A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare

Mysterious tales are, for some reason, usually set in the depths of winter. This one is different.

"What’s that star?" asked Lamienne.

"That’s not a star!" sneered Reece.

The Volvo estate negotiated a tight bend in the winding country road as it climbed the rugged hill, taking the bright point of light out of view of the two children in the back seat, for the moment. Several seconds passed before another bend revealed it again.

"Look," said Lamienne, "that’s a star!"

"It’s not a star," insisted Reece.

"What is it then?"

"It’s a planet," explained Reece triumphantly. "Girls know nothing."

Lamienne digested this information, or, rather, tried to. "Daddy?" she said at length, "what’s a planet?"

Donald looked through the window into the depthless bowl of the midsummer night. "That star’s called Venus." Lamienne’s father considered carefully before continuing. "A planet is a special kind of star."

"See," said Lamienne, "it is a star."

"It’s not a star, it’s a planet," insisted Reece.

Mary, in the passenger seat, turned to her husband at the wheel of the Volvo and said, quietly, "Nice try, Donald."

Their two children, Reece and Lamienne, continued to argue in the back. Reece was nearly two years older than his sister and this undoubtedly gave him an unfair advantage. However, Lamienne had enough determination to hold her ground, nevertheless. Donald decided to try again. "Not all stars are planets, but all planets are like stars."

There was silence from the back seat while each of the youngsters tried to determine who had won.

"So you’re both right," added Mary.

Before the children could dispute this, Donald continued, "That planet is called Venus, which is sometimes called the Evening Star."

"Because you only see it in the evening," said Mary.

"Except for when you see it in the morning," whispered Donald, for Mary’s benefit only.

Venus hung like a brilliant jewel in the blue-black sky of late evening. It was approaching the final week of June in what had been a glorious summer. The embers of the day still gave colour to the mantle of darkness overhead, though midnight was approaching. It looked like it might never go completely dark that night, as the Remington family’s car climbed the West Pennine moors towards their farmhouse home.

They had spent the day with family friends, the Caufields. The Caufields had just returned from a holiday in the Caribbean, to their home in Cannock, Staffordshire, while the Remington family were themselves returning from a vacation in Cornwall, all steep-cliffed harbours, fishing boats and all. Donald and Mary had known Susan and Geoff since before either couple had married, though the Caufields had had no children – at least not so far. In a way, in the meantime, it was as if the Caufields had almost adopted their friends’ children as their own. Reece and Lamienne enjoyed the trips to the Caufield household despite the long drive south. This particular visit – as was customary, and the first for some months – had been a relaxed and happy affair.

In fact, the four adults and two children had especially enjoyed themselves together, perhaps more than usual. So it was that a tired but cheerful family were approaching home and a welcome bed, feeling content and peaceful, after day full of pleasant memories.

How much that was about to change.

The family tumbled into the farmhouse, which seemed awoken by their sudden presence. Lights came on, decimating the shadows. Mary went into the kitchen, closely dogged by the children. The chance to move around again after the confines of the car had galvanised them, and Mary knew from long experience that the best way to get them to settle was to feed them. She took out a packet of Cheerios from a cupboard and filled two bowls, adding fresh milk that she had, planning strategically ahead, bought at the last convenience store they had passed. Then she went back to the hallway. Donald had taken all the cases out of the hatchback of the car and placed them on the paved flags before the front step. She picked two of the lighter bags – an overnight bag and her small valise – and took them upstairs. Along the banistered landing, past the bathroom and into the adults’ bedroom. She snapped on the light, and then stopped.

She looked round the room, as if expecting to see something out of place. But everything was just as it had been left a week earlier. Yet something was amiss. What was it? She took a step into the room, shrugging off the feeling, but stopped once more. What was it? The room seemed exactly as it should be, yet the feeling would not leave her.

She walked over to the bed, placing the bags upon it. Should she unpack now? It was late, but the journey had made her restless, and she knew it would be little while before she would be able to get her head down. And then there was… She listened carefully. Downstairs, sounding miles away, she could hear the children in the kitchen. At least they were not arguing. Through the open front door, she could also hear Donald, still attending to the car. She opened a bag, and debated with herself whether to put anything away in drawers or just tip everything into the laundry basket.

Something checked her again. This time, she noticed that there was a faint odour in the air, that reminded her of the sea. She sniffed the contents of the bag. "I bet there’ll be sand in everything," she said to herself, and took both bags over to the lidded laundry basket. She picked out a few items not for washing – bath bag, hair brush, shoes – and tipped the rest into the basket. She did not see whether there was anything else in the basket. As she turned, she suddenly realised what had held her before. The room was frigidly cold.

Automatically, she touched the radiator, although she knew it would not be on. "Donald, could you turn on the central heating?" She called. "Righto," she heard him answer, from far away. She picked up the two empty bags and went to place them in the top of a set of fitted cupboards. In order to open the cupboard, she had to close the bedroom door first. Reaching up, she pulled upwards on the handle. Normally it opened with a swish of the sliding support struts. It didn’t give. She pulled harder. Nothing happened. She gave the handle a firm twist and tug, and, at last, the cupboard door swung upwards, reluctantly.

She wondered what the matter had been with the door. She’d mention it to Donald in the morning. She gathered up the two bags, reached up, and slid them in to the cupboard. She felt very cold. She turned her back to the cupboards and wondered if there was something warm she could slip into while the heating came on.

The shock of one of the bags falling on her head was more sudden than painful. She tried to turn to catch the wretched thing as it tumbled onto her shoulders. The second bag caught her full in the face, making her cry out. The first bag, slipped though her hands to the floor. Another bag, not one she had just put away, then struck her on top of the head. This was heavy and hard, as if fully laden, and a corner seemed to catch her viciously. She stumbled under its weight.

It was then as if bag after bag was raining down on her. She heard the clink of glass, like bottles, and felt pain as something else hit her from above, and knocked her to the ground. She found herself shouting Donald’s name over and over, until one more impact was so severe she let out a scream.

"What is it?"

Donald was standing over her. She was slouched against the wall cupboards. "I’m sorry I took so long, but I couldn’t get the bedroom door open – I thought you’d locked it at first."

"I don’t know – all these – " she gestured around her. The valise and the overnight bag were all that lay on the floor by her side.

"Something… fell on me. From up there." She indicated the high cupboard that she still yawned open. Donald, somewhat taller than his wife, looked inside. "There’s nothing in there," he said.

He helped her to her feet. For a moment, she looked confused, trying to recollect what had just happened. The two empty bags still lay on the floor. There was little weight in either of them.

"I must be getting clumsy," she said. "Maybe I’m more tired than I realised."

Donald was still holding her arm. "Come downstairs and I’ll fix you something to drink. You’re trembling. Are you cold?" She didn’t answer as he led her out of the room on to the landing. Neither of them noticed the laundry basket.

It was on its side, the clothes spilled out over the floor, with a blackened pool of water spreading out slowly across the floorboards and soaking into the carpet.



"What happened, dear?" Donald asked as he led Mary down the stairs. He was beginning to appreciate that there was more that just tiredness from the journey, or a clumsy slip in the bedroom, when she didn’t answer him. "I tell you what," he joked, trying to raise her spirits and get a response from her, "we’d better get that washing machine going – those bags were smelling really high!."

Mary suddenly looked up into his face, but, for a moment, didn’t speak.

"I could really do with a hot drink," she said.

"Could you eat something too? It’s been a long journey."

"Very long."

Donald realised he was supporting most of her weight on his arm.

When they got to the kitchen, the children were still seated at the table, finishing the Cheerios. "You’d better not have had extra helpings," said Donald, as he helped Mary into a chair. He went over to the gas cooker, lit the grill. He looked inside the fridge for something he could cook quickly, such as bacon or sausages. There would probably be hamburgers in the freezer. He stuck his head in, and thought he heard a faint chiming noise. He looked round to see what it was, but couldn’t see anything. He was about to ask Mary had she heard anything, but, he could judge from her vaguely distracted air, she had not, and didn't speak, except to ask, "What do you fancy?" She didn’t answer. He closed the fridge, and walked over to her, putting his hands on each arm of the chair.

"Would you like a good, old-fashioned bacon sandwich? Mustard and ketchup, all the trimmings?"

She wasn’t looking at him. "Why did you open the kitchen window? It’s so cold in here."

"I didn’t." He looked round. The kitchen window wide open, latched on its fastener. Outside, the blue-black mid-summer night was turned to complete darkness by the contrast of the house lights. Donald looked at the children, but chose not to say anything. They had probably been looking for stars again.

He picked up the electric kettle and crossed to the sink below the window, and filled it. He returned to the power cable, plugged it in, switched it on, confirmed by the glow of a small red light on the top of the handle. He crossed back to window. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw movement outside. Could be a fox, he thought, though they seldom came this far up the hillside away from the cover of the trees. He reached over the sink to the window latch.

There was a rush of air and a deep, baffled flapping sound, that made him jump back. A large, black bird, like a crow or raven, had settled on the window ledge. The creatures feathers seemed dark, even against the night background, its feathers shone with an iridescent oily sheen, blocking his way to the window latch. It’s beak was a pale yellow, as long as and thicker than his thumb, curving down like a scimitar to vicious-looking point. The one eye turned towards him, looking him up and down, as if giving a silent message of warning.

Donald laughed at himself for being so startled. He recovered the involuntary step back he had made, and shooed the bird away from the window. It shuffled from side to side but did not fly away. Donald looked round at Mary, and gave an embarrassed smile. "It’s quite beautiful," he said. "Don’t you think?"

"Get rid of it," said Mary.

He waved his arms at the bird, It did not react, but continued to stare at him.

"Beautiful plumage. That black sheen. You can almost see rainbows in it. Like oil on water."

