Pear Blossom Highway by Bobby Stevenson

The moments that existed between the lights being turned off and the walk to bed were his to own for the briefest of times.

They were an echo from the edge of a life; one that was now long gone. There had been a time when all he needed to think about was his own selfish needs but now he had the wife and kids.

 They were his life now, his total life.

 He doused the fire and closed the window against the night air. He could smell the rain coming from the west and he knew, for certain, that tomorrow would be a good day.

 He went to his grandfather’s old tobacco box and took out the creased photo. It was safe in there – the box was on top of a cupboard and the kids never touched it. His wife knew that  was his safe place and never looked in.

 He couldn’t remember when he first seen it, I mean really seen it - probably in some old magazine which smelled of damp and sat  on a wonky table in the dentist’s surgery. He hadn’t really known who Hockney was, just some painter from the Yorkshire coast and anyway art was for other people, certainly not for the likes of him. 

 People talked on the television about paintings and photos in words that his grandfather would have called ‘flowery’. There was no place for flowery in his life thank you very much, that was for those and such as those – although he never really understood what that meant.

 But this one work of Hockney’s really got to him. It was called the Pear Blossom Highway and for whatever crazy reason the universe had as a purpose, it genuinely sang to him.

 It floated his boat and that was a much a surprise to him as it was to anyone. I mean, apart from his lovely family, the only other thing that made him happy was football. He knew who played for whom and who scored what, just like his grandfather had taught him (as would have his father if he’d lived long enough to get to know him).

 So in the twilight, he sat looking at the photo and seeing himself standing by the side of the road and for no reason other than he could, he wishedto himself that he was there right there in the Californian heat. 

 By the morning his secret life was shut away in the box and he was back to taking the family dog, Rufus, for his morning pee, ruffling the kids’ hair, kissing his darling wife and fighting for a place on the road into town.

 He wasn’t unhappy and no one could say that about him and think it was the truth, but his dream of standing on Pear Blossom Highway propped up his struggles against sadness when it came to visit.

 Sometimes he didn’t bother with the photo, like the days when they’d take the family to the beach – amongst all the screaming and shouting, he’d close his eyes and feel the warm winds blowing along the Highway and the smell of the desert air. Okay, it wasn’t real desert but it was a lot more desert than he could see at home.

 One day he’d found a book about the Pear Blossom Highway and it seems it was called the death road. Some of the good folks from LA would use it as an alternative route to the Inland Empire and then they’d drive as if they’d been set free from unseen restraint, speeding and hollering all the way home. And as he read the words, in his mind he was driving along the road with the top down, music on the radio and the biggest goddamn smile on his lips.

 He found his life was a hungry beast and never satisfied. It ate up time when he was busy, it devoured seconds, hours, days and weeks as he was looking somewhere else. Even in his quiet time, life sucked up every spare second. Before he knew it, the kids had grown, his belly had grown, he and the wife had grown in opposite directions and he was no nearer getting to the Highway. 

So he did something he would never have considered a few years earlier. He kept some of his wages back from the family. Not much but enough. He stuck it in the box that sat on top of the cupboard and he called it the emergency fund but he knew it was never going to be used in an emergency. It’s just that he couldn’t admit that to himself right at that moment.

 When the boss offered him more work but on the other side of the county, his guilt made him take the offer; the kids needed new clothes and none of them had had a holiday in several years. His eldest daughter was getting interested in boys and she wanted the latest fashions. So every Sunday evening he would pack the car and head off, returning on a Friday night when the rest of the family was asleep. But it wasn’t just his daughter who was dressing up, he noticed new dresses turning up in his wife’s closet. She wasn’t wearing them for him at the weekend, so who?

 He started to put a little extra money every week in the box on top of the cupboard. He reckoned it was up to a few hundred by the start of the summer. One day when the time was right he was going to use some of the emergency fund and it was going to take him all the way to Pear Blossom Highway.

 One Friday evening in mid July when he got back home, the house was in its usual darkness, yet given the warmth in the air the windows were tight shut. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, instead he took down the box to look at the photo and that’s all there was - the photo and a note.   

He turned the lamp on and read the letter.

 ‘I’ve taking the kids and the money you thought I didn’t know about. I’ll be in touch.’

 Now that he was on his own most of the week, life didn’t seem that hungry any more - there was always time kick around somewhere, unused. Sure he got to see the kids every second weekend but it meant a five hundred mile round trip and yes, they were always happy to see each other. Over a burger they’d talk about how their mother had a new daddy, Eric.

 Yeh they liked, Eric he was a good guy apparently.

 So he decided the only way to use up the time was to work seven days a week, which, when he thought about it was a good thing. It meant he could send a few hundredmore for the kids and still put some money in the emergency box.

He worked the winter, saw the kids from time to time (but not like before) and worked some more. Come the spring, he got a call from his ex wife. She was getting married and although she would like to invite him, she didn’t think it was on the cards but she wondered if he could send some more money kids to buy clothes for the wedding.

 So took the money from the emergency box and sent it to his ex wife.

Apart from the odd woman he’d pick up in bar from time to time, his nights and his bed were cold and lonely. It worried him that he’d be hitting forty soon and he’s still not seen much of the world.

One Saturday morning, he took his truck to a garage in town and sold it for a couple of thousand and then went straight to the agents and booked a flight to Los Angeles in the great state of California.

