When the old man shuffled off this mortal coil his only surviving daughter was volunteered (by her tribe of heedless and unruly brothers) to inform the mother whose existence Pa had refused to acknowledge since a particularly acrimonious divorce some thirty years before. Prudence sighed, then picked up the mantle of duty.
Mother had taken the generous financial settlement that made Pa a free agent – a status he took full advantage of – and returned to her own people across the Atlantic in Scotland. And there she had remained—at first in her family’s draughty castle, but latterly in a home for bewildered elderlies of aristocratic descent. At least, Prudence thought, she regularly spoke to Mother, so a call shouldn’t endanger the old lady’s parlous mental state
She shooed her brothers out of the room.
“If I’m doing this I’m doing it without boos and catcalls.”
“What does it matter, she’s deaf anyway.”
“Precisely. Which means I’m going to have enough trouble making her understand without you lot helping.”
They went, laughingly playing pushy shovey in the doorway. But at last they were gone and the door was shut behind them.
Prudence dialled, and, after the usual small fuss of arrangement, spoke to the upright old lady whose gradual descent into dementia was more of a sorrow than the death of her blustering ex-husband.
“It’s not your usual day to call.”
“No. But I have some distressing news.”
“You have what?”
“Bad news.”
“Bad knees? That’s from crawling around after your bastard of a father.”
“No Mother. Not knees. News.”
The silence was dragging a bit before the old lady spoke again. Her voice sounding thinner and more strained.
“News? Bad news?”
“Yes. I have to tell you that Father died last night.”
“Your father lied? But he always lies…”
“Not lied. Died.”
“Took a bride? Isn’t he a bit old for that kind of foolishness?”
“Not a bride neither. He died.”
“What did he cry about.”
“He didn’t cry. He stopped breathing and died.”
“Whyever did he stop breathing? He’ll die if he keeps on doing that.”
“He did die.”
“Why did he do that? What made him think he had fish to fry?”
“Mother. Please try to listen. Last night Father died.”
A sharp intake of breath made Prudence think she had got through. But…
“What did he pry into? Your business or the boys?”
“Mother. Can you not understand me? Father is dead.”
“Your father has changed his name to Fred?”
“No. He has died. He is deceased. If you weren’t a divorcee you’d be a widow.”
This time the silence was heavier and more doom laden. While Prudence fought for balance she heard the sound of soft feet on the institutional linoleum and the gentle voice of one of the nurses.
“Your daughter is telling you that her father is dead.”
“Oh dear. But he was a monster. Pru can you hear me? I’m sorry I misunderstood and thank you for telling me. Although I can’t bring myself to much care.”
“No. I don’t expect you to care.”
“What about you? Do you care?”
“Not much. I don’t think anyone cares much.”
Mother’s chuckle sounded like dry leaves rustling in the wind. “I don’t think he understood caring. I can’t say I have any sympathy.” She sobered. “Do make sure he’s cremated, dear. We wouldn’t want him coming back to haunt us.”
Prudence pushed down the desire to scream, or giggle at the inconsequentiality of her mother’s reaction.
“I’ll make sure of that,” she said evenly.
“Good.”
After a little more small talk Prudence judged it time to ring off as Mother was sounding increasingly tired and frail.
As they signed off, Mother gave vent to her dry leaf chuckle once more.
“I just had the most diverting thought.”
“What’s that?”
“I outlived the old bastard. How he will have hated that. I think I can die happy now, knowing how badly he wanted me to pass first.”

Jane Jago

I keep hearing about some woman, called Merry Condom or some such, who appears to have written a rule book for decluttering the home. And people are paying for her wisdom.
What the actual?
One: lots of people like clutter. It makes them feel comfortable.
Two: if you don’t like clutter chances are you don’t have any
Either way this sort of collection of ‘inspirational quotes’ about clutter is the kind of patronising claptrap that has me reaching for a ciggy and a pint of something normally served in shot glasses.
Let’s get this straight. If you like the things you have, keep them. If you don’t like the things you have, get rid.
You don’t need to pay a thin woman with a self-satisfied smirk to tell you that. A fat old woman with a face like a scrotum can do it for free.