At the word, "Water," the bird gave a cry and hopped, in an ungainly fashion, on to the draining board, narrowly missing sliding on the on the grip-less stainless steel into the sink. It’s wing stuck out awkwardly, like it was broken. The bird cried out again, as if in pain, and attempted to negotiated its way across the draining board to the adjoining work surface.

"Don’t let it in here!," said Mary.

Donald tried first of all to block the bird’s progress, then to gather it up in its arms. But it seemed in pain and avoided his grasp. It let out another cry.

"I – I can’t get hold of it, " said David.

"Get rid of it!"

"Daddy, make it go away, said Lamienne. The two children bracketed Mary.

Donald turned to face them, and as he was distracted, the bird leapt into the air landed awkwardly on the table, scattering cutlery and knocking over the milk jug, the liquid, blue-white, dripping on the stone floor. The creature sprawled in a disarray of black, like a dishevelled shroud, in the centre of the table, and struggled to stand upright. It took a sudden lurch towards the mother and her two children.

Lamienne screamed.

Donald rushed around the table to put himself between the children and the bird. He had his arms outstretched as if to guard them.

Behind him, the bird suddenly took off from the table and flew smoothly out of the window into the night.

For a moment, nobody spoke. Them Mary said, "It must have been shamming."

"I’ve never known a crow – or any member of the crow family – do something like that, Donald said. "I thought it was just skylarks or something, to lead you away from their nests."

"Shut the window."

"Let’s go to bed. We can clean this up in the morning."

"No," insisted Mary, "do it now. Children, go up to bed."

Donald gathered the pieces of broken crockery and Mary tidied away the other remnants of supper. On the table he found a black feather. He picked it up and looked at it, unsure what to do with it, and failing to notice the speck of blood where it had lain on the table cloth. Just as he was trying to decide what to do with it, he heard both the children, upstairs, scream.

Mary and Donald were out of the kitchen in a s hot. Sprinting up the stairs, Donald able to move faster but Mary blocking his way. Across the landing. To the children’s’ room that they shared. They burst in.

The two children had clearly barely entered the room themselves. The room was brightly lit, almost dazzling against the midsummer night beyond the window. Buzzing dully, drifting lazily as if stupefied by the heat of the just-gone day, crawling over every surface and hanging in slowly swirling clouds, were flies. Huge great bluebottles. Everywhere.

Donald slowly crossed the room. The very air was full of the low, erratic buzzing of the black, docile blobs. It was as if they had all gathered for something that the humans’ arrival had interrupted.

He got to the window and opened it. He tried sweeping the flies towards it with his arms, to no effect. He retrieved a towel, and attempted to waft the fizzing clouds. But the flies had no idea what he was trying to do, they settled on the walls and basked as if in the warmth of evening sunshine.

"Well, there’s no way your sleeping in here tonight," said Donald in his good news tone of voice. "You can come and sleep with us."

"Oh, can we?" said Reece.

"What about the flies?" said Lamienne, cross.

"We’ll get rid of them in the morning," said Mary. "Now, come along. I think it’s time for bed. For all of us."

Donald put out the light and closed the children’s bedroom door.



Donald led the way to their room while Mary, her hands around the shoulders, shepherded them up the landing. Donald open the bedroom door and switched on the light.

"Poo!" said Reece, "what’s that smell?"

It might have been more correctly described as several, pungent, unpleasant smells mixed together. There was a recognisable smell they had met on their holiday in Cornwall, before their trip had taken them to their friends in the Midlands. It was the kind of tide-gone-out, rotting seaweed, with dead fish and a hint of sewage smell, which had been their least endearing memory of an otherwise enchanting holiday. The dead fish smell was amplified by a more gruesome, distressing stench of putrefaction, as if something larger had somehow crawled into the room and died. Incongruously, with all that, was something that had a kind of solvent base to it, artificial, oily, but equally stomach-turning – especially if one were prone to travel-sickness.

"It’s like Daddy when he spilt petrol at the petrol station," said Lamienne.

Donald walked slowly into the room. "No, it’s not petrol, it’s more like – " but at this point his voice trailed off, as he could not think quite what it was like. He noticed something else. As he moved across the room, the mixture of stink seemed to move through its own kind of spectrum of vileness, first this odour was predominant, then that. His first reaction was to look towards the bedroom window, in case the stench was drifting in from outside. But all the windows were firmly closed.

Mary had squeezed gently past the children, and was moving slowly around the bed. "Donald," she said, "You said, something like petrol?"

"Yes,"

"Well, I can smell something more like burning."

He rushed over to her, putting his hands on her arms, and sniffed. "Are you sure? Is something burning?"

Mary concentrated, then clamped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, Donald," she cried through her fingers, "it’s like burning hair!"

Donald moved round the room. As vile as the smell was, it was elusive, stronger here, almost absent there, and ever-changing. Mary moved also. Suddenly, she let out a stifled scream, staring at her feet.

"What is it?" Donald was at her side in a second. He looked down. There was the upended laundry basket, the ghastly stain on the carpet. He pressed down tentatively with a toe. Moisture oozed out.

Donald felt a slow anger build within him. It fed on an inconsequential train of thoughts. They had just been on a lovely holiday. They had just spent a wonderfully happy day with their best friends. Now they had returned to their home, his wife and children and himself, a place they had once longed for, planned for, finally achieving – Mary and Donald had even joked about it as their dream house – where they had raised their children and always been so content together. Now, they had returned to the place, and it was as if they were under some kind of attack, something which wanted to undermine them, threaten them, destroy their piece of mind forever, such that, wherever they might go afterwards, they would seek for it, in vain.

Donald snatched up the laundry basket and its foul contents, and stormed over to the window. Wrestling with the catch with fumbling fingers, he finally threw open the window and hurled the offensive bundle into the night. He stopped, and sniffed.

Cool fresh air from the midsummer night gently flooded into the room. It dispersed the foetid atmosphere of the enclosed space, like a subtle fragrant scent. Stepping closer to the window, Donald looked out to the northern horizon. The day just gone, June 21st, the day just about to come, June 22nd, with the shortest night in between, had seemed overrun with disturbing – distressing – events like a multiple pile-up on a motorway. On a clear night such as this, in midsummer, it never went completely dark. The sky due north was the deepest indigo, but it was not the impenetrable blackness of a winter’s evening. The sun lay tantalisingly close below the northern horizon – 900 miles further north it would not have set at all. In just a couple of hours the sky to the north-east would begin to brighten, heralding the onset of the new day, the dawn at last on its way. Donald longed for the daylight, where nothing more could clothe itself in shadow.

The air in the room improved steadily with the little eddies and drafts from the outside. Mary told the children to take off their shoes and outer clothes and get into their parents’ bed, while she and Donald did the same, lying down beneath the quilt with the children between them. Mary put out the bedside light, sinking the room into blackness. Darkness in the countryside is a shock to people used to town night-time. There is not street-lamp, no headlight, no reflected glare from another window – just no light at all. At first, they could see nothing, but as their eyes accommodated, the slight iridescence from outside silhouetted the window. But that was all. Soon, however, dawn would start to steal its way across the hills behind the farmhouse, like an ill-behaved youngster hoping to sneak back home late from a first date without being detected.

It was cool but not unpleasant with the window open, and they gained warmth from each other. The discomfort of clothing in bed receded, and they began to doze.

"Lamienne?" The whispered voice was close to her ear.

"Yes, Daddy?"

"Speak very quietly. Is your brother asleep?"

"No, Daddy." His hoarse reply suggested he was just about to drop off.

"Listen to Mummy and Daddy."

"Yes, Mummy."

"Mummy and Daddy are going to get up now."

"Where are you going?"

"Lamienne, you know that Daddy loves you very much, don’t you?"

"And, Reece, you know Mummy loves you very much also?"

"Yes."

"And you love us don’t you?"

"Yes, Mummy," said Reece.

"And we’re always going to be very happy together."

"But where are you going?"

"We’ve got to get up and go, and you’re to come with us."

"OK, Mummy."

"Where are we going?" asked Lamienne.

"We’ve just got to go down stairs. Alright? But we can’t put on the light. OK?"

"OK. But how are we going to know where we are going if we can’t see?"

"Sh! Quietly! Just hold hands, then hold on to Mummy-and-Daddy’s hands. OK?"

"OK"

"Lamienne, give me your hand."

"I can’t find it."

"Here it is."

"And, Reece, you give Mummy your hand."

"Yes, Mummy."

"Are you holding each other’s hands?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Now, we want you to push back the quilt, and stand up. And you must be as quiet as little mice. OK?"

"Yes, Mummy."

"Then stand up, and we’ll lead you to the door."

"How can you see the way to the door?"

There was a pause. "Just hold Daddy’s hand tightly. I can see clearly."

"But how can you see?" insisted Reece.

"Just hold Mummy-and-Daddy’s hands very tightly."

"Daddy, you’re –" Lamienne began.

"Quiet!"

"Daddy, you’re hurting my hand."

"Mummy! Mine too!" Reece’s voice rose to more than a whisper. "Mummy!"

"What is it? What’s the matter?, said Mary, snapping on the bedside light. She was heaving herself upright in the bed, looking drowsy. Donald, next to her on his side, opened an eye.

The two children were beneath the quilt. They, and it, were on the floor, leaning against the wall, a few inches from the open doorway, – far from the two adults who lay, uncovered, in the bed, on the other side of the room about twelve feet away.

The children sat frozen together clutching each other’s hand. "What’s the matter?" said Mary. "What an Earth are you doing over there?"

An Earth-shattering thump shook the house.

The children screamed and fled across the bed to their parents. Donald and Mary grabbed them, uncomprehending, as another thump shook the house as if a giant footfall had landed on the ground outside. The window was still open, outside still dark. The impact had not come from beyond the window. It was inside the house.

