Christmas morning dawned dark over a town which appeared resentful of the thin sunbeams fingering its drab corners with colour.  Outside the house at 10 Burton Street, it was particularly bleak.  Here, drifts of snow piled thickly against the walls, driven by winds so cold that ice formed the top layer like cake frosting.  News flashes warned drivers in Kent and the southern counties to take special care on roads that were slick and treacherous.  While no sudden shift in these weather conditions was heralded, inside the house it was a different matter.  Inside the house, change was on its way.  Here, a five year old was about to plan a double murder, which would then lead to the solving of a cold case, which would in turn result in two people committing themselves to the eradication of violence and prejudice against women.  To the uninformed, the link between the prevailing weather conditions and these three elements may appear tenuous, but this is not the case.  One thing leads to another, as they say.  Please, let me explain.

At 7 o’clock that same morning, two small children, one five and one six, were permitted to enter their parents’ upstairs bedroom.  They were wished happy Christmas by loving parents who, in the joy of gift distribution, failed to observe the change in their daughter’s facial expression.  So let us, as observers, voyeurs even, take a closer look.  The edges of the little girl’s mouth, which a moment ago had turned upwards, are now turned down.  Her eyes, which had sparkled in anticipation, now sparkle with tears.  Their six-year-old son, on the other hand, maintains the expression of a happy child, well satisfied.  One youngster is passed the handle of a small grey pushchair, the other the handle of a shiny green bicycle.  I will not tell you, dear reader, which child receives which gift, for that you already know. 

On her return downstairs, Maddie put on a brave front.  For her parents’ sake, she smiled through breakfast and she smiled through lunch.  She pulled bonbons, she shared jokes, she ate a little turkey.  Let me tell you, it was an Oscar performance.  Then she found that was the very best she could do, feeling the way she did, and she excused herself from the table. 

“She’s gone to play with her dolls,” her mother explained, smiling brightly at those around the table.  No-one expected her father to smile.  Since the unsolved disappearance of his beloved only sister, Dora, seven years before, the fact was that her father had found little to smile about.  The police had listed it as a cold case but this was hard for him to accept.  Everyone at the table understood this.  Nevertheless, he did his best.  

Further down the table, Maddie’s Uncle David (for your information, he’s the one second from the left in the smart black leather jacket with the lustrous silver buttons) glanced quizzically at his young nephew, who avoided his eye.  They clearly knew Maddie better than her parents did.  Something was amiss.    

Homemade Christmas pudding with brandy butter was served.  “Delicious” murmured the guests. 

“My mother’s recipe” beamed Maddie’s mother. 

The conversation then turned to reminiscences of Christmases past, the sort of small talk that causes everyone not personally involved to stifle a yawn and to wish they were elsewhere.  As outsiders ourselves, let us leave them to it and return to the five-year-old in question.      

Having reached the sanctity of her bedroom, Maddie closed the door and wept.  Why had Father Christmas ignored her letters?  Why had he listened to James and not to her?  Had she not been nice enough to measure up?  She thought she had, yet dolls were the very worst present Saint Nick could have given her.  She could not think of anything more boring.  A beautiful bicycle like the one he had given James was all she had dreamt of for weeks.  She had even told Jess, her best friend at school, that she would let her ride it.  Now she would look foolish.   

With no more tears to shed, Maddie wiped her eyes, forcing herself to face the two dolls.  Dressed in pink gingham, they smiled glassily at her.  She looked at the label attached to each one.  Pauline.  Patricia.  She stuck out her tongue.  “I hate you!” she hissed.  Still that glazed smile.  Beastly, boring dolls!  She glanced at the thin summer dresses.  How silly when it was so cold.  Then she remembered. ‘Exposure’ – that was the word her teacher had used when she had warned them to wrap up well.  Maddie looked out of the window at the snow, piled up almost to the windows.   Prolonged exposure to the cold would kill anything, her teacher had said, even polar bears.  Feeling more hopeful than she had all day, Maddie stood up and took the handle of the pushchair.  This was the solution. It was that simple.  She would tell her parents she had taken the dolls for a walk and simply forgotten where she had left them.  She would cry.  They would eventually find the bodies, feel sorry for her, dispose of the dead dolls and buy her a bicycle.  She hoped it would be purple, with a flashing reflector on the back, like the one she had pointed out to her mother in the bicycle shop a week before Christmas. 

Energised by her decision, it did not take long to execute.  Soon the dolls, dragged through the snow in their pushchair, were wedged up behind the garden shed.  Icicles had formed on the roof.  They dripped slowly onto the snow, the pushchair, the dolls.  By nightfall they would all have frozen.  By the morning, Pauline and Patricia would have suffered prolonged exposure and that would be the end of them.  Relieved, Maddie ran back inside and closed the door.  

So much for the double murder, dear reader, but what about the cold case and the double commitment to eradicate violence and prejudice against women?  Please, I beg you, be patient.  Read on.   

At first, Maddie didn’t recognise the blonde woman sitting on her bed when she returned from the snow.  Then she did. 

“Aunt Dora!” she exclaimed.  “I’ve seen you in photos.  I didn’t know you were coming for Christmas.” 

“Ah!” Her Aunt laughed and hugged her.  “It’s a surprise.  I’m missing, you know.”

“Yes, my Dad told me.  He can’t smile any more.  Where have you been?”

“I was murdered seven years ago.  Tell your Dad I’m buried under the garage at number 25, just down the street.  The man who did it killed himself but, as you know, Maddie, your Dad and the rest of the family still suffer.”  She stopped and looked sternly at her niece.  “Believe me, Maddie, murder isn’t the way to go.”

Guilt showed in Maddie’s stricken face.  She looked down at the carpet.  “Okay”, she whispered. “So what do you want me to do?”       

Her Aunt smiled.  “That’s more like it!  Now, I want you to bring those dolls back in and tell your parents you want to talk to them; ask them both to stop labelling you.  Tell them who you really are.”

Maddie stared at her Aunt.  “Who I really am?”

“Yes.  They’ve labelled you because you’re a girl.  My parents were the same and it’s a sad mistake.  You have your own personality.  There’s nothing wrong with being a girl, or a boy, who likes dolls.  But you don’t and they should know that.  They should know you!”

Maddie shook her head.  “But they say because I’m a girl it’s natural that I’ll like dolls.  How am I going to make them understand it’s not?”

Aunt Dora smiled.  “Tell your father you know he once traded his train set for a teddy bear and he slept with it for years.  I think it only went to the tip when he married your Mother!” 

Maddie gasped.  “My father had a teddy bear?”

Her Aunt laughed.  “Indeed he did.  Now go and get those dolls!”

Maddie nodded.  “Will you be here when…”

“No, I’ll have gone when you get back.  But tell your Dad I’m happy now, so he can smile again.  And remember, I’ll be keeping an eye on you and I never want you to accept any treatment that is given to you just because you’re a girl.  Do you promise me that?” 

“I promise”, said Maddie, reaching up and kissing her Aunt on the cheek.  “Thank you.”  Then she tiptoed from her bedroom and ran to retrieve the pushchair from behind the garden shed. 

“Maddie”, called her father.  “You’ve been asleep for hours.  It’s late.  Everyone’s gone home.”

“You must be hungry” said her mother.  “Do you want to bring the dolls into the family room for tea?” 

Maddie took a deep breath.  She was only five years old, after all, and this took courage.  She followed them both to the tea table.    

“Mum, Dad, can I talk to you about the dolls?”

They stared at her in surprise. 

“What about them?”

“They’re not what I asked for and I’m not that sort of person.”

She met their blank stares.  “What do you mean, Maddie?  All girls love dolls.”

“No, they don’t.  And all boys don’t love train sets either.  Some of them prefer teddy bears.”  She looked pointedly at her father.

He coloured slightly.  “Okay, Maddie.  Who’ve you been talking to?  What’s this about?”

“Aunt Dora” she said.

“Are you mad!” her father gasped.  “What are you saying?  She’s missing…”

“Yes, I know.  She was murdered and she says you’ll find her body under the garage at number 25,” Maddie said quietly.