In A Cold Frame, a new release from Jane Jago, Grace finds herself caught up in murder, mystery and mid-life romance in the beautiful Cornish coastal countryside…

It takes a certain sort of courage to change your life at fifty-five. But Grace had never lacked chutzpah, so she took redundancy as a sign from on high. Within a month of the factory closing she had rented out her house, bought a campervan, and acquired an oversized shaggy mutt called Jeremy.
Bright and early on one of those April mornings where the sky is pale blue and the world looks washed clean, she engaged first gear and set out to find adventure.
The first couple of weeks of campervan life was interesting, as Grace learned the ropes and Jeremy learned acceptable behaviour. However, by the time May poked its nose over the horizon they felt like a proper team. As the weather was unseasonably warm, they settled into a shady pitch on a tidy little campsite in north Cornwall and sat back to watch the surfers, and walk the coastal path.
On day two of their stay, they acquired neighbours, who had a big orange muscle truck and a silver bullet of a caravan. Geoff and Mona were large, loud and friendly and they had a French Bulldog who adored Jeremy, even if she did bully him.
Most of the rest of the campsite was filled with youngsters, in tents and beat-up vee dubs, whose only interests appeared to be surfing and getting laid.
Grace wasn’t surprised that most of these youngsters chose to ignore her, though she was always pleased to chat to any polite enough to pass the time of day with a middle-aged woman and her ugly dog. This wary politeness changed to something warmer the day a group of lads discovered that Jeremy could play football.
It happened like this. The waves weren’t cooperating and a dozen boys were playing what Grace mentally described as mini Australian Rules when one of them kicked the ball too enthusiastically and it bulleted towards a newly-arrived, very shiny, very white caravan. None of the lads were close enough to stop the inevitable, but Jeremy was
“Catch boy.”
The ball was just passing over his head when the big dog jumped, catching it in his powerful jaws.
He brought the ball to Grace and dropped it at her feet.
“Who’s a clever boy,” she said, as she rubbed his rough head.
By this time the surfers had jogged over and were standing in a rough line about six feet from Grace.
“You can come and get your ball,” she said. “He doesn’t bite.”
The boys crowded forwards. They seemed to have elected the skinniest of them as spokesperson. Because he hitched up his colourful shorts and gave Grace a sort of a half salute.
“That was some catch. I reckon Buffon here saved our bacon.” He indicated the red-faced and bristling caravanner with a rueful thumb. “Thanks buddy.”
Jeremy looked to Grace for permission, and when she nodded he went over the the group of lads and indicated that they might make much of him. When he knocked two over in his enthusiasm, Grace whistled sharply.
“Gently Jeremy.”
He wagged his tail frantically, but moderated his behaviour enough to stop knocking people over. When even he had had enough attention he ambled back to the camper for a long drink of water.
“That’s some dog missis, what is he?”
“Nobody knows. I adopted him from a shelter because he and me seemed to suit.”
The boys thought that one over for a minute.
“Is he really called Jeremy? That’s kinda cool.”
“He was called it when I got him. The kennel-maid thought he looked like her uncle Jeremy.”
Grace threw them their ball.
“You lot have a game to play, but I don’t recommend playing near here.”
“No. We can’t expect Jeremy here to save us twice. We’ll get him a bone to say thanks next time we go into town.”
“He’d rather join in your game of football. He’s a mean goalie.”
“Yay. Keen. Coming boy?”
Jeremy looked to Grace for permission, and when she agreed he went gladly to the games field at the bottom of the valley.
Predictably enough, mister shiny caravan bustled over – only he didn’t come to thank Grace for saving his pride and joy from a football. Instead he chose to stand over her as she sat in her comfortable chair and loudly berate her for ‘encouraging rowdyism’. She put up with him and his bristling moustache for a couple of minutes before standing up so he was no longer looming over her.
“Go away,” she said quietly. “You are on my pitch, uninvited, and you are being rude. I have no desire to listen to you.”

