Dad went to see Mum for the last time today to say goodbye, so Granddad came to look after me. At first I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral but then Granddad persuaded him to let me go. Now I’m sitting on the stairs listening to them but I can’t hear everything because Dad’s…
Peter’s Story 5. The Haunted House
Granddad was a coal miner. He worked down the pit for 40 years. He says all his life but he’s older than 40, he’s 67. I get told this a lot. Tells me I’ve not to do the same as him but I don’t know why. He likes to show off his hands. They’re massive,…
Peter’s Story 4. The Mad House
Dad has eventually said he’ll take me to see Mum. I can’t wait. I’m even getting the afternoon off school. I haven’t seen her in two months and twelve days. Or even talked to her on the phone. He makes me have a bath and put on my best clothes but not the suit I…
Peter’s Story 3. Aunty Carol’s House
Aunty Carol lives in a different scheme and has 4 children. They’re all my cousins on my mum’s side, but only Jake and Rab still live with her. Uncle Terry doesn’t, he went back to England. She sees us coming because she’s talking in the street with her neighbour. She tells me Jake’s in the…
Peter’s Story 2. Peter’s House
I’ve wet the bed again. It must have happened during the night because I’m sleeping half off the bed, squashed right up against to the wall. The wallpaper is cold but the wet sheet is colder. I kick my pyjamas bottoms off with my feet. I don’t want to touch them. I feel bad about…
Peter’s Story 1. Granddad’s House
He’s driven the car really fast to get here. I don’t mind going so fast, I like it really, especially now he lets me sit in the front. He made me put the seat belt on, its not fair because he never wears one. It’s because he’s an adult he says. Now we’re here he’s…
San Salvador de la Marina
The narrow pedestrian streets around the Church of San Salvador de La Marina were coming to life. Waiters set tables and shuffled chairs preparing for the lunchtime rush. Others pulled down canopies protecting customers from direct sunlight if not the midday heat. Greetings and jocularity echoed off the walls. The streets without restaurant terraces were…
The story continues
Father Antonio had turned his chair around to face Maria Dolores. They were still seated in front of the altar in the church of San Salvador de La Marina. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, which was out of character for him. He had a good rapport with his parishioners, as most priests do. He…
Pascual meets Juan Diego
And as Maria Dolores sat with Father Antonio under the relentless presence of the Christ without a face in San Salvador de La Marina, the last of the snows in the valley around Los Caballeros de la Sierra melted and sank into the yielding ground. Patches of green broke through and expanded, spreading up the…
The Shadow of the Tower
They lived close to a fourteenth-century tower house, my grandparents. You couldn’t see it from their house but it was only a few minutes away. They and the village lived in its shadow. When we were young and my Gran more energetic we would take the short walk up there. The solid tower sat alone…
Maria Dolores
Maria Dolores’ house was easy to locate. The twisted Stone pine tree that obscured most of the entrance was, in fact, the only fully grown tree in the whole street and was older than the house itself. The scarred trunk was rooted in the south-west corner of the house and flung its branches out over…
A Final Story
Final Story Liam McMaster pinched the skin on his forearm. He watched as it slowly relaxed back into shape, the collagen long ago depleted, his skin permanently under-hydrated. He traced the raised line of the surgical scar on his elbow where the ulna had been pinned after a moped accident just before he retired, some…
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