Aero had waited eons since he put in his application, or so it seemed. Had it been thrown straight in the bin, were the Upper Council laughing at his ideas? He had been naively pleased with himself for thinking of an original project for his thesis. If his idea worked, few would be interested in an experiment in an outer sector hardly anyone had heard of, but the upside of that was that failure, even accidental destruction, would not bother many. Still, he must be positive, if his idea worked perfectly he could apply for bigger projects in one of the inner sectors. Aero did not want to be stuck forever like his parents, caretakers for this remote part. For generations his family had cherished their responsibility for the growing community, the only surviving community in this sector. Experiments had been carried out, there had been the demise of an early community, followed by the extinction of another, but new life always followed.
Aero was nervous in front of the great board.
‘I have read your application, but I want to hear you summarise it in plain language.’
‘Our humble little sector is due to be demolished because of numerous failures in its past history, but while I know my voice cannot stop its destruction, I think we should take advantage of the opportunity to conduct an experiment which could then be applied to more important sectors.
My plan would be to shuffle the planets around and expand the solar system at the same time. The attempts by the colony to escape from the solar system have become more frequent and if they ever succeeded it would cause chaos in other galaxies.’
‘Which is precisely why we have scheduled the solar system for urgent demolition. However, some members of the board find your ideas rather amusing, so we will retire for a few eons to consider our decision.’
Find out what it’s all about at our coffee morning
TODAY
The large poster greeted us as we stepped out of the station. I nudged George.
’Hey let’s go to that, it could be the answer for us.’
I fingered my new, cheap, engagement ring.
‘Tams, the last thing we want is to live in a high rise block. I thought you wanted a house with a garden, that’s why we came out here to look.’
This was the latest outer suburb we were visiting in our search for a home.
‘Free coffee and cakes and a lift to our exhibition centre.’
The voice startled us. At our side was a bloke who looked more like a scientist than a smarmy salesman.
‘Don’t look so worried, we’re running a shuttle service from the station today, it looks like rain so why not hop in and start your home hunting at the Sky High centre.’
‘How do you know we’re house hunting?’
‘Hopeful people have been arriving all morning since that article in the Guardian last weekend.’
At that moment the heavens opened and we jumped gratefully into his mini bus, smiling and nodding at several other passengers.
We were surprised to arrive ten minutes later at a huge aircraft hangar.
‘You will see inside that later, but first the introductory talk.’
George groaned ‘I knew there was a catch, bet it’s one of those timeshare things.’
As the rain was torrential and there was nothing except fields around the hangar, we didn’t have much choice. We were parked near some outbuildings and the driver held a golf umbrella over our heads as we all clambered out and through a red door. The room we entered was large and bright and full of people helping themselves at a table laden with a selection of cakes. George had three and would have gone back for more if they had not announced the presentation was starting. Behind a small stage a screen lit up. I wondered if the chap addressing us was a comedian in his spare time, perhaps I had seen him on television. Was this all a big joke?
‘Don’t worry, I won’t subject you to a long sales talk, I’ll cut straight to the exciting part. Airships, solar powered airships, how we should all be travelling, not on planes and cruise ships guzzling resources. Some folk even live on those huge cruise ships, good idea to get away from the world, so could you live on an airship? Yes. Our airships orbit the earth just like the International Space Station, only bigger and lower down. Imagine working from home sky high, looking down on the countries you have conference calls with. Or being part of a fantastic project to study the future of airship life, silently gliding through the clouds.
‘That’s just pie in the sky’ said a voice from the back.
‘Hardly, we were all meant to be on the moon by now, what happened to that idea? Our plan is the realistic one. But the big advantage for you young people and a few mature folk is it’s all free. We do offer a gold package for those who want a life of leisure, but most of you will be working as part of the team, according to your talents and experience. Growing vegetables in the sky garden, technical maintenance of the ship, part of the medical team… this is going to be a mini world.’
‘How many airships have you got in orbit’ asked George ‘and how come we have never heard of them?’
‘Prototype One, which is manoeuvring unnoticed above peaceful parts of the earth. The news media are only interested in toy rockets being blasted up and falling down or exploding, not in positive stories. That’s why we will be running our own radio and television stations.’
I nudged George, I worked for a little local radio station as the general dogsbody.
‘How big is this airship, how can if fit a whole space commune on board?’ asked the voice from the back.