"What the Devil’s that?" said Donald, hugging Lamienne to his chest. He realised his own heart was pounding in his ears, confusing him. Lamienne was speechless, terrified. Mary, too, could not speak. She was staring out through the open bedroom door to the darkness of the rest of the house. Reece clung to her, his arms coiled around her shoulders.

"Could it be… could it be an earthquake?" said Mary at length.

As if to answer her, another terrific impact shook the house. The door swung slightly on its hinges. Floorboards in the landing gave a creak. A little inverse fountain of dust strayed from the ceiling.

"That was like something…" Mary trailed off, not wishing to complete the sentence. "Something downstairs."

"I know," said Donald. "Reece, Lamienne, what were you doing out of bed?"

"Somebody was talking with us," said Reece.

"Talking with you? Who?"

"I don’t know," said Reece, close to tears.

"We thought it was you," said Lamienne.

Donald listened for a moment. There was nothing about the sound he could recognise. Except for the certainty that it was from within the house itself. "What did the person talking to you say?"

"It was both of you," said Reece.

"You were asking us to go downstairs."

There was a shattering impact, greater than the others, that made the bed shake. The terrified occupants hung on closer to each other. A wardrobe door swung slowly open.

"Downstairs?" There was another large "wump," as if in answer. "There’s something downstairs?"

Wump.

"I’m going to have a look," said Donald. He sprang out of bed.

"You can’t leave us here," said Mary.

"No," Donald considered. "Follow me. Stay close, but keep behind me."

Mary kept the children in front of her with guarding hands. Donald went first, and put on the landing light. He looked down the stairwell but saw only the hallway furniture. "Come on."

He crept down the stairs and turned on the hallway light. Nothing was out of place. Ahead of him, in the direction of the kitchen, he could make out dull, thumping sounds, almost like a boat banging along a jetty. He moved towards the closed kitchen door. When he was close enough, he flung open the door and snatched at the light switch.

The kitchen, too, seemed perfectly in order. The cereal bowls were still on the table where the children had left them.

There was another thump.

Donald’s eyes scanned the kitchen. The sound had come in the direction of the door, beneath the stairs, that lead to the cellar. There were more nondescript bumps and bangs, nothing compared to the great impact of a few moments earlier. Donald was certain the noise was coming from behind the cellar door.

"Follow me."

Donald moved across the kitchen and collected off a hook a large brass poker they sometimes used with the Aga stove. Then he moved over to the cellar door. There were creaking and scraping sounds coming from the other side, but nothing more. He reached out for the handle. "Are you ready?" Mary looked as if she would rather have done anything than find out what was beyond the door, but at the same time she knew she must. She nodded, holding the children more tightly to her.

In a swift grab, Donald threw open the door and reached for the light switch. The light came on, nothing happened, and he felt foolish with the poker held in mid-air. He threw it on the kitchen floor.

Only it was not quite nothing. The sounds had stopped. Donald looked down the stone steps into the cellar. They used it as a utility room, a chest-freezer and tumble-drier were down there. Toys that had fallen from favour. Tools, paints, an assortment of home-made pickles – even some better wines they had bought – usually abroad. The single, naked light-bulb seemed to struggle to drive away the shadows. Donald scanned the expanse of the cellar as far as he could see it from the top of the steps. Corners were elusive in gloom. Nothing, again, seemed out of place in the cellar. Donald stared. There was something wrong. What was it?

"Mary?"

Mary was just inside the doorway, with the children still close in front of her. "What is it?"

"Nothing – I just – … Pass me the torch, will you?"

There was a large, durable, rubber-coated torch hung from a hook by the back door. She would have to cross the kitchen to fetch it. "What is it?"

"Just get the torch."

She didn’t like to leave the children, but they were stood at the top of the steps, close to Donald. She fetched the torch, reached forward and gave it to him.

"What’s the matter?"

"I can’t see… I can’t see the floor of the cellar." He took the torch from her, flicked on its heavy duty beam, and aimed it downwards. "That’s funny. I still can’t see – "

He was cut off by the abrupt failure of both the kitchen and cellar lights, and by the cellar door slamming shut. In doing so, it knocked Mary sideways and sprawling across the dark floor of the kitchen, and trapped Reece and Lamienne on the top of the cellar steps with their father. Startled, he attempted to turn, but lost his footing. The torch careered crazily from his grasp, stabbing light into their eyes before falling through the air. Donald found himself grabbing for the torch and plunging headlong from the steps and falling into empty space.

Instead of the bone-shattering crunch of hitting the cellar floor, he was plunged into icy cold water.

Choking and spluttering, he surfaced to the sound of both Reece and Lamienne screaming in the stygian dark. He could feel no ground beneath his feet, and the water was salt. He thrashed to steady himself. The screams of the children were above him and away to his right. The nerve-tingling thrill of shock echoed through him.

"Don’t worry. Daddy coming."

He struck out in a crude dog-paddle towards where he imagined the steps should be. But where was all this water from? The children’s screaming was joined by another noise. It was Mary, calling desperately through the closed door, scrabbling to get it to open. But she could not.

Another stroke, and he barked his knuckles on stone. The steps. He kicked and got both hands on to a step, and started to heave himself out of the water.

He felt arms reach out to him.

"Lamienne, Reece, stay back. You may fall in."

But it was not a child’s hand that now grabbed his face.

"Give us the children," a voice hissed. It was not Lamienne or Reece. "Give us the children."

"No!" he yelled. The hand’s grip was brutal, as it pushed his face beneath the water and held him there. Water flooded into his gagging throat and on into his lungs. He kicked and struggled, but the vice-like grip was unyielding. Suddenly, the hand in the darkness plucked him by his face above the water.

"Give us the children!" The voice was more insistent now.

"Give us the children," said another voice. Inconsequentially, there was something familiar about the voices.

Donald spluttered and choked for a moment before he could answer. "No!"

The hand pressed him down beneath the icy water once more. This time he had just managed to grab a breath before the liquid poured into his nostrils. He almost waited for the hand to let him up. But it did not. Held in total darkness, beneath water, he felt resistance ebbing from him. The desire to suck in a breath was becoming overwhelming. He knew that if he attempted that breath, it would be his last as his lungs filled with water. Just when he thought he could endure no more, the hand, gouging its fingers into his cheeks, pulled his face from the water.

"Give us the children, and we will let you live!"

It was several seconds before he could muster the breath for a response. He could hear the children sobbing, sounds from the door, all amplified in the darkness.

"You can," he gasped, "never have the children. They’re our life! Take me, if you want a life."

The hand opened and let him drop back into the water. He heard, or thought he heard, one of the voices saying, "We wanted a life, a life with children."

He felt the last of his strength had gone as he slipped beneath the water for the final time.

Suddenly, the door above him opened. Mary stood at the top of the steps. She was holding the big Maglite, that they carried in the Volvo for emergencies, in one hand, and the poker, which she’d used to prise open the cellar door, in the other. The children were on the steps, distressed and tearful. Donald lay, spread-eagled, on the bone-dry cellar floor.

Scrambling, stumbling, toes stubbing, elbows banging into unseen walls, the family, grabbing handfuls of each other’s clothing, fled up the stairs and along the darkened landing to the main bedroom. Donald pushed past Mary, halting their path, and scanned the bedroom with the Maglite. There were no flies, no odours, no voices, just the bedroom with the large bed against the far wall and the quilt on the floor at its foot. He shoved the group into the room, wedged a chair behind the door – the old-fashioned lock no longer had a key – and they flung themselves on the bed. Donald threw the quilt over them. The bedside digital lamp had failed in the loss of power, but the luminous dial on his watch showed 1:38. He went over to the window and looked desperately to the north-eastern hills. Sunrise would not be till 4:35 and then there was the height of the hills to climb above, but there should be pre-dawn twilight at least an hour before that. He estimated that the sky would start to lighten by three. God grant that it were sooner.

He climbed quickly into bed and drew the quilt around them, with the Maglite, still on, resting on the quilt, between his knees.

"Everyone hold tightly to each other. We mustn’t go to sleep. Everyone understand?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Yes, Daddy."

"We will stay awake till morning. We’ll tell each other stories to keep awake."

"Yes, Daddy."

"Right. Well," Donald managed to suppress the urgency that had built in his voice. "What shall we talk about?"

"I don’t know," said Mary. "What we did on our holidays?"

"Good idea. What did we do, children?"

"I don’t remember, Daddy," said Lamienne.

"Well – what about what we did today?"

"What day is it today?" said Mary.

"It’s going to be Friday. Friday the 22nd. When the sun comes up. Technically, it’s Friday now. Remember, we said we would come back from Cornwall a day early so that we could see the Caufields? They were flying back from the Caribbean the previous night."

"That’s right," said Mary. "So by today, you really mean ‘yesterday.’ Thursday."

"Yes," said Donald. "What did we do all day, children?"

"We spent the day with Auntie Susan and Uncle Geoff."

"They’d just got back from their holidays too," said Reece.

"They had been to – what’s that word?" said Lamienne.

"The Caribbean. They had just flown back from the Caribbean."

Donald thought about the night flight the Caufields had been on. Flying eastward, towards the heart of the sunrise, the night was very brief. He had experienced a similar thing himself.

"Can we go to the Caribbean for a holiday?"

"Maybe next year."

"Maybe we could live there."

Mary looked at Donald in the darkness. "Perhaps moving wouldn’t be such a bad idea," she said.

The children chatted on, hesitantly at first, with only the reflected glow of the Maglite showing their faces. Eventually, they talked more freely, as Donald and Mary kept reminding them of events through the day in Staffordshire. Inevitably, though, they begin to tire as the minutes dawdled past. The Maglite appeared to be dimming. Donald wondered how much battery power was left in the lamp. Then he began to realise that it was not just the lamp growing weaker, but that the hue of the sky outside the window was changing. An uncountable number of indescribable shades of blue quietly displayed themselves at the window, before yielding to lilacs and pinks.

