W B - 15 The telephone call

The telephone call.

George handed me the yellow handset. I took it from him, put it to my ear and listened. I started a pretend conversation to keep my grandson happy.

‘Hello, who is speaking?’ 

‘Is that the Samaritans?’ asked the voice. 

‘No, this is a private number,’ I said, about to put the phone down.  The quiet weeping from the other end of the line dissolved my anger. I waited for a moment then said ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’ve got no one to talk to. I can’t do it on my own and now I can’t even call the right number. I’m useless, I’ve had enough, I’m going to end it for both of us.’ I recognised the desperation in the voice. I’d been there myself. How could I now just hang up with a cheerful ‘Sorry, wrong number’ and then get on with my life?

‘Who is there with you?’ I asked.

‘It’s just me and Eleanor.’

‘Who is Eleanor?

‘She’s my baby.’

‘You can talk to me if you like,’ I waited. I now suspected the telephone was the only tenuous lifeline this poor soul had left and I knew I should choose my words with care. ‘My name’s Susan, what’s yours? ‘said the shaky voice. 

‘I’m Mary. Can you tell me what the problem is Susan? I promise I won’t tell anyone or do anything you don’t want me to.’ 

‘Hello Mary. I can’t talk for long. I’m in a phone box and I haven’t got much change.’

‘That’s no problem, give me the number and I’ll call you back.’ 

I rang her back, quickly, on the house phone, would she still be there? Had she got the right number this time? 

‘Hallo Mary,’ said Susan. 

I sighed with relief.

‘Why are you so upset then, Charley, sorry, Susan? It sounds like everything is fine, both you and Eleanor are healthy and you obviously mean to keep the baby or you wouldn’t have given her a name.’ I could hear Susan crying at this.

‘Of course I am going to keep Eleanor. How could you possibly think I could kill her?’ she said ‘ I’m upset because, when I told my Mum and Dad about Eleanor last week, they kicked me out and told me they didn’t want to know me any more. “How could you do this to us?” They said. They even took my mobile. They said I wasn’t their daughter any more.’

‘Err, well, I was seventeen and still at school when I fell pregnant with Charlotte. My boyfriend, Kevin, disappeared and I haven’t seen him since.’

‘How did you manage then?’ asked Susan

‘Mum and Dad were great. They really helped me and made sure we had everything we needed. It was still difficult but I worked part time in Boots while Mum looked after Charley and I managed to buy a small flat and save so that she could go to university if she wanted. The hardest part was being totally responsible for someone with no one to share the load with.’

‘That is exactly how I feel, but at least your mum and dad helped you and you had someone to talk to.’ I realised then how alone Susan must be feeling. I was starting to feel responsible for her now, or perhaps she was beginning to fill the gap in my life which had been there since Charley had left?

‘Well, err, perhaps you would like to come around here one evening? We could have a chat and a cup of tea.’

‘I would really like that, Mary, you are so easy to talk to.  I’ll have to go now, there is some guy hammering on the glass again’ 

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but please ring me tomorrow evening or anytime during the night if you need to talk. Promise me. Please.’

‘OK, I promise,’ said Susan. 

*****

I managed to get through the next day at work although my heart wasn’t really in it and my thoughts were elsewhere. I got home early and wondered what time Susan would ring. I waited by the phone to make sure I would hear it. When it got to ten o’clock I started to wonder and by midnight I was very worried. I eventually dozed off in the chair by the phone and awoke, stiff and cold, at six next morning. What could have happened? Susan had promised and I was certain she would have called if it had been at all possible. 

I struggled to get ready for work and eat some breakfast, hungry after missing my meal the previous evenings. I set off for the twenty minute drive across Bristol to the Avixa insurance offices. I listened to the news, as usual, on Heart FM. The second headline was a local item. A young woman’s body had been found on the river bank far below the Clifton suspension bridge, a ‘popular’ suicide spot. She was described as five foot three , slim with long blond hair. There was no mention of her being pregnant but I thought they would keep that private until she had been identified. Her clothes were also described but by this time I had stopped listening, stopped the car and stopped worrying about Susan. 

