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Muriel’s weeding

by James

And, once again, the worst had happened. Honestly, the nerve of that man, ’im indoors, as if she hadn’t put herself out enough for him all these years.

‘Bent over backwards for ‘im, I did,’ Judith said. ‘And me with my lumbago and my dicky heart. It’s not right, is it, that’s what I say. Did you hear me Muriel, what I said?’

They often had these little one-way conversations, Muriel on her knees with her weeding trowel, as Judith, high strung and rather too far over the fence for a plump person, put it about the neighbourhood in slightly hysterical tones the latest indignity she was forced to endure in the name of marital peace.

Muriel ventured a non-committal “really”, and added of tut of disapproval for good measure. That ought to buy her a couple of minutes which was time enough to ease a few more errant weedlings from amongst the rhubarb.

‘Sea shells!’ Judith spat the words with venom. ‘That’s what he bloody brought me from his business trip to Abu Blah Blah – sodding sea-shells! When I know for a fact that her at number seventeen, her old man brought her back gold earrings and he’d only been hauling a load of fish to Bognor!’

Muriel creaked up from her knees to her feet and stooped to pick up the foam knee saver that she had bought for Duncan and he had never bothered to use. She smiled vaguely at her neighbour. ‘The Dahlias. I think they could use some work.’

Muriel took herself off further down the garden. Judith kicked her legs until she had worked up enough momentum to free herself from her perch atop the fence and caught up. In a whisper designed to carry she nudged a metaphorical elbow and with much eyebrow waggling did allow (grudgingly) that perhaps the earrings were well deserved.

‘Mint Imperials! Can you imagine that! That’s what he likes. So no wonder that poor girl gets jewellery.’

Muriel brutally slayed a budding shoot of bindweed or three, and then found her trowel pausing of its own accord. Something didn’t sit quite right. She squinted up at Judith, and said, ‘Mint imperials?’ It was hardly the kind of salacious gossip that Judith lived for.

Judith was grinning wolfish. ‘Oh yes. Right up there, that’s what he likes. Leastways, that’s what Margo at the corner shop tells me. She said she nearly had herself a connery when he popped in yesterday and bought a roll of Trebor Extra Strong Mints and some Camomile lotion.’

‘Gosh,’ Muriel said, and shook her head with much sadness. She returned to her weeding but her mind wasn’t really with it, gone instead to consider the problem posed by the curious discharge that was seeping from beneath the wicker planter in the shed where she had stashed Duncan’s body. Jeyes fluid, perhaps. Would that shift it?

Distractions

by Jenny

I was balancing the baby on my hip, handbag on one arm and shopping basket on the other when my phone rang. The supermarket was crowded and with Alice screaming bloody murder in my ear it was already a little overwhelming.

I somehow managed to get the phone out of my pocket, tuck myself a little out of the way in the crisp aisle and swipe the green ‘pick up’ button to answer it.

“Hey Lucy - sorry, I’m just in the supermarket- can I call you back? It’s a bit manic.”

“Oh you’re already there? Great. Listen, are you at the big one with the pharmacy? Can you pick up Dad’s meds? That seeping discharge is back and the on-call doctor wants to put him back on the suppositories.”

“To be honest I’ve got my hands full here -” I began, but she’d hung up before I could get the words out. With a sigh I pocketed the phone, gave Alice a jiggle and whizzed around for the rest of my weekly shop - cereal, soup, yoghurt, bread, nappies and three bottles of chardonnay.

At the checkout Alice made a grab for a chocolate lolly shaped like a pig, which I put in the basket along with a Mars bar and a bag of mint imperials for me. The bored girl at the till flashed me a sympathetic half smile as I struggled to get my card out, juggling bags, bottles and baby, but then her face lapsed once again into bored antagonism as I struggled away.

The queue for the pharmacy took ages, but I finally reached the front of it, gave Dad’s name and the lady handed over his bag of pills. I’d call in on the way home and drop it off.

