You Shall go to the Ball

Else didn't know what to do, her phone buzzed for the umpteenth time that day, another message from Jose asking her about her plans for the work ball. She brushed her thick, wavy hair back from her face and looked at the screen.
'Made up your mind yet?'
She shook her head, Jose was sweet as you like, but she didn't want to be his date for the ball. She knew that if she said yes he would read far too much into that, think that it was the start of something special, start of a relationship, so she had to turn him down. There were two problems, one was that she didn't have anyone else to go with and the other was that he just wouldn't take no for an answer. Not that she'd actually said no, she'd said, maybe, we'll see, I'm not sure if I am going yet and countless other ways of letting him down gently but he just didn't get it. He didn't read the signs. Now she was on the brink of not going at all just so that she didn't have to go with Jose. She wanted to go, it would be fun, she didn't even mind going alone but how could she turn up on her own after all his offers? She sighed the sigh that only someone who'd had 18 unsolicited text messages from the same guy could sigh.
Jackie sat-opposite her smiling, amused by the turmoil in her friend’s life, amused by the pained look in her eye.
‘Just say yes,’ she said in a teasing voice.
‘I can't’ Else replied ‘I can't’ she moaned again.
‘So find someone else to go with, you've got male friends.’
‘It’s not that simple, there’s no one I can ask to do this, the single ones well it would look like I was coming on to them, to the non-single ones their other halves would never let them.’ Jackie nodded, Else was an older, sexy woman there was no way anyone would allow their man to go on a date with her no matter if it was a date of convenience.
‘What am I going to do?’ Else whined.
‘Excuse me,’ Jackie had lent over to the man on the next table.
‘Yes?’ the man said taking one earphone out of his ear.
He was about their age, tall, dark skin, dark hair,  he looked a bit like Mourinho, a Jose Mourinho lite.
‘Um my friend has a bit of a problem, are you free on Wednesday night?’
Else tried to kick Jackie under the table but missed, while the man looked confused.
‘She needs a date for a works ball, would you like to take her?’ Jackie asked as brassy as you like.
Mourinho lite looked at Else, who was blushing so hard it looked like she was trying to spontaneously combust and going up in a puff of smoke was exactly what she wanted to do.
‘Wednesday?’ he said, smiling.
‘Yes,’ said Jackie.
‘And this is not a wind up?’
‘No, it's for real?’
He smiled at Else who despite her best effort still hadn't burst into flames.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
‘Great,’ said Jackie and set about exchanging the necessary details.
After the man had put his earphone back in, Jackie grinned at Else and said

‘There now you can tell Jose you have a date, problem solved. Just call me your fairy godmother. You shall go to the ball.’ 

The Snake

This is a live recording of me telling this story. Below is the original recording  and below that is the story.

Daniel crept out of bed, grabbed Pablo his dog-eared teddy bear, tiptoed from the room and, after carefully closing the door, ran as fast as he could along to his parents’ room.

‘Dad, dad, there’s a snake in my bed.’ Daniel’s dad put the lamp on and half sat up, his bleary, sleepy eyes adjusting slowly to the light, his brain trying to process the strange, new information.

‘Dad, a snake.’ Daniel snivelled holding a forlorn Pablo by the leg.

‘It was probably just a bad dream Daniel, go back to bed.’ His Dad’s voice was thick with sleep.

‘No dad it was a snake.’ Daniel implored.

Daniel’s mother had now turned on her bedside lamp.

‘Go back to bed Daniel.’ She said in her no nonsense voice.

Dan slumped away from their room but there was no way he was going back to his; the snake was behind that door.

He sat at the top of the stairs wearing his hrumph face and hugging Pablo.

‘You saw it Pablo didn’t you? It wasn’t a dream, there was a snake.’ he muttered to the bear.

He looked at the crack under the door and wondered if the serpent could crawl under it. It looked too thin for that big fat snake but who knew if they had magic powers. He’d keep an eye on the door just in case.  He shivered in the draughty stairwell, his pyjamas no protection from the cold of the night. He sniffed back a tear.

‘Why don’t they believe me?’ Pablo looked with silent sympathy. ‘It was a snake, I don’t tell lies.’

Then a light came on in his parents’ room. Dan froze, he was in trouble now, they’d told him to go to bed and he’d disobeyed them.

It was his father who came out of the room, his hair all over the place, his chest bare.

‘Let’s have a look for this snake then shall we?’ he said in a calm voice that surprised Daniel.

Dan stood up and took the hand his father had proffered; feeling braver because he was with his dad but not that brave. He hid behind his father’s legs as his Dad opened Dan’s bedroom door and put the light on.

‘See there’s no …’ His voice trailed off as he saw the huge creature writhing on Daniel’s bed.

It took seconds to slam the door firmly shut and this time it was Dan and his father who ran as fast as they could along to his parents’ room.

The Cupcake Murder Part 1

This is the 3rd Archer Stanley story for The Furtive Glance click here and the Woman with the Porcelain neck click here

Since the incident with the barman, Hristov Georgiev had become my new best friend; regularly popping in to see me or calling me up. To be honest I didn't really appreciate the attention but having a connection with the underworld couldn't hurt, better to have him as a friend than an enemy. He'd handed over Molly saying she was mine! I immediately told her she was free, she could go her own way! but I needed a secretary and if she was prepared to work for peanuts, then the job was hers. She said she liked peanuts and smiled her beautiful smile, brushing the hair out of her face as she did so.

