Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Today nobody knows my name
They patronise with ‘dear’
I’ve been nameless for so long
My identity’s unclear
I’ve been child and daughter
I’ve been sister, I’ve been wife
I’ve been mum and mother
In the different hours of life
I’ve been grandmother and granny
Been a number on a bed
But now I’m just an elderly
All of whose friends are dead
I sit here in this window seat
With one thought in my brain
I’m sure I’d feel the benefit
If I anyone knew my name
I think no-one knows or cares
Who lives inside this skin
All full of bags and wrinkles
And uncomfortably thin
I sit and I remember
And the memories crowd my mind
Of all the things I used to be
Back when I had the time
Of how I burned so brightly
Until life snuffed out my flame
I think I might die happy
If just someone spoke my name

 ©️Jane Jago

“You can confirm your registered name is Charity Sweetling?”
Charis nodded, expecting to see the usual smile when she gave her full name, but this official just raised an eyebrow.
“I need you to answer me, please. You are in no way disabled so a full verbal answer is required.”
“Oh. Sure. Sorry. Yes. That is my registered name. But could I ask what this is about?”
The official glanced up, looking back to his screen, as if he had not heard her question.
“You were born on a non-Coalition planet and arrived in Central when you were assessed as being an estimated four years old, a certain Vor Franet declared you as a seeker of asylum on the grounds that were you to be returned to your home you would face certain abuse through enslavement.”
Charity nodded again, then realised and said quickly: “Yes.”
The official went on in the same uninflected voice as if he were reading a shopping list rather than dissecting her life.
“You were accepted into the Coalition Protected Children Program and placed with a family who ensured you received an appropriately supervised upbringing and education. On achieving full majority and adult status you undertook the required military service of the Program and completed it successfully.”
The official stopped again and looked across at her.
“I think it’s a bit unfair to describe my upbringing as just ‘appropriately supervised’. My parents gave me the very best they could. They gave me an awesome upbringing, a loving upbringing, a fun and caring upbringing – ”
“Var Sweetling,” the man cut across her, “are you wanting to challenge your upbringing as not being appropriately supervised? Or report the Coalition Program has been at fault in some way?”
Charis shook her head. Then, under the expectant glare of the man sitting opposite her, said: “No, I do not want to challenge anything about my upbringing.”
“And you will confirm the other details I stated are correct? Or do you need me to repeat them for you?”
Charity began to feel uneasy. This appointment, at almost zero notice, had been pushed on her out of the blue in a severely worded linkmail, which made it clear failure to comply would lead to any number of unpleasant consequences. It meant she needed to take half a day off work and fly back overnight from her scheduled stop-over to make it, forcing poor Ebon to jig some very creative adjustments to the roster. But since it came with the badge of the Central Immigration Taskforce, she was obliged to attend. Charis linked her mother as soon as the appointment arrived, but even she had no idea what it could be about.
“Probably just some un-dotted I or uncrossed T in their internal files,” her mother said. “But if it turns out there is a problem, just let me know and we’ll get it sorted out. Do you want me to come down there with you as your legal representative?”
Sometimes having a lawyer for a mother could be very reassuring. But Charis, not wanting to force her into the three-day planet hop it would have meant, told her not to bother and promised to let her know how it went.
“Var Sweetling? This is very important. Can you please confirm -”
“Uh – yes. Yes, you have the facts right.”
The official went on: “You have been employed as a pilot for the last eight years, working for the Rota Corporation in a role which complied with the reserved occupations list.”
“If by that you mean shunting big freighters around the galaxy, then yes.”
The official nodded as if pleased she grasped the idea of the interview at last.
“And you recently moved your occupation to work for – ” He paused as if in doubt about the words on the screen he read from. “The Wild Ride Superb Bus.”
There was an awkward silence.
“It is a tourist shuttle a good friend of mine, Ebon Wild, set up – it’s not really a job, more of a sabbatical. Just a chance to do something a bit different before I go back to cargo shunting.”
“I only require you to confirm the veracity of the details I have here, please, Var Sweetling.”
“Oh for -” she bit back the words and tried to calm down. “I mean, yes. Yes, I can confirm it. But what is all this about?”
