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Sunday, not so bloody Sunday.

last update Last Updated: 2022-01-13 00:36:56

Day 14. Sunday.

I woke at six thirty. I hadn’t heard Charley rise. I assume he was already next door, sorting the children out, so that Sid could have a lie in. What drives that man? Is he going for beatification? Silly. He’d have to be martyred first.

I dressed, walked home, and found the early morning air unseasonably cold. No wonder. I was still in my shag-me shorts and shirt from the previous evening. My bed looked even colder and more uninviting than the walk home, so I shoved Sonya to one side, crawled in beside her, and snuggled up. I remember a physics lesson on radioactive decay. At the time I decided Sonya - then only about seven - must have a plutonium core, gently decaying to heat the universe -  perfect to cuddle up to on a cold morning. That girl will never want for the love of a good man in her life.

Sonya turned out at eight and turned me out with her.

'It

Clive La Pensée

Millie asks about Vera's emotional life. Will she get the truth?

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    ‘Why I left with tears in my eyes? I don’t think I was crying,’ she lied. She paused to consider, then said, 'Your dad can guess. Ask him.' 'I have, and he said, ‘another time.’' 'Another time it is then. Next question.' I looked intently down the newly raked sand path, between the roses, toward a beautifully overgrown wall at the perimeter of the rose garden. Should I argue? No point. If she and my dad don’t want to talk about it now, then I should leave it. Next question it is. 'You didn’t ride out on Friday with the hunt, presumably because you had sold your field hunter. Why would you do that?' 'It was a very valuable horse - I needed to raise some quick capital and I knew the company bank wouldn’t help.' 'Come on, Vera. That’s only confounded the riddle. The most that nag could have fetched is a couple of grand and you have that as pin money.' She peered at me over her reading glasses, which she always wore when eating. I

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Marketing lies

    'So, no one else cottoned on?' 'People may have thought us totally bereft of any common sense, but once the gossip mill was grinding, they lost all sense of reality. Perhaps they liked the idea that her ladyship had a couple of bastards by another man and gave them to a childless farmer in Scotland with a big financial reward. I think every other interpretation of my disappearance was too bizarre to be believed.' I pondered her tale. Once it had sunk in, I was aghast. 'So, let me get this straight, Vera. Not only did you have the trauma of miscarrying twins, you had to live a lie, deny any local support systems for a grieving mother and go live on your own in some Scottish castle. And you had a husband, who would rather be married to an adulteress than a faithful wife who had the misfortune to miscarry. When was your breakdown? 'Very perceptive. It hasn’t happened yet, although for a while I fought with it every day. 'Past tense?' 'Yes

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Master of the Horse and other lies

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   The dative case

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Farming wind

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   A real lover

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Lies and statistcs

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   The final word

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   A woman's scorn

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Not in the mood

    It’s a Friday. I don’t know what day anymore. Weeks have passed.I’d taken the mail to the letter box. As I walked by the bus lay-by on my way home, a car pulled up beside me. The window wound down. There was Detective Sergeant Smythe.'Just hop in please, Ms Backhouse. I need to talk to you.''Do I have to? I’m really not in the mood.''We can do this without you being in the mood,' he snapped.He released the door catch and it swung open. He wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. I climbed in beside him and shut the door. The window whirred upwards.'How can I help you, sergeant?'There was a long pause, while he took his notebook and pencil out. His whole demeanour was that of a fifties cop like you see in TV dramas. I put my hand on the door release and moved to get out again. That concentrated his mind.'You will be aware that you owe me.'

  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Turmoil

    Day 64.Friday. I’ve slept on it and decided I’ll have to ask Vera for her version of events, woman to woman, two friends together. It’s the only way to lay the ghost of Sonya’s ramblings. Should I tell her the full Sonya version? We could have a laugh about it. I didn’t. You can’t laugh about the death of two destitute alcoholics, who had once been the kindest, softest villagers - according to village lore that is. I’d never known them and only spoken to them the few times this summer. The walk up to the House after work that day was the loneliest I’d known. I didn’t notice the late summer colours forming, the swifts collecting on the electricity cables, chattering and practising their departure, the squirrels hunting nuts, and the chill in the air as the autumn mists collected over the sea. It must have all been there. It’s there every October. This was the first October that I had carried such a

  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Tidying up

    Day 64.Friday. Five to seven my phone went. It was Sid. 'Vera is in a state. I’ve tried, but she screamed at me. She is so scared of what may happen. Her husband has refused to go with her, which would have silenced a lot of tongues. Take a hairbrush, make-up and a can of hairspray. Maybe she’ll let you work on her.' Seven on the dot, Vera was outside our house. It felt like the old days. I realised how much I missed her company and doing things with her, although, when I view my diary, we did precious little. The day was blustery and I had run down our long path to the front gate, with my hand on my head, holding my beret down. Once in the car, I could see how dishevelled she was. This woman wasn’t coping at any level. I took a chance with my conversation opener. 'Morning sickness?' 'Not really. I suppose Sid told you.' She pulled away towards the A12. 'It

  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   End of the road

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  • Coming of Age the Fast Way   Grey dawns and bright sunsets.

    'Sorry about the state of the transport Vera. Not exactly your BMW, is it?'Who cares? I’m so pleased to see you. I thought I would have to pay for a taxi home. How much do you know?''Almost everything, except why are they doing this to you?''Larissa! She said she saw me. No problem. She may well have done. She described what I was wearing, which was nothing like what I was wearing and when I handed my clothes over for analysis, the police thought I had destroyed what I was wearing and substituted something else - obviously because I’m trying to hide the blood.''What were you doing at the cottage at five thirty?''What do you think?''How would I know? You had a motive for wanting him out the way. He was the one person in the village who knew about your miscarriage and subsequent charade, wasn’t he?''I thought only your father knew. I regretted having told you that, the moment I‘d said it. Now you have a ho

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