As you’re reading this, he’s standing next to the Pear Blossom Highway and feeling the warm air in his hair and wearing a smile that may just crack his face.

A Million Other Things (2012) by Bobby Stevenson

He sat at the bar cradling his beer and wondering why the jukebox had more friends than he did.

If he was really being honest with himself, he was never, what you’d call, a popular guy; an acquaintance here or a guy you nodded to there, was probably the best way to describe his socialising strengths.

People respected him, he didn’t doubt that fact, but he couldn’t see respect bringing that many to his funeral, not that he planned on dying, no sir, not for a very long time, but still the hurt did go deep.

When did all this other craziness start? 

He had been going over that thought again and again until he was beginning to drive himself crazy. Had there been signs sitting right out there in plain sight with no one even seeing them?

He could feel through the beer glass it all starting again, the vibrations; small waves on top of the beer causing it to foam up, as if a half mile long train full of cargo was passing just outside the bar. But there wasn’t a rail track for miles and the road only saw one or two cars an hour, if that.

So he held the glass tight. 

“Jeez, Jethro are you okay? You’re gripping that beer like your life depended on it.” 

Jethro loosened his grip and smiled back at the barman.

“Guess you’re right Dan. Just thinking, that’s all.”

He left a tip on the counter, threw his jacket over his shoulder and walked out into the evening heat. It was growing dark as he drove onto his driveway where he failed to notice the flickering street light swinging above him. When Jethro entered the house, all the commotion stopped.

He walked down the hallway just as the telephone started ringing but something told him it was a cold call from an east coast building company, so he just plain ignored it. The little thoughts helped him at times. Like last Easter when he was driving through that blind junction on Madison Street and something told him to press the brake. He had no idea why he stopped but just then some old Chevy came blasting out of Jefferson Lane and it would have split Jethro’s car in two if had he driven straight on.

Now Jethro was never a religious creature you understand, but he always had a hankering that there was 

something else out there, some truth to the whole universe that kept folks in check.But all these things that were happening to him were unsettling, especially since he didn't  go out looking for them. “Just getting by” was his way in life and had anyone bothered to be his friend, well they would have known that too.

These days he had trouble sleeping and not just with the usual bad thoughts that crawled around in most men’s minds. Things happened to him in the night, strange things, like at 1am every morning the telephone would ring and when he answered it, no one would be there. Right after he put the ‘phone down , the smoke detector, that lay on the floor, would start beeping until he picked it up. The thing didn't have any power for crying out loud.

Now don’t get him wrong, these weren't ghosts or any kind of haunting. Jethro didn’t believe in such things. No, if someone worked that hard at life ( and Jethro felt everyone should  get an award for just getting through a single day) then they weren’t going to hang around afterwards, not when they’d just been promoted - so ghosts were definitely out of the question.

One night he had this thought about an airport and so he switched on his computer. He looked at the flight arrivals and noticed that one of them from South America was delayed and he knew right there and then that the flight was never going to land. Not ever. Some technical fault over Brazil had been the reason for the crash.

On Saturday nights if he didn't go down to the bar, he’d sit and watch the lottery show on the television. Without thinking he’d say a number out loud  and what do you know? That number would be chosen. If he tried to concentrate on it, it never happened. 

So one Saturday towards the end of the month, when his funds were getting real low, he put on a lottery ticket - he chose only four of the numbers he could hear in his head - well he didn’t want to peak too early, you know how it is? 

He won a couple of hundred, just enough to pay one or two bills and get by until his next pay day. At least that was the plan, but by Wednesday he was already thinking about the next lottery draw. So even although he still had money in the house, he put on five winning numbers and this time it was several hundred thousand he won. He called the lottery people direct so that no one local would find out.

He drove into the big city to pick up the money but somewhere at the back of his mind he was wishing that he had got the numbers wrong. Jethro decided that the money wasn’t his to keep, it had only been an experiment after all, a successful one nonetheless, but he’d proved a point.

He got the bank clerk to put the cash into two bags – half the amount in each – and decided the first place to start was the Church half way along Main Street.

A pleasant middle-aged woman let him in. 

“I’ll just tell the Reverend you're here. Have a seat please. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee is good.” Jethro was slightly nervous.

The woman smiled and left Jethro with the thought that this was probably the Reverend's wife. The room was in the process of being dragged from one century to another. There was garish pink flock wallpaper in a room of furniture that spoke of a more modern taste.

So two things startled Jethro that afternoon, the woman brought a large pot of coffee, two cups and a plate of cakes. She placed them on the table and sat beside him.

“So how can I help you?”

“I’d rather wait for the Reverend, if it’s all the same.”

“I’m she, the Reverend.”

“But you said....”

“That I’d tell the Reverend you were here? I was just trying to stop you running.”

“A lot do that?” asked Jethro.

“Enough.”   

So they talked, in fact they talked for a good two hours and Jethro told Maureen, the Reverend’s name, all about the strange things that were happening to him.

“You’re not stressed in anyway?” she asked.

He wasn’t and the question annoyed him. How could she dismiss his strangeness, yet spend her life promoting a strangeness of her own. He was sure his experiences were nearer to religion than she was willing to accept.

