à où allez-vous ?

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“Quand est-ce que je dois vous rencontrer?” Felicienne was talking on the phone to a friend. “J'attends avec intérêt de vous rencontrer”

I met her last year at an art exhibition. She told me she was a friend of the artist, and they certainly seemed to be very good friends! The first thing that attracted me to her was her accent. There’s something special, about the sound of a fille française! That’s a French girl by the way, and if you are impressed by my sudden switch to French, don’t be! Apart from a couple of phrases like ce qui est votre nom (what is your name) and vous venez pour enfoncer avec moi?, I can’t speak a word! I learned those two questions from a friend at work who was fluent in French. I suppose you want to know what the second question was. I thought it was an excellent chat up line at the time, but the only response I got was a slap around the face. It means...well, you know. Actually it was only a temporary setback and a week later we’d become an item. Finnian and Felicienne, what a mouthful! That was nine months ago.

It’s not that I didn’t trust her. Why should I not have? No, it wasn’t that. But she did seem to have a lot of calls from a French friend called Mystique, and with a name like that I was bound to be curious! Anyway, it seemed that Mystique was a colleague of Felicienne’s at the language school in which they both taught. It was known by the somewhat unoriginal title of The Anglo-French Academy, and aimed to ‘foster a greater understanding of our two great nations by the sharing of language’.Felicienne worked three evenings a week. I say evenings, she often got home after I’d gone to bed. There was clearly quite an after-hours social life attached to her job!

Going back to the language thing, as I said I didn’t suspect there was anything going on that I was being kept unaware of, but I was at the same time a little curious when it came to those long telephone calls.

Last week it was New Years Eve. We decided to make New Year resolutions. Why I don’t know, nobody ever keeps them! But I came up with a great one. I resolved to learn French. I told her that I was about to enrol at her college, The Anglo French Academy. I thought that even if the classes were a bore, at least I’d be able to join in with the fun some evenings after lessons. But her reaction was odd. She took a sharp intake of breath. “That’s a great idea” she said, but there was something about her tone of voice that made her seem a little odd.

I asked if she had any resolutions. She trotted out the usual ‘give up smoking’ one, then lit a cigarette and disappeared into the kitchen with the phone, jabbering away to her friend in French. What I didn’t know was that she had made another resolution. And her resolution was to stop me carrying out my resolution before I had a chance to turn up at college the next week.

Just after that, she said she had to go to meet Mystique, she wanted to join her for a drink and a chat. She changed into a particularly stunning black dress, told me not to wait up and off she went.

No sooner had the door slammed than the phone rang. It was George, a mate of mine. Seems he’d been to the New Year races and won a packet on the gee-gees. He wanted to go out and celebrate. He was a single guy and as he couldn’t tempt out a filly at such short notice, he asked if I would care to join him at the Ivy. The Ivy! One of London’s most expensive restaurants. The waiting list for a table was as long as your arm. It took a serious back-hander to get us in at a moment’s notice.

I felt like a celebrity when I walked in. It’s the kind of place where everyone who enters is greeted with a stare from the other diners in case they are well known. They soon got back to their food!

My eye was caught by a couple at a table on the other side of the restaurant. He was disarmingly handsome and all over his partner like a rash! What a display I thought. It was when she looked up to speak to the waiter I had the shock of my life. It was Felicienne. I didn’t know what to say or do. I moved to the side of our table so I’d have my back to her. There was no way I could make a scene in there. Anyway, it was George’s night so I did my best to carry on as if nothing had happened. Unsurprisingly I had no appetite, but the copious amount of wine and the endless brandies had something of a calming effect.

How could I have been so stupid? She was never a teacher. She never went near the Anglo-French Academy. She was one of a group of French girls that came to England to set up a high class escort agency. No wonder she didn’t want me to learn French. I‘d have discovered she and Mystique were unknown at the college. Not only that but I would I have understood her telephone conversations.

