Chosen Prose

Each month, when we meet and discuss our latest work, we choose our favourite piece to publish here on our website. You will find below a selection of poetry, prose and novel extracts from our talented members.

The Broken Promises Group by Judy Apps

She thought she was probably dead, but how could you tell? Her ears were full of static, like a radio caught between stations. Her nostrils were assaulted by an unpleasant body odour she associated with a visit to a care home. She can’t have been wearing her glasses because nothing seemed very distinct. Not without colour though - the pale old lady seated beside her had violent orange hair. She was mid-conversation with a much younger woman who lounged on a beaten old couch.

The young woman sat up suddenly: “You must have been to Ibitha, for fart’s sake! It’s famous! Buzzin’ it wos! I came home looking like a friggin’ walnut! I thought you said you’d bin places?”

“Indeed, we did say that.” The accent was frosty glass.  “I don’t expect you’re familiar with Kenilworth Castle or Great Fosters at Egham? Hatfield House, possibly?”

“Nope, never ‘eard of any of ‘em! Well, you are well travelled!” The creature on the sofa sniggered and stretched out wide in a huge yawn of disdain.

Ignoring the rudeness, the lady with red hair continued:

“The summer progress was a spectacle to behold, our retinue never less than 1500. Twelve miles a day, drawing the hearts of our faithful and loving people every step. So much gold, so many courtiers, so much good will.” She sighed.

The young woman snorted in uncomprehending dismissal and turned to me. “You’re new, aren’t yer? Brummy Trace, that’s me. Tracey. Off ‘er bleedin’ rocker, ain’t she?”

“Yes, I think … Oh, I’m …    Is this … I mean are we …?”

“Right, straight off. Yes, doll. We’re dead. You, me, ‘er, all of us. Dead, dead, dead. And it wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my bloody fault! I’m not meant to be dead, it’s a right old rip off. She promised, the cow! She promised!

“Who promised?

“Me mum, the cow. ‘Don’t be havin’ with all that Coppertone Lotion nonsense,’ says she. ‘Rip-off. It’s only cookin’ oil, that’s all it is. Smarm yerself with cooking oil and you won’t burn,’ says she. ‘Promise yer, it’s the same bloody thing without the posh stink!’”

“Y’sure, Mum? I’m goin’ to Ibiza - it’s the Meddy Trainian, not yer effin’ Blackpool.”

“Ibiza, Africa, bleedin’ Equator, wot’s the difference? – yer won’t burn, yer daft cow! Promise yer!”

“Wrong, weren’t she? Wrong, wrong wrong! Crazy time in Ibiza, come back lookin’ the bee’s knees … bloody right, ha ha, like bees round the honey they were. I looked effing gorgeous. An’ then the big C struck. I weren’t even 35. Melanoma. Dead within 6 months. Bloody unfair. Bloody, bloody, bloody unfair!

“I’m so sorry…” I ventured, but I was interrupted by the orange lady:

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I fail to comprehend why in the name of all the saints and the blessed virgin you chose to look like a gypsy or a common labourer. You have as much brain as earwax, you idiot child! I was always white as the driven snow. Fair Oriana. After I caught the pox I had my secret – Venetian Ceruse. Made my complexion as white as a baby, pale, fair and true. I was the Virgin Queen.  Mrs. Blanch Parry, my lady of the bedchamber, and my physicians promised me faithfully that Venetian Ceruse would make my skin beautiful till the end of my days.”

They were interrupted by the fussy arrival of a little man holding a clipboard.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, ladies. Busy time, what with the pestilence and more wars than usual. Welcome to the Broken Promises Group. Just need to check a few details. You, dear, (turning to Tracey), you died of a melanoma, that’s right?”

“Bloody right I did,” snapped Tracey.

“And (turning to the older lady), you died of lead poisoning?”

“Balderdash! We think not! I died in my walnut four poster bed at the good age of 70. In attendance was Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth, Charles Howard, Lord High Admiral, John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Chichester, and other royal chaplains and members of my court. All can testify we died in our bed.”