He left her the money but she needed convincing that he wasn’t a dealer, or a robber or insane. This he did.

“It could be lots of things causing this” said Maureen. “It could be weather conditions or it could be something electrical in you. It might even be God working in a mysterious way as he’s want to do. It could be a million other things as well.”

And  that was really all she had to say on the subject. Except when Jethro mentioned that she might use some of the money to fix the room up. She said the money would be put to good use as the flock wallpaper was expensive and so she was decorating real slowly. She couldn’t wait to get rid of all that modern furniture. That was the second thing that surprised him that day, she was transforming the room back the way. His power, whatever it was, wasn’t infallible. 

He walked along University Street with the second bag of cash but was hesitant about who he should talk to. He read off the different faculties, some he dismissed immediately, some he played with in his head for a while. In the end it came down to Philosophy, Physics or Mathematics and as the first department that he approached was Mathematics, he settled on them.

He told the receptionist that he wanted to make a donation and within five minutes he had been whisked into the Dean’s office and another cup of coffee pushed in front of his face. He explained that although he was happy to donate to the faculty, he wanted to talk to someone about a problem he had.

As the Dean removed the bag and the cash and placed it in a safe, he called in his secretary to contact whomever Jethro wanted to talk to. It made Jethro smile that in the university no one was bothered if he was a robber or a dealer.

In the end he was given time with a Nobel Prize winning professor who seemed a kindly man and who asked Jethro straight away how he could help him.

When Jethro had told him of the flickering and the vibrations and the lottery numbers, he seemed bemused.

“So you think that you have some extraordinary powers, am I correct?”

And Jethro had to agree that he’d got the problem down in one. The kindly man suggested that Jethro take some notes as the professor tended to ramble on and it might be a bit difficult for him to follow. So Jethro took a pad from the professor’s desk and started writing. Words like ‘Chaos Theory’ kept coming up again and again.

“So if I get this" said Jethro "and I’m still not sure that I have, you are saying Prof, that in the universe, no matter how sure that something is meant to happen or is due to happen, it might not happen because of Chaos Theory? And that means that anything could happen?”

“Exactly my boy, wonderfully put.”

“So I’m a chaotic interruption in an otherwise ordered universe?”

“Just so”

“Doesn’t that make me a freak?”

“Never young man. Now, I really must dash.”

Jethro drove home after spending a large amount of money on advice that he could have got off of a television talk show, but he felt that they had both meant well.

As he approached his house, several of the street lights began to flicker and swing and as he said out loud “this problem isn’t getting any better”. 

He stayed in all weekend and drank a few beers and this seemed to keep the thoughts at bay for a while - it even managed to stop the lights flickering in the house.

By the Tuesday he took a walk into town and as he rounded the corner he literally bumped into a neighbour, Tomas Saltz.

“I’m sorry to hear about your wife's passing” he said sympathetically to Tomas.

“How did you know? I have only come from the hospital, she died this afternoon. Who told you?”

Jethro left the poor man crying in the street as he ran off into Center City. The rules had changed again, this chaos, whatever it was, had surprised him once again.

So Jethro sat in the bar with his hands clasped around a glass of beer and purposely ignoring the vibrations on top of his drink. Danny the barman gave him his usual look.

“You alright, Jethro?”

“Sure Danny.”

Danny went back to cleaning the glasses.

“Danny?”

“Yup?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Shoot.”

And Jethro told Danny about all the strange things that had been happening to him and how it might be one of a million other things, but then again he might just be a freak.

Danny assured Jethro that there was no such thing as a freak and that we all fitted into the universe in our own way. He also hoped that Jethro didn’t think Danny was a hippy or anything, but  if Jethro was made the way the universe wanted him to be, then that was all there was to it.

Jethro said he was sorry that he didn’t have any money to give him right there and then, but come Saturday he could give Danny as much as he wanted.

Danny said he wasn’t interested in Jethro’s money. Wasn’t he a friend and wasn’t that what friends did for one another? Friends listened and they helped each other, they cared.

Danny handed Jethro a fresh beer. “On the house pal”

And then they shook hands and that was when Jethro knew everything was going to be alright. In an instance, he saw Danny in the years ahead with a wife, kids and in a poor but happy life. He also saw a photo with

 Jethro as a godparent holding one of Danny’s children.

And he knew things were going to be alright for him too. So what if he was the exception, so what if he didn’t have too many friends? He had one and that was enough for him, and he had a gift that not too many people had and he knew that he had to use it for better things than lottery wins. 

After all, this was a big, big universe and everything and anything was possible.

The Best of All Summers (2012) by Bobby Stevenson

Some things remain with you forever.

When I was ten years old, my father took me on a trip in an old battered car and caravan, and although I didn’t know it at the time, my father was dying. He was only forty years of age and he was dying of a brain tumour. 

What can I tell you about me back then? That I was the only son of parents who never got around to marrying? That I lived with my two sisters and a cat and that despite not having any money, we lived in a house packed to the roof with love.

Maybe that’s as good as it gets in anyone’s life. 

My father was the gentlest of hearts and the kindest of men, and I’m not just saying that because he’s gone. I’m saying it because it was true. It was his strength and his weakness. My mother watched so many people taking advantage of his goodness, that in the end she put herself in the way of anyone trying to use him. This made her seem hard but she was willing to put up with that, because that was what our family was always about – love.

