New book just published, ‘FROM THE PRISON and other stories’
This is my largest collection of short and very short stories with seventy eclectic tales.
Some, hopefully, will amuse, some may make you shudder and some will make you think.
‘A Resolute Child’
He thinks he is untouchable… she has other ideas. His desire is power…hers is justice.
May and Ernie, two orphans, make their way through the slum of Victorian London seeking a safe place to sleep. Only ten year old May would live to see the morning and what she witnesses that freezing night will shape her life forever. Wherever her path leads from the slum – to Doctor Barnardo’s Village and then to Canada – May resolves to see justice for Ernie. She could not help him then, as a child, but power and privilege will not be enough to protect Ernie’s killer. Someday, she swears, he will pay. May has no doubts…but how?
‘Never know…and other stories’
The stories in this, my first collection, available on Amazon HERE, range from comedic with ‘The Lift’ (based on true events) to ‘All Gone’ and ‘Never know…’ itself – which is far from comedic.
‘The Witchy Woman and other stories’
On Amazon HERE. We all have moods. We may read different books depending on those moods. They can change quickly and the brevity of these stories reflect these rapid changes – moving swiftly from one to another.
‘WORDS INTO WISHES’
As well as my own stories I have assisted in the compilation of a collection of short fiction for adults (no ‘adult’ content!) to be sold to raise money for a local Eastbourne charity – THE CHILDREN WITH CANCER FUND
This charity aims to make wishes come true for children in Sussex and their families. Their website can be found here http://childrenwithcancerfund.org.uk
The book has been published on Amazon and is entitled Words into Wishes. The stories have been contributed by the members of my local writing group – The Scribe Tribe. Click title for link.
Copies have been purchased as far away as Australia and royalties received will be passed to the charity.
While you are here please take a look at Words into Wishes and it would be great if a copy is purchased.
The story below is one that does not appear in any collections – as yet.
Home truths
April 20th 1959
Michael and Susan nearly got there today. My innocent grandchildren must never, never. What they would find is more terrifying than Quatermass and the Pit. I will fence it off and will never think of it again. This is the last entry I shall write in my diary. THE LAST.
April 2022
I never knew my grandfather. I saw pictures of him. Pictures in his uniform looking just as an English officer holding the rank of major would be expected to look – ramrod straight, stiff upper lip – the epitome of the British army. But they weren’t displayed with pride. I only came across them whilst playing hide and seek with my sister. They were in a battered old box covered with dust. I didn’t even tell father, Uncle John or grandmother I had seen them.
What happened to grandfather was a mystery. He disappeared not too long after the war, leaving grandmother with two sons, my father Edward 17, and Uncle John, twelve. Grandmother didn’t speak about him and considering the strange circumstances of his disappearance, she said nothing detrimental to his memory. He was not around to see father raise a family of his own and Uncle John grow into a man.
My parents and uncle didn’t speak about grandfather either. There were no tales of heroism in both the wars and as a child I wasn’t really interested. So long ago, just a face – a rather stern, forbidding face I thought – in those faded photographs. In reality it wasn’t that long ago as he only disappeared four years before I was born in 1951.
Now things have changed. It was inevitable, as the truth always comes out eventually. Grandmother died aged ninety and was followed by my father a year later. Mother had long since left him and moved on with her life.
It was late 2020 when Uncle John passed aged eighty-five. COVID–19 got him, although I wondered how as he hardly left the house anyway. It was far too large for him, alone for fifteen years after grandmother died, but he wouldn’t move. They had lived there together, rattling around, for decades. My father left – escaped – the family home as soon as he could. Uncle John’s death was the catalyst for events that would surely be revealed one day.
John’s life was always bound up with grandmother so he never married. I have two daughters who have their own lives and families so the name ends with me. Probably just as well. His funeral was, by necessity, a low–key affair. Now, with all the pandemic madness behind us, we hoped to move on, sell the house.
