WORKSHOP: The Road-Train

[analect]

Okay, I've been very tentative about posting this. There is a backstory to it, but I'd like anyone who's willing to just read and crit - with whatever depth and aggressiveness you like ;) - and I'll put the notes at the bottom.

Title: The Road-Train (A Christmas Fantasy)
Word Count: 5429
Genre: Fantasy, short fiction

So. Here we are, standing outside The Bide-A-Wee Hotel: families and their pets our speciality—an appropriate name, considering the aroma of dog-piss bequeathed by the less continent of the guests—out on our ear.

Sorry, ears. Six of them. One human pair and two of the sort technically referred to as rose ears, greyhounds for the use of. They cock as their owners gaze at me attentively, deep brown eyes replete with love and loyalty.

Yeah, right.

“Okay, you bastards, no bed for the night, in the middle of bloody nowhere, so what do we do next?”

I didn’t expect an answer. I’d already tried for one by texting the other half. BUGGER, came the reply. CALL BALMORAL AND BORROW A HELI.

Very droll. It had been a stimulating, profitable and convivial day apparently. I attempt a reply in an effort to glean the ghost of a useful suggestion but the signal has gone, leaving me with chilly fingers clutching a handful of inert Taiwanese plastic.

It is beginning to snow again. Nigel’s feet are getting cold, so Izzy and I study his attempts to stand on two legs only. Not impressive. Izzy experiments with an adenoidal whine, tries the two-legs-only trick then abandons it for a fit of shivering. I am less than impressed a second time. Not only is he wearing his own coat but, in deference to his aching joints, he’s wearing mine on top of it.

Nigel, who doesn’t do whining, begins to fidget. I stamp my feet, which are now attempting to freeze, while we wait for the cab—which isn’t, I fear—about to materialise.

The snow comes down harder. We begin a group chant. Izzy whining, Nigel blowing tragically through his jowls and me spitting fuckfuckfuckettyfuck between firmly gritted teeth. We’re doing quite well when Mister Ego decides to go solo and steals the show with a noise like an asthmatic banshee.

“No use you coming over all pathetic, is there?” I ask them tersely. “Without your efforts we’d be tucked up in bed now, you full of biscuits and me full of gin and tonic….”

They do not look even slightly repentant. Killing pillows is what they do, and in this instance they managed a bumper crop, plus two cushions and a duck-down duvet, all in the time it took me to have a pee, clean my teeth, take my pills and drag a brush through my rapidly thinning hair. For which, of course, we were formally and furiously expelled from Paradise—which is why we are standing here on the forecourt of this tacky country hotel in a building snowstorm. Not even so much as a change of clothes, much less a tent. Not even a coat for me, as Izzy is wearing it. I consider the small canvas grip bag I’m carrying with me. It is suspiciously light to be harbouring anything at all of value on a cold, dark night. All items of that nature are a couple of hundred miles north with the spouse and the rest of the luggage.

We shiver miserably. I try to ring to see if the cab is on its way but can’t get a signal.

“Oh, fu—”

“Don’t think it’s coming now. I’m just going off-duty so I’ll give you a lift to the nearest pub.”

Slasher, stalker, card-carrying nutter, who cares? I turn and smile my very best, brightest, friendliest smile at the owner of the voice, who is barely recognisable as the hotel barman inside the turned-up collar of his donkey jacket.

Not to worry. I have the dogs, don’t I? Even if he is straight out of a horror movie, they’ll be sure to—

Loyal and Faithful are all over him like a rash, gambolling about, tails up, scrabbling into the back of his battered Land Rover, the love-affair consummated with two milk chocolate digestives from a packet in the glove compartment.

“It’s very kind of you,” I say between chattering teeth as I haul myself up into the passenger seat.

Our rescuer grins. “Think nothing of it,” he says. “My guess is they would have left you out there for another half-hour before inviting you back inside in exchange for a three hundred pound compensation. They probably cancelled your cab, although—” He peers out into the Dickensian night. “—it may have got stuck of its own accord. You really need a four-by-four in weather like this.”

