Macabre Moments , livre ebook

Macabre Moments
Joan B. Pritchard
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-03-31
Macabre Moments About the Author Acknowledgements Copyright Information © What’s Meant to Be, Will Be A Tale of Two Cities If You Succeed Once, Do It Again Poverty and Elegance Author’s Note That Child Is Mine The Gibbet on the Hill The Last of His Kind The Repeat Performance Wish Hard Enough and You’ll Get It
About the Author
Now retired, the author has turned to creating what she finds most interesting – the unlikely and the impossible. Now that she has more spare time, she writes for pleasure and is fascinated by the concept of ‘People Watching’ – the basis for all her stories.
Acknowledgements
I would never have managed to produce this book had Juliet not encouraged me not to be afraid of the intricacies of my computer.
I knew I gave birth to her for a reason!
Copyright Information ©
Joan B. Pritchard (2020)
The right of Joan B. Pritchard to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528938310 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528969499 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
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Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
What’s Meant to Be, Will Be
She stood at the edge of the cliff and stared down at the crashing waves. Her skirts billowed in the light breeze. The toes of her bare feet stretched over the ground and she knew that a slight sway to the right or to the left, could bring her down. She could feel the sharpness of the blades of grass and strange at this moment, they were tickling her feet. She almost smiled – an odd thing to do just now. Looking down, the wild waves were crashing against the cliff, leaving very little shoreline. Very soon, they would completely cover the shallow stretch of sand at the bottom. Another two minutes and it would be perfect for her plan. She felt giddy and had to take one step backwards – she’d jump when she was good and ready – and not before then. At the right time, the ferocious waves would sweep her body out to sea and then later wash it back to the craggy rocks at the bottom. A decent way to die , she thought.
“Well, are you going to jump or not?” a male voice broke into her thoughts. “The tide’s about right, I should think,” he continued. She turned her head in his direction and saw the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
“Go away please – this has nothing to do with you.” Her words sounded hollow and unconvincing.
“You don’t really want to jump – I can tell. Your mouth may tell me to go away but your eyes say, ‘Stay with me and talk me out of this.’” He was smiling at her confusion. “Anyway, if you try to jump, I’ll have to try to stop you and I really don’t want to go over the cliff at the present moment.”
Clara’s hands were sweating and she rubbed them on her dress. Again, she told him to go away and leave her alone.
“I’ll tell you what we can do – we’ll compromise. Come with me and I’ll buy you a cup of tea – I’ll even throw in a bun – then if you still want to jump, you can do it. That’s a promise.” He tentatively held out his hand, but she did nothing. A sudden gust of wind pushed her back a step and she looked again at the man.
“My name’s Mike. What’s yours? I bet it’s Clara.” He was almost smirking.
She started to say, “How do…” and she saw he was looking at her handbag, lying on the grass with the name ‘Clara’ in bold letters picked out in a gold colour. Her shoes lay there too.
He reached over and gently took her arm. He picked up the bag and shoes and led her slowly away from the cliff edge. She stumbled at first and then grew stronger. She felt very cold but that might have been the shock of what she had been going to do. She went with him away from the cliff edge – across the field towards a cafe on the horizon.
“Would you like me to put on your shoes, Clara?” He knelt down on the grass and lifted one of her feet. The shoe slipped on easily – and then he did the other one.
He really is a handsome man , she thought and said, “Thank you,” quietly.
They reached the cafe in ten minutes and he seated her by a window. A moment later, he came back with a tray – two cups of tea and two iced buns. Sitting opposite her, he said, “Do you want to tell me about it? Although you don’t have to, if you’re not ready.”
She bit hungrily into the bun. “I’m going to have a baby – and the father doesn’t want to know.” The tears ran down her cheeks and she rubbed them away with a paper napkin.
“Okay, but I still don’t know why you have to kill yourself – and the baby, by the way.” He didn’t touch the other bun as he saw her need was greater than his own. “A baby can be a blessing, you know – another human being for you to love.”