I knew she was dead, Susan had no troubles now. All my talking and listening had been a waste of time, I had failed my new friend. I had thought I was a good listener but now I knew I was useless. I should have persuaded her to stay with me last night, she could have slept in Charley’s room. She had died because I hadn’t helped her. I couldn’t face work now so I turned the car and  meandered home. 

I made a mug of tea, took it out to my sanctuary and just sat there in the morning sunshine. I could smell the phlox as I watched a bumble bee make its rounds.  Susan would never enjoy the warmth of the sun on her face again. Eleanor would never have a chance to enjoy these delights. What had made her do it?  The stupid, stupid, girl, why hadn’t she called me or rang the Samaritans from one of the special phones on the bridge? She had seemed quite cheerful when we finished talking. She was thinking of ways to deal with her problems and could even see a future for them both. What had changed after she hung up? What a terrible waste of two  lives. She hadn’t given Eleanor a chance of a life by cutting her own so short. I had failed them, let them down. It was all my fault.

The phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it but I knew they would only keep on pestering me about my gas supply or some such nonsense so I answered it.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Mary, it’s Susan, sorry I didn’t call last night, it all got a bit hectic yesterday, sorting things out after our talk, then I couldn’t find the piece of paper I had written your number on until this morning and I knew you wouldn’t  mind if I left it until today, it was wonderful talking to you, you really made me look at things differently and helped me see a way forward, you are a real life saver, I’ve found somewhere for us to live, will you be Eleanor’s Godmother,  you’ll never guess what I have done now after your advice …’ 

I couldn’t speak, the tears rolled slowly down my cheeks.

W B - 13 Luck

W B - 13     Luck

James had always known that he was unlucky. He was famous as the only guy around who could produce an ‘edge’ from a ‘heads or tails’ when tossing a coin - no binary for him. He had always been known, even at school, as ‘Lucky Jim’ - irony started at an early age where he came from. He started to carry a lucky penny in addition to his rabbit’s foot in an attempt to change his luck but he soon lost the penny and his rabbit’s foot got eaten by his sister’s black cat which crossed his path one day. He tried to take up bird watching but he only ever managed to see one magpie at a time - he sometimes wondered when a blackbird would peck off his nose.

Because of his bad luck he had long ago stopped buying lottery tickets after he worked out the odds of winning for a person with an average sort of luck. The odds of any one ticket winning the jackpot were just under 13 million to one against. He figured out from this that, if he bought one ticket a week, he would win once every 250 thousand years. He didn’t think he would live that long. Because of his reputation, he had been banned from the lottery syndicate where he worked - at a bookies. His boss had concluded that his bad luck would rub off onto the punters so increasing the profits, which is the only reason he kept his job. He also worked out the odds of surviving a parachute jump so he didn’t take up that sport; why place your trust in some plastic sheeting and a few bits of string when you can stay in a perfectly good aeroplane?

James was descending into depression, everything he tried turned out wrong, he failed at everything. The last straw was when he was sacked from his job at the bookies, profits were down because the punters were winning too often.

He decided to prove once and for all that he had some luck left so he got his dad’s souvenir revolver from his time in the war, loaded it with one round and then spun the chamber. He held it to his head with a shaking hand and pulled the trigger, expecting to hear a bang and then nothing as the bullet entered his skull and macerated his brain.

He heard a bang but he had not held the gun steady enough so the bullet went wide, skimmed the side of his head and took his ear off. It whistled down the hallway and went through the front door, leaving a neat hole in the glass. James had been temporarily deafened by the bang so did not hear the scream from the man with the briefcase who had just reached the front step of his bungalow. 

James was now laying on the floor in the hallway, dazed and not aware of anything. The man on the front step had also dropped to  the ground with a wound to his arm that was now bleeding all over James’ front path. He had dropped his briefcase, which split open, spilling the lottery tickets over the ground and the cheque made out to James for 35 million pounds.

Later as they sat in James’ living room having just got back from A & E , they sipped a sweet cup of tea each and reviewed the events of the afternoon.

‘I was lucky because I won the game of Russian roulette at my first try,’ insisted James.

‘But you lost because you hurt your head and lost your ear,’ argued the man from the lottery, who was called Alan. ‘You only really won because you got the big prize from the lottery.’

‘So, am I a lucky person now?’ mused James.