"Daybreak," he said, as if planting a flag on a hard-won battle-ground. Mary and the children were silent. Without realising it, he too drifted off into sleep.

He was awoken by the sound of someone whistling. Brilliant sunlight dazzled through the window, and the hillsides glowed with a day in full glory. The digital clock was back on, flashing. This meant that the power-cut was over, but that clock would need resetting with the time and the date. Without power, its electronic memory wouldn’t work. It was a nuisance resetting it, Donald thought to himself. Outside, the whistling approached. The paperboy, who had a long climb on his bike to deliver to the farmhouse, often announced his triumphal ascent with a whistle.

Donald got up, leaving the family undisturbed, and went downstairs. Opening the door, the day burst in, hurting his eyes. He was just in time great the paperboy.

"Hello, Tom."

"Morning, Mr Remington. Am I glad you’re here. We couldn’t remember at the shop if you were due back today or tomorrow. I’d’ve been mad if I’d had to cycle all this way for nothing. Here’s your paper."

Donald took the paper and looked at it, only half-noticing its headlines at first. "Just a minute, Tom."

"What’s the matter?"

"This is yesterday’s paper."

"You sure?"

"There it is, look. Thursday June 21st."

"But it is Thursday. That’s why we were unsure. We thought Thursday was an odd day to be coming back. Then I remembered Mrs Remington saying you’d be back a day early for something."

"Yes, but that was in order for us – " he broke off, distracted by a story on the front page of the paper. The headline told of a plane crash. The plane had ditched in the Irish Sea.

"Something wrong?"

The plane had developed severe engine trouble and the pilot had decided to ditch rather than risk coming down over land. Emergency services had reached the aircraft within minutes. The overnight flight had been from the Caribbean.

"No. I – I don’t think…"

It had been a miracle that so many of the passengers and crew had been rescued, the story went on. The only fatalities had been a couple, trapped inside the aircraft when it sank, who were believed to have come from Cannock, Staffordshire.

They were named as a Mr and Mrs G Caufield.

"Well, whatever it was, I don’t get paid till Friday, so today is definitely Thursday," said Tom, and rode off.

The End

The Hobbyist

Short story of a young man brought up in a repressive household, by straight-laced father with a sinister, obsessive secret after meeting a curious visitor.

I’ll never forget the time I first saw him. It was a fine summer day in early May and Father was almost finished getting dressed for church, when there came a knock at the front door.

"Who on Earth can that be calling on a Sunday?" said Mother. Father glowered but didn’t speak, as he was still struggling to fasten his tie over his stiff collar. "Should I answer it?" said Mother, reading something in Father’s silence.

"Whoever it is, send him packing. It’s not Christian to call unplanned on a Sunday."

My Mother went down the dark hallway to the door and opened it, letting a torrent of sunlight in from the chasm of the terraced Aigburth street. For the moment I was blinded, nor could I hear the muted conversation from the door. The uninvited stranger was not in retreat, it seemed. Father, having mastered the knot in his tie, strode up the hallway, shouldering my mother aside. Perhaps I followed a step or two in his wake. There I could see a man, dapper, in his late fifties, grey hair at the temples. On seeing my father he raised his trilby hat.

"Er-oh, hello," he said politely, in a gentile, public-school accent. "My name is Tibbets. Have I the pleasure of addressing the man of the household?"

"And what might your business be?" said Father, his tone none too friendly.

"Business, ah, business. Yes, it is a business. But not in the conventional sense. Not an enterprise, not that kind of business at all, my dear fellow."

I could see Father stiffen at this trite pleasantry. "Tell me what you want and be quick about it, so the sooner you can be on your way."

"Yes, of course, of course. But perhaps not here on the doorstep. It is a matter of some discretion."

"It’ll be on the doorstep or nowhere at all."

The stranger, replacing his hat, gave the merest flicker of a glance in my Mother’s direction. "Very well," he said, a faint hint of regret in his voice, "but it is something only you and I should discuss. A lady," he flashed the briefest of smiles at my Mother, "might be, how shall I say? – disquieted."

Father bristled, caught in indecision. Mother intervened. "I’ve the Sunday tea to be getting on with," she said, diplomatically. "Excuse me." With that, she retreated down the hallway to the kitchen that lay at the back of the house. I, still in the doorway of the front parlour, continued to listen astutely.

"What is it then?" Father demanded.

"Sir," said the stranger, in his cultured, well-educated voice, "I have a certain – adeptness – a skill, if you will, granted me by a Higher Power. Or at least, I assume it is from a Higher Power, for I have certainly made no effort to cultivate it myself. This – adeptness – gives me a sensitivity to things."

I was wondering how much of this circumlocution my Father would tolerate before he slammed the door in the stranger’s face so that he could return to his Sunday habits. But the slam I anticipated did not come. The stranger appeared to have captivated my Father’s normally impatient attention.

"Things?"

"Things," continued the stranger. "Things that are not of this corporeal world."

Whatever I had expected my Father to say, what he did say surprised me.

"What’s that got to do with this household?"

"As I say, I have a sensitivity. I happened to be walking past your home on this glorious afternoon," – he paused to indicate the sunlight hammering off the brickwork of the terraced houses – why anyone should just happen to wander down our street, or any of the dozens like it in this part of Liverpool, was itself a mystery – "when I sensed that all was not well with this house." Suddenly, the polite flippancy of his earlier speech was gone. His tone became grave. "Not well at all."

I was certain my Father would have no more of this conversation. But I was mistaken. Still he held open the door to the stranger.

"What’s wrong with it?" he said.

The stranger looked almost uncomfortable. He lowered his voice a note and I had to strain to hear. "Sir, I must speak plainly. Your house is in habited with spirits. Many spirits. And these spirits are in torment."

I saw my Father's shoulders raise – surely now the door-slam would come. But then they sagged, as if he had been caught out with some accusation he could not deny.

"What is that to you?" he said, lamely.

"I have come to take these spirits away, and let them move on to a happier place."

"An exorcist?" I could not tell whether my Father spoke in surprise, derision, or merely resignation. Or possibly even fear. His tone was so ambivalent, so unlike him. His usual religious leanings were strictly conventional, the Bible, fire and brimstone, and that was about it. It was almost as if he had become a stranger to me. As strange as the caller standing in our doorway.

"A guide," corrected the stranger. "A messenger, a healer, no more." His voice recovered some of its earlier levity.

"And what’s your fee?" my Father demanded, more like his brusque, usual self.

"My dear fellow, there is no fee. It is a service, the use of a talent that I never aspired to. Regard it as a hobby, if you wish. What I can promise you is that you will not be sorry by the time I am finished."

To my astonishment, my Father said, "You’d better come in." I nipped out of the parlour doorway sharply and pretended to be busying myself before the mirror. My Father ignored me as if I were not even there and guided the stranger into the parlour, closing the door firmly behind him. It was more than I dare risk to listen at the door, so I have no idea of the conversation between the two men, but it was more than an hour later before the stranger and Father reappeared. The stranger seemed to be in the same, chipper mood with which he had arrived, though my Father was quiet, ashen in appearance.

"Good day to you, sir," said the stranger, tipping his hat once more. "I shall see you again within the week." With that, he was gone. My Father, without speaking, retreated to the bedroom. I did not see him again that day, and he did not attend church, as was his custom.

True to his word, Mr Tibbets returned one evening later in the week. This was to be the first of many such visits. My Mother, myself and my Mother’s sister, Minnie, who lived with us, were all banished from the front parlour during his visits, which we had to sit out in the breakfast room with no consoling explanation until Mr Tibbets left. We could hear the faint murmur of conversation between the two men, but of what they spoke we had no clue. On the third or maybe fourth visit, I heard my father come out of the parlour and climb the stairs to the bedroom then descend. Evidently, he had returned with the key to the cellar, the access to which was by a door below the stairs that was always kept locked. From time to time in the past, my father would disappear down there, in the darkness, maybe for an evening, or early in the morning before the rest of the household rose, but would never give any explanation of his actions. Indeed, even to ask of one was to invite at best a brusque and at worst a harsh rebuttal from my father. On more than one occasion – not a frequent event but one that would come around from time to time, I had found myself alone in the house – my mother, father and aunt would all be occupied elsewhere – and I had searched my father’s room for the key to the cellar, without success. I had absolutely no idea in what activities he was engaged whilst down there. Evidently, however, he had no reservation in letting Mr Tibbets enter this private domain.

After this first time, my Father took Mr Tibbets down to the cellar on a number of occasions. Always, after they had entered, I would hear the key turned in the lock from the inside and some time would pass before its sound was to be heard again. No-one ever asked my Father why he and Mr Tibbets descended to the cellar as there would have been no point – he never would have answered.

It was hard to gauge my father’s mood before and after Mr Tibbets’ visits. Subdued, mollified would be about it, and a contrast to Mr Tibbets’ own, which was on a borderline between conviviality and deference. Polite, cheerful but earnest, as if he were about some purpose of servitude. But what this purpose might be, my father never explained. And when he had nothing to say on one matter, he was wont not to speak at all.

This changed in an unexpected manner. On one of his visits, for some reason – maybe he was early – the door was opened to him by my Aunt Minnie. Minnie was, I realise now, looking back, a bit of a dotty creature who had never married nor worked. Aside from seeming a little simple, she was pleasant enough, sharing my mother’s good looks with an added note of facile charm, a kind of innocence. On seeing her, as I observed slyly from the entrance to the breakfast room, he seemed delighted. A smile of genuine pleasure, rather than the polite demeanour he normally adopted, lit up his countenance. My father, hearing Mr Tibbets’ arrival, virtually bundled him away from Minnie and into the parlour, where the door was closed with a bang.

