Two Women and Some Books
With proud banner daffodils in the wind a-blowing
March marches in
It’s after the winter as the world starts a-growing
When March marches in
First of the spring flowers start brightly a-budding
‘Cos March marches in
Hard rain and spring showers send rivers a-flooding
As March marches in
Bluster days and sunshine, as the nights become shorter
when March marches in
Then comes the equinox at the year’s quarter
For March marches on…
Pridie Nonas Maia MDCCLXXVIII Anno Diocletiani
Julia Llewellyn was at that stage of her pregnancy where she couldn’t imagine why she ever thought having a baby was a good idea. She was used to having a lithe, boyish body, that ran and jumped with ease and delight, but currently she was close to the shape of an egg and prone to sudden bouts of indigestion and cramp in her limbs. The thought of nearly three more weeks of this with the intense summer heat, was almost too much to bear. So it was with some relief that she sat in the shade in the secluded walled garden where Cookie grew her herbs and found she felt neither sick nor uncomfortable. It couldn’t last, but for as long as it did she was content to raise her face to the sun and daydream a little.
The world, she thought wryly, was rapidly turning upside down. Not only had she and her beloved husband Dai managed to get through the best part of a month without her wanting to throw something at his handsome head, but his sister, Cariad, who she had always thought of as little better than a wharfside strumpet had come home after a break to recover from a very traumatic experience and seemed to have turned over a new leaf. She appeared to be really trying to appreciate having a good kind husband and two beautiful children. Julia still nursed doubts about the durability of this sea change, but hoped for everyone’s sake it was going to last.
For her own part, Cariad’s children, Felix and Cassia were a big reason she held on to any hope that being pregnant was worth the undoubted discomfort. The duo was one of the delights of her life.
Currently, Felix was out in the hills with his father and his uncle Dai, mounted on one of the sturdy local ponies Dai’s brother Hywel bred as a hobby. Ostensibly Felix was having riding lessons. It would have been rather more honest to say that he was having a whale of a time away from the constraints of being the only son of a very important man.
Julia idly wondered what Cariad and Cassia were up to, and it seemed to her that her fancy had conjured them to her side, because she heard Cariad calling her name urgently then Cassia’s voice sounding uneasy.
“Mam, I think Aunt Julia is asleep. Do you?”
“I don’t know, carissima. But if she is we really must wake her up.” Cariad’s musical voice was not entirely steady. Concerned now, Julia opened her eyes and sat up.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
She had a sudden private dread that the beauty of the family must have got herself into more man trouble, and braced herself to refuse if she was to be asked to cover up an indiscretion. To her surprise, Cariad’s face was pale with anxiety and her Llewellyn blue eyes were swimming in tears.
It was Cassia who spoke. “We were feeding the ducks on the pond past the fruit trees. Mam got a message on her wrist phone from a man who is playing a game. He said he has stolen Pater and Felix and Uncle Dai. I don’t think that’s a nice game to play. Mam said we should tell you so we came straight here.”
It took a second or two for the meaning of the words to sink in and when they did her own heart tumbled in freefall with fear for Dai. Then something shifted deep in her psyche. It was cold and hard, cutting off the emotion, like a stone door slamming shut. Sleepiness banished, Julia went from somnolence to action in a single breath. She heaved herself to her feet and grasped Cariad’s cold hand.
“Come on,” she said gently, “pull yourself together and let’s see what is to be done.”
Cariad made what had to be a superhuman effort, then forced a smile. “Yes. Silly of me. It’s bound to be a mistake.”
Cassia looked at her with tolerant patience. “I was playing with Mam’s wrist phone when the message came in. I saved it for you.”
She handed over the expensive brand phone and Julia pulled up the menu on it’s curved screen and pressed the play button. The face that looked back at her was mostly covered by the dark fabric of a ski-mask except for a pair of dark eyes.
“We got your man and your son and your brother. You do as you are told and they comes to no harm. Mess us about and we’ll send you your son in pieces. Starting with his fingers.”
