Maids of Pen Neidr

“Tell the story Uncle Jack, go on.” My brother handed Jack a mug of tea.  We were spending the summer holiday on Uncle Jack’s farm in the Black Mountains, in Wales.  It was getting dark.  We’d had fish finger sandwiches for tea and run out of 50p coins to put in the telly.  Uncle Jack…

Marginalia

Marginalia

Mouse-like, she lived on the fringes of polite society. She was one of the the overlooked, ignored, unremembered and to others, unremarkable.  The last to arrive, the first to leave. “A bus to catch,” she’d murmur, gathering her beige handbag and creamy leather gloves, buttoning her tweed coat. No one offered her a lift or…

A Second-Hand Coat

I dismounted at the road edge, where metalled track crumbled away into moorland, giving way to sedge and a rolling sea of cottongrass. Beyond was the heather, delicate purple, a perfect foil for the scarlet of Jesse’s coat as he bobbed in and out of view against a milky sky tinged with the grey of…

Night Wait

The thick, starless night enveloped the lonely figure with the smell of autumn, the season of mists. He didn’t know how long he’d been waiting in the abandoned bus shelter, he wasn’t even quite sure why he was there. He felt like a forgotten, unfinished rhyme. The world was stirring around him, time slipped through…

Wild Gestures

Wild Gestures

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF ROMANCE You fall in love with a voice, with a book, a beard, or lack of. You, who feel nothing, who is a wasteland in a woman’s body. You can’t let any of this show on your face, even when he gets into your dreams and sets them on fire,…

The Garden

The queue shuffled towards the counter. “Two teas please,” said Jodie. “Two pounds eighty.” Jodie paid for the tea and went to find her mother who’d chosen a quiet table in the corner. They never sat by the window or went into the garden. “I’ve something for you,” said her mother. Jodie wasn’t sure if…