Her father gripped her shoulder hard.  “Murdered!  Number 25!  Who’s been putting this nonsense into your head?” he yelled. 

“Just a minute, Don.”  His wife looked at Maddie.  “What’s this all about?” 

“Aunt Dora stopped me murdering those dolls” she whispered, avoiding her mother’s eye.  “She said murder isn’t a good way to go.”  

Her parents stared at her. 

“You were going to murder your dolls!” 

Maddie nodded mutely. 

“I think you need to go to your room and we’ll decide what to do about this, young lady,” her mother said angrily.  “Maybe the school counsellor can help you.  I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

Maddie’s father shook his head.  “No, Penny.  There’s more to it.  I did have a teddy bear and I did swap my train set for it.”

His wife stared at him.  “So what do you want to do?”

“Silly as it sounds, I’m going to speak to the police.”  He looked apologetic. “I wouldn’t want to let Dora down.”

“The child has a dream and you go to the police.  I don’t believe this!” Maddie’s mother shook her head.

Maddie’s father knelt down beside his daughter.  “Did Aunt Dora say anything else?”  he asked.

Maddie nodded.  “She said she’s happy now, so you can smile again.” 

Tears welled in his eyes and he nodded.  “Anything else?” 

Maddie looked at him.  “Yes.  She said she’ll be keeping an eye on me and she never wants me to accept things that happen to me just because I’m a girl.”   She hesitated.  “What will you do if the police find Aunt Dora’s body, Dad?”    

He took her hand and smiled.  “We’ll have a funeral for her at last and I’ll work on getting to know my children better.  Now what was it you wanted for Christmas?” And so it was, dear reader, that Aunt Dora at last received the funeral she deserved, with Maddie riding alongside the coffin on a large purple bicycle with a flashing reflector while James rode behind the cortege on his bike of shiny green.  You’ll also be glad to hear that the dolls, Patricia and Pauline, found a home with a small girl who loved them dearly and never once thought of murdering them.  It then follows, of course, that Maddie’s father smiled often, and never again labelled anyone; indeed, in later life he stood alongside Maddie as they carried out vital work in the field of eradicating violence and prejudice  against women.  And needless to say, the story of that day has been told at Christmas lunch every year since then and hasn’t bored anyone yet, not even those who were not personally involved.

Iris Spratley made up her mind on the 1^st of February 2018: she was not leaving her home, ever again.  The date was auspicious.  It was her seventieth birthday and if seven decades of living and learning had taught her anything it was to act upon her convictions. 

Her two daughters lived and worked overseas. It would therefore make no difference to them but they still expressed their disapproval when she texted them about her decision.  

                Don’t be ridiculous, Mum!  Everyone needs to get out and about.

                Are you ill?  Should we call a doctor?

                Is it perhaps time to consider a retirement home?

And finally, from her eldest: 

            Are you crazy!

She was not.

The truth was, she was heartily sick of the world outside but very happy with the world inside.  It made absolute sense, therefore, to reject the one in favour of the other.  Most of her friends had died, or lived elsewhere, and she felt no inclination to make new ones.        

Once her mind was made up, everything else fell into place like dominoes.  Groceries, ordered online, were delivered weekly.  Newspapers, her preferred way of receiving the news each morning, arrived on her doorstep in the early hours.  Books winged their way to her within days of ordering, with Kindle her on-screen fall-back.  Postage stamp purchase was no problem.  Her newsagent took care of that, popping stamps, paper and envelopes into her post-box on request.  When she needed to post a letter, she listened for the sound of the postie’s motorbike and her mail was whisked away.  Yoga she continued with the help of a DVD and aerobics Iris maintained with the help of her exercise bike.  Her small garden gave her great pleasure.  She grew her own vegetables, with the local nursery supplying her with seedlings, again delivered on request.  Her aim was to live wisely but well.  Once she had the fundamentals in hand, she made the necessary arrangements for security door and window installation throughout the house.

“Take a tank to get in here now”, observed the fitter as he left. 

Iris smiled and thanked him, admiring the metal structures that shut undesirables out rather than shutting her in.  Her withdrawal from the world was now official and had been, overall, much smoother than she would ever have deemed possible. 

Over the months that followed, the news in the newspapers and on the nightly television reports became increasingly dismal.  The more Iris thought about it, the freer she felt.  She could do nothing about nuclear threats, wars, floods, problems on a global scale, but on the domestic front she avoided road rage, the indifference afforded to older people in banks, shops, and professional institutions, and possible invasion by individuals who sought to support their addictions by robbing those they deemed vulnerable.  These matters were of concern but not a personal threat.  Not now.  It was a time of deep contentment. 

Then, because Iris Spratley had an analytical mind and was given to reflection, she began to look on what she was doing as not simply a personal decision to avoid contact with the difficulties and indignities that beset those in her age group, but as the beginning of her own, private political protest.  What was it that had brought her to this? 

The simple fact was that, as a retiree, she was tired of being regarded as non-productive and a drain on scarce resources.  She was also tired of being told by those younger people who constituted Generation X and the Millennials that she was ‘lucky’ to have been able to purchase her own home while they could not.  Such nonsense!  The reality was that there had been no luck involved, just a great deal of self-denial, determination, and years of very hard work.  At times, she had held down two jobs to provide a home for her children and herself.  Iris’s jaw clenched at the memory.  She, like many other Baby Boomers, had worked hard to pay taxes to provide not only public services and amenities for the community but also a pension when they reached retirement age.  And Iris’s generation had understood the principle of putting money aside for a rainy day.  No eating out, no overseas trips.  That had never been on the agenda.    Her throat tightened at the injustice of it all.  She considered for a moment.  Numbers!  That was what she needed to prove her point, if only to herself.  Reaching for her iPad, she began the process of entering the relevant figures on the calculator before transferring them to an Excel spreadsheet. 

When she had completed her task, she sat back and checked her findings. Yes, it was just as she had thought.  Since she had first begun working in 1966, she had paid more than $1,000,000 in tax to the Australian government.  With inflation and interest, even at a conservative level, the number was well over that.  Taking government allowances into consideration, she was now receiving a pension of approximately $25,000 per annum.  If she lived for another ten years, that would amount to $250,000.  And what about the volunteer work that so many people of pensionable age carried out?  Imagine if all these jobs were left to the younger generations and they were expected to fill them free of charge.  “They would claim, quite rightly, that they were being exploited!” said Iris. Her tone was one of exasperation.  But of course there was no-one to hear her. 

She closed the lid of her laptop and for several weeks put the matter of these injustices to the back of her mind.  After all, life was very pleasant.  She was thoroughly enjoying reading until all hours of the night; Googling research topics that were of particular interest to her; and tending the plants in her garden. The Japanese wisely called this the Third Age, a time of entitlement.  Her reward now was to enjoy what she had worked for in the previous two ages.  Let others discover this blissful existence for themselves.  Iris relaxed and withdrew once more into her preferred world.   

This happy state of affairs might well have continued, had Iris not happened to change television channel one evening to a question and answer programme that followed the 7 o’clock news.  A well-known economist was on the panel.  Questions on the economy were invited.  A young man who could not have been more than twenty years of age took the microphone.  Facing down the camera, his lip curled as he said, “Baby Boomers expect us, the young people of Australia, to support them.  Bludgers!  What I would like to ask them is this:  ‘Are you delusional?’”  

And to Iris’s consternation, the studio audience began to clap.

She had spent months refusing to allow anxiety or anger of any kind into her life but now she found that she had her limits.  She had read recently that the personal essay, a long-time favourite form in America, was becoming popular in the Australian press. It was time, she decided, to write a personal essay to the national newspaper.  In it, she would detail both her findings regarding her financial contribution to the economy and her lived experience.  This would be her response to ill-founded accusations such as those levied by this young man. 

