All stories

Clare was late. Not in the ‘sorry I missed the bus so had to walk halfway’ kind of late, not in the ‘I thought you meant 10PM’ kind of way, but in the ‘God giveth and God taketh away’ kind of way. The kind of late from which you don’t ever catch up. The kind of permanent late which…. oh you get the gist. Dead. Clare was dead.

Of course, she’d been late a lot when she was alive too. so much so that those who knew her well would text her half an hour before their arranged meeting time to see quite how late she was likely to be this time, and then invariably forgive her when she still turned up later than the revised time, simply because she was such a sweetheart, and was usually late because she had been waylaid doing something kind, thoughtful or even heroic. Like the time she sat on a park bench in the snow for 3 hours with an elderly Polish man upon whom she had stumbled in the park on her way to coffee with with Kim, crying salty tears into his already salty herring on his dead wife’s birthday. She had almost paid with a toe over that one because, as well as being consistently late, was also perpetually underprepared for any kind of weather.

Or the time she got so excited about finding and rescuing an abandoned herb garden in a forgotten plot at the allotment that she completely missed her shift at the falafel stand. Gerald was not as forgiving as her friends sadly so that was the end of that job.

Or the time she had found that kitten and had walked for 4 hours knocking on every door in town until she found its owner, a broken hearted Annie look alike called Sophie. Sophie had been so grateful and Clare so smitten with both the young redhead and her feline companion that they had sat and played teddy bears’ picnic until Sophie’s bedtime. Luckily Tom, her long suffering fiancé, had a soft spot for cats and kids too so had let her off missing their lunch date, again.

That day, that fateful day, Tom had once again found himself stood up. Sipping his third flat white and trying for the tenth time to call her, he had felt a wave of forboding and cycled home to see if she was still there. He had let himself in and there he had found her, a dark pool of dried blood around her still body at the foot of the stairs, her phone a few feet away, text half composed ‘sorry sweetheart on my…’. He had been sitting there for an hour trying to come to terms with it, to get his fingers and his voice working enough to call the necessary parties. Who even were they? He picked himself up, and went into their kitchen, their breakfast dishes still piled by the sink, and at the sight of their porridge encrusted bowls, the tears finally flowed.

With an almighty twitch, Godfrey’s tensely sleeping body broke into consciousness. He had slept fitfully all night, waking at every rustle, every warm breath arising from the stable beneath his lofty bed. He didn’t know what the warning signs would be. A flaming arrow? The stampede of hooves? Maybe there wouldn’t be any. He sat upright in his hay bed, scratching his mite bitten skin. Last night’s dinner of salted herrings and wine mixed with sleepiness had left him with a thundering head too fuzzy to focus.

Swinging his legs over the side of his makeshift cot, he leapt down onto the cold stone floor of the empty stall. As a young hand, he was always removed from the real action but his job was as important as any in preparing the clan’s steeds for battle. Given the high alert they had been on for days, he was surprised that the Kings horse was not there – come to think of it, there was no noise at all. His brow furrowed as he peered over to the next stall. Empty too.

“PUGGER?” He called expecting to hear his brother hail back an insult.

Checking each stall as he passed through the stables, his confusion started to rise into panic. There should be an army of sleeping hands next to their wards. It was as if they had all been silently plucked from the earth while he slept.

Leaving the stables, he rushed towards the glow of the main house. Taking the quickest route, he stumbled through beds of sage and rosemary. The warm light spilling out into the garden was coming from a still burning fire. It must have been last stoked only half an hour ago as the flames were still licking through the dry wood. Turning round and round to try and find some semblance of life, his eyes skipped over piles of dirty bowls. That wasn’t last night’s meal sticking to the edges, mounds of oats had been hastily left mid consumption. Breakfast had obviously started without him but then left nearly as soon as it was served.

“COOK?” He yelled. Cook was always there. Always by the fire with a dirty apron and a matronly smile to reassure him. “COOK?”. Nothing.

Panic was now raging through him. No noise could be heard anywhere in the house as raced from room to room. Falling up the stairs to the main bedrooms, he burst through doors he would normally be scolded for even nearing. Each chamber empty. Still warm bed covers strewn over floors, clothes jumbled in piles.

Retracing his steps down to the main hall, his hurried stumbling footsteps dumped him out into the mud at the front of the house. What would normally be a scene of a sleeping township was instead something altogether more deserted and eerie. Not a murmur could be heard across the houses and fields. As Godfrey dropped to his knees, a lone figure appeared by his side.

“It’s too late…”

They were late.

There was no car pulling into the drive, no lights playing along the hedge fronts.