‘You will soon see and bear in mind it can be expanded once up in the sky. Now it’s time for the tour of Sky Galleon One’s interior.’
We were led to a door which opened into a sloping tunnel as if we were boarding an aeroplane. There were gasps of excitement as we stepped through the round doorway into a large light atrium, the centre of the four storey vessel. We were each given a small electronic device with a screen to show our location on a 3 D map and more importantly, one button to press which would guide us back to the atrium from anywhere. Thus we were free to explore until summoned by a signature tune.
‘There will be crew members dispersed on every deck to answer your questions.’
George, with his technical and scientific expertise, was busy tapping surfaces, opening cabinets and marvelling at the lightweight constructions of cabins and furniture. I was entranced by the lush sky garden and the lovely personal apartments, so spacious compared to our cramped flat. Then we walked up a sloping passage and arrived at another floor where we were surprised to find a theatre and a dance hall. George saw a sign for the observation deck and rushed me down a spiral walkway to arrive at a glass floor. Presumably there was ground underneath, but the glass rested on an aerial picture of paradise islands in an azure sea.
A tune started playing on our devices.
‘Oh this is on Mum’s playlist I exclaimed – Up, Up and Away…’
George raised his eyebrows ‘A bit cheesy, but appropriate I guess. Do you want to be up, up and away?’
‘YES.’
Back at the atrium there was a buzz of chatter, then we were called to attention.
‘We won’t go up and away until the galleon is attached below the dirigible. Now for the only time you will see what it looks like close up suspended in the hangar. Follow me.’
The hangar was even bigger than I had imagined from the outside, but the dirigible took up most of the vast space. It floated silently, gracefully, shimmering silver, how impressive it would be in the sky.
Two weeks later we were staring up at it from the airfield. Firmly tethered with our stately galleon below barely resting on the ground. We walked across the grass and up the gangway with the others, who like us had signed up on that very first day. Our ten day induction course was over, now we must learn the reality. Some opted to go to the top deck and look out of the picture windows, while George and I sat by the glass floor of the observation deck looking at grass, then the airfield and gradually a toy town.
At dinner that evening in the communal hall we chatted and found out more about each other, fifty people to get to know, all with interesting backgrounds, we would not get bored.
And we didn’t, as the weeks passed there was always more to learn, new parts of the galleon to explore and the beautiful earth to see fairly close up. Then there was our cosy apartment to retreat to. It wasn’t long before we and another two couples became part of Plan B. We were expecting a baby and put under the close care of the medical suite.
I don’t know why we had not thought about it before, but one day I said to George ‘We better find out about ground leave, we’ll have to take the baby to see his grandparents, they won’t be content with just our Facetime calls.’
When we three couples were together we mentioned the subject and the chap who was in training with the flight engineer looked worried and awkward.
‘Did you read your contract properly when you signed up, it’s not that simple.’
‘Surely when we get back above England we can just land back at the base’ I suggested.
‘You can put a balloon in the air, but not necessarily catch it.’
‘They were landing airships a hundred years ago, what’s so difficult.’
‘The sheer scale of this ship. Keep this to yourselves, but I’m pretty certain they are not ready on the ground for a landing and certainly not on board. But there is no need to worry, the ship is totally sustainable, we won’t run out of solar power and food production is going perfectly.’
Not another nail bar, beauty salon or whatever it was. Well I for one would not be setting foot in La Venue. I would be much too embarrassed for them to see my gardening hands. There was that advert when I was a teenager ‘Whatever you do, your hands show too’ I often think of that when I’m looking at my nails, it was an ad for nail polish. My seaside hair was not seen in glossy advertisements either. I tried to peer into the window without being noticed, to see what they were actually doing and wondered if any of the girls had been trafficked into the country as slave labour. They all looked very glamorous and confident, hardly downtrodden. The interior looked very up market, but there was no sign of prices. Perhaps if you needed to ask, you could not afford it.
When I went to meet Becky for coffee I picked up one of the local papers left out for customer enjoyment. Low and behold, on the front page was a glamourous lady posing by the door of La Venue. Below was a short paragraph revealing her as the manageress with an introduction to her business.