Iris began her work.  To avoid a build-up of the angst it caused her, and the concomitant disturbance to her calm inner life, Iris alternated her writing and research with days of music and yoga practice.  The first task she set herself was to define the cue words or phrases for the subcomponents of society demarcated by age and attitude.  This would, she decided, clarify matters for readers.  At a rough approximation, Baby Boomers, her own cohort, emerged between 1946 and 1965.  They encompassed those who had good economic opportunities and were, post the Vietnam War, optimistic about their own lives and the future of the Western world.  This was the definition generally applied and the following generations blamed this group for not only purchasing houses to live in but also for investing in real estate, therefore putting up prices so homes were out of reach for younger generations.  However, this description only fitted, as Iris herself knew from experience, wealthier patriarchal households.  Women in this era had been paid low salaries and this meant that a large percentage of the population struggled, particularly when, as in her case, they had children and little or no support from a husband who had absented himself.  Not only that, but employers had been reluctant to employ women with children, on the premise that they would be unreliable due to their domestic commitments.  Iris herself had had to grapple with this situation. 

Further research revealed that Generation X, those born roughly between 1966 and 1976, into which classification her own children fell, were sometimes referred to as the ‘lost’ generation.  They were the first ‘latchkey’ kids, exposed to day care and divorce.  The upside for this cohort was that they were the best educated generation in history, but they were left, understandably, with a fear of broken homes and kids growing up without a parent around.  Little wonder, then, that they should feel resentment, but was it fair to aim it all at Baby Boomers?  Given her own experience, Iris thought not. 

This group were then followed by Generation Y, more commonly known as the Millennials, whose ire against the Baby Boomers was reflected in the angry young man Iris had seen on television.  Born between the mid nineteen seventies and nineteen nineties, they were technologically savvy, and had high expectations.  More often than not the progeny of dual income families, they had been brought up believing that the latest fashions, overseas holidays, and new cars were needs, not simply ‘wants’.  Lacking the financial training that encouraged saving and general frugality, the Millennials then sought an explanation for their mounting credit card debt and inability to raise the deposit required for a home loan.  This had erupted in accusations of greed targeting Baby Boomers, who they saw as forcing taxpayers to ‘dig deep’ in order to pay their pensions and as responsible for pushing property prices beyond the reach of younger people.  

Her research complete, Iris took a deep breath and plugged in her yoga DVD.             

It took her almost a week to blend this information with her own, lived experience, and to back it up with the statistics she had compiled, but at last it was done.  A quick covering note to the Editor of the national newspaper and the essay was on its way. 

An email requesting permission to publish arrived in her in-box the following day.    Iris was surprised at the speed of this turn-around but relieved that it allowed her little time to reconsider.  She agreed to the request and hoped that her work would provide a telling argument for any Baby Boomer who happened to read it.  Who knew, it might even encourage a few Generation X and Millennial readers to pause before passing judgment.  Although perhaps not.  Firstly, how many younger people read the newspaper?  Secondly, why would they read something written by someone the former labelled as a contemptible example of the establishment and the latter blamed as the reason behind their own inability to purchase a home?  It was in the lap of the gods, she decided.     

Now it has to be said that nothing had prepared Iris for the reaction to her essay.  The newspaper was fair, printing letters for and against her claims.  Iris took out her scissors and clipped each one neatly as it appeared.  Over the following days the pile grew to such numbers that a file was necessary.  She created one.  She even heard herself quoted on a political programme after the nightly news, accompanied by the comment that, “Intergenerational tension appears to have stretched to breaking point.” 

Despite this, she had not anticipated the knock at her door. 

Looking through the peephole, Iris saw a young woman in the foreground.  Over the woman’s shoulder, she had a clear view of an older man holding a television camera aimed straight at her.  Quickly, she closed the peephole and retreated into her study.  They seemed to take the hint and she thought they had left her property but later in the day, when Iris opened the back door to go into her garden, she was forced to retreat once more when she noted a camera balanced on the fence.  What had she started! 

“We’ll do this one pro bono, Iris”, her lawyer said when she phoned him.  “My mother is a Baby Boomer.  She says your essay lifted both the image and the morale of this group.  My firm is proud to represent you.  We’ll speak to the media.  You won’t be troubled again.”

Iris sighed with relief, thanked him, and picked up her novel. 

The phone rang again.  This time it was the Salvation Army. 

“This is Pauline, Iris.  You’ll remember you spoke to me when you very kindly gave us your car a few months ago.  You said you no longer needed it.”  

“That’s correct,” Iris said.  “Is there a problem?”

“No, no; in fact, since you wrote that article in the newspaper people have been handing in their car keys by the dozen.  They say it’s a relief and that they’re also ready to enjoy the Third Age you talked about.  Of course, we’re very grateful.”   

“But I don’t think it’s gratitude I’m hearing,” said Iris, puzzled. 

“Oh Iris, it’s the volunteers,” the woman said, sounding upset.  “We rely on Baby Boomers to run our stores.  They’ve been resigning.  Lots of them.  Other organisations are reporting the same problem.  They say they won’t be exploited.  We’re not quite sure…”

Iris’s hand flew to her mouth.  “Go on!”

“And there’s the other matter, too.”

“Which is?”

Pauline hurried on: “There are grandparents refusing to look after their grandchildren.  They say they’ve been doing it without question for years, but now they feel they’re being used and they’re angry with the claims that they’re expecting to be supported.”

Iris considered this for a moment.  “And what do you want me to do about it?” she asked.

“You need to leave your house, Iris.”  Pauline’s tone was insistent.  “You need to come out and talk to the media.  You need to tell them.”

“Tell them what?” asked Iris.

“Why, tell them you were wrong, of course.  Say you’re grateful to society for providing you with a pension and that retirees should go back to their volunteer jobs. Then tell the grandparents they must take care of the kids so their children don’t have to pay other people to look after them while their parents work…”

“So you want me, in what I believe is common parlance, to tell Baby Boomers to ‘suck it up’,” Iris interrupted.        

“To do what!” Pauline’s tone expressed her astonishment.

“To continue in their role as society’s punching bag?”

“No, no, that’s not what I…”

“Oh, but it is,” said Iris.  “That’s exactly what you’re saying.  And I can tell you that there is no way in the world that I’m going to be party to such a thing.  Let’s see a little respect, recognition and appreciation, Pauline.  Let’s hear a few thank yous.  For myself, I shall be watching what happens from the world inside.”

The silence that followed conveyed its own message.  For the second time that year, Iris Spratley had made up her mind.      

When I married my husband in England in 1964, my parents disapproved and were conspicuous by their absence at the wedding.  It was an awkward situation but we solved the problem by leaving England for Australia shortly afterwards.  We were soon simply migrants who had no family members in the background while rearing children.  It was to be expected.

The only family-related person who supported me at this time was a friend of my father’s, Audrey, who lived in England and whom I had known all my life.  A striking, flamboyant, self-opinionated woman, Audrey never sought a romantic partner but instead bred pedigree dachshunds and knitted beautiful hand-made garments from fleece provided by a local sheep farmer that she carded herself.  She used so many knitting needles that, as a child, I used to will her to drop a stitch.  It never happened.

“Always live your life your own way, my dear.  It’s your journey,” she said, as she hugged me on the dock the day we embarked for Australia.

Over the years, Audrey’s letters kept me entertained, and informed me about my family.  She also knitted, first for my husband and myself, then for our children.  She was the first person I would turn to if I had problems of any kind and when, after twenty years of marriage, I found that my perfect husband was having a relationship with another woman, it was Audrey I phoned and Audrey who talked me through those heartbreaking months until the divorce went through.

Whatever happened, Audrey was always there; my first port of call for both celebration and disaster.  Naively, I thought she would be there for me forever, so it was a shock when I received a phone call one day from a hospital in England telling me that she had collapsed while taking her dogs for a walk.  She was now an in-patient and they had her on the line.  She wanted to talk to me.

I knew that, living by herself, Audrey tended to skip meals. I therefore imagined that this had been the cause of her collapse.  When I spoke to her that day, I told her I loved and needed her and that she must take more care of herself for my sake.  I made her promise that her diet would improve once she was out of hospital.  “No more chocolate for lunch,” I insisted.   Meekly, for her, she gave me that promise.

