"Museum Piece"

(Inspired by The Conversation by Gillian Morris, 2001) 

Panama Hat:  “Did you know that our old shipmate Bunny Frobisher died?”

White Hair: “Covid I suppose…”

Panama Hat: “Oh no…He was in bed with his new girlfriend…Went down with all guns firing so to speak.”

White Hair: “Not a bad way to go….He was ninety this year same as me.”

Panama Hat: “I assume you’ve heard about another comrade from our Navy days, Tom Gillespie.”

White Hair “No, what happened to him?”

Panama Hat: “Well he’s passed on as well.”

White Hair: “This blasted Covid virus…”

Panama Hat: “Wrong again old chap. He was driving his Aston Martin too fast as usual in the South of France. Missed his line on a hairpin bend on The Corniche and ended up being buried at sea with the car as his coffin.”

White Hair: “Crikey…Though that was also a very fitting end for old Tom.”

Panama Hat: “You must surely have heard about our old Captain, Bill Prosser.”

White Hair: “Good Lord, is he dead as well? Was that Covid?”

Panama Hat: “Another miss old boy….Just like when you did gunnery practice….. You know what a toper Bill was. He was having a drinking contest in his local. After his tenth Gin and It he just keeled over and died with a smile on his face.”

White Hair: “Well it’s time I told you something you cheeky old blighter…I’m sure you won’t have heard about Nobby Wilson.”

Panama Hat: “Nobby!...I thought he’d died years ago. Are you going to tell me he’s a Covid casualty?”

White Hair: “No. Your turn to jump the gun. He did have the virus but you know what a tough beggar he is. He managed to shake it off and he’s still very spry.”

Panama Hat: “So what’s your big news about him?”

White Hair:  “He has to get married.”

Panama Hat: “What do you mean has to…?”

White Hair: “He’s been seeing a woman half his age and he’s got her in the family way. Nobby is old school and feels honour bound to do the right thing. I’m going to be his best man.”

(Inspired by Private Worlds by Francis Gower, 1905 - 1995)

I had been so looking forward to this holiday. 

We were at Luton Airport in really good time. We passed through security quickly and then went to have a coffee. It was only when our flight was called that Derek started going frantic. He couldn’t find my passport! We looked all around but it was nowhere to be seen. 

He rushed back to security but it wasn’t there. What were we to do? They said we wouldn’t be allowed on the flight. Think we had realised that! We then had to leave Departures. Not by the way we had come in but as if we had just come off a flight. A security guy led us through the crowds and back along the route which takes you to passport control when you first land. 

We were taken to the head of the queue so at least we didn’t have to stand in line. And then what did they say?

“We need to see your passport!” 

“We don’t have it!” I howled with frustration. “That’s why we’re here!” 

I was almost crying at this point. Crying with exasperation and with anger at Derek for doing something so stupid. 

Derek then had a Eureka moment. He remembered he’d left my passport in his coat pocket – but the coat was back home in our hall cupboard! We phoned our neighbour who has a spare key and she had a look for us. It was such a relief when she said it was there. She’s kindly arranged for someone to bring it. And we’ve managed to book for another flight which leaves in six hours’ time. So all we can do now is wait. 

We’ve been sitting here for a few hours now. Derek and I are barely talking and I’ve been trying to sleep. I’ve put my cardigan over my head to keep out the light and the noise. But if I had a pillow I would put it over Derek’s head instead. 

(Inspired by Private Worlds by Francis Gower, 1905 - 1995) 

Bad news about your health inflicts its own unique pain. 

Facing the Doctor, I heard his words and I felt my whole world collapse in on me. I couldn’t create a single question. I couldn’t voice a single thought. A maelstrom of darkness swirled through my body rendering me dumb and turned me into a black hole. My eyes, my window to the world, became part of the problem. I wanted to curl into my own private hell, and retreat into this darkness.

My husband of 40 years there as always, next to me, tried to take my hand but his attempts to offer comfort were lost in my pain. 

“We’ll fight this together. We’ll get a second opinion. We’ll spend what we have to…”

His voice petered out and he tried to turn me towards him, to show that this was a together moment. But it isn’t. It can’t be a team effort. This is not the purchase of a new house. This is my life. There are no plans, no strategies to cope with this. There is no future for me. I will not exist. 