“Your present occupation is not on the reserved list, Var Sweetling.”
Charity struggled to see that as an explanation and shook her head.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It is a temporary contract and when it expires I’m back to the big ships again. Rota even told me they would take me back right away no need to go through the application and trials again. Like I said before, it is more of a sabbatical to help a friend get their start-up off the ground. Literally.”
The official seemed to be listening and waited, wearing a polite expression of indifference until she finished.
“Your present occupation,” he repeated, in the same toneless voice as before, “is not on the reserved list.”
Charis felt the confusion returning. It made no sense.
“I really do not understand what this is about.”
“Let me put it in plain words, Var Sweetling -”
“Oh please do, plainer the better – this is just sounding bizarre.”
“The Security of Place and Persons Committee has decided the term of your asylum is now over. The original conditions of it being in place – you being an unescorted minor in need of safety – no longer apply and the sole mitigation you held through working in reserved employment, is no longer valid. As a result, Var Sweetling I need to inform you that you are no longer a citizen of Central nor – since you were born outside it – of the Coalition.”
“Let me get this right,” Charis said, incredulous. “You are telling me that because I took a break from the freight shunts to help a friend with their new business I am – ” It felt surreal and for a moment Charis had to close her eyes.
“No longer a citizen.” the official finished for her. “That is indeed so, Var Sweetling.”
She opened her eyes again and tried to deal with the situation in a calm and logical way.
“Look, if the Coalition needs me on the cargo runs so badly, I’ll go back to Rota tomorrow. They will be happy to have me back. They told me they would.”
The official’s face wore an expression which might even have held some trace of regret.
“I am sure you would and I am sure they would. But, I am sorry to say there is an issue with your doing so. Those posts are only open to those who are citizens of the Coalition. And, as you have now confirmed all the details which underlie the ruling of the committee, the status of your non-citizenship has already been confirmed.”
Charis felt her mouth dry up as her throat became suddenly constricted and sore.
“I want a lawyer,” she said, snapping out the words and without even waiting for permission she sent a link out to her mother. It failed to connect and dropped away.
“You are welcome to seek legal representation if you wish to re-apply for asylum, appeal the decision or seek citizenship, but only once you have been deported. As a non-citizen, you have no right to residency in any of the Central or other Coalition worlds, so whatever legal steps you feel you need to take will have to be conducted from outside them.”
The full horror of her situation impacted then and left Charis feeling weak, as though her muscles could not support her body. She felt herself slump back into the chair.
“I need to go home if you are going to deport me, I need my things. I -”
“That is not going to be possible. You will leave here for a detention facility where you will be informed as to what options may be open to you. I do suggest you co-operate as it makes the process less unpleasant for everyone, but most of all for yourself.”
“But – you don’t understand. I am a citizen of Central – raised here, educated here, my parents live here, all my friends are here, I don’t know any other life. I couldn’t survive a day on half the Middle World protectorates I’ve shunted cargo to, let alone on some below low-tech Periphery hell hole. I won’t know the culture, the way of life, the people. Why take me in and teach me, nurture me, make this my home – then throw me out? What was the point? It’s beyond pointless – it’s – it’s cruel.”
Her voice broke a little on the last word and she had to stop talking or risk allowing the tears of anger and frustration, which pricked in her eyes, from showing.
The official looked a little weary as if he found himself dealing with this situation one time too often.
“The Coalition always takes the cases of displaced minors, children who need asylum, very seriously and the Protected Children Program has been long established as a humane and fair way of treating unaccompanied or orphaned children who come to us in need. Those, such as yourself, who are accepted under Amendment D are required to repay the community through military service, which you did. After which you may be accorded rights of citizenship if you are working in reserved employment – as you were for many years. There is nothing unfair, pointless or cruel about it.”
Charis heard the door open behind her and, still in denial when her arm was taken in an iron grip, she felt as if the end of her life had begun.