After that, Mr Tibbets’ calls became more frequent, and he would consistently appear to arrive ahead of expectation. If ever Aunt Minnie opened the door to him, he always beamed with delight, exchanging pleasantries or something more – I wasn’t on every occasion able to hear. That this was not to my father’s approval was easy enough to infer, but was confirmed beyond all doubt, when, on one evening, conversation from the front parlour increased in volume and became more heated, climaxing with my father clearly exclaiming, "You are in my house to do your business, Tibbets, but on no account are you to have dealings with my family, especially my sister-in-law!"

Tibbets could be heard protesting his case, but to no avail, it seemed. Father effectively threw Mr Tibbets out, their business, whatever it had been, concluded. Mr Tibbets barely had chance to retrieve his trilby from the coat-rack. I never saw him again.

I never saw my Aunt Minnie again either. She simply did not return to the house next day, having apparently gone on some errand or other. The police were eventually informed, but no trace of her was ever found. There was nothing of hers missing from the house. But after a period of searching, the police merely concluded that people went missing all the time and there was nothing further of any practical value they could do. There was simply no reason to suspect foul play and that was that.

Time passed, and nothing was heard of Mr Tibbets, nor my Aunt Minnie again. It seemed indelicate even to discuss the matter, let alone suggest the two disappearances might have been connected. When my school exams came up and I got good grades that enabled me to read English literature at university in London, it was, I later realised, with some relief that I was able to leave that claustrophobic household. My only regret, which I realised too late, was that I had turned my back on my Mother, and her death from a sudden stroke, while I was still away, hurt me grievously. I should have kept in touch and I felt guilty. I had no such inclinations towards my Father. At her funeral, all he said was, "Brutal, but mercifully quick." There was some speculation that Aunt Minnie would suddenly appear at the burial of her sister but to no avail. I went back to London, without concern for my Father now living alone in the empty, draughty household and I did not make any attempt to keep in touch with him.

I lacked any idea of a career. I started writing little pieces and submitting them to the quality newspapers and certain magazines and, to my mild surprise, they were accepted and I received payment. After graduating, it was an easy way of making money. It’s funny how you can do something once, then repeat it until it becomes a habit and before long it is taking up all of your free time. Without any formulated plan I realised that become a freelance journalist. Yet it didn’t feel like an occupation and the money, though adequate and pleasant, was almost irrelevant. It was more like a pastime. I had settled into my new life comfortably, when, one day in early summer, I received a phone call out of the blue.

It was the police. My father, with whom I had had no contact since my mother’s funeral, had died suddenly, a fact that had been detected by the milkman who noticed that his deliveries were not being collected off the doorstep. The police explained that the coroner’s office had been notified, which was standard procedure in the case of a sudden death, but would I travel back home as soon as possible? They needed somebody to identify the body.

When I got off the train at Lime Street I was met by two CID officers who said they had some questions. I tried to determine whether I was under arrest for something. They remained vague on the point, saying that I would merely be helping with enquiries, but the supposition was that, had I refused, they would indeed have arrested me.

"Enquiries into what?" I asked, and repeated the question when we reached the police station.

"Enquiries into how fourteen bodies come to be buried in the cellar of you family home."

Shock is such a short word for the conflicting tumult of emotions that struck me now. A whole series of questions sprang to mind at once with the effective result that I was unable to speak at all for several seconds. When I did, it was to ask what, in retrospect, may have seemed an odd question: "How long of they been there?"

"None of them is recent," said a quietly spoken senior officer whom I suspected of being rather sharper than he looked. "In fact, some form of embalming or preservative process seems to have been carried out on them."

Then he added, in a tone I did not like at all, "You were probably still a child when the last of them was, what shall we say? – laid to rest."

"Who are they?"

"We were hoping that you might be able to shed some light on that matter."

This detective took some considerable convincing that I could not, that I did not know anything at all of their existence and had no idea how they had ended up as they had. But there came a point at which the officer suddenly seemed to become satisfied. "The bodies are all male, men in late middle age."

A thought struck me. "Are you sure none of them is female?"

"A forensic pathologist has been over every corpse. Why, were you expecting someone in particular?"

"Of course not." I don’t think I sounded too convincing, even to me. But the officer continued.

"We were doing only a routine search of the house when we became suspicious. The floor of the cellar was bricked, but it was way too uneven and the bricks came up too easily. Much later on, we were going through your father’s possessions and we came across this." He produced a hard-backed note book, the sort that had that curious cobweb-like pattern in dark blue bands across the cover. Not unlike my old school exercise books.

"What is it?"

"It’s a kind of diary. Meticulously kept. The first entry relates to an incident that occurred while you, your Mother and your Aunt were all out. He stresses this point several times. A gentleman came to the door in some distress, asking your father for help. He was having some kind of attack it seems. Your father went to make him a cup of tea and by the time he returned from the kitchen, the gentleman was deceased. Your father found some medication on him, digitalis – it used to be prescribed for heart conditions. Your father records here," he rested his hand on the page, "that he felt guilty for not having checked with the gentleman first about his health before leaving him on his own.

"He goes on to say – I won’t go into detail – that your father decided to attempt to lay him to rest in your cellar – some kind of act of contrition - he says here – ‘a kindness.’"

"That’s odd," I said, dumbly, "my father wasn’t noted for his kindness."

"That’s the only thing you find odd?" said the detective with a curious stare.

"I mean, I – " I stumbled for words. "No," I managed at last.

"Well, it seems his kindness didn’t end there," the detective sniffed. "After that, your father committed a number of ‘kindnesses’ on various old fellahs that he came across, usually at the church mission. Chaps he identified as lonely old blokes who’d no family, no friends, generally fallen on hard times – and, of course, wouldn’t easily be missed. He used the digitalis on the first few – it’s related to deadly nightshade, of course – and when that ran out he employed other means. Then he wrote it all up in his log book," he raised the note book to my face, "names, dates, any other details…" he closed the book, steepled his big bony hands underneath his chin, "then stuck ‘em in the ground below where you were living." There was that stare again, as if he could see right to the very back of my mind.

"I – honestly – I swear – I knew nothing about this."

The detective leaned towards me conspiratorially. "And I believe you. Your father makes it perfectly clear he kept his private activities to himself. But, of course, I had to check. I think if you’d known anything I’d have got it out of you by now."

I felt as if I ought to thank him; then again, he had suspected me of conspiracy to murder, and, while I thought this over, the moment passed. Then something else occurred to me. "You say all the victims’ names are recorded – written down – in – in that book."

"Yes. Of course, we’re still checking them, but there were various personal effects that you father had also kept and so far they all tally with the bodies."

"There was no mention of a Mr Tibbets in there, by any chance?"

"Who’s Mr Tibbets?"

"He is – was – is – a stranger who came to the house while I was still at school. He and Father seemed to have some kind of business, then my Father had a sort of falling-out with him and threw him out of the house. I never saw him again."

"When was that?"

I gave a date accurate to the best of my recollection.

The detective shook his head. "There’s no Mr Tibbets mentioned in here. And the last body your Father laid to rest was some months earlier."

"There were no more deaths after that?"

"Not according to this, and the pathologist agrees."

When I got back to the house, it was after sunset, but there was still an afterglow out over the Mersey. Under the circumstances, it was rather eerie. Despite my long absence, I still had a key and let myself in to dark, silent house. The interior was, as ever, cool, the heat of the day had never penetrated those sullen bricks. I snapped on a light, a bare bulb, in the front parlour. What should I do now? It was too late to get back to London tonight. It was a grim prospect, the thought of spending the night trying to sleep over a graveyard. Yet I’d done it, apparently, for years.

Suddenly I had an idea. I realised what an astonishing story this was. I could sell it for a big fee, and live high in the hog for months. I found some paper in the old bureau, laid it and my pen on the parlour table, and sat down to write.

It was then that I noticed the trilby hat, hooked over the back of the chair opposite me.

THE END

Echo of the Mind

Short story about a young man who has everything - it seems - except the girl of his dreams - a girl whose biggest thrill is deadly.

A cool breeze was just starting to lift off the Atlantic to give some relief at the end of a hot New Jersey afternoon. This was invitation enough to bring out the early evening drinkers to the Ocean Club down the avenue from Point Pleasant. Guy loved this time of day. He knew, as he rolled his Ferrari F430 Spider into the parking lot, that the women’s heads would turn. He would leap out over the door without opening it, and the gentle wind would just catch his expensively-coiffured shock of straw-coloured hair, ruffling it and making him look even more interesting. If that was possible, with his tan good looks, Versace jeans and the fact that he’d arrived in a diamond-graphite coloured car that cost more than some people paid for an apartment.

Dino had his Long Island Iced Tea, mixed just the way he liked it, with extra Sour, by the time he reached the bar. He raised the glass, already steamed with condensation, and took a long, satisfying drink before he spoke.

"How’s it hanging, Dino?"

"Just fine, Mr Richards, just fine. How’s things with you?"

"You beat me to it, Dino." He put his glass down carefully on the bar and pushed his Ralph Lauren shades up into his hair. "Just fine." He cast his gaze round the bar. "Usual crowd in here this evening?"

"One bit of class out there on the veranda. I thought you’d have already noticed her."

"I certainly did, my man," he said, with a twisted grin. "Just wanted to check I wasn’t dreaming. I didn’t want to ask you to pinch me." He collected his drink and set off towards the striking woman standing out on the veranda, sipping a cocktail and staring out over the breakers.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself."

Guy hesitated, as if tangling with a problem. "I know you must get this all the time, but – has anyone ever told you that your God’s own spitting image of Julia Roberts?"

"Happens all the time," she said, over the rim of her glass. She was weighing him up, he sensed.

"You’re not Julia Roberts, are you?"

"Ssh!" she grinned. "No-one’s supposed to know. I’m incognito."

He held out his hand. "Guy Richards."

Her long eyelashes fell and rose slowly before she placed a delicate hand in his. "Evelyn Turner."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Evelyn."

"Nice car you got there."

"I like to think so." Guy realised the parking lot was not visible from this side of the club-house. "You noticed when I drove up?"