I nod, close my eyes and allow myself to be warmed into a coma and lulled by the transmission whine. Very nostalgic. I once had a Land Rover with a transmission whine so pervasive that any journey of more than thirty miles left driver and passengers with itching teeth and splitting headaches. Barely two minutes later—or so it seems—we’re out in the road again at a deeply rural crossroads, virgin snow all around, except for the way we came. No welcoming inn with yellow-lit windows, not even the comforting twinkle of stars overhead.

“Just remembered,” he says cheerily. “You can pick up the road-train from here.”

Road-train?

Another wide, toothy grin.

“Can’t miss it. Dare say it will be along in a couple of minutes.”

And, abandoning us in the middle of nowhere, he drives off into the night again.

Obviously there is habitation nearby, and I consider following the tyre tracks until I decide he is clearly off his head, even if in a relatively harmless, practical jokey way, so perhaps not.

Instead, we pull ourselves together Effin’ Norah to the tune of the German national anthem. More correctly, I do. Izzy begins to cast around for invisible voles (so much less energetic if one doesn’t actually have to pursue anything) and Nigel leans against me, sighing.

For something to do after that, I throw snowballs to clear the signpost, and discover we are more or less equidistant from Nether Barrow, Locket Bottom and Witherstep—wherever that is. Havens of rural, log-fired bliss, I guess, every one of them.

I like the sound of Nether Barrow best, and compost Tourist Board waffle extolling the virtues of the treacle mines, the swathes of pink-tipped Swan Vesta plantations, and the Palladian vernacular architecture. Nothing unusual, just an advertising copywriter’s version of worry-beads. Julie Andrews may whistle a happy tune whenever she feels afraid until she drops dead of Whistler’s Lip for all I care: I prefer to die of frostbite or hypothermia with a swathe of surreal nonsense in my head.

In point of fact, halfway through a slightly hysterical dissertation on the World Three-Wheeled Roller-Skating Championship, held every seventh year in the car park of Nether Barrow’s Dog & Duck, the road-train arrives.

Or, at least, I think it does.

One minute I am sitting, shivering, on a milestone, cuddling two snow-caked dogs, and the next I am climbing the shining steel steps of a huge, silver, articulated vehicle with soft, friendly light flooding from its porthole windows. I hadn’t heard it arrive; just the gentle hiss as it sank on its suspension, and the vague impression of a shape in the large bulkhead doorway, beckoning us up and in.

Inside, it is gloriously warm and welcoming.

“You’re in luck, my dear,” the conductor says. “We have one spare berth, and you’ll all fit nicely.”

I nod gratefully, too profoundly relieved to ask testing questions.

Well, that’s conclusive. Hypothermia, dearie. You’re sitting on the milepost with your systems shutting down, fantasising. All you can hope is that the boys don’t stick around too long, or they’ll go the same way….

The conductor gestures to a hatch at floor level, opens it and motions to us, smiling. Both dogs dive into it without hesitation, so I crouch and follow, down the steps on the far side of the hatch into a tiny, snug little cabin with a deep, squashy bed taking up most of the floor, a ventilator grille, and a small porthole window.

Curiouser and curiouser….

The thought registers, but not with any real conviction. I strip off the outdoor coats and watch as the dogs leap onto the bed, curl up and fall asleep in seconds. The conductor smiles, dims the lights, and shuts the hatch as I grin back at him. I find the loo—a tiny little cubby-hole more suited to pixies than human beings—rummage in my bag and dutifully, mechanically, take my tablets, then begin to fall asleep to the hiss of the road-train rising on its suspension, preparing to move off again. Here in our tiny cabin we are safe, warm and, no matter how weird it all seems, it is more than enough for the time being.

