The Ship

For as long as anyone could remember there had always been the ship. People were born, people lived their lives, and people died, on the ship.
Salt water was converted to fresh, fish were taken from the sea, and fruits and vegetables were grown on the upper decks. The ship never went anywhere in particular, because no one knew of the concept of ‘a place to go’. The ship just kept sailing on towards a horizon which it never reached.
Over the years the fuel had gone from steam, to oil, to a combination of wind, solar and nuclear. It never occurred to anyone on board to stop the ship – because that’s what the ship did, it always kept moving.
As each generation was born on to the ship, theories would arise as to how the ship had been created. Some believed that a race of beings had built the ship many, many eons ago – some believed that the ship had been provided by a god for the good of all those on board.
Over the years there were two types of people – those who explained all the ship’s trials and dilemmas in terms of science, and those who described the ship as a ‘toy of a greater being’. Both had rules, the science created rules to allow everyone to live comfortably on the ship – the others, well they wrote rules about who and what you were permitted to do. They felt that as their god had provided the ship, then that god should not be angered. People had to marry, have children and thank their god at every opportunity.
In the end, no one ever really knew what the truth was. The scientists believed there had been a world, once upon a time, which had flooded – and that those on the ship were the only souls left. When someone from a science family died, they were buried overboard in order to feed the fishes – ‘the circle of life’ they called it. When one of the ship-god souls died they were also buried overboard, but were expected to rise to the heavens and live among the stars.
No one was right and no one was wrong. Each generation felt that they knew the secret of life and each generation ended up in the sea – either as food, or as a means to pass to another world.
Someone, in times past, had scrawled a message upon the wall on the lowest deck – it read:
“We have no means of knowing why or how we came to exist on this ship. We must live together, not taking too much or destroying too much. Only by living in harmony and love can the ship keep moving.”
Underneath the phrase was a little wooden block which had been interpreted as the name of the soul who had etched the message.
It read: ‘RMS Titanic’.
bobby stevenson 2016

A Story From A Room

Once upon a long ago, a man walked into a room. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the place – it was just a room. Simple as that.

The first time the man walked into the room, he had spent too long listening to those who talk about darkness. Those are the souls who live, work, breathe, and create darkness. Their glass is always half-empty and it is always someone else who drank from it. They would rather you didn’t smile, after all what have you got to smile about?

Having let all this bleed into his mind, the man walked into the room. In the corner was an old lady with a cat. It looked as if the cat was the old lady’s only friend, she was willing it not to die. If the cat went, so the old lady would probably follow. Across, in another corner was a boy looking out of the window. 

The boy looked lost, as if he was searching for something that lay beyond the horizon. Perhaps he was getting ready to jump, thought the man. Lying on the floor in the centre of the room was an old man staring at the ceiling. The man wondered if the older gentleman was looking at something in particular – but the man looked up and could find nothing of interest. Perhaps the older gentleman was depressed and could not find the energy to move? The man, sad and down, left the room and closed the door behind him.
 
Another man walked into the room. He had basked in the warm sunshine and had breathed the air full of the scent of flowers before entering. In the corner of the room he saw an old woman who was finding comfort and love in a beautiful cat. The animal was just as happy to be stroked and petted. At the window was a young boy who looked happy and excited to watch the sea and the sun create diamonds of colour. On the floor lay the boy’s father who was watching the rainbows on the ceiling created by the sun hitting a little crystal vase. The man smiled at the beauty in the room and left.

In this particular room moments before either of the men had entered, the boy’s father had tripped over his child’s cat and was lying injured on the floor. His son had called an ambulance and was watching out of the window to see when it arrived. The grandmother was trying to calm down the cat who was understandably upset after being tripped over.

And so to the point: there is no right, nor wrong in any place. There is only the truth as you see it.

bobby stevenson 2016

On The Right Tracks

There is a little railway station just north of somewhere and to the east of that other place. And one time in your life, you’ll either have stood waiting on a train there or will have passed through it, I promise you.

The station wasn’t anything special, it just helped people get into the city and received their tired bodies at the end of the day. It had been built in the 1850’s and judging by the architecture, it was a statement to a country with an empire. But things change, and empires fall, and now the station just had a ticket office and a toilet.