‘I think you are very lucky, in fact you won against odds of 28.76 million to one. But, to prove your luck has changed, why don’t you toss a coin and see if you can call it right?’

James found a penny from his pocket and tossed it in the air, ‘Heads,’ he cried confidently. The coin bounced off the chair and landed on the floor - on its edge.

W B - 12. Photo prompt

‘Be careful, Maria,’ cautioned Papa, as we carefully negotiated the filthy water, empty bottles and other unmentionables laying in a disgusting mess on the marble floor. It made our footing treacherous and uncertain in the dying light of the sunset.

‘Yes, Papa,’ I said, realising but, not mentioning, that my footing was more secure than his. The events of the last year had taken a terrible toll on him. The starvation rations and loss of status made him question himself; could he could have done more for his people and beloved country, could he have influenced events?

The corridor was aligned with the setting sun so the shadows of the seven of us jumped and danced on the walls. Who was more real, the shadows or us? We were as weak as ghosts and made very slow progress.

‘What are those things hanging from the ceiling?’ asked my sister, Anastasia.

‘Those are the ashes of the leather wall hangings that were burnt when the fire gutted this Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on that terrible May day in 1918,’ I told her.

We slowed to wait for Mother. 
      ‘Come lean on me, darling Alexandra,’ said Papa to his wife. ‘We have to get to that cellar but we have plenty of time, all eternity in fact, so there is no need to hurry.

The steel windows were open but there was no glass left so it made no difference, the bullets of the Bolsheviks had shattered the glass and left the shards on the floor. They were hidden in the muddy water from the heavy rains that followed the shooting.

It had taken us seemingly forever to get from the grave site on the Koptyyaki Road. It was only twelve miles but time and distance had no meaning for us now. We hoped by getting back to cellar, we would eventually get to lie in the Pete and Paul cathedral in Saint Petersburg with the other monarchs of Russia. 

We eventually got to the cellar, the scene of the execution. Pap told Mama and Alexie to sit on the three chairs and rest. We had only eighty two years to wait before we were finally laid to rest and so leave behind our earthly cares.

WB 11 The eleventh hour

W B 11 The Eleventh Hour

Things were going wrong. No one knew why. 

People started walking through walls without the use of doors. 

Nuclear power station outputs varied erratically, 

One week two hundred people won the jackpot on the lottery - the following twenty weeks, none.

Traffic light started behaving erratically, red was sometimes followed by more red, rather than the expected amber and green - it didn’t help much with the traffic.

Bathwater started changing the direction of the eddy as it swirled down the plug hole.

Trains and buses started arriving on time.

Politicians started telling the whole truth.

Something was amiss with the world, chaos was taking over, one of those poxy butterflies in Brazil again probably but which one, there were several of them there and Brazil is a big place. Bigger even than Wales, some say.

People demanded that the government did something.The government did what it always did when it had no answer to a problem; it postponed the issue so it didn’t have to do anything while seeming to be strong and resourceful. It set up an enquiry led by a ‘past his sell by date’ lawyer. It would almost certainly last a long time and cost a lot of money. That is what lawyers are good at. The government fulminated publicly against the years of delay while being privately delighted at the time wasted. They didn’t worry about the cost, after all it wasn’t their money.

The lawyer, Sir Cholmondly - Smythe, was not quite as daft and doddery as he appeared. He had a sharp and enquiring mind, hidden behind a mild air of bewilderment when asking the witnesses who appeared before his panel, questions that pierced the hyperbole adopted by most civil servants and got quickly to the nub of the matter. One of his favourite strategies was to allow a civil servant to witter on until he was confident that he had cast enough wool over the eyes of the panel and mildly ask, ‘why did you do such a stupid thing when even a four year old child would have known better?’ This almost invariably brought out some gems that the witness would have preferred to remain hidden.

The government Chief Scientist was summoned to the enquiry and was quite certain that he was a match for a bumbling lawyer. Sir David Smart was to find out that he was wrong. He was dressed in pin striped, dark grey trousers and a white T-shirt with the slogan “Statistics means never having to say you’re certain.”

Sir C - S as we will call him, to save paper and ink, looked at Dave and thought he would have a go at tying him in knots - bowlines mainly - as he was an amateur sailor.

‘So tell me Dave, err may I call you Dave?’