My parents had decided that when school was closed for the summer, Mum and the girls would go to London for a few days to see a show, while me and Dad would go north taking his old car hooked up to Granddad’s caravan. I knew Dad was probably hoping this would be a chance for us to talk, as he was always working and I was always in my bedroom being misunderstood. Even at ten years of age I had no real idea how to enjoy myself.

On that summer, that glorious summer, school finished and my life began. Dad drove Mum and the girls to the railway station and I sat on the front steps waiting, bag ready and caravan packed.

I’ll always remember the ‘toot-toot-toot’ of my Dad on the car horn as he returned from the station, letting everyone in the street know that the boys were off on holiday. All those unused days were spread before us, waiting.

If I’d thought that it was going to be a particularly difficult time sitting in the car with my Dad, I was wrong. I had imagined him and me struggling to talk to each other and stumbling over words. I guess I’ve always made assumptions about things. I’ve worried and assumed – I suppose that’s what should be written on my headstone. There I go again.

As we drove towards the coast, I felt ashamed of myself. Here was a man who knew all about my writings and about the books I’d read. He would steal himself into my room after he came home late from work, too late to wish me goodnight but long enough to kiss me on the forehead and absorb from the room who and what I was. There was I knowing very little about him, except he was my father and he was rarely home.

I don’t recall when he stopped the car but I do remember it getting dark. I had been telling him all about the characters in some Dickens novel when I must have fallen asleep in his arms. When I awoke, it was morning and the sun was fighting the condensation on the window. Dad had placed me in the back seat and covered me with his jacket. 

The car was freezing and as I sat up, I shivered. I wiped away mist from the side window and saw, that despite the sun, the sky and the sea were a cold blue, broken up by the foamy edges of the waves.  We had parked at the edge of a cliff and Dad was sitting, staring - that was all he was doing - just staring. When I felt brave enough, I ventured outside to join him. I’ll always remember his face that day, the wind had slapped his cheeks into a Santa Claus red and his eyes were watering, stung by the sea. You could almost imagine that he had been crying, and I wonder now, from all those years away, if he had been. 

He told me to sit next to him and he put his arm around me, “You, and me, son are going on an adventure”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I liked the sound of ‘adventure’ and I loved my father and felt safe with him but there was always a part of me that wanted to return to the protection of my bedroom, pull up my arms into my sleeves and wait on the next hurtful thing. Yeah, you’re right, I was one weird kid.

As we came over the hill I could see it: Blackpool Tower. I had never seen anything so tall in all my life and was so excited that I forgot about my misgivings. The place was alive with people who were swept up with enjoying life and buzzing with laughter. There were donkey rides by the sea, the odd uncle with a handkerchief on his head to keep the sun away and people breaking their teeth on sticks of rocks, slurping ice cream and getting pieces of candy floss stuck to their noses. 

Dad and I went down on to the beach and ate our fish and chips from a newspaper. I think it was the best fish and chips I ever tasted.

“That’s better.” said Dad.

“What?”

“You’re smiling, you’ve got a nice smile, you know. You should use it more often.”

“Oh Dad.”

“I’m just saying.”

And do you know what? I felt that I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Just me and my Dad on the beach at Blackpool. 

“It’s my fault.” he said, sadly.

“What is, Dad?”

“The fact that you never smile, me and your Mum left you sitting too long in that room of yours.”

“I like my room.”

“No one likes their room.”

Dad parked the caravan down some quiet side street and told me to get washed and ready as he took a walk into town. When he returned, his breath smelt of beer and his clothes of cigarettes.

“You’ll never guess what I’ve got in my pocket? Two tickets to see Arthur Askey at the Grand”

What a night that was, everyone laughing and singing along with The Bee Song. I looked over at my Dad and he was laughing so hard the tears were rolling down his face. God, I miss him.

We had ice cream topped with raspberry sauce on the way back and I never once thought about my misgivings, not once. 

The next morning after a cup of tea and a bacon roll, we left Blackpool still singing the Bee Song, just me and my Dad. 

I can’t remember who saw the old lady first. My Dad had stopped the car because I needed to pee again and I was hiding in the bushes. The woman was sitting on a bench and at first we thought she was just sleeping, but her head had rolled forwards and she was moaning. Dad put his ear close to listen to her breathing.

“This isn’t good. We’ll need to get her to hospital.”

I sat with her in the back seat of the car while she rested her head on my lap. She reminded me of my Gran, I almost said “We won’t be long now Gran” when she moaned really loudly. The nurse brought Dad and me drinks as we sat in the corridor waiting on news. It almost felt like it was my Gran.

“Are you family?”

Dad explained to the doctor that we had found her sitting by the side of the road.

“There was nothing we could do, I’m afraid. I’m sorry your trip was in vain. She passed away five minutes ago.” 

Dad got a bit annoyed but he kept it to himself until we were outside the hospital. I thought maybe he was sad about the old lady dying, but really he was a bit angry.

“Don’t you ever believe that what we did was in vain, son. Never think that. That poor lady would have died alone on that bench if we hadn’t stopped. As it is, you kept her company and there were people with her when she went. So it wasn’t in vain. Nothing is in vain. Always, always remember that. Everything matters”

I guess that’s the kind of thing that happens to a person when they come out of their room.