From a Fortune’s Fools book, Trust A Few, which is the first part of Haruspex trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook.

I. Do. Not. Believe. This!

Arrived, today, a huge cardboard box from that online shop that sells everything  (we used to have door stop catalogues that did much the same but now it’s all instant and online).

Within said box, twenty-three yards of brown paper packing material scrunched up to carefully cushion the contents should the box be shaken up or dropped. 

And the contents? The precious cargo that needs such delicate care and protection?

No. Not the new pottery plant holder for the cheese plant in the tiny glass-roofed extension my late husband insisted on investing in and I laughingly refer to as ‘the conservatory’. Not even the set of glass tumblers I have reluctantly ordered, having had the last one go the way of all glass.

No. The contents was…

One pillow. Common or garden ‘use with bed’ variety, stuffed with foam and about as fragile as my dog’s rubber throwing toys. 

Come on people, get a grip!

You can now have a collection of Granny inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

Another wedding. Another spectacularly unbecoming dress. Another day of pitying looks for the spinster cousin. Another waste of precious days off work. Jennifer sighed and stared unseeing at her reflection. The hairdresser finished twisting a garland of artificial poppies in her hair and she smiled her thanks. He smiled back and leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“At least you have the colouring to take poppies. Makes the other two look like anaemic chickens.”
She rewarded him with a glimpse of her dimples and he sashayed off grinning.
Then it was time to don the dreadful dress. It hung on her slim body with all the pizzazz of a dishrag, and neither of the other unfortunates looked any better. The younger one managed a conspiratorial grimace before the bride’s mother lined them up and looked them over with a gimlet eye. She nodded, albeit somewhat grimly, and stumped off.

The bridesmaids followed the tiny, exquisitely clad, bride up the aisle to where a stolid looking young man (with prospects – and the beginnings of a paunch) awaited her.

Jennifer’s age conferred on her the dubious status of ‘chief bridesmaid’ and would also normally have meant she was expected to schmooze the best man. However, on this occasion it was made very clear to her that the elder, and sourer, of her two peers had first dibs there. Which was one small bonus in a day chock-full of horrors.

The reception. A marquee on the lawn of the bride’s mother’s house, catered by a company Jennifer privately dubbed Bodgitt and Screwham caterers.

She elected not to eat the prawn cocktail.

Fifteen minutes later she had reason to bless her own cynicism. That was when the first person started to vomit. Although that scarcely describes what happened. The bride’s father stood up, turned to face the wall and pebbledashed the tent.

After that it felt as if all hell had been let loose. Jennifer found herself working alongside a tall man with a neatly trimmed auburn beard and exquisite hands.

Three hours later and the last of the really ill people was hospitalised, while the rest were being given rehydration fluid and made comfortable in the house. Jenny sighed and sat down plump on the floor. Her co-worker sat at her side.
“I don’t know about you,” he said carefully, “but I’m bloody starved”.
Which is how the two of them sneaked off to a local steakhouse and shared an enormous steak and a mountain of chips.

Six months later.

Another wedding. No dresses though, and no bridesmaids. Nurse practitioner Jennifer Wells and her tall, auburn haired husband were in the Bahamas on their honeymoon before any of the female cousins even knew there was a wedding on the horizon.

Very late that night she raised a glass of champagne. “Here’s to Bodgitt and Screwham,” she said before her husband’s beautiful and clever hands robbed her of the power of thought.

©️ jane jago

Dear Reader Who Writes,

First, the formalities, rendered necessary since I understand there may be a small handful of benighted individuals who have yet to encounter my work. To you, new readers who write, allow me to bestow upon you the honour of making my acquaintance. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, much feted and acclaimed author of the soon-to-be classic science fantasy novel, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, which has been withdrawn from sale to allow other, lesser, authors a chance to gain some small measure of public acclaim.