When the hospital phoned me again the next day, they told me that Audrey had slipped into a coma shortly after speaking to me and had died in the early hours of that morning.  I was beside myself.  This could not be happening.  I then spoke to her doctor who told me that, unbeknownst to anyone, she had had cancer for months but had refused chemotherapy and instead self-medicated, living her life her way until the very end.

In the days that followed, I was numb with grief, and guilt-stricken due to the fact that I had no money for the air fare to attend her funeral.  There was no point even trying to find out when it was on.  I could not go.  I sent flowers and a card to Audrey’s home.  It was all I could do.  I hoped she would understand.

A week later, knowing both my children would be out for the evening, I visited friends on my way home from work.  They invited me to stay for dinner.  We were sitting around the dining room table, talking after the meal, when something glinted on the wall opposite.  Startled, I looked up.  There was a picture hanging on the wall.  The movement that had caught my eye was a reddish gold flame, flickering along the picture frame.  This was then accompanied by a crackling sound and a terrible, acrid burning smell.  I stared in disbelief as the flames moved around the picture, finally engulfing the whole frame in scarlet and yellow tongues of fire.  I was overwhelmed, first of all, by a sensation of terror, then of intense loss, followed by a feeling of release as the flames died down.  I then heard, very distinctly, the words, “It’s only love that matters, that’s all.”  I was aware that this had been spoken by a woman but it was the words that carried strength, while the voice was like one heard in a dream, without identity.

Afterwards, deeply shaken by this whole experience, I looked around.  I was stunned to find that not only was I was still sitting at the dinner table with my friends but that no-one else in the room had witnessed anything of what I had so clearly seen and heard.

They then told me that, when I looked up at the picture on the wall, the colour drained from my face.  I had then become very still, holding the same position for about twenty minutes – ‘as though in prayer’, as one of them described it.  Knowing I had just undergone the trauma of losing someone special, they were kind enough not to disturb me, and I was unaware throughout that anyone else was present.

Later, at their suggestion, I contacted the only funeral parlour in the town in which Audrey had lived.  The director told me that Audrey had chosen not to have the traditional burial preferred by most people of her generation but had, instead, left instructions that she was to be cremated.  I knew nothing of her plan, but it was this cremation that I am sure I attended.  I believe she knew how distressed I was by the fact that I could not be with her, so she made sure I was present.  The words I heard were then spoken to tell me not only that she understood my situation but to reassure me that love overrides death.

Both Audrey’s friendship, and the strange experience I have described, were life changing for me.  I have always tried hard to follow her instruction to live the journey my way, just as she did, and with any luck it will be Audrey I find, busy with her knitting, waiting to welcome me at the end of it.

In England we didn’t call them hobby farms but that was what they were.  Ours was called Goose Farm, although somewhere in those early years I learnt that its original name had been Gorse Farm.  This was due to the gorse bushes which grew, intertwined with blackberry and hawthorn, along the hedgerows.

‘The lower orders,’ my father would say, ‘have a problem with the Doric ‘r’ –‘ and he would give his listener the local Kentish rendering of the word ‘gorse’ in explanation.

My parents had a black lacquered double bed which bore the legend ‘By Appointment to His Majesty the King’.  This was painted on its headboard, in gold lettering.  I therefore had no difficulty identifying my father with royalty, although my mother, whose chosen place of residence was, despite household help, the kitchen, never seemed to fall into this category.

Goose Farm, together with the surrounding properties, was owned by my grandmother.   The farm provided her with many hectares of fields and woodlands on which to ride and graze her horses.  She always rode side saddle, in long brown skirt and jacket, a matching hard hat almost covering the tightly netted chignon.

I can see her now, a small, erect figure, brushing aside the leafy overhang with the short crop she invariably held in her right hand, my half-sister, Louisa, riding American cross saddle, a little way behind her.  Beside them, their numbers varying from two to four, ran the dogs.

My father had been married before.  He favoured driving a vintage Bentley on country excursions and the story was that the pin holding the passenger door had snapped.  His wife was thrown out and died instantly.  Louisa, who was at this time only six months old, went to live with my grandmother in what could only be described as a Gothic mansion that served as a hunting lodge situated at the other end of the estate.  Shortly after the accident, my father married my mother and brought her to live on the farm.

I was told I was a preterm baby.  Lucky to survive, they said, often with pursed lips and a perplexing shake of the head that I could never decode.  My mother told me of my father’s disappointment that I was not the eagerly anticipated son.  The florist delivered a single bouquet.  So there was me – and eighteen months later there was Charles.  This time my mother was concerned about too much pollen.

Louisa and Charles had little love for one another but shared the freedom of knowing that if I was with them they could do what they wished and see me suffer the consequences.  Broken windows, scratched records, sweet papers in the car – these were the sorts of anonymous crimes for which I was held responsible.  Dog leads, a switch broken from a nearby hedge, cruel words – these were my father’s instruments of correction.  I developed the habit of eating breakfast early and disappearing into the woods for hours, or hiding in the summerhouse with a book.

Schooldays were more difficult, as Louisa shared a string of governesses with Charles and myself.  ‘Unsuitable’ was the word used as each packed and left.  Mademoiselle Paillot, whom my father finally produced as a fitting educator for us, appeared after one of his visits to France to study the language.  Mademoiselle was a young woman with an excitable temperament who, to my distress, seemed to lose no opportunity to speak ill of my beloved mother – although never in her presence.  Her passion for marons glaces meant her touch was often sticky, as was my father’s after her arrival, which puzzled me as he expressed a dislike for these sweets.  I detested both my governess’s cold embrace and her sharp tongue but any attempts to escape her in my grandmother’s large garden and surrounding paddocks were thwarted by the arrival of her dog, Toby.  A foul-breathed wire-haired terrier, gifted to Mademoiselle by my grandmother, it seemed to make a point of tracking me down when I sought secret retreats under the hedges in my grandmother’s garden.

Although my grandmother kept horses, she did not enjoy their company as she enjoyed the company of her dogs.  She spoke often of their pedigrees and at night-time had them enclosed in a yard in the inner sanctum of the house.  As a hunting lodge, the house had been designed to accommodate not only the hunters but the hounds that accompanied the hunt.

My grandmother never had less than a dozen dogs in the house and during the Second World War she also accommodated the pack of hounds which ran with our local hunt.  To keep these hounds, which had been trained to kill foxes, from attacking her own dogs, she had kennels built behind the box hedge separating the gardens and lawns from the vegetable garden.  These kennels, originally painted white but now streaked with green lichens, were foul-smelling and damp.  It was my grandmother’s pleasure to lock me in one or other of them when reports of my misbehaviour reached her.  Louisa and , sticks in their hands, would taunt me through the wire netting.  Pressed against the back of the kennel I could avoid their jabs but never the humiliation.

Once a month, my father would escort my grandmother, Mademoiselle, Louisa and Charles on a shopping trip to London, some forty miles away.  They would travel by train from Meopham station first thing in the morning and return late in the afternoon.  I was excluded from these trips at my mother’s request to keep her company and it was on these days that my mother and I would share a secret freedom.  In spring and summer we would pack a picnic and go looking for violets and primroses in the woods.  We would laugh and sing and fill a basket with wildflowers.  Bluebells we never picked, nor the pink and white anemones, for they died quickly when cut, but we would fill vases with sweet-smelling blossoms of other varieties.  In autumn, we gathered hazel nuts and blackberries; in winter, shiny-leafed holly with its scarlet berries and chestnuts to roast on the fire.

My father never hit my mother but lashed her, instead, with his tongue.  He seemed to take pleasure in humiliating her in front of the servants, and Mademoiselle in particular.  Her rebellion was to eat and she grew massive, a factor which only added fuel to my father’s taunts.

We stayed in the woods for as long as we dared.  Sensing my mother’s sometimes overwhelming sadness, I became an expert mimic, and would be rewarded by her calls for repeat performances.

‘Mademoiselle again,’ she would cry from her seat under a shady tree, and I would oblige.  My reward was the tears of laughter on her plump, pretty face.  Sometimes she looked so young, so vulnerable, and my heart would ache as we walked home together.