It wasn’t small enough that people talked to each other, nor was it big enough to get lost in – it was a station of an awkward size, where people saw the same folks everyday but were standing too far away to communicate. And  so life went on as it always does.

Then one cold November, just after that thing that happened, but just before that other thing was about to occur, Jonathon Nasby came to the station as the Station Manager. Okay, all he did was sell tickets and clean the toilet but that wasn’t going to stop Jonathon – who had once dreamt he was going to be an astronaut or failing that, regenerate into Doctor Who.

At first, Jonathon (who had never been actually told to his face, that life was hard) started singing as he sold the tickets. There were those (as there are always ‘those’) who found the humming and singing a distraction, but for most, it was a little break from the hum-drum of travelling to work.

Then Jonathon started to sing as he announced what trains were going where and the ones which weren’t coming. A few faces would crack a smile while standing on the platform and possibly, one or two would forget about their troubles for a few minutes.

It wasn’t long before Jonathon was telling little stories for the folks who stood, waiting:   about how he had got the job, how he had never been picked for sports’ teams at school and how, despite everything, he felt that a Station Manager was a brilliant job and he wanted to thank everyone who had helped him.

One or two of those waiting broke into applause, and like an Oscar speech, Jonathon decided to thank everyone in his life. One morning, a note was left at the ticket office which just said ‘thank you’ and Jonathon felt that was the best note he had ever been given in his life.

In between the songs, the selling of the tickets, the cleaning of the toilet, and the little speeches, Jonathon started to write his own little stories.

One snowy day when everyone was generally feeling miserable he made this announcement:
“Good day my fellow travellers, I want you to think about your problems. I guess most of you are standing there thinking of them anyway. Now, in your head, give your problems away to someone in the station and you take their problems. Swap yours for theirs. And I know you’ve probably heard it before but I, reckon that if you could really see all their problems, you’d be screaming for your own back.”

Then Jonathon broke into his version of Bohemian Rhapsody (doing all the voices). The station became so popular that people started to change stations and leave from Jonathon’s because it made their day. It got so crowded that sometimes there wasn’t room to move.

The big chiefs on the Railway Board decided to investigate and discovered that Jonathon’s spirit and outlook was just what they needed at one of the big city stations. Soon he started to run the Jonathon Nasby School for Railway Enhancement and Entertainment.Jonathon realised that all people really wanted was someone to tell them that they were okay.

Jonathon is the Prime Minister now and of course broadcasts a song to the entire country every morning. Today the song was the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and folks in every city, town and hamlet were heard to sing along with him.

bobby stevenson 2016

wee bobby

Teatime At The Empire Cafe

December 1955
Even although she pulled her coat in as tight as she could, the snow and sleet coming off the Channel still managed to make her shiver. She’d stop in at the Empire Café for a reviving cup of tea she had decided. It’s not as if Mother was in any danger; at least she could wait another fifteen minutes for her prescription medicines.
She managed to have so little time to herself these days. It hadn’t meant to be this way. By now, she should have been living out on some farm in Western Australia with the love of her life. Except he had never returned - like so many others - and after her father died of pneumonia, her mother had deteriorated so quickly that it had caught her unawares.
She was destined to being her mother’s nurse until the end.

When she had finished her tea and cake, she noticed that the snow had stopped and that the sun was fighting to come through. A little hope, she thought, and she caught herself smiling as she stepped out into the afternoon. 


July 1930 
The Empire Café was still there - thank goodness. He’d come here with his grandparents before the Great War, and it was always a place of happiness to him. Today all the bright young things were occupying the promenade with their energy and laughter and the rest of the world could go hang, as far as they were concerned.
He had been young once, too. A very long time ago when Victorian values had ruled on things such as smiling and laughter; they had been frowned upon and were always kept behind closed doors.
He was jealous of the young, they had it so much easier - and as he sat in the Empire nursing his tea, he wished that this was his time and that he was nineteen again. He was startled by a very pretty girl, high on champagne, who knocked on the large glass window and waved to those inside. They did all they could not to catch her eye, not in disapproval, but knowing if they looked up, they’d wish it was them who were out there that day.




August 1972
He doubted if anyone in the world could be more excited than he was right at that moment.

He’d asked his boss if he could leave at mid-day as he had to visit his grandmother on the south coast. She was keeping poorly and probably wouldn’t make it to Christmas. He wondered if his boss had realised that was the third time he’d used that excuse in as many months?