I have some very odd dreams, which is in no way surprising. Odd dreams have become something of a speciality with all the drugs I’m taking, so there’s something normal and refreshing about waking up in pleasant surroundings, even if those surroundings are the oddest I’ve ever been in. An icy draught is coming through the ventilator and, beyond the porthole, a grey-green snow-laden sky meets up with a white horizon. Miraculously, the cushions are intact, but the hatch is open and the dogs are missing. Instant panic. I scramble up the steps, wriggle through the hatch, cross the corridor and hammer down the steel staircase into the frigid morning, immediately sighting Nigel, who is strolling along the black, dramatic margin of a wood in the company of Izzy and a brace of Springer spaniels. The owner of the spaniels waves cheerily at me. My heart stops thudding as I walk towards them.

“Hope you don’t mind, dear. Saw their faces through the window this morning and let them out for a wee.”

I smile, and am about to reply when five stone of Nigel arrives, overjoyed.

“Bit of a mummy’s boy, I see.”

I nod and accept the extended hand to set me on my feet again, just in time for a friendly bite on the backside from Izzy.

“Lovely fellows,” says the springer spaniel lady as we watch all four dogs cavorting in the snow, chasing their tails, each other, and imaginary shadows. “Your phone was ringing this morning, but you were still dead to the world. I expect that’ll be your husband. Don’t forget to tell the conductor in good time if you want the road-train to detour and pick him up.”

 

* * * *

 

So here we are, then. Laying up by day because the road-train only travels at night—in a huge field flanked by woodland on one side—playing snowballs with small boys, thawing out in the warm and emerging again to build igloos and snowmen. We tramp across the endless-seeming terrain to the welcome curl of smoke drifting up from a steep pitched roof half-hidden in a dip and have lunch with the springer spaniel lady.

Nigel and Izzy join the spaniels in a sated heap in front of the open fire while the rest of us feast on beef stew and dumplings, soft, floury baked potatoes, blackberry and apple pie, and jelly for the under-10s. I count twenty of us around the battered farmhouse table, and am not sure if I’m pleased or sorry when everyone seems reassuringly normal. There is talk of the journeys they’re making. Of Christmas plans and hoped-for presents, of how clever Santa is to get brand-new state-of-the-art mountain bikes down cramped and sooty chimneys and exactly why it is considered polite to kiss ancient aunties under the mistletoe without screwing up your face.

After lunch, thermos flasks are filled with stew, baked potatoes and pie are wrapped in foil and packed into an old tartan zip-up wheelie shopping bag.

The conductor smiles and answers my unasked question.

“For those who are too sick, too frail, too solitary, or too shy to tramp across a snowy field and eat with us in company.”

I stay behind for a few games of Scrabble with the springer spaniel lady and finally walk back across the field in the gathering dusk with Nigel and Izzy loping in circles after imaginary rabbits.

“It’s all organised,” the conductor says by way of greeting. “We can be near Fort William by midnight tonight. Best if he starts to walk out of town on the road heading south. Nothing is moving out there, the weather is worse than it is here. Tell him to wrap up warm, as it’s going to be bitter.”

I smile and nod compliantly. This is by far the weirdest yet most consistent dream I’ve ever been in but—as I believe I’ve already mentioned—I’ve been in a few since the hospital treatment.

“And you’re taking your medicine?”

I nod again, obediently.

That’s it. I’m either deeply asleep, or I’ve definitely snuffed it.

Later, in the privacy of our little cabin—when the road-train is powering up, ready to move off again—I rehearse that conversation in my head.

Listen, darl, I know this sounds strange, but I really, truly need you to do this for me. Tonight at eleven-thirty I want you to dress up warm, grab our bags, and check out of the hotel. Start walking out of town as if you’re on your way back down south again….

I bottle out and text instead.

MEET YOU AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT ON THE FORT WILLIAM ROAD HEADING SOUTH. TRANSPORT HOME ARRANGED SO BE THERE.

I press ‘send’ and turn off my phone before mouth, brain, and credulity are expected to unite to provide an explanation.

After that, we inspect our quarters in more detail. There is a series of shallow cupboards flush with the inner wall, in which we find a few well-chosen items to add comfort to our lives. A tiny fridge, stocked with milk, orange juice, butter, ground coffee and bottled water. A two-slice toaster with bread, and a kettle with a power-point plus teabags, sugar, and filter papers, ten kinds of rusks and biscuits, a selection of fruit, a big bag of patent doggy-diet, paper plates, plastic bowls and a selection of cutlery, plus a little drop-down table of the sort usually found in tiny touring caravans. And, remarkably, a DVD player with a selection of DVDs stacked up beside it.