“Correct, my dear. In your bed. Of lead poisoning. It was the major ingredient of your face make-up. Powerful stuff - made your hair fall out years earlier.

I glanced at the lady – of course the orange hair was a wig, I should have noticed.

She screamed, “Silence!” Then she began to sob. “No, no, no, no. Beautiful for ever, they said. They gave me their solemn promise.”

Taking no notice of her discomfort, the dignitary continued:

“Your physicians ignored warnings – it was known perfectly well. Read this 1598 report by Giovanni Lomazzo, 5 years before you died:

The Ceruse or white lead which women use to better their complexion, is made of lead and vinegar; which mixture is naturally a great drier; so that those women which use it about their faces, doe quickly become withered and gray headed, because this doth so mightily drie up the natural moisture of their flesh.

“Need I go on?”

Tracey, who had listened to this interchange with more than a little glee, interrupted. “An’ wot about ‘er” she asked pointing at me. “Wot did she die of?”

The little man, without consulting his clipboard, glanced at me, and did a double take.  “Oh her? Oh dear. She’s not dead, I’ll get around to her in a minute.”

I’m not? You sure? I’m quite sure I qualify for this group. My life’s been one big broken promise!

I’m not sure that he heard me, Tracey was making too much noise, “We’re dead, dead dead!” she chanted.

“No, I’m quite sure,” confirmed the dignitary. “You would have to have died as a result of a broken promise to be part of this group. “In any case, as I’ve already established, my dear, you’re not dead and need to be on your way. Administrative error beyond our control. That’s the way out.” He sighed the huge sigh of a man mightily happy to have the heavy responsibility of dealing with so many sad people, and pointed out of the door, now open, to a tree-bordered narrow lane.

What was I to do? I walked out of the door and set off down the lane. It was dusk, and quite dark under the trees.

I had no idea what I’d just witnessed: that bossy little man, the curiously stereotypical dead people, the insignificant broken promises. There’d been something fake about it. All ridiculous…

It was true what I’d told him: I had indeed been on the receiving end of broken promises. I could remember many occasions in my life: boys who let me down, a boss who promised me more money and failed to deliver, a friend who promised to keep my secret and then told. Okay, not fatal perhaps. But what about the big ones, the endless promises that humanity was going to be alright, that planet warming wasn’t a threat, that we’d all be okay? When it’s perfectly clear by now that we’re not okay, and that people are dying every day of all those broken promises. And isn’t there an unspoken promise that the very fact of being born means you have a life ahead of you – not a burnt-up wasteland without food or water? What about that?

The punctilious dignitary was suddenly walking at my side, a little behind me. I couldn’t quite see him, and yet in some sense I could.

“What about what, my dear?”

The promise to humanity. The promise of life when we’re born, not a dead planet.

“Who promised, my dear?”

“Well, I don’t know! God, I suppose.”

“Oh.” You could tell the gentleman was straightening his tie, “I’m afraid we don’t do God here.”

“What do you mean? Of course you do God. This is the afterlife, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. But we gave up all that God business a long time ago. It’s up to us now.

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“What – on earth, as you say – do I mean? He raised his fingers to his lips in mild amusement. “Well, on earth, it simply means you’re on your own, my dear – completely, irrevocably, incontrovertibly. On your own …

He fell further behind, still talking, I could no longer catch his words. I continued to walk. It didn’t seem as dark as before, there was starlight through the leaves, and a faint glimmer that suggested a moon.

He was right of course, there was no hope. Forget promises, forget reams of words, forget whatever you’re told. “If there’s a difference between the bird and what the field guide says, believe the bird,” goes the old saying. You only had to look around you to see what was actually happening in the world.

A sudden intake of breath. Call it a moment of resolve. It depends on us … Believe the bird. I came out of woodland into fields. I thought I recognised where I was. The moon emerged above the trees in frightening clarity. A barn owl hooted on cue, and I hastened my step.  