What a difference a week makes. She didn’t manage to keep her resolution, but I did! Tomorrow I’m off to The Anglo-French academy. I’d rather got used to the idea of having a French teacher for a girl friend.Que se produira à l'avenir ?

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Written for (Fiction)Friday # 138

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Trick or Treat?

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It's Sunday Scribblings time again and the prompt is Adventure. I suppose that going out on a cold October night 'trick or treating' is quite an adventure for most kids. My kids however had a far deeper and darker motive! Enjoy!

Part one

It was a cold night in October. In the narrow street, nothing stirred but for a black cat which meandered along the road pausing occasionally with one paw raised, ears pricked, listening. It stopped opposite a run-down terraced cottage, turned its head toward the door, arched its back and hissed.

The stillness was broken by a gaggle of laughing children which appeared from a side street calling out ‘trick or treat’ and banging on doorways. There were about ten of them, all dressed for Halloween night. The girls wore witches gowns of red purple and blue, their eyes black and their lips scarlet. The boys had whitened faces and grey cloaks which dragged behind them on the ground. The black cat looked on, motionless.

One of them, a small boy wearing a black cloak and a grotesque monster mask ran up to the terraced cottage and shouted ‘this is the one’. The black cat turned and ran in the opposite direction. He banged on the door with the handle of his axe then pulled a hood over his head. The others gathered around him giggling excitedly.

The terraced cottage belonged to Billy Brown. He'd moved there several years ago. No one knew much about him. They never knew him as Billy ‘Bully’ Brown. As a child in school he’d terrorised his fellow pupils. He was moved from one school to another then eventually to an institution for young offenders. His bullying continued later in life when he was feared by even the most hardened of criminals in London’s gangland. But eventually it all backfired on him and he was forced to flee and go into hiding as an anonymous resident of the village.

The boy banged on the door again. Nothing. Bang, bang.

Suddenly a voice yelled a voice from inside the cottage. ‘Go away’

The boy banged again and again. Suddenly the door swung open and there was Billy Brown, his face like thunder, brandishing a base ball bat.

Part 2

‘Trick or treat?’ said the hooded boy quietly. ‘Trick or treat?’

The children still were smiling, but their faces were no longer angelic. Instead they had turned ghostly white and their mouths ran with crimson blood. They stared straight up into Billy’s eyes. His expression changed and a look of fear came over his face.

They started chanting, very slowly, very softly, almost in a whisper.

‘Trick or treat? Trick or treat?’

He dropped the bat.

‘Trick or treat?’ they said, their voices becoming a little louder. ‘Trick or treat?’

The boy took a step towards him.

‘Trick or treat Billy?’ he said looking up into his ashen face. Billy took a step back shaking his head from side to side. The children moved towards him and he started to shuffle back into his hallway.

‘Trick or treat? Trick or treat?’ their voices grew louder and louder. ‘Trick or treat? TRICK OR TREAT?’ The children were now shrieking and the noise echoed and bounced around inside Billy’s head.

They crept forward, he stumbled back and then he came to a sudden stop when he backed into a wall.

‘Trick or treat?’ they screamed ‘TRICK OR TREAT BILLY BULLY BROWN?’

Billy pressed his hands over his ears and screwed closed his eyes. Suddenly the children fell quiet. Total silence. You could hear a feather drop.Something yanked one of his hands away. He tried to resist but he was helpless. He felt warm breath on his ear.

‘School’s out Billy’ said a deep voice from an inch away. He slightly opened one eye and jumped as he came face to face with a hooded man in a grotesque mask carrying an axe. The children stared up at Billy, their huge eyes boring into his. They each had both arms rigid, pointing up at his terrified face. They started chanting again, softly at first, then rising to a deafening crescendo.

‘School’s out, school’s out, SCHOOL’S OUT.......’ They started stabbing their fingers at him. ‘SCHOOLS OUT.......SCHOOLS OUT’. Their screaming was unbearable, their voices echoed and their words jumbled and multiplied as they bounced off the walls and ceiling.