He’d never been to Hastings before, but thought that the Empire Café seemed a reasonable place to change his clothes.  He’d left for work that morning to go to Friars and Friars, who were known as the best accountants in Westly. He sat in the café dressed in his dull brown suit and drank his tea. He was hoping that the place would quieten down, and then he’d make his move.

By his third cup of tea, he decided that things weren’t going to improve and took his chance. Both he, and the little suitcase, he’d packed away and hidden under the bed, went to the Men’s toilets. He carefully folded away his dull clothes and changed into his glam-rock ones. It was a bit like superman, except this wasn’t a telephone kiosk.

No one had noticed him enter the café, but they all noticed him now. He was dressed from head to toe in a shiny silver suit and he wore the largest pair of glittery bright red boots ever seen in the Empire. He wondered if the make-up on his face was a step too far.

He could hear a few of the older ones choke on their teacakes, as he proudly strolled out of the café into the big wide world - accountant by day and glam-rocker by night. It was 1972 and anything was possible.

bobby stevenson 2016

 wee bobby

Broken

Every morning Andy would count to ten before he got out of his warm forgiving bed and while he was waiting, he’d usually count his luck as well.

He’d always been the type of soul who walked the line on the lucky side but he had to accept that things happened to you when you were forty-seven years old. The way the radio sounded quieter in one ear than it did in the other, so he was going deaf as well as losing his ability to see words clearly.

The news station annoyed him to the same degree as it ever did. Why he listened to it was anyone’s guess. All they did was try their best to wipe the smile from his face: sick economy, rising unemployment, new terrorism – why did they never try looking at the positive for a change? Tell a good story about families who were working hard to save their kids. He knew why - because it didn’t make news.

He was becoming sick of it all, fighting every day for each and every step. Yet like millions of others across the land, he would get up and start his day with the best will in the world that he could muster. He’d grit his teeth like all the other dads and just get on with it.

Most of his life was a habit but it was a habit that he wrapped around himself like a warm blanket. God help him if it ever disappeared, his wife Sara and the kids were the only reason he’d got up.

He loved his wife the way that you do after twenty-five years of marriage, more than ever and less than before. She was his sun, his moon, his stars and his major pain in the butt from time to time. And the kids? Well the kids were part of him, sure they had their moments but jeez they had made this world bearable and they were his breath.

So he got out of bed on the count of ten like he did every day and he slid his feet across the floor like he did every day, and he shaved and showered like he did every day. He had a cup of coffee like he did every day – except for one thing, this wasn’t every day.
______

Sara very rarely stirred from her bed until he had got up. Every day it was the same, she could almost hear his brain counting to ten. But up he’d get without fail. He’d never had a day’s illness except maybe that time when they had just moved to this house, to this area and that must have been nearly twenty years or so.

He was a good man and she loved him, truly loved him – she’d never looked at another in all that time. She knew how he was feeling and what he was thinking even if he was clear over the other side of the county. It was that close, it was that much love.

He was a decent father to their kids, never a harsh word to say to any of them and yet they kept in check. They were good kids and they would make good parents themselves, everyone said so.

So why did she feel so lost? Like she was drowning, when all this was everything she dreamed of. It wasn’t the menopause, that had been and gone and she’d coped with it all. There was an empty ache at the core and it wouldn’t go away – no matter how hard she tried.
_______

What can you say about a child who’s been murdered? The year it happened was the year that Tommy joined the Police force, it would be more correct to say because it happened is why he joined. Twenty years later and no one had been caught not even a hint. Sure there had been talk and names mentioned, some having to leave to avoid the whispers, but there had never been good solid evidence to point the finger at anyone.

The police had interviewed almost every male in the town at the time but either the Police were incompetent or the killer was very clever.
Tommy had watched the victim’s family disintegrate, that was the only word to describe it: disintegration.

The girl’s mother and father no longer lived together and even the same town wasn’t big enough, perhaps seeing each other brought back the horror of that night.

The night she went missing, the night that the girl’s mother knew she was dead. Before the Police had informed the family, before the body was found, before even her husband had grown worried about Tracey being late. A mother knows and she felt her daughter saying goodbye inside. That was what she told the Police the next day. The mother had even been a suspect at one point but like all other leads she had been not considered a serious contender.