…and has since decided to specialise in more ‘high end’ treatments. She said: “The landscape of aesthetic treatments is currently undergoing a revolutionary transformation where cutting edge technology meets personalised care to create unprecedented opportunities for enhancement and rejuvenation. The field is evolving and now offers more precise, natural and accessible solutions than ever before and we wanted to bring this to …”
I could not be bothered to read more, what on earth was she talking about? I passed the paper to Becky.
‘Nowhere does it say how much, if I win the lottery I’ll treat you.’
I thought no more about it as I went home to see if Amazon had delivered the author copies of my new book Grand Designs.
YES, I stroked the cover and silken pages lovingly, never had a book felt and looked so good.
Grand Designs by Hepsibah Hampton
I turned to the back cover.
It is 1689 and Queen Mary 11 and her husband William of Orange are invited to jointly reign on the English throne. Like any young couple they want to make lots of changes to their new home, Hampton Court and invite Sir Christopher Wren to do some grand designs. The story of their sadly short reign is seen through the eyes of the head gardener and a kitchen maid.
Gardeners, food enthusiasts and romantics will thrill to this tale of two very different love stories. William and Mary’s will end with her tragic death from smallpox in 1694, aged only 32. But life in the privy garden goes on…
Hepsi could not wait to tell Rebecca, who was also her agent. Rebecca was sure Hepsibah would fill the gap left by Hillary Mantel. Hepsi tended to think of herself more as Hillary Mantel lite. She had not done quite as much research into her historic novel, relying on student memories of being a room attendant at the palace, dressed in historic costume and chatting to visitors. She had also visited several times to read the room descriptions and take photos of the huge kitchen. As lots of readers were interested in gardening and food she figured they would warm to the head gardener and the kitchen maid. As she went to pick up her phone, Rebecca called her.
‘Do you want the good news or the brilliant news first?’
I told her the books had arrived and they were fine, what better news could I expect.
‘I won a competition for a free visit to La Venue.’
‘Rather you than me.’
‘But it will be you because the brilliant news is I have booked you a place at the Hay Festival and we need to smarten you up a bit.’
‘You must be joking, I’m not famous or posh enough.’
‘Someone taken ill, I managed to get you in tomorrow. Visit La Venue this afternoon, then we drive down early in the morning.’
I could not believe any of this. Rebecca had never been an agent before and I was her only author. I tried to call her bluff.
‘Okay, I’ll go, but as myself, a sort of intellectual image.’
‘More like just come in from the garden look.’
‘Nobody will see me in the unlikely event my bit is on Radio 4.’
‘The audience will.’
Relaxing in the reclining chair for dermaplaning I felt strangely calm, perhaps that was the inner cleansing health drink they had given me. I began to rehearse what I might say when I was interviewed, or was I expected to give a talk?
The afternoon passed quickly as I was dunked into warm salt baths, had lovely tingling things applied to my lips and cheeks and then lay on my stomach for some enhancements, whatever that meant.
I was trying to look in a mirror, but the eye brightener had left everything a bit fuzzy and I was advised to wear an eye mask for the next few days.
I thought Rebecca sounded a bit worried, but as she drove me to her house she sounded brighter and said an eye mask would add to my mystery and promised to sit on the stage with me. I noticed her sofa was much more comfortable to sit on than I remembered and she said that was the enhancements.
It was a great success, I think. At home I settled to listen to our part on BBC Sounds. I couldn’t recall what I had talked about, but there was a definite buzz coming from the audience, before I even said a word. Those two chaps who are always on intelligent programmes on Radio 4 were introducing my interview .
‘…certainly not what we or the audience were expecting, less polite commentators might suggest she looked more like a Celebrity; a good deal of body work done and her face no stranger to Botox?’
‘But her revelations about late seventeenth century life at Hampton Court certainly entertained the audience, even if they had no idea what that had to do with her new novel set in the Great Depression.’
By this time I was beginning to come out of the haze that had enveloped me since my visit to La Venue.
‘Rebecca, I don’t understand what they are saying.’
‘Ah… well, at least you got some publicity, but it turns out they thought they had booked the other author called Hepsibah Hampton, some best selling intellectual.’
‘I don’t even need Satnav, I managed fine without it before.’
‘What about that time in Cornwall?’
‘That was your father’s fault.’
‘Your lovely new electric car, that you were so keen to have, comes with it anyway, so you might as well use it.’
‘I’ll be fine on the motorway, well as long as I can stick to one motorway.’
‘Precisely, you have three or four to tackle, depending which way you go.’