She moved slowly back into the kitchen and stared at the pie. It was golden and topped with delicate pastry stars and moons. Steam piping through the bird’s beak poking the crust filled the kitchen with the heady scent of rich red wine and herbs from the garden. It was the finest pie she had ever cooked, base blind baked, and the meat inside three days under red wine then seared in tiny batches for maximal flavour.

The pie was ready, and they were late.

Once more to the front room, twitch aside the nets. Nothing.

Nothing on her phone, no missed calls. She called the answerphone to check for signal, no message there, and nothing on the web to say the bypass was backed up again.

She found him in her favourites but didn’t press her thumb. His was always in the hands-free cradle, always. But why not call? Why not just call and say, darling, we’re five minutes out? Just this once it was in his pocket, and the ringer would startle him, he’d twitch the wheel, get it back, car steady on the narrow twisty lanes. Then he would dig in his pocket for the phone, in the pocket trapped by the seatbelt, and just for a moment he’d use his elbow to steady the wheel and pull out some slack with his other hand.

Or the car was already upside down, rear lights cosy red beneath the closing fingers of mist that would closet them from the road. They were late because there had been accident and that’s why there was no phone call. He was unconscious, and the children were suspended from the seatbelts meant to hold them fast from danger now their chains as petrol ran in rivers seeking sparks.

She ran in tears through the house, through to the kitchen where the perfect pie sat steaming gently, this terrible, terrible mother caring more for shortcrust pastry, lamenting its ruination at the moment her children were going to die.

She seized the dish by both handles and out into the garden with it, letting it drop as she ran and then into the upswing, inverting the dish as it moved past her head. The pie turned slowly in the air, single contrail of steam as it sailed over the chicken fence then exploded in a great whoosh of steam and beef shrapnel.

Feathers floated to earth. One slow moving chicken regarded her dumbly beneath its coating of rich wine gravy. She let the pie dish drop from her burning fingers, wandering dumbly across the garden and back into the house. She stood in the bombsite kitchen, clammy and hot from an afternoon’s slaving.

The doorbell rang, a moment later followed by his key in the lock, and the moment after she was on her knees hugging her children by the front door.

She stood at the stove while the children guzzled baked beans and fish fingers and he picked at his freezer potluck herrings. He wondered about the awful mountain of unwashed dishes for such a thrown together tea.

He asked her, wasn’t there wonderful pie you’ve been planning? Didn’t it turn out so well?

She knelt between the children, hugged them together as they ate.

She said, ‘It turned out perfect.’

I never thought that is how it would happen. But honestly, it was just one of those things, you’re running down the road and suddenly wallop, it hits you. I always thought, you know, that love itself would be instant, a knowing that is distinctly, recognisably and irrefutably love. But it wasn’t the feeling that was instant, there was no ‘love at first sight’ feeling, there was just AN instant, me, hobbling down the road and suddenly realising of all things, I was in love, and with Herb of all people. Oh, me and Mr H Garden, go way back of course and you know he’d always scrubbed up ok. But what made me realise at that exact moment, as I hurriedly tapped my way down the cold concrete. P’raps it was knowing there was a pile of unwashed dishes that I’d left behind, or the fact I didn’t even grab my coat, I never go anywhere without my coat; if you always take the weather with you then you better always take your coat, that’s what I always say. I mean he wasn’t even good with people mind, never had been a pleaser, too busy buried in his trinkets and what not. Not like me with friends always over, a social moth or whatever it’s called. But I always knew he cared. Donated to charity, volunteered for all sorts, barely said a word to anyone of course, but he was there. Quietly getting on, helping, fixing. The thing is I was always so busy, who has the time to notice things like that when you’re young. Too much cake on offer right in front of your eyes to notice the fruit bowl in the corner. But then you get older and you realise too much cake causes nothing but a clogged heart, which is no good for nothing. So when one day he just started coming round, fixing bits, tidying up the garden, checking the cupboards were stocked, I just let him. Daft bugger I thought at first. But I became so used to having him around that the house started to feel empty without his grumbling and hammering. He had a smell of the sea, though ill be blown if he ever actually went fishing, but it reminded me of salty herring. It was vitalising, nutritious almost. Event then I still didn’t realise. What a twallop. But you don’t appreciate it do you, not really when it’s there, it’s like the heating, it just happens up until the point the bloody boiler goes and your freezing your whatcha-me-callems off. Now look at me, dumbfounded by a love so obvious, running down the street, hoping he’s ok, maybe it was just a fall or something like that. The neighbour hadn’t said what happened just that he’d asked for me and to come quick. So all I could do was hope. Hope that I’m not too late.