As I was contemplating which thread I should next tease out from the weft and warp of the fine cloak woven by the daughters of Mnemosyne, to examine and explore with you, my beloved students, my gaze happened to alight upon a shelf in my writing room. This is one which is still home to some items that pre-date my conversion of the room from coal-hole to bijou literary cubby.

This item was a box which had once (and for all I know may still as I have no intention of investigating further) contained a pair of running shoes. Not mine, I of course hasten to reassure you, dear RWW. You would never see your respected pedagogue dressed up in skimpy shorts, panting and perspiring in the park. No, these were relics of an era when Mumsie still fondly craved the elusive illusion of youth before she allowed the sangria of summer to fade into an angostura bitters and advocaat autumn.

But if I close my eyes it is still impossible to banish the profoundly disturbing memory of her donning leggings and Walkman and heading off at a jog. I recall her return on most such occasions, red faced and smelling strongly. Usually gin, but sometimes whisky. And her triumphant proclamations: “All the way to the King’s Head today!’ On one occasion I asked her how she did it and her reply has haunted me down the years.

“Pace, Moons, pace. You have to know when to push it and when to give up, flop on the bar and have a drink.”

Which brings me neatly to today’s lesson.

How To Start Writing A Book – The Write Pace

Pace, dear RWW, is everything in your book. It is not about how fast you write or about how quickly your reader reads – no it is about the speed at which you unfold the glories of you world, the wonders of the people who inhabit it and the intricacy of the plot that binds them together.

As you can already see, this places pace at the very heart of your writing – you can imagine it as a pacemaker inserted within that heart to keep it beating strongly and steadily throughout your story. Strongly and steadily. Yes, that, my pupil in penmanship, is the secret. Too many authors fall into the trap of thinking that pace is something to vary. That to speed up and slow down is the epitome of good pacing. But, of course, they are flawed thinkers to so conclude.

Always remember, this is your literary endeavour, your creation, your magnum opus! It needs the powerful and stately beat of a steady drum to allow you to explore every detail in depth. BOOM! The slow unfolding of the scene where all is set. BOOM! The introduction of each character, allowing the reader the chance to know them through their intricate and individual back stories, written in rich detail. BOOM! The slow dawning of a story, but not too fast. Allow many things to happen first to show off the world and showcase your characters within it, so the reader is fully immersed in both world and characters before you profane their minds with anything of note. Let it sneak up on them unawares that there is indeed a plotline.

This is the secret of pacing, ingest it into your soul so it may spew forth in your writing.

Until next.

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.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

“Captain’s Log update. Further to the recent encounter with the last human colony in the Calamarti Sector, The Golden Strand is currently moving into uncharted space. We are following up on reports of the existence of a mythical and demonic alien race. The Kyruku.”
Captain Gervain’s elegant and poised outline could be seen silhouetted in profile against the receding planet as she finished recording her log.
“Do you believe the colonists, Captain?”
The youthful-looking science officer lacked expression in both her voice and her face. Despite the question, she displayed zero curiosity. It was as if the captain’s response, whatever it might be, was of no more than academic interest to her.
“I don’t know,” Gervain admitted after a moment of reflection. “Sub-Commander Stude seems to think the colonists have some genuine grounds to believe they do exist. He says the landing team he led met too many who had stories to tell about them for it to be a complete myth. But all I really heard from him was wild stories of the curse they are supposed to carry.”
“It is completely irrational to believe such accounts,” Science Officer Chay agreed, her tone clipped. “To accord any credence to the entire concept of a curse requires an irrational and superstitious mindset.”
The captain lifted one eyebrow and leaned closer to her colleague, lowering her voice so the rest of the crew wouldn’t hear. “Between you and me, I think you have Arlan Stude pinned, Xexe. You don’t get much more irrational and superstitious than he is.” She smiled knowingly at her science officer, who blinked and tilted her head.
“I am not sure I can agree with you, Captain. In my experience, Sub-Commander Stude makes highly rational decisions.”
The captain drew a sharp breath, but whatever she had been going to say next was silenced on her tongue. The lights on the flight deck suddenly flickered and a siren began blaring the “High Alert” warning. Both women turned and looked towards the huge viewing screen, just as a brick-shaped vessel shimmered into view against the backdrop of stars. It looked ugly, with the rusted colour of its hull and the alien technology appearing to human eyes like protruding pincers, needles and claw shapes.
“Will you look at that?”
The expression on Captain Gervain’s face was a well-crafted blend of wonder and horror. Beside her, the deadpan of the science officer was a brilliant counterpoint. High emotion set against pure mentation.
“I see it, Captain. It is there. The Kyruku. Do. Exist.”
Two such different female faces, one shot. Perfect.