‘I can’t work out how you switch it on.’
‘That’s why I am going to put your destination in, then all you have to do is follow the route and instructions. Does this old school friend of yours even have a post code up there in the Scottish highlands?’
‘It’s not that remote, I’ve got it in her letter.’
‘Have you emailed her to say when you’re coming?’
‘She hasn’t got internet, she only ever wrote at Christmas till this epistle urging me to go and visit.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘At school, don’t look so worried, you told me to get out and about a bit more.’
‘I meant Zumba Gold or U3A conversational French.’
‘Okay, it’s all set up, just don’t touch anything or switch it off. All you have to do is follow the map.’
‘It’s like a cinema screen!’
At first Jill found the constant instructions irritating as it told her how to navigate the wrong way out of her home town, but the rich Scottish baritone, apparently called Callum, was quite good company. When she saw a square flash up on the screen saying ‘The Long and Winding Road’ she agreed with Callum that a playlist of travelling songs would be pleasant. She touched the square, but no music came on. Jill didn’t dare touch anything else.
When she reached the point where she usually headed for the slip road onto the motorway, Callum told her to turn in the opposite direction. Jill found herself going down a pretty road with cottages and stables, then down a lane that led under the motorway. That did not make sense as she was now on the wrong side, she didn’t want to end up in the southbound lanes.
Now Callum was sending her down a long winding road past farms, houses and factories. The only thing that made sense was the fact that she was vaguely heading north and she had caught a glimpse of motorway services. All she had to do was turn into the services, have a cup of coffee, then head out onto the motorway. Callum was getting rather irate now as she had stopped listening to him. Jill was also getting irate as there seemed no way into motorway services except to climb a fence or plough through a pine forest.
She conceded defeat when Callum directed her to a road that went back under the motorway. For a while they drove along reassuringly parallel to the motorway, then she saw a sign that said 500 yards to Greenways Garden Centre. Just as Callum was frantically telling her to take the turning on the left she spotted another sign, 25 yards to Greenways Garden Shop, Café and Emporium. It was too good an opportunity to miss, she needed a break.
Parking was easy and Callum seemed to shut up when she turned the engine off. Greenways was just the sort of place she loved. Clean spacious toilets, elegant café and interesting glimpses of plants and garden furniture. When she looked at her watch Jill was surprised it was lunchtime already.
Looking around at the other customers they were obviously here to enjoy lunch with their friends, not on an arduous journey. There were free local newspapers to read and her cheese scone was delicious. She was enjoying this part of her adventurous journey.
Jill set off to stroll round the plants, looking for a pot plant for her friend that would survive the journey. She couldn’t decide so headed past olive trees and palms to a showy gift section and spent a good while choosing for the friend and her sister’s birthday. A few steps from the till were racks of clothes, an opportunity to get a couple of tops and maybe a skirt for her stay in Scotland. Searching for changing rooms she went through a door that led her into Greenways Emporium and Antiques Centre. The sort of place Jill and her friends adored, with all sorts of thing you didn’t know you needed. The other people looking round were just as interesting as the objects on display. As Jill held up a delightful glass paperweight to examine her phone startled her, she delved into her bag.
‘How are you getting on Mother? Are you at motorway services, it sounds noisy.’
‘No, I have stopped at a glorious garden centre for lunch.’
‘What junction did you come off at?’
‘I haven’t got onto the motorway yet, Callum sent me all over the place.’
‘Where on earth are you now?’
‘According to the local newspaper in the café I’m in Upper Ridlington.’
‘Is there an air base nearby.’
‘No idea.’
‘Have you seen the time?’
‘Oh four o’clock already!’
‘I’m just looking at the map on my computer screen, I don’t understand how you ended up there.’
‘I don’t think the Satnav works very well and the music system doesn’t work at all.’
‘The car hasn’t got a music system.’
‘The Long and Winding Road came up on the screen so I clicked onto it.’
‘Oh no, that’s what the journey option avoiding motorways is called! The best thing you can do now is set the Satnav with your address and come straight home.’
‘Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own Mum with Dad in the Antarctic?’
‘Everest base camp.’
‘Wherever, I know it’s somewhere cold and far away.’
I was of course looking forward to the peace and quiet. Naturally I had the normal worries about Amy going off to Australia for her gap year, but I was sure she had inherited her father’s adventurous but capable spirit. She was going with Lizzy her sensible best friend, inseparable since nursery.