As Dad drove south, I had the feeling that he just wanted to keep driving but as soon as it started to get dark, we stopped. Thinking back, I guess he couldn’t see too well in the dying light, something to do with his tumour.We set the caravan down in a field that overlooked Liverpool. What a city. Looking over the way the setting sun painted the building tops, a crimson yellow. We were going into town tomorrow and Dad said he had a surprise. 

I don’t think I have ever been to a happier city than Liverpool that day. People were going to and fro but always laughing and joking. Some were singing, others whistling. I loved every minute of it; every blooming minute of it. 

“I’ve got a pal and he owes me a favour”, said Dad. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t even known that my father had any friends or who they were.

“He works at a club down Matthew Street. He says if we arrive early enough, he’ll get us in and you can hide under my coat.”

I almost had misgivings again, almost wishing I was back in my safe, warm, bedroom - almost. 

We did what Dad said and he put me under his coat and the doorman, his pal, waved us past all the people waiting to get in.

“We’ll need to keep you under cover young ‘un” said Bert, Dad’s pal, as he led me to a small room by the stairs where he gave me lemonade.

“We’ll come and get you when the band is ready” said my Dad. “I’m going to have a talk with Bert. You’ll be okay here?”

I would be. 

I had just finished my drink when there was a knock at the door, followed by it opening.

“Hey Paul, look what I’ve found, the Cavern has little people living under the stairs. What are you doing here, son?”

I told him I was waiting on the band and that my Dad was coming to get me.

“And what band would that be son?”

I shrugged and the man seemed to find that funny. His pal, Paul came over to have a look at me.

“You’re right John, that is one of the little people. You’ve got to be lucky to see them” and then he rubbed my head.

John said it was his band that was playing and I said I was sorry. He said not as sorry as he was and asked did I want to come to their dressing room?  Although on second thoughts, John said, there was probably more room under the stairs. 

So I went with John and Paul and met the other two, George and Pete. They were all fooling around and didn’t seem to be in anyway nervous. John asked me what I wanted to do “That is, when you stop being one of the little people.”

I told him I wanted to be a writer and he said that was probably the best job in the world next to being in a band, especially his band, and he went into his jacket and gave me his pen. 

“If anyone asks, tell them John Lennon gave it to you.” 

That night I watched John, Paul, George and Pete play the most wonderful music I had ever heard or will ever hear. I didn’t know it then, but a few weeks later Ringo replaced Pete. I never got to meet him. 

My Dad died, just after Christmas, that year.

He left me with the best present that I have ever received in my life. He took me out of my room and locked the door so I couldn’t go back in. So what if I got hurt? That was the price you paid for being out there, that was the price we all paid, and the other thing he gave me was the belief that nothing is ever in vain, nothing. 

On the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon’s death, I flew to New York and walked through Central Park and climbed the hill to Strawberry Fields. There was a little boy about ten and his Dad listening to the music of Lennon and I took out the pen and I handed it to them:

“John Lennon gave me this.”

Everything matters.



A big thanks to Stephen Fry for tweeting this story to the world.

The American Friend (2012) by Bobby Stevenson

She loved him. 

That much of the story is true. I know that because it’s written in green ink in her diary. Why else would I be taking her ashes half way across the world?

She, Sarah my mother, met him, Donald the American, early in 1965. In those days the national anthem 'God Save the Queen' was played at the end of a movie. Apart from the odd soldier or war veteran, most people used the opportunity to run for the last bus home or to get to the head of the fish and chip queue at Greasy Annie’s next door to the cinema.

The Regal, the local flea pit, was the only cinema in the little town in the West Highlands. It closed early on a Saturday night to allow the projectionist and the ice cream lady to get home in order to prepare for Church the next day. 

Sarah didn’t stand up for the anthem, she didn’t believe in it, but she wasn’t in a hurry to leave either. It was then she saw him standing with his hand over his heart, she had never seen that before. Sarah watched with wonder as the man attempted to mouth the words of 'God Save the Queen' when most people couldn’t navigate their way past the first verse.

She had enjoyed ‘My Fair Lady’ and she imagined she would sing a couple of the songs as she walked home on that wet Saturday night. If she liked the movie she always replayed it in her head, that way the road back was never as lonely. 

“Did you enjoy the movie Miss?” 

For a second Sarah felt as if a movie star had spoken to her, surely the rich deep American voice couldn’t be coming from that man?

“The name’s Donald, Don mostly. And you are?”

“Sarah. You’re American?”

“Sure am, Pennsylvania born and bred Mam, prettier than New Jersey and bigger than Ohio. The State Mam, not me.”

“I’ve never been.”

“To Pennsylvania or to the States?”

“Anywhere.”

“That’s a pity Miss that truly is a pity. It is God’s own country although yours does come close.”

That is how they met and that is why Sarah, my mother, records in her usual green ink that they shared fish and chips on the walk home.

He was Donald McInnis and his family had been thrown out of Scotland with the Highland Clearances. Those were the days when the landlords found sheep more profitable than people. His ancestors had settled in Pittsburgh and that was, as they say, that.

“So why come back?”

“My wife died in ’63 and as we had no kids, and I had no other family to speak of, it seemed only right to return to my own home”.