A Cold Frame by Jane Jago is out today so you can snag your copy right now to keep reading!

Matilda Whitethroat was brought to bed with the landowner’s child on a brisk autumn morning. Lord Edric summoned the parish priest to Matilda’s bedchamber and legitimised the babe as soon as the women had washed off the sweat of childbirth.

Then he rode off to the wars. 

Matilda moved herself and her infant back to her father’s house. And watched.

When Edric rode home he brought a wealthy young wife with him. 

Within an hour, Matilda had left the town.

Twenty years later, Eudric was bested in the tourney by a handsome young man.

“Ill-met father.” Tors Edricssen snarled.

©jj 2019

I received a copy of this book almost a decade ago the first and only birthday present I got from my father after he left us for a better place (Bermuda as it happens). He had scribbled in the front of it: “I wanted to send you Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ but they didn’t have a copy at the airport – this is almost as good. Life lessons, son, life lessons…” and then a scrawled initial.

For a time I used the voluminous volume to support my bedside lamp which was at an awkward height otherwise, its brilliance was shining directly into my eyes when I lay back on my pillows. The trusty tome did sterling service until I replaced the lamp. Then I read it, curious as to what precisely those life lessons might be.

My Review of A Game of Thrones by George Raymond Richard Martin

A loving family adopts a litter of wolf pups then is torn apart and mostly murdered. Self-seeking wins out over altruism. Lots of nasty things happen to nice people.

Highly recommended for being such a good bedside lampstand for so many years, hence four stars. 

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.

No one really understood why Rowena was so fond of the rose garden, but every day she would walk from her sheltered-home apartment across the busy main road to the park and sit there for a time. Even in winter when the gardeners had pruned the bushes to bare stumps with thorns.

People walking by were sometimes surprised to hear her talking to herself and even laughing.

One morning the gardeners arrived early and saw a young couple sitting on the bench chatting, laughing – then fading away.

Somehow they were not surprised to learn Rowena had died in the night.

E.M. Swift-Hook

They called her Nanny Bee, although as far as anyone knew she had never been a wife or a mother, let alone a grandmother. But she was popularly believed to be a witch – so Nanny it was. She lived in a pink-walled thatched cottage that crouched between the village green and the vicarage. The Reverend Alphonso Scoggins (a person of peculiarly mixed heritage and a fondness for large dinners) joked that between him and Nanny they could see the villagers from birth to burial.
Nanny’s garden was the most verdant and productive little patch you could ever imagine, and she could be found pottering in its walled prettiness from dawn to dusk almost every day. People came to visit and were given advice, or medicine, or other potions in tiny bottles or scraps of paper – but they always had the sneaking suspicion they were getting in the way of the gardening.
But there again, digging is second nature to gnomes.

The vicar’s cousin Luigi turned up on a visit.
Where the vicar was a portly, blunt-nosed khaki-skinned utilitarian sort of a critter his cousin was svelte and smooth with eyes of burning gold.
The village sucked in a collective breath and the sensible female populace gossiped behind its work-roughened hands.
The silly ones fell like ninepins.
Matters came to a head when the daughter of the blacksmith and the niece of the lady of the manner indulged in a bout of face slapping and hair pulling outside church on a Sunday morning.
Luigi found it all highly amusing.
Nanny didn’t share his amusement. She wandered over and stood with her hands on her hips.
Luigi curled his lip. “Was there something, gnome?”
“There was. Knock it off. Or else.”
“Or else what?” He belched a small blue flame.
Nanny took a handful of something out of a pocket and blew.
It’s stupid to underestimate an earth witch, and it’s even stupider to flame a handful of potato flour. The explosion ignited the dragon’s eyebrows, and was the cause of much rustic humour.
Luigi hasn’t been to visit again.