The first week it was strange, but friends at work suggested a few outings, glad to have a break from their own husbands who showed no inclination to leave Ealing, let alone go on adventures broad.
I had always had Amy and Ben keeping me busy when Kit was away. Now Ben was grown up, in theory at least and teaching English as a foreign language somewhere nearer to Everest than Ealing.
The new girl at work was very quiet, but apparently she was highly regarded down in packing, where I used to work as a part timer when the children were in primary school. She was dexterous and quick and could pack anything. The company specialised in delivering high quality food in designer biodegradable boxes. We would source and deliver any request from romantic ready dinners to Tower Bridge birthday cakes.
I had progressed to tasting and testing and then upwards to the busy office, where we would source unlikely ingredients and make sure no delivery was ever late. I don’t think Kit or the children ever appreciated what a high powered and stressful job I did, especially in the last half a dozen years with all the world’s troubles affecting supplies.
Our boss likes to look after his staff, it’s why I have stayed so long. I was the first to agree we should hang on to Flinty, the new girl. What I didn’t expect was to become a foster mother.
When the boss said ‘You have a spare room now you’re an empty nester?’
I replied ‘…sort of.’
Flinty had never revealed much about her life and everyone in packing seemed to have heard a different version. Her family lived up north, her mother had gone off to Spain to find herself, her father had just gone off. She was house sharing with uni students, she was house sharing with drug addicts, she was living with her boyfriend’s parents, an aunt had taken her in.
Whatever the truth, it now seemed she was not living anywhere and there was no longer a boyfriend. All she needed was somewhere to sleep for a few nights and HR were going to look into finding her somewhere. She came home with me that evening.
I wasn’t sure how to be a landlady, was I in loco parentis or was she just a lodger? I made us both dinner, thinking of the cosy TV meal I had planned for myself. While it was in the oven I rushed up to Amy’s room and grabbed her personal things and some of the clothes in her wardrobe and stashed everything in Kit’s office that had one been Ben’s bedroom.
Flinty was happy with the room and approved of Amy’s décor. I was thankful I had persuaded Kit last year we should absorb the box room into our bedroom and create an en-suite shower room. Flint was very happy to have exclusive use of the family bathroom.
The next morning we established she would help herself to breakfast, especially as she started work earlier than me. She also assured me that she did not expect me to cook for her and she would ‘sort herself out’.
Over the next few days I realised this meant endless ready meals, mainly eaten in her/Amy’s room. She really wasn’t too much trouble, except for the bin filling up with the ready meal packaging and the washing machine being on when I was in bed. It wasn’t for long, I consoled myself and I only had to call the police once.
I don’t know how the angry ex boyfriend found out where she lived, but she was not pleased to see him, hysterical in fact. The poor neighbours wondered what all the shouting and breaking glass was about and also called the police. We were quite impressed how quickly they turned up. I think old Audrey next door had mentioned guns. The main thing was they took him away and I made coffee for the three of us as the nice woman police officer stayed for a good while. Strangely she had apparently met Flinty before and was surprised I did not know ‘what was going on.’
Flinty retreated to bed as soon as the officer had left. The next morning she sat eating her cereal as if nothing had happened and was soon out the door and off to work.
I checked my phone, not expecting any messages yet from Kit. It was long agreed that I would only hear if there was an emergency when communication was so difficult, so I got a fright when I saw a text message home tonight, broken ankle, don’t worry.
Kit had a charmed life, no harm ever seemed to come to him. At least he wasn’t in hospital and an ankle was hardly the end of the world, but what a time for it to happen. I messaged back to get some idea what time he might arrive, then I had to get myself off to work.
No mention was made of last night’s adventure, if Flinty had told them down in packing, the gossip had not made it upstairs. I got one text from Kit and decided I could just get home before he arrived back.
As I walked up my garden path the front door was flung open, it was not Kit, but Amy.
‘Mum, we’ve had burglars, my room!’
Before I could explain I saw a police car come round the corner followed by a taxi. It was the police woman from last night.
‘Nothing to worry about, this is just a welfare visit.’
Kit was hobbling up the garden path behind her.
Flinty disappeared, she did not return to our house and was never seen at work again. Somehow that made it harder to explain to Kit and Amy what had been going on, when it was as if she had never existed.