Joah Meer glanced from the monitor view back to the studio where the two women stood in an empty room staring, rapt, at a blank wall. They really were very good. She had them hold their pose for a few seconds longer than was strictly needed, stopped the recording and smiled.
“Nice work. Take five and then we’ll be setting up to get the fight scene recorded.”
Heila, whose role as captain of The Golden Strand had lasted three seasons so far, stretched slowly as if she had been cramped, and glared at Joah.
“I’m not doing that hurling myself around on the floor thing again, so don’t ask.”
“Never, darling,” Joah said, soothingly. “You might get another bruise, and you have a full-exposure publicity shoot tomorrow.”
Beside her, no longer stone-faced, Zarshay snorted and broke into a grin. Heila scowled at her.
“So funny?”
“Full exposure? Oh my, the life of a leading lady.”
Which was enough to send Heila stalking out in high dudgeon. Zarshay was still grinning as she navigated through the two tech-droids and their human keeper, Wilf, to reach Joah’s console. Joah opened her arms and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet as they kissed.
“Seriously? You have booked Heila for a skin shoot?”
Joah shook her head.
“Of course not, it’s just a usual media thing, but she has been getting so precious recently, I’ve been tempted. It’s like she thinks we should change Starways Pathfinders to The Heila Camarthy Show.”
Zarshay made a rude noise and laughed.
But something of the tension was still there when they were adding the space-battle scenes.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0010.