 Sir David Smart had a hatred of being called Dave but knew, if he admitted to that, the number of ‘Daves’ he heard each day would increase a hundred fold so he mildly answered, ‘Not at all Smudge.’

‘Well then Dave, perhaps you can explain to us simple, non scientific folk, what is going on and what started it all?’

‘It all started when we were told, nay commanded, by the European Union that we had to change to binary decimal time’

‘Explain please.’

‘The SI unit of time was decided to be the second, which would be unchanged and determined by the speed of light, which as you know is constant - in a vacuum of course - at 299,792,458 metres per second. This also defines the metre so other units of length and time are calculated from this. There are now 100 seconds in a minute - now known as a centiminute and 100 centiminutes or 10,000 seconds in an hour.The day is determined by the rotational speed of the Earth and consists of 86,400 seconds. This means that there are now 8.64 hours in a day, or 8.64 x 10⁴ seconds in scientific notation. There were a few adjustments required to accommodate this new clock system but over all it made things a lot more simple and precise. Big Ben’s clock had to be changed from analogue to binary digital of course, as did all the other analogue clocks in the country. It also pushed Switzerland out of the watchmaking business so they now rely on cuckoo clocks, triangular chocolate bars and dodgy banking to earn a living.

That is only the first step, of course as the time units had to be expressed in digital binary - DB rather than just digital and in scientific notation, but I am sure that everyone in the country remembers the conversion calculation and can manage it quite easily. What about you then Smudge?

Sir C - S could of course, do this standing on his head, just not so well when sitting on his brain but he didn’t want to admit to this so he replied in his assumed persona, ‘not really, I have always found it to be a problem, perhaps you could explain it for the benefit of us dimwits?’

‘Certainly Smudge,’ came the reply. If there was one thing Dave was good at, it was patronising the intellectually challenged.

‘Take the time of half past five in the afternoon or 1730 as you maritime types used to call it. This is of course seventeen hours and 30 minutes through the day. if you first convert this to seconds you get;

17 x 60 x 60 = 61,200 seconds

Add 30 x 60 = 1,800 seconds

Total = 63,000 seconds

Convert to scientific notation = 6.3 x 10⁴

This is simple and straightforward.

Now convert to binary using the simple method gives 1111011000011000

So instead of saying half past five in the afternoon, you simply say 111011000011000. This is also the number of seconds since the last midnight. I think you will agree that this is simpler and more precise and it makes the design of digital clocks that much simpler. People soon got used to reading time in this way.

The main problem was that computers are very good with this method because time is now expressed using their language but it increased the data storage required and because if the increase in accuracy, it reduced the amount of randomness required. This meant that the randomness had to be increased  in other areas by exactly the same amount to keep the quantity of randomness at the same level. This is known as the third law of thermodynamics or random entropy, to give it its other name.

Quantum theory predicts that atoms will be in random places. A few that make up a person have a very low probability of being on the other side of the wall. This probability is normally so low that is does not really occur in the real world but since the increase of randomness…

Also is you look at a mass of plutonium for example. Its common allotrope, Pu-239 has a half life of 24,100 years. This is known and predictable but there is a problem. If you look at one molecule of plutonium, there is no way of knowing when it will decay, it can be in the next couple of seconds or in many thousand of years time. It is identical to all the other plutonium  molecules but they will decay at a different time. The timing of this decay is totally random, as predicted by quantum theory. The problem is now, because of the increase in randomness, this half life will have decreased by an unknown amount and so all nuclear reactors will have to be shut down until they have been redesigned and rebuilt.

‘Why has the lottery gone very strange?’

‘It is because of the strange effect called the common occurrence of unlikely effects. The odds of one ticket winning the lottery is 14 million to one so it is very unlikely that one person with one ticket will win it. But, the big prize is won by someone almost every week. The increase in randomness has to be shared with the lottery which now has more of it and the odds against winning can no longer be calculated and they change every week.

Don’t get me started on the problems with traffic lights, bath water and, and.’

‘What is the answer then Dave?’

‘Leave the European Union and go back to old fashioned time with 24 hours in a day.’

‘How much time to we have? Tell me in old money please.’

‘It is now very late in the day and we have no time to lose. I’d say we are now at the eleventh hour.’