I have never experienced emptiness like this, aloneness that defies description. I am adrift, helpless and totally unprepared for this news. I can almost feel my heart shutting down, my brain disengaging from thought. My limbs aren’t responding to commands. Shouldn’t my basic fight or flight instincts kick in now? I seem to have lost all physical and emotional control. I find I haven’t even got the breath to cry. 

Instinctively, I revert to childhood and do the one thing that always offered me comfort when life was tough. When my father beat me; when my mother died; when I had my first miscarriage. And now, when I’m told I have no future to watch my children grow; to walk on the beach with my beloved husband. I put my jacket over my head, hug myself and rock in silent agony.  

(Inspired by Irene Sitting in an Easy Chair by Rowland Wheelwright, 1870 - 1955) 

She watched the knitting grow under her nimble fingers. How many weeks had it been since they received the telegram telling them that Graham was missing in action. Irene wouldn’t believe that he had been killed. He had got lost that was all and would be coming home and, as the rhythmic sound of the needles calmed her, she believed that as long as she kept knitting her beloved son would be safe. Before that fateful day she had knitted socks and balaclavas to send to his unit near the front, a contribution to the war effort – and it gave her a connection. 

Irene managed to fill her days with activity. She had dug up her husband’s verdant lawn to grow vegetables and spent hours making jam from the fruit she had harvested from her garden. The oven spewed out cakes and buns for her to take to the centre where she helped in the canteen. So many hungry children and wounded soldiers passed through its doors seeking comfort – their shocked faces made her worry but she set her feelings aside to help those in need. The evenings were the worse. After dinner Wilfred would don his tin helmet and grab his gas mask ready for his shift watching the night skies for enemy bombers. The house was so empty. The clock ticked in the corner. The china knickknacks glowed in the firelight. She pulled her chair closer to the fire and picked up her needles. This fair isle pattern had proved a challenge but now she had nearly finished the sweater. The clicking of the needles soothed her and she would drift into memories of knitting matinee sets while eagerly awaiting the birth of her first, and only child. She still had them neatly folded into tissue paper ready for him to marry and have his own children. He had worn out the jumpers she had made over the years but now he would have new sweaters and socks when he came home. His cheeky grin would light up her life and she would breathe again.

(Inspired by Irene Sitting in an Easy Chair by Rowland Wheelwright, 1870 - 1955)  

Irene knew she should be contented but secretly, underneath, wanted more. She was confused, if she didn’t work out what she wanted, she might just drift…. for eternity. Maybe she’d meet her late father on the other side and he’d say to her, ‘What have you done with your life? I fought for you, made sure you had the best whilst I went without!’ This thought made her stop knitting and feel the emotion behind her eyes.

She and her husband Stanley had expected children, but none had come. It actually didn’t upset Irene but Stanley minded. There was nothing much she could do about it anyway. It just made her think she was made for a different sort of life. What really excited her was writing. This was something her Father had encouraged – he said she had a special talent - and writing made her feel close to him.  Stanley, on the other hand appreciated her skill in making clothes. 

‘My O my Irene, you look grand in your new dress!’ his eyes shined in admiration of her loveliness. 

She would enjoy the attention, but these outfits were important because they were inspired by characters she’d be creating in her head. Characters that featured in her writing which she kept secret.  ‘Maybe my Father has arranged for me, from the other side, not to have children so that I can write,’ she thought fancifully. 

‘Tell me about your day, Darling,’ she said to Stanley that evening. Stanley loved to impress her with news about his work as a Policeman. Irene listened carefully as something may be useful to include in her murder case. She took the blood red wool and started adding it to the knitted jumper on her lap whilst her mind lapped up technical terms and procedures that would help authenticate the story.

She planned to use a pseudonym when the time came to find a publisher, this way she could be anonymous and, who knows, maybe spend the profits on an underground adventure to further inspire the work.

(Inspired by The Call by Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch, 1869 - 1958)

Gwen Stratford sucked her pencil. The curve of the Pied Avocet’s beak wasn’t quite right, a degree between natural and forced. The late afternoon breeze nuzzled her sketch book. Time to finish for the day, time for fish and chips.