And that was it.
Julia felt her throat constrict as a ball of panic and rage bubbled up in her stomach. With sheer force of will she thrust it away again and pulled herself into a place where clarity of thought was possible. She used her own phone and tried Dai’s number. There was no reply and after a few desultory call tones it went to voicemail. Reaching out, she struck a small silver bell on the table beside her and a few moment later a porter stuck his face around the gate which led into the walled garden.
“Please fetch Edbert for me.”
The man nodded and disappeared. Julia gave her attention back to Cariad who hovered like a lost ghost clutching Cassia’s hand tightly.
“I think you should take Cassia indoors to see what Cookie has been baking today.” That made the little girl smile widely and begin to tug on her mother’s hand. Julia held up the wrist phone. “Can I borrow this for a bit?”
Cariad nodded, and even managed a taut smile of gratitude as Cassia towed her towards the house, chattering excitedly about cakes.
Julia input another number on her own wrist phone and Bryn Cartivel’s homely features filled the screen.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Bryn. I need you here as quick as you can and you’d better bring Gallus. There’s something bad going on with the Magistratus and Dai. I’ll tell you when you get here.”
To his credit, and Julia’s relief, Bryn didn’t argue or ask for more details.
“Okay. We’re not too far away as it goes. Should be with you in ten minutes.”
As she was making the call, Edbert appeared on silent feet. Julia found she couldn’t begin to say what needed saying. Instead, she replayed the message on Cariad’s wristphone, holding it up so Edbert could see and hear. As the vile words finished, his whole body stiffened like a hunting dog scenting prey and he showed his teeth in a fierce grimace.
“Well,” he said, “we’re not having that are we?”
Hearing the message again made Julia nauseous, but she managed to dredge up a thread of voice. “No. We are not.”
You can keep reading Dying to be Fathers by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago
Saddle up your ears Yummies and Daddies. Granny has wisdom to impart.
And before you pull your mouth into the shape of a cat’s arsehole you might just take a moment to think about which of us has grandsons who come and take her to the pub most Saturday nights.
So then, given that somewhere in the back of that cesspool of middle-class inspirational quotes that you laughingly call a brain you want to raise reasonable human beings who actually like you, shut up and listen.
Number one. The name. Do. Not. Saddle. The. Poor. Little. Git. With. A. Stupid. Name. Nobody deserves to be called Avocado, Pinot Grigio, Venice, Perpendicular, or any other meaningless collection of syllables you think may be ‘different’. Kids don’t want to be different. It’s bad enough that you bring them to school on a tandem without labelling them as wankers as well. Give the poor little sod a sensible name and stop being precious.
Number two. Social media. Stop posting pictures of your kids. It’s unkind. It’s boring. And those pictures will follow them throughout their lives. What may be cute when you are three is just fucking embarrassing when you’re forty.
Number three. The birthday party. Do not make strange brown poo-textured food. Do not think it would be cute to lead an expedition into the woods to find the Bear (a poorly disguised Daddy). And do not put rice cakes and miso in the party bags. Take them to MaccyD’s (other fast food outlets are available) and buy party bags from your local cheapo shop.
And if your little treasure is invited to a party Do Not, send him or her with a list of the things they are not allowed to eat. Accept that they will chow down on something foully synthetic. It isn’t every day so get over it.
Number four. Friends. You cannot choose your children’s mates for them. They don’t want to be friends with four vegetarians and a refugee. The want to be best mates with the big bully so he don’t bully them, and they really, really like the kid with nits who swears like a stormtrooper. Get used to it.
And finally. If their little friend comes to tea (or supper if you are a poncey bitch), do sausages and chips with tomato ketchup. No. Not quinoa and tofu salad with brown pitta (aka warm cardboard). Sausages (can be veggie at a pinch), and chips. Bury your prejudices for the sake of your kid not getting the crap kicked out of them tomorrow at school…
There you have it. Attempt not to embarrass your brats any more than you can help. After all you’ll be old and incontinent one day and you really don’t want your ass wiped with a pan scourer.