I make gloriously strong and sweet black coffee, offer the boys some doggy-diet, which they eat politely but with an unmistakable air of disappointment, then we settle down to watch Shrek 2 until it’s the last call for the night-time wee before the road-train gets under way again.

Naturally, Nigel holds us up with a well-timed vanishing trick, and only consents to reappear when a search party is gathering. He has something in his mouth, which he places gently at my feet. He cocks his head, gazes up into my eyes and looks remarkably pleased. A dead rat, soaking wet and of some age: I step back and pull a face, but the wet bundle shudders convulsively and begins to make those mad cuckoo gimme-gimme noises of a small and hungry kitten.

“Aaaaaahhhh,” cooes the search-party.

“Nige,” I say exhaustedly, “we’ve got two of those at home and you’re frightened of both of them. Are you really sure we need another one?”

 

* * * *

 

We’re very late on the road after that so, when Simeon boards the road-train, he could be mistaken for a snowman. He has a thunderstruck look on his face when as our ever-solicitous conductor relieves him of his overcoat, shakes the snow off, and hands it back to him.

He opens his mouth.

“Don’t ask,” I tell him. “We’ll be home by Christmas Eve. I’ve rung Mrs. Deacon and she’ll be popping in to feed the cats right up until we arrive back.”

I watch him groping about for something commonplace to say: it takes a full half-minute.

“Where are the boys?” he asks eventually.

“Watching Finding Nemo on DVD. Didn’t realise Izzy was so terribly fond of fish. He keeps getting up, walking over and licking the screen. Oh, and Nigel’s found us a kitten. Aren’t we lucky?”

 

* * * *

 

It’s a bit of a tight fit now we’ve got Simeon with us. He’s not the smallest bloke in the universe and his joyful reunion with the dogs is on a par with three wrestlers slugging it out in a telephone box. The kitten (wrapped up in a bath towel) wisely remains on his shelf, and I shut myself in the bijou loo until the ruckus dies down.

Just as we’re eating toast, dozing in the warmth and ready to drop off to sleep, the road-train comes to a halt again. The snowball-and-igloo boys get off and into the arms of their waiting family, and we rush to the porthole as they turn to wave to Nigel, Izzy and me.

We sleep in a relaxed, sociable heap with no demarcation between dogs and humans, waking to find our transportation stationary in the shadow of a huge spruce plantation.

By tacit agreement, we do not discuss or attempt to analyse our situation. No whys or wherefores, especially when where could be argued indefinitely.

We breakfast on toast and I take my pills under the judicious gaze of Simeon, the dogs and the road-train conductor while the kitten plays shipwrecks around our little cabin. I feel about nine years old as I drag on the hideous red bobble hat they insist I wear now my hair is beginning to fall out, and stamp off with the dogs in pursuit of imaginary rabbits.

My good humour returns when I discover my stock has gone up considerably overnight. We are accompanied on our stroll by a deputation of well-groomed elderly ladies who have tiny dogs in tartan coats clutched to their bosoms. We talk about this and that until the most direct (“Call me Lillian, dear, and this is Archie. Such a handsome little chap, aren’t you darling?”) gets fed up with faffing around and more or less comes to the point.

In essence, it’s this: what am I—a reasonably well-preserved but obviously frail middle-aged woman—doing with this tall, green-eyed, pony-tailed man who is clearly half my age?

I grin. This is familiar territory.

“I like younger men, he likes older women. He’s a city boy, I’m a country woman, but we have the same sense of humour and too many common interests to list, which is enough, I think. Isn’t it?”

They nod in concert so, to prove I’m not a complete Martian, I dig around in my wallet and produce photographs of my grown-up son, his wife, and my grandson. There is the multiple click of handbag clasps going off all around me and, suddenly, we’re all admiring each other’s children like a batch of old biddies on a W.I. outing.