The day when the end began was the first day of the holidays.  The last week of school had, for me, been unusually peaceful, for Mademoiselle had lost her dog, Toby.  The terrier spent its days stretched out on the sofa in the school room and had a habit of lifting its leg against our desks.  Louisa and Charles found this funny but for me this added to my sense of the place being somehow rotten and oppressive.  Mademoiselle would, with glace powdered pout, remonstrate with the little dog, then gather him to her and forgive him by burying her blonde head in his brown and white curls.

Despite the servants’ best efforts, the smell of dog urine, mixed with disinfectant, permeated our schoolroom, as it did the passageway from the courtyard behind the kitchen, along which my grandmother’s dogs ran at exercise time.  A gardener was employed whose main task was to clean up after the dogs and when Toby disappeared I suspected that this old man, whose arthritic frame moved painfully slowly, had failed to close the gate to the vegetable garden.  This was my suspicion but I kept my counsel.

Mademoiselle set work for us and spent several days scouring the hedgerows.  My grandmother, whose austerity did not stretch to dogs, allocated her a farm labourer to assist with the search.  Toby did not reappear and my father, showing unusual kindness, drove Mademoiselle down to Brighton for some sea air to help her recover from her loss.

On this first day, then, I awoke early and packed a sandwich and a drink in the rectangular lunch box my mother had given me for my forays.  It was her way of showing me she understood.  With a full day ahead I planned hours of uninterrupted reading in the silence of the woods.

Clearing away the traces of my breakfast, I slipped into the garden and picked a newly opened pink rose, placing it at the breakfast table for my mother.  Placing my lunch box and my book in my shoulder bag, I closed the door quietly, ran down the front path, and out across the laneway.  The field ahead of me, still veiled in morning mist, led to the opening to the woods.

This field was named Pink Field because of the reddish clay which was turned up there during ploughing.  Each area of the farm had its own name and the farm worker who was instructed to, “Turn the cows out on the Rolling Banks”, or “Get the mare out of Colonel’s field and taker her for shoeing,’ knew exactly where he was going.  Only men worked on the land.  Both my grandmother and my father had strong ideas about a woman’s place, although it was tacitly understood that my grandmother’s wealth exempted her from the restraints placed upon other women.

As I crossed Pink Field and entered the woods, the trees closed together above me and for a moment it was dark.  Then, as I squeezed my eyes to slits, the pale magic of the place settled about me and I looked ahead at the sea of blue which gave its name to this corner of the farm – the Bluebell Woods.  I stood for a moment, ecstatic, feeling the wonder, as I always did, of such a carpet.  Then I began to make my way along the footpath towards Big Pond, where my father kept his boat.

There were two ponds in the woods.  Little Pond was overhung by pine trees and, at this time of year, so enclosed by bracken that trying to reach it was no pleasure.  Big Pond, situated in a clearing in the woods, was banked by rhododendrons and almost bracken-free.  It was covered in summertime with a round-leafed green weed but the weed had shallow roots and never clogged up the paddle wheels in the boat as some weeds could.  I planned to lie in the boat and read.

As I walked, I searched the undergrowth for traps.  My grandmother’s instructions to the farm labourers were that rabbits were to be caught and fed to the foxes to ensure that their numbers increased.  This was so that the hunt would not be short of prey.  Sometimes, at night, I fancied I heard the rabbits screaming as the traps came down.  Releasing the rabbits was something that gave me intense pleasure.

The boat that lay moored at the edge of Big Pond was old and little used.  My father had brought it to the farm on a whim and soon tired of it.  It had a wooden seat across the centre and one at each end.  I clambered in, placed my lunch on the centre seat, and began to clear out the tree branches and leaves which had fallen into it since my last visit.

As I pushed my hands under the right-hand seat, I felt something hard.  I pulled out a small pair of blue secateurs which were beginning to show signs of rust.   I looked at them in astonishment.  They were my mother’s; the pair she used to cut flowers for the house.  I was warmed by the thought of her pleasure when I returned them to her.  I placed them beside me while I read.

The sun shone warmly and the hours passed quickly.  Soon it was lunch-time and I decided to paddle to the middle of the pond so I could watch the frogs and other pond-life through the weeds as I ate my sandwich.  I learned forward to turn the paddle handles but they did not move.  Surprised, I pulled the handles backwards.  Still nothing.  The water was too deep for the paddles to be jammed in the mud.  I climbed out of the boat and began to pull on the long mooring line.

It moved slowly upwards and as the paddle wheels rose higher I saw that one of them had run foul of some sacking.  Taking off my shoes and socks, I waded in and pulled at the hessian.  It moved up slowly from the bottom of the pond.  It was not a piece of sacking, I saw, but a sack with something inside it.  Carefully, I pulled the soggy, fibrous material out and away from the paddle and slid my hand down to separate it from its holding.  It was bulky and refused to move.  I saw now that there was twine tied around the top of the sack.  The end of it must have wound itself around the inside of the wheel.  I returned to the boat and picked up the secateurs.  Leaning over the edge, I lifted the sack and cut the twine.  The hessian left its jammed space and I lifted it into the boat.

Cutting the neck of the wet sacking, I pulled it open and looked down at what was inside. A smell of rotting flesh, mixed with the dampness of the sacking, reached me.  Short, curly, hair, brown and white.  I had found Mademoiselle’s beloved dog.  I had found Toby.  Nauseated, I stood up and flung the sack away from me onto the bank, where it thudded and lay still just above the waterline.

Shivering, I crouched in the bottom of the boat, staring at the secateurs I held in my hand.  What sick person had involved my sad, sweet mother in something like this?  My mind raced in search of an explanation.  Perhaps Toby had been caught in a rabbit trap and the farm labourer who set the traps, fearing my grandmother’s anger, had counted on the water rotting the evidence.  My mind sought other answers but found none.  Secateurs were easy to come by.  Maybe this was simply coincidence.  Maybe these didn’t, after all, belong to my mother.  I hesitated – but I knew I couldn’t afford to take that chance.  My hunger gone, I threw my untouched sandwich into the pond.

I must have sat there for some time, hunched in the bottom of that boat.  My heart was racing and I was afraid.  Then I remembered a story I had read where a body had been thrown into a lake in a sack weighted down by rocks.  The body hadn’t been discovered until the murderer had died years later, leaving a note.

I climbed quickly out of the boat and jumped onto the bank, careful to avoid the sack.  I tied up the boat, then began to search amongst the knotted trunks and low-lying, cool dark leaves of the rhododendrons.  I had collected a pile of bulky, misshapen rocks.  It was heavy work but I didn’t dare to stop until I had piled them, one by one, in the bottom of the boat.

Gingerly, then, I caught the sack by the neck and dragged it into the water.  Struggling with the weight and the awkwardness of it I climbed into the boat and pulled it up behind me, laying it across the front of the boat so it held fast.  Red-stained water oozed onto the floor of the boat and I bit my lip as I centred myself on the slatted wooden seat and gripped the handles, my feet jammed against the rocks.

With the added weight, the boat lay dangerously low in the water but, as I pushed, the familiar clunk clunk of the paddles began and the boat moved slowly out and away from the bank.  I looked behind me.  Water and weed sluiced up through the paddle wheels but all around was emptiness.

My thin wrists hurt and it seems to take forever but now I am at the centre, where the water is deepest.  I pull my blouse up by the neck, across my nose and mouth.  I don’t want to be sick and, as I open the neck of the sack. I look away as I thrust each stone into the rottenness.

Soon they are all in.  I gather up the shortened strands of twine and twist them into the tight, double knot that I use to secure my lace-up shoes.  Then I shut my eyes and push hard.  There is a splash.  The boat rocks and heaves upwards.  I open my eyes and watch, fascinated, as the green web of weed closes over the gap made by the burden.  Now all is silent but the taste for reading has left me and I rinse my hands carefully, remove the drink bottle from my lunch box, and replace it with the secateurs.  Pushing the drink bottle into my pocket, I dry my hands on my handkerchief, then reach again for the handles.

