it fits. I know that your size is K.”

  Yes, I’d heard that line before.

  Of course, I accepted his proposal. It was then that I learned what exactly his part time job was. Helping out in a tv studio was a bit vague. He was actually one of the script writing team for Feet First and he had been influential in steering my scripts in a romantic direction.

  The crafty devil, but I loved him and once we were married I became even happier, while Pat Granite became more miserable.

  And the works foreman who had wanted to get engaged to me, I fired him for insubordination.

  All Show.

  I haven’t got the slightest interest in cars. Never did have. A to B in the fastest possible time and that is basically it with me.

  Oh and I should mention, a car must have good bird pulling power if you get what I mean. When I think of the lasses that I have been out with since I got my little runaround compared to the lost chances before, then fair enough, to that extent I have to admit that cars do have a certain appeal.

  Having said that, I recall the time, many years ago, when my friend John asked me to go to the motor show with him. I froze;

  It made precious little difference when he added,

  “It won’t cost you a penny, all on the firm.”

  He could tell that I was absolutely bursting with apathy. Especially as it was the Saturday that I had a date with the new maid up at the big house. She was an unknown treasure.

  Then again, John had always been a good mate to me and I owed him a few favours. If he wanted someone to go to the show with, that also had to be considered.

  By way of encouragement John chimed in,

  “There’ll be shed-loads of crumpet there. . . . Always is.”

  That comment made all the difference. I agreed to go with him.