TRANSITION by Virginia Hainsworth

She looked up into the morning sky and allowed the softness of the occasional unblemished cloud to soothe her.  It instilled a calmness which seeped from her upturned face down throughout her whole body.  She stared past the cobalt heavens and imagined that she was seeing beyond the canopy, into an infinity which beckoned.  Never before had she felt so ready, so prepared.

She allowed her eyes to close.  Images of chamomile to smooth her brow, marjoram to settle her stomach, rosemary to ease her thoughts.  She conjured the taste of sage on her tongue, sage to enhance the wisdom which had cost her so dear during her young life.  And she savoured the memory of cooling mint, for she was about to need it.

She listened to the whispering of burning straw and the spitting of wooden splinters.  She called upon all her powers to dispatch peaceful blessings to her captors. They would, she knew, look upon her murmurings as curses. And the memory of her moving lips would make them shiver as they later sat in front of their glowing hearths.  She pitied them.

The heat, when it came, was ferocious and penetrating, dissolving all thoughts which had gone before.  It assaulted every inch of her body and pounded her mind. 

And yet there was a part of her, deep within, which some would call her soul, which resisted all external pain.  It remained constant and, as she had healed others, so it healed her.  It rose above her tormentors and fled her agonised body.

Eventually, as the embers began to cool, she was gone.  For now.

Autumn Sale by Emma Harding

Hurry - closing sale! Everything must go!

Huge reductions on summer colours -

Unfashionable fuchsia pink, sunshine yellow and lawn green

Make way for subtle bronze, damson and burnt sienna.

Blousy and froufrou extravagance lie abandoned,

Replaced by this season’s stark lines and slender shapes.

The elegant silhouettes of leaf-lost trees, 

The ghostly frame of skeletal seedheads.

The satin soft fabric of blossom and petal is so old hat.

Now, delicate finger-brittle materials are en vogue.

Shivering, gossamer cobwebs and carpets of crumbling leaves,

Rough-hewn, fragile, not meant to last. Everything must go.

Serendipity (part one) by Suzanne Hudson

 

On a cold January morning earlier this year, I did a mad dash into the centre of town to buy some birthday presents for my Dad.  My parents were arriving later that day, to stay for the weekend.  I bought my Dad a few nice gifts but felt that I wanted to get him something else to go with them.  As I’d been driving through town during the previous few weeks, I’d noticed a sign outside the local Print Workshop and Gallery, advertising a ‘Print Sale’.  I wondered if I had time to pop in and see if they had anything already framed that I could give him for his birthday.   Thinking that it wouldn’t take long, I headed the short distance to the Print Workshop and rang the bell.

I was welcomed in by a friendly guy and taken in to the small gallery space, with a tiny shop in one corner.  The man introduced himself as ‘Martyn’, showed me around and explained which prints were for sale.   I asked him if any of the work was his and he explained it wasn’t, although he was an artist as well as being the part-time curator of the exhibition space.  He asked me if I was an artist and I said something that I’ve never said before: ‘No, I’m a writer.’  We got chatting then about my writing and I told him about the creative writing course I had done at Kirklees College, how the Writers' Lunch blog had evolved from that and about our newly self-published anthology ‘Dining on Words’.

I had a look around and selected a ready framed print of a bird for my Dad.  Martyn then told me about a project they were hoping to get funding for.  It was inspired by a private collection of original World War One postcards, sent home by soldiers from both sides of the combat.  Martyn explained that they were hoping to do some workshops with local school children, using the postcards as stimulus for artwork and creative writing.  My heart skipped a beat.  I have a deep love of history and I’m fascinated by anything to do with primary sources such as diaries, letters and postcards.  As a primary school teacher, I love working with children and I immediately expressed a wish to be involved and offered my services as a volunteer.

A thought crossed my mind and before I could censor myself I was asking Martyn if he would be interested in selling our ‘Dining on Words’ book in the shop.  To my surprise and delight he said ‘Yes’ straight away.  I said that I would come back soon with a copy of the book to show him.  When I returned two weeks later, Martyn had news.  The lottery funding for the postcard project had been approved and they were about to advertise for a Creative Writing Artist to run workshops in schools.  It was my dream job!  I knew straight away that I wanted to apply and I rushed home to tell my husband.