The Last Kiss by Peter Cates

Your amber eyes with their mocking glow that tell my heart, what I already know.

That from here on in I’ll live within, the memory of our last kiss.

You said how once you’d loved me so; but now please just, “let me go.” For within our life, you felt you’d drown, cold heart only warmed, by freedom’s fire.

Words that sting! Like a parent’s slap, and as a child I go back: to when our love was fierce and new, and passion’s bliss we did pursue.

Now I just want to kiss away, the lies that drip, from those oh so perfect lips.

For it’s me that’s drowning now, as I try to figure how, to live a life, without your kiss!

“Au revoir, Mary, it’s been so wonderful spending time with you again. You know I will love you forever, don’t you? Forever!” As we embraced, she kissed me softly on the cheek. It felt like a heavenly feather. Her perfume embraced me, filling me with hope, and love for her.

Her new silk scarf was wrapped elegantly around her neck, running with the colour of blood. It draped almost to her ankles. Perfect for her.  A gift from me.  It was hand painted by a Russian artist with links to Communism, which she was so fond of talking of these days. A mountain breeze picked up the silk and held it floating in the warm air for a few seconds, lapping the draft and l was reminded of the dancer that Isadora was. We were high on the hillside and the sun glittered on the Mediterranean so far below.

As she climbed in beside the dashing Benoit, I wondered if they would be off for another tryst, now that she owed him money. There was that shining glint in his eye, and he was always supportive of reparation in kind.

He revved the engine of the immaculate vehicle, a brand new Amilcar two-seater sports car, with its shiny ocean blue hood reaching endlessly in front of its passengers, tempting them, pulling them into its need for speed. His racing car goggles looked too large for his small head, but his smile was that of a film star – so big you couldn’t help but notice his teeth, the shape of his jaw.  Take-your-breath-away handsome.

“Monte Carlo, here we come” he called. Their excitement palpable, their adrenaline infectious.

Something about her elation, her laughter, reminded me of the time we met, almost 30 years ago. It was 1901 and I had decided to study theatre in Paris.  It sounded so glamourous. The crossing had been traumatic to say the least.  I was sick for most of it.  Poor Preston had to put up with me retching from the porthole for three solid hours one night. He cried and screamed and made me wish I’d left him at home in Chicago with his terrible father.

Eventually we arrived in Paris where the weather was disappointingly dreary – so full of grey rain and dampness. It took two complete days to improve. I was desperate for some colour, some life and light, and Preston’s cough seemed to be becoming more insistent.  On the second night there, in the brasserie, I was delighted when a fellow American lady approached me.

“Good evening Mrs Dempsey, I’m Mrs Duncan – I understand you’re from Chicago.  We know it well. Won’t you join us?”

I was so grateful for this distraction.  She was well dressed and spoke with wit and intellect, and I found her company immediately attractive. She led me over to their table, and there she was. Isadora! Had I been ushered into Paradise and given over to my guardian angel, I could not have been more uplifted. There sat Mrs Duncan’s daughter, in a glorious cream gown with her dark hair curled up over her stately bare shoulders and held back in an ivory ribbon. We were instantly inseparable.  We had everything in common – shopping, gossip, Champagne, actors, painters, poets.

Poor Preston rather took second fiddle for a while, I was so enchanted with my new friends.  Isadora’s mother became a pseudo-parent, and cured my son from his bout of pneumonia with spoonfuls of Champagne, lucky boy.  But he seemed happier with her anyway, and it freed me to live life in Bohemia, with my alluring new friend.

Thirty years, I thought.  Gone like a flash of lightening.

“Goodbye darling,” Isadora called, waving as the car began to move slowly.

I had bought the scarf from Arthur Liberty’s shop in London, while I was there earlier in the year. There were two that I knew she would love. But the red one stood out so well, with its significance of passion, so elegant and beautifully soft, and it encompassed everything that Isadora was, with its curl and flow and lightness. 

“Wait!” I called.  Benoit braked and the wheels crunched on the gravel to a halt.