My mother was in the kitchen, slicing vegetables for the evening meal.  She always insisted on doing the cooking herself.  She smiled as I walked in.

‘You must be hungry.  I’ve made a cake.’

I shook my head and pushed the lunch box across the table, lifting the lid as I did so.

‘These.  Are they yours?’

Nothing had prepared me for the way her face crumpled.  I watched as she raised a hand to her mouth and began to run her thumbnail slowly backwards and forwards across her bottom teeth.  I’d noticed this habit before.  She did it when my father was lashing her with cruel words.  I couldn’t bear to think that something I had done was causing her to look like that; to be so unhappy.

Her eyes were of a particularly vivid blue.  Now they stared vacantly at the secateurs.  She put her hands behind her back.

‘Poor Toby,’ she whispered.  Then she looked across at me.  The blue eyes had no centres.  ‘Accidents happen,’ she said softly.

I nodded, withdrawing the lunch box.

‘They’re a bit rusty.  I’ll sandpaper them for you.’

‘You’ll do it yourself?’  The gaze was steady.

‘Yes – just me.’  I closed the lid.  She smiled quickly and reached for the cake tin.  I didn’t question her silence.  She was helpless in a way I couldn’t understand.

Early in July, there was another upset at my grandmother’s house.  Dan, the large Airedale my grandmother prized because he ran beside her when she went horse riding, was missing.  The local police were notified but the dog was not to be found.  My grandmother was at her dourest and I was careful to stay quietly in the school room, avoiding the gardens where the search was centred.  When my mother was out shopping one morning, I checked the kitchen drawers.  The secateurs, now shiny from my sandpapering, were still there.  Relieved, I closed the drawer tightly.

In September, it was Clou’s turn.  Clou was a White West Highland terrier.  My grandmother said Clou was Gaelic for ‘small’.  He slept in her bedroom with her.

This time, the police took the situation seriously.  The dogs, all pedigrees, were valuable.  Obviously someone was stealing them for breeding purposes.  Had we seen or heard anything suspicious?

The farm workers were nervous.  They knew my grandmother.  Ray Jones, the ploughman, a man of fifty-odd, was found to have a minor record for theft as a teenager.  He supported his elderly parents.  He pleaded with my father.  I could have told him to save his words.

A week before Christmas, I decided to surprise my mother by collecting the chestnuts she wold need for the turkey stuffing.  Louisa and Charles were working on a version of the Nativity play.  I was the innkeeper.  I recited my lines quickly and told them I was going for a walk.

‘To those old woods again!’ Charles groaned.  ‘Why can’t you help us with the stage set?’

‘I’ll see if I can find you some conkers.’

He shrugged and turned back to his work.  I knew now he would defend me if Louisa complained that I hadn’t helped with the play.

From my grandmother’s house I had to cross several fields in order to reach the end of the woods but I knew a copse where the chestnuts were thick on the ground.  I took gloves and a shoulder bag.  The prickly chestnut casings would be better opened at home.  The ground was covered in a thin layer of snow and the sky was black with more snow clouds.  I would have to move quickly.

Soon there was only one more field between me and the chestnut copse.  The field was ploughed and the chilled furrows hard under my feet.  When I finally reached the heavy wooden gate on the other side, my hands were too cold to pull back the metal catch that secured it.  First kneeling, then flattening myself against the ground, I was able to slip carefully under the electric fence that bounded the woods.  My breath made small clouds in the air as I scrambled to my feet.  Hugging myself to keep warm and a little out of breath I began to make my way through the dead, brown bracken.  There was a crack of twigs ahead and I started as a red fox ran through the trees.

Now I was on the footpath.  As I looked, I could see the chestnut trees, taller than the surrounding woods, up ahead.  I pulled my balaclava down and tucked it into my coat collar.  The top button came undone.  I stopped to fasten it.  Again a twig cracked.  A rabbit?  Another fox?  Quietly, keeping close to the trees, I moved towards the sound.

Through the bracken, I caught a glimpse of someone pushing into the thicker woods.  I sighed in disappointment as I saw it was my mother, carrying a swollen bag that she had obviously already filled.  She, too, knew where the chestnuts lay thickest, and seeing me occupied with the nativity play she had obviously decided to come here alone.  My only thought now was to help her.  I pushed quickly through the undergrowth and emerged beside her.  With a start, she released the bag she was carrying.  It slumped to the ground.  Ashen faced, she stared at me.

‘You!  You were at rehearsal!’

She moved in front of the bag but it was too late.  I found myself staring at it in horror.  The canvas was marked with red-brown stains.

‘Chestnuts,’ I whispered, filled with the dread of what I knew.  ‘I came to collect chestnuts – for you.’

For a moment the vivid blue stare, then she looked away.

‘That’s good of you.  Really kind.  I’ll just get rid of this, then we’ll collect them together.’

Biting back my fear, I looked at the bag.

‘Would you like me to help?’

She nodded.

‘Yes, that’s an idea.  You know this place better than I do.’  She smiled at me, then shivered and pulled her coat around her.  I wanted to take her hands, to reassure her.

‘The chestnut trees.  They’re big.  There are hollows inside the roots where’ my mouth was dry ‘it’ll be softer for digging.’

She nodded.

‘You go ahead.  I’ll follow you.’

She picked up the bag.  It hung between us.  Sickened, I wanted to turn away.  The snow clouds were oppressive now, seeming almost to touch the tops of the trees.

‘Do you want me to carry it for you?’ I asked quietly.

She nodded, the blue stare unseeing.

I placed the strap across my shoulder and swung the bag behind me.

‘Those are the best ones.  See.  They’re close together.’  I motioned towards a clump of trees to our right.  ‘There’s an old fox earth under the one in the middle.  We can hollow it out.’

Turning away from her, I began to push through the undergrowth.  I didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to see the stain which I knew must now be soaking through my coat.  Shrubs and small trees forced me to bend.  There was a clearing ahead.  I made towards it.

I didn’t mean to cry out, didn’t mean to frighten her, but they moved so quickly from behind the trees.  There were two of them.  They stood in front of me, barring my way, the dark blue of their uniforms standing out starkly against the brown of the winter bracken.  I don’t know which of them spoke.  Maybe both.

‘We’ll take that if you don’t mind.’

Hands reached out for the bag.

‘No!’ I screamed.

I turned around.  But my mother was no longer there.

Joachim Montgomery rubbed his ear, frowning.  He looked again at the list in front of him.  “World-wide unemployment; water scarcity; air-borne disease epidemics; oceans polluted.”  So many problems, no solutions.  There had been a time when he had had hope for the future.  But not now.

He hated the loneliness of it all.

A knock at the door and his secretary handed him yet another lunch to be eaten at his desk.

He forced a smile.  “This convention means a great deal to you, Mary, doesn’t it?” he said.

“It means a great deal to everyone, Professor,” she said brightly, “but no-one doubts that you have all the answers.”

“And what if I said I had none?”

Her expression darkened.

“Then I would say that humanity is doomed, Professor.”  He noted the tight line of disbelief around her mouth as she left the room.

Looking through the window towards City Hall, Joachim stared at the flags hanging  heavily in the heat.  Two hundred countries.  He felt stifled by the thought of all those who depended on him to clean up the world with a few clear-cut innovations.

The 2035 Convention on Global Social Problems would begin tomorrow.  He had been preparing for eighteen months but he knew his carefully prepared data was uninspired, useless. He also knew his associates, globally, were in the same position.  But because of his reputation as an innovative thinker and practitioner he was their unspoken leader.

If only he could step aside.   His assistant, Dr Michaela Guadalupez, was just the person for the job.  But where would she find the answers?

“Inspiration!” he said to the empty room.  “Just give me inspiration!”

“My research tells me you are the world authority on social problems.  Does anyone worry about your problems, Professor?”

Joachim stared at the slight figure seated opposite him, then pressed his intercom button.  The young woman shook her head.

“I switched all that off.  Mobile phones, too.  A very amateurish system.”

“Unbelievable!  You’re from the Press, of course.  You’d better leave before I have you arrested.”