Lucy opened the door when I arrived. I smiled at her as I rummaged in the shopping bag, still jiggling Alice who was sticky with pig chocolate by now. Brown smears decorated her seashell t-shirt, legs, face and hands and she was squirming like a mad thing.

“Thanks for doing that - I really hope these sort him out. Coming in for tea?”

“Better not - I need to get this one in the bath, she’s a mess.”

“Ok, thanks - see you later.”

Back at the flat, with the shopping put away and Alice happily bathed and bedded I finally sank back into the sofa’s welcoming arms, closed my eyes and began to relax. I fished around in my handbag for the checkout treats I’d picked up and slipped a mint imperial into my mouth with a smile.

And immediately spat it back out. It was revolting - chalky and bitter and disgusting - like when you get the paracetamol tablets without the sugar coating and they sit too long on your tongue...

And then horror flooded through me.

I reached for the phone, but as my fingers found it, it had already begun to ring. Lucy’s name flashed up angrily at me and I stared and stared as it vibrated and screamed for me to answer it - to explain. Poor Dad...

A moment's hesitation, then I swiped the red ‘hang up’ button, threw my phone back in my bag and opened the Mars bar instead.

This Won't Affect Us

by Russ

‘No way Linds, we made a deal!’ Michelle was livid about the lovestruck expression on her best friend’s face.

Lindsay fiddled with the tiny seashells on her necklace, the one he had made for her.

‘I’m sorry,’ offered the guilty party. ‘I didn’t mean…’

‘We don’t catch feelings, mate,’ Michelle continued. ‘We agreed. Didn’t we?’

Lindsay nodded like a child who knew she should have tidied her room like she was asked.

‘What did we agree, Linds?’

‘No feelings.’

‘Say it.’

Lindsay looked around at the other people in the little corner beer garden.

‘Say it!’

‘Choose them, use them, and flush them away,’ Lindsay mumbled.

Michelle shook her head and smiled at her twitterpated mate while her own heart ached with pre-empted loss.

‘So, go on, tell me,’ she tried to temper the contempt in her voice with something simulating support. ‘What happened to cause this seeping discharge of unwanted emotion? Did he at least win the lottery or something?’

‘No, he’s bloody skint,’ Lindsay sighed.

Michelle put her hands in front of her and moved them about a foot apart while raising an eyebrow at her friend. Lindsay blushed, shook her head, and let her shoulders drop a little.

‘What then?’

‘I dunno,’ Lindsay tried to find an explanation. ‘It didn’t happen all at once, like a magic injection or something. It was more gradual. He just sort of got into my system bit by bit, like a slow-release sort of thing.’

‘Like a suppository?’

‘Nice, ‘Chelle. You gonna use that in the wedding speech?’

‘Shut the fuck up right now,’ Michelle spat. ‘Over my dead body will there be a wedding. Just because you think you’re in love doesn’t mean anybody needs to be jumping into that swamp.’

Lindsay sat stock-still and said nothing. Michelle felt panic explode inside her.

‘Linds...’

Lindsay swallowed.

‘Linds!’

Lindsay lifted her left hand above the table, displaying the recent addition of Elizabeth Duke to her ring finger.

Silence engulfed the two friends. Time stopped completely. A man, unaware of the break in physics which was currently occurring, approached the table and asked if either woman could lend him a light. He waited by the frozen women for a few moments before assuming he’d stumbled upon some sort of wax-based art exhibit and shuffling off to another table.

It was the tears sliding down Michelle’s face that broke the spell. Lindsay reached out and grabbed her friend’s shaking hands between hers.

‘This won’t affect us,’ she lied.

Michelle sniffed and moved her hands to wipe her tears before returning them to the table so it was now her who held Lindsay’s hands. She gripped them tightly, closed her eyes, and let new emotions fill her completely.

‘Where are we going for the hen do then, mate?’ Michelle beamed as she opened her eyes and spoke.

Lindsay’s bottom lip shook. It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘You’re the Best Woman.’

Michelle nodded softly.

‘I was thinking though,’ Lindsay added. ‘We’ve always a good time in Ibiza…’