The garden, largely lawn but with a small wood at the rear, deteriorated rapidly over the years. Grandmother and John ignored it as it became more and more overgrown. Father had no interest in it or the house. My younger sister, Susan, and I would dutifully visit with father, who always seemed keen to keep the visits as short as possible. Sometimes, mother would come too. Her face, devoid of her usual happy smile, showed she didn’t like the place either.
Susan and I saw the garden, with its mysterious wood, as an exciting place and imagined all manner of strange creatures lurking there. Through the brambles, barely visible, was a structure of rusty metal and we wondered what it could be. Father told us it was the old air raid shelter. He warned us not to go near it – it was dangerous. Now I know danger was not the only reason he wanted us to stay away.
Three weeks ago, I stood looking out at the garden hoping it would not be my responsibility for much longer. The property, as it was, would not have sold. The house could be modernised by whoever bought it anyway but the jungle that was the garden could not be left. The crumbling shelter with its rusty corrugated iron roof simply had to go. The broken down barbed wire fence, erected many years ago, had no one to keep out. That part of the garden had been deserted until the day the digger arrived bright and early. Some tree growth and debris closer to the house had already been removed to allow access so it was time for the big guns to tackle the deep, concealed shelter. The plot looked peaceful in the spring morning with dew sparkling like diamonds in the early sun – the calm before the storm.
The digger commenced its work. As it did so, I stumbled upon grandmother’s diaries in a previously unexplored cupboard. The very last one was for 1959. I turned to a barely legible, scribbled entry for April 20th. The only words clearly written in capitals were THE LAST. And they were; no other entries after that. The pages were blank as if grandmother’s life had ended that day. Remarkably, just as I read those words, a loud cry of shock was heard from the driver and the digger shuddered to a halt.
The police and the forensic team duly arrived. Their work is done now and it as if they were never here. The crime that was committed so many years ago had no perpetrators left to prosecute. My grandfather’s disappearance is no longer a mystery. Back then, grandmother had reported him missing. Perhaps he had been mentally damaged by his wartime experiences; as many were and still are. It was, after a cursory investigation, decided the balance of his mind was disturbed and he had simply walked away from his responsibilities. The idea that a loving wife like grandmother could have had anything to do with his disappearance was unthinkable. No search was conducted. She was a deserted army wife commended for her stoicism and how she managed alone without her dear husband’s support. This is what my father told me when I first asked what happened to grandfather and I had no reason to doubt him.
But my father and uncle knew the war hero was, at home, a bully who regularly beat his family – he instilled fear in them. One public face and one private. Jekyll and Hyde. It is all in the diaries. Diaries that had held their secrets for decades. Secrets that, as well as grandmother, were known to father and Uncle John also. All their lives they had carried the contents with them – protecting grandmother even after her death.
I have now read the words from 1947 that explain so much about my family history and why grandmother always seemed remote.
March 13th
I can no longer stand his treatment, not only of me but of my boys. They tell me it cannot go on and I agree, it cannot. He is a monster and since returning from the war he has grown worse. To be in the same room as him is terrifying now. This winter has been so severe. The snow has kept us bound together for what seems an eternity. Edward tries to protect me and John but he is no match for Richard. He says we provoke him, he dares to try to blame us. The stick he carries, the stick he holds so proudly in some of those photographs, is used on all of us. Why should we try to conceal the bruises? The time has come. I must find the courage, not only for me but for them. Yes, it is time. The snow has thawed. It will be done.
March 15th
It is over. We are all guilty but it is over. My boys, my dear boys you should not have had to do this, to be part of this; to do such a thing to your father. I am so sorry – not for him, never for him – but for you because you must both carry the burden of my action with you. He is gone. Gone forever and I will act my part the best I can – as I am sure will you.
Why have I not just told the truth? I couldn’t bear to. Even after what he did I cannot defame his memory. Even in death he holds me – holds us.