She dumped her gear on the table, locked the door to her Gran’s bubble-gum shaded beach-hut and crossed the sands. A trot along the raised-mile-walk past the ultra-modern lifeboat station turned duel as Gwen raced the narrow-gauge train returning rock-pink tourists to town.

The maltings glowed in cliched pastels. Landscape artists would be having babies, ‘the light’, but Gwen was content with her commissioned Bitterns and Lapwings. A tumult was going down on the quayside as a barge-crane, span a colossal sculpture into position on the harbour sands.

Gwen eavesdropped, as the harbourmaster waxed lyrical. “Raised fifteen Grand to keep it here. ‘The Last Lifeboat Horse’. Five teams of two used to pull the ten-ton carriage and boat, sometimes two and a half miles to where it was launched. The horses used to race the crew to the gates at the back of the station when the alarm rockets went off.”

The metal framed horse, three meters high, draped in oak beer barrels was a beauty. It spontaneously drew recollections; illustrations on dust-covers - her childhood books. 

Gwen drowned her chips in vinegar and one hand on fork, one hand on phone, googled ‘last lifeboat horse’.

She inhaled abruptly, raising looks from the other diners.

A straight arm pointed to a shipwreck; stage left.

The sea at a rolling boil, crashed over the fetlocks of hulking draft-horses; grandparents of the sculpture.

The crew cajoled the train. A lifeboat launched, rudder first. Lives to save.

Gwen scrolled. The Call, Aristocrats; many others.

Gwen’s metier was painting wildlife; birds were currently flavour of the month but several equine canvasses grazed her studio. Stubbs, Munnings, Degas and Gericault’s The Derby she knew well. She vaguely heard of Herkomer but Lucy Kemp-Welch?  With a flick of her thumb, Lucy’s Wikipedia page popped up as did Bushey Museum. 

Gwen considered; two-hours-thirty-six-minutes, one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-miles away - fastest route A11. 

(Inspired by The Call by Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch, 1869 - 1958)

‘I’m glad you’ve come - to hear the story of a dying man.’ He patted the back of my hand, twisted a large gold ring from his bone-thin finger, placed it in my palm, then squeezed my fingers shut.

‘That’s all that’s left. I want you to have it,’ he whispered. His eyes shut and he started to talk, as much to the room as me, eyelids flickering as scene after scene played before him…

‘The winds were unlike any I’d heard in my twenty-two years. Screaming banshees that threatened to pull off your face. And the rain? Came down so hard that it had us pulling on our sou’westers like it were grapeshot.’ He shook his head. A slow, faraway smile. ‘The older men braved the waves, hitting the horses, digging in their heels, urging them into the surf. Surging waves, higher than the roof, they loomed above us and just kept coming, coming, driving everything before them…them poor passengers, wretched souls, didn’t stand a chance. And all the time those banshees kept on screaming.’ 

He patted my hand before resuming his tale.

‘I remember… the first body, lying on the sand. He was a lad, no older than me. Mouth agape, eyes wide open, seeing nothing. Then came another, and another, until the sand disappeared beneath them. From the cliffs you’d have thought they were laundry set out to dry – until you looked more closely. “We’ve got to get ‘em up the beach!” somebody cried and we all started hauling, dragging the bodies towards the base of the cliff. I grabbed one under his armpits, dug my heels in hard, and pulled for all I was worth. He was heavy - heavier than he should be. Then I saw the gold beneath his shirt…’ 

He took a deep breath. 

‘Their loss was our gain, you see? Made the village rich. But who was the one who showed the light? Who brought the ship onto the rocks?

‘I want you to have it,’ he said, and closed his eyes for the last time.

His secret was safe with me.

(Inspired by Domestic Scene by William A Sims, Active 1911)

This is my last chance to tell Mum if I am going to. But how to start?

We aren’t close despite having tea together every day. She says I’m moody because I stay in my room reading. Better to be doing something than sitting opposite her in silence.

She wasn’t always so aloof. When I was young, she read to me every night and cuddled me before bed. Everything changed when Dad left. I remember the night, the screaming, the crash of crockery, the slamming of the street door. 

The French au pair was gorgeous, much younger than Mum and always full of fun. I must never mention her name now, though I write to her secretly

My friends tell me it’s typical for middle-aged men to stray when marriage becomes routine. 