"Yeah." There was a tiniest flash of her tongue as she took another sip of her drink. "I like fast cars."

"Maybe you’d like to get better acquainted with it?"

"Maybe I would."



That was the trouble with Ocean Avenue. It ran along the New Jersey coast which, at that point, was dead straight. So the road was dead straight. No reason to slow down, hold the car back.

"Faster," Evelyn breathed.

Guy liked to open up the Spider whenever he could – he loved the thrill of the wind dragging at his hair as much as anyone could. But there was a time and a place. Now late at night was one thing. But Ocean Avenue was not the place, with the local townships nearby and all, and after a long evening drinking. If a blue-and-white caught them, he’d get more that a ticket for speeding. DUI and he’d be in jail.

He nudged the accelerator downwards then eased back a little.

"Faster!" Evelyn demanded.

"We’re doing one hundred and ten now," he grimaced, trying to still sound calm.

Evelyn was laughing now. "Is that all? Surely this thing can go faster?" It was like a lover’s request.

Guy pounded down on the accelerator and the Italian engineering roared with delight. "There’s a red light!" Guy yelled into the slipstream.

"Jump it!"

There was no traffic, either approaching or crossing. Guy decided to go for it.

Just as they reached the point of no return, a car pulled out in front of them.

Guy would have hit the horn if hadn’t been wrestling with the wheel. He also toe-poked at the brake. The anti-lock would not have given up traction easily but he wanted all the control he could hang on to, and not to turn the vehicle into a sliding one-fifty mile an hour coffin. Rubber screamed. The car slammed into the sidewalk and tipped at a crazy angle, tires off the tarmac, before crashing back down. It careered on, snaking this way and that as Guy strangled the speed out of his mechanical pet, lest it turn and roll and bite him, and it finally slued to a halt almost half a mile beyond the intersection.

He was dazed, exhausted, soaked in icy sweat, when he realised the beautiful woman next to him was laughing.

"You enjoyed that." He wasn’t sure whether he intended it as statement or a question.

She was panting like a race horse, just coming down, her own spittle on her cheek. "That was magnificent," she gasped, and huddled against his shoulder, closed her eyes.



"I used to come here when I was a boy," he told her. It was the latest of a number of dates they’d been on in quick succession after that first night and slept together. Always she wanted him to push the Spider to the edge of its capabilities. Artfully, for a change, after picking her up from the Ocean Club, he’d headed inland east of New Brunswick to some woods. He thought if he could get her out of the car and maybe just walk, she would calm down a little. Not that her excitement wasn’t infectious. On the contrary, it seemed to seep from her into him. Just that, sometimes, a little quiet was also nice. The woodland was a favourite place from his childhood. At the end of a path there was a clearing with a high, rocky point, from which it was easy to see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, clustered like blue-grey shapes, more than twenty miles away. He took her there now, and showed her the view.

"D’you ever go to the Big Apple?"

"I used to," she said. "I used to love going up the WTC, to the observation deck, and tell myself, ‘Hey – I’m a quarter of a mile off the ground.’ It was such a thrill. I always thought it was a shame you couldn’t lean right out over the edge, because of all the fences and everything. To stop the jumpers."

"Well, you don’t want to go too crazy jumping round here. The cliffs here are only about fifty feet but you’d do bad things to yourself if you stepped off one."

"Really?" She seemed to find the place more interesting.

"I used to come here with my Dad," he said. "He was more like a big brother to me than a father. We used to play a game in the Fall. Just a silly game. We’d try and catch the leaves as they were falling. One at a time. It was crazy. Such a simple game. But we’d have hours of fun playing it."

"What happened to him?"

"He died when I was a kid." Suddenly, he couldn’t say anymore. He wanted to say that his Dad was his best friend. He wanted to say after he’d gone, he was all on his own and nothing made much sense for a while. He even remembered how lonely he he’d felt back then. In his mind’s eye, he saw a solitary kid, quiet and abandoned with no toys and no friends and nowhere he belonged. But it just sounded corny so he kept silent, pushed it all back down inside.

"I can think of a game," she said, suddenly animated. She pulled her silk scarf from around her neck and abruptly tore it in half, giving two long strips, "Come here."

He was standing right next to her anyway but he moved closer. She took one of the strips, folded it over then placed it across his eyes, and tied it behind his head.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Hey!" She suddenly spun him round, several times, then let go. "What gives?"

"Hold on," she said. "I’m just putting my blindfold on too… There. Neither of us can see!" She took his hand and started dancing him around. "Don’t take it off," she sang out, "don’t take it off."

"What are you playing at?"

"Know which way your facing?"

"Not a clue!"

"Run!" She screamed, "Run!" She grabbed his hand again and dragged him into a stumbling trot. "Come on, come on, come on, faster, faster!" she kept yelling at him.

He staggered trying to keep up with her. "It’s dangerous!"

"I know. But it makes you feel alive! Run!"

He plunged headlong in total blindness, the ground constantly leaping up to hook at his feet. He could feel she was tripping and bumping into him but still upping the pace, laughing wildly. Something snagged his foot and he fell full length, she landed on top of him. Winded, he tugged off the silk blindfold, just in time to see her do the same.

They had fallen at the very edge of the cliff.



After that, Guy didn’t know where to go out with Evelyn. He had been really scared after the woods episode. He called in at the Ocean Club without making a prior arrangement to meet her. He was just beginning to relax, thinking he would have his evening to himself, when she arrived, carrying a purse, ordered a drink. "Come walk with me on the beach," she said. He followed her down the wooden steps from the veranda onto the sand. There was nothing much of any threat down there. Unless she planned taking a swim, in which case he’d certainly not join in.

It had been a blast knowing her though. He wanted to please her. By the time they had walked fifty yards and she’d said nothing, he found himself wishing she’d suggest something. Eventually, he spoke.

"You like danger, don’t you?"

"It’s a turn-on, isn’t it?"

He surprised himself by laughing. "Yeah. Yeah it is."

"I knew you did. That’s why I do it."

"Do what?"

"All of it. For you. To give you a thrill. You like a thrill, don’t you?"

"But somebody could get hurt."

"Of course they could. It wouldn’t be a game without all the parts."

"What game?"

"Like playing with your Dad. But it’s not a game unless there’s danger. Didn’t your Dad like danger?"

He saw a shy little kid in his head, without a Dad. "You didn’t know my Dad. Nobody did."

"Wouldn’t you like to play another game right now?"

"What sort of game?"

"With two friends of mine." She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun. "With my two friends, Mr Smith and Mr Wesson." He stopped in his tracks. She handed him the revolver and paced out ten steps. "How good a shot are you?"

"What?"

"How good a shot? You could hit me at this distance, right? Then I’ll go a little further." She took another ten paces.

"I haven’t fired a gun since I was a kid."

"Don’t worry. I don’t want you to hit me! I want you to miss. But you got to see how close you can get."

He held the dull metal object in his hand.

"I can’t."

"Go on," she begged. "Think of the thrill. You don’t have to aim all that near to me."

"I can’t," he said again.

"But I want you to. It excites me. And I know it excites you. Look how we make love afterwards. Isn’t it always great? Because you feel so alive?"

He hesitated, lifted the weapon, then lowered it again. "But not like this, Evelyn. I can’t do something like this. This is too much."

She stood a second, as if waiting to see if he might still take the challenge. Then she came over to him. "If you can’t give me a thrill, then how can you expect me to do anything for you?"

Something stirred in the far reaches of his mind but he pushed it deep back down. "I can’t," he said, as much to himself as to her.

"Maybe you and I should call it a day," she said. "It was fun for a while. But you’re not alive anymore." She reached out for the gun. It was as if she had already made up her mind. He didn’t want to lose her. Suddenly, another idea seemed to occur to her. "I tell you what. I’ll give you one more chance. If you’re too scared to shoot at me, shoot at them!" She indicated the gathering of people on the veranda at the Ocean Club. "Do you think you could hit anybody at this distance?"

Before he could stop it, an image leapt up like vomit from his inner being. A young man, standing outside a sleazy dive, his clothes worn to rubbish, knees through on old jeans stiff with dirt, his yellow hair greasy and matted with neglect. Inside the bar it was noisy and bright with neon, people having fun, friends enjoying each other’s company. Outside, the scruffy young man, alone, in the dark, and shivering with cold, his skin pale and ingrained with dirt. How he longed to have someone to talk to, how he longed to have enough money to share a beer with someone – anyone – and if he could make contact with female company, that would be wonderful. He’d feel alive. All he had, in the pocket of his rough jacket, was the Smith and Wesson.

"Go on," she said. "You can’t hurt them. They can’t even feel you. Go on."

The yellow-haired man raised the gun and took aim at the crowd.

He could feel himself squeeze the trigger.

The End

Sucks In The City

(Short story that, for reasons explained elsewhere, has to include the following random word pairs and expression, namely: "axe lips, war stick, city hair, basket vampire, zip book, door vomit, pan party, banana lace, shelf buttock, nest beauty, specially for Carol.")

Karl was late.

Ironic, considering what they about to, and its emphasis on speed. Speed implied promptness. And Karl couldn’t even get here on time. Just to mock him, it seemed were all the stainless steel and glass clocks on posts down the surreal pathway he’d just walked along, like a deleted scene from Alice Through The Looking Glass.

Darren Taylor adjusted his suit and checked he wasn’t getting pits under his arms in the warm summer evening. He had spent his day in shirt-sleeves in the air-conditioned offices of 1 Canada Square and now he would rather be relaxing in front of the TV, his shoes and tie off, with a can of beer and take-away. Instead, he was standing around outside the huge arched glass canopy of Canary Wharf DLR and Tube station, looking along the waters of Heron Quays and wishing he could go home.