His mind started spinning back through the years. Suddenly he recognised the children. How could it be? It was impossible. They were the kids he went to school with. The kids who thirty or more years ago had lived in fear of him. And now the tables had turned.

Part 3

An elderly lady was walking down the street with her dog. As she approached the run-down cottage, the door flew open and out ran a small boy in a cloak carrying an axe followed by ten other children in Halloween costumes and smiling painted faces.They skipped up to her, giggling. ‘Trick or treat?’ they laughed. ‘I thought I come across some witches and ghosts tonight’ said the lady, and she produced from her pocket a bag of sweets and lollipops and handed them out. ‘Thank you’ shouted the children, then they ran off into the darkness.

She went to walk away, but her dog refused to move. Instead it stood rigid, growling as it looked at the open door. It started to tug the lady toward the house. She was unable to hold him back. It was then she noticed that a vivid blinding light was coming from a room at the far end of the hallway. The dog pulled her inside and she shielded her eyes from the dazzling light as she was pulled closer and closer to the room. Her dog continued with its deeply menacing growl, but now she could also hear the distant unworldly sound of children’s voices chanting ‘Billy Bully Brown, Billy Bully Brown’.

As she peered into the room the searing light hurt her head, and through half closed eyes she could just make out the shape of a small boy, sitting cross legged on the floor slowly rocking to and fro. Gradually the light began to fade and the sound of the children became quieter and quieter then disappeared. The child was unaware that she or the dog was there. He just stared straight ahead as he rocked and swayed. She spoke to him, asked his name, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink. She tried gently shaking him but he was totally oblivious to her presence. He was gripping something tightly in his hand, a crumpled school group photograph. One face had been cut out and across it was scrawled the name Billy Brown and an arrow pointing to the hole.

She rushed out into the street hoping to find someone to help her, someone with a mobile phone who could call an ambulance. But she found no one. Then from inside the cottage she heard her dog whimpering. She ran back into the room to find the child gone, and to her horror her dog was lying motionless on the floor alongside a bloodstained baseball bat and the screwed up photograph.

A year has passed, and the house has remained locked and boarded ever since. No one knows what happened in the cottage on Halloween night last year. And you can be certain that nobody will go anywhere near that house tonight.

The End....or is it?

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The collection

I wrote this piece for Sunday Scribblings 'Pilgrimage' and Fiction Friday 'Collection'
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May I read it to you? If so, click on arrow
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“Have you seen my scarf darling, the blue one?”called Jonathon as he searched under the coats and jackets that hung by the door.

Julia sighed, and with a half smile said “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on!”

Just lately one thing after another had vanished. Nothing of particular importance. A pen, only a cheap one, but one he liked to use. He’d also mislaid a photograph of himself receiving an award at his firm’s dinner, and another of him reclining on a sun bed. And what happened to last year’s diary? He needed to look up a detail about a meeting, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Good morning Julia”. Cheryl, their home help breezed into the kitchen with her usual cheery smile.”Jonathan left for work already? I’ll start my cleaning with his study today” she said as she tied the strings on her apron.

Cheryl was a stickler for tidiness. Trouble was she was so tidy that Jonathan often couldn’t lay his hands on things which he had known the exact position of before Cheryl sorted them out.

“I found these in the rubbish bin” she said. Julia looked into the plastic bag and saw a pile of old greetings cards, from birthdays and Christmases past.

“Mind if I take them” she said. “I can put them to good use”

Julia saw no reason why she shouldn’t. Jonathan was a bit of a hoarder, so she was delighted to see the back of them.

One afternoon just as Cheryl was about to leave, Julia asked if her if she would like to take a bag of Jonathans old clothes with her – they were almost new but not often worn. Maybe she could sell them at the church jumble sale. She took them willingly.

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Cheryl liked to be alone in Jonathon’s study. Behind the closed door she could go through his things and imagine what it must be like for Julia, having him all to herself.