“I’m sorry”

“No need Sarah. No need whatsoever”

For the record, my mother Sarah was twenty years of age and still a virgin according to her diary. So let’s just say for the sake of argument that she was telling the truth (which she was) and that Don was the man who showed her the ways of the world. Whatever occurred, she fell in love so hard that it must have been recorded on a Richter scale somewhere. She didn’t just need him; this was life support on a grand design.

The green ink betrayed it all: Don said this; Don said that, Don took my photo with a Polaroid camera...Don...Don...Don. 

If you read the diaries carefully, as I have done countless times since my mother’s death, there is one thing that you will notice – nowhere up to this point, apart from what I have told you above, does it mention anything about who Don really is, or was. Don’s life appears to have been invisible. 

I asked Don about his parents last night, he got very cross, told me to change the tune and he went for a walk. 

If what I learned later is true, then Don had a very good reason to be secretive about where he came from and who he was.

My mother never actually moved in with The American Friend, that would have brought her shame in 1965, instead she kept house for him and went home to her family in the evenings. 

Don was reluctant to go to the shops or even show his face in the village, this was all due to suffering from depression following his wife’s death (apparently). It was on one of those shopping trips, while my mother was standing in a queue at the butchers that she noticed, through the window, a little man watching people as they went about their business. He was leaning against the drapery store window while smoking a cigarette. He had a hat pulled down over his face. 

She thought nothing more about it at the time. The following day when she was in the library getting the latest Ian Fleming for Don,  he was there again. This time he wasn’t watching anyone in particular, rather he was taking an unusual amount of interest in the local newspaper and was curiously using a magnifying glass. Two swallows really don’t make a summer and so the incidents went to the back of Sarah’s mind. 

About a week or so later, Sarah was walking her cousin Pauline’s dog on the beach. It was something she did to get out of the house, especially when Don was going through one of his darker periods – periods which were becoming more frequent. At the far end of the beach she sat watching a small yacht fight with the elements, she could hear what she thought was probably a father and son arguing on board.

“I love sailing” said a voice behind her.

She shivered slightly as she couldn’t recall anyone being that close to her on the beach. She turned to see the little man from the butcher’s and the library standing behind her.

“Sorry?” said Sarah.

“Just commenting on my love of sailing that’s all and may I say what a lovely, lovely dog you have.”

It was hard for Sarah to pin down exactly where his accent came from but it did sound faintly European, English even. The way he said ‘lovely’ gave Sarah goose bumps - there was a cold strangeness to him. 

“My name is Reinhardt, young lady, although I don’t suppose you get to meet too many foreigners around this way, yes?”

“I suppose” said Sarah.

“You do or you don’t?”

“No, we don’t.” 

For a tourist, he seemed a bit pushy, thought Sarah.

“Would the lovely people....” there was that word again “..know if there was a stranger in their midst?”

“You mean like you? Listen I don’t want to be rude but what is it....”

Sarah turned her head just in time to see the funny little man hurriedly walk away and disappear behind a sand dune. 

All the way home she had an uncomfortable, creepy, claustrophobic feeling. She wanted to tell Don all about it but when she got back the place was dead, Don was taking one of his afternoon naps. This, at least, would allow Sarah time to get the evening meal ready. 

Don came down at six and the meal was on the table ten minutes later. 

“Thank you darling” said Don, placing the longest kiss on Sarah’s lips. 

“You’re always energetic after a nap, I’ll give you that.”

“And hungry, what have we got love?”

They sat down to potatoes, carrots and minced beef – some might say a delicacy from this part of Scotland. 

She waited until they had finished before she mentioned the man. 

“Can you remember what he looked like?”

“Just a funny little man, nothing special” said Sarah, noticing how agitated Don was becoming.  

“I’m just saying he must have been special for you to mention it.”

“He gave me the creeps that’s all”. By now Sarah wished she hadn’t mentioned any of it.

“What did he say?” Now Don was starting look worried and that worried Sarah. 

I think it was at that point I realised that whatever this little nervous man meant to Don, it was something serious. Perhaps he owed him money. Now as I write this, I wish that is all it had been. 

The house was getting swallowed by the dusk, so Sarah decided to light one of the oil lamps.Don knocked the lamp from Sarah’s hand, letting it smash on to the floor. 

“No lights. He’s probably watching the place.”

“Who?” Sarah started to feel as if this was somehow all a little unreal.

“The man..the man...the one you were talking to.” 

She didn’t like Don behaving this way and at this moment he was far from being the man who made her feel safe. This Don was angry and scared and that made her feel the same way. What had she gotten herself into?

He whispered, “Sit here with me on the sofa. Just do it.”

So Sarah felt her way in the blackness of the room and sat beside her man.

“Don’t make a sound. Do as I do and sit still.”

“Or else?” Sarah wasn’t looking forward to the answer.

“Or else, he’ll kill you.” 

That brought the conversation to a stop. Actually it brought everything to a stop. She had a million questions to ask her American friend and yet at this point she couldn’t think of one. 

The two of them must have fallen asleep because she heard the old clock by the fire chime three. That was three A.M. and she needed to go to the bathroom. She wriggled around and freed herself from the weight of Don’s arm, placing it on the back of the sofa, then ever so gently she felt her way towards what she guessed was the hall. 