‘Thank you Dave. I’ll notify the Prime Minister, I am sure he will be very pleased to hear that. I’ll also put it in the report of the Smudge enquiry.

W B - 10 The farm office party

The Farm Office Party     Prompt - humour 

They had seen the weather forecast so decided to hold the party in the big barn. Daisy was back from her trip to alert the other nearby herds to Operation Lysistrata so she and Gertie set about arranging and decorating the barn. They arranged the straw bales around the edge so that some of the older animals could sit and chat while the younger ones were dancing in the clear area in the middle. It was quite difficulty putting up the streamers and bunting, cows aren’t really designed for climbing step ladders and pushing in drawing pins but they managed.

The pigs had volunteered to arrange the food so there were plenty of apples from the orchard and even some cider that they had been fermenting for three months. They had negotiated a deal with Henrietta and her sisters so there were about three dozen eggs. Henrietta had teased Porky about providing some ham to go with the eggs and then accused him of  not being fully committed to the party when he refused.

Gertie had brought the cream so she made lashings of custard to go with the stewed apple desert. She saved some to make some special porridge for Billy the Bull as he hadn’t been getting his oats recently, well since Operation Lysistrata started really, apart from that escapade with Florence who had been feeling a little frisky one day. She had been told off quite sharply by her sisters in the herd and she assured them it wouldn’t happen again.

The goats were acting up again and refused to bring any food. This was not a problem for them as they would eat anything, probably even Terry’s Dwarf Bread if necessary but they were always good on the Carry Oche as their eyesight was excellent and they usually got several 180’s during the evening.

The swallows had been invited but they took a rain check until the spring.

It was seven o’clock, time to start the fun. The animals turned up on time, even the ewes were there, looking sheepish as they were a little woolly about time. Sean shepherded them in, took them across to the bar where he got them started on the cider. 

The owls were wisely late as they knew they would be the last to leave.

It was a good evening and things started to liven up as the cider went down. The dancing was in full swing to the music of The Wurzels. John Humphries sang an excellent solo rendition of ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’. Some of the animals argued about who could make the best farm noises during the chorus.

During the band’s break Sean got up and sang his party piece, I know there’ll never be another ewe. The goats’ choir were persuaded to sing a couple of songs, gruffly and even the mini goatlet kids joined in.

As the evening wore on and the cider level sank, some of the animals got a little tipsy. A couple of the pigs got together in one corner and started complaining about the organisation on the farm and listing the changes they would make if they were in charge. The biggest goat challenged Porky to a fight, they had never really got on. Then Porky admitted to Daisy that he had always rather liked her and asked if perhaps she would like to come outside for a little fresh air? Daisy demurred, she had been quietly fantasising about Billy for the last hour or so and the last thing she had in mind was an amorous interlude with a pig. 

Henrietta was a very sensible hen and managed to stop a couple of the younger, just not chicks, who had been sitting on the farm photocopier. She didn’t know what they were planning but it didn’t look good. She looked around and saw that Sean was missing, as was one of the ewes. She had a look for them and found them in one of the feed stores, ‘discussing ovine balanced diets,’ they said but Sean appeared to be wearing muzzlestick which was a little unusual, even for him.

The rest of the hircines were acting the goat as usual and had to be restrained in the byre, where the cider had run out.

Adge decided that the band had done enough so they packed up and tractored off home. 

The animals slowly walked home, arms around each other, some declaring undying love for their friends.

Daisy and Gertie were just about still standing but both knew they would regret that last glass of cider at five the next morning when milking time came around.

It has been a good party and they agreed they would do it again next year. 

WB-9. Woman on a bench.

W B - 9     Woman on a bench - Person, Place, When 

There was still a chill in her tiny flat at this time of the morning. She had resolutely turned off the heating at the first sign of spring. Hetty liked to think of herself as a climate change warrior but in reality the switch-off was driven by her need to save money. A large part of her pension had recently gone on the costs of the wooden bench and its concrete foundations.

It was all a bit of a rush and she took less time than she normally did to get ready to go out. She didn’t want to be late for her long planned date with Howard on this special day. 