©janejago

I must go down to the beach again, to the crowded beach and the sun
And all I ask is a wide-brimmed hat and a towel to lie upon
And an ice cream van playing nursery rhymes and sand in the sunshine baking
And a deckchair for Auntie Clair and the sound of the donkeys braying.

I must go down to the beach again for a walk on the promenade
Is a wide prom and a clear prom which is seen in every postcard
And all I ask is a sunny day with no grey clouds a-trying
To spoil the queues of endless folks, cold drinks all a-buying.

I must go down to the beach again to the chippy by the pier
To taste the salt – and the vinegar – just like yesteryear.
And all I ask is a seafront pub called ‘The Wild Rover’
To welcome us in with beer and gin when the sunbathing day is over.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. He and his holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. This is an excerpt from the notebooks of Anastasia Throbb, ace reporter, and presenter of the prime-time magazine show The Throbbing City.

Sam Nero didn’t want to meet with me. It took six months of poking and prodding, and outright bribery before I found a man who was both willing and able to lean on this most archetypal of private investigators and make him talk to me. In the end, a friend of a friend introduced me to a man who goes by the name of O’Halleran, who promised me an hour of Sam’s time. Rather to my surprise, it even seemed as if he was going to deliver.

He sent two huge mutes to my office and they escorted me to a back-street diner where a sullen-faced waitress stuck me in a booth and stopped chewing gum for long enough to mouth “sit”. I sat and waited, concealing my growing impatience as best as possible. I was just about to make as dignified an exit as I could when a shadow fell across the table.
“Miss Throbb, I presume.” The voice was lazily amused.
I turned and got my first look at Sam Nero in the flesh. He was about six three, maybe six four, wide at the shoulder and narrow at the hip, and his face looked as if it had been designed to meet the expectations of every pre-pubescent female in the city. It was hard, and sculpted, and sported what I could only assume was a permanent five o’clock shadow. I turned my attention to his companion, a lush-bodied bottle blonde who looked at me as if she could discern my innermost secrets. I think I hated her on sight.

They slipped into the booth opposite me, and something about the pair of them set the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. For a moment I was floundering, then I realised what had spooked me. There were two of them, but only one shadow. While my flesh was still crawling, the waitress appeared with a pot of coffee and two tall mugs. She put a mug in front of Nero and one in front of me before favouring me with a sneer and sloping off.
“Doesn’t your lady friend get coffee?”
The voice that responded was feminine and breathy and sounded to me as if it had been honed over a lot of years of practice.
“I never touch the stuff. Ruins the complexion.”
Then Nero laughed. It was a deep sound that sent little shivers running around all sorts of inappropriate parts of my anatomy.
“Be nice.”
“I was being nice, Sam. You should know that.”
She laid a red-nailed and possessive paw on his forearm and he smiled.
“Sure you were being nice, Sugar. I’d just like to keep it that way.”
“Sugar?” I think my voice went up an octave, I mean what sort of a prehistoric monster calls his woman sugar?
“It’s my name. Sugar Kane. That’s Miss Kane to you.”
Mentally cursing my luck I turned my most winsome smile on Mister Nero.
“Sam,” I said. “May I call you Sam?”
He raised a lazy eyebrow and looked me up and down for a moment before laughing that damnably sexy laugh again.
“I guess so. It’s what Ma Nero named her little boy.”
“Is it really? I mean I can find no record of a family called Nero, let alone a male child called. Samuel?”
“Nah. Just Sam. And where I was born nobody keeps records.”
“And Miss Kane. Where and when was your sidekick born?”
“That ain’t the sort of question a gentleman asks a lady. Not if he wants to keep wearing his face. You can ask if you are that stupid.”
I looked into his companion’s icy eyes and quickly framed another question.
“The first record I can find of a Sam Nero is about four decades ago when a licence to operate as a private detective was granted. Would that be you?”
“Maybe.”
“The age of the applicant is stated as being forty-two.”
“Sounds a responsible sort of age to me. What say you Sugar?”
They exchanged a look of such naked trust that for a second even I felt de trop. But I pressed on.
“But that can’t be you, Mister Nero. If it was you would be in your eighties by now. And you don’t look like an eighty-year-old man to me.”
“Neither he does.” The blonde seemed to be laughing at me, and I didn’t like the sensation one little bit.
I made my voice hard and assertive.