She had only unbuttoned her dress and sat on the toilet when she saw him standing above her. Sarah didn’t have time to scream before his gloved hand was over her mouth and the creepy little man had her trapped.

She couldn’t breathe and the last thing she thought of was that Don would take care of this little man and then she passed out. 

When she came to, she was lying on her side with her hands at her back and tied to a wooden pole. She might be able to get up and run but she certainly couldn’t go anywhere, not without the pole hitting a door or a window frame. When she looked across at Don, he was coming to and there was blood running through his hair and eyebrows, and dripping off the corner of his chin. 

“You know I would find you” said the strange little man. ”It was only a matter of time. Now had you tried Antarctica, well you might have stood a chance. But Europe?  Very naughty Mister Trench, very naughty indeed.” 

“Who’s Mister Trench?” came slipping out of Sarah’s mouth.

The creepy little man turns and faces Sarah. He picks up Don’s bloodied head by the hairs and talks straight into his face.

“This, young lady, is Steven Trench, he has probably told you he is someone else and you have believed him. You may have even thought you were going to marry him but you see, he had a job to do and he failed me. Luckily someone else also took the job on and succeeded, although he himself is now how you say – dead.”

Sarah asks the little man who he is but he feels that Sarah doesn’t qualify to know, not just yet. She should just be satisfied that he didn’t kill her when he had the chance.

“Little men” says Sarah under her breath. 

“Are what?” asks the man as he becomes more agitated. He drags Don, who also has his hands tied, on to the floor, rolls him on his back then sticks a boot in Don’s chest. 

“Are in charge” says the man proudly. 

The little man forces his heel further into Don’s ribs.

“I have to admit, it’s taken me some time to track you down Trench. I never thought of Scotland. Nice move but not good enough. You are a very stupid man - all you had to do was fire the gun, drop it and run. We would have taken care of the rest.” 

“Like you did with the other guy?” asks Don.

The man puts further pressure on Don’s chest.

“I didn’t ask you to speak. Did I ask him to speak young lady?”

Sarah shakes her head. 

“Has he told you who he is? Sorry I didn’t catch your name?”

“Sarah, my name’s Sarah”

“Well Sarah this is the man who ran, it’s as simple as that; we had Oswald on the sixth floor and your boyfriend here as insurance. He was to stand on the grassy knoll and ensure that Kennedy died. But he ran. Ain’t that right Trench? You ran, you’re a coward and now I’m here to clean things up. Loose ends and all that jazz, that’s what you are Sarah, a loose end - sorry”

I don’t remember where the bird came from, my mother wrote in her diary, but I’m almost sure it flew out of the chimney. They did that some times and the bird flew straight into the face of the funny little man. He bent over screaming and Don kicked the man’s legs away from under him. Without missing a beat, Don untied me and we were both out of that door and running down the valley with no looking back. 

My mother and Don moved as far and as fast from the West of Scotland as they could. They settled in the South Island of New Zealand and that was where I was born. My parents always had one eye on the door just in case they came again, but they never did.

My mother never returned for the funerals of her parents.

I know what you’re thinking - you’re thinking what a crock the story is, but I swear to you it’s true. Least, according to my mother and I never knew her to tell a lie. The name of Steve Trench was never mentioned  but once, when we went as a family to watch the movie “J.F.K.”, my dad said a strange thing, he said ‘I didn’t see me up there’. That was all he said and it stuck with me, I had no idea what he meant back then.

My dad died a few years ago and now I’m taking both their ashes back to the west coast of Scotland where they met and I’ll scatter them near the top of a hill called Corlic where my mother used to sit as a kid. 

The other thing about going to the cinema in New Zealand with my mother and father was the habit my father had of standing at the end of the movie and humming ‘God Save the Queen’ while my mother would watch. 

It always made me smile.

Tea Time by Bobby Stevenson

It sits neglected, as it always has,
In several passings of
The moon.
All it wanted
To make it perfect
Was a teaspoon of sugar and
A slurp of milk – but they never came.
And as the water sat in the
Cup losing its heat
And its will,
So the drinker failed to show.
Perhaps they’d stepped in front of a bus and never looked.
Or intentionally jumped to quicken the pace.
Perhaps they clutched their chest with buckled knees in some shopping hall,as they clung to life and the stupid kid who grinned down at them.
Perhaps they drove to have some secret hour in a cheap motel next to the sea with a lover who pressed too hard.
Or perhaps the tea was made to greet the man you should have been on the day of your return.
- or maybe the cup of tea was never poured for anyone at all.

Shoreham Rose by Bobby Stevenson

for Shoreham

Perhaps I should start way back at the beginning.

The first time I laid eyes on Sally – Ludlow as she was called then – she had a permanent band aid on a pair of National Health spectacles. She was nothing special, at least not to me, she was just one of those children who run through the streets of Shoreham on any given sunny evening. Kent, back then, was a different place than it is today. It was a gentler, kinder time and in the years after the war, there was still rationing but with that came a feeling that we had to look after one and other.

Sally and her family lived on the High Street and we lived on a small farm on the back road. On those summer evenings the kids used to meet up by the Cross on the hill. The Cross had been cut out of the chalk hills in the years after the Great War to remember those who had given their lives and by a strange irony it had to be covered up during World War 2 as the enemy bombers used it as a landmark.