He stares at me from round eyes that are the colour of amontillado sherry, or maybe the kind of amber that hides bugs in its heart. His pupils are coal black, and yet they hold a sparkle of light in their depths, a spark of understanding and a humour that defies differences.
When we are alone I talk to him as one equal to another, but when we are working it has to be different.
“Seek,” I say, and he is off, nose to the ground. Always in front but never going too fast for me to follow. This hunt is quick, and the crowd of rednecks and wowzers barely has time to get excited when he stops and sits bolt upright. He points to a tumbledown shack in a back garden.
I stand back and the sheriff’s men race to the door. It’s not locked or anything and they pull it back to reveal the lost kid asleep on a pile of sacks. It seems sticky, but unharmed, so we leave the folks to deal and head back to where our truck waits. Sherif Dean is leaning on the hood, but he straightens us when he sees us.
He holds out a big brown hand and we shake.
“Good job, you two.”
Jacob grins and hops into the passenger seat. He’s done his job and now he just wants to go home.
Dean doesn’t seem in a hurry to leave. He looks at me and his ears go a bit pink. I have never seen a bulky forty-year-old man so obviously embarrassed, but it isn’t funny. More kinda awkward. In the end he breaks the silence by clearing his throat.
“Martha, could you use some bear meat?”
I smile. Me and Jacob love bear meat. “Sure could.”
He slopes over to his cruiser and hefts a big esky box out of the back seat, he lifts it into the back of my old truck.
“There you go. You can let me have the cold box back sometime.”
I feel an odd compulsion to give something back.
“You like bear stew sheriff?”
“Sure do. And I’d admire for you to call me Cam.”
“You off duty tonight, Cam?”
“I can be.”
“Whyn’t you come along to the cabin round about suppertime?”
He smiles and tips his hat. “I’ll look forward to that.”
Jacob sits up in his seat and gives me a canine grin. I climb up into the driver’s seat and crank up the engine. Once we are rolling I look at my constant companion.
“Why’d I go and do that!”
Needless to say there is no answer, so I grumble and swear a bit more.
“Why didn’t I just take his bear meat and have done with it?”
Jacob’s tongue lolls out in his equivalent of laughter and I snort.
“It ain’t funny. Okay maybe it is. But why’d I go and do it. I don’t want a man in my life.”
Jacob grins some more and I snarl at him, then concentrate on my driving. After a stop at the store, we get home pretty quick. Jacob jumps out of the truck to find a patch of late morning sun and get in some serious sleeping. Me? I get on with the bear meat stew, with roots and herbs and a big bottle of bootleg beer. Then I pull the bread starter out of the larder and get kneading. By the time it’s afternoon I’m finished with cooking and I go looking for Jacob. When I find him I sit on the dusty grass beside him. He rolls over and I absentmindedly scratch his chest.
“What now Jakey?”
He sits bolt upright and looks at me with his head on one side.
“No Jacob, I ain’t doing that. I ain’t.”
He looks at me some more. That look where he don’t blink at all. I stick it for a while then get up and head for the creek. Jacob tags along in guard dog mode. I throw off my clothes and dive into the cool brown water.
Sundown and I’m sitting on the front porch with my hair down, and clean tight jeans on, and a blouse that leaves my shoulders bare. I hear a truck growling up the track. It parks up next to my beat-up Holden and Sherif Dean climbs out.
He has flowers in his hands, and when I look into his square dependable face, I figure Jacob was right again.
Sometimes you trip over a book by chance and thus it was for me with this one.
Mumsie had been redecorating her retiring room and stacked her broken-spined monstrosities of literature in the hall. Since she was not entirely sober, these leaning towers had shed volumes across the parquet and I missed my footing on one that had fallen open.
Nursing a twisted ankle and a bruised derriere I retrieved the offending tome with every intention of feeding it to the flames in retribution. But the cover caught my eye, and instead, I rescued it from being re-interred within the maternal parent’s bookshelf and started reading.