She was not the greatest secretary in the world, but she was keen and eager to please and she brought some colour to my dreary office. Despite her incompetence, the arrangement was working out well. Because Molly was answering my phones, I was getting a lot more work, not exciting work, but it paid the bills. My days were filled with run of the mill cases, catching cheating husbands and thieving workers; it was the kind of things I could do with my eye shut. People who think they are being clever but actually leaving a wake of clues like Hansel and Gretel. The evenings I spent talking with Molly, at first she expected me to sleep with her, working her body like she might do at Cupcakes. But I refused her advances. I wanted to, don't get me wrong, but I'd bought her freedom not her body. I wanted to know she really wanted me, not that she thought I was just one generous punter.
She told me stories about the club, the Johns, Hristov and Santa! She was surprised that Louisa had been seeing the barman, apparently none of the girls had suspected anything. I didn't tell her the news about Louisa being Hristov's daughter; I thought that might blow her mind. She said working at the club wasn't too bad, after the first few times with punters you kinda got used to it, but I could tell by her eyes and the way she played with that lock of hair the fell down her face, that the memories were not ones she cherished. The more I heard about Santa, the more I hated him. He was a pig, he took what he wanted from the girls whether they wanted him to or not. Jesus they were sex workers not sex toys. Why did Hristov let him get away with it? Something needed to be done.
Another day, another dollar, another failed marriage. I'd spent most of the day collecting the evidence the wife needed to make sure she won big in the divorce court. This schmuck was not only cheating on his wife, he was cheating on his lover too, mind you the wife was no angel either, had the husband engaged me, it would have been him that won big. They deserved each other.
When I got back to the office Molly looked upset,
‘What's wrong?’ I asked
‘Hristov called’ she said
‘Hey you don't need to worry about him any more, you’re free.’ I replied.
‘He wants you to go to Cupcakes ASAP’ she said deadpan. I looked at her waiting for the punch line.
‘It’s Santa’ she said, betraying no emotion. ‘He's dead.’

For part 2 click here 

Who’s the crazy one here?

Imagine how it would look if Father Christmas fell on hard times, if Coca Cola withdrew the sponsorship, or Mrs Christmas had grown tired of the cycle of 10 months of sloth followed by two months of panic and had walked out. Or maybe parents had decided to be honest with their kids thus rendering the old man surplus to requirement. Well, the man on the bus could well have been a fallen Santa.
The big unkempt beard was more grey than white, the moustache stained yellow with nicotine, the body a shadow of former glory, the trousers now at least two sizes too big, the belt with new notch after new notch. His eyebrows were wild and wonderful, sprouting in all directions.
He certainly was not keeping himself to himself, he was giving a god commentary, commenting on everything and everyone, he chuntered about the women wearing too few clothes, the boys with the low slung jeans, the baby not being protected from the elements, the price of bread, the schoolboy listening to his iPod too loudly and the cleanliness of the bus. You could see most people rolling their eyes, tutting, circling their fingers by their temples signalling this man was crazy. 
But who was the crazy one here? Wasn't he voicing what everyone was thinking? The iPod was too loud, the price of bread is too much and the bus did need to be cleaned. As for what people wear well that's their business but I bet you there were people on that bus thinking what he was saying. But he was the crazy one because he said things out loud.
Mitch compared the man with himself, he saw so many similarities, everyday Mitch wrote a diary, a blog, voicing his thoughts in public, not knowing if anyone read it or if anyone cared. Ranting to no audience, but still ranting, giving a god commentary of his own. Okay he didn’t do it on a bus but he did do it on the public transport of the information superhighway. Say it out loud in public and get called crazy, write it out loud in a blog and it’s perfectly normal. 

Dai’s Quandary

Dai had a choice, he could lie and hope to get away with it, or he could tell the truth and face the consequences. It was the biggest dilemma of his life and he really didn't know what to do and what’s worse, there was no one he could turn to for help. Dai was as Welsh as Welsh could be, all his life he had waved the flag, banged the drum, thumped the tub for his country in sport, politics, everything. Despite living in England since he was 23, despite being married to a beautiful English woman, he'd retained his Welshness, if anything being an exile had only made it stronger. Cut him in half and he would bleed red.
But, and there's always a but, Dai had a little secret, he wasn’t actually born in Wales. He was born in spit spit England. He'd never told a soul of that fact, no one outside his immediate family knew and they were all dead now, not even his wife, his son and daughter knew about his place of birth.
But now it was a problem, because now Aled, his grandson, had been picked to play for Wales, both a dream and a nightmare for Dai. Dai's dream had always been to play for Wales himself, a dream he'd passed on to his son when he realised that he was too old and then to his grandson when he realised Bryn that had the sporting ability of a frog. Dai had taken Aled to his first game, had taken him to his first training session, had helped him wth his kicking, his passing, everything. Now all that hard work had paid off. The problem was Aled had been born in England, as had his father, so he only qualified for Wales through his grandfather - Dai, the Welshest man in the whole of England. Except technically, Dai was not Welsh because to be Welsh you had to be born in Wales and buried deep in a chest in the loft was the birth certificate that proved otherwise,
So Dai could lie, after all surely it was what you felt not where you were born that mattered. And he’d felt he was Welsh since the very first day he could feel. All the heartbreak he endured, all the teasing and abuse that had bordered on racism that he’d put up with, all the sheep noises; surely that allowed him to lie. But he was in a quandary,  if he was caught, it would destroy his grandson's career. But if he told the truth, he might live to see his beloved Aled pull on the white jersey with the red rose of England on it and that was too unpalatable for words.