We discuss my illness. Helen (Chinese Crested, Lola, in pink polo-neck sweater) has a sister who survived it. She was very ill indeed and thirty years ago there is no doubt she would have died but medicine has come on a lot since then. Which is just as well, we all agree, as statistics indicate that one in three of us will get it or something like it at some stage in our lifetime.

They tell me about Phyllis. Nobody really knows her because she’s too ill to come out of her cabin. She’s here on the road-train with her nurse, travelling who-knows-where to spend her last days with her family. All she worries about is what will happen to her dog, poor woman.

Which takes up into providing-for-your-pets-in-your-will territory.

I call it a day, whistle up the boys and head back to civilisation when Dora (Chihuahua called Bertie) begins to name and describe every single one of the Koi carp, blue orfes and shubunkins mentioned in her last will and testament.

The arrival of lunch is an incongruous visions if ever there was one. McBride’s Superior Fish Suppers chugs majestically along a firebreak through the spruce plantation to rendezvous with the road-train at one o’clock precisely. Mr. McBride is a wall of a man with huge ginger sideburns and an impenetrable Glaswegian accent. Naturally enough, he’s called Wee Jimmy.

“Ooh, lovely,” I say. “Shubunkin and chips for me.”

Simeon lofts an eyebrow so, while he rolls himself a cigarette, I put him in the picture. He sniggers happily.

We’ve been here ourselves, of course. When faced with the prospect of death there is a series of one-off conversations one needs to have and each if painful but necessary. One of them is what will happen to the animals if the loss of a partner means the survivor can no longer keep them.

As we lapse into thoughtful silence we queue up for the benevolent attentions of Wee Jimmy. I have a piece of cod that wouldn’t fit into a haversack, much less on a plate. Nigel and Izzy, politely unimpressed by the dog food supplied in our berth, have plaice and chips while founding the Wee Jimmy McBride Fan Club. Lifelong loyalty is pledged when their hero flings spare beefburgers like Frisbees before chugging off down the track again.

Meanwhile, the road-train’s narrow interior corridor has been dressed for the festive season: bells, baubles, and greenery. We persuade our half-weaned feline friend to tackle a little mashed fish in watered-down milk and soggy rusk, then Simeon plays whist under the mistletoe on a green baize pull-out table with Lillian, Helen and Dora. I borrow Lola and take her back to our berth to beat up Izzy.

Izzy, despite prompt neutering and legs too wobbly for a life of serious philandering, still lurves ze preeety laydeez. He’s met some girls in his time, but punk, piebald Lola is the strangest yet.

Nigel, sighing like Marvin the Paranoid Android, curls up, sticks his nose up his bottom, and feigns sleep. The kitten, emerging from his post-lunch nap and poop, quits his bathtowel, scrabbles down the wall and lands with a bump on Nigel’s head. Nigel, I have to admit, looks rather good in his scruffy Davey Crockett hat.

Izzy and Lola flirt. Izzy preens. Lola barks, runs around and nips his feet. They’re practically engaged by the time Helen arrives to take her baby back.

In deference to the worsening weather and the unaccustomed diet we make one more foray outside before the daylight ends. Far away on the horizon, a helicopter is dropping bales of fodder on a distant hillside. We watch in silence.

“Hope you’ve some tins in the larder at home. Pretty thought it is, it looks as if it could get beyond a joke,” says Helen, as she crunches through the snow to stand beside us.

I nod. I’d had the regulation rural childhood, pulling sheep out of snowdrifts until you were so tired you could barely stand, sleeping in the kitchen to be warmed by the oil-fired range, conserving fuel in the hope it won’t run out before the roads are passable again. Finding out, during the Big Freeze, why your slice of Sussex Downland heaven had been so amusingly named by a previous owner back in the nineteenth century.

Little Siberia Farm. Hah-bloody-hah.

“How long have you and Lola been on the road-train, then?”