“Oh man of little faith,” she smiled.  “Didn’t you call for inspiration?  Well, here I am to inspire you.”

Joachim felt light-headed.  Was it her unfamiliar perfume?

“May I?” She reached across, removed the list of issues from his desk, then took from her pocket a tiny, metallic object.  She ran it swiftly down the page.

“What the hell is that!” He reached for the metal object but she stood up quickly.

“A speculative scanner,” she answered. “It’s after your time.  Is this the complete list?”

“Yes, it’s all we could dig up for now,” he said sarcastically.  He closed his eyes.  Obviously he was hallucinating.

“No need to get upset, Professor,” she said.  “It will all be sorted in moments.”

As she spoke, the scanner whirred, producing what appeared to be a plasticised strip.  She tore it off, handing it to him.

“There you are.  I’ll read up about you in the sociology data of your time and see what happened.”

Joachim began to read.  Ten minutes…fifteen…he looked at the girl in disbelief.

“This is a plan for a Utopia for all humanity.  If we can put this into practice…”

She shrugged.  “It can all be put into practice, Professor, believe me.”

He groaned suddenly. “And if I give them this there will be more expectations, more questions.  More loneliness.”  He looked at her.  “Have you an answer to this problem, too?”

“Of course,” she smiled.  “If you’re ready to meet the future.”

It took Joachim only a moment to place the strip in an envelope and to write across it, in large letters, “Dr Michaela Guadalupez. Confidential.”

“Problems solved,” he said, reaching for her hand.

The coroner’s report stated cardiac arrest.  Dr Guadalupez, as she walked into the auditorium to present the opening address to the 2035 Convention on Social Problems, knew better.

The water slapped gently against the hull of our small dinghy as I put up the oars and reached over the edge.  Wow!  Two beauties!  As I hauled in the freshwater cray pots and rowed back to the mooring at the end of our garden I smiled, thinking how pleased Geoff would be.  And it hadn’t cost him a cent!

Thinking in terms of finance cast a shadow across my bright day and I chased it away.  We were so lucky; a dream home by the river, secure jobs, and each other.  Geoff, a science teacher, worked at the local high school.  He had recently been made head of his department, while I was a sales assistant at the local bookshop.  We’d been together for ten years now and really the only problem we ever had was over money.  Geoff was what my mother, in her soft Welsh accent, had always called, “parsimonious”.  The frustration was that if I sometimes longed for a nice meal out at a good restaurant, or a new dress with an expensive price tag, Geoff would always dismiss it as an example of my extravagant nature.

“You did a sensible thing when you agreed to having our two signatures on the savings account” he would say if he ever caught me so much as glancing in a dress shop window.  “We’d never have the house we have, or the fat savings account for our retirement, if you had sole signatory rights.”

Earlier in our marriage, I had tried to point out that we were far from retirement age and still had plenty of living to do, but the arguments that followed were so awful, and his comments about how little money I earned so disparaging, that now I said nothing.

I was being disloyal thinking like this, I thought guiltily.  Well, I’d try to make up for it.  Geoff was working late, as he so often did now that he had taken on his new responsibilities.  I would make a crayfish mornay and take it up to the school to surprise him.  There was a bottle of chilled white wine in the fridge.  We’d eat in one of the science labs – add a bit of fun and romance to that drab place!

Just after dark, I parked carefully outside the school and tiptoed through the back way, my feast-filled basket over my arm.  A bit like Red Riding Hood, I almost giggled to myself.  The building was pre-war with those awful high windows but there was a

glow of light in the corner above the science lab.  I’d make sure he was inside, then I’d tap on the window and he’d come out to see who the intruder was.  Surprise!  Surprise!  Putting the basket carefully on the ground and climbing up on the low wall that ran alongside, I peered in – and my whole world crumbled.  On a mattress on the floor, Geoff and Erica, his top Year 12 student, were making love in the arc light of one of the Bunsen burners.

I relived that moment many times in the agonizing weeks to come.  My habit of staying silent to avoid an argument now stood me in good stead.  Geoff, absorbed not in his job but, as I now realized, in a heady relationship, hardly seemed to notice my silence.  Little by little, I began to see what a farce our marriage really was.  Geoff was a control freak – he controlled me and now he was into another relationship where he had the power.  I desperately wanted to leave – but how?  I had allowed Geoff control over everything – even my wages were paid straight into our savings account.  I simply had no money.

The solution came to me in an unlikely way.  During one of our rare conversations, Geoff told me that a student at the school had been caught for signing his father’s signature on absentee notes.  When pressed, he’d boasted that it was easy: “You put the other person’s signature against the window and a sheet of paper over the top.  The light behind it shines through and you just trace the signature onto the paper.”

Geoff shook his head as he told me the story.  “A criminal in the making”, he’d grimaced, unaware of the escape route he had just given me.

The bank manager was a little taken aback when I handed him the transfer form, neatly signed by both signatories, together with my application for my own account.

Fortunately, I’d rehearsed:

“Geoff’s found some new tax loophole and I’m ‘it’”, I smiled, pretending to sigh.

He laughed and picked up his pen.  “Well, if anyone would find one it would be Geoff.  We’ll open your new account now and transfer the money straight away.”

I’d already resigned from my job, so I packed that morning.  The note in the kitchen was the cowardly way out but I didn’t want to have to listen to Geoff justifying his actions.  I knew I’d be the one to blame.  My note explained, very carefully, that if he pressed criminal charges against me for forging his signature or tried to contact me I’d expose his relationship with a student who was also under 18.  I didn’t have to point out that he would probably go to jail and that he would never get another teaching position.

Six months later I sued for divorce and received not only my freedom but half the proceeds from the sale of the house.  I have never seen Geoff again and that is the way I want it to stay.  I have my own home now, I buy the occasional dress without looking at the price tag, and I eat out often.  My only regret is that, no matter what I do, in one way Geoff still has some power over me – our secrets must stay just that, for a lifetime.

All the houses in Poppy Street were happy, but the happiest of all was the house at number 22. It was not the largest house in the street, nor was it the prettiest, but is had been built by the Pearcy family who had lived in it and loved if for six years. The family belonged to the little house as much, thought the house, as it belonged to them. So when Mr Pearcy came home one night with the news that he had been offered a new job, which would mean the family would have to move two hundred kilometers away, the little house felt its heart would break.

Soon the family had packed up and a large FOR SALE sign was placed on a board outside. Real estate agents began to bring people around to see the property, but the house glared at them.

“If my family can’t sell me, then they will not be able to move,” it said to itself and when people came to look at it the doors creaked, the drawers jammed, and the house looked dull and miserable.

“This is awful,” said Mrs Pearcy. “No one seems to like the house and it suddenly seems so sad and gloomy.”

“Yes – and I shall lose my job if we don’t move soon,” sighed Mr Pearcy. “If we can’t sell the house we can’t move.” He looked unhappy but the house didn’t care.

“I shall keep them here forever,” it said gleefully, and it encouraged the weeds to grow in the front garden.

So full of its own misery was it that it did not notice when, one morning, a small, red car drew up in the driveway.

“Oh, what a lovely house,” said a warm and friendly voice, “but how sad it is. It must be lonely.”

Startled, the house looked out of its windows, prepared to look fierce and unwelcoming. What it saw make it stop and forget to look cross. A small girl, her thin hands clasped together, was gazing at it excitedly, her body wrapped in blankets in a wheelchair. Beside her stood her mother and father.

“Well, it is an urgent sale, which is why the house  is so cheap, and it really is the only one we can afford – but it looks so depressing I don’t think you could ever get well here, dear,” said the mother with a sigh.

But you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” cried the child. “The house and I would make each other happy. Look at that lovely big window. I could sit there and watch all the children passing by. When I get better I could ask them in to play with me.”

The little house began to feel warm from its very foundations. How selfish it had been, trying to make the Pearcys unhappy. How it would love to have the change to make this small girl well again. It glared at the weeds in the front garden until they shriveled under its gaze, then it stood very straight and blew the dust from its bricks.

“There you are,” cried the child, “it looks happier already,” and she laughed with pleasure.