That night, the night it happened – we both must have been about fifteen back then – I was sitting on the hill overlooking the village and I knew that when the lantern came on outside the Rising Sun pub, it was time for me to head over the hill and back to the farm.

I loved this view and even on a warm evening there would still be smoke rising from the chimneys and leaving a ghostly drift across the valley.The smell of the grass and the fields and the fires was like nowhere else on earth.
“Is it okay, if I sit?”
And there she was, Sally standing over me as she pushed those spectacles back up her nose, they always seemed to be trying to escape her face.
“Well?”
“Sure” I said to the funny little girl wearing the funny little glasses.
“I always see you sitting up here from my bedroom window.”
“It’s the best place in the world to sit”, I said.
“My father doesn’t like me watching you.”
“Why?” I knew I was going to regret asking this.
“He says you’re a weird one, always on your own.”
“And you, what do you think?” I asked.
“Oh I don’t think you’re weird, I love you.”

And that was that. That was the night, the first time ever, a person, other than my grandmother, told me that they loved me.

The rest of the summer we were inseparable and even her father got to like me. When I wasn’t working on our farm, I was over at Sally’s and some days she would come and help at our place.
The night before we were due to go back to school, she made a small ring from the grass on the hill and asked me to propose to her.
“Sally Ludlow will you marry me?”
She said ‘yes’.
“And you can’t ever get out of it, James. Till death us do part.”

So at fifteen years of age Sally and me were engaged to be married. Sally said we should start saving right away so that way we could have a big wedding and invite all the family. She reckoned we’d be really old by the time we could afford it.
“Maybe nineteen or twenty.” That seemed such a long way away.

Every penny I earned went into our secret wedding box and it lay side by side with Sally’s contributions. Of course we were going to get married in St. Peter and St.Paul’s, the local church.

Then Sally moved to High Wycombe, it seemed her grandmother was poorly and her family wanted to live with her.
“It’ll only be a few weeks”, she said.
But it wasn’t, it was almost a year. I met Sally in London on two occasions but as we were saving our money, we decided to write to each other instead.

To start with we wrote every day but eventually it was one small note, once a week. I almost gave up and thought she was never coming back.

Then I got called up for National Service and I was shipped out to Aden. Before I left, I heard that Sally’s father was coming back to Shoreham to work in the butcher shop at the corner of Crown Road and that Sally and her mother would follow on.

Her father rented a room above the butcher's while he waited on his family but since his mother-in-law was in a state of decline, his wife and daughter stayed on in High Wycombe.

I came back home twice but there wasn’t any time to travel to see Sally as I was needed on the farm.

By the time that Sally and me were in Shoreham she turned up accompanied by her boyfriend, Andrew. Apparently he was studying to be a doctor and his family were something in High Wycombe, least ways that’s what her mother told me. I don't think she meant anything by it.

Sally and her parents moved temporarily into the Station Master’s house at Shoreham as the wife of the house and Sally’s mother were the best of friends.Every time I called at the station I was told that Sally was out but I’m sure I saw the curtains twitch in a room upstairs. I wrote to her a couple of times but never got any reply.

That year my family decided to send me off to Agricultural college in deepest Sussex and this allowed me to return from time to time to work on the farm. I had a few girlfriends while I was studying but none of them was ever Sally, she was always on my thoughts one way or another. Then one day I ran into Sally’s mother who told me that her daughter had married and moved to High Wycombe.

That’s one of those moments in your life when you feel as if everything inside you has been ripped out and yet you still manage to function – I continued to speak to her mother without missing a beat.

I threw myself into working on the farm and from time to time I got involved in the Village Players: a drama group which helped me take my mind off of Sally.

Once a week I would meet up with pals in The Royal Oak, the best of all pubs in Shoreham and really that was my life for the next ten years. 

It was at a wedding in the new golf club that our paths crossed again. Sally hadn’t aged in all those years, she was still as beautiful as ever but there was a sadness on her face.
“Hi” was all she said and how long had I waited on that?
She had nursed her husband for the last three years and he’d died just before Christmas. This was a grown up Sally I was talking to. She was only back for a weekend to remind herself how beautiful Shoreham was as a village. She had begun to think she'd only dreamt the place up.

I told her that the next time she was in the village she could stay on our farm. She said thanks, and told me she’d think about it but she had to get back to her family. She had an eight year old daughter and a five year old son and she had to work out what her future was going to hold.

Then the following summer she came for a weekend with the kids to stay on the farm and that was the happiest I had been in years. She too, looked less sad.

What can I tell you?

We married the following the year and we set up house in one of the farm cottages.
We had one further child between us, Simon and the five of us had the best of times. Sure we struggled but I was with Sally and my family and anything was possible.

The older boy, James and the girl, Sue moved into London and both had families of their own. Simon settled down and took over the farm, letting me and Sally travel for the first time. We even drove across the States.
Sally left me in her 65th year – she had been ill for several months and her leaving took my heart. Sure the kids and the grandchildren visited the farm but once again I spent my days missing Sally.

When I felt strong enough to clear out her clothes, I found a small box in the back of the wardrobe and in it was the small ring made from grass. She’d kept it all those years.

When the time comes I’m going to be buried in the church next to Sally.

It’ll just be me and her again.

 Shoreham Rose - the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QnHQsV9-IU