What made her do it, she didn’t really know, but one day she picked up the picture of Julia which sat on the desk and unscrewed the back of the photo frame. It was as if she knew what she would find inside. And there under Julia’s portrait was a faded picture of a young girl with the fairest hair and the palest blue eyes. And by her side a youthful Jonathan, his arm draped over her shoulder.

She took the photo over to the mirror and held it alongside her face. Her smile melted away.
Time had not been kind to her. She took off her spectacles and stared into the glass. Gone the smooth skin and alabaster complexion. Her furrowed brow and tired eyes were a testament to twenty years of sadness and longing. That cropped back hair never really suited her, but it was necessary.

Nothing remained of the girl she was except for her pale blue eyes.

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It was a cold cruel winter’s day. Cheryl telephoned to say she was unwell and asked if Jonathon could call around that evening with a coat she had left behind the previous day.

She got from her wardrobe the dress she had worn the night Jonathan had walked away from her. It was faded, and no longer fitted properly. She sat in front of the mirror and tried to recreate the face she saw in that picture from all those years ago. Then she slipped on a wig of the fairest hair, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

Leaving the door ajar, she retired to a candlelit room at the back of the house and waited for Jonathon to arrive.

When he did so, she called for him to come on in. He followed her voice and walked slowly towards her.

What he saw took his breath away. In the flickering light of a score of candles he found himself surrounded by his own possessions, old photos, keepsakes and dozens of things he thought he’d mislaid. And there in the corner she sat on a chair, grotesque, absurd.

He froze, unable to think, let alone speak.

She stood and slowly walked across the room, to where he stood, motionless, and wrapped a blue scarf around his neck. She twisted it tighter and tighter until he was no longer able to breathe.

She left the room and turned the key in the lock. Her collection was complete.

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The Stranger - part 4

Suddenly the lights went out. The music stopped and Candice just sat there silently sobbing. It was so quiet she could hear the beat of her heart. The sudden black-out didn’t alarm her. After the events of the past week she felt nothing could possibly hurt her any more.

Through the still darknesss she thought she heard a faint sound. Or did she imagine it? The children were asleep upstairs. Perhaps one of them stirred. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She was drifting away. A calm descended over her.

The light flickered back into life and she slowly opened her eyes. She stared at the empty fireplace and in her mind she could see Jimmy sitting on the rug with the kids trying to make pictures from the glowing red specks on the fireback behind the dancing flames.

Whoosh! She physically jumped when a cloud of soot fell down the chimney. There was the sound of frantic fluttering. More soot. A bloodcurdling screech.

The light went out again and the silence returned. She drew her knees up to her chin and sat shaking, afraid to move. There was a faint shuffling sound somewhere in front of her. First from the right then the left. Then nothing.

After a few minutes of silence she decided that she would have to make her way to the table where she remembered she had a candle and a lighter. Slowly she uncurled her body and gently put one foot and then the other, on the cold wooden floor. She raised herself upright, and took a step in the direction of the table holding onto a chair back for support. Left foot, right foot, and then she trod on the pile of discarded CDs she’d thrown on the floor. She slipped and fell and thumped her head on the table and sending the candle flying across the room.

Pit - pat -pit -pat. Something small was creeping around in the darkness The light came back on then immediately went out again. She saw nothing. Once more it came back to life, and for a brief second she was sure she saw Jimmy sitting on the chestnut leather Chesterfield. Then all was black again.

She screamed. ‘What are you doing to me? What have I done to you? Why are punishing me?’

‘Answer me! For Gods sake answer me’

Outside, the clouds cleared, and through the window a blanket of blue moonlight filled the room. She must have imagined him. Her mind was playing tricks. The sofa was empty.

Getting up from the floor her eye was drawn to something lying on the window ledge. Something dark, long and shiny. It was a black feather. And round it's quill a wedding ring. Jimmy's wedding ring.

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Click here for Part 5