I checked the Arts Council website obsessively until one day a few weeks later, the advert appeared.  I shrieked in excitement and gave my six year old niece, who was in the room at the time, a fright!  Something felt so right about it…but did I really stand a chance?

(To be continued…)

Craving by Clair Wright

It was the craving that gave it away. I had already felt myself swelling like a fat bud.

He thought I was ill. “Why are you so pale and tired?” he asked. I lay on the sofa, too queasy to face mash, and gravy, and gristly meat. 

I stroked my belly and watched his eyes grow wide and his mouth grow smug.

The woman next door loved her garden. She grew carrots and courgettes, peas and parsnips. I watched her labour, digging and turning.  Every day she trod the paths around the plot. She sprinkled with water. She tucked mulch around their tender stalks. As they grew unruly she trimmed and trained, tied and tethered.  When the sun set, she seemed to whisper secret words of nourishment into the soil.

It was the lush leaves that caught my eye, the spinach and rocket, the kale and cabbage.  I longed for their peppery newness. Nothing else would do. 

“Jump over the wall,” I said to him. “Jump over the wall and bring me some greens. She’ll never miss it, the strange old stick. She has more than she can eat, anyhow.”

He didn’t want to go. “We have food to eat here in the house!” he said.  “Why do I have to steal from her garden?” 

“The baby wants it!” I said, and I knew he couldn’t refuse. 

I watched from the window as he sprang over the wall.  He grabbed bunches of this and that, between glances towards her door. Then he slipped back over, clutching his haul.

I hugged him, buried my face in his neck, breathed in the smell of soil and sap.

I stuffed spinach my mouth full of spinach and crunched through cucumbers.

“The baby needs meat, too!” he said. He waved a chop under my nose.

I retched and heaved and pushed it away.

Soon I was back at the window, thirsting for ripening tomatoes and creamy cauliflowers.  I begged and pleaded till he relented.

“Take a basket this time,” I said, as I pushed him out of the door. 

The baby squirmed with excitement as I watched him scramble over the wall. He scuttled around the plot between its neat rows. He plucked a cabbage here, a handful of chives and a fistful of chard there.

I saw her coming before he did, stomping along the path, heavy in her wooden shoes. I shouted a warning, banged my palms against the glass, but he didn’t hear me.

Jab! She poked him hard in the back with her stick. He jerked upright, and dropped a bunch of beetroot.

His face was grey like cold porridge, as she shrieked and poked at him. Her sharp black eyes were bright as a hungry crow.

He shrank in the chilly blast of her rage.  He held out the basket but she pushed it away.  She pointed towards my window, towards me and my swelling belly and I knew what she wanted. An exchange – her crop for mine.

I banged on the window all the harder. I screamed.  I shook my head and shook my fist. 

He picked up the basket and slithered back over the wall.

“Did you promise her our baby?” I asked. 

“She won’t do it,” he said. “It will be alright. You’ll see. Look, I brought you radishes.”

But he was wrong. On the first day, she came. She plucked my daughter from my breast like a ripe round plum. I cried out, bleeding milk, but she had no pity. She dropped my daughter into her basket and carried her away. 

I would not let him near me. He smelt of decay, of wormwood and rue. “We will have another child,” he said, but I turned my back on him.

I watched through the window for glimpses of her, but they had gone. The garden ran to seed. Lettuce grew into quivering spires, and tomatoes dropped onto the soil like burst hearts.

At night I dreamed of a windowless tower. I rubbed my fingers raw tearing at the stone walls. I called for my daughter but I didn’t know her name.

So this time it was me who clambered over the crumbling wall. I wandered the narrow paths where rebellious brambles encroached. I cut the trailing stems of beans and pumpkins, and the whippy new growth from the apple trees. 

I tethered and tied, I twisted and wove. I watered with my tears and warmed with my love, and she grew. Her fingers were curled new leaves. Her eyes were bright blue berries.  She lifted her face to the sun and danced in the soft breeze. At night I whispered to her the tale of her stolen sister and the stone tower. 