Not that it was much of a home now. Not since Carol had left. But he’d sooner skip on the DLR and take the five short stops to the small flat he occupied in Mudchute, rather than carry out the frankly stressful undertaking Karl had suggested. Or insisted on, to be more accurate. "You’ll love it, man," he’d said. "I never miss it." Where the Devil was he?

Darren was within seconds of chucking the whole idea, when he heard Karl’s inimitable and somewhat irritating greeting. "DT! Sorry I’m late, buddy, but just had to clinch a final deal for the week-end. Nothing like making a small fortune to set you up for an evening out. How about yourself – close on anything good today?"

"I may I lost the company millions again – I don’t think I understand any of this business." Darren realised he was talking to himself – Karl was already setting off across the concourse towards their destination for the evening, The Merchant Banker on Grime Street, south of the Quays. That was the official name of the bar, but everyone who worked in Canary Wharf knew it as The Muck and Brass or simply Grimy’s. This was probably after someone had pointed out that "merchant banker" was rhyming slang for something else in the rest of London, especially to the indigenous residents of the East End, where the two city slickers worked.

Darren hurried to keep pace with Karl. "I’d rather have had a shower and changed before coming out," he said, struggling to keep up.

"Nonsense!" said Karl. "You want to catch everyone while there’ll still on a high from doing business."

"I don’t feel on much of a high."

Again Karl wasn’t listening. "Striking fast is the whole point of the battle, buddy. Knock ‘em off their feet before they’ve had time to have second thoughts."

"Battle?"

"Got your war stick ready?"

"What?" Darren was perplexed.

"Your killer chat-up line. Speed-dating is like going to war. You’ve got to make split-second decisions. It’s hard, it’s aggressive and you’ve got strike fast. Your war stick is a killer chat-up line in the dating battle – sticks the prey like a butterfly in a display case for you to enjoy at leisure."

"I thought we were going out to meet some girls, not to kill them."

"Of course not," said Karl. "Take a few prisoners perhaps. That’s why you need a good chat up line. You’ll learn, buddy. Might take you a bit of practice before you hit on one that suits you. Just don’t use the one I tried when I first started."

"What was that?"

"You won’t believe this." Karl suddenly halted and turned to face him, as if confessing to a long-redeemed misdemeanour. "I used to say, ‘Your eyes match my duvet.’ Nearly got me slung out of the place."

"It isn’t very subtle," said Darren.

Karl still appeared not to hear him. "No use at all," he nudged shoulders with Darren. "It’s speed-dating. You’ve got to be much more direct than that! Here we are." Karl took another step, then halted again, just outside the entrance of Grimy’s. "One last thing – door vomit."

"I beg your pardon?"

"If you’ve got any emotional baggage in your guts, buddy, chuck it up now and leave it at door."

"So best not to think about Carol."

"This is specially for Carol. After all, DT, she walked out on you. This is where you get your own back. You go in there with ‘rebound’ written all over your face like that, the lassies will spot it a mile away and never come near. Come on."

They plunged into the bar of gleaming glass and chrome, and vicious Budweiser neon. Darren sometimes wondered if the architects of Canary Wharf had simply forgotten the existence of dark timber and its calming grandeur. Perhaps he wasn’t a city slicker at all. Maybe he should be a labourer on a farm or something. Before he could speak, Karl had thrust a bottle American beer in his hand when he’d far rather had had a pint of bitter. "I’ve already paid for our tickets. We’ve got about 15 minutes before the off, let the latecomers straggle in. Gives you time to loosen up and absorb the atmosphere."

"What atmosphere?"

"Just take a few deep breaths," said Karl – all too literal and missing the point. Just about to meet someone – several someones in fact – that could be that special person – "

" – or persons – "

" or persons," Karl agreed, "in the rest of your life. Which is about to start now. Prepare to get cooking!"

"Cooking?"

"Cooking in Life’s Take-Away. The wok of human relationships – it’s stir-fry time in the pan party of pulling. Time to get sizzling. And, if you feel yourself losing your bottle – well, just buy another bottle, one for you and one for her, some tart-fuel or one of those huge great goblets of wine the size of a bucket. Of course, you may end up with a six-pinter at the end of the evening if you can’t see straight, but that’s all part of the game.

"You’re such a romantic."

"That’s my man. It’s a good idea to have some kind of game-plan – think of the sort of woman you want to go for. Don’t waste your time with anyone who’s not your sort."

"How do you tell which is which?"

"I’ll give you a run-down of the different species and how to spot them. City hair means a Power Girl working in the Square Mile or Canary Wharf – probably worth a few quid but she will expect you to be the same. Basket vampire – looks cute as a kitten but get her home and she’ll expect you as her new S.O. – that’s Significant Other – to be a meal ticket on the gravy train for life. When they’ve got something frilly and colourful showing above their business suit, that’s a spot of banana lace – one bit of female decoration on androgynous City clothing to suggest ‘I am a girlie, really.’ Though for goodness’ sake, don’t call her that or she’ll freeze your assets off in a flash. Beware axe lips also. Not to be confused with ‘wax lips.’ They look DDG – "

"Drop dead gorgeous?"

"You’re getting the hang of it – and as kissable as they come, but you disappoint one of them…

"And they’ll chop you down with a sentence."

"With a word, buddy, with a word. Lastly, beware the nest beauty. Pretty as a picture, but all they want to do is set up home somewhere – have you picking out fabrics and deciding on colour schemes before you can say ‘Where’s my slippers?’ Unless that’s your type, of course…" Karl let the statement hang in the air like a question. However, Darren refused to speak. "Sometimes wondered if that’s what you thought Carol might become."

"Really?" Darren was surprised.

"Never would have happened with Carol, though, DT."

"Why not?"

"She was a Power Girl, if I’m any judge. If you thought she was the settling-down-and-having-a-quiet-life-type then you were pretty much mistake."

"I never really thought about…" Darren trailed off. Maybe he had got Carol wrong. After all, she had left him, for some reason. But, on the other hand, if Karl was right, maybe he would have one day wanted to leave her. The high life didn’t really seem to be his thing.

"Ready for the off?" said Karl.

"Ready as I’ll ever be."

"OK, here’s the rules. Here’s your ticket. This let’s you into the Enterprise Lounge. When the hooter goes, you’ve got five minutes. Go and talk to the nearest available female and see how you go. It’s alright to take notes, because by the end of the evening, the faces may have become a bit of a blur. She’ll be doing the same, probably, or putting you in her zip book – that’s her PDA –"

"Personal Digital Assistant?"

"That’s right. Probably a Blackberry or something similar. Replaces the old ‘little black book.’ You want to get your mobile number and email address in there as fast as you can. Likewise, you want to get her contact details – assuming you’re interested – and mark how attractive she is as you go."

"Why don’t I just give her marks out of ten?" Darren remarked, dryly.

"Excellent! That’s what I do. Then at the end of five minutes, the hooter goes and you move on to the next filly, and so on. By the end of the evening, you see how many you’ve got, rank them in order and start giving ‘em calls over the week-end."

"Wonderful."

"If we cross paths as we circulate, we can have a quick check on numbers." Karl nudged Darren’s shoulder. "Just hope we don’t go for the same ones, eh?" At that moment the hooter sounded. "Here we go! Catch you on the other side."

Darren had to tackle his demons. The demons of shyness, self-doubt and simply not knowing what he was doing. What was the killer line he was supposed to come out with? A lady with city hair approached him. Therefore he had to speak.

"Hello."

"Hello"

(Going well.)

"Your eyes match…" He broke off. This was not going well.

"Of course they match, you rude little sod! How dare you!"

The blonde goose-stepped off. No wonder they called it speed-dating. From his first seeing her to her disappearing forever had taken eleven seconds. He needed another drink. At the bar, a raven-headed woman was ordering "a JD straight up, large."

"I’ll have the same," he called over her shoulder. She turned to see who had attached himself to her order, with a slight pout. "I see you like a stiff one," he said. Her expression withered to disgust. Four seconds.

Darren stood, pulling on his drink, feeling like a spare groom at a wedding, trying to spot any other female singleton he could approach, while waiting for the hooter that would toss the ingredients of the people-wok into the air again. Karl cantered past, pursing some brunette who, to Darren, appeared to be trying to put as much distance between herself and Karl as possible. "Isn’t this great fun, DT?" he yapped. "I’ve got two numbers already!"

"Bully for you," thought Darren.

By the half-hour mark, he had interlaced eight meetings with eight drinks orders. Things had only got worse as he tried to remember Karl’s patois of the dating scene. At one point, Karl hove into view, and Darren would have asked him for a little more advice. Instead, he got an idiot grin from Karl as he held up his outstretched hand to indicate the number, five, as he scuttled off in pursuit of some other lady. Darren had tried opening with compliments, which had been OK if a little predictable at first, but as the alcohol took its effect, he had started to come out with comments such as "you have banana lips," "I like your hair nest," had invited one to an axe party, called another girl a zip vampire and described yet another to herself as a war beauty with a face like a pan.

"I’m no good at this, am I?" He slurred wearily to a rather shapeless female, one of the few still left, and for whom the choice of a jacket in houndstooth check had not been well-considered.

"Talking or standing?" she remarked. "You seem to be having trouble with both."

"What’s the secret of chatting someone up?"

"If I told you, one of us would have to die." This was her valedictory remark.

At last, the final hooter-blast of the evening sounded, a voice over the PA announced the speed-date session was ended, and invited to people to relax. To help with relaxation, I Predict A Riot started blasting out from speakers in every corner. Darren screamed an order of another JD from the barman and slumped disconsolately on a bench. He had just about finished feeling totally sorry for himself when Karl showed up, Budweiser in one hand, and pen and notepad in the other. "What great evening, eh?" he bellowed, so close to the side of Darren’s head that his voice made Darren’s ears ring. It was necessary as Karl was in competition with Hard Fi wailing out Cash Machine. "You stay sat on the sidelines much longer you’re going to suffer from shelf buttock!"