“Wear a cape, darling, the temperature is dropping now.  I’ll get you one from the house” and I turned quickly to run back.

“No, darling, it’s not a long journey, I’ll be fine” she said, stopping me in my tracks.

“But…” I tried to suppress the urge to stop her.  A compulsion to make her stay.  It felt like a fleeting sickness. We had enjoyed such a wonderful time in Nice.  I put it down to a melancholy sadness about her departure. After all, it would probably be years before I saw her again. I always missed my friend more in the days immediately after parting. The feeling would pass, I must let them go.

Benoit steered the beautiful car to the road.  One final wave from them both.

“Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!  To glory I go” she called back, with her laugh on the verge of hysterical.

As she turned again toward the windscreen, her hand caught in her red scarf, causing it to ruffle and flair gigantically around her head, which was lost for a moment in the rush of colour.  It was at this moment I realised my mistake. I should have insisted on the cape, made them wait while I fetched it. Anything to make her stop and think. As she caught and unwound the fabric, the speed of the car increased. The scarf dropped down outside the car as the wheels gained momentum.

As Benoit accelerated, the end of the scarf caught in the spokes of a back wheel. Suddenly, Isadora’s head jerked back grotesquely as the silk tightened in straight line directly to her neck, which snapped audibly, and she was pulled, like a doll, from the car.  It screeched to a halt.  I screamed. Isadora’s legs were still inside the car so that her broken back was absurdly bent over the side, and her arms dangled, one outside the door and the other unnaturally over her head. The tightened scarf supported her bruised head, and her eyes were wide with shock. But she was already dead.

I should have got the cape.  It would have held the scarf inside. 

‘Forever,’ she had said. Forever my mistake.

The Howling by Pauline Watson

Under the vast, hollow oak the earth was bare, wolf blood was speckled.

Rattling his chain, he continued to howl. The days had grown longer, it was spring. The wolf wanted his tribe. He cried his loneliness to the faded moon. He had crept inside the oak tree when it had become too hot. The tree smelt of death and an old man. Soon the wolf began to howl during the day, as well as the night. Villagers stopped work, disturbed by his wails. The sound echoed down the hillside and across the valley.

It was heard in the great house. His Lordship was slightly deaf, but his valet listened carefully.

Everyone local recognized the wolf’s distress, and most pitied it. Bought on a whim. All the way from the icy parts of Russia, for the mad sum of six guineas. Three months travelling, and finally arriving just in time for Queen Anne’s coronation, then chained to that ancient hollow oak tree for the winter.

The same daft idea as the living hermit, and look what a mistake that had been. No sooner had the old man been put inside the Great Oak, than he had decided he would rather go back to his monastery in France.  The wolf was the replacement.

He went to tell his Lordship about the unholy noise. “The people are affeered of it. It’s keeping them from sleeping. The beast should be shot."  He could have added a great deal more. Such as the feeding of it, good rabbits, a fine haunch of deer. It had snapped and growled at the village children, who poked it with a stick. Visitors had not enjoyed the sight of its mangy bloodstained fur as much as his Lordship has thought, some had even wept at the plight of the wolf.

“Something must be done” his Lordship cried.

By now the howling was even disturbing his supper, and guests were discussing the wailing noises openly. Suddenly he had a brainwave. “We will gift him to the Queen’s New Zoological Gardens!” It was swiftly agreed and a letter was sent by coach to London. There was much excitement when the offer was accepted. The howling wolf could be chained inside a box and sent at soon as possible.

A Royal exchange was proposed, “would His Lordship care for a young, and lively crocodile?” 

His Lordship rubbed his hands together, not only had he got rid of the noisy wolf, but he was sure the Queen’s crocodile would be a great success.

“Like a largish newt, I believe Sir!”

“Capital, it will be a great companion for the village children. They do so love splashing about in the river, and can be admired by people crossing the ford.”  He sat at his vast desk, dipped his pen in the brass inkwell, wiping it carefully, and wrote the letter.