Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

He woke more than an hour before the alarm’s shrill call but did not move, counting the pulses of green light from the pharmacy sign downstairs as they washed over his sallow skin. Ten more flashes and he eased himself silently out of bed. She stirred, arched her back and pushed her full, blue-veined breasts into the space he had left. The movement caused the duvet to slip to the floor, filling the gap between their single bed and the cot. As he moved towards the door to the kitchen, he turned to look at her. Dark, short hair spiked the pillow and the lumpen shape of her thighs covered all the mattress. From the cot there was a gentle suckling noise heralding an imminent wail for food. In the green gasps of light, he found his uniform: trousers, shirt and waistcoat and the previous day’s underwear. Clean pants and socks were still hanging outside on the plastic line stretched across the tiny balcony, wet and limp between bibs and baby clothes. Rushing his feet into dull shoes, he f

  Today’s the Glorious Twelfth, they say. You’re not a grouse, you’ll feel okay. You’ll get your gun, and gundog too, But beware the rules – there are a few: Tweed jacket, shooting boots and cap, Oh, don’t you look a dashing chap. Next, of course, you will desire A sporting target for your fire. A bird that doesn’t fly too fast Or zigzags as it’s going past. That doesn’t have the wit or gall To not, in fact, appear at all! For once, would you go out and play without the guns? Find another way to spend your money, waste your time? Just walk the moors, or maybe climb up hills and crags, breath in fresh air, enjoy the sunshine, out with care and cost, the status, snobbery, too? Display to them the real you, The lowly birth, the warts and all? No, you’ll never stand that tall It’s easier to shoot and rack A bird that cannot fire back. But now suppose you went one day And found that things were not that way, that you had now excha