A family with names that seemed to me highly inappropriate for science fiction (Paul, Jessica, Duncan and Wellington – the last reminding me of a certain furry, litter-picking character), move to a desert planet which is full of worms.
This family seem to be very unpopular and almost all of them get killed off by another family, who have much more genre appropriate names (Glossu, Vladimir and Feyd-Rautha).
Paul survives and goes on to become the hero of the book. He gets to wear a wetsuit which works in reverse, take drugs and ride one of the worms. Oh, there are also some very strange women who go around torturing children and speaking in enigmatic phrases such as ‘fear is the little death’ and other meaningless nonsense.
The best thing about this book is its length. It is fat enough to be perfect for wedging the door of my writing sanctuary closed.
2 stars for such excellent utility!
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
“I’m sure you weren’t expecting me.”
The stranger stood in the shadows just outside my door, his face partly hid by the hood of his cloak. His hand gripped around a traveller’s staff, the sort that could be used both for walking and a sturdy defence. I’d have taken him for some vagrant were it not for the large ruby ring that I could see on that hand.
“I can’t say as how I was expecting anyone,” I told him, wondering if I’d be wiser just to shut the door in his face. When you live alone and your nearest neighbour is the other side of the fell, welcoming a stranger into your home after dark is not so wise.
“Can I come in? I just need shelter for the night.”
Now, you can call me a superstitious old woman but I know as well as the next that most all the magical beings you can name from brownies to vampires need to be invited into your home before they can touch you.
“If you need a place to sleep there is the barn.” I nodded to that old ramshackle building my grandfather raised. It’s outlived its name and its purpose long since, but the roof keeps the wind and rain out – mostly.
“Thank you,” he said and dipped his head in a sort of bow, like I was a noble lady or something.
I still don’t know why I did it, but later that evening I took a bowl of my stew and a lump of seed bread out to the barn. I saw a sort of red glow coming through the cracks in the walls and very nearly dropped the tray in fright. Instead, I crept close and peeked through one of them cracks and as I’m standing here today, I swear I saw a red dragon three times the size of any man curled with its nose on its tail and staring right back at me with ruby eyes.
I don’t mind admitting I ran back to the house and bolted the door. Not that would have kept out a dragon, but what else was I to do?
I went back in the morning at first light. The barn was empty. First I thought I’d imagined it all, but where that dragon had been curled I found this very gold piece…
Namaste you wonderful, desirable and aspiring individual! This bijou blog is here to help you achieve your best ever ‘you’. Here, I offer my help and assistance in reshaping your shape and doctoring your decor internally and externally, to bring your lifestyle into line with your aspirations.
One of the very first things we all notice about an individual we meet will be their gestures. Do they forever make air quotes? Are they bracing their forehead with the back of their hand in times of stress?
We are what we do and gestures such as these both express our inner essence and shape it through repetition. What is within is always reflected without and what is without will be internalised in turn. So it goes without saying that the very best way to shape your inner essence can be through defining yourself externally by your gestures.
Firstly you need to choose what will be your hallmark ‘defining’ gesture. The one that all those who know you or come into contact with you in life will take away with them as being the essential expression of who you are. So you need to choose wisely and think carefully on both what this gesture is seeking to portray about you and reinforce within you.
Some suggestions:
Pointing with the little finger
Tucking your other fingers behind your thumb, use only the smallest digit on your hand to point and indicate with, thus demonstrating both your humility and your confidence. By using it you are saying to the world that you have no need to use the aggressive index finger to point with, you can do just as well with a little finger and that small is beautiful too.
Spread finger handshake
Instead of presenting a sleek, attack line hand to be shaken, thumb up like the dorsal fin of a shark, offer your hand with the fingers wide apart to show you are not a greedy or grasping individual, but an open and easygoing person, with nothing to hide.
Scratching the third eye
When you are in need of inspiration, instead of scratching your head at random, always aim for the spot above the nose and between the eyes. This shows you are a profound and mystically inclined individual who all should respect. Rubbing it when perplexed is a variant on this theme.