The police officer questioned me as if I was hiding her and questioned Amy and Kit as to whether they were involved in ‘all this business.’
Kit questioned Amy as to why on earth she was back so soon. It transpired that she had realised she didn’t like travelling, especially when Lizzie met a chap in the first week and decided to cross the Nullabor Plain with him in his camper van.
It’s bad enough still having your parents as your next of kin when you’re my age, but how will I explain my dreadful situation when they arrive at my hospital bed?
I can’t eat or move much yet and it would be lonely in this isolation room if it weren’t for the constant stream of medical experts coming to peer and probe. Beside me is the incubator containing my tiny identical twin, still attached by the faux umbilical cord that formed out of goodness knows which bits of my insides. Apparently he was well tangled up in my viscera, hence the complicated and dangerous surgery, which I may or may not survive.
At least I am not responsible for him now. My parents, his parents are his official guardians, good luck with that Bro. I was an only child, a surprise, an afterthought, not a good surprise as I overheard mother say to aunty and another time telling a friend they came to parenthood ‘too late in the day’.
Anyway, they need to come into the hospital for a medical, moral and legal discussion about what should happen to Little Bro. Oh no, here they are, what am I going to say, I thought my team would be with them.
‘Oh my God what happened, not that wretched motorbike of yours?’
‘No Mother, I have never had an accident and it’s a moped not a motorbike.’
‘That’s a relief, so what did happen?’
‘There is no easy way to say this. I had a parasitic conjoined twin inside me for years, well all of my life and now he’s in that incubator.’
I pressed the emergency button, my father had fainted when he looked in the Perspex case. Mother had rushed out of the room screaming, causing chaos in the corridor, no doubt staff and visitors alike wondering what was going on. There was even more chaos in my room with the crash team thinking I was the emergency. It must have been in all the confusion that a visitor popped his head round the door and took a few snaps on his phone. That’s how we ended up a social media sensation and headlines on the evening news.
Unfortunately they got the story completely wrong.
BABY USED AS LIVING DONOR TO CURE TERMINALLY ILL MILLIONAIRE
The only positive was that they did not have my name and they could not know Baby Bro’s name, because he had not been given one. That was up to my parents, but they wanted nothing to do with him, especially when it was broached to them at an urgent meeting with the hospital lawyers that the facts should be given to the public to stop the awful speculation that was ruining the hospital’s reputation.
The family court decided they would not be fit parents and it was recommended I should be Bro’s guardian as I was his next of kin.
Baby Bro was now three days old, or the same age as me, opinion was divided. We were still joined, but doctors were worried he was gaining strength and weight, while I was becoming weaker. As Bro could not read or write only I could sign the consent form for the uncertain medical procedure to separate us.
I forced myself to look at him. After all, there was a strong possibility he would not survive. I don’t much like babies anyway, though I always presumed if I had one of my own I might like it. Baby Bro did not look like a baby, he looked just like me only tiny. I was repelled. If he lived, no one knew what would happen, would he grow, did he have a mind? As I grappled with these thoughts he smiled at me. I felt sick, could he read my mind, our mind?
He lived. I was put in a recovery room by myself, a nurse reassured me I could go to the special care unit and see him soon.
Baby Bro was made a ward of court as I was considered not fit to care for him yet. In fact no one was sure how his care should be handled, it was a complex case that must go to the high court. Various groups started gathering outside the hospital, none of them quite sure what they were protesting about.
I was soon fit to leave hospital. I had never felt so well physically, after all, for the first time in my life I was no longer supporting another body. I had been subject to a barrage of tests, my DNA samples given, now I wanted to get on with my life. I was smuggled out of the hospital and returned to my flat, not completely free, I was warned not to leave the local area and advised to keep a low profile, someone had leaked my name.
So here I am, walking down the street, the late afternoon sun behind me, feeling like a normal person. I hope Baby Bro is in good hands, the experts know what they are doing… well there’s nothing I can do until, until what I’m not sure.
Have you ever had that experience when the sun is low in the sky and you think someone is behind you, but it is just the long shadow of a person yards behind. A shadow caught up with me and was beside my shadow on the pavement, identical to my shadow. I turned to look. There was nobody beside me or behind me. I quickened my pace, the shadow kept level alongside my shadow.