Back then Tommy was just a guy, plain and simple, and the night that Tracey went missing he helped along with all the others. He searched the undergrowth, the garages, down by the old canal and at the side of the once used rail track.
Poor Tracey’s little battered body had been found a couple of miles from where Tommy had been looking. He wasn’t sure if he’d wanted to be the one to find her or not.
______

We separated about two years after the death. For better or worse we’d promised each other at the Church but they hadn’t mentioned anything about your own beautiful little girl being taken. That was the worst of the worst no one could get you through that.

My darling daughter, my little one who I had read to, cried with, laughed with, run with, wiped her nose and her bum had gone.
I and her mother supported each other for as long as anyone humanly could - but the heart scars don’t show up, not at first anyway. They seep through the skin and poison everything around them, they seep into laughter and birthdays. They taint the very kindness of people. Until you grudge everyone their happiness. The fact that the world continues to turn makes your head literally spin.

I think the hatred started with the people on TV. They still made jokes, they still acted in plays, still read the news, still sung their songs. All I wanted was one of them to stop and speak through the screen:
“I am so sorry Mister and Mrs Andrews, on your loss”
But they didn’t they just kept on singing.

Then one night I looked over at my wife and thought - why didn’t they take you and leave her and I knew I was finished.
______

Tracey was my friend and now I don’t sleep so good. My mother says not to worry as it’s only bed sheets. You can always wash bed sheets she says, but I feel embarrassed.

Tracey was my pal and now I don’t go out. Not because I’m scared, just because I don’t want to.
Tracey was my best buddy and I cry most nights.
______

My name is Andy and every morning I count to ten before I get up and then I count my luck.

They haven’t caught me yet.


bobby stevenson 2016

photo: www.classic105.com

Jack Junior

I know it might sound strange but this is the only known photo of Tommy Knightley – at least that I know of. He looks mysterious – right? You couldn’t describe his appearance, not with all that smoke and that’s the way Tommy liked things. You see he ran with the night, and always kept company with all the dark things of life; never stepping out into the real, honest, light. 

The photo was taken on one of those typical 1952 evenings in London. You can’t tell it from the picture but he was surprised when I stepped forward to take it. 

So surprised that he tried to threaten me – but two can play at his game – and so I melted back into the dust and fog and simply disappeared.

Not that he didn’t know where to find me, and I could bet on him doing just that, sooner rather than later. He was like a dog with a bone – he wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard you tried to stop him. 

Ask anyone in London where Knightley came from and they’d most likely say he was from the East End of the city. But you ask a policeman and he’d tell you something different. There was no record of a Tommy Knightley being born in London, or anywhere else for that matter around about the time that he was supposed to have entered the world. So maybe he lied about his name. Perhaps he lied about his age. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

One thing is for sure, he didn’t have any family, or partner to speak of. In all the time I was tracking Tommy Knightley, I never knew him to get close to anyone. He was, as the clever folks say, an enigma.

Yet he couldn’t survive in that state forever and I was going to be there when the truth was finally unveiled. Except that I had been trailing him for over five years and every time I thought I was getting close, he would scuttle away like a rat to another hiding hole and I would have to start the search all over again.

Things happened when he was around, I mean bad things. Gangster things, people disappearing – that kind of stuff.

I remember one man talking about him in a London bar and describing Knightley as the devil himself. There was one other famous story about him - and when you realise that he was born in the 1890s you might believe it – and that was that he was Jack the Ripper’s son. Jack the flaming Ripper’s offspring. Sometimes it seemed a ludicrous idea, and at other times it made a lot of sense.

Like father, like son.

I know that some of you people don’t believe that there was a Jack the Ripper; that he was the product of a government under pressure to make folks look the other way. But I can tell you that all the people I’ve talked to in the East End, especially the older ones, will tell you they know who the Ripper was - that was Knightley’s father and that he was Satan incarnate.

Maybe you can see where I am going with this one - that perhaps if I caught up with the man, not only would I get the demon put in prison but I might also get the truth about his father. One way or another, I would know if the old man was the Ripper or not. I mean this is a London and it is only sixty years on from those murders - there are still folks out there who remember, who can’t forget.