You can come up with your own unique and inspiring gestures to ensure you leave an indelible impression on all those you encounter.
Namaste!
Lucida the Loquacious Lifestyle Coach
Today our amble took us to the tops
Where yellow gorse like honey spikes the air
Below, the grumbling tractors tend their crops
Up here the land is quiet, wide and bare
And no one walks this pitted granite street
Except we two beneath a hazy sky
It almost seems that ours are the first feet
And, looking outwards, ours are the first eyes
The turf, now coarse and springy, bears no sound
Until a calling kestrel silence splinters
A sudden breeze comes spinning round and round
An echo of the killing wind of winter
The boot would have caught him in the head. Dai rolled away as it swung in and he took it on the shoulder instead. But the rest of the pack were about to catch up and after the last experience of that, he knew he had two choices, surrender at once or hold on, count the moments and pray. The decision was taken from him as the whistle blew across the field. Which was just as well because he could not have taken much more punishment.
A hand reached down, attached to a brawny arm.
“Well done, you’re not bad at this are you?”
The mud smothered ball was clutched close into his body and Dai, still winded and bruised from the last assault, took the hand, grateful for anything that might help him back on his feet. A moment later he was reeling back on the ground, shoulder probably half-dislocated as his erstwhile helper was holding the ball aloft and making an earsplitting hooting noise.
Dai lay still, closed his eyes and let the world revolve around him for a few moments. The jubilant cheers and back-thumping slowly faded. It was not the first humiliation he had endured since he had started his career in the Vigiles and he was willing to bet it would not be the last. But at least it would be the last he had to endure on this training course.
This ‘team building’ event was meant to be a treat for the final day. A reward for all the hard brainwork they had been required to put in to qualify for the rank of Investigator. Random draw assigned the teams and they had spent the morning training. Dai had contemplated feigning gut cramps to escape the afternoon match and now he wished he had.
He became aware it was starting to rain. Britannia in the early spring tended to wet and the ground they had been playing on was already part mudslide. The drops were heavy and he decided he was not hurting quite so much any more and probably ought to get up.
“Spado!” He recognised the voice of his team captain and opened his eyes, pushing himself to his feet one knee at a time. A far cry from the players you saw on the sports channels. They would take all kinds of a kicking and just roll to their feet and jog off.
“You must be the most stupid cunnus I ever played in a team with. Giving the ball away to the other side – and that after the whistle.”
“The game was over and I thought -”
“You thought you’d fall for the oldest trick in the book? The rules are merda, Llewellyn – just like what you keep inside your skull. This is harpastum. The Game. They had the ball when the ref got his first view of it after the whistle.”
The anger and disgust on the other man’s face was so intense Dai found himself sinking into a defensive stance. He had no idea how to play harpastum, the messy brawls for glory had never appealed to him, he’d avoided it like the plague during his school years opting for other sports, running and swimming being the ones he favoured most, but he knew how to fight when he had to, that had always been on the sports syllabus in his life. The other man seemed not to notice, he had already turned away and was jogging back towards the building.
Wiping at a splotch of mud which was sliding over his eye, Dai realised he was only spreading more mud as his hand was coated too. In fact, there was not much of him that was not. He squelched back across the pitch, the rain picking up as he did so, and by the time he stepped into the changing rooms, the mud was cascading in rivulets on the floor behind him. He pushed open the door and the conversation dropped as the entire nineteen man team glowered at him.
Dai shook his head and walked past them, heading for the welcome warmth of the shower room. He might have lost the game, but of the five points they had made, two had been his and owed more to his running skill than anything else. The other three had been scored by their team captain, but then that was a man who had been in the under 20s finals at Augusta Treverorum six years ago as he had proudly boasted when putting himself forward for the role. They also seemed to have overlooked the fact that Dai had been the one clutching the ball and defending it with his body when the whistle went. Which, he had been told, was the way to ensure victory in this game. No one had bothered mentioning anything about after the whistle.