“Four days now. I’m taking the pretty route home. I rather think we can stay as long as we want to. From what I gather, poor Phyllis has been travelling for three weeks or more. It must be exhausting if you’re so ill, but perhaps it’s better than going home.”

It is a sobering thought. We consider it until Izzy gets bored with the cold and forms an orderly queue of one, waiting to be let back into the warm.

 

* * * *

 

That night I have the oddest dream, or dream within a dream, perhaps.

I am in someone else’s berth with the road-train conductor, and we’re talking to a very pale and emaciated woman who is travelling with her nurse, plus all the medical paraphernalia that I recognise from the cancer unit. An intravenous drip, sterile packs, empty phials, disposable gloves, medical wipes—the whole lot.

The nurse smiles. “Don’t be afraid.”

I return the smile. “I’m not. I’m familiar with this.”

The woman also manages a tired smile as she watches me. She is pared down to brilliant blue eyes and cheekbones like knives. Her soft white hair is caught at the nape of her neck in a metal clasp.

She is, I realise, not much older than I am.

“I would like very much for you to do a favour for me. I have a small, scatty friend called Gladys, whom I’m no longer in the condition to care for. If you just take her with you when you leave, my mind will be at rest and I’ll know she’ll be happy. I’ve watched you with your dogs and I’m sure she’ll fit in. you’ll have to be firm with her at times because she’s one of those merry, guilt-free little souls who loves to get into mischief. Will you do this?”

Apparently my own medication is getting the better of me. I nod silently. No questions, no carefully framed requests for further information. This is Phyllis, I realise. Phyllis is committed to travelling on the road-train for as long as it takes to find somewhere safe for Gladys.

The waking part inside my head is yelling for attention but it’s surrounded by marshmallow and the marshmallow is winning. I make one last effort to rally and concentrate, but the picture fades and the next time I wake, I sneeze, my nose buried in Simeon’s luxuriant ponytail.

Well, that’s all right then. It’s only a dream.

And then I open my eyes and see a battered, bow-fronted chest of drawers with an Everest of books piled haphazardly on it, a pale green wall and a sloping attic ceiling. I sit up quickly, not certain if I want to burst into tears or sigh with relief. We’re home.

We’re home, lying on the bed in our outdoor clothes. The bed heaves as the other sleeper wakes, sits up abruptly and stares very hard at me. I look back steadily.

“You first,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No. Not a chance. I’m keeping quiet. You can be the one who gets the ticket to the funny farm.”

And, while we’re bickering about it, two flights down there’s an outbreak of joyous barking, and then we’re hammering down the stairs to find out who has stolen what from the kitchen.

In the hallway, we are met by a drift of airborne kapok. Our last surviving cushion, Auntie Marjorie’s Cottage Chintz, has finally bought it.

In the living room, we get the big hello from Nigel and Izzy and then something else comes dancing towards us, towing the eviscerated remains of the cushion cover behind it. It is delicate, beautiful, deceptively fragile-looking, and blue-and-white. It is….

Simeon groans. He’s never owned one, but he’s heard all about them. Cautionary tales from my son, mostly, who shared his childhood with a few of them.

“Do we go over it now for the Number of the Beast, or do we just take that for granted?”

“It is a she,” I tell him. “She’s called Gladys.”

He snorts with laughter, which is perhaps a bit rich, coming from a man who thinks Nigel is a perfectly respectable name for a canine companion.

Both cats have retired for safety and are playing bookends at each end of the mantelpiece. They are wearing their inscrutable faces and have clearly failed to impress Gladys with the feline omnipotence. There will be a lot of cold-shouldering to endure before we’re forgiven for her, I think.

“Where’s the kitten?”

We peer around anxiously until a rustle in the Christmas tree reveals a tenant. A little marmalade face peers out between a silver bell and a shiny green ball, then vanishes.

“It needs a name.”

“He needs a name,” I am corrected gently.

“Ah, a girl with a winkle. Well, that’s all right then.”

Simeon rolls his eyes and heads for the kitchen. I get up and follow him in time to look where he’s looking, and see snow right up to the window ledge. Outside, the world is white and still, and there is a path dug in it from the back gate to the back door by our intrepid, cat-feeding neighbour.