It’s the sort of article you read in the tabloids or the rabbit hole you fall into when you are tempted to scroll down on the internet. There was a boy at junior school who always had ghoulish ‘true stories’ to tell. I was never sure whether to believe him, but we wanted to and it was a bit dull in class after he moved away.
When I became a sardonic teenager I realised how ridiculous his tales had been, though I would have given him credit for his imagination if we ever met again.
As I turned into a sensible adult a strange thing happened; television documentaries, tiny cameras in operating theatres and Wikipedia provided real true stories. It turned out that there were girls with two heads and boys with four legs. The stuffed two headed lamb we saw in a glass case at the ‘House of Horrors’ on holiday had nothing on real two headed people who talked on television and went to school. Yes, real life could be truly bizarre and nature played jokes.
When I started getting mystery pains, or rather when I could no longer ignore mystery pains and the strange lump I could feel, I went to the doctor. An appointment came through for my scan, can’t remember which machine it was, but it made lots of noise and I did not like being in it. Of course the operator is not allowed to tell you anything and just mumbled something about a report going to my GP. I was just glad to get dressed and get out of there down to the hospital Costa Coffee. I was beginning to relax with my strong coffee and a lemon tart poised towards my mouth when my mobile rang.
‘This is Doctor Jekyll, are you still in the hospital grounds? Good. Have you eaten anything in the past couple of hours?’
Puzzled I put my lemon tart down.
‘Good, now there’s nothing to worry about, but I would like to examine you and possibly do an exploratory operation. As soon as possible. Now. No you don’t need to know where to go, I’m sending someone down to fetch you.’
I didn’t even get a chance to finish my coffee before someone in a uniform appeared and guided me into the depths of the hospital. It was not long before I was undressed and lying on a couch, being prodded and monitors applied. One good thing, I knew I was in good health, heart and everything working properly and fit for surgery. I was just about to ask when the operation was going to take place when the next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room with all sorts of tubes attached to me.
Doctor Jekyll was at my side promptly.
‘The good news is, it was not a malignant tumour. The bad news, it was a very complicated operation and the surgery was invasive.’
‘I don’t understand, what did you find?’
‘A baby.’
This would be a shock for most people. It was certainly a shock for me as I am a man.
‘How on earth…are you trying to tell me I’m a hermaphrodite?’
‘We don’t use that term these days, but you are not. Now you have heard of conjoined twins? Yes of course, but have you heard of parasitic twins? So you have seen old drawings and photos of people with partially formed bodies appended to themselves on Beetleypete’s blog… who or what is that? No I’m not a blogger, never heard of WordPress. Now I need you to pay attention. Your parasitic twin just happened to be completely inside you, very unusual and it… he seems to have been having a development spurt, otherwise you would not have noticed.’
‘This is a bit hard to take in, but at least I’m rid of it. How soon can I go home, I’m feeling okay.’
‘That’s all the pain killers, you have had a very serious operation and you will be monitored in intensive care. But we also have an ethical problem. We managed to save the baby.’
‘WHAT! Um what are you going to do with it?’
‘Him… well at the moment he is still attached to you by his, for want of a better word, his umbilical cord. Now do you want to see him before we discuss how to proceed? ‘
I thought of that boy at school, he would have wanted me to look, ready to relate the story to anyone who would listen. Somehow my schoolboy morbid curiosity took over and as instructed by the doctor I turned my head to the other side of the bed and there in an incubator was my baby brother. Or more accurately, if you put a pair of glasses on him he would be an exact miniature replica of me.
My guest today is one of our local authors, Greg Duncan.
J: Greg, you have recently published a historical novel with the intriguing title Champagne in a Broken Teacup. What’s the book about?
G: Without giving too much away, here’s a short summary I wrote for Amazon.
In the spring of 1940 recently married Marie-Claire is blissfully pursuing her career as a freelance artist in Paris. She has no idea that in early May Hitler’s armies will invade France and rip her life apart. In the book we follow her life as tragedies strike and she is forced to flee Paris to escape from the Gestapo. Using a false name and identity she begins a new life in the small provincial French town of Nevers. She finds unexpected inner strength as a resistance worker but her previous life in Paris catches up with her.
J: What inspired you to write it?
G: As a young boy growing up in Canada I was fascinated by the stories I was told about my French aunt. During WW2 she was an art teacher living in the small French town of Nevers where she became a document forger and fighter in the French resistance. As if that wasn’t fascinating enough for a young boy, even more exciting were some of the stories of her escape from the Germans.