They were all gone when he emerged from the shower room, much to Dai’s relief. He had already seen the first purple marks revealed as the mud was washed away and he had a feeling that the following day he was going to be stiff and sore. Fortunately, the following day he would be heading home to attend his half-brother’s wedding and have a week in the fond bosom of his family before starting work as a junior Vigiles investigator for the submagistratus in his hometown of Viriconium.
He was towelling his hair dry and was wondering if he could afford a massage in the baths next door, when the door was flung open by one of the women who had been leading the training course.
“Llew –” She choked off halfway through his name, her mouth open and her eyes wide. Then a light flush of colour brushed her cheeks.
Dai dropped the towel from his shoulders to wrap it around his waist. Well what did she expect bursting into the men’s changing rooms? Romans who did not respect the privacy of non-citizens could expect to get an eyeful of six-pack and extras.
“Apologies, domina,” he said, reaching for his tunic.
“Eh – yes. Well, you were not answering your wristphone so I had to come and find you in person.”
“We were told to keep them turned off or silent.”
“Yes. So you were. So here I am.” She gave a little smile.
Under the cover of his tunic, he undid the towel and finished dressing, aware of her eyes on him and more than a little resentful of the fact she felt free to stare all she wanted. He realised then that he would be glad to be home, away from the coldly Roman Londinium and back in a place where the majority of people he met treated him like a human being.
“What was it you wanted, domina?” he asked, trying to keep the bite from his tone.
“The Prefect wishes to see you immediately.”
The Prefect? He was the man in charge of operations for the Vigiles. A fair few steps down from the Caesar of Gallia maybe, but about as close to that as Dai had ever got. He opened his mouth to ask why and she made a dismissive gesture “That means now, Llewellyn – and after, how would you like to be my guest at this evening’s graduation dinner? We can skip the boring speeches and head back to my place.” She smiled again as she finished speaking and Dai decided she was not at all bad looking for a Roman and very well preserved for her age, which had to be at least ten years over his own twenty-four years. For a moment he was tempted, very tempted. “It’s a sub-aquila apartment,” she said, no doubt hoping to sway him with the promise of the Citizen only levels of luxury which that implied. Instead, it had the opposite effect and Dai found himself shaking his head and tasting a bitter flavour in his mouth.
“You honour me too much, domina,” he said, coldly. It was very obvious she was not used to being refused because her anger was instant.
“The Prefect’s office – now, Llewellyn.”
Then she went, slamming the door behind her.
You can keep reading Dying to be Friends by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook
Somebody who should have known better once said that a day would come when everyone was famous for twenty minutes. And now it’s here how much do we hate it?
That, my dears, seems entirely dependent on your age.
Mostly people over fifty (with a few frightening exceptions) find it all a bit distasteful and struggle to see what the cult of fame has to offer the world – except inanities and conspicuous consumption.
So why do people engage?
Because they want to be famous, did I hear you say?
And why is that pray?
The desire for fame seems to me to be both vapid and grasping, and to speak loudly of a life with fuck all in it.
And you need not look at me like that neither…
I’m not famous: ‘Granny’ might be, but she’s not precisely me. And I ain’t precisely her. So.
But back to the rant you so rudely interrupted.
When I was a younger person you had to do something pretty big to get famous:
Now?
Tell you what. I. Give. Up.
What would happen if we just ignored the ‘influencers’ and their overblown egos?
Maybe corporate eejits would stop paying them inordinate sums of money to promote products on their websites/blogs/vlogs/whatever. Maybe teenage girls would stop drawing their eyebrows with magic markers and trying to be both thin and fat at the same time.
Maybe we’d go back to famous people being ones who did something positive with their lives.
Maybe.
And maybe not.
Maybe our collective psyche is so fucked up that we need useless celebrity to enable us to get through life.
And that is such a frightening thought that me and Gyp are off to the pub. You lot can do whatever it is you have done to deserve a woman famous for her backside. I need a pint and a game of darts to cleanse my palate.
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