She stood in the narrow hallway of her cramped, ground floor, flat and checked her appearance in the full length mirror screwed to the wall. She didn’t like the look of her trousers but knew she would like it even less if her legs were on show. Howard used to laugh with her at what he called her Stilton legs; creamy-white from lack of exposure to the summer sun and with a tracery of blue veins. Hetty had chosen to wear her full length coat today, in spite of the increasingly warm sunshine, because it hid the worn, shabby look of the rest of her clothes. The pair of ex-nurses black shoes, bought from the charity shop in the High Street were practical and comfortable but perhaps not at the height of fashion - she favoured comfort over fashion these days. Her sole concession to the importance of the day was a somewhat frivolous red scarf tied in a bow around her summer straw hat.

‘You don’t scrub up badly for an old-un,’ she said to herself.

‘You’ll always be beautiful to me, Henrietta,’

‘Thank you, Howard,’ she replied.

She grabbed her walking stick - one of Howard’s - from the rack and, with her thumb,  traced the comforting, finger-polished place where the blackthorn had been cut from the hedge. Yes, it was still there since she had felt it last week. She determinedly walked out the door for the last time, not forgetting to lock it behind her.

Hetty walked slowly along the road to the nearby bus stop. She waited there while getting her bus pass out from her bag to clutch defiantly in her hand. She knew that the bus driver would not give her long to get on the bus and present the card before they started muttering about ‘slow old people’, as if they would not be old themselves one day. Hetty herself wasn’t that fond of being old and slow but she didn’t feel she had much choice in the matter. 

The number 28 turned up and she hurried to swipe her diamond card through the reader after asking for ‘Queen Elizabeth Park please.’ She just had time to get to her seat before the bus lurched into movement, making it difficult for her to put her pass safely back in her bag.

The trip wasn’t long. She kept an eye on the stops, ready to press the ‘ting’ button early enough for the driver to stop and, hopefully give her time to get to the door and step off before the muttering started. Luckily the driver was a young woman who even offered to help her if necessary - almost unheard of. Hetty would have enjoyed a chat with a friendly face but she knew the driver had a schedule to keep so she hurried off the bus.

The park looked beautiful in the morning, early summer, sunshine. The grass had been cut and had not yet turned brown from it’s fresh, spring green. They had had many family picnics there over the years. The beds were full of flowering annuals and even the birds sounded cheerful. The sparrows she thought of as the Tescos of the bird world while the dignified blackbirds were the Waitroses with their darting runs between stabbing the grass for a worm, just like the obsequious shop assistants darting out to help ‘Madam’ select some overly expensive and exotically named jar. The starlings were the Aldis of the bird world of course. She walked slowly along the pavement on her three legs, favouring her weak left leg, supporting some of her weight on the stick. She didn’t try to hurry. She stopped to look across the road at the elegant three story house that overlooked the park. 

She let herself into her favourite world through the black-painted wrought iron gate which squealed as it swung open on the rusty hinges. Once inside, she walked along the path, past the benches, saying hello to each of the people mentioned on the memorial brass plaques.

‘Hello Peter and Barbara, good morning Sydney, how are you today, hi David, Sheila, how are the grand children? She had known them all when they were alive and lived in that row of houses with their curtained windows looking down on the park. Yes, she had known them all, and their children and their grandchildren. Then they got old and died; their houses sold by their children to strangers. Now she was the only one left and even she didn’t live in that too-big, too-expensive, house any more.

Hetty got to her destination, a new looking seat, bolted to a still-white concrete base in the dappled shade of a sycamore tree. She brushed the warm, smooth trunk of their tree with her free hand. She chose to sit at the right hand end of the bench so that she could turn and see the bright brass plaque whenever she wanted. She laid her stick gently on the newly varnished wood, she liked that smell.

‘I said I would be here today, didn’t I Howard? Can you believe it, our seventieth wedding anniversary. I’ve know you for seventy four years. It has gone very quickly.

‘Happy anniversary, Hetty.’

‘Thank you Howard and to you too.’

She turned awkwardly to her left and traced the engraved words on the plaque with a wrinkled, shaking finger.

Howard Green 1928  -  2015

There was room on the brass for her name to be engraved under Howard’s. She had always been good at planning ahead.

The gentle breeze rattled the big leaves on their sycamore tree above them as a zephyr passed through the park.