Fast forward several decades to the time I retired and started to focus on my interest in writing and inevitably the stories of my aunt’s adventures came to mind. However, I realized I didn’t know enough detail about her life to turn it into a stand alone story and unfortunately she had passed away many years earlier. I decided I needed to find out more about the world she would have lived in and what life would have been like for her in occupied France.
Mare-Therese Pellissier 1949
Thanks to the internet and the digitization of many documents I was able to find out far more than I expected. I found it quite moving to be able to read the very newspapers my aunt would have been reading nearly a century ago. I was even able to look at copies of leaflets that the RAF dropped over France during the war – leaflets that my aunt would have picked up in the streets of Nevers and read. I was amazed to find out that the RAF dropped over 640 million such leaflets over France.
Like most of us I had been taught about the big battles and political aspects of the war but virtually nothing about the lives of the ordinary citizens. As my research progressed I became more and more fascinated reading about the things which affected people’s daily lives and the things they did to fight back against the German occupation. I decided that what I wanted to do was write a fictional novel that incorporated the stories I’d been told about my aunt interwoven with historical reality.
J: How much of the novel is true and how much is fiction?
G: That’s a good question. In one sense, being a fictional novel my characters are fictional. On the other hand some of the events included in the story are portrayals of events which involved my aunt – but obviously I can’t tell you what they are right now as that would give away too much of the plot. What I can say is that the picture on the back cover of the book, of German soldiers in the rain, was actually drawn by my aunt in Nevers in 1941 when she was a resistance forger. It is one of the few things I have of hers. It hangs on the wall beside my desk and helped inspire me to write the book.
The historical events mentioned in the book are real as I wanted my characters to react to the actual events of the time. Although a lot of what my characters experience and do may not have happened to my aunt they are based on my research and on true stories of what people actually did in the resistance at that time.
J: Did you spend a long time doing the research?
G: Yes, and I enjoyed the research almost as much as writing the book. I became engrossed in reading about such things as forging techniques, rat bombs and pencil detonators as well as more dramatic activities such as derailing trains and blowing up fuel dumps.
I was also fascinated by the small details I discovered during my research which I’ve never seen in a history book. For example, the fact that within six weeks of the fall of France the newspapers reported that it was now illegal for bakers to make croissant or brioche.
J: Illegal for the French to make croissant?
G: Yes, at first I thought the report might be some sort of joke by the newspaper, but thanks to the internet I was able to access and read the actual regulations issued by the Vichy government..
Also thanks to the internet I was able to research locations in Nevers. I even found a 1940’s picture of the steps of the Rue de Calvaire – a place which plays an important part in the story.
Nevers 1940 Rue de Calvaire
J: Tell me about the title. It’s so unusual.
G: The title is critical to the story so I can’t tell you too much about it. All I can say is I needed a title which would be unique and yet fit in the plot as plausible.
J: I enjoyed reading your novel and gave it a five star review on Amazon as a ‘cracking good read’. What have other people said?
G: I’ve had a lot of positive feedback. In fact several people have said the whole story would make a great film.
J: I agree. And before you go, that important question. Where can people get a copy of Champagne in a Broken Teacup?
G: The book is available via Amazon as a paperback, a hardback, a Kindle eBook or via Kindle Unlimited. Our website https://www.kenebec.com?d has a direct link to Amazon for this book and our other books.
I’d like to thank you for asking me to talk about Champagne in a Broken Teacup. I’m not sure how many of your readers are local but if they’re interested I’d just like to add that I’ll be giving a talk about the research behind the book in June at the Sturminster Newton Literary Festival.
Thanks for coming along Greg and good luck with your book sales and festival talk.
This is a cracking good story and a very well written novel. Paris under German occupation in World War Two is the setting. This is history, but the novel goes far deeper than the classic black and white photographs of German soldiers marching past the Arc de Triomphe. The author takes us into the lives of happy young newly-weds and their friends. This novel is inspired by the author’s aunt who worked for the resistance and is backed up by careful research. Far from being a dry recounting of the times, we are soon wrapped up in the lives of young and older Parisiens determined to fight for their country as violence and the death of friends and family becomes a reality. The Germans are not the only enemy as informers and traitors make it impossible to know who to trust, keeping us in suspense in every chapter.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 