“Oh, do you really think so? My mother and father threw me out of the house and told me I was a slut. I have no other relatives and all my friends from university, live far away. I’m all on my own – and no one cares.” She finished off the bun – and he pushed the plate towards her, saying he wasn’t hungry. Unashamedly, she accepted it. Funny, a little while ago, she was on the cliff edge ready to kill herself and now, she was eating iced buns with a strange man in a cafe. Life could play tricks , she thought.
“If your parents threw you out, where are you living just now – is it near to where you work?” Mike was very practical.
“I’ve got a small bedsit in the middle of town – it’s not very fancy but it’s clean and tidy.” Clara licked her fingers and looked expectantly across the table – as if she was waiting for the next course.
“Let’s meet here one week from today and I promise I’ll bring something for the baby.” He stood up. “Now go home and rest – and no more going near the cliff edge. I’ll know if you do. Six o’clock here in a week.” He was off as suddenly as he’d come.
Clara felt a lot better and picked up her bag and did what she was told. She went home to her lonely bedsit but in a much happier frame of mind than when she came out tonight. In fact, she was already looking forward to the next week and planning what she was going to wear.
They met the following week and when Clara arrived, Mike was already at the counter ordering tea and buns. There on the table was a small, white, fluffy rabbit with a bell around his neck. She lifted him up and cuddled him. “Who is this, Mike?” she asked when he came back to the table.
“That is Tufty – ‘Clara meet Tufty and Tufty meet Clara.’ Tufty came from my home where he’s been living for a few months.” She sat the rabbit between them and they chatted on – about anything and everything.
“If he’s been with you for a few months – you couldn’t just have bought him for me. Why on earth did you have a fluffy toy in your home?” she asked.
“It belonged to a little boy – but he can’t play with him anymore.” Mike looked sad.
“You didn’t tell me you had a son.” Clara was surprised.
“He wasn’t my son – He was someone else’s. He’s dead now anyway.” He fidgeted on his chair and told her to eat up. “You’ve got to keep that baby well fed, you know.”
“Tell me how the little boy died. I’d really like to know – so I can understand you better.”
“Before I do – how many weeks are you gone in your pregnancy? You’ve never told me that.” Mike was curious too.
“I’m five months gone. More than half way through my time. Now, tell me what you were going to say.”
“He’d have been only a year when he died. His mother had taken him to the park in his pram and on the way home, she’d taken a shortcut. A large transit van had come from nowhere and crashed into both of them – on the pavement. Neither had lived – when they got to the hospital, they were both dead. I spent an agonising few months trying to learn how to live with these thoughts – but I wasn’t very good at it – and ended up in a psychiatric hospital with a nervous breakdown. Just me and Tufty – I’d picked him up at the accident and held onto him like grim death. There you know now – you’ve made friends with a nutter.”
“You’re no nutter,” Clara replied. “Just a very broken-hearted man.” The tears were sliding down her cheeks. “What was it like for you in the hospital?”
“It was like a nightmare – all I could think of was the baby and his mother.” He had gone an ashen colour and she reached out to take his hand. A very thin hand and rather cold.
He realised he was here to cheer her up and to do that, he’d have to cheer up himself. He said, “What about meeting in town next week rather than here – make a change for us?”
They agreed to meet in a pub but Clara couldn’t make it cause she’d caught some kind of bug – she couldn’t contact him – she didn’t know where he lived, One day however, she looked out of her window and there he was, standing under the lamp post. “Mike, Mike,” she called down
“Come on up for a cup of tea.” And so it went on for a long time. Every time he came, he brought something for the baby – a soft toy, a rattle, a shawl. Clara was getting bigger now. She really looked pregnant and with only a month to go, she’d actually stopped work. She had high blood pressure and had to take things easy. Every week, Mike faithfully came to see her. There was no romance or