Mum could get another partner if she made the effort. But she hardly goes out, except to her art class, and then spends most of her time in the garden painting flower pictures. They are good and she has several in the Bushey Art Exhibition that opens tomorrow. That’s why I need to speak now.

Can I risk today’s teacups with my news? Mum is sitting across the table fiddling with her saucer.

“Mum, I need to tell you something.”

She glares at me. “You’re not going to tell me you’re pregnant are you?”

“No, of course not, I just wanted to warn you that I have a picture in the exhibition.”

“When did you ever paint?” 

“The picture is of me not by me.” I swallow hard. “Peter, your art teacher painted it.”

Mum is gripping her cup. She’s glaring at me. “Did you give him a photograph?”

“No, I posed for him. He wanted to paint more than a portrait. So I’m warning you my nude picture is in the exhibition.”

The teacup misses me, smashing on the wall behind. I run to my bedroom, collect my case and climb out of the window down the rope I’ve tied to the bed. Peter is meeting me by Bushey church. My new life begins today.

(Inspired by Irene Sitting in an Easy Chair by Rowland Wheelwright, 1870 - 1955)  

“Irene sitting knitting in an easy chair. A lovely peaceful sight. You’d never know what’s happened.” 

From the doorway of the room, Irene’s brother, Gerald looked on fondly but did not disturb things. A quiet, undisturbed evening was just what he needed. He slipped away into the dining room and poured himself a drink.

By the fire, Irene tackled her knitting confidently. She had a basket of assorted coloured wools on the table beside her. The design she was tackling involved changing colour frequently, finishing off one shade and joining in another. The garment on Irene’s lap grew rapidly, brown and cream and green intermingled. She was wearing those very same colours herself. A visitor earlier in the day had asked her why she was knitting something identical to what she was wearing.

”You’ve already knitted a lovely top just like that.” The visitor questioned.

In the background, Gerald and Irene’s mother were mouthing something. The visitor began to feel she had said something wrong.

”Sh.” The mother frowned, and put her finger on her lip. 

Irene turned to face her visitor. She knew what they were saying.

Her knitting needles clicked fiercely. “I’m making this for my sister. For Marjorie, she’s my twin sister. We’re identical twins. She’s going to love the colours I’m using.” The visitor nodded enthusiastically.

“And mother always likes us to dress identically. It’s such fun having a twin.”

Saying her goodbyes quickly, the visitor left the room. As she crossed the hall, Gerald hurried after her. 

“It’s so sad,” he said. “Irene hasn’t got a twin sister anymore. Marjorie died of the Spanish ‘Flu just after the war. But Irene has never accepted that her beloved sister is not coming back. So, we just have to let her keep knitting. Oh dear” he sighed.

(Inspired by Merman Reaching  up by Myrtle Florence Broome, 1888 - 1978)

Throughout history Merfolk have used the precious minutes between a person drowning and death to harvest the souls of the undrowned to make brides.  Once such Nereid bride was the mother of Prince Frederick who was recovered from a yachting accident and now ruled Oceaniania with his father, the King.

Frederick should have felt excited about his own upcoming nuptials, but his wish was for a love match, not an arranged one. His future bride was extraordinarily beautiful and lay in the depths of the castle waiting to be transformed. 

And yet……he couldn’t help feeling that she had not finished her time on Earth. The feeling persisted and on the night before the wedding he stole away to take a final look at her before her transition.

He could see that her tail was now formed, a magnificent green and gold swooping away from her torso. He put his hand on her chest and could feel a faint heartbeat and moving downward to her stomach, he was surprised by a faint kick.

He withdrew his hand swiftly realising what her unfinished business was, knowing then that he could not marry her. He wanted an heir of his own.

Picking her up he swam silently through the waters until he rested on a rock away from the castle.

He blew gently into her mouth until he could feel the rise and fall of her chest. He swam upwards, her tail dissolving as he rose. 

She struggled in his arms as her lungs filled again with air. “Don’t panic!” he tried to convey with his eyes, “and you will be fine!”

Nearing the surface, he could see an outline of a life craft and released her to the hands reaching downward. Pulling her back to life.

****

On the small rescue boat, the girl retched in response to the heavy thuds on her back. 

She tried to speak but no words would come. Frantically she turned her head as the boat started to move and below the waves, she could just make out a shape of a half-man, watching and waiting.