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Maria scuttled off, returning a few minutes later to find the skylights open and the aquarium filled with calm, clear, fresh air. Tia Benita and Magnus Thorssen, who had returned to his thin severe self, stood in quiet conversation. Maria breathed in the vague scent of ozone and grinned at her aunt.
“Thanks, Tia Benita. You sorted that thing good.”
“Not without help, chile. Not without help. You done proper. I been proud of you.”
Maria felt the blush start at her neck. Magnus laughed, but it was a kindly sound.
“It has been an odd sort of an afternoon,” he spoke in his normal precise tones, with nothing about him seeming to connect to the giant berserker he had become when face to face with the dark creature.
Maria was a little saddened by the return of the dry, cold scientist, and more than a little surprised when he took her hand and raised it to his lips. Startled, she looked up into his eyes to see them as blue as the sea and warm with approval. When he let go of her hand, he sighed.
“I am just discovering ,” he said carefully, “that we are not always precisely what we seem. Not even myself.”
“Least of all yourself, Doctor Thorssen.”
“I think we have seen too much this day for Doctor Thorssen to be appropriate. My name is Magnus.”
Maria chewed that one over in her mind for a moment, then thought ‘what the hell’.
She dropped him half an ironic curtsey. “Pleased to meet you Magnus.”
Tia Benita laughed, richly amused by a joke neither Maria nor Magnus could see. She waved one large hand at her train of trainees who dispersed at a gallop, before shaking hands with Magnus and kissing Maria on both cheeks. She looked at the tall Swede in some disapproval.
“You need to get some meat on them there bones.”
Then she was gone, leaving nothing behind her but the smell of the sea.
Magnus smiled down at Maria and offered a hand. She put her own hand in his and they left the building together. Neither spoke until they were walking down the dusty little road that led to the beach. Magnus opened and shut his mouth a bit and it came to Maria that he was actually shy. That made her feel braver.
“I could use a big drink and a bowl of gumbo.”
“I also. But the places I have found to eat are not very…”
“You just come with me.”
She felt a little like a bustling tugboat with a tall ship in tow, but he followed obediently.
Benny’s Bar was hidden from the eyes of the day trippers and holidaymakers, and it had obviously passed Magnus by too. He looked a bit out of place among the compact little island men and their broad-beamed women, but he sat where Maria pointed and when she put a bowl of steaming gumbo and a can of Red Stripe in front of him he grinned like a schoolboy and set to.
Maria felt somehow comforted by his enthusiasm for the homely things she could offer. Just maybe he wasn’t such a stuffed shirt after all – even when he wasn’t waving a war axe and talking old Norse.
A lot of food and a good dollop of rum later they were walking along a deserted stretch of beach with a pink moon hanging in the navy blue sky above them.
“I think we must talk about today,” Magnus said abruptly. “About what I became in my anger.”
Maria understood that he was deeply disturbed by the thought that a Viking berserker hid inside his dryly intellectual exterior. She looked at the hard lines of his face in the moonlight.
“You ain’t the only one surprised yourself. I never made no muppet before. And I shouldn’t know how. I guess we both done what was needful.” He still looked doubtful and she sought to reassure him. “I rather liked your Viking.”
“You did. You were not disgusted?”
“No. Though I do wonder what you are doing here with me.”
Magnus didn’t answer and Maria thought she’d blown it, so she stared down at their two sets of feet in the white sand. His were long and bony and almost as pale as the sand while her own were square and brown and plumply fleshed. He followed the direction of her gaze.
“We do not match well. And yet we walk together in harmony.”
“Only because you shorten your stride to let me keep up.”
He touched her face and she found herself all but drowned in the icy blueness of his eyes. She flinched, suddenly afraid of the attraction she felt to one so far above her in status and wealth. He felt her involuntary movement, but put it down to another reason altogether.
“I know I am pale and soberly unexciting. Even with the berserker lurking under the skin. I know this and I think myself to be a poor mate for you. But I would try if you will have me.”
Maria didn’t know what to say, but she knew this was her only chance if she wanted this man in her life so she pulled on his hand and brought him to a halt.
“Oh man,” she whispered, “I ain’t never wanted nothing like I want you.”
And, as it turned out, that was enough. The laughing devils were back in his eyes and he tumbled her to the soft sand kissing her for the first time – while his hands…
A long time later he put a palm on either side of her face “ek elska þik (I love you)”, he said.
Not so far away a plump mambo woman showed her gold teeth in a happy grin.
“And done,” she said.
In the very centre of the aquarium a huge orange cephalopod smiled an octopus smile before settling in his seaweedy bed.