"So you got lots of dates," Darren yelled.

"Loads!" Karl yelled back. "A great evening!"

"So you keep saying."

"What?!"

"I said, I’m very pleased for you. I didn’t get any!"

Karl took this in. "What, none at all?"

"None at all."

Karl abruptly slumped in an echo of Darren’s posture. "I’ve got a confession to make."

"Yes?" Darren wasn’t really interested.

"I’ve had a rotten night."

"What?"

"Rotten. I got none, too. Not a one."

"None at all?"

"None. Nix. Niente, nada, null points. Zero, zilch, the leather medal, the wooden spoon – "

"I understood you at ‘none.’"

"This was supposed to be a brilliant evening for both of us. A brilliant end to a brilliant week. Do you want to know something else? I didn’t close a big deal this afternoon. I haven’t closed a brilliant deal all week. In fact, not for a number of weeks…"

Darren hated to see a grown man cry. Even if it was Karl. And he was just about a grown man. "Never mind, Karl," he said. "I’ve got a great idea where we can go and have a good evening."



They slumped down in front of Darren’s TV to watch a Cheers marathon on UK Gold, battered cod, chips and curry sauce steaming in their laps. Darren yawned and rubbed his face with both his hands trying to clear away the images of the evening. "That was the worst best time I ever had."

"I can’t argue with that, buddy."

"You know," said Darren, surprised that Karl had heard him through his fingers, "I think I’ve decided. I’m going to pack in my job, first thing Monday, sell this place and move to the country. Maybe live on a farm in south Wales. Property’s cheap there."

"Now that is speedy decision-making," said Karl. Darren waited for Karl to give some half-wit reason why he couldn’t leave the city and become a country boy. But he didn’t. "Darren?…" Karl said slowly.

"Yes, Karl?"

Karl propped his head up on one hand, unwittingly plonking his elbow in his curry sauce.

"Do you think I could come too?"

The End.

(This story originally appeared on http://cadwc.blogspot.com/)

If You Think Your Tough – Try Saying "Cancer."

Non-fiction article explaining a widespread but often not widely-understood disease.

It’s a disease that strikes fear and dread into the bravest hearts. It’s a word, even today, said usually in little more than a whisper, or not said at all – when John Wayne got it, he told a friend that he had "Big C." His friend thought that the Duke was admitting to having caught "the clap." It affects all age groups, from babies to octogenarians, both genders, all races. It attacks all parts of the body. It is sometimes resistant to treatment and, untreated, can kill. The word is cancer.

Even reading it makes you feel someone has just walked across your grave. More than one in four people will have cancer during their lifetime, and after heart disease cancer is now the most common cause of death in western countries. But "cancer" needn’t mean "curtains," and there is plenty of good news about this so-called silent killer. So, what exactly is cancer?

Is that a hand up at the back there? I thought not. Most people have only a vague idea what the disease is. Hardly any wonder – it’s not one disease, but a whole family of them, brothers sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and all. In a nutshell, most of your body is made up of many different tissues, and there are as many cancers as there are types of tissue. The tissues are made of cells which grow by dividing like amoeba (hence the old amoeba joke – Frank and Mabel Amoeba have split up.) Each pair of daughter cells is supposed to be identical to the parent. But sometimes this duplication goes wrong (just think about your average photo-copier) and abnormal out-of-control cells, that sometimes grow very rapidly, are the result. This is known as a tumour, which may or may not be harmful. But if is, it means trouble. There are also cancers of the blood.

Despite all the scare stories you hear, in the press and on TV, the precise causes of most types of cancer are not known – at least, not officially, by researchers in the field (who demand a very high burden of proof.) But the usual suspects have a lot of evidence stacked against them. Carcinogens – poisonous chemicals that are linked to many cancers – environmental factors, such as radiation – including sunlight – are all up there. And, of course, top of the list is cigarettes. Along with certain foods, drink, not exercising, not eating other foods such as fruit and veg, and others of life’s pleasures. Annoying, isn’t it? Some cancers can be caused by viral infections and some are even hereditary.

Which brings us to good old DNA. Back in the 1950s, no-one knew what it was. Then Crick and Watson discovered the now-familiar double-helix, the Secret of Life. Today, we can’t get away from the stuff, with stories about gene therapy and genetically modified food in the news every day. What’s the connection? Basically, DNA carries the genetic instructions for making cells. If these instructions get damaged in any way, cells go wrong. The amazing thing is not that errors occur, but that they are, relatively speaking, so rare. If the instructions to make you were copied from generation to generation by the world’s best copy typists, you’d have mutated back into jelly millions of years ago.

What causes DNA to copy itself incorrectly? One or more ‘insults’ – which is the technical term for exposure to carcinogens – may result in damage or modifications to a cell’s DNA. ‘Oncogenes’ are genes present in the DNA of every cell and carry out normal functions but have the potential to make a normal cell turn cancerous. These genes help regulate normal growth and development, but an abnormal change may cause them to produce irregular or excessive amounts of chemical signals. These may stimulate extreme or abnormal cell growth. On the other hand some genes are thought to be protective against cancer and viruses causing badly damaged cells to self-destruct. So don’t go insulting your DNA, if you can help it. In particular, avoid tobacco. Tobacco is a killer. If it were discovered today, it would be banned.

Treatments for cancer are improving all the time. Surgery can be used to remove isolated tumours but is sometimes not suitable for deep-seated problems. Radiation, which is a possible cause, can also be a cure. By focussing the radiation from a number of different angles, the tumour gets burnt to a crisp, while healthy cells all around receive just a mild toasting. Chemotherapy uses a near-toxic cocktail of drugs, intended to kill bad cells while leaving the rest of you alive – just. It tends to kill the hair cells in your scalp, which is why patients go bald.

Prostate cancer is on the rise so rapridly that it is likely overtake lung cancer as a cause of premature male death. There are several reasons for this, not all of them as depressing as this might sound. For one thing, lung cancer is falling as people cut back on smoking. Prostate cancer is more common in older men and we’re living longer. What is needed is research to develop a quick and accurate screening method, but here again self-knowledge is key. Classic symptoms include wanting to go but not being able to pee. So if you can’t go, go see your doctor instead. He or she will give a penny for your thoughts about you not being able to spend a penny.

Other drugs, such as tamoxifen, have been around for years and have a very good track record for stopping the return of breast cancer, so much so that it is being trialed as a preventive treatment for people at risk. Newer relatives of tamoxifen that work even better are coming along, but some are hellish expensive. No-one wants to be in the position of having to decide between extending the life of one adult or, say, saving one hundred children, but at the end of the day there is only so much treatment money can buy. One drug, Arimidex, has had extremely successful trials in the United States and is likely to be introduced shortly over here.

Some cancers are difficult to treat while some respond readily – especially if caught early, but by this we do mean early. So early, in fact, that you probably don’t yet know that there is anything wrong with you. The only way to detect cancers this soon is by screening – that is, people going for check-ups anyway, as a matter of routine. This is why there is such a fuss about extending screening programmes for a variety of common cancers. Despite the occasional stories about mistakes with tragic consequences which make the news, screening has saved thousands of lives, which doesn’t make the news. Some people are reluctant about going for screening. Don’t be. Think of it as an MOT for your body – it’s meant to last a life-time, but you can’t trade it in for a newer model.

That’s another thing about cancer – it does seem to have a fondness for bits of the body you’d rather not talk about. If you are in a sexual relationship, a partner can be very good at spotting changes in you that you might not notice. Oh, and it’s not just women who get breast cancer – men can get it too. They’ve got the same sorts of cells in their chest, just not so much of them. Men obviously tend to corner the market in prostate and testicular cancer, while women are at risk to cervical and other genealogical cancers. We don’t want you to ruin a romantic moment, but while you’re at it, you can give your partner’s gorgeous tits or balls a critical once-over. It’s all part of a healthy relationship.

So, if cancer scares you, avoid insulting your DNA, don’t smoke, don’t allow people near you to smoke, don’t go where people smoke, exercise a bit, don’t sunbathe too much and eat your greens. If you get the invited to a screening, for goodness’ sake go, and if you are ever worried about any part of your body that shows unexpected changes, tell your doctor like now. Don’t be afraid of mentioning bits south of your waist-line – he or she will know they are there from medical school – and it would be silly to die of shame. He’d be happier to put your mind to rest than for an undertaker to put you to rest.

Saying the word "cancer" might just save your life.


Postscript: There’s masses of information about cancer on the Web. Some of the information in this article is from http://www.cancerindex.org/. Another good site for much more detailed information is http://www.cancerbacup.org.uk/. Just type "cancer" into your search engine for more.

Cancer – some facts
Data from the World Health Organisation

• In 1997, a world-wide total of 6.2 million deaths were due to cancer (out of a total of 52.2 million deaths). Leading causes of death from cancers were those of the lung (1.1 million), stomach (765 000), colon and rectum (525 000) liver, (505 000), and breast (385 000).
• 
  Cancer and cardiovascular (heart) disease are the leading causes of death in industrialised countries, in developing countries infectious diseases are the most frequent cause of death.
• 
  By 2025 the risk of cancer will continue to increase in developing countries, with stable and possibly declining rates in industrialised countries (partly due to screening).
• 
  World-wide cases and deaths of lung cancer and colorectal cancer will increase, largely due to smoking and unhealthy diet respectively. Lung cancer deaths among women will rise in virtually all industrialised countries, but stomach cancer will become less common generally, mainly because of improved food conservation, dietary changes and declining related infection.
• 
  Cervical cancer is expected to decrease further in industrialised countries due to screening. The incidence is almost four times greater in the developing world. The possible advent of a vaccine would greatly benefit both the developed and developing countries. Nuns don’t get cervical cancer.
• 
  Liver cancer will decrease because of the results of current and future immunisation against the hepatitis B virus in many countries

The End.