Then it happened one dark, foggy night, not long after I had taken the photo of him, he walks up behind me. Tells me to stop following him or I’ll be sorry. Says that he won’t think twice about slitting my throat, just like his old daddy did to those girls.

“Who was your father?”

“You know,” he said and pushed me in the back. “He was the greatest man of all time,” he continued. “Folks will be talking about my father for ever.”

“There was no Jack the Ripper,” I said, mainly just to annoy him.

“You think?” He replied. “Those women had bits missing and I’ve got them,” then he chuckled. My blood ran cold.

He continued: “They say that you die twice, once when your heart stops and once when the last person mentions your name. Well my father isn’t going to die any time soon, because folks just keep talking about him. You on the other hand, will feel my steel through your gullet one of these dark nights. When you least expect it. When you’ve forgotten about me and I’ll jump behind you and cut you up just liked my daddy showed me.”

Then he disappeared into the darkness. I have to tell you that it was one strange encounter. I couldn’t sleep for a while. I haven’t seen him in a long time  - not in a long, long time but something tells me he’s out there ----- waiting. 

bobby stevenson 2016

Strange Freedoms

 
TOMMY

Tommy lived in a town where you had to be one thing or another. That was the way it was, that was the way it had probably always been. There was no room for neutrals, no room at all.

The folks who lived on the north side of the street gave their allegiances to the blue team and those on the south gave theirs to the green.

It was no use saying that you liked them both, or worse still, that you didn’t care about either – both of these cases got you beaten up. That was all that ever happened to Tommy, he was beaten up.

In this part of the world, for reasons that are better known to themselves, the greens went to one school and the blues went to another. Now Tommy wasn’t sure what the merits were in either system, just that he would have liked to have been friends with both, but as he already knew, that was impossible.

Both sides thought they were in the right, which meant that both sides thought that the others were wrong, and that included the folks who thought nothing about either; those folks were probably the worst according to both.

Tommy’s ma had passed away when he was barely out of nappies, and soon his father had met another woman who had caused him to move down south. Tommy stayed on in the town with his gran and granddad both of whom were neither green nor blue but just beige (if a person could be beige).

He had a lonely wee life, had Tommy, since he was a neutral and therefore was the lowest form of life, but there was one thing that made him happy and that was rock music. More importantly, David Bowie’s music.

You see, this was the year of 1973 and this was also the year of Glam Rock. Folks who weren’t trying to thump each other, were dressing up in glitter and sequins, and basically dodging folks beating them up.

When Tommy’s grandparents went to their beds, which was usually around 6pm, Tommy would put on the record, Ziggy Stardust and dress up as his hero. His hair would be red and his face was painted with his gran’s makeup - and he was the happiest boy alive.

One Saturday when the blues were marching for something and the greens were marching for something else, Tommy was left in the house because his grandparents felt that it was too dangerous for a boy to be out on the streets.

Right out in front of Tommy’s house, the blues came marching, shouting and singing from one direction, and the greens were singing, shouting and marching from the other.

Tommy hid behind the curtain to see what would occur, and that was when Tommy decided that he was fed up hiding and that he would go outside.

The blues and the greens were at what you would call, a stand-off’ snarling, and shouting abuse at each other – when suddenly they all stopped, and everything went quiet.

Tommy, all dressed up as Ziggy Stardust walked down between the two groups and started singing a song from his favourite album. In the silence some started sniggering, then there was laughter, then both sides shouted, then both applauded the wee rock star.

And for a few minutes both sides sang along with wee Tommy and forgot that they were either blue or green.  And Tommy felt it was probably the best day of his life – so far.


KATIE

Katie and her sister came as a pair. They were born almost a year apart. They ended up in the same class in school when Irene (the elder of the two) was kept back and made to repeat a year.

They left school and worked in the same shop together and both went out with boys from the same street.

But for whatever reasons, they never got married – and became ‘old maids’ as some folks would say unkindly.

It was in Katie’s 70^th year, and Irene’s 71^st, when the younger girl noticed the changes in her sister. Irene began to forget things, (as did Katie) but it sometimes meant Irene leaving a stove or a kettle burning away. Then Irene started to imagine things and people (and they were things that Katie wasn’t able to see and share). Then Irene started to walk about at night and sometimes leave the house which meant that Katie had to go out into the dark and follow her, finally bringing her sister home.