His tomb will continue undisturbed as long as we are all in this world. When we are gone who will care? When, if, this is read then the truth will at last be known. God have mercy on my soul. #
Now, alone with my thoughts and aware of what happened all those years ago, I read again the entry I discovered as the digger exposed the secret. I close my eyes and when I open them I am transported back to that April day in 1959.
“Michael…your sister, stop your sister. Do not let her reach there!”
I watch Susan bobbing through the long, dry grass almost as tall as her. Yellow pigtails tied with blue ribbons swing as she steams down the garden towards the wood and the overgrown shelter.
I chase after her. I have to catch her before she reaches it or we both will be in big trouble with grandmother and father. We could fall into the deep pit the corrugated iron roof covered and something terrible will happen to us.
“Susan, Susan, grandmother is calling. She is so cross.” I make it to her just in time, as the dark shape looms up in front of us. She has somehow managed to weave her way through the tangled undergrowth unscathed, except for one pigtail unravelling – its ribbon gone.
“I want to see the monster in the hole.” She whines, her fists clenched in disappointment.
“There is no monster. It was a television programme, Susie. I shouldn’t have told you about it.”
I take sulky Susan’s chubby hand to lead her back, trying to avoid the brambles, but this time she snags her pretty dress. She cries and I scratch my legs — exposed between woollen socks and flannel trousers. Both grey. Grandmother stands by the door scowling, her arms folded. Beside her is mother, arms also folded. That is the only similarity between them. My mum wears golden gypsy earrings and a colourful, flowery skirt that flares out from her small waist. Long, dark hair tumbles in waves to her shoulders. To me she looks like a film star. My grandmother has short, permed hair and wears a shapeless twinset – grey, like her hair. Will my mum ever be like that?
She turns to mum and says, “You should not have let Michael watch that dreadful Quatermass and the Pit programme. What is this world coming to when something like that is shown to all and just before Christmas too? For months he has spoken about it and even little Susan believes the rubbish. Aliens, monsters, in the Anderson shelter indeed. Television is a curse, a curse!”
Susan and I stand silently – avoiding grandmother’s scary gaze.
She storms back inside while mum shrugs and hugs us. “No monsters there, darlings.” she says. #
I smiled, thinking back. Mother was wrong – there was a monster there. I remember that day so clearly. The contrast between my grey grandmother and my colourful mother. Knowing what I do now, I understand why she was so grey. Sometimes, even as children, our minds hold on to, lock away, seemingly trivial events but our subconscious knows better. All that is needed to release them is a trigger. When I reread that entry from April 1959, the decades melted away. Susan and I were children again in awe of grandmother.
Grandfather’s remains will be appropriately dealt with. There will be no trace of the shelter and hopefully the house will become home to an altogether happier family. I wanted to burn the diaries but should keep them for Susan as she deserves to know the truth too. She lives in Australia so that may have to wait.
The photographs of him, including some where they are all together and looking happy, I have burned. Smiles can so easily be hidden behind. Mouths may smile but look closely at the eyes and the reality is obvious – even through the faded grey. I have kept those of grandmother, father and Uncle John when they were free. Free in one way but they could never be truly free after what they did. Father managed to build a life for himself but grandmother and Uncle John were haunted until the end. Grandfather still had his hold over them even from beyond the grave.
THE END
The link below will take you to my pieces about Sussex on the online magazine ‘Unknown Kent and Sussex’
Visitors to my site from all over the world will be able to learn a little about my county.
https://unknownkentandsussex.co.uk/author/jackie-harvey/
Coming in 2026 – this will definitely be the year!
Posh Peg is a main character in ‘A Resolute Child’, a good friend to the heroine May Harris. May wondered about how Peg, whose speech and bearing marked her out as one not born and raised in the in the slum, came to be living there. My forthcoming novel, provisionally titled ‘An Enigmatic Woman’ will shed light on Peg’s descent to Old Nichol slum. Is Peg the enigmatic woman of the title or is there another woman who merits such a description? If you would like to be one of the first to know get in touch, leave a message and I will let you know when the novel is published.
Jacqueline S Harvey 