Jane Jago

Kerenza straightened the pillows behind great gran, thinking as she did so how frail was the old lady’s body but how alive were her twinkling blue eyes.
Once the bed was comfortable, Kerenza sat in the bedside chair and smiled.
The old lady patted her hand. ‘It’s nice to see your dimples again, child. Wouldn’t be because your father is off up to London on parliamentary business would it?’
Kerenza blushed. ‘Please Great Gran, don’t make me be thinking undutiful thoughts.’
‘I don’t think it’s my fault that your father is a humourless dullard. Or maybe it is.’
‘He’s not so bad. And mother knows how to manage him.’
‘She does at that.’
The quiet that fell in the room was companionable and, as always when she had leisure, Kerenza looked with great pleasure at the painting that shone like a jewel on the wall above the applewood fire that warmed the room and scented the air.
‘You love my picture, don’t you?’
‘I do Great Gran, and I have often wondered…’ Kerenza let her voice tail off aware that she may have overstepped the mark.
But Great Gran just laughed. ‘That’s a picture of the good ship Nightjar, she was a privateer engaged in ‘free trading’ along this very coast. Your great grandfather had the picture painted for me on our tenth wedding anniversary. Only that doesn’t explain why I love it so much does it? Would you like to hear the story?’
Kerenza nodded mutely and took the old lady’s wrinkled hand in hers.
‘I couldn’t have been much older than you when I first came to these parts. My grandmother was thought to be dying, and my father counted me the least essential part of his household so he sent me to Chegwidden to bear her company in her last days. And, of course, to ensure that nobody was poaching on his inheritance. Granny was frail, but kindly, and I think I knew the first happiness in my life behind the granite walls of her house.’
She stopped speaking and her jaw worked in such a way that Kerenza thought she might be about to cry. When Great Gran got herself together, she squeezed Kerenza’s fingers and smiled a misty smile.
‘I hadn’t been here but a week when I came to know the two men around whom my life was to revolve. I was walking the dogs when I all but fell into the hands of Ludovic StMartin, who was the captain of the Nightjar.’ She smiled reminiscently and her eyes danced as if at some deliciously naughty memory. ‘He was a handsome devil, and didn’t he know it. Thought to steal a kiss, and maybe bring me to heel with his charm. I smacked his face and kicked his shins for him. He didn’t know whether to laugh or spank me. While he was making his mind up I ran away. Which piqued his interest enough so that he invited himself to dinner the next night – brought Granny some lace from Valenciennes, a pipe of brandy, and a bolt of midnight blue velvet. I ignored him. And then the chase was on. All summer he hunted me like a deerhound after a hart. But I didn’t want to know.’
Kerenza was fascinated enough to still her normally busy tongue. Instead of her usual babble of chatter she sat mouse-still and listened.
‘In the meantime I met your great grandfather. He was a little older than me and was quietly mourning the death of his young wife in childbirth. We became fast friends and his was the ear into which I poured my innermost thoughts. He became my dearest friend I all the world. As for Ludovic I think I might just have carried in disliking him had he not had the misfortune to catch a bullet in his right shoulder. The dogs and I found him faint from loss of blood and in very real danger of being caught by the revenue. To this day I don’t know why I decided to save him. But I did. Somehow I got him across the saddle of my mare and brought him to the relative safety of Granny’s house, where I nursed him back to health. And fell in love with him. I think he loved me too – or at least he said he did. Granny knew he was in my room but we never spoke of it until the night he was well enough to leave. ‘Be careful, child,’ she said, ‘the world is unlikely to give you a happy ending if you choose to follow Ludovic’. I remember thinking that he and I would make our own happy ending but I was wrong.’
A slow tear ran down the old lady’s papery cheek and Kerenza began to feel guilty for wanting to know the story of the beloved picture.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she whispered.
‘I think I do. And there’s little more really to tell. The Nightjar slipped up the river to meet a rowing boat bringing her captain back to his quarterdeck. As she rode the tide out to sea, a revenue cutter caught up with her in the roads and blew her out of the water. I have heard it said that the explosion was heard from as far away as Plymouth. I thought my life was over too. Although fate had other ideas.
‘It was a sunset as bright as the one in the picture when your great grandfather came to find me where I sat on the cliff top. He proposed to me a marriage of friendship and I accepted. By the time my own father arrived, brought down from London by the rumour his daughter was consorting with a smuggler, our betrothal was a matter of fact – and the daughter Papa was going to discipline with a horsewhip was about to marry the richest man in Cornwall.’
Great Gran settled back amongst her pillows and it seemed to Kerenza that she was a long way from her bedchamber and a lot of years away from the ninety-three years she owned to now. But just when Great Gran appeared to be drifting into sleep she squeezed Karenza’s hand.
‘I often think,’ she said quietly, ‘that I can see Ludovic on the deck of his ship and I fancy that one day he will call my name and I’ll go with him to wherever he may be.’
Kerenza gently patted the thin hand that rested in hers and she was rewarded by the genteel sound of snoring as the old lady drifted off to sleep.
It was to be Great Gran’s last sleep. In the morning they found her peacefully departed with her hands tenderly clasped together and a soft smile on her lips.
It wasn’t until she had finished helping her mother to gently prepare Great Gran for her final resting place that Kerenza looked over to the picture. It still showed a sunset but the Nightjar was gone…

© jane jago