Without a word, we walk through the house and open the front door. We stare at the unmarked snow. No sign of the road-train’s tracks, no sign of footsteps even. We shut the door carefully to keep the banked up snow on the far side of the doorstep and return to the kitchen to make coffee.

I sit on the edge of the table, fold my arms, and consider the implications.

“Perhaps if we compare dreams…?”

Simeon shakes his head. “Mine is already fading.”

Dreams do that. Even the most vivid—which is supremely irritating.

“All right. What’s your version of how we got back home and up to bed? I haven’t got one.”

He smiles. “That is because you were sparko. I carried you in. The conductor followed with the luggage. I remember glancing behind me to see Helen being towed in by Nigel and Izzy, then carrying you up to bed. That’s it. I must have sat down for a moment and fallen asleep.”

I nod. It sounds convincing.

So we leave it at that for the time being, clear up the mangled cushion and its stuffing and begin to enjoy our Christmas Eve. By evening, the awful Gladys has already wormed her way onto Simeon’s lap and into his heart despite stealing half his supper—and the marmalade kitten has been christened Freddie.

Last thing as night it’s snowing again when we let the dogs out for a final wee. Gladys pronks through it like a gazelle, disappearing entirely beneath the snow every time she hits the ground. Freddie, very sensibly, finds the litter tray in the scullery.

“Hope you’ve got money on this.”

I frown.

“A white Christmas.”

I shake my head and pull a face. Things with a leg on each corner I can manage, but the weather is an entirely different matter.

On our way up to bed, I notice a neat pile on the hall table, which turns out to be Gladys’ personal effects. Bowls, coats, lead, brushes, vaccination certificates and a Christmas card to us, from Phyllis.

I’ll be keeping that carefully, because the memories of the road-train are already fading, and I don’t want to lose them completely.

“Are you sad?” Simeon asks me as we settle for the night and Gladys, already doing what a whippet does, is trying to sneak in under the duvet.

“Yes. Just a little bit.”

I am also relieved. I was terrified I was going to wake up in hospital, frightened of the dark and plugged into the morphine. I dreamed a lot when I was there. Vivid, colourful dreams that were real enough to touch and taste, but I’d rather be dead than go back again.

We listen to Nigel and Izzy bickering about who gets the end of the bed nearest the radiator and observe the lump in our that is Gladys inching her way across to curl up behind Simeon’s legs. Freddie has settled on the bookshelf in the gap between A Suitable Boy and Going Postal, while our mantelpiece ornaments have abandoned their perch to play shipwrecks on the stairs.

“Come on, tell me. What’s Santa bringing me?”

“Only nice girls get presents. Nice girls who stop chattering, close their eyes, and go to sleep.”

I grunt and shut my eyes obediently. I see Izzy and Nigel ducking and diving through a winter landscape. I see our little cabin on the road-train; so small, cramped, safe, warm and welcoming. I see Phyllis, who would travel as long as it took to find safety for her beloved pet.

And she chose me. At this time in my life I’m not a wonderful bet.

No, that’s not exactly right. She chose us. All of us to care for and love the appalling Gladys.

She had an instinct that, whatever Gladys did, it didn’t matter and we’d still love her.

And we will, of course.

Although it would be wise, I think, to sit down over breakfast and come up with a more believable story of how she came to live with us.

 

© A.D. Leland

Notes:

All righty, explanation time. This story is not by me. It's by a relative of mine who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer at the time of writing. This story is one of the last things she wrote and, together with a set of unfinished manuscripts and about twenty years' worth of work on an epic sci-fi/fantasy series, has been given to me to edit and compile. It is kind of a daunting task.

Now, as I read this story, there are several things I'd edit and tweak, but I find I'm looking at it very much aware of certain things - like the fact she hasn't even changed the names of her partner or her dogs. It's life writing, I suppose... kind of. That makes it hard for me to really view it objectively, and so I thought it would be a great opportunity to throw it open and see what you guys think.

Your opinions. Let 'em rip. ;)