The doctor grew concerned about Irene and told Katie that she must be prepared for Irene to go into hospital. So one night, on Irene’s final night in the house. Katie dressed up as one of Irene’s imaginary friends and she laid a pot of tea out on the table and Irene served sandwiches to everyone.

Then in the dark they went for a walk, with Irene and all her friends. Irene and Katie sat at the edge of the forest watching the sun come up and Katie watched Irene have her final sleep on the outside.

 
MARCUS

Five…four…three…two…one…

Then the school bell would ring for a freedom that would last the entire summer. Marcus loved all those days that lay ahead – sunshine and heat in the hills of his childhood, and on the very hot days, the trips to the seaside – ice creams and fish and chips.

He used to lie next to the little beached fishing boats on the front at Hasting and stare at the blueness of the sky and wonder what it looked like from the other side.
And now he knew.

His life had been all rocket science, finishing up with him becoming an astro-engineer; a man who would spend too long away from his family, but he had to admit he loved it up here. Out in space - on the European station – several hundred kilometres above his home.

The Project Manager had asked him and the Bulgarian – Androv to check the pipe flow – it had a habit of closing down when the pipes went into the side away from the sun. But Androv had been in sick bay and Marcus had decided to check the pipes himself.

The fail-safe attachment had severed. He had no idea why. As soon as they noticed he was gone they would sound the ‘man-overboard’ alarm.

But it would probably be too late by then, and as he drifted further into deep space, he felt a peace and a freedom that he hadn’t tasted since the days of the school bell.


SADIE

Her friends were always there waiting on her. Sadie would stand on her bed and lean out the window, and below her window were her three best pals in the whole wide world.

Annie was the beauty – she would probably be a matinée idol and then there was Celia, who would definitely win a Gold medal at the Olympics. Sasha was the brainy one, the one who said that one day she would be a great doctor.

Sasha could whistle the loudest, so she always stuck two fingers in her mouth and alerted Sadie that the gang were ready to enjoy another day together.

Those were the best days of her life. She was sure there had been other days just as enjoyable – days when she had been a mother or even a grandmother, but she couldn’t remember those days at all.

But for the time being, Sadie waved to her pals below and shouted that she would be down in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. She always said those words, and her pals always laughed.

Just then the nurse came into Sadie’s room.
“What are you doing standing on your bed, Mrs Jenkins. How many times have I told you not to lean out the window,” said the nurse.

“But my pals, are waiting,” said Sadie.
“Well they are just going to have to wait a bit longer”.

And the nurse gave Sadie her medication which sent her to sleep, and in her sleep Sadie would leave the old folks’ home and join Sasha, Celia and Annie below for a day of fun and freedom.


HENRY

His auntie used to ruffle Henry’s hair when he was about five, then put her massive hand underneath his chin and force his cheeks together to make him smile.

“Aggie, your boy, your little Henry is a worrier. He was born worrying and he’ll probably die worrying,” said an auntie who meant well.

But she had been right, Henry had never known a day when he wasn’t worried about one thing or another. He was always sure the sky was going to fall on his head.

He worried at night that his house had been built on top of a coal mine and that one dark evening he would be swallowed up.

Worrying became his friend, and it was a friend that he would be lost without.
It was on the day of his 61^st birthday that he entered the bank to withdraw money to buy himself a present. He never kept money in the house just in case it was stolen.
Henry didn’t see the bank robber at the other end of the building but he did feel the bullet as it entered his chest and exited his back.

As Henry fell to the ground, he could see the blood - and felt satisfied that all his worrying hadn’t been in vain. And as the darkness came over him, he could feel a kind of warmth and freedom in his dying. He had nothing left to worry about now and that was just dandy.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Storm

 
Every morning the same thing happened, her mother would burst into her room, shout ‘rise and shine’ and then open the window to let the world in. Most of the time it was only the train smoke from the station next door.

They had lived in a little house on Albion Square since her great-grandmother’s time and the family had seen no reason to change things, even when the family grew to be nine souls.

There’s no need to tell you exactly where all this occurred, just in case you go looking. I wouldn’t blame you, but to be truthful the family have seen enough hard times of late.