‘I’m sorry I had to do it but, the cost of keeping you in that home was outrageous. I had to sell our house, of course, to pay the bills. Towards the end you didn’t seem to know me, or yourself, so I thought it was the best thing to do. It was very easy with one of those big pillows. Everyone was so sympathetic and you seem to be happier here. I insisted on scattering your ashes here under our tree on my own - just the two of us as, always.’

‘Don’t worry, Hetty, it will always be our secret and I am happier here under the tree, with the sunshine and the birds. You did the right thing for both of us. 

It is a lovely day today, why don’t you come and join me?’

‘We led a good life, didn’t we Howard?’

‘Yes, I think we did, Hetty.’

‘Then I think I will, Howard, I’m feeling old and tired now. I’ll just have a doze here in the sun and then perhaps…’

WB - 8. A calamity with modern day technology

The sun was high in the sky and the birds were cheeping happily in the trees lining Lavender Boulevard. It was one of those streets in the outer reaches of London that thought it was deep in the country, purely by having the pollution resistant London plane trees spaced out at 35 yard intervals along the pavement. It was high summer so the trees were in full leaf - too early to think of dropping to create the annual slippery, sticky, wet mess that everyone hated. Except, of course, the younger school children who revelled in  kicking around the dry leaves before the inevitable rain.

Charlotte was happy. She was pootling along at 25 mph in her new Ford Fiasco. Julian, her nephew, had spent all weekend showing how to cope with the new fangled equipment that was built-in as standard. She had never met most of the gadgets before as her trusty Hillman had lasted twenty three years before expiry. It hadn't even had power steering so Charlotte had remarkable upper body strength for a lady of her advancing years. One of the things that Julian had told her about and then demonstrated was the automatic navigation, driving and parking system.  She thought she would try it out on her own this morning, so she parked the car, manually. She looked up the post code of the Post Office on the car’s built-in computer - yes, she was computer literate - but in the same way that a giraffe is good at riding a bike. She carefully entered the resulting code into the touch screen, told it to go to that area, find a parking space and …er, park.

Charlie sat back in her seat and tried to relax while her car digested the post code information, sorted through 11,325 possible routes, in 23.5 milliseconds, to get there and  set off on what seemed the best one. She didn’t believe that the route they were following was the best one but gritted her teeth and kept her straying fingers from touching the controls. In spite of her determination to give this technology free rein, she had to shut her eyes, put her fingers in her ears and quietly sing, ‘la, la - la la ‘ to herself to shut out the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells that were briefly projected through the side windows.

The car slowed and came to a gentle halt, ‘We have reached your destination. Shall I park us now?’ said the car in a voice that sounded like a patronising doctor using the royal ‘we’. Charlotte tapped the ‘accept’ button on the touch screen. The car reversed slowly into a space that she would have found impossible to negotiate. She thought she detected a note of pride in the car’s voice as it grandly announced, ‘I have now parked us, how long a stay would you like me to pay for?’ She tapped the ‘2 hour’ button. The car quickly accessed the London parking control centre via the Internet, negotiated a frequent user discount and paid using the debit card data stored in it’s… somewhere, printed out a two hour parking permit and commanded Charlie to place it where is would be visible from outside the car. The doors unlocked and the car said, ‘ you are now free to disembark the vehicle.’ 

It took Charlotte a few seconds to realise that it meant she could now leave the car. She got out, looked around and saw that she was just outside the Post Office with the car neatly tucked in between two other cars, close to the kerb with only a few inches, front and back, free to the next cars in the busy street. She was impressed although she tried not to be and couldn’t resist saying, ‘thank you’ to the car as she opened the door and stepped out. The car, of course, replied , ‘you’re welcome.’ The software had been written in American. She closed the door and the locks snapped shut.

Her chores in the Post Office took only a few minutes so she spent some time wandering along the High Street, looking at all the ‘bargains’ in the windows. She knew they were bargains because most of them said so, in addition to the deep discounts of up to 85%. ‘If they could afford to sell something at an 85% discount it must mean that there was at least an 85% margin on the original item,’ she calculated. Charlotte resolved to never pay the full asking price for anything again. She would buy her Christmas cards in January, for example when they were discounted by a huge amount - better even the December box offers of,’ buy one and get a second one at the same price.’