He watched me from the window, his palms pressed to the glass. He would not come into the garden. We stayed there, she and I, while the pumpkin vines tangled over the paths and the brambles entwined the apple trees.

Carregwastad Point – 1797, by Dave Rigby

My insides ache and I’ve nothing left to bring up. Brest seems a lifetime away. Sea birds wheel and call, spray continues to batter the deck and we are soaking wet, but at long last, dry Welsh land is in sight. Now we can escape the ship and leave the foul- smelling heads behind. As far as I can recall, it is still the 22^nd of February.

The regulars in their black uniforms despise us, but then we irregulars are a motley bunch – deserters, convicts, political dissidents and royalists. A rabble in other words.

I leap from the small boat onto a tiny sandy shore and follow the men ahead of me up a steep, rocky, winding path to the clifftop. I turn to find the Vengeance has disappeared into the night. There will be no going back.

The regulars are well armed, but the rest of us have to make do with whatever pitiful pieces we can find or steal. I hear a group of four or five hardened men talking in low voices and before I know it, they’ve melted away into the darkness, looting in mind. Maybe I’d be wise to do the same, but I’m not like them. I’m only here because of my politics – politics of the wrong kind.

Lafitte rounds us up, curses when he realises so many are missing and puts the fear of God into us should there be any further desertions. But there will be, I’m sure of it. Rain sweeps across the fields as tents are erected and farmhouses seized, local families turfed out into the dark and the wet. Sheltering in a derelict barn we await orders. I think I’m hallucinating when a wonderful aroma of hot food drifts towards me. There’s a shout from the farmhouse of come and get it, an unexpected and welcome surprise. As we spoon mutton stew into our mouths and drink hot coffee, Lafitte tells us we’ll be heading for the town of Fishguard, three miles distant. Despite the desertions, he speaks with confidence about our ability to strike against the British soldiers, who are few in number. He sounds convinced that ordinary Welsh men and women will join our cause in pursuit of their liberty.

This is nonsense. My own brother, who has spent time in their country, told me that with few exceptions, the British regard both the revolution and the Corsican with suspicion and hatred.    

Lafitte calls me over to a small room at the back of the farmhouse and asks me if it is true I can speak English fluently. I tell him that is the case. He mutters something to the senior officer seated at a bureau in the corner and then dismisses me.

Desertions continue and we are attacked by local men and even some women armed with knives and pitchforks. Eventually we establish some semblance of order. Our scouts have spotted a group of British soldiers heading our way. We head across fields and take up our positions above a high walled lane, muskets at the ready. We catch them unawares, see men falling on the muddy track and watch as survivors retreat rapidly inland.

Daybreak on the 23^rd brings bad news. Most of the 800 irregulars have now gone, lured by the prospects of looting and the rumours of copious quantities of Portuguese wine available from a recent wreck. That leaves us with only 600 regulars and those irregulars like me who have not had the sense to escape.

The up to date word from our scouts is that the British, far from being few in number are many and well armed. Attacks on us by armed farmers continue. The weather is dreadful. As the day wears on, it becomes obvious that our cause is hopeless. It is agreed that a deputation should be sent to the British to discuss a conditional surrender. Two officers will march to Fishguard. I am to accompany them, to act as interpreter.

We descend the steep hill into the town and enter the Royal Oak tavern where we have been told the senior British officers are gathered. Their Lord Cawdor appears to have little time for the idea of a conditional surrender. He is blunt and dismissive and as I translate his comments, my heart sinks. We will surrender on the beach by ten the following morning or he will order an attack.

Back at the farmhouse we report the bad news. There is talk of continued resistance, but I can tell the officers know the score. They will have to agree to Cawdor’s terms.

On the morning of the 24^th we march, heads held high, drums beating, colours flying the three miles to the sands at Goodwick. The townsfolk line the walls and shout and jeer as we form into ranks on the beach.

After the formalities are completed, we are told we will be taken to a town called Haverfordwest.

Imprisonment awaits.

This story is based on events relating to the last invasion of the British mainland by hostile foreign troops, which took place near Fishguard in 1797.