The year I am writing about is just a couple of months into 1920. The girl in the bedroom, Eloise, always finds a strange comfort in the daily smell of the steam trains passing her window.

Had the war not intervened, she would have now been living in Dover as the wife of Doctor Smithton. Expect life never ever played that fair and Eric, her intended, was lost somewhere in France. 

So she had resigned herself to remaining unmarried for the rest of her life, and destined to share the little bedroom with her other three sisters. Her siblings had long since gone to work and Eloise loved the thirty extra minutes she had in bed with the room to herself. She revelled in her isolation, with no noise and no girls, she would lie and dream of what her life could have been. She dreamed of going downstairs and making Eric his breakfast before he headed off to the surgery.

As it was, in reality, she would trot along to the little café on Middle Street, where she would spend ten hours a day making tea and serving scones to the great and the good of the town.

Except this day was unlike any others. For a start, she couldn’t smell the steam trains;

“There’s a storm coming, see if I’m wrong,” said her mother as she opened the bedroom window. Eloise reckoned her mother was probably right, the sky – at least what she could see from her bed – looked dark and foreboding.

By the time Eloise was walking down the lanes to Middle Street, she had to pull her coat in tight against the wind – a warm one that was blowing strongly in from the sea. She struggled to open the café door and judging by the lack of people in the place, so had the customers.

By five o’clock, Mrs Teacher, the owner of the café, sent everyone home.

“Don’t look like they’ll be any more today not with that sky, so be off with you and get yourselves to the comfort of your home.”

Eloise didn’t want to go home so soon, knowing full well, that her sisters would be sitting in the bedroom, her bedroom, discussing their latest boyfriends. She thought it a bit tasteless that they had to talk about such things in front of her – considering what had happened to Eric. Eloise would cough now and again when things were particularly hurtful, but that only served to make her sisters talk in hushed tones – something which annoyed her more.

So that night, after the café was closed, instead of going home, she headed down to the beach. It was here she always felt free and content. What amazed her was the fact that the water in front of her was a path to anywhere in the world. All one had to do was jump in and swim.

But that night the storm was growing into a hurricane and it was difficult to stand upright on the beach. Instead she chose to walk down the pier and not surprisingly she was the only one there. Even the little man who sat in by a fire, in the hut at the gate, had given up the ghost and gone home.

There was a chalked black board on which the little man had written the word ‘danger’ on it – a warning which was gradually being washed off by the rain. Eloise chose to ignore it and walked to the end of the pier, anyway.

The last thing she remembers is hearing Eric, she was almost sure it was him, calling her name.

For several days the locals walked the beaches and cliffs of the area looking for Eloise’s body, but nothing turned up. After two weeks, everyone had given up any hope of her returning (all except her mother that is). No one could work out why she had gone walking on her own - and on the pier - and on a night such as that.

Mrs Teacher replaced Eloise with a girl who was straight from school and willing to take half her wages.

The weeks passed, as did the months and then the years, and by then all her sisters had moved out of the bedroom and made something of themselves. All were married, all to good husbands from good families. ‘Wonderful prospects’, as their mother was always telling the neighbours.

Eloise’s mother continued to walk the pier several times a week, wondering when her daughter would return – for she was sure, in her heart that she would.

In November, 1963 – the same month that President Kennedy was assassinated, Eloise’s mother had got her first television. Something she would have to pay off weekly for the next several years. By that month she found that she only went to the pier once a week, as her arthritis was getting worse and anyway she could spend the cold nights watching some soap or other on her television. It was almost like an old friend.

When there was a knock at the door, she initially thought of ignoring it, but it seemed persistent and reluctantly she rose to answer it.
“Who are you,” shouted Eloise’s mother which was answered by an even louder knock.

When she opened the door a young policeman was standing in front of her.

“Mrs Greata?” Asked the young man.

And right there and then, Mrs Greata (Eloise’s mother) sank to her arthritic knees.

“Please God, not one of my children, please tell me it isn’t so,” she pleaded.

“It isn’t what you think,” said the policeman. “We found this woman walking by the pier, all she could say was she wanted to be taken to Albion square.  So I did. No one has recognised her so far. You’re my last hope. Do you know this woman?”

The policeman pulled a bedraggled young woman into the light of the hall.

It was her, and she hadn’t aged a day.

It was Eloise.

bobby stevenson 2015