Her feet were getting a little sore so she decided it was time to have a sit down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee. A Sunbucks soon appeared in the line of shops so she wandered in to try it and looked up at the coffee menu. Why was coffee on a menu, was’t a coffee a coffee any longer?

‘Name?’ asked the barrister behind the counter in a Latvian accent, scratching his wig. 

‘Err… Charlie’, said Charlotte trying to sound hip and ‘down there’, like a gangsta. It didn’t work as the barrista said, ‘thank you madam, what recipe would you like, as he scrawled ‘Charlie’ on the side of a paper cup. 

‘Milk, water and coffee please,’ she said, a little flustered by all the decisions she had to make. The Latvian flipped his ponytail in annoyance and indicated the ‘menu’ on the wall above his head. She gave in and asked for a petite, ginger, skinny, decaff, latte, macchiato with an extra shot. The Latvian gangster repeated it back to her in an incomprehensible gabble and asked for £5.73. Charlie gasped, 

‘I can get fish and chips for less than that.’ 

‘Not in here, you can’t,’ laughed her new found friend, thrusting out a hand to snatch the shiny new £10 note from her fingers. He apologised that the contactless pay system wasn’t working yet as it had only just been installed. She had no idea what he was talking about. 

He showed no signs of getting her coffee so she asked him where it was - perhaps G4S were coming to escort such a valuable item to her table? No, she had to go down to the end of the counter and humbly stand in line for her masterpiece to be prepared to her ‘recipe.’ A young girl from the Philippines called out ‘Charlie’ twice before she realised it was for her. She was handed a paper bucket of coffee with firm instructions to, ‘enjoy.’

After she collected sugar and a wooden stirring stick, not even a spoon after paying that price, she sat at a window table to do some serious people watching while she  tried to enjoy her coffee as instructed. It was not very nice, not at all like the Nescafe Gold Blend she was used to. She dreamed back to the Italian coffee bars of her youth where you could sit for hours sipping a ‘phroffy coffee’ in a tall glass tumbler, held in a EPNS holder, listening to the juke box in the corner while the Gaggia coffee machine hissed and gurgled omnipotently on the counter.

There was a beep from her smart phone. Looking at the screen she realised that it was a text from her car to say that there was only 15 minuted remaining on her parking permit. She slurped the rest of the foul - tasting sludge from her cup and then walked quickly back to the car. As she neared the car, the locks automatically opened and she was able to open the door. After she was in, comfortable and ready to go, she put her home post code in the touch screen and pressed ‘go’. The car didn’t move. She pressed the ‘help’ button, whereupon the voice told here that there was not enough room for the car to manoeuvre out into the road - she was trapped. Charlie got out of the car again to investigate. There was a white van parked behind her, only about three inches between the two bumpers. 

‘How inconsiderate,’ she thought. ‘All this clever technology and it all gets beaten by a white van man.’ She walked to the front of the van and saw that the driver had his feet up on the dashboard, a sausage roll in his hand and was reading the guardian - well page 3 anyway. Charlie knocked on the window and mimed for him to roll it down. 

‘Could you move back a bit and give me room to get out please?’

‘No, it’s my lunch hour,’ said the young man,’I’ll be finished in about ten minutes and then I’ve got to go to a urgent callout so I’ll be moving off then anyway.’

‘OK,’ said Charlie politely, signalling that he could now wind his window up. She walked toward the back of the van and found a gap of about six feet to the next car that was a new blue åçFord. A plan was coming together in her head as she walked back and got into her own car.

‘Hello car,’ she said

‘’My name is Horatio,’ said the car

‘Sorry, Horatio, I wonder if you could help me with a problem?’

‘I’ll try, of course.

‘Can you talk to another new Ford in this area?’

‘Yes, I am in contact with all new Fords within ten miles.’

‘Could you please ask the nice blue car behind the white van if he could move forward and get as close as possible to the back of the white van.’

‘Yes, but that will mean that the white van won’t be able to…oh I see, consider it done. 

‘Thank you, Horatio, you can go to sleep now while I go to those old fashioned tea rooms across the road and try to get a decent, cheap cup of coffee. I’ll watch the fun from the window.’

‘OK, Charlotte.’