“Funny thing, but it does look more cheerful,” said her father with a grin. “I could put up a lovely swing over on that tree and…”

“It looks as though we have found ourselves a home,” said the mother, smiling through her tears – and the house at number 22 was once again the happiest house on Poppy Street.

The six-pronged fork I’m dragging slows me down as it bumps over the ridges of earth made some time ago by the plough.  Now the barley has been harvested and I struggle through stubble and patches of weed.

“Carry the fork,” instructs my step-sister, not looking at me.

I shake my head.  I’m tired – and my too short legs wouldn’t balance the long handle of the fork.  All right for her, she’s empty-handed.  She thinks she’s a grown up now she’s got a bosom but I don’t think it looks much.  Her eyes scan the fields.  I know she’s searching for the boy who works in the cowsheds.  She’s after anything in trousers, my mother says.  He’ll get the sack if my father finds out – but why should she care!

Now my own eyes find something.  The fork has caught in the tendrils of a shiny, green-leafed plant which runs in a wobbly pattern along the ground.  I look down at the trumpet-shaped purple flowers, their bendy bits wrapped back to hold against your ear.

“Fairy telephones,” I breathe aloud, awestruck at the possibilities.

“Convolvulus!” snaps my sister.  “I told you to pick up that fork.”

I ignore her.  We walk on, the magic of what the flowers promise remaining with me.

My grandmother’s house, where my step-sister lives, is now almost a field behind us.  I’m glad.  I share my sister’s governess every day but they don’t like me there.  I’m afraid of my grandmother, afraid of the governess, afraid of my sister.  Return this fork to your mother, my grandmother said.

The wooden fence is up ahead now, separating the ploughed field from the paddock that runs down the hill to my parents’ house.

“Climb over, then pull the fork through,” says my sister, as she leaps over the fence, one hand on the wooden post.  She scans again – this time for any audience.  She’s just like a boy, my mother says.

Chin set, I push the fork through first.  It slides over the grass on the other side.  Now I get down on my knees and begin to push myself through the wooden rails.  The opening is narrow and I am what my grandmother calls an overfed child.  I push harder.  My blouse catches.  I feel the wood skinning my back.

“Obstinate brat!” hisses my sister.

I pick up the fork, seeing, as I do so, a new clump of scarlet pimpernels.  My back is bleeding – there is stickiness on my blouse.  But I don’t care.  The fairies will be using their telephones tonight – and I’m on my side of the fence.

Ashley’s love affair began the moment she opened her front door.  There he was, crouching on the steaming hot concrete pathway, looking up at her with complete trust in his yellow rimmed, dark eyes.

‘Oh, you poor thing!  Just wait a moment!’ She ran into the house, coming back with a dish of water, the curved sides low enough for him to either drink from or to jump into.  She then disappeared discreetly, closing the door behind her.  He might be too shy to hop in for a dip in front of her at first meeting, she thought.

‘So now you’re emotionally involved with a frog!’ said her granddaughter, Joanne, when she phoned later that evening.  ‘Really, Gran!  Last week it was a rodent!’

‘Yes, Cassidy the hopping rat,’ Ashley said cheerfully.  Had she been so judgmental as a 30-year-old?  She hoped not.  ‘Look, Jo, I’ll stop filling you in on my wildlife encounters if they upset you.’

‘No, Gran, it’s not that.  I just want you to be happy.  I understand that, at your age, you wouldn’t be interested in the physical side of things, but it’s time you found a bit of human company.  To keep you sane,’ she added.

‘The frog will do me just fine, thank you,’ said Ashley.

‘Next thing you’ll be telling me it has eyes just like Grandfather’s!’ Joanne said, not bothering to hide her exasperation.

Ashley chuckled.  ‘It’s funny you should say that‘ she began.

Joanne terminated the call with a groan.

No sense of humour, thought Ashley.  Odd, in a grandchild of hers.  The fact was that she’d been married to Barry for fifty happy years and she simply couldn’t imagine being involved with another man.  ‘Wouldn’t be interested in the physical side of things?’ Was that what they thought!  She and Barry had had a wonderful love life, right up until the end.  He’d been dead for five years now but her body still tingled at the thought.  ‘Melting moments’, they’d called it.  She smiled at the memory.  She simply couldn’t imagine being attracted to anyone else.

It was dark now.  Time to turn on the sprinklers.  Switching on the outdoor light, she opened the door, stepped outside, then started in fright at a movement to the left, above her head.  She peered more closely.  One tiny hand, then another, extended from amongst the leaves of the large Elkhorn hanging on the red brick wall, then a small face pushed through the greenery and looked down at her.

‘So you’re a climber!’ she gasped, gazing once more at the small, dark-eyed frog.  ‘I wonder where you come from.  There’s no pond around here.’

It was a puzzle, but she planned to go to the garden centre for some supplies tomorrow morning, as she did each Friday.  She’d ask them.  Even if they didn’t know, they always managed to find the information from somewhere.

At the nursery the following morning, Ashley loaded punnets of kale, lettuce and basil seedlings into her trolley.  Pauline, the manager, grinned and waved to her.

‘Bring them over here,’ she said, signalling the front check-out.  ‘Granddad, this is Ms Hurley,’ she said, turning to the man who was working at the computer behind her.  ‘You often answer her queries about wildlife when I phone you.’

‘Aha.’ The blue eyes twinkled at her.  ‘Are you the one with the hopping black rat – or should I say ‘rats’?  They breed pretty fast.’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ Ashley said, surprised to find herself noting the muscular set of his shoulders under the checked shirt.  ‘And if you’re the one who has all the answers then I’ve a question about a frog.  It climbs walls and seems to have taken up residence in my front garden but I don’t have a pond.’

He nodded thoughtfully.  ‘That’s a slender tree frog you have there; Litoria adelaidensis.  My guess is you have a pump well.’

‘I do, indeed, but it’s very deep.’

He snapped his fingers.  ‘So there you have it; a frog that climbs up and down a deep well.  After that, climbing a wall isn’t a challenge.’  He looked at his watch.  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, the café always prepares my coffee at eleven.  I’ll have to go or they’ll come chasing me.’  He looked at her, smiling as he extended his hand.  ‘Fred Andrews.  Any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask, Ms Hurley.’

‘Ashley, please,’ she murmured, aware of the warmth and firmness of his grip.

‘He’s a fount of knowledge,’ confided Pauline, reaching for the seedling punnets as she indicated the retreating figure.  Lowering her voice she added, ‘I get him in here to help me when I can, just to keep an eye on him.’

‘Really?  Is he sick?’ Ashley asked, handing her $20.  ‘He looks very fit to me.’

‘No, he’s fine.  It’s just that since my lovely grandmother died he’s become a bit odd.’ She raised an eyebrow at Ashley.  ‘You know, talks to the birds and the flowers.’

‘Indeed I do know,’ said Ashley, with feeling.

Pauline passed her the receipt.  ‘Of course, it’s not that he could get romantically involved at his age’, she added, ‘we’ve told him we know that.  It’s just it’s not healthy hanging around with animals rather than getting out and meeting people.’ She placed the punnets in Ashley’s trolley.

So he’d been subjected to the same judgmental treatment.  Poor man.  ‘I see. Well, thank you for your help,’ Ashley hesitated for a brief moment then, gripping the handle of the trolley hard, she pushed it down towards the café.  Pulling up next to Fred’s table, she smiled at him.

‘I’ve been searching recently for the Austracantha minax but I’ve had no luck’ she said.  ‘Have you any idea where I could find one?’

‘The Christmas spider?’ He stood up and pulled out a chair.  ‘Now that’s a favourite of mine.  A real beauty.  There are plenty in the bushland around my place.’

‘How lucky are you!’ Ashley smiled, taking the seat offered.

‘I could show you if you like.  It’s a bit off the beaten track but of course you’d be perfectly safe with me’ he said with a grin.

‘Of course!’ she said archly, moving a little closer.

And Pauline, walking past the café at that moment, smiled to herself.  What luck that she had had that chat with Joanne at the Mothers’ afternoon at the primary school.