“In my book, Mister Nero, that makes you an impostor. I’m sure the authorities would love to look at my findings and throw you into jail for a good long time.” I leaned forward and slapped the palms of my hands on the table hard enough to sting.
Nero laughed.
“Think again, sweetheart. The authorities as you so sweetly call them know precisely who I am. Next question.”
He took a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up.
I coughed.
“I do not care for tobacco smoke,” I said icily.
Nero sneered at me.
“Door’s over there. Make sure it doesn’t hit your ass on the way out.”
I was incensed, but some vestige of intelligence stopped me leaving. This was my only chance to persuade an icon of old-school cops and robbers violence onto my show so I swallowed my bile and tried for a forgiving smile. The obnoxious Sugar shrugged her shoulders and her rather overblown assets jiggled.
“I think the lady has decided to forgive you.”
He grinned lazily, and twitched a mobile eyebrow, sending my hormone count soaring yet again. This man was hot, hot and dangerous. I needed him to boost my flagging ratings, and maybe for the odd other job or two.

I set myself to charm him, sipping my coffee and running my tongue along my lower lip. He watched with what I can only describe as detached amusement, and I felt my anger begin to rise up once more.

“What’s with you Nero?” I snapped. “You come here sneering, and looking down your nose at me…”
He leaned back and crossed his long long legs.
“Wasn’t me asked for this meet. Suck it up.”
I drew in a breath and tried for calm.
“Fair point Mister Nero. I asked to meet you.”
The blonde bombshell laughed huskily.
“I think the lady is after your body, Sam.”
“Why’d that be Sugar?”
“As if you didn’t know, big boy.”
“And as if you didn’t know old Sam’s heart is yours alone.”

It seemed to me as if they had completely forgotten my existence and I rapped my nails against the crazed china of my mug.
“I’m still here,” I grated.
“Why so you are.” Nero looked me up and down a bit more, and the silent insult in his stare had the blood rushing to my face and I blushed for possibly the first time in two decades.
“Why are you being like this? You have been chauvinistic, unpleasant and downright rude. Why? What have I ever done to you?”
He got up from his seat and looked down at me with a most peculiar expression on his face.
“It’s not always about you. I am what I am. How I was made…”
Then he was gone, and the woman went with him. Two entities with one shadow…

You can read the Sam Nero Stories by Jane Jago in Sam Nero PI, which is available to download FREE today and tomorrow. You can also find Sam Nero in The Last City – a science fiction anthology from Dust Publishing.

Let’s get this out in the open, shall we? Some fashionista aged twelve or thereabouts throwing her six stone three around on the topic of what mature women are allowed to wear.
She can just rack off.
I’m n years old (where n tends to infinity) and I’m going to wear what I bloody well like. If I want to wear a fur coat and no knickers, I shall. If I want to go to the supermarket in a tiny bikini, I shall. If I want to wear a bright purple tracksuit and orange Converse high tops, I shall. If I want to wear double denim spray on, I shall. If I want to wear something beige with an elasticated waist (unlikely), I shall.
It’s nobody’s business but mine.
Don’t patronise me with suitability, or the idea that certain garments will make me look younger. They won’t.
And anyway I’m old and glad to be
So. Up yours. I’m off to buy the most unsuitable garment I can find.